United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
Org type	Specialized Agency
Acronyms	UNESCO ONUÉSC
Head	Irina Bokova Director-General of UNESCO
Status	Active
Established	16 November 1945[1]
Headquarters	Paris, France
Website	UNESCO.org

United Nations portal

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (French L'Organisation des Nations unies pour l’éducation, la science et la culture: UNESCO;  /juːˈnɛskoʊ/) is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN). Its stated purpose is to contribute to peace and security by promoting international collaboration through education, science, and culture in order to further universal respect for justice, the rule of law, and human rights along with fundamental freedoms proclaimed in the UN Charter.^[1] It is the heir of the League of Nations' International Commission on Intellectual Cooperation.

UNESCO has 195 Member States^[2] (it recently added Palestine in November 2011) and eight Associate Members.^[3][4] Most of the field offices are "cluster" offices covering three or more countries; there are also national and regional offices. UNESCO pursues its objectives through five major programs: education, natural sciences, social and human sciences, culture, and communication and information. Projects sponsored by UNESCO include literacy, technical, and teacher-training programmes; international science programmes; the promotion of independent media and freedom of the press; regional and cultural history projects; the promotion of cultural diversity; international cooperation agreements to secure the world cultural and natural heritage (World Heritage Sites) and to preserve human rights, and attempts to bridge the worldwide digital divide. It is also a member of the United Nations Development Group.^[5]

Mission and priorities[link]

UNESCO’s stated aim is "to contribute to the building of peace, the eradication of poverty, sustainable development and intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, culture, communication and information".^[6]

Other priorities of the Organization include attaining quality education for all and lifelong learning, addressing emerging social and ethical challenges, fostering cultural diversity, a culture of peace and building inclusive knowledge societies through information and communication.^[7]

The broad goals and concrete objectives of the international community—as set out in the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)—underpin all UNESCO’s strategies and activities.

History[link]

The UNESCO flag

UNESCO and its mandate for international intellectual co-operation can be traced back to the League of Nations resolution on 21 September 1921, to elect a Commission to study the question.^[8] The International Committee on Intellectual Co-operation (ICIC) was officially created on 4 January 1922, as a consultative organ composed of individuals elected based on their personal qualifications. The International Institute for Intellectual Cooperation (IIIC) was then created in Paris on 9 August 1925, to act as the executing agency for the CICI.^[9] On 18 December 1925, the International Bureau of Education (IBE) began work as a non-governmental organization in the service of international educational development.^[10] However, the work of these predecessor organizations was largely interrupted by the onset of World War II.

After the signing of the Atlantic Charter and the Declaration of the United Nations, the Conference of Allied Ministers of Education (CAME) began meetings in London which continued between 16 November 1942 to 5 December 1945. On 30 October 1943, the necessity for an international organization was expressed in the Moscow Declaration, agreed upon by China, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and the USSR. This was followed by the Dumbarton Oaks Conference proposals of 9 October 1944. Upon the proposal of CAME and in accordance with the recommendations of the United Nations Conference on International Organization (UNCIO), held in San Francisco in April–June 1945, a United Nations Conference for the establishment of an educational and cultural organization (ECO/CONF) was convened in London 1–16 November 1945. 44 governments were represented. At the ECO/CONF, the Constitution of UNESCO was introduced and signed by 37 countries, and a Preparatory Commission was established.^[11] The Preparatory Commission operated between 16 November 1945, and 4 November 1946—the date when UNESCO’s Constitution came into force with the deposit of the twentieth ratification by a member state.^[12]

The first General Conference took place from 19 November to 10 December 1946, and elected Dr. Julian Huxley to the post of Director-General.^[13] The Constitution was amended in November 1954 when the General Conference resolved that members of the Executive Board would be representatives of the governments of the States of which they are nationals and would not, as before, act in their personal capacity.^[14] This change in governance distinguished UNESCO from its predecessor, the CICI, in terms of how member states would work together in the Organization’s fields of competence. As member states worked together over time to realize UNESCO’s mandate, political and historical factors have shaped the Organization’s operations in particular during the Cold War, the decolonization process, and the dissolution of the USSR.

Among the major achievements of the Organization is its work against racism, for example through influential statements on race starting with a declaration of anthropologists (among them was Claude Lévi-Strauss) and other scientists in 1950^[15] and concluding with the 1978 Declaration on Race and Racial Prejudice.^[16] In 1956, the Republic of South Africa withdrew from UNESCO claiming that some of the Organization’s publications amounted to “interference” in the country’s “racial problems.”^[17] South Africa rejoined the Organization in 1994 under the leadership of Nelson Mandela.

UNESCO’s early work in the field of education included the pilot project on fundamental education in the Marbial Valley, Haiti, started in 1947.^[18] This project was followed by expert missions to other countries, including, for example, a mission to Afghanistan in 1949.^[19] In 1948, UNESCO recommended that Member States should make free primary education compulsory and universal.^[20] In 1990 the World Conference on Education for All, in Jomtien, Thailand, launched a global movement to provide basic education for all children, youths and adults.^[21] Ten years later, the 2000 World Education Forum held in Dakar, Senegal, led member governments to commit to achieving basic education for all by 2015.^[22]

UNESCO’s early activities in the field of culture included, for example, the Nubia Campaign, launched in 1960.^[23] The purpose of the campaign was to move the Great Temple of Abu Simbel to keep it from being swamped by the Nile after construction of the Aswan Dam. During the 20-year campaign, 22 monuments and architectural complexes were relocated. This was the first and largest in a series of campaigns including Mohenjo-daro (Pakistan), Fes (Morocco), Kathmandu (Nepal), Borobudur (Indonesia) and the Acropolis (Greece). The Organization’s work on heritage led to the adoption, in 1972, of the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage.^[24] The World Heritage Committee was established in 1976 and the first sites inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1978.^[25] Since then important legal instruments on cultural heritage and diversity have been adopted by UNESCO member states in 2003 (Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage^[26]) and 2005 (Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions^[27]).

An intergovernmental meeting of UNESCO in Paris in December 1951 led to the creation of the European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN)^[28] in 1954.

Arid Zone programming, 1948–1966, is another example of an early major UNESCO project in the field of natural sciences.^[29] In 1968, UNESCO organized the first intergovernmental conference aimed at reconciling the environment and development, a problem which continues to be addressed in the field of sustainable development. The main outcome of the 1968 conference was the creation of UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Programme.^[30]

In the field of communication, the free flow of information has been a priority for UNESCO from its beginnings. In the years immediately following World War II, efforts were concentrated on reconstruction and on the identification of needs for means of mass communication around the world. UNESCO started organizing training and education for journalists in the 1950s.^[31] In response to calls for a "New World Information and Communication Order" in the late 1970s, UNESCO established the International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems,^[32] which produced the 1980 MacBride report (named after the Chair of the Commission, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Seán MacBride).^[33] Following the MacBride report, UNESCO introduced the Information Society for All^[34] programme and Toward Knowledge Societies^[35] programme in the lead up to the World Summit on the Information Society in 2003 (Geneva) and 2005 (Tunis).

