History suggests that Koïchiro Matsuura, director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) since late last year, has a few years in which to improve it before he risks being taken in by its own propaganda and becomes as inward-looking as his most recent predecessors. A forthright speech last week (see page 113) shows that he means well. Only time will tell whether he can change the culture so radically that he avoids the self-aggrandizing traps that snared Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow and, less disastrously but still notably, Federico Mayor.

Following the fiefdom that Unesco became in the '70s and '80s under M'Bow, which led to the exit of the United States, Singapore and the United Kingdom, Mayor achieved significant reforms, restoring sufficient confidence to encourage the United Kingdom to rejoin. But latterly he lost that touch. Last year's World Conference on Science was widely seen as having failed to make the most of a significant opportunity to place science at the centre of the international political and economic stage.

The success of Matsuura — a Japanese lawyer, diplomat and deputy foreign minister — will depend on whether he is able to entice the United States back into the organization. This will at least need a prompt but fair examination of the questionable ‘eleventh-hour’ appointments Mayor sprang on Unesco just before leaving. Commendably, Matsuura is forthright in highlighting the difficulties he faces, and is rightly focusing first on management.

But a sharpening of Unesco's programmes is essential. Some have suggested that it should take a lead in the International Year for the Culture of Peace. A look at Unesco's declaration on its Culture of Peace programme is not encouraging — a plethora of worthy motions spanning the sale of small arms and the rights of women. Like most of the motions carried at the World Conference on Science, these have little to offer by way of leverage and, therefore, seem likely to do little for the future reputation of Unesco or for world peace.

At the heart of Unesco's mandate is a commitment to education, with science and culture inextricably linked with it. Science education is not the answer to many short-term problems in society's handling of science-related issues, but its improvement is an urgent need nevertheless, in both developed and developing countries. Some prompt, tangible new achievements to that end, within existing programmes and also embedded as goals in its next medium-term strategy, could do Unesco a lot of good.