UNESCO's first 45 years

UNESCO Courier, Nov, 1991 by Michel Conil Lacoste

Exact and natural sciences

* The UNESCO Source Book for Science Teaching is published. A revised edition will be published in 1973 under the title New UNESCO Source Book for Science Teaching.

Many times reprinted and translated into some 30 languages, more than a million copies have today been sold.

Communication

* UNESCO and the Indian Government cooperate in the Radio Forum pilot project for literacy and development in 150 villages around Pune. Similar projects are later established in Ghana, Senegal and Gambia.

1957

Exact and natural sciences

* Launch of the major project on arid lands, an extension of the Arid Zone programme launched in 1951, with increased resources and action concentrated on the region stretching from North Africa to Southern Asia.

* An international conference on radio-isotopes in scientific research is held in Paris.

Social sciences

* The Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences and the Latin American Centre for Social Science Research are established, initially for one country (Brazil) but later for the whole region.

Culture

* The Major Project on mutual appreciation of Eastern and Western cultural values is launched (1957-1966)

This interdisciplinary programme covers the improvement of school textbooks, diffusion of literature and the plastic arts, exchange of researchers, awarding of scholarships, etc. A newsletter, Orient Occident, is published (52 issues).

Communication

* UNESCO co-operates in the establishment at Strasbourg of the first International Centre for Higher Education in Journalism. A second institution of this kind is established at Quito in 1959.

Events

* The International Catholic Centre for UNESCO launches its periodical The Month at UNESCO, published in English, French, Spanish and German. The Centre had been created 10 years before under the patronage of Mgr Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, then apostolic nuncio in France.

1958

General policy

* UNESCO's new permanent headquarters building, designed by Marcel Breuer (U.S.A.), Pier-Luigi Nervi (Italy) and Bernard Zehrfuss (France), is inaugurated at Place de Fontenoy, Paris, in the presence of Rene Coty, President of the French Republic. Sarvepalli Radhakrishman (India) is President of the General Conference.

* Vittorino Veronese (Italy) is elected Director-General.

Education

* The 21st International Conference on Public Instruction (later "Education") in Geneva examines the problem of access to education in rural areas.

Events

* A Round Table of Nobel prizewinners is organized on the theme of the impact of science and technology on human life. Participants include John Boyd Orr, UK, and Nikolai Semenov, USSR.

1959

General policy

* Technical assistance: UNESCO is assigned the responsibility for carrying out a number of United Nations Special Fund projects.

Culture

* On the joint initiative of UNESCO and ICOM, the International Centre for Conservation (now ICCROM) is founded in Rome.

Communication

* On the invitation of the Human Rights Commission, the United Nations and ECOSOC, UNESCO studies a programme for the development of the media in non-industrialized countries.