In 2011, Palestine became a UNESCO member following a vote in which 107 member states supported and 14 opposed.^[36][37] Laws passed in the United States in 1990 and 1994 mean that it cannot contribute financially to any UN organisation that accepts Palestine as a full member. As a result, it will withdraw its funding which accounts for about 22% of UNESCO's budget.^[38] Israel also reacted to Palestine's admittance to UNESCO by freezing Israel payments to the UNESCO and imposing sanctions to the Palestinian Authority,^[39] claiming that Palestine's admittance would be detrimental "to potential peace talks".^[40]

Activities[link]

UNESCO offices in Brasília

UNESCO implements its activities through the five programme areas of Education, Natural Sciences, Social and Human Sciences, Culture, and Communication and Information.

• Education: UNESCO supports research in Comparative education; and provides expertise and fosters partnerships to strengthen national educational leadership and the capacity of countries to offer quality education for all. This includes the
  • Eight specialized Institutes in different topics of the sector
  • UNESCO Chairs, an international network of 644 UNESCO Chairs, involving over 770 institutions in 126 countries.
  • Environmental Conservation Organisation
  • Organization of the International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA) in an interval of 12 years
  • Publication of the Education for All Global Monitoring Report
  • UNESCO ASPNet, an international network of 8,000 schools in 170 countries

UNESCO does not accredit institutions of higher learning.^[41]

• UNESCO also issues public 'statements' to educate the public:
  • Seville Statement on Violence: A statement adopted by UNESCO in 1989 to refute the notion that humans are biologically predisposed to organised violence.

• Designating projects and places of cultural and scientific significance, such as:
  • International Network of Geoparks
  • Biosphere reserves, through the Programme on Man and the Biosphere (MAB), since 1971
  • City of Literature; in 2007, the first city to be given this title was Edinburgh, the site of Scotland's first circulating library.^[42] In 2008, Iowa City, Iowa became the City of Literature.
  • Endangered languages and linguistic diversity projects
  • Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity
  • Memory of the World International Register, since 1997
  • Water resources management, through the International Hydrological Programme (IHP), since 1965
  • World Heritage Sites

• Encouraging the "free flow of ideas by images and words" by:
  • Promoting freedom of expression, press freedom and access to information, through the International Programme for the Development of Communication and the Communication and Information Programme
  • Promoting universal access to ICTs, through the Information for All Programme (IFAP)
  • Promoting Pluralism and cultural diversity in the media

• Promoting events, such as:
  • International Decade for the Promotion of a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World: 2001–2010, proclaimed by the UN in 1998
  • World Press Freedom Day, 3 May each year, to promote freedom of expression and freedom of the press as a basic human right and as crucial components of any healthy, democratic and free society.
  • Criança Esperança in Brazil, in partnership with Rede Globo, to raise funds for community-based projects that foster social integration and violence prevention.
  • International Literacy Day
  • International Year for the Culture of Peace

• Founding and funding projects, such as:
  • Migration Museums Initiative: Promoting the establishment of museums for cultural dialogue with migrant populations.^[43]
  • UNESCO-CEPES, the European Centre for Higher Education: established in 1972 in Bucharest, Romania, as a de-centralized office to promote international co-operation in higher education in Europe as well as Canada, USA and Israel. Higher Education in Europe is its official journal.
  • Free Software Directory: since 1998 UNESCO and the Free Software Foundation have jointly funded this project cataloguing free software.
  • FRESH Focussing Resources on Effective School Health.^[44]
  • OANA, the Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies
  • International Council of Science
  • UNESCO Goodwill Ambassadors
  • ASOMPS, Asian Symposium on Medicinal Plants and Spices, a series of scientific conferences held in Asia
  • Botany 2000, a programme supporting taxonomy, and biological and cultural diversity of medicinal and ornamental plants, and their protection against environmental pollution

Official UNESCO NGOs[link]

UNESCO enjoys official relations with 322 international non-governmental organizations (NGOs).^[45] Most of these are what UNESCO calls "operational", a select few are "formal".^[46] The highest form of affiliation to UNESCO is "formal associate", and the 22 NGOs^[47] with formal associate (ASC) relations occupying offices at UNESCO are:

1. International Baccalaureate (IB)
2. Coordinating Committee for International Voluntary Service (CCIVS)
3. Education International (EI)
4. International Association of Universities (IAU)
5. International Council for Film, Television and Audiovisual Communication (IFTC)
6. International Council for Philosophy and Humanistic Studies (ICPHS) which publishes Diogenes
7. International Council for Science (ICSU)
8. International Council of Museums (ICOM), whose Director General is currently Mr Julien Anfruns
9. International Council of Sport Science and Physical Education (ICSSPE)
10. International Council on Archives (ICA)
11. International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS)
12. International Federation of Journalists (IFJ)
13. International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA)
14. International Federation of Poetry Associations (IFPA)
15. International Music Council (IMC)
16. International Scientific Council for Island Development (INSULA)
17. International Social Science Council (ISSC)
18. International Theatre Institute (ITI)
19. International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN)
20. International Union of Technical Associations and Organizations
21. Union of International Associations (UIA)
22. World Association of Newspapers (WAN)
23. World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO)
24. World Federation of UNESCO Clubs, Centres and Associations (WFUCA)

UNESCO Institutes and Centres[link]

UNESCO Institute for Water Education in Delft

The institutes are specialized departments of the Organization that support UNESCO's programme, providing specialized support for cluster and national offices.

• UNESCO Centre in British Virgin Islands www.unesco.vg

• UNESCO International Bureau of Education (IBE)
• UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning
• UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP)
• UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE)
• UNESCO International Institute for Capacity-Building in Africa (IICBA)
• UNESCO International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (IESALC); Caracas (Venezuela) contributes to the development and transformation of the tertiary education through the reinforcement of a work plan that, among other purposes, attempts to be an instrument to support the management of change and the required transformations in order that higher education in the region becomes an effective promoter of a culture of peace that allows to make viable - in an age of globalization - the human sustainable development based on principles of justice, equity, freedom, solidarity, democracy and respect of the human rights.
• UNESCO International Centre for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (UNEVOC)
• UNESCO European Centre for Higher Education (CEPES)
• UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education (UNESCO-IHE)
• International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP)
• UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS); Montreal (Canada) provides an impressive collection of up to date statistics in the fields of education, science and technology, culture and communication.

