What is UNESCO ?

In the 1980s a controversial study by UNESCO’s International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems, headed by the Irish statesman and Nobel Peace laureate Seán MacBride, proposed a New World Information and Communication Order that would treat communication and freedom of information as basic human rights and seek to eliminate the gap in communications capabilities between developing and developed countries.

UNESCO was formed on 16th November 1945, and it is a specialised agency of the United Nations.

One is Vatican City itself and other the Historic Center of Rome which is a joint site with Italy, and it includes sites which the Vatican has extraterritorial control over.

(Extraterritoriality is what allows an embassy to operate under the laws of its country, even though it is on the land of another country)

The main purpose of UNESCO is to contribute to the peace and security in the world by promoting education, science, justice, human rights and culture.

Each member state has one vote in UNESCO’s General Conference, which meets every two years to set the agency’s budget, its program of activities, and the scale of contributions made by member states to the agency. The 58-member Executive Board, which is elected by the General Conference, generally meets twice each year to give advice and direction to the agency’s work. The Secretariat is the agency’s backbone and is headed by a director general appointed by the General Conference for a six-year term.

(Extraterritoriality is what allows an embassy to operate under the laws of its country, even though it is on the land of another country)

There are about 195 countries who are member states of UNESCO, and there are about nine associate members.

11) There are 26 countries who are signatories to the world heritage convention without a world heritage site: Bahamas, Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam, Burundi, Comoros, Cook Islands, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), Grenada, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana.

About 200 national commissions, composed of local experts, serve as governmental advisory bodies in their respective states. Most work occurs in special commissions and committees convened with expert participation. Prominent examples include the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (1961– ), the World Commission on Culture and Development (1992–99), and the World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (1998– ). The findings of these commissions are regularly published by UNESCO.

UNESCO has cluster offices, national and regional offices. The cluster offices often cover more than three nations

Kuwait, Liberia, Maldives, Monaco, Niue. Rwanda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Sao Tome & Principe, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Timor-Leste, Tonga, and Trinidad and Tobago.

The Headquarters is located in Paris, France.

Kuwait, Liberia, Maldives, Monaco, Niue. Rwanda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Sao Tome & Principe, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Timor-Leste, Tonga, and Trinidad and Tobago.

The current director is Irina Bokova, and she was elected in the year 2009. She replaced Koïchiro Matsuura who was from Japan, and she has been the director general since the year 1999.

12) The most visited world heritage site is Paris, Banks of the Seine, which is the third most visited city in the world, and the most visited city in which most of it is a world heritage site.

The five major programs include education, human science, natural science, communication and culture.

13) There are two sites which are restricted to women: Okinoshima Island, Japan, and Mouth Athos, Greece. Both are religious communities which are only for men.

14) Only two sites have ever been removed from the world heritage list: the Arabian Oryx Sanctuary of Oman, and the Dresden Elbe Valley in Germany.

The Heritage sites are present all over the world, and there are about 157 countries.

A third site, Bagrati Cathedral in Georgia, was partially removed. The site consisted of the cathedral and a monastery, but only the cathedral was removed.

A third site, Bagrati Cathedral in Georgia, was partially removed. The site consisted of the cathedral and a monastery, but only the cathedral was removed.

15) There are currently 54 world heritage sites which are listed as being “in danger”. They include 38 cultural and 16 natural sites.

The UNESCO's purpose is to contribute to peace and security by promoting international collaboration through education, science, and culture to further universal respect for justice, the rule of law, and human rights along with fundamental freedom proclaimed in the United Nations Charter.

195 countries as member states are part of the UNESCO along with 9 associate members. India became an UNESCO member state on 4th November 1946.