United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Oraganization

In his report to the fourth session of the General Conference of UNESCO, the Director-General (Torres Bodet) set forth concrete proposals and principles by which UNESCO activities in 1950 should be governed. A code of eighteen directives, approved by the Executive Board, was submitted to the Conference for adoption as basic principles, designed to serve as bridges between the pur-poses and functions outlined in general form by the UNESCO constitution and the specific program resolutions adopted by the General Conference. As guided by the principles, UNESCO's future programs would be devoted to the maintenance of approved continuing services and the execution of a limited number of specific projects sanctioned by the General Conference from time to time, forming a coherent whole of matters of “evident importance and usefulness.†The organization would cooperate closely with the United Nations, the specialized agencies, and other national and international organizations assisting in the establishment and development of organizations and in the coordination of their activities. In education, the organization would serve as a center for the exchange of ideas and practices, and for the dissemination of knowledge promoting the growth of effective educational systems and the improvement of living conditions. Future programs would seek to make better known the results of research in the social sciences, encourage intellectual and artistic exchanges, and assist in the development of greater understanding through personal contacts. In a second phase of activity, UNESCO would broaden progressively “into a more general activity for the raising of standards in education, science and culture,†rather than reconstruction, and would direct “increasing attention†upon the needs of under-developed countries and upon the problems within its competence arising in trust and non-self-governing territories.