UN Program Promotes Global Governance of National Domestic Policy Agendas
HUMAN RIGHTS, SOCIETY & CULTURE
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
A key to global governance is United Nations control over the domestic research and policy agendas at the national level. Next week, government representatives will attend a meeting at the United Nations Economic, Social and Cultural Organization (“UNESCO”) to advance that effort. This effort originates in UNESCO’s Management of Social Transformations Program ("MOST"), which is a part of Paris-based UNESCO’s Social and Human Sciences Sector.
At next week’s 9th session of the MOST Intergovernmental Council, 35 national government representatives will plan the creation of national MOST committees that are designed to “facilitate the strengthening of research-policy dialogues among policy-makers, the social science research community and civil society representatives at the national level.” Ultimately, though the MOST committees will act at the national level, UNESCO and other international and regional organizations will plan and coordinate their activities. In essence, MOST officials from the UNESCO Social and Human Sciences Sector will be the driving force behind policy research, development, advocacy, and implementation efforts at the national level.
As reported in a March 10 Global Governance Watch® posting, UNESCO created MOST to foster a cooperative relationship between policy-making and social science research. Through policy papers and an online forum, MOST seeks to educate policy-makers in four broad governance network areas, including policy research networks, policy development networks, policy advocacy networks, and policy implementation networks. Through a MOST partnership with MOST national committees, UNESCO will be able to more efficiently control the development of social transformative (i.e., wealth re-distributive) policies at the national level.
According to Draft Guidelines for MOST National Committees to be considered at the MOST Intergovernmental Council meeting, the overall objective of each MOST national committee will be to promote “the development and use of social science knowledge to better understand and manage social transformations, consistent with the universal values of justice, freedom, human dignity and sustainable development.” To add insult to the potentially injurious nature of such ambiguous and far-reaching goals, the drafters of the Guidelines contemplate that each MOST national committee should closely cooperate with its UNESCO National Commission, national UNESCO Chairs (i.e., designated UNESCO experts), and national or regional UNESCO field offices. In addition, the drafters of the Guidelines contemplate that each MOST national committee will cooperate with UN agencies, other international organizations, and professional organizations such as the International Social Science Council, the International Council for Philosophy and Humanities, and the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development.
Also, the Draft Guidelines suggest that each MOST national committee will cooperate with regional organizations such as the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, and the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences.
At the 2007 UNESCO General Conference, MOST officials referred to MOST as the first global think-tank. Next week, MOST officials will promote the Draft Guidelines as a means to ensure UNESCO’s control over the social and human sciences policy agenda at the national level from the research phase, to the development phase, to the advocacy phase, and through the implementation phase. This intensive oversight of all phases of policy research and development is consistent with the matrix of human rights governance networks that is being developed and promoted on a global scale.
Jim Kelly is the President of Solidarity Center for Law and Justice, P.C., a public interest civil and human rights law firm based in Atlanta, Georgia. The opinions expressed herein are his own.
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