"UNESCO’s Social and Human Sciences Sector will be headed by Maria del Pilar Alvarez-Laso of Mexico. The new Assistant Director-General is currently Director of Projects at the Latin American Institute for Educational Communication in Mexico City. Her distinguished career includes both social science research positions and media and communications responsibilities, notably as the Editorial Coordinator at the Mexican Television Institute. Ms Alvarez-Laso set up Mexico’s first satellite educational television channel. She has championed human rights in Latin America" (UNESCO, Press Release 2010-043).

"The new Assistant Director-General for the Sector for External Relations and Cooperation will be Eric Falt of France, who is currently Director of the Outreach Division of the United Nations Department of Public Information. Mr Falt’s UN career as a spokesman and head of information services has taken him to many countries in post-conflict situations, including Cambodia, where he was spokesman for the United Nations Transitional Authority and Iraq, where he was in charge of information in the United Nations Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq. He has also worked for the United Nations in Haiti, Pakistan and Kenya" (UNESCO, Press Release 2010-043).

"UNESCO’s Administration Sector is to be headed by Khadija Ribes of Tunisia. Currently Director-General in charge of the civil service and administration development in the Office of the Prime Minister of Tunisia, the new Assistant Director-General for Administration has led a series of administrative reform initiatives in her country. Several of these reforms have been undertaken in cooperation with the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme. Ms Ribes, a specialist in e-governance, has worked to introduce such measures as the introduction of public/private partnerships, the simplification of administrative procedures and manuals, the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in administration and results-based management" (UNESCO, Press Release 2010-043).

As early as 1942, in wartime, the governments of the European countries, which were confronting Nazi Germany and its allies, met in the United Kingdom for the Conference of Allied Ministers of Education (CAME). The Second World War was far from over, yet those countries were looking for ways and means to reconstruct their systems of education once peace was restored. Very quickly, the project gained momentum and soon took on a universal note. New governments, including that of the United States, decided to join in.

By midsummer 1943, the work of the Conference grew to such an extent that re-organization was necessary. From the discussion about the re-organization of the Conference, it came out that one of the objects of the reconstituted CAME would be to consider plans for the formation of a permanent organization for promoting cooperation in educational matters in the post-war period. This organization should first be confined to the United Nations, and should then - after the war - grow into an international organization.

The decision of CAME to promote the foundation of a United Nations Organization for Educational and Cultural Reconstruction found a profound echo in the public. The League of Nations Union expressed the hope that the new organization would develop into a General International Organization for education which would provide the moral and intellectual basis of the peace.

The decision was taken to convene an extraordinary Conference, which would be attended by the participating countries on an equal footing with one vote for each, for the purpose of agreeing on the creation of an international organization that would take charge of educational and cultural concerns during the reconstruction period: the United Nations Conference for the establishment of an educational and cultural organization (ECO/CONF).

"The new Assistant Director-General for UNESCO’s Africa Department will be Lalla Aïcha Ben Barka of Mali, who is currently the Deputy Executive Secretary of the United Nations’ Economic Commission for Africa. Ms Ben Barka was Director of UNESCO’s Regional Bureau for Education in Africa, from 2004-2007. In the course of her career, she has contributed to the development of the education systems of twelve West African countries, including her own, Mali. Ms Ben Barka has also collaborated with a number of foundations that work for African development, including the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC, Canada)" (UNESCO, Press Release 2010-043).

The first Director-General of UNESCO was Julian Huxley. Since its inception, UNESCO had been headed by 10 Director-General, coming from the United Kingdom, Mexico, the United States, France, Senegal, Italy, Spain, Japan and Bulgaria. Since 2009, the Bulgarian Irina Bokova serves as UNESCO first female Director-General.

The UNESCO Liaison Office in Washington opened in May 1978 and closed down on March 31, 1986, in consequence to the withdrawal of the United States from UNESCO.

Between 1963 and 1965 there had already been a Liaison Office in Washington which mainly served to establish a co-operation programme between UNESCO and the World Bank. In 1965 this office had been transferred to the New York Liaison Office.

"The new Deputy Director-General will be Getachew Engida, who is currently UNESCO’s Comptroller and Deputy Assistant Director-General for Administration. Mr Engida, of Ethiopia, has had a distinguished international career in auditing and financial management for prominent international companies and also worked for the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) as Assistant Comptroller. He joined UNESCO in his current position in 2004" (Press Release No.2010-43, UNESCO).

"The new Assistant Director-General for UNESCO’s Communication and Information Sector will be Janis Karklins of Latvia. Currently Latvian Ambassador to France and Permanent Delegate to UNESCO, after an initial career in industry, Mr Karklins became the Permanent Representative of his country at the United Nations in Geneva. As a diplomat, he was closely involved in the preparation of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and played a key role in its negotiations on internet governance. In 2006, Mr Karklins was elected president of the Government Advisory Committee of ICANN (Internet Corporation of assigned Names and Numbers), which plays a pivotal role in information society issues" (UNESCO, Press Release 2010-043).

The first Staff association of UNESCO (STA) was established in 1947. For the first 35 years of UNESCO existence, this organisation was the only association officially recognized by the Administration as representative of the UNESCO's staff.
In 1981 another staff association emerged: the ISAU (International Staff Association of UNESCO). Both associations, the STA and ISAU represent all different groups of UNESCO Staff members and have the same functions and activities.
In 1995/96 the STA changed its name from UNESCO Staff Association into UNESCO Staff Union (STU) in order to respond to a demand of FICSA (Federation of International Civil Servants' Associations). Despite the change of name, the organisation and activities of the associations stayed the same.

Over the years, there have been several attempts to divide the existing two staff associations in order to create associations who would be responsible for only the General or Professional Staff. But none of these attempts have been successful or would have been recognized as representative for UNESCO Staff.

In 1991, a new kind of association emerged: the AFUS (Association of former UNESCO Staff) who deals with all kind of questions concerning the former Staff members of UNESCO.

The UNESCO office in Bangkok was established in 1961 as the Asian Regional Office for Primary and Compulsory Education. The Office was later extended to cover all divisions of the education sector and the countries of the Pacific region.
Further growth included the incorporation of activities relating to the culture, communication, and social and human science sectors, which led to the eventual renaming of the office as the Principal Regional Office for Asia and Pacific (PROAP) in 1987.
At the beginning of 2002, the UNESCO office in Bangkok assumed two roles. As the Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for Education, it is the technical advisory body to all field offices and Member States of the region and the site of regional programmes in most areas covered by the Education Sector.
As the cluster office, the UNESCO office in Bangkok is also the principal coordinator of UNESCO activities, across sectors, in the Mekong region - directly in Thailand, Myanmar and Lao PDR and indirectly in support of UNESCO country offices in Viet Nam and Cambodia.
UNESCO Bangkok also houses regional advisory units in Culture and Social and Human Sciences and staff from the Communication and Information Sector and the Science Sector.
In 2007, Singapore joined UNESCO as the 193rd Member State and become a member of UNESCO Bangkok cluster office.

UNESCO-CEPES (the European Centre for Higher Education/Centre Européen pour l'Enseignement Supérieur) was established in September 1972 with a view to promoting co-operation in higher education among Member States of the Europe Region (the countries of Europe, North America, and Israel). The creation of such a centre was recommended at the Sixteenth Session of the General Conference of UNESCO which was held in the autumn of 1970. Specifically, in November of that year, the Government of Romania officially invited UNESCO to set up the Centre in Bucharest. The Director-General accepted the offer in principle, pending the outcome of negotiations relative to the legal basis and the conditions under which the Centre would be housed and would operate. These conditions were spelled out in an Accord de siège signed on 12 June 1972 and in an Annex to this Accord signed on 21 September 1972.

