Unesco
UNESCO is an agency of the UN and was established in 1946 to…
… contribute to peace and security by promoting collaboration among nations through education, science and culture in order to further universal respect for justice, for the rule of law and for the human rights and fundamental freedoms which are affirmed for the peoples of the world, without distinction of race, sex, language or religion.
UNESCO stands for: The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. The organisation was established in response to the troubles in the world at that time – particularly the negative consequences of World War Two for many nations and their populations.
UNESCO started various projects to increase knowledge about how environments affect people, animals and buildings, and the organisation proposed a normative document to preserve them. This resulted in the World Heritage Convention, drawn up in 1972, which has two main aims:
- to see and understand links between and the interdependency of nature and culture
- to help people realise that each World Heritage site is a matter of concern to all humanity
UNESCO acts as a supporting organisation for its Member States and wants to help nations to preserve nature and culture by increasing their inhabitants’ knowledge. The organisation currently has 185 Member States and it finances its activities through membership fees, donations and funds. All World Heritage sites base their work on the same convention, which provides assistance and functions as a tool in daily activities.
There are currently almost one thousand World Heritage sites worldwide.