UNESCO matters in Finland

Ambassador Pasi-Heikki Vaaranmaa and Director General of Unesco Audrey Azoulay. Photo: Unesco

The objectives of Finland’s UNESCO policy are linked to the Government Programme and the Government Report on Finnish Foreign and Security Policy. UNESCO plays an important role in advocacy work conducted through Finland's development policy and UN policy.  Finland aims to strengthen UNESCO’s capacity to remains a strong actor with effective programmes and competence to promote the principles that are important for Finland.

In addition to the membership fees, Finland supports UNESCO through voluntary payments. Finland’s membership fee is approximately EUR 1.5 million. The fee is paid from the budget of the Ministry of Education and Culture.

Finland also supports UNESCO through voluntary contributions from the Foreign Ministry’s appropriations for development cooperation.   At the moment, voluntary funding is primarily channelled to the Capacity Development for Education Programme (CapED) CapED(Link to another website.) and to the International Programme for the Development of Communication IPDC(Link to another website.).   

UNESCO is the only UN Agency to have a global network of national cooperating bodies known as National Commissions for UNESCO. The Finnish Commission for UNESCO(Link to another website.) was established in 1957. The Government appoints the Commission for four years at a time. The advisory Commission has 12 members and its secretariat is in the Ministry of Education and Culture.