Official list of UNESCO prizes[link]

UNESCO currently awards 22 prizes^[48] in education, science, culture and peace:

• Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize
• L’Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science
• UNESCO/King Sejong Literacy Prize
• UNESCO/Confucius Prize for Literacy
• UNESCO/Emir Jaber al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah Prize to promote Quality Education for Persons with Intellectual Disabilities
• UNESCO King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize for the Use of Information and Communication Technologies in Education
• UNESCO/Hamdan Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum Prize for Outstanding Practice and Performance in Enhancing the Effectiveness of Teachers
• UNESCO/Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science
• UNESCO/Institut Pasteur Medal for an outstanding contribution to the development of scientific knowledge that has a beneficial impact on human health
• UNESCO/Sultan Qaboos Prize for Environmental Preservation
• Great Man-Made River International Water Prize for Water Resources in Arid Zones presented by UNESCO (title to be reconsidered)
• Michel Batisse Award for Biosphere Reserve Management
• UNESCO/Bilbao Prize for the Promotion of a Culture of Human Rights
• UNESCO Prize for Peace Education
• UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and Non-Violence
• UNESCO/International José Martí Prize
• UNESCO/Avicenna Prize for Ethics in Science
• UNESCO/Juan Bosch Prize for the Promotion of Social Science Research in Latin America and the Caribbean
• Sharjah Prize for Arab Culture
• Melina Mercouri International Prize for the Safeguarding and Management of Cultural Landscapes (UNESCO-Greece)
• IPDC-UNESCO Prize for Rural Communication
• UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize
• UNESCO/Jikji Memory of the World Prize

Inactive UNESCO prizes[link]

• Carlos J. Finlay Prize for Microbiology (inactive since 2005)
• International Simón Bolívar Prize (inactive since 2004)
• UNESCO Prize for Human Rights Education
• UNESCO/Obiang Nguema Mbasogo International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences (inactive since 2010)
• UNESCO Prize for the Promotion of the Arts

Member states[link]

As of October 2011^[update], UNESCO counts 195 member states and 8 associate members.^[49] Some members are not independent states and some members have additional National Organizing Committees from some of their dependent territories.^[50] UNESCO state parties are most of the United Nations member states (except Liechtenstein), Cook Islands and Niue.^[51][52]

UNESCO's governing bodies[link]

Director-General[link]

Elections for the renewal of the position of Director-General took place in Paris from 7 September to 23 September 2009. Eight candidates ran for the position, and 58 countries^[53] voted for them. The Executive Council gathered from 7 September to 23 September, the vote itself beginning on the 17th. Irina Bokova was elected the new Director-General.

This is the list of the Directors-General of UNESCO since its establishment in 1946:^[54]

1. Julian Huxley (1946–1948)
2. Jaime Torres Bodet (1948–1952)
3. John Wilkinson Taylor (acting 1952–1953)
4. Luther Evans (1953–1958)
5. Vittorino Veronese (1958–1961)
6. René Maheu (1961–1974; acting 1961)
7. Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow (1974–1987)
8. Federico Mayor Zaragoza (1987–1999)
9. Koïchiro Matsuura (1999–2009)
10. Irina Bokova (2009– )

General Conference[link]

This is the list of the sessions of UNESCO General Conference held since 1946:^[55]

UNESCO offices[link]

UNESCO has offices in many locations across the globe; its headquarters are located at Place de Fontenoy in Paris, France.

UNESCO's field offices are categorized into four primary office types based upon their function and geographic coverage: cluster offices, national offices, regional bureaux and liaison offices.

UNESCO field offices by region[link]

The following list of all UNESCO Field Offices is organized geographically by UNESCO Region and identifies the members states and associate members of UNESCO which are served by each office.^[56]

Africa[link]

• Abuja – National Office to Nigeria
• Accra – Cluster Office for Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Togo
• Addis Ababa – Liaison Office with the African Union and with the Economic Commission for Africa
• Bamako – Cluster Office for Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali and Niger
• Brazzaville – National Office to the Republic of the Congo
• Bujumbura – National Office to Burundi
• Dakar – Regional Bureau for Education in Africa and Cluster Office for Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, and Senegal
• Dar es Salaam – Cluster Office for Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles and Tanzania
• Harare – Cluster Office for Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe
• Kinshasa – National Office to the Democratic Republic of Congo
• Libreville – Cluster Office for the Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Sao Tome and Principe
• Maputo – National Office to Mozambique
• Nairobi – Regional Bureau for Sciences in Africa and Cluster Office for Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan and Uganda
• Windhoek – Cluster Office to Angola, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland
• Yaoundé – Cluster Office to Cameroon, Central African Republic and Chad

Arab States[link]

• Iraq – National Office for Iraq (currently located in Amman, Jordan)
• Amman – National Office to Jordan
• Beirut – Regional Bureau for Education in the Arab States and Cluster Office to Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Palestine
• Cairo – Regional Bureau for Sciences in the Arab States and Cluster Office for Egypt, Libya and Sudan
• Doha – Cluster Office to Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen
• Khartoum – National Office to Sudan
• Rabat – Cluster Office to Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia

Asia and Pacific[link]

• Almaty – Cluster Office to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan
• Apia – Cluster Office to Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Tokelau (Associate Member)
• Bangkok – Regional Bureau for Education in Asia and the Pacific and Cluster Office to Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Singapore, Vietnam and Cambodia
• Beijing – Cluster Office to North Korea, Japan, Mongolia, the People's Republic of China and South Korea
• Dhaka – National Office to Bangladesh
• Hanoi – National Office to Vietnam
• Islamabad – National Office to Pakistan
• Jakarta – Regional Bureau for Sciences in Asia and the Pacific and Cluster Office to Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and East Timor
• Kabul – National Office to Afghanistan
• Kathmandu – National Office to Nepal
• New Delhi – Cluster Office to Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka
• Phnom Penh – National Office to Cambodia
• Tashkent – National Office to Uzbekistan
• Tehran – Cluster Office to Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Turkmenistan

Europe and North America[link]

This article may be confusing or unclear to readers. Please help clarify the article; suggestions may be found on the talk page. (January 2012)

• Brussels – Liaison Office to the European Union and its subsidiary bodies in Brussels
• Geneva – Liaison Office to the United Nations in Geneva
• New York City – Liaison Office to the United Nations in New York
• Moscow – Cluster Office to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Moldova and Russia
• Venice – Regional Bureau for Sciences and Culture in Europe and North America

Latin America and the Caribbean[link]

• Brasilia – National Office to Brazil
• Guatemala City – National Office to Guatemala
• Havana – Regional Bureau for Culture in Latin America and the Caribbean and Cluster Office to Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti and Aruba
• Kingston – Cluster Office to Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago as well as the associate member states of British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Curaçao and Sint Maarten
• Lima – National Office to Peru
• Mexico City – National Office to Mexico
• Montevideo – Regional Bureau for Sciences in Latin America and the Caribbean and Cluster Office to Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay
• Port-au-Prince – National Office to Haiti
• Quito – Cluster Office to Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela
• San José – Cluster Office to Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua and Panama
• Santiago de Chile – Regional Bureau for Education in Latin America and the Caribbean and National Office to Chile

Controversy and reform[link]

New World Information and Communication order[link]

UNESCO has been the centre of controversy in the past, particularly in its relationships with the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore and the former Soviet Union. During the 1970s and 1980s, UNESCO's support for a "New World Information and Communication Order" and its MacBride report calling for democratization of the media and more egalitarian access to information was condemned in these countries as attempts to curb freedom of the press. UNESCO was perceived by some[4] as a platform for communists and Third World dictators to attack the West, a stark contrast to accusations made by the USSR in the late 1940s and early 1950s.^[57] In 1984, the United States withheld its contributions and withdrew from the organization in protest, followed by the United Kingdom in 1985. Singapore took the opportunity to withdraw also at the end of 1985, citing rising membership fees.^[58] Following a change of government in 1997, the UK rejoined. The United States rejoined in 2003, followed by Singapore on 8 October 2007.

