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By facilitating the international sharing of scientific knowledge and co operation, UNESCO has since its inception contributed indirectly to the cultivation of a culture of peace. Science, as a social institution and tradition, is by its very nature committed to the free sharing and flow of information. Scientists are joined together in an international network which exchanges information across all national and ethnic, religious and ideological differences.
The ethical conduct of science is of great importance to ensure that it contributes to a culture of peace. If harnessed to construct weapons of war or for profit regardless of social consequences, it can have a destructive impact. The destructive employment of science is accompanied by regimes of secrecy which contradict the fundamental scientific principle of free flow of information.
Full participation and empowerment of women
Since 1948, when the United Nations declared education a fundamental human right, UNESCO has become an international advocate for universal primary education for children and learning for adults, with a special focus on the needs of girls and women.
'The most important thing education provides is empowerment', explains UNESCO Director General Federico Mayor. 'What matters is having women in power.' As shown by many studies there is a close connection between the schooling of girls and women and smaller, more literate families and a greater opportunity for economic development and democracy.
Within the overall framework of the United Nations Conferences on Women (Mexico City 1975, Nairobi 1985, Beijing 1995) UNESCO has made improvement of the status of women a priority in all of its programmes and projects. The Organization has always been
actively involved in the struggle to promote civic and political rights for women, as well as to combat violence directed against women. A special emphasis is placed upon improving the access of women to science education and their participation at all levels in the media.
Innovative intersectorial activities
A number of new intersectoral initiatives have been undertaken in the preceding biennium which have expanded UNESCO's capacities to promote a culture of peace within its domains of competence. These activities, along with those of the Culture of Peace Programme Unit, constitute the foundation for the new transdisciplinary project, Towards a Culture of Peace.
In supporting the transdisciplinary project, the Culture of Peace Programme Unit works closely with the sectors and units, making recommendations to avoid obvious overlap between programmes, signalling gaps which could be covered, and helping to develop new initiatives which can play a catalytic role in the development of a culture of peace.
At the 44th session of the International Conference on Education (ICE) held in Geneva in October 1994, education ministers from around the world considered new approaches to promote the culture of peace in educational systems. Specific proposals were included in the working document of the Conference (see accompanying box) and the subject was addressed at a workshop devoted to the culture of peace. 'We must provide our children and peoples with a different vision of history', Director General Mayor told the Conference. 'We should disarm history. There are too many battles in history, too much power, generals and soldiers. We sometimes forget all those people whose creative capacity became a turning point for their countries: the writers, artists and philosophers.'
Science, by its very nature, is committed to the free sharing and flow of information which contributes to a culture of peace. However, when harnessed to military applications or profit without regard to social consequences, it is constrained by regimes of secrecy and can have a very destructive impact.