Paris, France                                                                                                                             October 8, 2009

The current General Conference is different to previous ones in many ways. As the world economic crisis still persists, the international community continues to face numerous challenges. Mongolia is no exception. In Mongolia we decided not to cut investment in education in order to maintain already attained level.

In order to achieve the Education for All and Millennium Development goals Mongolia has made considerable efforts to ensure better access and quality of education. We are implementing the Education Sector Master Plan that determines our policy and goals for the near future. We started last year a transition to a 12year-school-system to meet international standards. All these efforts are in line with UNESCO’s Mid-Term Strategy. Still more efforts are needed to assist developing countries, especially at the time of financial crisis, to maintain their educational services intact and preserve the achieved level.

The government of Mongolia is of the view that education and literacy drive human development. We are already halfway through towards the end of UN Literacy Decade. So a great deal of effort must be under taken by UNESCO and its member states to reach the goals set forth in 2003. Last year the Director-General submitted to the 63th UN General Assembly a mid-term report on the implementation of the Decade’s goals, which was an important step. Just a few days ago UNESCO’s Executive Board adopted a resolution on the implementation of the Decade’s goals that was co-sponsored by Mongolia. We will continue to work to further implement our commitments.

Mongolia has developed a Science and Technology Master Plan up-to 2020 with the assistance of and expertise from UNESCO. The plan is directed towards creating knowledge-based society and promoting sustainable development. I would like to express our willingness to continue cooperation with UNESCO in water, ecology, biotechnology and innovations to implement the Master Plan.

Mongolia is also facing similar global challenges such as climate change, air & water pollution, desertification, etc. We highly appreciate the important role that UNESCO is playing in supporting biological and cultural diversity. Through existing programs and networks Mongolia has 2 sites registered in the World Natural and the Cultural Heritage list and 6 sites in the List of Bio-sphere Reserve networks.

While we are appreciative of the UNESCO’s efforts, we are also trying to make our own contribution. Mongolia proposed to organize a Northeast-Asia summit on climate change. Since the last General Conference we organized a series of meetings at the experts’ level. We believe that the regional commitment will make due contributions to global efforts to fight the climate change.

In an era of rapidly globalizing world, respect and understanding of humanity and the need for dialogue among civilizations is becoming ever more important. The Government of Mongolia highly values the contribution that UNESCO is making towards safeguarding Mongolian heritage, the hub of nomadic civilization.

We are grateful to UNESCO for inscribing our traditional music instruments – Morin Khuur and Tsuur, traditional long song – Urtyu duu, dance – Biyelgee and traditional epics into the List of Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. We are hopeful that our request on the unique art of throat-singing Khuumi and traditional festival-Naadam will be addressed shortly.

We truly believe that together we can do a lot more. UNESCO has accumulated great wealth of experience in protecting and restoring cultural sites in many countries. That contribution has been invaluable. I believe UNESCO will cooperate with Mongolia in conducting comprehensive historical and archeological researches in the Orkhon Valley – a cradle of many civilizations that left their marks in world history.

The General Conference will consider and adopt the 2010-2011 program and its budget. We feel that the draft program duly recognizes the needs of member states, fully reflects UNESCO’s Medium Term Strategy and is more result-based. Therefore our delegation fully supports the draft program for 2010-2011 and the budget.

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