Internal reforms[link]

This article is about an event or subject that may not be current but does not specify the time period. Please help improve it to include this information as Wikipedia is viewed by a worldwide audience. The talk page may contain suggestions. (August 2011)

Part of the reason for their change of stance was due to considerable reforms implemented by UNESCO over the past 10 years.^[when?] These included the following measures: the number of divisions in UNESCO was cut in half, allowing a corresponding halving of the number of Directors—from 200 to under 100, out of a total staff of approximately 2,000 worldwide.^{[citation needed]} At the same time, the number of field units was cut from a peak of 1,287 in 1998^{[citation needed]} to 93 today.^{[citation needed]} Parallel management structures, including 35 Cabinet-level special adviser positions, were abolished.^{[citation needed]} Between 1998 and 2009, 245 negotiated staff departures and buy-outs took place, causing the inherited $12 million staff cost deficit to disappear.^{[citation needed]} The staff pyramid, which was the most top-heavy in the UN system, was cut back as the number of high-level posts was halved and the "inflation" of posts was reversed through the down-grading of many positions. Open competitive recruitment, results-based appraisal of staff, training of all managers and field rotation were instituted, as well as SISTER and SAP systems for transparency in results-based programming and budgeting.^{[citation needed]} In addition, the Internal Oversight Service (IOS) was established in 2001 to improve organizational performance by including the lessons learned from programme evaluations into the overall reform process. It regularly carries out audits of UNESCO offices that essentially look into administrative and procedural compliance, but do not assess the relevance and usefulness of the activities and projects that are carried out. At least in theory, the evaluation of the relevance and effectiveness of programmes is carried out by the Evaluation Section of IOS, although evidence of using "lessons learned" in programming is less clear and not always free from donor preferences.^{[citation needed]}

Israel[link]

Israel was admitted to UNESCO in 1949, one year after its creation. In 1974, UNESCO stripped Israel of its membership on the grounds of alleged damage being done by Israel's archaeological excavations on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. UNESCO defended this decision with two statements in 1974 and 1975, but renewed Israel's membership in 1977, after the United States threatened to withhold $40 million of funding from the organization.^[59]

In 2010, Israel designated the Tomb of the Patriarchs, Hebron and Rachel's Tomb, Bethlehem as National Heritage Sites and announced restoration work, prompting criticism from the United States and protests from Palestinians.^[60] In October 2010, UNESCO’s Executive Board voted to declare the sites as "al-Haram al-Ibrahimi/Tomb of the Patriarchs" and "Bilal bin Rabah Mosque/Rachel’s Tomb" and stated that they were "an integral part of the occupied Palestinian Territories" and any unilateral Israeli action was a violation of international law.^[61] UNESCO described the sites as significant to "people of the Muslim, Christian and Jewish traditions", and accused Israel of highlighting only the Jewish character of the sites.^[62] Israel in turn accused UNESCO of "detach[ing] the Nation of Israel from its heritage", and accused it of being politically motivated.^[63] The Rabbi of the Western Wall claimed that Rachel's tomb had not previously been declared a holy Muslim site.^[64] Israel partially suspended ties with UNESCO. Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon declared that the resolution was a "part of Palestinian escalation". Zevulun Orlev, chairman of the Knesset Education and Culture Committee, referred to the resolutions as an attempt to undermine the mission of UNESCO as a scientific and cultural organization that promotes cooperation throughout the world.^[65][66]

On June 28, 2011, UNESCO's World Heritage Committee, at Jordan's insistence, censured Israel's decision to demolish and rebuild the Mughrabi Gate Bridge in Jerusalem for safety reasons. Israel stated that Jordan had signed an agreement with Israel stipulating that the existing bridge must be razed for safety reasons; Jordan disputed the agreement, saying it was only signed under U.S. pressure. Israel was also unable to address the UNESCO committee over objections from Egypt.^[67]

Palestinian Authority[link]

In February 2011, an article was published in a Palestinian youth magazine in which a teenage girl described one of her four role-models as Adolf Hitler. In December 2011, UNESCO, which partly funded the magazine, condemned the material and subsequently withdrew support.^[68]

References and notes[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: UNESCO

• UNESCO.org Official UNESCO website
• NGO-db.UNESCO.org A searchable database of organizations maintaining official relations with UNESCO
• UNESCO – Institute for Statistics
• UNESCO – International Bureau of Education
• UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning

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Claudia Rosett is an American writer and journalist. She is journalist-in-residence at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a policy institute based in Washington, D.C.^[1][2] A former staff writer for The Wall Street Journal, she writes a weekly column for Forbes, blogs for Pajamas Media, and makes guest appearances on television and radio.^[3]

Background[link]

Rosett earned a B.A. in English at Yale University in 1976, an M.A. in English at Columbia University in 1979, and an MBA at the University of Chicago in 1981.^[1]

She joined The Wall Street Journal in 1984, becoming the editorial page editor at The Asian Wall Street Journal in 1986. In 1992 she moved to India and then on to Moscow in 1993, first as a reporter for the Journal, then as Moscow Bureau Chief, before taking leave in 1996. In 1997 she returned to New York where she served on the editorial board of the Journal until 2002. She wrote a regular column called "The Real World" for The Wall Street Journal Europe and OpinionJournal.com from July 2000 to December 2005.

In 1990 she received an Overseas Press Club Citation for Excellence in recognition of her on-the-scene reporting of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.^[4] In 1994 she broke the full story of North Korean labor camps in the Russian Far East, reporting from the camps.^[1]

Rosett has written for National Review, The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, USA Today, Commentary, The New Republic and The Weekly Standard, among others.^[1]

On the United Nations[link]

Rosett is a frequent critic of the United Nations. In 2004 and 2005, she wrote a series of articles exposing the corruption behind the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food program.^[5] As U.S. News and World Report senior writer Michael Barone explained:^[6]

The U.N. Oil for Food program, we learn from the reporting of Claudia Rosett in The Wall Street Journal, was a rip-off on the order of $21 billion — with money intended for hungry Iraqis going instead to Saddam Hussein and his henchmen, to bribed French and Russian businesses and, evidently, to the U.N.'s own man in charge, Benon Sevan. For this work, she was honored with the 2005 Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism^[7] and a "Mightier Pen" award from the Center for Security Policy.^[8]

In June–July 2006, Rosett covered the trial of Tongsun Park via a blog at the National Review's website.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Rosett's biography at the FDD website
• Rosett's columns for Forbes
• The Rosett Report, Rosett's blog at Pajamas Media
• Rosett's archived columns at National Review Online

Irina Bokova
Irina Bokova at the 6th World Water Forum
Born	(1952-07-12) 12 July 1952 (age 59) Sofia, Bulgaria
Residence	Paris, France
Alma mater	Moscow State Institute of International Relations
Occupation	Director-General of UNESCO
Spouse	Lubomir Kolarov (divorced), Kalin Mitrev
Children	Paul and Naia
Website
www.irinabokova.com

Irina Georgieva Bokova (Bulgarian: Ирина Георгиева Бокова) (born 12 July 1952) is a Bulgarian politician and incumbent Director-General of UNESCO. She was member of the Bulgarian Parliament from the Bulgarian Socialist Party for two terms, minister and deputy minister of foreign affairs in the socialist cabinet of Prime Minister Zhan Videnov,^[1] and was Ambassador of the Republic of Bulgaria to France^[2] and to Monaco, Permanent Delegate of Bulgaria to UNESCO and Personal Representative of the President of Bulgaria to the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (2005–2009). On 22 September 2009, Bokova's candidacy was proposed for the post of Director-General of UNESCO. On 15 October 2009, The 35th Session of the General Conference elected Irina Bokova of Bulgaria as the tenth Director-General of UNESCO. Bokova is the first female and Eastern European to head UNESCO.

