MALAWI NATIONAL COMMISSION FOR UNESCO

REPORT ON PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRAINING SEMINAR FOR NEW OFFICIALS OF NATIONAL COMMISSIONS OF ENGLISH SPEAKING AFRICAN COUNTRIES

DRAFT

19-22 MAY, 2003

SUN ‘N’ SAND HOLIDAY RESORT, MANGOCHI, MALAWI

1.0INTRODUCTION

The Malawi National Commission for UNESCO in conjunction with the UNESCO Harare Cluster Office and the Division of Relations with National Commissions and New Partnerships at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris organized a Training Seminar for New Officials of National Commissions of English-Speaking African countries from 19 – 22 May, 2003 at Sun ‘n’ Sand Holiday Resort in Mangochi, Malawi.

The main objective of the Seminar was to acquaint new officials with the work of UNESCO and to impart skills that will help them perform their duties efficiently and confidently.

DAY 1:19th MAY, 2002

Day 1 was chaired by Malawi in the morning session and Kenya in the afternoon session.

2.0OFFICIAL OPENING

Malawi’s Deputy Minister for Education Science and Technology officially opened the workshop on the morning of 19th May 2003. The following are summaries of the speeches made during the opening ceremony.

2.1Speech by Honorable Lyana Tambala, Deputy Minister for Education Science and Technology.

The Seminar was officially opened by the Deputy Minister of Education, Science and Technology, Honourable Lyana Tambala. In her remarks she said in 1985 Malawi hosted a similar training seminar for new officials of National Commissions. Two years later in 1987 the country hosted the 6th Regional Conference of UNESCO National Commissions for Africa.

Honourable Tambala said Malawi considered the seminar very important as it would enable participants acquire knowledge and skills relevant to their work. She said it would also help Malawi and the Malawi National Commission for UNESCO, in particular, cement the already very cordial relations which exist between Malawi and neighbours and all other countries in Africa. She urged UNESCO to organise training specifically for Officers for Education, Officers for Science, Officers for Science, Officers for Culture and Officers for Communication to share information and ideas specific to the major programme areas that they handle.

Noting with concern some debates on the relevance of International Organisations and their cumbersome working methods, she said “The Malawi Government is happy to note that UNESCO has for the past four years or so been undergoing a reform process. We are delighted to note that the process is proceeding very well and that concerns I have just cited will be things of the past in the very near future”.

2.2Speech by Mr. Chamdimba, Director for Higher Education, MOEST.

Mr. Chamdimba who was standing in for the Secretary for Education, Science and Technology said Malawi became a UNESCO member state in 1964 and in 1979 the Government of Malawi set up the Malawi National Commission for UNESCO.

Mr. Chamdimba acknowledged that National Commissions have been important in maintaining contact between government and UNESCO. He said in Malawi Government is committed to assisting the National Commission. He further said that regional meetings are important because they are forums through which the aspirations of the region are transmitted to UNESCO.

2.3Speech by Professor Shabani, Director and Representative of the UNESCO Harare Cluster Office

Professor Shabani said that strengthening the capacity of National Commissions cannot be carried out if the beneficiaries do not know exactly what UNESCO is. He indicated that the training was the first step towards capacity building. He went on to say that there were plans to train programme officers in National Commissions in the development and implementation of programmes.

2.4Speech by Mr. Xiaolin Cheng, Programme Specialist, Division for Relations with National Commissions and New Partnerships at UNESCO Paris

Mr. Cheng said that in the increasingly changing world National Commissions for UNESCO have become important constituent elements of UNESCO. Its officers must therefore continue being trained in UNESCO matters.

He went on to say that UNESCO tries to focus on specific areas to strengthen capacity and management of National Commissions. He said after this training another training for French speaking African countries would take place in Mali. A quadrennial conference for all National Commissions in Africa is scheduled in Cameroon in early July to plan for the 2004 – 2005 biennium. These training seminars and events would ensure that priorities for African National Commissions are taken on board by UNESCO.

2.5Speech by Mr. Francis Mkandawire, Executive Secretary for Malawi National Commission for UNESCO

Mr. Mkandawire started by welcoming and thanking the delegates for responding positively to the invitation to the seminar. He said that this was an indication that National Commissions took the training seminar seriously. He observed that the last training seminar for National Commissions took place in 1985

Mr. Mkandawire noted that UNESCO was the only United Nations agency with National Commissions. Other agencies have national offices. He said being liaison bodies in UNESCO’s fields of competence poses a lot of challenges for National Commissions. One of the challenges is how to portray UNESCO as an intellectual organization because people mistake it as a funding agency.

