Govt. foreign policy bearing fruit? Lanka elected to two important UN bodies

The Government's foreign policy initiatives must be doing something right, judging by the fact that it has won two consecutive multilateral elections of the United Nations recently.

The Foreign Ministry has won the endorsement of the international community firstly by the election of Prasad Kariyawasam, former Foreign Secretary and one-time ambassador to the United States, Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (CMW) for the term 2024-2027.

At an election in New York, Mr. Kariyawasam won 44 votes out of 57 (77%) co-securing the second highest place with Algeria. He has been on this committee three times.

Most recently, Sri Lanka was elected to the Executive Board of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) for 2023-2027 during the 42nd General Conference of the inter-governmental organisation securing 144 votes out of 188 countries (76.5%) co-securing third place in the region with Bangladesh.

UNESCO elected six members to the Board out of nine candidates for the Asia-Pacific region. Others elected from the region were from Pakistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Australia and South Korea. Sri Lanka last served on the Board during the 'Yahapalana' Government period from 20152019.

Meanwhile, the US, which withdrew from UNESCO several times before, once in 1984 when the UN agency introduced a 'New Information Order' and then later by passing a law to keep out of UN agencies that recognised Palestine as a member-state. Its policy towards these organisations took a still more hardened position under the Donald Trump Administration when the US pulled out of UNESCO and UNHRC.

However, in June this year, the US returned to these UN agencies. It seems the US was concerned with China taking control of them through funding and thereby extending China's influence among member-states due to the vacuum created by the US absence.

In June, President Wickremesinghe met the UNESCO Director General Audrey A Zouley, a former French Minister of Culture during his visit to Paris.

If they say foreign policy is an extension of domestic policy, the Wickremesinghe Government may hope these election victories abroad also reflect back home in one way or the other.