On Monday, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) announced that the United States has decided to rejoin the organisation in July.

The U.S. will rejoin the UN cultural agency after stopping funding in 2011 and announcing its complete withdrawal. UNESCO director-general Audrey Azoulay told member states that the decision was “a strong act of confidence in UNESCO and in multilateralism.”

He added that it also expressed confidence in how the agency implemented its mandate on culture, education, science and information.

In a letter sent to Azoulay, UNESCO said that the U.S. State Department “welcomed the way in which UNESCO had addressed emerging challenges in recent years, modernised its management, and reduced political tensions.”

The country stopped funding UNESCO in 2011 after it extended its membership to Palestine. At the time, U.S. funding made up 22 per cent of the agency’s budget. The United States is a founding member of UNESCO and had also withdrawn from the organisation in 1984, then rejoined in 2003.

The full return of the U.S. as a UNESCO member state was made possible by an agreement reached by Congress in December 2022. The agreement was part of the $1.7 trillion Omnibus Appropriations Bill, authorising the resumption of financial contributions to the organisation.

The suspension of contributions in 2011 took place after a large majority of other UNESCO countries accepted Palestine as a member state. This made the U.S. trigger a 1990 law passed on Capitol Hill forbidding funding for any international body that admitted Palestine.

However, last December, the legislation granted a waiver to the 33-year-old law. The U.S. formally withdrew from UNESCO on January 1, 2019, with Israel following suit.

As of December 2020, the U.S. reportedly owed UNESCO around $616 million in unpaid membership dues.

According to news reports, U.S. Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, had spoken in Washington in favour of rejoining UNESCO. He reportedly told lawmakers in April 2022 that it was important to be a member to help shape its norms and standards and contribute to its critical work in education and artificial intelligence.

(NAN)