Childhood and early years[link]

Irina Bokova is the daughter of the controversial communist-era politician Georgi Bokov, editor-in-chief of Rabotnichesko Delo, the official newspaper and organ of the Bulgarian Communist Party.^[3] By descent Bokova is Bulgarian from Macedonia.^[4] Bokova is a graduate of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. Subsequently, she worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria, eventually becoming Minister in the winter of 1996 - 1997. She was a member of the Bulgarian communist party until 1990.

Education[link]

• 1971: First English Language School, Sofia.
• 1976: Moscow State Institute of International Relations, M.Sc. in international relations.
• Jan. - Aug. 1989: University of Maryland, School of Public Affairs, Washington, D.C., Program on US foreign policy decision-making process.
• 1992 - 1994: NATO fellow, Program for Central and Eastern Europe on democratic institutions focusing on the national and legal mechanism for the protection of minorities.
• Nov. - Dec. 1999: Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Executive Program in Leadership and Economic Development.^[5]

Awards and decorations[link]

Career[link]

Current positions[link]

• Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
• Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Bulgaria to France.
• Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Bulgaria to the Principality of Monaco.^[5]
• Permanent Delegate of the Republic of Bulgaria to UNESCO.
• Representative of the Bulgarian Government to the Executive Board of UNESCO (since the election of Bulgaria in October 2007).
• Personal Representative of the President of the Republic of Bulgaria to Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF).
• Deputy Chairperson, Group of Francophone Countries at UNESCO.
• Chairperson of the Second Extraordinary Session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (February 2008, Sofia).
• Member of the Literary group Prix des Ambassadeur.

Parliamentary experience[link]

• Deputy Chairperson of the Foreign Policy, Defense and Security Committee.
• Member of the European Integration Committee.
• Deputy Chairperson of the Joint Parliamentary Committee Bulgaria – European Union.

Civil Society experience[link]

• Founder and Chairperson of the European Policy Forum (since its inception in Sofia in 1997), a non-profit, non-governmental organization.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs experience[link]

November 1996 - February 1997:

• Minister of Foreign Affairs, cabinet of Zhan Videnov, Bulgarian Socialist Party

June 1995 - February 1997, other positions held in the cabinet of Zhan Videnov, Bulgarian Socialist Party:

• First Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs in charge of UN, OSCE, EU and NATO.
• Chief co-ordinator of Bulgaria–EU relations.^[5]
• Co-Chairperson, Bulgaria – EU Association Committee.^[5]
• National PHARE Co-ordinator.^[5]
• Chairperson, Inter-Agency Co-ordination Commission on European Integration (at deputy ministerial level).
• Took part as head of delegation or keynote speaker in a number of international fora.
• Member of the Board of Trustees of the Centre for European Studies.

UNESCO[link]

On 22 September 2009, Bokova was elected Director-General of UNESCO.^[1] She defeated nine candidates at the election in Paris, with Farouk Hosny ultimately being defeated by 31-27 in the fifth and last round of voting.^[1][2] Hosny had been expected to win but attracted criticism from figures such as Nobel Peace laureate Elie Wiesel over his anti-Israel statements.^[1][6] She takes over the position from Koïchiro Matsuura of Japan.^[1] She will serve in this office for a four-year period.^[2] Bokova is both the first woman and the first Eastern European to take this role.^[1] On 15 October 2009, The 35th Session of the General Conference elected Irina Bokova of Bulgaria as the tenth Director-General of UNESCO. The investiture took place in a ceremony in Room I in the afternoon of Friday 23 October 2009.

Controversy[link]

While some of the Bulgarian media was supportive^[7] of Ms. Bokova's future role at the helm of UNESCO, others raised questions about her pas as a member of the totalitarian communist elite.^[8] Thus, the Bulgarian-born Germany-based writer Iliya Troyanov criticised Bokova's election as Director-General of UNESCO in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, calling it "a scandal," in light of Bokova's past.^[9] The Moscow Institute of International Relations was infamous for preparing the communist cadre to be planeted abroad. On the other hand, the left-leaning New York Times supported her nomination on the grounds that "[s]he played an active role in Bulgaria’s political transformation from Soviet satellite to European Union member. That should be a strong asset in leading an organization badly buffeted in the past by ideological storms." ^[10] The logic of this endorsment is unclear, however: how does the former member of a deeply ideological, communist party help an organinization ``buffeted in the past by ideological storms?"

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website (under Creative Commons License)

Herbie Hancock
Hancock in concert at the Nice Jazz Festival 2010
Background information
Birth name	Herbert Jeffrey Hancock
Also known as	Herbie Hancock
Born	(1940-04-12) April 12, 1940 (age 72) Chicago, Illinois, United States
Genres	Jazz, bebop, post bop, jazz fusion, hard bop, jazz-funk, funk, R&B, electro funk, classical
Occupations	Musician, composer, bandleader
Instruments	Piano, synthesizer, organ, clavinet, keytar, vocoder
Years active	1961–present
Labels	Columbia, Blue Note, Verve, Warner Bros.
Associated acts	Miles Davis Quintet, Jaco Pastorius, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder
Website	www.herbiehancock.com

Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American pianist, keyboardist, bandleader and composer.^[1] As part of Miles Davis's Second Great Quintet, Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound. He was one of the first jazz musicians to embrace music synthesizers and funk music (characterized by syncopated drum beats). Hancock's music is often melodic and accessible; he has had many songs "cross over" and achieved success among pop audiences. His music embraces elements of funk and soul while adopting freer stylistic elements from jazz. In his jazz improvisation, he possesses a unique creative blend of jazz, blues, and modern classical music, with harmonic stylings much like the styles of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.

Hancock's best-known solo works include "Cantaloupe Island", "Watermelon Man" (later performed by dozens of musicians, including bandleader Mongo Santamaría), "Maiden Voyage", "Chameleon", and the singles "I Thought It Was You" and "Rockit". His 2007 tribute album River: The Joni Letters won the 2008 Grammy Award for Album of the Year, only the second jazz album ever to win the award after Getz/Gilberto in 1965.

Hancock is a member of Sōka Gakkai International.^[2][3]

On July 22, 2011 at a ceremony in Paris, Hancock was named UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for the promotion of Intercultural Dialogue.