In 1961, UNESCO established an educational facilities section at Headquarters and three regional school building centres in Africa, Asia, and in Latin America and the Caribbean, in parallel to the educational policy and planning units. To strengthen the multidisciplinary approach of educational projects, in 1973 the Asian and African regional centres, as well as the policy and planning units, were integrated into the Regional Offices for Education. However, the Educational Building Centre for Latin America and the Caribbean (CONESCAL), established in Mexico in co-operation with the Organization of American States continued to function until 1984.

"The new Assistant Director-General in charge of the Natural Sciences Sector will be Gretchen Kalonji of the United States of America. Currently Director of International Systemwide Research Development at the University of California’s Office of the President, Ms Kalonji’s international career in materials science and educational transformation has taken her to university positions in France, Japan and China. She has also worked with several African universities and is fluent in Kiswahili and Lingala. Ms Kalonji helped to establish a science and health initiative linking partners in East Africa with the University of California" (UNESCO, Press Release 2010-043).

"The new Assistant Director-General for Culture will be Francesco Bandarin of Italy. Mr Bandarin is currently Director of UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre, having taken up this position with UNESCO in 2000. As a specialist in architecture and urban planning, Mr Bandarin previously worked in both public and private institutions in the fields of built heritage, cultural heritage conservation, environmental heritage and cultural events, as well as architectural and urban design in developing countries. As Director of the World Heritage Centre, Mr Bandarin has led the development of a vast network of public private partnerships for World Heritage conservation, as well as the development of a series of regional category II centres in every part of the world" (UNESCO, Press Release 2010-043).

The United Nations Conference for the establishment of an educational and cultural organization (ECO/CONF) was convened in London from 1 to 16 November 1945. Scarcely had the war ended when the conference opened. It gathered together the representatives of forty-four countries. Spurred on by France and the United Kingdom, two countries that had known great hardship during the conflict, the delegates decided to create an organization that would embody a genuine culture of peace. In their eyes, the new organization must establish the “intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind” and, in so doing, prevent the outbreak of another world war.

At the end of the conference, thirty-seven countries founded the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

The Intergovernmental Bureau of Informatics was created, with the name International Computation Center, under the auspices of the United Nations and UNESCO by an international Convention signed on December 6, 1951 in Paris. The Resolutions concerning the establishment of this body were taken by the United Nations and UNESCO in 1946, 1948, 1950 and 1951. The International Computation Center was transformed in three stages (1969-70: reorganization, 1971-72: consolidation, and from 1978 on expansion). into the IBI in order to react to the technological evolution in the field.
The IBI had 38 member states which were members either of the United Nations, or of UNESCO, or of one of the other Specialized Agencies of the United Nations.
At its sixth extraordinary session, held in Rome on 28 and 29 November 1988, the General Assembly, by resolution R.6E/09 decided that IBI would cease to exist as from 30 November.
Dissolution had been made inevitable due to a series of difficulties encountered by IBI with regard to both its programme activities and its own organizational management and administration. These difficulties led to the successive withdrawal of several Member States from 1985 onwards, in particular the three main contributors (France, Spain and Italy) which deprived IBI of all its funding. Lacking resources, and in the throes of an unprecedented administrative crisis, with a temporary Board of Management acting as a Directorate, IBI was dissolved after 26 years spent in promoting co-operation in informatics.

The Office was established in 1951 as the UNESCO Field Office for Southeast Asian Science Co-operation (SEASCO). In 1967, it became the Regional Office for Science and 1967 Technology for Southeast Asia (ROSTSEA). In 1993, it was renamed the UNESCO Jakarta Office in keeping with the house-wide policy on office names.
In 2001, the UNESCO Office in Jakarta became Regional Science Bureau for Asia and the Pacific, and Office of the UNESCO Representative to Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines
In 2002, the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste (East Timor) signed the Instrument of Acceptance for Membership of UNESCO (31 October 2002).

Le département de l'administration et des finances regroupait, d'une part, les activités administratives liées à la gestion des ressources humaines et d'autre part, les activités financières tel que la comptabilité et la trésorerie de l'IBI. Le département était également responsable des services généraux de l'Organisation.

Le département de l'administration et des finances exista depuis la création de l'Organisation, en 1961, jusqu'à sa liquidation, en 1988. Le département fut principalement dirigé par Corrado Ferantelli.

Le fonds de l'IBI pour le développement de l'informatique (FIDI) fut un projet énoncé par le directeur général de l'IBI, Fermin Bernasconi, à l'occasion de la 10ème session ordinaire de l'Assemblée générale de l'organisation. Le projet consistait en la création d'un fond permanent destiné à financer et l'accord de prêts à taux avantageux aux pays en voie de développement, pour la réalisation de projets informatiques. Il fut demandé au directeur général de l'IBI la présentation d'un rapport sur la création de cette institution, présenté à l'Assemblée générale suivante.

Le projet prévoyait notamment un statut d'indépendance du fond vis-à-vis de l'IBI.

Il fut rédigé un projet de status et de réglement du FIDI.

Le FIDI demeura à l'état de projet et ne fut jamais opérationnel.

In 2000, as part of a larger organizational charge, the Bureau of Strategic Planning (BSP) was created. BSP inherited most of its responsibilities from the former Bureau of Studies, Programming and Evaluation (BPE). At this time, the responsibility for internal evaluation of programme implementation was moved to the new Office of Internal Oversight (IOS) which centralized all internal oversight functions. BSP’s role shifted to monitoring programme implementation as aligned with its primary role in the preparation of UNESCO’s programme and reports on the activities of the Organization submitted to the General Conference and Executive Board. BSP was also responsible for ensuring that the priorities set by the Governing Bodies were taken into account at all stages of programme elaboration and implementation. In 2000, the priorities were women, youth and the least developed countries.

Unlike its immediate predecessor BPE which had a relatively fixed internal structure, the structure of BSP was more fluid in response to the priorities identified by Member States. In 2003, beyond the Office of the Director, BSP was composed of the following units: the Division of Programme Planning, Implementation and Reporting (BSP/PMR), the Section for Women and Gender Equality (BSP/WGE), the Section for Youth (BSP/YTH) and the Focal Point for Knowledge Management, Networking and SISTER (BSP/KNS). SISTER, or the System of Information on Strategies, Tasks and the Evaluation of Results, is one of the Organization’s IT-based management tools. It can be consulted by Member States and encompasses the programming, management, monitoring and reporting of the Programme and Budget (C/5) and associated operational Workplans for regular programme activities and extrabudgetary projects (UNESCO. Bureau of Strategic Planning, undated). In 2004, the Culture of Peace Coordination Unit was created in BSP. The Division for Youth was moved to the Sector for Social and Human Sciences in 2006. The former Office for Foresight was moved into BSP in 2008, creating a Section for Foresight. In 2010, the Section for Central Analysis and Planning was moved from the Bureau of the Budget to BSP, but the Division for Gender Equality was moved to the Office of the Director-General.

In 2011, responsibility for coordination of cooperation with extra-budgetary funding sources was transferred to BSP and the Division of Cooperation with Extrabudgetary Funding Sources (CFS) was moved to the Bureau. At this time, BSP was also said to be responsible as focal point for priority projects: the global strategy for support to the least developed countries; the coordination of UNESCO’s contribution to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio +20); contributions to policy discussions by the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC); the servicing of the General Conference’s Leaders Forum and of various high-level panels and senior expert groups established by the Director-General, as well as the implementation of the UNESCO policy for Category 2 institutes and centres. Beyond the Office of the Assistant Director-General, BSP had the following units as of 2011: the Administrative Unit; the Unit for Intersectoral Platform on a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence; the Team for Knowledge and Programme Management Issues and Support; Team for UN Reform; the Division for Programme and Budget; the Division of Cooperation with Extra-budgetary Funding Sources; and the Section for Foresight.

