Paris, August 29, 2026.- Cuba today commemorates the 79th anniversary of its accession to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). However, the ties between Cuba and the Organization date back several years before Cuba became a Member State.
In the midst of the Second World War, when the occupation of Paris disrupted the activities of the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation, affiliated with the League of Nations, Havana became a meeting place for intellectuals from the Americas and Europe. In November 1941, Cuba hosted the Second American Conference of National Commissions for Intellectual Cooperation and the historic Havana Conversation, devoted to the role of culture and intellectual cooperation in the face of the global crisis. The Cuban initiative to establish an Intellectual Cooperation Center in Havana, conceived to keep cooperation among peoples alive at a time when the war threatened to break international cultural and scientific ties, was subsequently recognized in the process that led to the creation of UNESCO.
This initiative became linked to the very genesis of UNESCO. At the 1945 Constituent Conference in London, a resolution recognized Cuba’s initiative to offer Havana as the site for a provisional center for intellectual cooperation.
UNESCO was formally established on November 16, 1945, and Cuba joined as a Member State on August 29, 1947. That same year, the Cuban National Commission for UNESCO was established, giving institutional form to a relationship that already had several years of history.
The relationship also acquired an exceptional regional dimension. In 1947, the UNESCO General Conference decided to establish a regional office in Havana, a decision ratified in 1948. The center was officially inaugurated in 1950, making the Cuban capital one of the first locations for a permanent UNESCO presence outside Paris.
A new chapter opened following the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959. Relations with UNESCO took on a new dimension based on the convergence between the Organization’s founding principles and values —the promotion of peace, education, science, culture and cooperation among peoples— and the transformations undertaken by Cuba in these fields.
Over nearly eight decades, cooperation has extended across the various areas of UNESCO’s mandate. Cuba currently has 9 World Heritage sites, 8 elements inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, 5 inscriptions on the International Memory of the World Register, and 6 Biosphere Reserves. Cuba also maintains active participation in the Organization and is a member of its Executive Board for the 2023–2027 term.
Cuba is also associated with two major UNESCO international awards: the UNESCO José Martí International Prize, established in 1994, and the UNESCO Carlos J. Finlay Prize for Microbiology, established in 1977.
Seventy-nine years after Cuba’s official accession to UNESCO, the history of its ties with the Organization is a reminder that international cooperation in education, science, culture and knowledge began to take shape long before UNESCO had its own name and institutional structure.