Early life and career[link]

Hancock was born in Chicago, Illinois. Like many jazz pianists, Hancock started with a classical music education. He studied from age seven, and his talent was recognized early. Considered a child prodigy,^[4] he played the first movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 5 at a young people's concert with the Chicago Symphony at age eleven.^[5]

Through his teens, Hancock never had a jazz teacher, but developed his ear and sense of harmony. He was also influenced by records of the vocal group the Hi-Lo's. He reported that:

the time I actually heard the Hi-Lo's, I started picking that stuff out; my ear was happening. I could hear stuff and that's when I really learned some much farther-out voicings -like the harmonies I used on 'Speak Like a Child' -just being able to do that. I really got that from Clare Fischer's arrangements for the Hi-Lo's. Clare Fischer was a major influence on my harmonic concept... He and Bill Evans, and Ravel and Gil Evans, finally. You know, that's where it came from.^[6]

In 1960, he heard Chris Anderson play just once, and begged him to accept him as a student.^[7] Hancock often mentions Anderson as his harmonic guru. Hancock left Grinnell College, moved to Chicago and began working with Donald Byrd and Coleman Hawkins, during which period he also took courses at Roosevelt University. (He later graduated from Grinnell with degrees in electrical engineering and music. Grinnell also awarded him an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree in 1972).^[5][8] Donald Byrd was attending the Manhattan School of Music in New York at the time and suggested that Hancock study composition with Vittorio Giannini, which he did for a short time in 1960. The pianist quickly earned a reputation, and played subsequent sessions with Oliver Nelson and Phil Woods. He recorded his first solo album Takin' Off for Blue Note Records in 1962. "Watermelon Man" (from Takin' Off) was to provide Mongo Santamaría with a hit single, but more importantly for Hancock, Takin' Off caught the attention of Miles Davis, who was at that time assembling a new band. Hancock was introduced to Davis by the young drummer Tony Williams, a member of the new band.

Miles Davis quintet and Blue Note[link]

Hancock received considerable attention when, in May 1963,^[5] he joined Miles Davis's Second Great Quintet. Davis personally sought out Hancock, whom he saw as one of the most promising talents in jazz. The rhythm section Davis organized was young but effective, comprising bassist Ron Carter, 17-year-old drummer Tony Williams, and Hancock on piano. After George Coleman and Sam Rivers each took a turn at the saxophone spot, the quintet would gel with Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone. This quintet is often regarded as one of the finest jazz ensembles, and the rhythm section has been especially praised for its innovation and flexibility.

The second great quintet was where Hancock found his own voice as a pianist. Not only did he find new ways to use common chords, but he also popularized chords that had not previously been used in jazz. Hancock also developed a unique taste for "orchestral" accompaniment – using quartal harmony and Debussy-like harmonies, with stark contrasts then unheard of in jazz. With Williams and Carter he wove a labyrinth of rhythmic intricacy on, around and over existing melodic and chordal schemes. In the later half of the sixties their approach became so sophisticated and unorthodox that conventional chord changes would hardly be discernible; hence their improvisational concept would become known as "Time, No Changes". 

While in Davis's band, Hancock also found time to record dozens of sessions for the Blue Note label, both under his own name and as a sideman with other musicians such as Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams, Grant Green, Bobby Hutcherson, Sam Rivers, Donald Byrd, Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobley, Lee Morgan and Freddie Hubbard.

His albums Empyrean Isles (1964) and Maiden Voyage (1965) were to be two of the most famous and influential jazz LPs of the sixties, winning praise for both their innovation and accessibility (the latter demonstrated by the subsequent enormous popularity of the Maiden Voyage title track as a jazz standard, and by the jazz rap group US3 having a hit single with "Cantaloop" (derived from "Cantaloupe Island" on Empyrean Isles) some twenty five years later). Empyrean Isles featured the Davis rhythm section of Hancock, Carter and Williams with the addition of Freddie Hubbard on cornet, while Maiden Voyage also added former Davis saxophonist George Coleman (with Hubbard remaining on trumpet). Both albums are regarded as among the principal foundations of the post-bop style. Hancock also recorded several less-well-known but still critically acclaimed albums with larger ensembles – My Point of View (1963), Speak Like a Child (1968) and The Prisoner (1969) featured flugelhorn, alto flute and bass trombone. 1963's Inventions and Dimensions was an album of almost entirely improvised music, teaming Hancock with bassist Paul Chambers and two Latin percussionists, Willie Bobo and Osvaldo "Chihuahua" Martinez.

During this period, Hancock also composed the score to Michelangelo Antonioni's film Blowup, the first of many soundtracks he recorded in his career.

Davis had begun incorporating elements of rock and popular music into his recordings by the end of Hancock's tenure with the band. Despite some initial reluctance, Hancock began doubling on electric keyboards including the Fender Rhodes electric piano at Davis's insistence. Hancock adapted quickly to the new instruments, which proved to be instrumental in his future artistic endeavors.

Under the pretext that he had returned late from a honeymoon in Brazil, Hancock was dismissed from Davis's band. In the summer of 1968 Hancock formed his own sextet. However, although Davis soon disbanded his quintet to search for a new sound, Hancock, despite his departure from the working band, continued to appear on Miles Davis records for the next few years. Noteworthy appearances include In a Silent Way, A Tribute to Jack Johnson and On the Corner.

[edit] Fat Albert and Mwandishi

Hancock playing a Roland AX-7 keytar, at The Roundhouse, Camden, London, 2006

Hancock left Blue Note in 1969, signing up with Warner Bros. Records. In 1969, Hancock composed the soundtrack for the Bill Cosby animated children's television show Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. Titled Fat Albert Rotunda, the album was mainly an R&B-influenced album with strong jazz overtones. One of the jazzier songs on the record, "Tell Me A Bedtime Story", was later re-worked as a more electronic sounding song for the Quincy Jones album, Sounds...and Stuff Like That.

Hancock became fascinated with accumulating musical gadgets and toys. Together with the profound influence of Davis's Bitches Brew, this fascination would culminate in a series of albums in which electronic instruments are coupled with acoustic instruments.

Hancock's first ventures into electronic music started with a sextet comprising Hancock, bassist Buster Williams and drummer Billy Hart, and a trio of horn players: Eddie Henderson (trumpet), Julian Priester (trombone), and multireedist Bennie Maupin. Dr. Patrick Gleeson was eventually added to the mix to play and program the synthesizers. In fact, Hancock was one of the first jazz pianists to completely embrace electronic keyboards.^{[citation needed]}

The sextet, later a septet with the addition of Gleeson, made three experimental albums under Hancock's name: Mwandishi (1971), Crossings (1972) (both on Warner Bros. Records), and Sextant (1973) (released on Columbia Records); two more, Realization and Inside Out, were recorded under Henderson's name with essentially the same personnel. The music often had very free improvisations and showed influence from the electronic music of some contemporary classical composers.

Synthesizer player Patrick Gleeson, one of the first musicians to play synthesizer on any jazz recording, introduced the instrument on Crossings, released in 1972, one of a handful of influential electronic jazz/fusion recordings to feature synthesizer that same year. On Crossings (as well as on I Sing the Body Electric), the synthesizer is used more as an improvisatory global orchestration device than as a strictly melodic instrument. This reflected Gleeson's (and Powell's) interest in contemporary European electronic music techniques and in the West Coast synthesis techniques of Morton Subotnick and other contemporaries, several of whom were resident at one time or another, as was Gleeson, at The Mills College Tape Music Center. An early review of Crossings in Downbeat magazine complained about the synthesizer, but a few years later the magazine noted in a cover story on Gleeson that he was "a pioneer" in the field of electronics in jazz. Gleeson used a modular Moog III for the recording of the album, but used an ARP 2600 synthesizer, and occasionally an ARP Soloist for the group's live performances. On Sextant Gleeson used the more compact ARP synthesizers instead of the larger Moog III for both studio and live performances. In the albums following The Crossings, Hancock started to play synth himself and unlike Gleeson, he plays it as a melodical and rhythm instrument just like electric pianos.

