A picture taken on October 12, 2017 shows the flags flying in front of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation headquarters in Paris in 2017.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Richard Verma submitted a letter last week to UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay formalizing the plan to rejoin. The U.S. and Israel stopped funding UNESCO after it voted to include Palestine as a member state in 2011, and both countries lost their voting rights in 2013. The Trump administration decided in 2017 to withdraw from the agency altogether the following year, citing anti-Israel bias and management problems.
The U.S. decision to come back "is the result of five years of work, during which we calmed tensions, notably on the Middle East, improved our response to contemporary challenges, resumed major initiatives on the ground and modernized the functioning of the organization," Azoulay told The Associated Press.
Under the plan, the U.S. government would pay its 2023 dues plus $10 million in bonus contributions this year earmarked for Holocaust education, preserving cultural heritage in Ukraine, journalist safety, and science and technology education in Africa, Verma’s letter says. Undersecretary of State for Management John Bass said in March that the U.S. absence from UNESCO has strengthened China, and ’’undercuts our ability to be as effective in promoting our vision of a free world."