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 UNESCOVENICE News (UNESCO) 23/09/2009 : The 58 members of UNESCO’s Executive Board designated yesterday Irina Gueorguieva Bokova (Bulgaria) as candidate to the post of Director-General. The nomination will be submitted on 15 October to the approval of the General Conference, which brings together representatives of the Organization’s 193 Member States. Once confirmed, Irina Bokova, 57, Ambassador of Bulgaria to France and Permanent Delegate to UNESCO, will be the first woman Director-General in the history of the Organization.
A career diplomat and politician born in Sofia, Irina Bokova served as deputy minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Foreign Affairs. She advocated her country’s membership in NATO and the European Union. She is married and mother of 2 children. In the speech delivered at the general discussions during the 181th Session of the Executive Board of UNESCO, Irina Bokova underscored with a profound conviction the importance of enhancing activities on equal opportunities for women and promotion of their role in society, not letting the crisis impede the achievement of these goals. For years, she has been involved in the efforts to reach gender equality and participated in the UN Decade for Women conferences held in Copenhagen (1980), Nairobi (1985) and Beijing (1995). In her vision for UNESCO, Irina Bokova considers gender equality to be one of the most important goals, both political and humanistic, of our times and is strongly motivated to make UNESCO invest more efforts in attaining this objective. Her credo for UNESCO is: new humanism. Mrs Bokova believes that today UNESCO has a unique opportunity of asserting the new “humanism of the 21st century” by playing its role as the “conscience of mankind” and recalls that this year marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which changed the entire world and set free the minds of millions of men and women. Mrs Bokova speaks of UNESCO and “One UN” seeing one of the most important challenges for UNESCO lying in its integration into the “Delivering as One” initiative. She welcomes the efforts of the Secretary General of the United Nations to reorganize and streamline the development activities of the UN agencies, funds and programmes and is convinced that UNESCO should continue to be part of these efforts while decentralizing its operational activities. The election of Irina Bokova to the candidate leadership of UNESCO marks a significant victory for gender equality. Photo credit : Irina Bokova ©bokova.eu Sources : [UNESCO Press release No. 2009-102] [Irina Bokova website] links : [About Irina Gueorguieva Bokova] [video] [UNESCO General Conference - Paris, 6-23 October] |
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