UNESCO Courier is the main magazine published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). It has the largest and widest-ranging readership of all the journals published by the United Nations and its specialized institutions.^[1]

UNESCO Courier was started in 1948 by Sandy Koffler (1916–2020). There was a gap in publication from 2013 until 2017.^[2] The magazine has changed a great deal over the years, both in content and in form. But it pursues its original mission: promote UNESCO's ideals, maintain a platform for the dialogue between cultures and provide a forum for international debate.

The printed UNESCO Courier covers issues of literacy, human rights, environment, culture, science and arts.

Available online since March 2006,^[3] The UNESCO Courier serves readers around the world: It is available for free on PDF in the six official languages of the organization (English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian and Chinese), as well as in Portuguese and Esperanto. A limited number of printed issues are also produced.

• The UNESCO Courier – in English
• The UNESCO Courier – in French
• The UNESCO Courier – in Spanish
• The UNESCO Courier – in Arabic
• The UNESCO Courier – in Chinese
• The UNESCO Courier – in Russian
• The UNESCO Courier – in Portuguese
• The UNESCO Courier – in Esperanto

The magazine is also translated into Sardinian^[4] and Sicilian.^[5]

The texts of current issues are available in Open Access under the Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO (CC-BY-SA 3.0 IGO) license. In 2023 a machine-readable digital corpus of Courier’s articles was published on Zenodo, making the archive of Courier’s English-language edition usable for text mining.^[6]

Current Director is Matthieu Guével and Editor-in-Chief is Agnès Bardon.

Previous directors:

• Jasmina Sopova: since April 2007
• Enzo Fazzino: 2006
• Vincent Defourny: 2005
• Michel Barton: 2002–2004
• J. Burnet: 2000–2001
• John Kohut: 1999–2000
• Sophie Bessis: 1998
• Bahgat El Nadi et Adel Rifaat: 1988–1998
• Édouard Glissant: 1982–1988
• Jean Gaudin: 1979–1982
• René Calloz: 1977–1978
• Sandy Koffler: 1951–1977
• Peter du Berg: 1950
• Sandy Koffler: 1948–1950