On their responsibilities Mr. Mkandawire indicated that National Commissions are to ensure that ministers are conversant with the various activities of UNESCO. National Commissions are always required to educate even the civil service UNESCO. This requires National Commissions to be knowledgeable.

3.0UNESCO PRIORITIES

Dr. Gordon made a presentation on this topic in which she summarized UNESCO’s sector wide processes. She mentioned some of UNESCO’s main priorities as:

  • Peace and conflict resolution,
  • Strengthening the role of communication building capacity in UNESCO’s areas of competence such as tangible and intangible heritage and human and social science for human development.
  • Education for sustainable development and water management

As a way of bringing programmes closer to the people UNESCO was encouraging member countries to decentralize to local governments. In UNESCO, cluster offices have become focal points and work closely with National Commissions in programme implementation.

3.1Education Sector

Dr. Gordon said that UNESCO is involved in constant dialogue with NGOs and National Commissions to establish areas in which UNESCO can be effective in a particular country. There are five divisions in the Education Sector namely:

  • Division of Basic Education,
  • Division of Secondary, Technical and Vocational Education,
  • Division of Higher Education,
  • Division of Educational Policies, and Strategies and
  • Division for the Promotion of Quality Education.

The main focus of the education sector is Education for All which has six goals including education of girls and alleviationof abject poverty. Education includes non-formal education, education for girls, education for the disabled and early childhood education. The activities for the education sector include development of materials.

The Secondary Education Division includes technical and vocational education for encouraging creativity in the minds of young people which is a critical area for Africa. The division is also a focal point for Associated Schools Programme.

According to Dr. Gordon the Higher Education Division focuses on development of teachers and works closely with universities and institutions for higher education.

Dr. Gordon stressed that National Commissions should be in touch with the Education sector directors in UNESCO to indicate what they would want to see happening in the sector because the directors would be meeting the Assistant Director General for Education to refocus the sector’s future programmes. UNESCO has also taken sports seriously as an important channel to bring about peace and understanding.

3.2Presentation by Professor Munodawafa, Director of Guidance, Counselling and Youth Development Center for Africa

Professor Munodawafa briefly outlined establishment of the Guidance, Counselling and Youth Development Center for Africa. The Center was by the Ministers of Education from Africa.

Professor Munodawafa informed the participants that when the Center was being established it was agreed that:

  • UNESCO’s role would be to mobilize financial and technical resources,
  • Ministers agreed that they would be prepared to use some of the Participation Programme funds to assist the running of programmes at the Center
  • Ministers would identify an official to be responsible for matters of the centre in the respective countries

He further informed participants that some of the objectives of the center are:

  • To address social issues affecting young people i.e. HIV/AIDS, Sexual Reproductive Health, Outdoor Recreation and Sport
  • To run regional training programmes. On this he said that due to financial problems the regional courses could not be sustained. This has necessitated the running of country level training programmes from which a pool would be selected for a higher level of training to be conducted at the centre.

Some countries have just started guidance and counselling and National Commissions should assist them in developing their systems.

4.0NEW DECENTRALIZATION POLICY AND CLUSTER CONSULTATION by Professor Juma Shabani, Director and Representative, UNESCO Harare Cluster Office

Professor Shabani said that the main aim of the decentralization process is to bring UNESCO closer to member states to take into account their priorities and specific needs. UNESCO used to have small offices all over the world. This was not a very effective way of taking into account scattered member states and coordination was difficult. With the new decentralization process there are 2 regional offices in Africa 10 cluster offices and 5 national offices Kigali, Abuja, Brazzaville, Bujumbura and Maputo. The remaining national offices are due to be closed. The Harare cluster office represents UNESCO in the SADC Secretariat and covers Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique and Botswana. Harare also coordinates all activities in the SADC region but consults with other regional and national offices. Under the new system cluster offices are supposed to have programme specialists in all fields. He further said directors of cluster and regional offices report directly to Headquarters in Paris. Decentralization has also affected programme implementation and budgets and all cluster offices are accountable for funds utilized in their cluster countries.

The operations of cluster offices are based on consultations with national commissions leading to the Draft C5 document. Another consultation is held to discuss the C5 document and adopt it. The next step would be to develop a work plan for programme orientation in consultation with National Commissions. The work plan would then be sent to the Assistant Director General for the particular sector. Then contracts for activities would be prepared with the particular national or individual contractor.

4.0COMMENTS, QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES

Responding to one of the questions from the participants Professor Shabani said that if the SADC Secretariat agrees with UNESCO on a particular program and both contribute some funds to the program. The Harare Cluster Office then coordinates and oversees the implementation of this program.

In response to a question on what UNESCO intended to do with the indicators in the World Education Report Dr. Winsome Gordon said that it is difficult to come up with quality data in Africa because the basic information/data is usually wrong and she urged National Commissions to inform UNESCO of important meetings and programmes happening in their countries in order to facilitate the process of monitoring and evaluation.

