Ressources

UNESCO's international intellectual cooperation for peace has achieved substantive tangible results in education and culture. Though some problems have been politicized and have produced limitations along the way, UNESCO has played a leading role in education and culture while setting the direction of international cooperation and activities in this regard.
UNESCO has regretfully not played an active role in fostering broader, more diverse, and more extensive new research and practices related to peace, even with the international Cold War realities. While UNESCO was an international organization created explicitly for peace, it has neither led to momentous peace-related academic discourse nor does it lead to theoretical development in this regard. The concept of a "Culture of Peace," for example, was first mentioned in the Ivory Coast (Cote d'Ivoire) in 1989. However, it was not until 1997 that UNESCO started its "Toward a Culture of Peace Program" and the U.N. General Assembly declaring 2000 as the "Year of Peace."
UNESCO's situation provides an opportunity for South Korea to play a more active role. South Korea needs to break with its history of taking a passive stance focused on short-term national interests and its preoccupation with "situational tracking" responses aimed at fostering national prestige when such opportunities present themselves. Instead, while prioritizing a "global community" founded on world peace and the well-being of humanity-as long-term shared benefits to all nations-and by sharing the financial burdens involved, the country can increase its international status and become a moral leader raising a "global citizenship power."