In 2014, the Section for Foresight and the Unit for the Intersectoral Platform on a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence were dissolved, with responsibility for their activities moved to the new Division of Social Transformations and Intercultural Dialogue in the Social and Human Sciences Sector.

At the beginning of 2016, BSP was reorganized into five sections under the Office of the Director: the Section for Strategic Planning, Monitoring and Reporting; the Section for Budget and Risk Management; the Section for Mobilizing Government Partner Resources; the Section for Mobilizing Resources from Multilateral and Private Partners; and, the Section for Cooperation with UN System.

BSP was led by Hans D’Orville from its creation in 2000 to 2014. Ana Luiza Thompson-Flores led BSP from January to September 2015. Qian Tang, Assistant Director-General for Education, has been the Officer-in-Charge for BSP since that time.

Since its creation, the organizational structure of UNESCO has included supporting offices to the heads of programme. From 1946 to 1948, there was an Office of the Head of Section for the Social Sciences Section. Following this, there was an Office of the Director for the Department of Social Science from 1948 until 1974. From 1976 to 2000, there has been an Office of the Assistant Director-General. In October 2000, Executive Offices were created in most sectors, pooling together coordination, evaluation, administrative and information services within the offices of the Assistant Directors-General. This structure was only introduced in the Social and Human Sciences Sector in 2002.

Smaller units have sometimes directly been placed in the Office of the Assistant Director-General or Executive Office. Over time, this has included the following units: Administrative Unit, 1976-2002; Publications Unit, 1976-1991; Publications and Documentation Unit in 1991-1992; Publications Unit, 1993-2002; Unit for the Least Developed Countries, 1991-1994; Unit for the Institutional Development of Social and Human Sciences (SHS/IST), 1991-1992; Coordination and Evaluation Unit, 1978-2005; Unit of Bio-ethics, 1992-1994; Coordinating Unit for Activities Relating to Women, 1993-1994; Unit for Tolerance, 1994-1996; World Summit for Social Development Unit, 1994-1997; Cooperation for Development, 1994-2001; Administration and Finance Section, 2003-2009; Anti-Poverty Program Unit, 2004-2006; Communication, Information and Publications Unit, 2003-2007; Supervisor Coordination Unit – Anti-Poverty and Human Rights Programme, 2007-2008; Unit for Coordination of Information and Publications, 2008; Section for the Coordination of Information and Publication, 2009; Unit for Communication and Information, 2010-2011; Unit for Publications, 2010-2011.

SHS/EO has not always had a head of unit since it was introduced in 2002. The Chiefs of the Executive Office were: John Nkinyangi, 2004; Alexander Schischlik, 2008-2010; (Acting) Maya Makhlouf 2010-2011; and, Julius Banda, 2011-present.

Un service de Mass Communication a été mis en place dès la formation de l’UNESCO en 1945. En 1947, il prend le nom de Mass Media avant d’adopter définitivement celui de Department of Mass Communication en 1950. Rattaché tout d’abord directement au cabinet du directeur général, il passe sous la direction du directeur général adjoint pour la communication en 1967. En 1974, il rejoint l’Office of Free Flow of Information and International Exchanges pour former le Department of Free Flow of Information and Development of Communication.
L’information des masses découle de la mission de l’UNESCO de développer la connaissance et la compréhension mutuelle entre les Nations. Pour ce faire, elle produit des contenus à travers différents médias qu’elle diffuse largement. A sa création, l’information des masses comprend trois domaines principaux : la presse, le cinéma et la radio, ainsi que des domaines secondaires tels que l’enregistrement sonore et la télévision. La presse ne regroupe pas seulement les quotidiens ou hebdomadaires d’information mais aussi les revues spécialisées. L’édition rentre aussi dans son champ d’activité. Par film, il faut entendre le film documentaire, le film éducatif et scientifique, le film destiné aux spécialistes et le film destiné aux spectacles. Le champ de la radio s’étend aussi bien aux nouvelles, à la propagande et à l’information générale qu’à la publicité, l’émission de variétés, l’enseignement, la science, l’art et le drame. L’information des masses a pour but de favoriser la circulation de l’information à travers le monde sur des sujets comme la paix, le progrès humain, l’éducation, la science et la culture. Le Department of Mass Communication cherche à la fois l’amélioration des moyens et des techniques d’information et la réduction des obstacles à la circulation internationale de l’information. Ainsi, de 1947 à 1951, il a réalisé une enquête sur l’état des moyens de communication dans nombre de pays membres. Il coopère sur ces sujets avec des organisations nationales ou internationales et organise des conférences entre des pays sur les sujets de communication.

In 1959, UNESCO launched an international safeguarding campaign to save the Abu Simbel and Philae temples which were in danger of being flooded and destroyed as the result of the building of the Aswan High Dam in Egypt. The success of the campaign, which involved donations from over 50 countries, led to other safeguarding campaigns and eventually the preparation of a draft convention on the protection of cultural heritage with the help of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS).

On 16 November 1972, the Convention concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage was adopted by the 17th General Conference of UNESCO. The Convention joined together the concepts of nature conservation and the preservation of cultural properties, and recognized the need to preserve the balance between the two. The idea of combining the conservation of cultural and natural heritage came from a 1965 conference in the United Sates of America which called for a "World Heritage Trust" and similar proposals made by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 1968. In 1975, the World Heritage Convention formally came into force after its ratification by the first 20 State Parties. The same year, the List of World Heritage in Danger and the World Heritage Fund were established.

In 1978, the World Heritage Committee developed the selection criteria for inscribing properties on the World Heritage List and created the Operation Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention. In 1992, the Operational Guidelines were amended to include the category of “cultural landscapes,” which was a step in recognizing indigenous values as they relate to landscapes. In 1994, the Committee also adopted the Global Strategy for a Balanced, Representative, and Credible World Heritage List in order to address imbalances in the list, including the regions and periods represented.

On the 30th anniversary of the Convention in 2002, the Committee adopted the Budapest Declaration on World Heritage and four key Strategic Objectives: Credibility, Conservation, Capacity-building, and Communication. In 2007, these objectives were expanded to include a fifth “C” - Community.

In 2018, The Warsaw Recommendation on Recovery and Reconstruction of Cultural Heritage was developed as guidelines for the recovery and reconstruction of cultural heritage sites in cases of armed conflict or natural disasters.

Federico Mayor was born in 1934. Having accomplished an PhD in Pharmacy, he became director of the Severo Ochoa Molecular Biology Centre (Madrid, 1973-1978). He served as Under-secretary of the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (1974-1976) and was a member of Parliament and Chairman of the Parliamentary Commission for Education and Science (1977-1978). He later became Adviser to the Prime Minister on these questions. Minister of Education and Science (1981-1982), in 1987 he was elected a Member of the European Parliament. After being Deputy Director-General of UNESCO from 1978 to 1981, he returned to the Organization as Special Adviser to the Director-General (1983-1984), whom he succeeded in 1987.

