The United States won overwhelming support to be readmitted to the U.N. cultural and scientific agency UNESCO almost five years after it left.
Delegates at an extraordinary session of UNESCO's 193-member general conference voted "by a very large majority" on Friday to approve the U.S. proposal for rejoining the organization in July and paying US$619 million in arrears.
"With this return, UNESCO will be in an even stronger position to carry out its mandate," UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said after the vote.
“It’s a great day for UNESCO and for multilateralism," she said. "Building upon the momentum achieved in recent years, our organization is once again moving towards universalism with this return of the United States."
The voted resulted from a two-day session to examine the proposal for the U.S. to fund 22% of the organization's regular budget, which is generally representative of the level of support that the nation provides for many of the U.N.'s agencies.
UNESCO said the U.S. also will provide voluntary funding for programs such as educational access in Africa, Holocaust remembrance and protection for journalists.
U.S. President Joe Biden's administration signaled its intent to return to UNESCO as part of a long-planned move to check China's growing soft power.
UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay announced earlier this month that the Biden administration sent formal notice of its decision, which included the financing plan that required approval from other UNESCO members. She called it a vote of confidence in the "centrality of the organization’s mandate" to promote culture, education, science, information.
The U.S. withdrew from UNESCO in 2018 under the Trump adminstration, but stopped providing 22% of the Paris-based agency's budget in 2011 under the Obama administration when UNESCO approved Palestine as a member.
At the time, the U.S. had been scheduled to pay US$60 million in dues. But the U.S. State Department said it was legally barred from contributing to any agencies that included Palestine as a sovereign territory.
Once the U.S. withdrew, China became the agency's biggest contributor, giving around $65 million a year. In 2018, veteran Chinese diplomat Xing Qu became UNESCO's deputy director-general.
Under his tutelage, China gained dozens of UNESCO-protected heritage sites, giving it the second-most sites in the world behind only Italy, and blocked Taiwan from gaining membership in the agency.
A move to "counter Chinese influence"
Azoulay, who was elected head of the agency in Nov. 2017, said the State Department's letter to her cited UNESCO as having improved its management and reduced political tensions in sensitive areas such as the Middle East.
To gain readmittence to the agency next month, Biden requested US$150 million in next year's federal budget for UNESCO' dues and back payments.
Biden had set up the move back to UNESCO in Dec. 2022 when his administration won approval for a US$1.7 trillion federal spending bill with a waiver authorizing U.S. re-engagement to "counter Chinese influence."
The bill included more than US$600 million in arrears to UNESCO, which operates on a two-year US$1.5 billion budget. Azoulay said some of UNESCO's member nations specifically asked for an extraordinary session to be held to decide whether U.S. membership should be restored.
This story has been updated with additional details.