Hancock's three records released in 1971–1973, became later known as the "Mwandishi" albums, so-called after a Swahili name Hancock sometimes used during this era (Mwandishi is Swahili for writer). The first two, including Fat Albert Rotunda were made available on the 2-CD set Mwandishi: the Complete Warner Bros. Recordings, released in 1994, but are now sold as individual CD editions. Of the three electronic albums, Sextant is probably the most experimental since the Arp synthesizers are used extensively, and some advanced improvisation ("post-modal free impressionism") is found on the tracks "Hornets" and "Hidden Shadows" (which is in the meter 19/4). "Hornets" was later revised on the 2001 album Future2Future as "Virtual Hornets".

Among the instruments Hancock and Gleeson used were Fender Rhodes piano, ARP Odyssey, ARP 2600, ARP Pro Soloist Synthesizer, a Mellotron and the Moog synthesizer III.

All three Warner Bros. albums Fat Albert Rotunda, Mwandishi, and Crossings, were remastered in 2001 and released in Europe but were not released in the U.S.A. as of June 2005. In the Winter of 2006–7 a remastered edition of Crossings was announced and scheduled for release in the Spring.

[edit] Headhunters and Death Wish

Hancock performing in concert, 2006

After the sometimes "airy" and decidedly experimental "Mwandishi" albums, Hancock was eager to perform more "earthy" and "funky" music. The Mwandishi albums – though these days seen as respected early fusion recordings – had seen mixed reviews and poor sales, so it is probable that Hancock was motivated by financial concerns as well as artistic restlessness.^{[citation needed]} Hancock was also bothered by the fact that many people did not understand avant-garde music. He explained that he loved funk music, especially Sly Stone's music, so he wanted to try to make funk himself.

He gathered a new band, which he called The Headhunters, keeping only Maupin from the sextet and adding bassist Paul Jackson, percussionist Bill Summers, and drummer Harvey Mason. The album Head Hunters, released in 1973, was a major hit and crossed over to pop audiences, though it prompted criticism from some jazz fans. Head Hunters was recorded at Different Fur studios.

Despite charges of "selling out", Stephen Erlewine of Allmusic positively reviewed the album among other friendly critics, saying, "Head Hunters still sounds fresh and vital three decades after its initial release, and its genre-bending proved vastly influential on not only jazz, but funk, soul, and hip-hop."^[9]

Mason was replaced by Mike Clark, and the band released a second album, Thrust, the following year. (A live album from a Japan performance, consisting of compositions from those first two Head Hunters releases was released in 1975 as Flood. The record has since been released on CD in Japan.) This was almost as well received as its predecessor, if not attaining the same level of commercial success. The Headhunters made another successful album (called Survival of the Fittest) without Hancock, while Hancock himself started to make even more commercial albums, often featuring members of the band, but no longer billed as The Headhunters. The Headhunters reunited with Hancock in 1998 for Return of the Headhunters, and a version of the band (featuring Jackson and Clark) continues to play live and record.

In 1973, Hancock composed his second masterful soundtrack to the controversial film The Spook Who Sat By The Door. Then in 1974, he also composed the soundtrack to the first Death Wish film. One of his memorable songs, "Joanna's Theme", would later be re-recorded in 1997 on his duet album with Wayne Shorter 1 + 1.

Hancock's next jazz-funk albums of the 1970s were Man-Child (1975), and Secrets (1976), which point toward the more commercial direction Hancock would take over the next decade. These albums feature the members of the 'Headhunters' band, but also a variety of other musicians in important roles.

[edit] Back to the basics: VSOP and Future Shock

During late 1970s and early 1980s, Hancock toured with his "V.S.O.P." quintet, which featured all the members of the 1960s Miles Davis quintet except Davis, who was replaced by trumpet giant Freddie Hubbard. There was constant speculation that one day Davis would reunite with his classic band, but he never did so. VSOP recorded several live albums in the late 1970s, including VSOP (1976), and VSOP: The Quintet (1977).

In 1978, Hancock recorded a duet with Chick Corea, who had replaced him in the Miles Davis band a decade earlier. He also released a solo acoustic piano album titled The Piano (1978), which, like so many Hancock albums at the time, was initially released only in Japan. (It was finally released in the US in 2004.) Several other Japan-only releases have yet to surface in the US, such as Dedication (1974), VSOP: Tempest in the Colosseum (1977), and Direct Step (1978). Live Under the Sky was a VSOP album remastered for the US in 2004, and included an entire second concert from the July 1979 tour.

From 1978–1982, Hancock recorded many albums consisting of jazz-inflected disco and pop music, beginning with Sunlight (featuring guest musicians including Tony Williams and Jaco Pastorius on the last track) (1978). Singing through a vocoder, he earned a British hit,^[10] "I Thought It Was You", although critics were unimpressed.^[11] This led to more vocoder on the 1979 follow-up, Feets, Don't Fail Me Now, which gave him another UK hit in "You Bet Your Love".^[10] Albums such as Monster (1980), Magic Windows (1981), and Lite Me Up (1982) were some of Hancock's most criticized and unwelcomed albums, the market at the time being somewhat saturated with similar pop-jazz hybrids from the likes of former bandmate Freddie Hubbard. Hancock himself had quite a limited role in some of those albums, leaving singing, composing and even producing to others. Mr. Hands (1980) is perhaps the one album during this period that was critically acclaimed. To the delight of many fans, there were no vocals on the album, and one track featured Jaco Pastorius on bass. The album contained a wide variety of different styles, including a disco instrumental song, a Latin-jazz number and an electronic piece in which Hancock plays alone with the help of computers.

Hancock also found time to record more traditional jazz while creating more commercially oriented music. He toured with Tony Williams and Ron Carter in 1981, recording Herbie Hancock Trio, a five-track live album released only in Japan. A month later, he recorded Quartet with Wynton Marsalis, released in the US the following year. Hancock, Williams and Carter toured internationally with Wynton and his brother Branford Marsalis in what was affectionately known as "VSOP II". This quintet can be heard on Marsalis' debut album on Columbia (1981). In 1982 he contributed to the Simple Minds album New Gold Dream (81,82,83,84), playing a synthesizer solo on the track "Hunter and The Hunted".