Koïchiro Matsuura of Japan was appointed by the Organization's General Conference on November 12 1999 to serve as Director-General of UNESCO. Mr Matsuura, born in Tokyo in 1937, served as Ambassador of Japan to France from 1994 to 1999. He was educated at the Law Faculty of the University of Tokyo and at the Faculty of Economics of Haverford College (Pennsylvania, U.S.A.) and began his diplomatic career in 1959. Posts held by Mr Matsuura include those of Director-General of the Economic Co-operation Bureau of Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1988); Director-General of the North American Affairs Bureau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1990); Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs. He also served as the Chairperson of UNESCO's World Heritage Committee for one year, until November 1999.

Lin Yutang, a Chinese national, was Head of UNESCO’s Arts and Letters Division from 1948-1949. Lin was born 10 October 1895, in Changchow, China. He pursued his higher education at St. John’s University in Shanghai; Harvard University, USA; Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Germany; and, Leipzig University, Germany. He earned the following degrees: Bachelor of Arts, St. John’s University (1916); Master of Arts, Harvard University (1922); and Doctorate in Linguistics, Leipzig University (1923).

Lin began his career as an English teacher at Tsinghua University, Peking, from 1916-1919. During this time, he also proposed methods to improve the Chinese indexing system and served on the Preparatory Committee for Standardizing the National Language. Upon returning to China after his studies, Lin became an English Professor at Peking National University from 1923-1926. In 1925, he also served on the Chinese Roman Phonetic Transcription Research Committee. Between 1926 and 1927, Lin moved several times, occupying academic posts and then a post as secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After this period, Lin continued to hold academic positions, but focused mainly on his writing as well as pursuing his invention of a Chinese character-based typewriter. In 1928, he published the English textbooks 'Kaiming English Books'. He began to write for the English-language 'The China Critic Weekly' and was Editor-in-chief of 'Academia Sinica' from 1929-1934. In 1930, he co-founded the Chinese branch of P.E.N. International in Shanghai. Lin founded or co-founded the journals 'Analects Fortnightly,' 'World of Mankind,' 'Cosmic Wind,' and 'Western Winds' in the period 1932-1935. Following the publication of his book 'My Country and My People' in 1935, Lin moved to the United States. His numerous publications from this period, included: 'The Importance of Living' (1937), 'Moment in Peking' (1939) and 'The Wisdom of China and India' (1942).

Lin began his brief career at UNESCO July 28, 1948. He resigned for May 15, 1949. He continued to move between Europe, China and the United States as he pursued his writing and served in various academic positions. Among Lin’s works from this period, he published 'Lin Yutang's Chinese-English dictionary of modern usage' in 1972. Lin died on March 26, 1976 in Hong Kong.

Frank Joseph Malina was born in Brenham, Texas, USA, on October 12, 1912. He received a Bachelor of Sciences in Mechanical Engineering from the Texas Agricultural & Mechanical College in 1934. He then continued his studies at the California Institute of Technology (CIT), earning a Masters of Science in Mechanical Engineering in 1935, a Masters of Science in Aeronautical Engineering in 1936, and a Ph.D. in Aeronautics in 1940. He served as an Assistant Professor at CIT from 1942-1946.

During his academic and professional career at CIT, Malina and colleagues founded the Rocket Research Project at the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory (GALCIT). “From 1940 to 1944 Malina was the chief engineer of the Air Corps Jet Propulsion Research Project of GALCIT; in 1944 these projects became the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)” (American National Biography Online). Malina was the first director of the Laboratory from 1944-1946. His work in rocketry led to the launch of the WAC Corporal in 1945, the United States’ first successful high altitude sounding rocket. (Personnel File). In 1949, when boosted on the nose of a captured V-2 German rocket, the WAC Corporal became the first man-made object to reach outer space. (American National Biography Online).

“In 1944 and in 1946 Malina travelled to Britain and France on mission as a scientific consultant for the U.S. War Department for European Missions” (Americal National Biography Online).

Malina joined UNESCO on April 18, 1947 as a Programme Specialist (Counsellor) in the Natural Sciences Section. He was made Deputy Head of the Department on March 15, 1949, and then was appointed Head of the Division of Scientific Research on June 1, 1949. The Division had several name changes, but when Malina resigned from UNESCO effective February 10, 1953, it was named the Contribution to Research Division. Among his activities at UNESCO, Malina worked on the Hylean Amazon Project and the Arid Zone Programme, which he described in his resignation letter as being “especially close to my heart.” (Personnel File).

Among his honours, Malina was awarded the French Prix d’Astronautique in 1939, a Certificate of Commendation from the U.S. Army in 1946, the C.M. Hickman Award of the American Rocket Society in 1948, and the Order of Merit from the French Society for the Encouragement of Research and Invention in 1962.

Also an artist, after his time at UNESCO Malina seemed to focus on his art work. He was a pioneer of kinetic art, incorporating electric light into paintings or mobiles (Personnel file). He began to also incorporate sound into his works in the 1960s (WAP Unit Website). Malina’s exhibited his work internationally at major institutions such as the Centre National d'Art Contemporain (Paris) and the Smithsonian Institute (Washington, DC, USA). One of his works, Ladders to the Stars III, 1965, is in the UNESCO works of art collection. In 1968, Malina founded the art journal Leonardo and served as Chief Editor until his death. Malina died November 9, 1981.

Tunisian national.

French national.

Malcolm Sathianathan Adiseshiah was born in Vellore, India, on 18 April 1910. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Loyola College in Madras in 1930, and then studied at King’s College, Cambridge University, and the London School of Economics, earning his PhD in 1940.

Adiseshiah began his career as a Lecturer in Economics at St. Paul’s College in Calcutta from 1931 to 1936. He then became Professor of Economics at Madras Christian College from 1940 to 1946. At this time, he was a member of the group of economists who developed the Ten-year Plan for the Industrialization of India. Adiseshiah moved to become Associate General Secretary at the World University Services in Geneva from 1946 to 1948.

Later in 1948, Adiseshiah began his career at UNESCO as Deputy Head, Exchange of Persons Service. He moved to become Head of the Technical Assistance Unit within the Office of the Director-General in 1950. After an organizational change, Adiseshiah was named Head of the new Technical Assistance Service. In 1952, the Service became the Technical Assistance Department and Adiseshiah became its Director. At the Eighth Session of the General Conference in Montevideo, the two posts of Assistant Director-General (ADG) were officially introduced and Adiseshiah was named Assistant Director-General along with Rene Maheu who had been provisionally appointed as such earlier that year. In addition to replacing the Director-General as needed, Maheu was responsible for the diplomacy of the Organization and Adiseshiah was to concentrate on the technical assistance programme, the integration of the technical assistance programme with the regular programme, and the coordination of administration of programme activities in general. Adiseshiah formally started as ADG at the start of 1955. The division of duties between the ADGs remained fluid. In 1960, Adiseshiah was said to be responsible for the administration and management of the Secretariat and for UNESCO’s field programmes. For the period 1960 to 1963, he was given the responsibility for helping newly independent countries of Africa. Adiseshiah was responsible for the development of the Karachi Plan for universal primary education for Asia and educational development and science plans for Africa and Latin America.

Again in the face of larger organizational change (departments becoming sectors with an Assistant Director-General at head as opposed to a Director), Adiseshiah was made Deputy Director-General (DDG) in 1963. In this role, in addition to replacing the Director-General as required, Adiseshiah was given special responsibility for coordinating organization-wide programme services relating to UNESCO’s work on the contribution of education in all its forms to economic development and for programme services relating to the direct relationship of science and technology to national progress. He also oversaw UNESCO’s cooperation with the United Nations Special Fund and was specifically charged by the Director-General to organize and direct a system of inspection of field activities. Adiseshiah served as DDG until his retirement from UNESCO at the end of 1970. For a period of five months in 1969, he also acted as interim Assistant Director-General of the Natural Sciences Sector. The Sixteenth Session of the General Conference in 1970 expressed its high esteem of Adiseshiah, noting that he had "served the Organization with unstinting devotion and energy, labouring untiringly, in particular, to advance the cause of development and international co-operation" (16 C/Resolution 0.9, 1971).

