Diplomacy: Drawing Back to the Board

At the end of last year the U.S. pulled out of the Paris-based United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to protest the agency’s mismanagement and anti-Western policies. Last week the U.S. was back –not as a member, but as an observer. Despite the opposition of the agency’s Senegalese director general, Amadou-Mahtar M’Bow, UNESCO’s 50-nation executive board voted to admit a U.S. observer mission to the agency. It was only one of several victories for the U.S. at the five-day meeting. The board also rejected a Soviet bid to cut costs by firing UNESCO’s 143 American employees. And it sidestepped an effort by M’Bow to sue the U.S. in the World Court in an attempt to collect an American contribution of $43 million for 1985.

The loss of U.S. funding, which accounted for 25% of the annual budget, has plunged UNESCO into a financial crisis. To make matters worse, Britain and Singapore have announced that they will pull out at the end of the year. West Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands and Denmark have also threatened to withdraw if reforms are not made quickly, and Japan and Canada have hinted they too might leave.