Overview and History of UNESCO

Overview and History of UNESCO The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is an agency within the United Nations that is responsible for promoting peace, social justice, human rights and international security through international cooperation on educational, science, and cultural programs. It is based in Paris, France and has over 50 field offices located around the world. Today, UNESCO has five major themes to its programs which include 1) education, 2) natural sciences, 3) social and human sciences, 4) culture, and 5) communication and information. UNESCO is also actively working to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals but it is focused on achieving the goals of significantly reducing extreme poverty in developing countries, developing a program for universal primary education in all countries, eliminating gender inequalities in primary and secondary education, promoting sustainable development and reducing the loss of environmental resources. History of UNESCO When that conference began in 1945 (shortly after the United Nations officially came into existence), there were 44 participating countries whose delegates decided to create an organization that would promote a culture of peace, establish an intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind, and prevent another world war. When the conference ended on November 16, 1945, 37 of the participating countries founded UNESCO with the Constitution of UNESCO. After ratification, the Constitution of UNESCO came into effect on November 4, 1946. The first official General Conference of UNESCO was then held in Paris from November 19-December 10, 1946 with representatives from 30 countries. Since then, UNESCO has grown in significance across the globe and its number of participating member states has grown to 195 (there are 193 members of the United Nations but the Cook Islands and Palestine are also members of UNESCO). UNESCOs Structure Today The Director General is another branch of UNESCO and is the executive head of the organization. Since UNESCOs founding in 1946, there have been 11 Director Generals. The first was the United Kingdoms Julian Huxley who served from 1946-1948. The current Director General is Audrey Azoulay from France. She has been serving since 2017. The final branch of UNESCO is the Secretariat. It is composed of civil servants who are based in UNESCOs Paris headquarters and also in field offices around the world. The Secretariat is responsible for implementing UNESCOs policies, maintaining outside relationships, and strengthening UNESCOs presence and actions worldwide. Themes of UNESCO Natural sciences and the management of Earths resources is another UNESCO field of action. It includes protecting water and water quality, the ocean, and promoting science and engineering technologies to achieve sustainable development in developed and developing countries, resource management and disaster preparedness. Social and human sciences is another UNESCO theme and promotes basic human rights and focuses on global issues like fighting discrimination and racism. Culture is another closely related UNESCO theme that promotes cultural acceptance but also the maintenance of cultural diversity, as well as the protection of cultural heritage. Finally, communication and information is the last UNESCO theme. It includes the free flow of ideas by word and image to build a worldwide community of shared knowledge and empower people through access to information and knowledge about different subject areas. In addition to the five themes, UNESCO also has special themes or fields of action that require a multidisciplinary approach as they do not fit into one distinct theme. Some of these fields include Climate Change, Gender Equality, Languages and Multilingualism, and Education for Sustainable Development. One of UNESCOs most famous special themes is its World Heritage Center which identifies cultural, natural and mixed sites to be protected all over the world in an effort to promote the maintenance of cultural, historic and/or natural heritage in those places for others to see. These include the Pyramids of Giza, Australias Great Barrier Reef and Perus Machu Picchu. To learn more about UNESCO visit its official website at www.unesco.org.

Positivist legal theory offers a coherant account of law as a system Essay

Positivist legal theory offers a coherant account of law as a system of legal rules. This allows legal questions to be categorically distinguished from question - Essay Example This allows clear distinguishing of matters of law from matters involving morality, where a higher divine mandate may be invoked. Questions involving morality may create disparities and difficulty in a precise application of the law, since individual and group moral beliefs may differ from place to place and may not allow for the uniform application of the law. However, by clearly specifying that the law and morality are separate questions, the positivist theory allows legal questions to be clearly distinguished from questions involving morality. The salient aspect of the positivist legal theory that was put forward by Hart, is that it offers a comprehensive set of rules, both direct rules as well as secondary meta rules that help to specify how the primary rules will operate. According to Austin, â€Å"a law may be defined as a rule laid down for the guidance of an intelligent being by an intelligent being having power over him.†3 Austin also supports Bentham’s views4 in that every legal norm needs to constitute a threat that is backed up by a sanction; therefore coercion is an essential feature of the law. However, when there is too much of rigid adherence to the rules, the scope for judicial interpretation may be seen to be limited. Therefore Hart fiercely opposes the predictive interpretation of law based upon its coercive aspect on the grounds that such interpretation â€Å"obscures the fact that, where rules exist, deviations from them are not merely grounds for prediction that hostile reactions will follow.... but are also a reason or justification for such reaction and for applying the sanctions.†5 The law viewed as a set of rules therefore also involves the social learning aspect, which Raz has emphasized, applying a test of behavioral guidance to determine that a person could have come to accept the rules without actually deciding to do so, or questioning the original justification for the