After his retirement, Adiseshiah was a member of the Tamil Nadu State Planning Commission. From 1970 to 1971, he founded with his wife the Madras Institute of Development Studies. He was the Institute’s first Director and remained Chairman of its Governing Council until his death. He was President of the Indian Economic Association from 1973 to 1974, President of the Indian Adult Education Commission, and a member of the Central Advisory Board of Education, the Indian Council of Social Science Research, and the National Council of Teacher Education. Beginning in 1975, Adisehiah was named Vice-Chancellor of Madras University. In 1978, he was nominated to the Rajya Sabha for a six-year term. He was President of the International Council of Adult Education. Adiseshiah served as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the International Institute for Educational Planning from 1981 to 1989. He also served as Chairman for the jury of UNESCO’s literacy prizes.

Adiseshiah died in Madras, India, on 21 November 1994. The UNESCO Malcolm Adiseshiah International Literacy Prize was created in 1998 from a contribution by India. The Prize was awarded annually from 1998 to 2001 for meritorious and effective contribution to the struggle against illiteracy. Among his many works, Adiseshiah published the books Let my country awake (1970) and It is time to begin (1972).

Mahdi Elmandjra was born 13 March 1933 in Rabat, Morocco. He started his high-school education at Lycée Lyautey in Casablanca in 1944 and received his Baccalaureate in 1948. He then went to Putney School, Vermont, USA from 1948 to 1950. Elmandjra obtained a B.A. in Chemistry and Political Science from Cornell University in New York in 1954, and a Ph.D. in Economics from the London School of Economics in 1957.

Elmandjra had a varied career, including the following positions. He worked as an assistant at the Faculty of Law in Rabat, Morocco from 1957 to 1958. Following this, he filled the position of Counsellor, Permanent Mission of Morocco to the UN in New York from 1958 to 1959.

From 1961 to 1963, Elmadjra worked at UNESCO as Chief of the Africa Unit in the Bureau of Relations with Member States, and from 1963 to 1966 he worked as Director, Executive Office of the Director-General. Between 1966 and 1970, he served as Assistant Director-General of Social Sciences, Human Sciences and Culture. He went on to work as Professor and Researcher at the Center of International Studies in London in 1970. Returning to UNESCO, Elmandjra served as Assistant Director-General for Pre-Programming from 1971 to 1975, and Special Adviser to the Director-General from 1975 to 1976. As Special Advisor, he was charged with studying the modalities of cooperation between UNESCO and the regional and national Arab funds, in particular with respect to the financing of operational activities.

After his career at UNESCO, he taught at the Faculté des Sciences Juridiques Economiques et Sociales, Université Mohamed V, in Rabat between the years 1976 to 1979. Subsequently he worked as Assistant Secretary-General, United Nations Development Programme, and he held the position of Special Consultant to the United Nations during the International Year of Disabled Persons from 1980 to 1981.

Elmandjra wrote extensively throughout his career, and several of his books have been translated into different languages. His many publications include: The United Nations System, 1973; No Limits to Learning (Report to the Club of Rome), 1979; Human Rights and Development, 1989; Islam and the Future, 1990; The First World Cultural War, 1991; Rétrospective des Futurs, 1992; Cultural Diversity Key to Survival, 1995; and Regionalization of Globalization, 2000.

Throughout his career, Elmandjra received several distinctions and awards, including: the Curzon Prize of French literature at Cornell University, 1953; the Rockefeller Award for International Relations, London School of Economics, 1955; the Order of Independence of the Kingdom in Jordan, 1959; the Chevalier de l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres , 1970; Prix de la Vie Économique, Paris, 1981; Grand Medal of the French Academy of Architecture, 1984; the Officier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France, 1985; Order of the Rising Sun (III), Japan, 1986; the Medal of Peace the Albert Einstein International Academy, 1991; and the Award of the World Future Studies Federation, 1995.

Mahdi Elmandjra died 13 June 2014.

"Dr. Francine Fournier achieved her doctorate in political science at the University of Montreal. She taught at the political science departments of the Universities of Montreal and Quebec (Montreal). She was appointed Secretary of the Quebec Council on the Status of Women and later became President of the Quebec Human Rights Commission from 1979 until 1985. From 1988 to 1990, she was Secretary-General of the Canadian National
Commission for UNESCO. After her engagement with UNESCO she was President of the Multipartite national programme of reconciliation for the Orphans of Duplessis." (UNESCO, 2007, 60 Women..., p.282).

Adolfo Costa du Rels naît à Sucre (Bolivie) en 1891. Après des études de lettres et de droit à la Sorbonne (Paris) et un séjour dans les régions minières de la Bolivie, il entre dans la diplomatie, où il occupe successivement les postes suivants : attaché à l’ambassade de Bolivie en France, chargé d’affaires de Bolivie au Chili, député (Bolivie), conseiller à l’ambassade de Bolivie en France, délégué de la Bolivie à la Conférence panaméricaine de La Havane (1928), où il est rapporteur de la Convention de La Havane pour la protection de la propriété artistique et du droit d’auteur, délégué d’Etat auprès de l’Institut international de Coopération intellectuelle, délégué de la Bolivie à l’Assemblé de la SDN, vice-président de la XIe Assemblée de la SDN (1930) et membre du Comité Permanent des Lettres et des Arts à partir de 1931. Il est nommé ministre plénipotentiaire en Suisse et auprès du Vatican entre 1937 et 1943, puis ambassadeur de Bolivie en Argentine entre 1943 et 1944.

Parallèlement à sa carrière diplomatique, il écrit des romans, des nouvelles, des pièces de théâtre et des essais. Il est un collaborateur régulier du journal français Le Temps. En 1976, il reçoit le Prix national de littérature (Bolivie). Il décède en 1980.

Salvador de Madariaga naît à La Corona (Espagne) en 1886. Il effectue ses études à l’Instituto Cisneros Madrid puis en France, à l’Ecole Polytechnique de Paris et à l’Ecole des Mines. Il devient ingénieur des chemins de fer entre 1912 et 1916, et mène en parallèle une activité littéraire et journalistique dans la presse espagnole, se spécialisant sur les sujets concernant la France et la Grande-Bretagne. En 1916, il devient un correspondant du Times.

Il est attaché technique à la délégation espagnole de la Conférence du Transit de Barcelone (1921), et il entre la même année à la SDN. Il devient membre de la Section d’Information au Secrétariat de la SDN (1921) puis directeur de la Section du désarmement la même année. Il occupe cette fonction jusqu’en 1927. Sa carrière de diplomate est interrompue par la guerre civile espagnole. Pendant la période républicaine, il est ministre de l’Instruction publique, poste dont il démissionne au bout de cinq semaines pour occuper ensuite les ambassades de Washington et de Paris, tout en assurant la représentation de l’Espagne à la SDN. Contraint à l’exil après la défaite des Républicains, il se consacre à l’enseignement, à la recherche historique, au journalisme et à la littérature. Après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, il est élu président de la section culturelle du Mouvement européen, puis président du Collège de l'Europe de Bruges, jusqu'en 1972. Il s'installe ensuite à Locarno, où il décède en 1978.

