Over the past several hundred years, a significant amount of the cultural contacts established between countries were organised on a "multilateral" basis. The author of this report refers to the activities of the Roman Catholic Church as one of the earliest examples to dispel the association between 'culture, cooperation and international organisations' as a purely modern day activity. This survey provides a review of the role of the UN family and similar global apparatuses, in international cultural relations. It concludes with an emphasis on the more recent phenonmenon of cultural cooperation among non-governmental organisations. It also identifies a paradoxical situation: on the one hand official diplomacy has lost influence on international cultural relationships, on the other, we are witnessing the strengthening of a cultural component in bi- and multilateral foreign relations.