UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova's statement on US funding cuts in this statement posted on the organization's website and youtube DG Irina Bokova (former Bulgarian ambassador to the organization) reacts to the United States policy on cutting funding from the organization for accepting Palestine as a member state of the organization.
Though I mostly blog about Central European issues the status of Palestine and its statehood is a global issue that I find important enough to be talking about. UNESCO's General Conference (presided over by Hungarian ambassador Katalin Bogyay) has accepted Palestine as a member state in a vote where this proposal recieved a two-thirds majority.
The USA has since in accordance with its own legislation decided to stop the funding of the organization. This decision is leading to halting many crucial programmes of the organization some described by the DG in the linked video. It also has the consequence that probably other member states will have to step up and provide more funding for the organization, which practically affects mostly the European countries and other developed countries since they are the donor countries that are already contributing to the budget of UNESCO. I do wish that US lawmakers will have an open mind and consider the global impact of their decisions.
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