Audrey Azoulay, Director General of UNESCO, is in Barcelona to participate in the III World Conference on Higher Education, which brings together representatives from 128 countries, and to inaugurate the new UNESCO Center for Social Sciences and Humanities, based at CaixaForum Macaya.
UNESCO's relationship with Barcelona is close, as Azoulay underlines in the interview he gave to La Vanguardia and is published today in the pages of Culture. The general secretary of this organization created 75 years ago praises in said interview the investment made by our city in recent years, which has borne fruit in an important focus of higher education, scientific research and leading institutions in the latest developments in medicine. And it is not surprising that he underlines it, because since its foundation UNESCO has tried to go beyond the United Nations Organization, dedicated to preserving peace through dialogue and political and economic agreements between nations. In other words, it has tried to sow the seeds of a better future, promoting culture and science as instruments of collective progress and vehicles of understanding.
This conviction and this desire of UNESCO are widely shared in advanced countries. But few international organizations have had such a consistent and prominent role in carrying out this work. Of course, in tasks related to the conservation of cultural heritage. But also with the support of educational programs in the countries that have wanted to welcome them. And, likewise, with a determined support for scientific activity.
There is a remarkable consensus on the idea that peace is a collective construction. And, also, that this peace is usually based on mutual understanding between different cultures, which when deep leads to respect and, hence, to the desire for joint work and the search for harmony.
But it is also a fact that this current of progress can come up against cultures that are resistant to contact and exchange. The case of Afghanistan, where UNESCO had invested to promote, for example, girls' education, and where the return of the Taliban has caused a severe and painful setback, is paradigmatic of the fragility of such progress. And it is also for this reason that it is convenient to recognize and applaud the task carried out by UNESCO, so that it continues to support, despite such setbacks, progress and peace.
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