Jamaica to Serve on Six UNESCO Committees

Jamaica has been elected to serve on an additional three subsidiary committees of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). This brings to six the number of UNESCO committees on which Jamaica will be serving. The country is also a member of the Executive Board, which is one of the constitutional organs of the Organization.
Jamaica will serve on the UNESCO Legal Committee, the inter-governmental Council of the International Programme for the Development of Communication and the Inter-governmental committee on bio-ethics for the period 2007-2011.
The election of Jamaica to these committees took place at the 34th UNESCO conference now underway in Paris, France.
The country has been serving since 2005 as a member of the Inter-Governmental Council for the Information for All Programme, the Inter-Governmental Committee for Physical Education and Sport and the Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean. Jamaica will continue serving on these committees until 2009.
Two Jamaican government Ministers are attending the UNESCO conference. Minister of Education, Andrew Holness, represented Jamaica in the first week of the conference from October 25- 28. During the second week of the conference Jamaica’s delegation is being led by Jamaica’s Minister of Information, Culture, Youth and Sports, Olivia Grange.
Ministers Holness and Grange participated in discussions on Education and Economic Development and Science and Technology for Sustainable Development.
In her discussions with senior officials of the UNESCO Secretariat, Minister Grange reiterated Jamaica’s commitment to UNESCO’s values and ideals.
She underscored in particular, the importance of increased collaboration with parliamentarians, the private sector and other stakeholders in ensuring that education, science, culture, communication and information, are effectively used as tools towards sustainable development.
In his address to the UNESCO conference earlier this week, Education Minister spoke about the importance of early childhood education, quality education for all, combating violence in schools and results-based management and administration of education as well as the growing problem of male underachievement. The Minister also discussed these issues in greater detail with senior officials responsible for Education.
Following the UNESCO Conference Minister Grange will travel to Geneva where she will address the Conference of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on issues relating to creativity of diverse cultures, which are also of relevance to UNESCO’s mandate.