US set to lose voting rights at UN cultural agency

The US was yesterday scheduled to be stripped of its voting rights at the world's cultural agency, Unesco, a high-profile blow to American influence in culture, science and education around the world.

And it would cost the US hundreds of millions of dollars to win this voice back.

The US has not paid its dues to the Paris-based UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation in three years, in protest over the decision by world governments to make Palestine a Unesco member in 2011.

Under Unesco rules, the US had until yesterday morning to resume funding, or automatically lose its vote.

The suspension of US contributions, which account for US$80 million a year - 22 per cent of Unesco's overall budget - brought the agency to the brink of a financial crisis and forced it to cut American-led initiatives such as a Holocaust education programme and tsunami research over the past two years.

It has worried many in Washington that the US is on track to becoming a toothless Unesco member with a weakened voice in international programmes fighting extremism through education, and promoting gender equality and press freedoms.

"We won't be able to have the same clout," said Phyllis Magrab, the Washington-based US national commissioner for Unesco. "In effect, we (now won't) have a full tool box. We're missing our hammer."