A multilateral institution under fiscal siege
When the African Group convened in Paris on 23 June, the anxiety permeating Room XI was palpable. With United Nations assessed contributions plateauing and several major donors signalling austerity, UNESCO confronts a programme budget that could contract by double-digit percentages in the next biennium, echoing the reductions already forecast in the Draft 42 C/5 document (UNESCO 2023 Programme and Budget). Edouard Matoko, the Congolese assistant director-general turned candidate to succeed Audrey Azoulay, chose that moment to speak less as a campaigner than as a diagnostician of multilateral fragility. Citing the UN Secretary-General’s recent plea that the system must “change or become irrelevant,” he warned that the agency’s survival now hinges on its capacity to demonstrate value in an era of contested globalisation.
Depoliticising UNESCO without draining its soft-power capital
Matoko’s blunt statement that “UNESCO is too politicised” struck a chord among ambassadors weary of ritualised resolutions. The remark resurrected debates over the politicisation that prompted the United States and Israel to withdraw in 2017. Yet Matoko argued that depoliticisation should not translate into technocratic anaemia; rather it must restore UNESCO’s reputation as an intellectual convenor. He cited the largely unnoticed African Encyclopaedia project and the proposed Museum of Afro-descendants as emblematic of the agency’s dormant soft-power capital, contending that greater visibility could safeguard these initiatives from political cross-winds. Analysts at the Brookings Institution have similarly warned that cultural-heritage diplomacy is becoming a casualty of geopolitical rivalries (Brookings 2024).
An Africa-centred strategic pivot
The candidate’s discourse aligns with a broader recalibration of the multilateral agenda toward the Global South, notably the African Union’s 2063 vision that foregrounds culture and innovation as levers of sovereignty (African Union 2023). Matoko pledges to ring-fence twenty percent of UNESCO’s regular budget for Africa-priority programmes, arguing that the continent’s youthful demography offers the agency its most persuasive development narrative. He foregrounds cultural restitution, ocean biodiversity, artificial intelligence governance and the empowerment of women and youth as entry points for renewed relevance, asserting that Africa’s experience in conflict prevention could enrich UNESCO’s peace mandate. “Africa is not monolithic,” he reminded his listeners, “and learning to work with its differences will strengthen UNESCO’s own resilience.”
Financing innovation beyond assessed contributions
Financial realism remains the campaign’s litmus test. UNESCO’s extra-budgetary share already exceeds fifty percent, a proportion critics deem precarious (OECD 2023 ODA Data). Matoko proposes a two-track response: internal austerity and external resource mobilisation. Internally, he promises to streamline administrative layers, recruit more local staff to curb expatriate overheads and subject dormant projects to sunset clauses. Externally, he envisages an aggressive engagement with African sovereign wealth funds, philanthropic foundations and corporate actors in the creative-tech nexus. Pointing to ten African economies that recorded double-digit growth in the post-pandemic rebound, he argued that “domestic capital can no longer be a spectator in funding Africa-priority programmes.” Diplomats familiar with UNESCO’s labyrinthine procurement rules conceded in private that such partnerships would necessitate regulatory agility the agency has rarely displayed.
The promise and perils of an Africa Lab
Among Matoko’s headline proposals is an Africa-UNESCO Lab, envisaged as a hub where policymakers, scholars and entrepreneurs co-design pilot projects before scaling them across regions. The concept borrows from the ‘Policy Lab’ model popularised by the OECD but situates it within the epistemic traditions of the continent’s own knowledge systems. Proponents argue that such a platform could accelerate implementation of UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence by grounding it in local realities. Skeptics, however, recall earlier incubators—such as the Global Centre for Capacity Building—that faltered due to diffuse mandates and inadequate core funding. The viability of the Africa Lab will thus test Matoko’s ability to translate rhetorical ambition into budget lines resilient to annual appropriation cycles.
A campaign shaped by geopolitical cross-currents
While the race for the UNESCO helm is formally non-aligned, geopolitical undercurrents are unavoidable. Western capitals view fiscal discipline as a prerequisite for re-engagement, whereas emerging powers emphasise equitable representation. Matoko’s emphasis on triangular cooperation seeks to bridge these demands by embedding South-South solidarity in a rules-based framework palatable to North-South donors. China’s Belt and Road cultural corridors, the Gulf states’ endowments and the European Union’s Global Gateway all represent potential, albeit competing, funding reservoirs. A senior French diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, noted that “the candidate who can articulate a credible synthesis of these vectors will inherit not only an agency but a battlefield of narratives.”
Steering UNESCO through an age of constrained multilateralism
Ultimately, the African Group’s plenary session served as a microcosm of twenty-first-century multilateralism: ambitions inflated, resources compressed and legitimacy contested. Matoko’s intervention reassured diplomats that he recognises the magnitude of the challenge, yet reassurance is only the first instalment of credibility. Should he secure the directorship, he will need to implement painful restructurings while shielding normative mandates in education, science and culture that constitute UNESCO’s raison d’être. Success will hinge on whether his African gambit can convince both traditional donors and rising economies that a leaner, less politicised UNESCO remains indispensable. In the words of a veteran delegate, “the agency has survived withdrawals, arrears and censure; what it now needs is leadership fluent in both austerity and ambition.”