Delegates Warn Against Politicization of UNESCO World Heritage Committee
Estonia's appeal at the UNESCO general conference, which started on October 25 in Paris, will charge that the organization's World Heritage Committee has become overly political in recent years.
"It seriously worries us,” Margit Siim, the cultural coordinator of Estonia's UNESCO commission, told ERR radio. “The committee [...] distances itself from an informed perspective, and looks only at the political criteria [...] In the two years that we have been members of UNESCO we have tried to change this," said Siim.
At the general conference, UNESCO officials will adopt the budget for the next two years. This year's meeting will focus on education, and the organization aims to ensure access to basic education universally by 2015.
“We all know that achieving that goal isn't realistic and the more reason that is to work together to come up with a solution," said Siim.
The situation is worst for women, who often lack access to even basic education and have very high drop-out rates.
Ott Tammik