Membre de la CICI, Salvador de Madariaga participe aux travaux de la Sous-Commission des Lettres et des Arts durant les années 1920 puis devient membre en 1931 du Comité permanent des Lettres et des Arts de l’Institut. En 1936, la CICI le nomme président du Comité de direction de l'OIM pour trois ans. Romancier et poète, il participe aux correspondances et aux entretiens organisés puis publiés par l’Institut : Entretiens sur Goethe (1932), Pour une Société des Esprits (1933), L'Avenir de la Culture (1933), L'Avenir de l'esprit européen (1934), L' Art et la réalité. L' Art et l'Etat (1935), Vers un nouvel humanisme (1937) et Le Destin prochain des lettres (1938).

Kristine Bonnevie est née à Trondheim (Norvège) en 1872. Zoobiologiste, elle est la première femme élue à l'Académie des Sciences et Lettres de Norvège (1911) puis la première femme à obtenir un poste de professeur à l'université, à Oslo, l’année suivante.

Déléguée de la Norvège auprès de la SDN en 1921, elle obtient que des femmes soient nommées dans la future CICI. Lorsque la Commission intellectuelle est fondée en 1922, elle en est l’un des douze membres. Kristine Bonnevie défend la conception d’un Institut international de Coopération intellectuel le plus international et le plus apolitique possible. Elle soutient en 1929 les projets de réforme de l’Organisation de Coopération intellectuelle et contribue à l’élaboration du programme de la CICI en 1930. Elle quitte la CICI la même année pour se consacrer à la recherche scientifique, mais reste membre de la Commission norvégienne de Coopération intellectuelle (fondée en 1924).

Aloísio de Castro naît à Rio de Janeiro (Brésil) en 1881. Il effectue des études de médecine à Rio de Janeiro et obtient un doctorat en 1903, après avoir obtenu une bourse pour un voyage d’étude en Europe. Il exerce à la Medical School de Rio de Janeiro (1904-1908), devient secrétaire adjoint de la Santé et de l’Assistance publique à Rio de Janeiro (1906-1908), professeur de pathologie médicale et de médecine clinique (1915-1940), directeur général de l'École de médecine (1915-1924) puis directeur du Département général de l’Enseignement au sein du ministère brésilien de l’Instruction publique (1927-1932). Aloísio de Castro est président de Société de neurologie, psychiatrie et médecine légale de l’Académie de Médecine du Brésil et membre correspondant de nombreuses institutions internationales médicales. Parallèlement à ses travaux scientifiques, il publie des ouvrages de poésie et des compositions musicales pour piano et chant.

Aloísio de Castro est membre de la CICI entre 1922 et 1930. En 1922 il fonde la Commission brésilienne de Coopération intellectuelle, dont il assume la présidence entre 1926 et 1933.

Richard Dupierreux naît à Couillet (Belgique) en 1891. Il est docteur en droit de l’université de Bruxelles en 1914 et exerce ensuite comme avocat à la Cour d’appel de Bruxelles. Entre 1915 et 1918, il est le secrétaire de Jules Destrée lors des missions de celui-ci en Italie et en Russie. Il devient chef du cabinet de Jules Destrée, devenu ministre des Sciences et des Arts de Belgique, entre novembre 1919 et novembre 1921. Il poursuit en parallèle une activité littéraire et journalistique. Entre 1920 et 1923, il dirige ainsi la rubrique de politique étrangère de La Nation belge et est président de l’Union de la Presse étrangère de Belgique de 1921 à 1923. Il dirige le service artistique, littéraire et théâtral du journal Le Soir, auquel il collabore sous le pseudonyme de Casimir. Il enseigne également l’histoire de l’art et des civilisations à l’Institut supérieur des Beaux-Arts d’Anvers et est l’auteur d’un ouvrage sur La Sculpture wallonne (1914). Élu membre de l'Académie royale de Belgique en 1956, il décède l’année suivante.

A l’automne 1924, Jules Destrée songe à créer une Section de Presse au sein de l’IICI, et envisage de placer son collaborateur Richard Dupierreux à ce poste. Celui-ci devient chef de la Section des Relations artistiques en novembre 1925. Il démissionne de ce poste en décembre 1929. Durant cette période, il est secrétaire de la Commission nationale belge de Coopération intellectuelle, qui avait été fondée à l’initiative de Jules Destrée en 1922. Richard Dupierreux prend également part aux travaux de l’Office international des Musées (OIM) : il est membre du comité réduit en charge des premières mesures d’organisation de l’OIM, à l’automne 1926, aux côtés de Jules Destrée, Henri Focillon, Julien Luchaire, George Oprescu et Hélène Vacaresco. Entre 1927-1929, il assume les fonctions de coordinateur et d’administrateur de l’OIM, puis cède le pas à Euripide Foundoukidis, qui obtient le poste de secrétaire général de l’organisation en 1931. En 1937, Richard Dupierreux participe à l'organisation de la venue de la Commission belge de Coopération intellectuelle à Paris (avec Marcel Nyns, secrétaire général de l'Instruction publique belge, et Paul Hymans, président de la Commission belge), pour la 2e Conférence des Commissions nationales de Coopération intellectuelle organisée par l'IICI.

Victoria Ocampo naît à Buenos Aires en 1890. Issue d’une famille de la haute société argentine, elle apprend le français durant son enfance. En 1916, âgée de vingt-six ans, elle rencontre José Ortega y Gasset, qui a sur elle une influence décisive. Virginia Woolf, à qui Victoria Ocampo allait consacrer une étude (Virginia Woolf en su diario, 1954), l'incite également à devenir écrivain.

En 1931, Victoria Ocampo fonde la revue Sur (dont le titre lui avait été suggéré par Ortega y Gasset). Des écrivains du monde entier collaborent à cette revue. Le comité de rédaction de la revue compte ainsi parmi ses membres Pedro Enriquez Ureña, Alfonso Reyes, Ortega y Gasset, Jules Supervielle, Guillermo de Torre, Waldo Frank, Jorge Luis Borges et Eduardo Mallea. Cette revue publie des jeunes talents littéraires, mais aussi les grands écrivains contemporains, tels que : Breton, Camus, Claudel, Caillois, Eluard, Gide, Malraux, Maritain, Romain Rolland, Saint-John Perse, Sartre, Valéry, Graham Greene, Huxley, Shaw, Jorge Guillén, J. R. Jiménez, Heidegger, Herman Hesse, Thomas Mann, Croce, Ungaretti, Michaux, Asturias, Octavio Paz, Faulkner, Saroyan, Steinbeck, etc. La publication de la revue se poursuit jusqu’en 1970 et elle joue un rôle important dans la diffusion des littératures étrangères en Amérique latine.

Victoria Ocampo noue des amitiés durables avec de nombreux écrivains et intellectuels, tels que les Français Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, Jules Supervielle, Roger Caillois, l’Indien Rabindranath Tagore (elle raconte le séjour du poète bengali chez elle, à la Villa Ocampo, dans Tagore en las barrancas de San Isidro, paru en 1961), ou encore les Espagnols Jorge Luis Borges et Federico García Lorca. Victoria Ocampo publie à partir de 1935 ses Témoignages (Testimonios, 1935-1977, en dix volumes), dans lesquels elle raconte ces rencontres. Elle écrit également des romans : La Laguna de los nenúfares (1924), Supremacía del alma y de la sangre (1933), Domingos en Hyde Park (1936), San Isidro (1941), Habla el algarrobo (1959). Victoria Ocampo décède en 1979.

"Il n'est d'authentique culture nationale que l'authentique culture internationale ", déclare Victoria Ocampo aux personnes l’accusant de trop s’intéresser aux littératures étrangères. Cet internationalisme marque la vie et l’œuvre de l’écrivaine argentine, mais aussi son engagement au sein de l’Organisation de Coopération intellectuelle. En mai 1939, elle est nommée membre de la CICI.

