XIV meeting of Ukraine's National Commission for UNESCO held at Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine
17 October 2013 11:00
The key issue under consideration at the meeting was the state of implementation of the decisions reached at the XIII reunion of the National Commission of Ukraine for UNESCO members held on April 11, 2013. There has also been discussed the question of how relevant instructions of the President of Ukraine and the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine have been followed.
Except for the analysis of the results of what has been done since the latest meeting of the National Commission there have also been defined short-term priorities for this inter-institutional body. The choice of these priorities corresponds to UNESCO renewed goals reflected in the Organization’s Medium-Term Strategy (period 2014-2021) and its Programme and Budget (period 2014-2017). The documents are to be approved by the 37th session of UNESCO General Conference scheduled to be held in Paris between November 5 and 20 this year.
Marked as highly important was the positive outcome reached by the Ukrainian delegation at UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee (WHC) 37th session (June, 2013, Phnom Penh, Cambodia). Its main result is that two new Ukrainian objects – “Ancient City of Tauric Chersonese and its Chora” and “Wooden Tserkvas of the Carpathian Region in Poland and Ukraine” (joint Ukrainian and Polish nomination), have been inscribed on the World Heritage List.
In this regard, other issues of how Ukraine implements the decisions of UNESCO’s WHC 37th session, have also been raised. The one among them was whether Ukraine is fulfilling in full its obligations as the country-signature to UNESCO’s Convention Concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage (of 1972) and whether the recommendations of the Guarantor on protecting national cultural and natural sites are being adhered.
Furthermore, the participants of the meeting underlined that more vivid have to become activities aimed at better safeguarding and popularizing internationally the Ukrainian cultural and natural heritage. They have also underscored the importance of protecting Ukrainian biosphere reserves (part of the pan-European network of these natural complexes) as well as the necessity to further develop and deepen Ukraine-UNESCO cooperation at all Organization’s Program activities.
Among the priority issues to be paid most serious attention in the near future there have been mentioned those that deal with the preparation of the Ukrainian side to the 37th session of UNESCO’s General Conference and those that could further stipulate effective work of the National Commission of Ukraine for UNESCO under the principle of sectoral division initiated by the Head of the National Commission, Ruslan Demchenko, at its XIII meeting.
