UNESCO calls to build better societies from science

UNESCO urged on Tuesday on World Science Day for Peace and Development to assign scientific knowledge to build more just, humane and sustainable societies.

On her message for the date, Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), particularly highlighted the importance of scientific research and collaboration in the prevailing global context, marked by the scourge of Covid-19.

The current crisis should serve as a wakeup call regarding the urgency for increased financing and support to science, the UNESCO director-general stressed on the world day established in 2001 during the General Conference of the multilateral agency based in Paris.

According to Azoulay, exact and natural sciences must go hand in hand with social and human sciences.

'The virus is an all-encompassing societal issue irreducible to epidemiological data alone, however fundamental they may be. Exact and natural sciences help us understand it, while human sciences allow us to thoroughly examine society and reveal its complexity, avoiding sterile simplifications and false tests,' she said.

The UNESCO director-general insisted on the need not to lose the humanistic vision of science, at a time when the international community faces a historic pandemic, the climate crisis and the collapse of biodiversity.

On Friday, UNESCO hosted an online roundtable to celebrate the 2020 World Science Day.