“I deeply regret President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from America again Unesco“Said Audrey Azoulay, managing director of the agency based in Paris, in a statement.
In New York, the United Nations spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric, said that the secretary general joined Ms. Azoulay “by deeply regretting the decision of the United States. »»
The United States first withdrew from Unesco in 1984 under President Ronald Reagan and did not join for two decades. Fourteen years after the start of the school year, the first Trump administration withdrew from the organization in 2017, but the decision was canceled by President Joseph Biden in 2023.
Ms. Azoulay stressed that “this decision contradicts the fundamental principles of multilateralism”, and she stressed that this decision would affect UNESCO partners in the United States, including communities in search of site registration.
A White House press release on withdrawal said that the decision had been made to protect UNESCO’s American work of work to advance the “divine social and cultural causes”.
The press release also said that the organization is focused on the UN Sustainable development objectives (ODD), which he described as “a globalist and ideological program for international development in contradiction with our first foreign policy in America”.
The declaration also specifically cited UNESCO’s decision to admit the state of Palestine as a member state as a problematic, unlike American policy and to fuel the “anti-Israeli rhetoric of the United Nations”.
In her statement, Ms. Azoulay denied these affirmations that UNESCO is “anti-Israeli”, highlighting the work of the organization in the education of the Holocaust and the fight against anti-Semitism.
“UNESCO is the only United Nations agency responsible for these questions, and its work was unanimously by major specialized organizations,” she said, including American organizations such as United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.
Diversification of funding in preparation
Ms. Azoulay stressed that this announcement was planned and that the organization has prepared accordingly, highlighting the main structural reforms in recent years, in particular the diversification of sources of funding.
“The downward trend in the United States’s financial contribution has been offset,” she said. Although the United States now represents eight percent of the organization’s budget, UNESCO’s budget has regularly increased thanks to donations from Member States and Private contributors, they have doubled since 2018.
“Today, the organization is better protected in financial terms,” she said.
Continuous American partnerships
“The UNESCO’s objective is to welcome all the nations of the world, and the United States of America are and will always be welcome,” said Azoulay.
The organization will continue to work with its American partners in the private, academic and non -profit sectors, and it will continue discussions with the American government.
Publicado anteriormente en Almouwatin.
