MOSCOW, January 23. /TASS/. Russia’s position in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is sufficiently sound and sustainable, Tatyana Dovgalenko, deputy director of the Foreign Ministry's Department for Multilateral Humanitarian Cooperation and Cultural Relations and executive secretary of the national commission for UNESCO, said.
"This year, we will celebrate 70 years of our country’s accession to the organization, which gives us the opportunity to look at what we have achieved so far," she said, addressing a roundtable dedicated to Russia’s role in the global humanitarian space, hosted by the Federation Council (upper house of parliament). "Translated into numbers, we can say that Russia’s position in UNESCO has a sufficient margin of soundness and sustainability," Dovgalenko noted.
The diplomat pointed out that Russia was among the world’s leaders in the number of higher educational institutions, schools and university departments, and ranked second in the number of biosphere reserves. "There has been mention here of the great number of languages that the peoples of Russia speak. In this regard, we also have a leading position in terms of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages, organized by UNESCO," she added.