Marie-Pierre Herzog, a French national, joined the staff of UNESCO in March 1969 as Director of the Division of Philosophy. In 1973, she was made Director of the newly created Human Rights Coordination Unit. The Unit became the Division of Human Rights and Peace in 1975.

Georges B. Kutukdjian, a Lebanese national, was born in Cairo, Egypt, in 1942. He pursued his higher education at the University of Paris, studying philosophy and social anthropology, earning the following degrees: license de sociologie; diplome d’études supérieures de philosophie; certificat de mathémathique; certificat de l’informatique. Kutukdjian was a Collaborateur with Professor Claude Levi-Strauss at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique of France from 1968 to 1971.

Kutukdjian began his career at UNESCO in 1972 as a Programme Specialist in the Division of Applied Social Sciences. In 1976, as the Sector was reorganized, he moved to the Division for the Study of Development. Kutukdjian was appointed Chief of the Evaluation and Coordination Unit, Office of the Assistant Director-General, Sector for Social Sciences and their Applications, in 1978. In 1985, he moved to become Programme Specialist in the Division of Human Rights and Peace. When the Bio-ethics Unit was created in 1992, Kutukdjian was appointed its Director. The Bio-Ethics Unit was moved to the Services attached to the Directorate in 1994. In 1999, the Unit was made the Division of Ethics of Science and Technology. Later that year, the Division was moved back to the Sector of Social and Human Sciences. Kutukdjian retired from UNESCO in 2001.

Beyond and complementary to his work at UNESCO, Kutudkjian held the following positions: President, UNESCO Staff Association, 1979-1982; Secretary-General of the International Bioethics Committee (IBC),1993-1997; Executive Secretary of the World Commission of the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST), 1998-2001(?); Rapporteur of the IBC Drafting Group of the International Declaration on Human Genetic Data, 2003-2005; Member, Scientific Committee, International Bioethics Society; Adviser, French National Commission for UNESCO at the International Bioethics Committee, 2005; Vice-President and President of the Association of Former UNESCO Staff Members (AFUS), 2005-2010, as well as President of the AFUS History Club, 2005-2010. He was also recently one of the General Editors of the UNESCO World Report Investing in Cultural Diversity and Intercultural Dialogue (2010). Among other publications, he co-authored the book Rights of peoples (1991) and contributed to The Book: a world transformed (2001). Kutukdjian has taught seminars on diplomacy and international organizations (University of Paris-South) and in bioethics and biotechnologies (University of Versailles).

Gilbert Murray was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1866. Having moved to England at the age of seven, he was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and then St John’s College, Oxford, where he excelled in classics and won several prizes. At the age of twenty-three he became university professor of Greek at Glasgow, before moving to Oxford in 1905 where he became regius professor of Greek three years later. Murray published numerous books and translations, and established himself as an authority on the Ancient Greek world. He retired from the regius chair in 1936.

At the outbreak of the First World War, Murray became increasingly involved in contemporary political affairs, working for the British League of Nations Union beginning in 1918. After an invitation by Jan Smuts, he participated at the League of Nations (LN) 1921 Assembly. During the 1930s, he collaborated with William Beveridge in setting up the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning. Although somewhat disenchanted with the LN after the Abyssinian crisis, his commitment for international cooperation remained (Stray 2004). After the Second World War, he served three terms as President of the United Nations Association.

Murray was a member of the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC) from 1922 until 1939, the only individual apart from Gonzague de Reynold to serve for the entire period of its existence. In 1928, Murray became President of the ICIC, succeeding Henri Bergson and Hendrik Antoon Lorentz. After the war, he was involved in the preparatory discussions of the Conference of Allied Ministers of Education (CAME). Murray died in 1957.

Born in 1876 in Bordeaux, France, Julien Luchaire was Romanist scholar, politician, and public servant. He was educated at Lycée Henri IV and École normale supérieure, passing the Aggrégation in 1897. He subsequently spent time at the École française de Rome and taught at the University of Lyon from 1900 until 1905. Having published two dissertations on Italian intellectual and political history, he became professor of Italian at the University of Grenoble, a post that he held from 1906 until 1919. In 1907 he founded the Institut français in Florence. After the First World War he served in senior positions at various ministries, and was appointed general inspector of education in 1920.

A friend and collaborator of Henri Bergson’s, Luchaire was involved in intellectual cooperation at the League of Nations (LN) from the outset. Together with Paul Appell, head of the French LN Association, Luchaire launched a project on an international bureau of intellectual relations and education, a report of which was handed to LN secretary-general Eric Drummond in 1920. Luchaire’s project was subsequently picked up by Léon Bérard, the French education minister, who convinced President Aristide Briand of the importance of such an organisation at the LN (Renoliet 1999, 14–23). In 1922 he became an advisor to the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC), and in 1923 a member of the French Committee on Intellectual Cooperation. He was one of the driving forces behind the French offer to establish the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation (IIIC) in Paris, and in 1926 became its first Director. During his tenure, the IIIC became widely known as the executive branch of the ICIC and launched a number of influential projects, such as the International Studies Conference (ISC). Starting from 1928 Luchaire was increasingly criticised by his colleagues, which lead to significant organisational changes and eventually his own resignation in April 1930 (Renoliet 1999, p. 87, 109). After Luchaire’s resignation, he was succeeded in 1930 by Henri Bonnet. Luchaire himself was given an advisory position at the ICIC’s Permanent Committee of Arts and Letters. He was also appointed an expert for the enquiry into the state of intellectual life and continued to receive his previous salary during 1931.

Following his work for the League of Nations, he taught at l’École des Hautes Études Sociales, where he also chaired the education department and established a course on International Relations. From 1937 until his retirement in 1941, he once again served as general inspector of education. Luchaire died in 1962 in Paris.

George Oprescu was born in 1881 in Câmpulung, Romania. Though raised in poverty, he was educated in literature and philosophy at the University of Bucharest thanks to the help of friends and scholarships. After his graduation in 1905 he became a teacher of French language and literature. He also taught at the University of Fluj and led an art history seminar. He later became professor at the University of Bucharest and, since 1932, director of the Toma Stelian Museum, to which he donated a considerable amount of his private art collection. After the Second World War, he donated his collection to the Romanian Academy.

From 1923 until 1939, Oprescu worked as secretary of the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation in Geneva.

After the war he became a member of the Romanian Academy, and from 1949 until his death in 1969 he led the Academy’s Institute of Art History.

Margarete Rothbarth was born in 1887 in Frankfurt (Main). She studied history, German and English at the Universities of Heidelberg, Munich, Berlin and Freiburg. In 1913 she received her doctorate. During the First World War she taught at a high school in Freiburg and also worked at the German archive for folk music. In 1918 she became a political secretary to Friedrich Naumann, and taught at Naumann’s Staatsbürgerschule (citizenry school). After Naumann’s death she became head of the library and archive of the German League of Nations Association. From 1922 until 1926 she worked as a scientific assistant at the foreign archive section of the Federal Ministry of Finance. As a delegate of the German League of Nations Association she participated at international meetings of LN societies.

Rothbarth joined the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation (IIIC) in November 1926, serving in the Information Section. In 1931 she was promoted to the rank of Secretary at the IIIC, a contract that was renewed for a period of 5 years in 1936. While on a trip to Switzerland in 1939, the Second World War broke out and she was unable to return to Paris to complete her tenure until 1941. After the war, she filed a formal complaint with the LN about not having received her payment during that time. She won the ensuing lawsuit. She died in 1953 in Switzerland.

