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Sri Lanka is committed to establishing a free and responsible media culture and would like to see the maximisation of UNESCO's experience in the training of professionals, Ports and Aviation, Media and Information Minister and Education Deputy Minister Mangala Samaraweera said.

Addressing the 170th session of the Executive Board of UNESCO recently, Minister Samaraweera commended the UNESCO's success in media freedom and community radio programs.

The Minister said:

"Sri Lanka is fully supportive of UNESCO's role in setting policies to promote quality mechanisms Sri Lanka's comprehensive policies in the field of education under the guidance of President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who is also the Minister of Education have enabled us to attain many of the objectives set out such as universal primary education and gender parity at all levels, however we realise that quality is as important a dimension as quantitative and statistical dimension.

"Given the high level of unemployment and underemployment among graduate youth in the country, it has become imperative that we transform our current higher education structure into a sustainable, result-oriented system in line with the context of globalisation.

This is further required to avoid the inevitable flow of intellectual resources from developing to developed countries where students are offered not only quality education but also often possibilities of pursuing lucrative careers. UNESCO's line of action in promoting partnership, technology transfer and capacity-building in education is fully endorsed by us.

Another of UNESCO's ongoing actions that we acclaim is the introduction and development of policies ensuring the education of excluded children. We are committed to putting an end to the recruitment of child soldiers by the separatist movement in Sri Lanka, and have operational programmes towards their rehabilitation and re-inclusion into civil society. In this respect, UNESCO's programme is vital to fulfil these objectives.

Facilitating their re-entry into civil society is not a simple task and Sri Lanka needs the assistance and experience of an organisation like UNESCO in this exercise, which will be a significant learning experience for many of us.

Within the context of a peace process and post conflict perspectives Sri Lanka is most enthusiastic about UNESCO's programme of empowering adolescent girls to become the agents of social transformation in South Asia. In Sri Lanka particularly, this programme is appropriate in light of the social transformation, certain women have undergone as a result of the war.

We are aware that UNESCO has made efforts at improving the quality and relevance in education.

The "Teachers Guide to Peace Education", brought out by UNESCO and launched by the Director General in the Sri Lankan Parliament in May 2002, has been translated to Sinhala and Tamil in Sri Lanka. Since this approach has had popular acceptance, it will be useful to popularise and implement this at national, regional and global levels.

Education is a vital crosscutting tool that can reach out to resolve a number of social and economic problems, such as, one that UNESCO has rightly focused on poverty. The eradication of poverty is a must today, without which no conscientious person can look with satisfaction at the state of the world at the turn of the millennium.

Many of UNESCO's programmes turn the spotlight on the disparity between developed and developing countries. For instance, the digital divide is a priority to be tackled under the Communication and Information sector. Education for poverty alleviation has the objective of providing deprived youth with employment opportunities and skills to serve their community needs.

Sri Lanka would like to see a wider generalisation of UNESCO's valuable expertise in the communications sector and notes with satisfaction UNESCO's success in its programmes such as media freedom and community radio. We in Sri Lanka are strongly committed to establishing a free and responsible media culture and would like to see the maximisation of UNESCO's experience in the training of professionals.

The Director General has conveyed clear indications that the reforms of the working methods of the Intentional Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC) are beginning to bear fruit. We regret to note that the programme is under resourced at present and is unable to meet its obligations. In order to underline our commitment to this programme Sri Lanka is willing to make a contribution within the parameters of our resources.

On another note, as a country, which has, cultural and religious diversity deeply manifested in its identity Sri Lanka embraces the formulation of an international instrument, which endeavours to promote and protect cultural diversity.

The omnipotent market forces tend to take cultural content and expressions in their stride as they ride through borders, leading to a natural selection of the stronger, industrially-developed cultures sweeping over the less organised cultures of the world.

Developing countries particularly face the brunt of cultural globalisation, as they have to concentrate on economic development and reform, most often, at the expense of their cultural goals. Furthermore, cultural industries are under-developed in countries like ours and in the absence of an international structure to preserve diversity; we need this very infrastructure and support to ensure their sustenance and growth.

Sri Lanka would like to introduce a point of discussion on the misuse of religious symbols and expressions, which I feel is an important subject pertaining to cultural diversity.

Today, many people in the marketing, advertising and entertainment industry hurt the sensitivities of many groups and communities not through malicious intent, but through the lack of awareness that what they consider artistic, interesting or simply commonplace could have devastatingly harrowing impact to members of other cultures when used out of context.

The misuse of religious symbols is therefore, to a great extent a result of the lack of awareness and consequently, insufficient respect with regard to the sensitivities of others.

The action undertaken by UNESCO to develop intercultural dialogue and pluralism 'dialogue among civilisations' to respect cultural diversity is commendable and Sri Lanka is a strong proponent and participant of such programmes.

We also wish to commend UNESCO's newest Convention on Intangible Cultural Heritage. We shall explore possibilities of ratifying this Convention, as soon as possible, with a view to protecting our Intangible Cultural Heritage, especially in order to confront the fast-paced globalisation in the world.

Sri Lanka is increasingly committed to the streamlined and efficient functioning of this organisation and to this end, we strongly support the Director General's proposal put forward in the full Zero real growth scenario.

However we cannot emphasise enough, the importance of making savings through the reduction of certain elements of operational costs while strengthening the programme activities.

It is with this in mind, Mr. Chairman, I wish to address a matter of concern which has been at the heart of our regional group the Asia Pacific Group, where we have been requested to sacrifice one of our regional participation programmes in order to pay for the regional consultation meeting of the C5. The Group has repeatedly expressed the undesirability of this situation and we urge the Director General to find means of financing this very important meeting through the regular budget.

It is with satisfaction that I note the Committee on Conventions and Recommendations is making headway in focusing on its original mandate of monitoring the conventions and recommendations falling under the purview of this organisation.

Duplication of work within the United Nations system is both unnecessary and considering the present budgetary difficulties faced by this very organisation, undesirable.

I wish to urge the Director General and this body to examine closely the impact that can be made through the efficient working of this very important committee at the earliest.

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