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Nine years after pulling out of UNESCO, in a row over the organisation’s
political bias and financial management, the US has been advised to rejoin.
A task force led by Douglas Bennet, a US assistant secretary of state, says
the organisation has ‘improved its management’ and ‘abandoned its excessively
politicised programmes’. It recommends that the US should rejoin in 1995.

These conclusions contrast with a 1990 State Department report which
found that few improvements had been made in the management of UNESCO. But
the task force’s recommendation does not guarantee that the US will rejoin
the UN science organisation, accordingto a State Department official. The
White House has to consider it ‘within the context of budgetary constraints’,
the official says.

The US pulled out of UNESCO in 1984, complaining that it was a forum
for anti-Western propaganda and was squan-dering money. Britain and Singapore
followed a year later. These defections cut UNESCO’s budget by 30 per cent.

The focus of US and British dissatisfaction with UNESCO was its director-general,
Amadou Mahtar M’Bow. In 1987 M’Bow was ousted by the Spanish biochemist
Frederico Mayor, after a bitter election battle. Mayor has made it one
of his priorities to persuade the US and Britain to rejoin. The foreign
office in London is still considering its response to a report by the House
of Commons foreign affairs select committee, which recommended that Britain
should rejoin UNESCO.

At UNESCO in Paris, an official said the intellectual contribution of
the missing countries has been a greater loss than their money.