Starting and Developing a New Venture. Nature of Entrepreneurship Essay

Starting and Developing a New Venture. Nature of Entrepreneurship - Essay Example Improving further the existing ideas using creativity and innovation seems to be the most appropriate way of coming up with such ventures. In spite of this, some entrepreneurs still find opportunities around them, which they develop as new ideas. A new venture does not necessarily have to mean a new business altogether. It could be a new idea in a big company’s department, or a new product developed by an existing company. Improving on an existing product still encompasses entrepreneurial skills and innovation. However, starting a small business entity requires patience and strong entrepreneurial skills. The development of an idea to a big venture requires patience and courage. Big and established businesses in the same industry will try to push the new entrepreneur out of the business through packaging and price battles. Additionally, the giants will try to prove of experience in the industry which they already have their customers. To win customer confidence, the entrepreneu r should ensure quality in their products and competitive pricing. Waging such a tough war requires commitment and dedication by the entrepreneurs. In exploring this topic of starting and developing a new venture, this paper will look at the entrepreneurial skills and careers of two of the worlds’ most successful entrepreneurs, Stelios Haji-Ioannou of Easyjet and Richard Branson of Virgin. Many scholars have written about entrepreneurship. According to oxford English dictionary an entrepreneur is a person who attempts to make profit by taking risk through an initiative. Richard Cantillon is credited to be the originator of the word â€Å"entrepreneur† in the year 1755 in his book â€Å"Essai sur la nature du commerce en general.† Stokes & Wilson (2010, p. 1) believes that entrepreneurship is more than just the business of making money. According to Sjovoll & Skogen (2010, p. 8), the creativity and innovation exhibited by the members of a society and at family le vel are forms of entrepreneurship. Hardly do these talents get noticed however, until an idea is put into action. A visible entrepreneurial idea is called a venture. The different skills and attributes portrayed by a person makes them entrepreneurs, while the ability of a person to see an opportunity where other people cannot see one defines the person’s entrepreneurial skills (Sarasvathy 2004, p. 521). There exists a distinction between entrepreneurship and Intrapreneurship, which is a rather new term in the corporate world. While entrepreneurship defines both the act and the art of undertaking innovations that include introducing new things especially in the business acumen, Intrapreneurship is the act and art of entrepreneurship in large organizations. Employees who undertake to develop their organizations through creative ideas such as product development are referred to as intrapreneurs. Nature of Entrepreneurship A lot of arguments have been raised regarding the nature of entrepreneurship. While some experts believe that great entrepreneurs are born, others believe that the best entrepreneurs are trained (Pittaway & Cope 2007, p. 212). However, the argument of whether entrepreneurial skills are an inborn talent or are a learned and acquired through the process of experience and education, different accounts of the careers of successful entrepreneurs provides answers to this. According to scholars though, the best entrepreneurs are trained. Greene & Mole (2007,  p. 14-20) strongly believes supports this. According to them, entrepreneurship as a process does not end in a person’

Potential Strategic Problems Facing Human Resource Managers (HRM) Assignment - 1

Potential Strategic Problems Facing Human Resource Managers (HRM) Operating in Multi-National Companies (MNC) - Assignment Example The researcher states that multi-national companies are often located in other international countries apart from the parent country in which it was originally founded.   These multinational companies specialize in the production of a variety of goods or services that are distributed to their other branches in other countries. In addition, there are also those companies that deal with the provision of services that are also spread out in a number of countries all over the world. These include companies engaged in the finance and property investment sector. Banks are often located in various locations all over the world such as Barclays which has its parent country in the United Kingdom but has got branches all over the world. These multinational companies have got high annual sales likely to surpass the economic output of some medium-sized countries. This is realized in the example of General Motors and Shell which have got annual sales higher than the economic output of countries like South Africa and Nigeria. There are about 63,000 multinational companies currently in operation in various locations in the world. These companies contribute to about two-thirds of the global trading activities injecting 80 percent of the investment currently circulating in the money market. Multinational companies enjoy a variety of benefits while operating in other host countries. These include physical proximity to markets whereby they are exposed to larger markets owing to their local and international presence. They also receive host country incentives that are aimed at increasing investment in these countries hence internationalizing production of their products and services. There are numerous challenges that HRM faces when managing members of staff in an organization. Human beings, owing to their cultural, social, political and economic diversity have presented challenges not only to HRM but also among themselves as they seek to interact. The situation is thus made more complex by the relatively higher staffing requirements of MNC. However, such multinational companies pose significant challenges to the human resource managers (HRM) resulting to the complex structures involved in the development of multinational companies (MNC).

