Thoughts About K4D: Why UNESCO is not going to get the leadership it needs

The new Director General of UNESCO will be chosen in secrecy by a political process, and as a result is likely not to be the best person available for the job. The six major contributors to the organization could change the process for the future or set up alternative intergovernmental organizations.

A new Director General is to be chosen in the next couple of weeks for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. That person will be chosen in secret by a vote of the 58 member Executive Board of UNESCO.

Only one among the eight active candidates for the post has been a full time educator, and he is given little chance. There is one scientist, but he too is given little chance of obtaining the needed votes. There is a poet and there is an artist among the candidates, but the field includes no one who appears likely to understand the role of culture in development, an area which is increasingly import and in which UNESCO’s culture program should exhibit leadership within the United Nations system. UNESCO has always had a communications and information program, and that program should provide global leadership as we move toward an Information Society; none of the candidates has a record of leadership in that field.

Six of the eight candidates have for most or all of their careers been professional diplomats. Theirs is not a profession to be denigrated for UNESCO’s leader, especially the diplomatic skills involved in promoting peace and in cultural diplomacy.

I would have preferred to see a new Director General who combined diplomatic skills with educational and scientific expertise, perhaps a scientist who has served as a university president and had extensive experience in international scientific affairs or had at some time served as a visiting scientist in his Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I think Julian Huxley and Joseph Needham, who served at the founding of UNESCO were such men, and so to was Abdus Salam who ran for the office but failed to be elected. Among people I have worked with Roger Revelle comes to mind.

It appears that the candidate most likely to be chosen by the Executive Board, Farouk Hosny, has been very controversial due to a history of anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli statements.* I have posted in the past questioning whether he would be a good choice to assure the efficiency and transparency of the UNESCO bureaucracy and whether he would be a likely person to effectively promote the dialog among cultures that is fundamental to UNESCO’s mission. I would further question his understanding of the cultures outside of the Middle East or the major issues of international policy. I fear none of the candidates is the best the world has to offer for the post although several seem better qualified than Hosny.

Even if Mr. Hosni's supporters succeed in cajoling or coercing pro-Israel groups to back their man, he would remain as suitable to lead Unesco as a Cairene cat would be to guard a stew.
The Wall Street Journal

With 6.7 billion people to choose from, how can it be that UNESCO will probably not be led by a world class intellectual with broad qualifications in its areas of responsibility as well as administrative and diplomatic expertise? I would point out that the United States and the United Kingdom withdrew from the organization in the past charging that it was badly led and badly run by Amadou M'Bow, so the likelihood that a poor choice is not to be minimized.

How would a major international corporation hire a new Chief Executive Officer? It would probably hire a firm specialized in executive recruitment to help in the search. It would advertize worldwide, reviewing carefully the biographical data of the applicants for the post. It would without doubt solicit references and check them carefully. Leading candidates would be interviewed. When a short list was developed of the outstanding candidates, they would meet individually with a search committee from the board of directors and a choice would be made by the entire board.

I suggest that the selection of the head of UNESCO is not designed to select the person most likely to lead the organization well to best achieve its objectives. Rather it is an exercise in international power politics. The winning candidate is simply the one whose government can obtain a majority of votes from the Executive Board. That Board, with 58 members is too large to function as an effective selection committee.

Candidates for the post must be nominated by governments of member nations. While some governments may seek to select a nominee on the basis of formal qualifications, most nominations appear to be based on other factors. Moreover, many qualified people are disqualified from seeking the office because they come from "the wrong countries". It seems extremely unlikely that a candidate from America, the United Kingdom, France, or Japan could now be elected because there have already been Directors General from those countries. In this election, Brazil chose not to nominate a candidate and Oman to withdraw its candidate apparently after an intense diplomatic effort by Egypt.

National governments lobby. In some cases the quid pro quo is probably never spelled out, but it seems likely that there are some explicit tradeoffs – you support my candidate for UNESCO, and I will support your candidate for another organization, or your efforts to obtain a major international sporting event. The Russian Government publicly offered to add $8 million per year to its UNESCO contribution if its candidate is selected. Candidates are funded by their governments not only to rent hospitality suites, but to travel the world to promote their candidacies in the capitols of voting countries. It is reported that this year, after a phone conversation between Netanyahu and Mubarak, the Israeli government withdrew its opposition to Hosny's candidacy.

This is the first time that a strongly contested UNESCO election has been held in the Internet age, and interested people can follow the election more closely than in the past. Yet UNESCO is still keeping a veil of secrecy over the proceedings. It has not made public the supporting documents for the nominations, nor the vision statements that were asked of the candidates. (Most of that information has been made public by the candidates themselves and is available on my website, The Election of the UNESCO Director General). Nor has UNESCO asked for opinions from the National Commissions on the qualifications of the candidates. The interviews of the candidates by the Executive Board are to be held in closed session. Most importantly, the election is by secret ballot, so that governments will not have to defend their votes to their own people nor to the world.

Thus we have a situation in which countries choose their nominees for UNESCO Director General in secret, where negotiations are conducted between governments for support of candidates in secret, where the information on which the choice is to be made is kept secret, where the deliberations of the Executive Board are secret, and where the voting to select the new Director General is secret. Is it surprising that the process produces lest than the best outcome?

How can such a system be changed for future elections? Not easily! But six countries together provide two-thirds of the UNESCO assessed contributions. Those countries could force reform, or if they failed to get needed reform they could withdraw from UNESCO and start again to create strong, well managed international organizations to promote cooperation in education, science, culture and communications and information.

One may ask if dumping UNESCO and recreating the international system for education, science, culture and communications would be justified for a single problem--the selection of the Director General. Were that the only problem of UNESCO governance, certainly not, but there are many problems of UNESCO's governance. The first step in their solution might be a great Director General and a revised process for selecting Directors General.

* These four articles have raised a great deal of concern about the candidacy of Farouk Hosny: