MOSCOW, July 15 (RIA Novosti) - The election to choose a new UNESCO head has entered its final phase and Russia has made it known that it will give $20 million to the UN cultural agency if its candidate wins, a Russian business daily said on Wednesday.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Yakovenko, 54, is considered one of the front-runners in the race to become director general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Kommersant reported.

The Soviet Union joined UNESCO in 1954, but Moscow has never held the top job at the organization or any other United Nations body.

A Foreign Ministry source said Russia was taking active steps to promote its candidate upon the personal instructions of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. "It is an important matter of image," he told Kommersant.

"We are working with all 192 countries. All our organizations abroad and embassies are distributing through diplomatic channels notes requesting support. And there is a significant list of states that are ready to provide it," a high-ranking Russian diplomat told the newspaper.

The diplomat said Moscow has pledged to contribute $20 million to the agency's budget should Yakovenko win. Russia currently pays $8 million to UNESCO once every two years.

The post of UNESCO director general becomes vacant in November when Japanese Koichiro Matsuura, who has headed the organization for the past 10 years, will step down at the end of his second and last term.

In September, the UNESCO Executive Board, consisting of 58 member states, will propose that the organization's supreme body, the General Conference, elect its choice as the new chief.