Paul Painlevé was born in 1863 in Paris. He studied mathematics at the École Normale Supérieure and the University of Göttingen, and completed his doctorate in 1887. From 1887 until 1892 he taught at Lille, before returning to Paris as professor at Ecole Polytechnique and then Collège de France. An outstanding mathematician, he was awarded the Grand Prix des Sciences Mathématiques in 1890 and the Prix Bourdin in 1894. From the early 1900s he became interested in aviation and created a course in aeronautical mechanics at the École Aéronautique.

At the same time, Painlevé became involved in politics and sat in the Chamber of Deputies beginning in 1906. During the First World War, he served as Education Minister as well as War Minister from March to September 1917. From September until November 1917, Painlevé was Prime Minister, and again from April to November 1925.

From December 1925, Painlevé was President of the Administrative Council of the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC). From 1926 until his death, he was a member of the ICIC. He played a key role during the restructuring of the Organisation of Intellectual Cooperation from 1930 to 1931 (Renoliet, pp. 116 and 331). Painlevé died in October 1933.

Chikh Bekri was born on 28 April 1927 in Geryville, Algeria. He obtained a License ès Lettres from the Université d’Alger and an Agrégation de lettres from the Université de Paris.

Bekri worked in Algiers from 1953 to 1958 as a Professeur at Lycée de Boufarik and Lycée Bugeaud. In 1960, he was named both Proviseur at the Lycée de Constantine and Director of the Collège universitaire de Constantine. In 1962, he was named Rector for the Region of Constantine. After independence, he was appointed Secrétaire général of the Ministry of Education of Algeria.

Bekri joined UNESCO in 1964 as Programme Specialist in the Education Sector, Operational Divisions, Arab States Division. He then moved to the Division of Educational Financing in 1968. During this time, he directed numerous missions for the development of education in Member States in the framework of the programme of cooperation with the World Bank. In 1973, he was appointed the first Director of the Regional Office for Education in the Arab States in Beirut. He served in this capacity until 1975 when he was appointed Acting Deputy Assistant Director-General of the Education Sector. In 1976, he was confirmed in his post as Deputy Assistant Director-General of the Education Sector, responsible for operations, but was also named Acting Director of the Executive Office of the Director-General. Indeed, later in 1976 he was named Director of the Executive Office of the Director-General. Bekri was promoted to the rank of Assistant Director-General in 1981 and, in 1982, in addition to his responsibilities as Director of the Executive Office, he was assigned responsibility for the coordination of services not-integrated into the sector structure, such as, for example, the Office of the Mediator and the Secretariats of the Governing Bodies. He was also responsible for liaising with regional coordinators and for the implementation of the decentralization policy. In the context of a broader reorganization, Bekri became responsible for overseeing the work of the new Bureau of Studies, Action and Coordination for Development as well in 1985. The following year, he was appointed Assistant Director-General responsible for the International Bureau of Education. He held this position until his retirement in 1987.

Some of his publications include: L’UNESCO : une entreprise erronée?, 1991; L'Algérie aux IIe/IIIe siécles (VIIIe/IXe), 2004; and, Le royaume rostemide : le premier état algérien, 2005.

Giuseppe Prezzolini was born in Perugia, Italy, in 1882. A journalist, editor and well-known figure in Italy’s literary and scholarly worlds, Prezzolini co-founded the literary journal ‘Leonardo’ in 1903, and in 1908, he founded ‘La Voce’ (The Voice), a popular literary and cultural journal for which he was also the editor. In 1923, he taught in the summer session at Columbia University in New York where, in 1929, he became professor of Italian. Prezzolini taught at Columbia University for more than twenty years, and also held the post of director of Casa Italiana until 1940 when he resigned. His resignation came after after a period during which the centre was accused of propagandizing fascism, which Prezzolini and the university denied (McDowell).

Prezzolini worked with the League of Nations following the First World War. He was the first Chief of the Information Section of the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation (IIIC) from 1925 - 1930. This section sought to make the work of the IIIC known to the public on an international scale through the press; maintained ties to journalists, editors, librarians and authors from various countries; and worked with editors and other experts to investigate larger efforts to spread knowledge, particularly books. Henri Bergson, president of the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC), was among his intellectual influences (Sarti, p 500).

In 1971, he received the honour of Cavaliere di Gran Croce Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana.

Prezzolini wrote numerous books, essays and articles both in English and Italian throughout his lifetime up until his death in 1982 in Lugano, Switzerland, at the age of one-hundred. His many publications include: ‘L'Italiano inutile’, ‘The Legacy of Italy’, ‘Machiavelli’, ‘Il tempo della "Voce"’, and ‘Manifesto dei conservatori’.

The question of protecting cultural heritage from the harms of war has been grappled with since the 1500s, and by the late nineteenth century, there was a general consensus that countries should refrain from bombing buildings dedicated to art, science, and charitable purposes if they were not being used militarily. This consensus was codified in the 1907 Hague Rules, which quickly proved to be inadequate in protecting cultural property from the destruction caused by the First World War. In response, several efforts were made to create a legal norm against the destruction of cultural property in armed conflict, including in the draft list of war crimes by a 1919 sub-commission of the Commission on Responsibilities of the Preliminary Peace Conference, the Netherlands Archaeological Society’s 1919 report asserting that harm caused to monuments and works of art was a wrongdoing to humanity as a whole, the 1923 Hague Draft Air Rules calling for cultural property to be spared from bombardment, and the Treaty on the Protection of Artistic and Scientific Institutions and Historic Monuments (Roerich Pact) adopted in 1935 by the Governing Board of the Pan American Union.

In 1937, the League of Nations International Commission on Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC) requested the International Organization of Museums (OIM) to continue its work on the protection of cultural property with the aim of producing a draft convention. With the help of experts, the OIM was able to produce a Preliminary Draft International Convention for the Protection of Historic Buildings and Works of Art in Times of War in 1938. However, plans to convene a diplomatic conference to adopt the draft convention were thwarted by the start of the Second World War. The OIM resorted to producing a Declaration on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Course of Armed Conflict, which lacked the compliance regime included in the draft convention. When UNESCO was established in 1946, it resumed the ICIC’s work on the protection of cultural property. Per the mandate of the 1949, UNESCO General Conference, the Director-General established a meeting of experts in 1950 to draft a convention on the protection of cultural property based on the OIM draft.

The 1954 Hague Convention was finally adopted by UNESCO along with a series of regulations and a Protocol on 14 May 1954 at the Intergovernmental Conference on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict hosted by the Netherlands government and entered into force on 7 August 1956. The Convention outlines a series of precautionary measures State Parties are obliged to adopt in times of peace to protect everything that falls within the Convention's definition of cultural property, including monuments of architecture, art or history, archaeological sites, works of art, manuscripts, books, other objects of artistic, historical or archaeological interest, and scientific collections. The Convention also established the Meeting of the High Contracting Parties, a governing body composed of the State Parties, which assembles every two years to discuss and provide updates on the implementation of the Convention. Violations of the Convention in following years later led to the adoption on 26 March 1999 of the Second Protocol, which supplements the Convention with a more concrete institutional framework for its implementation.

The ‘S’ has been an integral part of UNESCO from its foundation in 1945. In 60 years of existence, UNESCO has acted as a catalyst for the establishment of many, now leading scientific unions and bodies such as the World Conservation Union (IUCN, 1948), and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN, 1954) which saw the development of the internet. Initiatives with far-reaching implications for sustainable human security and well-being – such as the Man and the Biosphere programme, the World Heritage sites and the International Hydrological Programme – were launched in the first thirty years of UNESCO’s history.