UNESCO Director-General concludes first official visit to UK
Ms Irina Bokova, the Director-General of UNESCO, concluded her first official visit to the UK on Sunday following a three-day visit to London and Oxford.
The Director General opened her visit with a meeting with Alan Duncan MP, UK Minister of State for International Development. The two discussed UNESCO’s programme and the Director-General underscored policy advice and capacity building in education as UNESCO programmatic priorities and emphasised the importance of climate science and water management.
On Friday, 4 June the Director-General visited the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, an Independent Centre of the University of Oxford, where she delivered a lecture on ‘UNESCO, the World of Islam and the Rapprochement of Cultures’. Meeting the Centre's Director, Dr Farhan Nizami CBE, the two agreed to deepen the Centre’s collaboration with UNESCO.
Back in London on Saturday, 5 June, the Director-General attended the opening session of the Regional Consultations with National Commissions for UNESCO of Europe and North America, on the Organization’s draft Programme and Budget for 2012-2013. Addressing the delegates, Irina Bokova recalled that the UK had not only been a founding member of UNESCO but had also given the Organization its first Director-General.
She cited the words of Ellen Wilkinson, the British Minister of Education in 1945 who had said: “it is for us to clear the channels through which may flow from nation to nation, the streams of knowledge and thought, of truth and beauty, which are the foundations of true civilization”. Highlighting that this remained just as relevant today, 65 years later, the Director-General thanked the National Commissions for their commitment to promoting UNESCO's ideals in Member States.
On Sunday, 6 June, before departing Ms Irina Bokova joined the National Commissions in the Great Hall of the Institute of Civil Engineers, where UNESCO's constitution had been adopted in 1945.
Ms Irina Bokova was elected UNESCO’s ninth Director-General and the first ever woman to assume the post by the 35th session of the UNESCO General Conference in October 2009.
Written: 11/06/2010 , last modified: 22/07/2010
Images
Director General addresses National Commissions at the Regional Consultation 
© UK Department for International Development - UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova and Alan Duncan MP, UK Minister of State for International Development, during their meeting in London on 4 June 2010 
Prof John Morgan, Ms Irina Bokova, Prof Alec Boksenberg and H.E. Ambassador Matthew Sudders at the ICE on 6 June.