In 1983, Hancock had a mainstream hit with the Grammy-award winning instrumental single "Rockit" from the album Future Shock. It was perhaps the first mainstream single to feature scratching, and also featured an innovative animated music video which was directed by Godley and Creme and showed several robot-like artworks by Jim Whiting. The video was a hit on MTV and reached No.8 in the UK.^[12] The video won five different categories at the inaugural MTV Video Music Awards. This single ushered in a collaboration with noted bassist and producer Bill Laswell. Hancock experimented with electronic music on a string of three LPs produced by Laswell: Future Shock (1983), Sound-System (1984) and Perfect Machine (1988). Despite the success of "Rockit", Hancock's trio of Laswell-produced albums (particularly the latter two) are among the most critically derided of his entire career, perhaps even more so than his erstwhile pop-jazz experiments. Hancock's level of actual contribution to these albums was also questioned, with some critics contending that the Laswell albums should have been labelled "Bill Laswell featuring Herbie Hancock".

During this period, he appeared onstage at the Grammy awards with Stevie Wonder, Howard Jones, and Thomas Dolby, in a famous synthesizer jam (The video on Youtube can be found here.). Lesser known works from the 1980s are the live album Jazz Africa and the studio album Village Life (1984), which were recorded with Gambian kora player Foday Musa Suso.^[13] Also, in 1985 Hancock performed as a guest on the album So Red The Rose by the Duran Duran offshoot group Arcadia. He also provided introductory and closing comments for the PBS rebroadcast in the United States of the BBC educational series from the mid-1980s, Rockschool (not to be confused with the most recent Gene Simmons' Rock School series).

In 1986, Hancock performed and acted in the film 'Round Midnight. He also wrote the score/soundtrack, for which he won an Academy Award for Original Music Score. Often he would write music for TV commercials. "Maiden Voyage", in fact, started out as a cologne advertisement. At the end of the Perfect Machine tour, Hancock decided to leave Columbia Records after a 15-plus-year relationship.

As of June 2005, almost half of his Columbia recordings have been remastered. The first three US releases, Sextant, Head Hunters and Thrust as well as the last four releases Future Shock, Sound-System, the soundtrack to Round Midnight and Perfect Machine. Everything released in America from Man-Child to Quartet has yet to be remastered. Some albums, made and initially released in the US, were remastered between 1999 and 2001 in other countries such as Magic Windows and Monster. Hancock also re-released some of his Japan-only releases in the West, such as The Piano.

1990s and later[link]

Hancock live in concert

After leaving Columbia, Hancock took a break. Then, with friends Ron Carter, Tony Williams, Wayne Shorter, and Davis admirer Wallace Roney, they recorded A Tribute to Miles, which was released in 1994. The album contained two live recordings and studio recording classics, with Roney playing Davis's part as trumpet player. The album won a Grammy for best group album. He also toured with Jack DeJohnette, Dave Holland and Pat Metheny in 1990 on their Parallel Realities tour, which included a memorable performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival in July 1990.

Hancock's next album, Dis Is Da Drum, released in 1994, saw him return to Acid Jazz. Also in 1994, he appeared on the Red Hot Organization's compilation album Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool. The album, meant to raise awareness and funds in support of the AIDS epidemic in relation to the African-American community, was heralded as "Album of the Year" by Time Magazine.

1995's The New Standard found Hancock and an all-star band including John Scofield, Jack DeJohnette and Michael Brecker interpreting pop songs by Nirvana, Stevie Wonder, The Beatles, Prince, Peter Gabriel and others. A 1997 duet album with Wayne Shorter entitled 1 + 1 was successful, the song "Aung San Suu Kyi" winning the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition. Hancock also achieved great success in 1998 with his album Gershwin's World, which featured inventive readings of George and Ira Gershwin standards by Hancock and a plethora of guest stars, including Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell and Shorter. Hancock toured the world in the support of Gershwin's World with a sextet that featured Cyro Baptista, Terri Lynne Carrington, Ira Coleman, Eli Degibri and Eddie Henderson.

In 2001, Hancock recorded Future2Future, which reunited Hancock with Bill Laswell and featured doses of electronica as well as turntablist Rob Swift of The X-Ecutioners. Hancock later toured with the band, and released a live concert DVD with a different lineup which also included the "Rockit" music video. Also in 2001, Hancock partnered with Michael Brecker and Roy Hargrove to record a live concert album saluting Davis and John Coltrane entitled Directions in Music: Live at Massey Hall, recorded live in Toronto. The threesome toured to support the album, and toured on and off through 2005.

The year 2005 saw the release of a duet album called Possibilities. It features duets with Carlos Santana, Paul Simon, Annie Lennox, John Mayer, Christina Aguilera, Sting and others. In 2006, Possibilities was nominated for Grammy awards in two categories: "A Song For You", featuring Christina Aguilera was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance, and "Gelo No Montanha", featuring Trey Anastasio on guitar, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Performance. Neither nomination resulted in an award.

Also in 2005, Hancock toured Europe with a new quartet that included Beninese guitarist Lionel Loueke, and explored textures ranging from ambient to straight jazz to African music. Plus, during the summer of 2005, Hancock re-staffed the famous Headhunters and went on tour with them, including a performance at The Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival.

However, this lineup did not consist of any of the original Headhunters musicians. The group included Marcus Miller, Terri Lyne Carrington, Lionel Loueke and John Mayer. Hancock also served as the first artist in residence for Bonnaroo that summer.

Also in 2006, Sony BMG Music Entertainment (which bought out Hancock's old label, Columbia Records) released the two-disc retrospective The Essential Herbie Hancock. This two-disc set is the first compilation of Herbie's work at Warner Bros. Records, Blue Note Records, Columbia and at Verve/Polygram. This became Hancock's second major compilation of work since the 2002 Columbia-onlyThe Herbie Hancock Box, which was released at first in a plastic 4x4 cube then re-released in 2004 in a long box set. Hancock also in 2006, recorded a new song with Josh Groban and Eric Mouquet (co-founder of Deep Forest) entitled "Machine". It is featured on Josh Groban's CD Awake. Hancock also recorded and improvised with guitarist Lionel Loueke on Loueke's debut album Virgin Forest on the ObliqSound label in 2006, resulting in two improvisational tracks "Le Réveil des Agneaux (The Awakening of the Lambs)" and "La Poursuite du lion (The Lion's Pursuit)".

Hancock, a longtime associate and friend of Joni Mitchell released a 2007 album, River: The Joni Letters, that paid tribute to her work. Norah Jones and Tina Turner recorded vocals,^[14] as did Corinne Bailey Rae, and Leonard Cohen contributed a spoken piece set to Hancock's piano. Mitchell herself also made an appearance. The album was released on September 25, simultaneously with the release of Mitchell's album Shine.^[15] "River" was nominated for and won the 2008 Album of the Year Grammy Award, only the second jazz album ever to receive either honor. The album also won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, and the song "Both Sides Now" was nominated for Best Instrumental Jazz Solo.

Recently Hancock performed at the Shriner's Children's Hospital Charity Fundraiser with Sheila E, Jim Brickman, Kirk Whalum and Wendy Alane Wright.

His latest work includes assisting the production of the Kanye West track "RoboCop", found on 808s & Heartbreak.

On June 14, 2008, Hancock performed at Rhythm on the Vine at the South Coast Winery in Temecula, California, for Shriners Hospital for Children. Other performers at the event, that raised $515,000 for Shriners Hospital, were contemporary music artist Jim Brickman, and Sheila E. & the E. Family Band.^[16]