Responding to a question Professor Munodawafa said that the focus for the Guidance, Counselling and Youth Development Center for Africa has changed to national training on the basic level and regional training on the higher level. The number of modules has also increased from 7 to 9 with additions of Enterprise Education by Zambia and Nigeria and HIV/AIDS module by Botswana and Uganda.

5.0UNESCO AND ITS REFORM PROCESS

This topic was presented jointly by Mr. Mkandawire and Professor Shabani

5.1Creation and Mandate of UNESCO

On the creation of UNESCO Mr. Mkandawire said during the 1914 – 1918 World War there was a lot of destruction just like in the Iraqi war and education suffered huge losses. After this war the Council of Ministers of Education in Europe was established to mobilize resources and rebuild the education system.

After World War II the idea extended to the whole world and culture and science were added resulting in the acronym UNESCO. Later the organisation also took on both issues of communication and information. UNESCO was formally created in 1946 through the British Foreign Secretary. UNESCO was created under the UN as a specialized agency under the Economic and Social Council, which is in turn under the General Assembly. He said that people confuse the specialized agencies, which are not funding agencies with real funding agencies such as UNICEF, UNFPA and UNDP. Funding agencies are allocated money for specific purposes by the General Assembly while the funding of UNESCO is dependent on member states’ contributions.

To facilitate the synergy between the activities of the different agencies of the UN interagency meetings where heads meet under the aegis of UN Secretary General are periodically held.

Mr. Mkandawire then presented UNESCO’s governance structure as follows:

General Conference - The General Conference is the policy making body which comprises of 197 Member State and 31 permanent ones. Its responsibilities include:

  • policy making and approval of programme and budget after consultations and debate
  • appointment of the DG once every six years but after the current DG’s term subsequent DG’s will be appointed for 4 years. The General Assembly can also dismiss the DG

UNESCO cannot use the budget unless the general conference passes it. He indicated that the budget for 2004-2005 is forecast to increase from 544 million USD to 610million. Member states contributions to UNESCO are worked out on a formular that takes into account the demography of the country and its GDP. The richer countries pay more but this does not make their vote any greater or stronger than the poor countries. All countries are treated equally.

Executive Board

The General Assembly elects 51 member states to be in the Executive Board, which meets 4 times per biennium. Its major task is to police the secretariat. The DG reports to the Executive Board in these meetings. The Chairperson of General Conference and the Chairperson of the Executive Board are very important because they interact with the secretariat and the rest of the member states closely. Members are elected to the Executive Board for a term of 4 years.

Secretariat of UNESCO

The Secretariat of UNESCO is headed by the DG and his deputies in the various UNESCO fields of competence. The African Department that represents Africa is directly under the Director General. Other sectors of UNESCO include:

  • Bureau of public Information which promotes the visibility of UNESCO
  • Bureau of Human Resources Management which looks into the human resources requirements in all the field offices
  • Bureau of field coordination which coordinates the activities of all the field offices
  • Sector for External Relations and Cooperation which is responsible for divisions including Division of Relations with National Commissions

All directors of field offices report directly to the Bureau of Field Coordination under the DG.

5.2Questions, Comments and Responses

Responding to a question on how the Bureau of Field Coordination, the African Department and the Sector for External Relations work without duplicating efforts since they are all involved with issues to do with Africa, Professor Shabani clarified that the African Department is in charge for relationships with the regional organizations and groupings such as AU, NEPAD, COMESA etc while the Division of Relations with National Commissions is responsible for UNESCO clubs and programmes through the National Commissions and Division of Relations with Member States looks at the political matters. The resources for the extra-budgetary resources are much higher then those in UNESCO regular programme.

Responding to a question on where UNESCO gets its funding apart from the members’ contributions Professor Shabani indicated that UNESCO is the Secretariat and the member states and jointly they implement programs. He said UNESCO also mobilizes funds from extra budgetary resources in addition to the regular budget. Extra budgetary resource are provided by member states and other agencies for specific purposes or programmes.

6.0NEW MANAGEMENT TOOLS (SISTER, FABS, etc) by Mr. F R Mkandawire

Reforms were also needed in programme delivery and new software system called SISTER was established. This allows access to UNESCO’s operations so that one is able to know what programmes are running in a particular field office. Under the SISTER each country/National Commission is given a password. This password is not supposed to be revealed to anyone else to prevent misuse of the information intended solely for the National Commissions. SISTER is aimed at making the whole process transparent to encourage accountability in order to achieve the expected results. SISTER also greatly assists in fundraising, which is a very important function of programme specialists.