Incident Management Team #7 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Incident Management Team #7 - Essay Example Nature of the incident and the different types of skill sets of the employees determine the members of an incident management team. The line officer is responsible for analysing the nature of the fire incident and to formulate suitable teams to tackle it. He must decide in which category the incident comes and what are the immediate priorities of the teams formed. The line officer must make the team members aware of the nature of the incident and he must provide a brief about the main objectives and immediate objectives of the team in action at the incident place. For example, if the fire causes threat to the life of the people, then the team’s immediate objectives must be to save the life of the people. Incident Management starts as the smallest unit and then changes the structure of the unit according to the complexity of the emergency. Team development is an important part in the management of a fire incident. The members of an IMT (Incident Management Team) should work as a team, and learn the knowledge and skills needed to perform effectively in stressful, dynamic conditions. â€Å"Team decision-making is a critical aspect of effective IMTs, and this skill must be developed by the team as a whole in an exercise/activity environment so that it can be applied appropriately during an emergency† (Incident Management Team Development) In an incident management team, there will be command staffs and general staffs. The type of the incident determines the whether to allocate different positions to the staff or not. The incident management teams are designed to tackle fire and safety related problems. The preliminary aim of the IMT’s is to protect the life and property of the public from the dangers caused by fire like safety issues. As a fire fighter I have to obey the commands from my superiors in saving the life

An Analysis of the US and Australian Health Insurance Programs Research Paper

An Analysis of the US and Australian Health Insurance Programs - Research Paper Example Many scholars have compared the two health insurance systems and found surprising data that is of concern. The statistic shows that Australia spends an average of 8.7 percent of its GDP on supporting health and this covers all residents in Australia irrespective of their employment status (Coory). The American government, on the other hand, spends 17.6% of its GDP on healthcare (CMS) and this is far much more than any industrialized country and 47 million citizens still lack health insurance while millions of others are underinsured (Mascarenhas). This is a damning statistic which asks for a deeper analysis. The second issue is that the American Medicaid program only covers those above the age of 65 while the rest have to look for alternative private health treatment (Mascarenhas). On the other hand, the Australian one covers all the individuals including the well-off in society who are entitled to subsidize medical cover with the government paying a certain percentage of it (AHS). Although the Medicaid program is available in the US to cater for the low-income earners, their exist restrictions on who is eligible for that kind of health care program. This leaves most of the population uninsured with many opting for private treatment which is costly and most are unable to afford these costs (HJK). Although there exist some strength s associated with the US Medicare program it is still way back below the Australian Medicare program that covers everyone. The strengths lie in the short waiting time for surgery patients and other patients with chronic complications (Mascarenhas). On the other hand, the Australian program has a long waiting list and this is one of its problems. Despite all, it is better to wait for a long time and be served than to be completely denied the service. The greatest strength in the Australian program is affordability and access and this is lacking in the American programs (DHAC).

Curriculum Goals, Objectives, and Products Essay

Curriculum Goals, Objectives, and Products - Essay Example Curriculum goal is defined as an end or purpose that is stated through general terms where the achievement criterion is not used. When curriculum goals are used in a given system or school, they become the aims of education. On the other hand, curriculum objective illustrate an end or purpose that is stated in measurable and specific terms. Thus, curriculum goals are used to derive the curriculum objectives. The locus of curriculum objectives and goals is that they are written at school-district, state and individual level with expectations that jurisdiction has to be adhered to in a respective level. Nevertheless, any curriculum objective and goal, which is developed in a given level has to cut across several disciplines. The development of the curriculum goals and objectives has to focus on states of today with a bias on departmental development while reflecting on change in modern society. Educational aims and developers’ philosophy are used to establish curriculum goals an d objectives in individual, district and state based schools. Thus, the entire process and product of curriculum materials establishment is