PARIS (AFP) - The United States’ decision to cut its funding to UNESCO has left the UN cultural, education and science agency “crippled” and facing its worst ever financial crisis, its director general said Thursday.
Washington suspended its funding to the UN body, which oversees World Heritage sites and works in areas from literacy and media freedom to environmental issues, when it admitted the Palestinians last year. That has forced UNESCO to leave 330 positions - out of a total of 2,000 in the organisation - unfilled when workers either left or retired, and has led it to close various programmes as part of swingeing cuts, said director general Irina Bokova. She admitted the agency had been a “clumsy elephant” and that reform was already under way before the funding was pulled by the US, which says the Palestinians must first reach a peace agreement with Israel before they can become full members of an international organisation. But Bokova said that UNESCO’s financial situation was “unsustainable” unless the US, whose cash freeze deprived the body of 22 percent of its budget, returned to the fold.