Paris — The Director-Customary of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, expressed her deep sorrow on the records of the dying of Amadou Mahtar M’Bow, used Director-Customary of UNESCO (1974-1987) and basically the most important African to lead an world organisation.
“A profound humanist and all-round intellectual, Amadou Mahtar M’Bow left a lasting impression on our institution by forcefully defending the need for solidarity and equal dignity between peoples and cultures”, stated Audrey Azoulay. “Throughout the independence movements, he also strove to ensure that every State found its rightful place at UNESCO, giving substance and reality to the ambition of multilateralism. In particular, we owe to him the monumental scientific work that is the General History of Africa, which gave the world, and more specifically Africans, a means of appropriating their own history and facing the future with confidence”, she added, extending her condolences to “his family, his friends and the many, at UNESCO and elsewhere, who saw in him a model for both thought and action.”
Born in Dakar in 1921, Amadou Mahtar M’Bow changed into once the Minister for Education, Custom and Formative years of Senegal, collaborating actively in his nation’s political existence, and changed into once the Director-Customary of UNESCO for 13 years. “The path that led the small farmer from the African Sahel to the head of one of the United Nations’ most prestigious organisations is representative of the emergence of a world that had long been subjugated, despised or even ignored: that of the dispossessed”, wrote the journalist and future diplomat Pierre Kalfon when Mr M’Bow changed into once elected to the put up of Director-Customary.
The younger Amadou changed into once admitted to the French Colonial College, after first attending classes in a Koranic school, then enrolled in the ‘commerce course’ on the Dakar Chamber of Commerce forward of passing the aggressive examination to develop into a clerk in the colonial administration. In 1940 he volunteered for service in France, but returned to Senegal after the French defeat. Four years later, he took share in the Provence landings and participated in the liberation of France.
After discovering out history on the Sorbonne, younger professor M’Bow returned to Senegal in 1951 and taught for 2 years forward of being tasked with constructing and leading main training in Senegal and Mauritania. After being appointed Minister for Education and Custom all the plot in which via the length of inner autonomy (1957- 1958), he resigned from his role to be a half of the combat for independence. As soon as Senegal gained independence, he turned Minister of National Education (1966-1968), then of Custom and Formative years (1968- 1970) and a member of the National Meeting.
Appointed Assistant Director-Customary for Education at UNESCO in 1970, he changed into once elected Director- Customary in 1974, a put up he held unless 1987 after being re-elected in 1980. His work on the head of UNESCO centred spherical two main priorities: promoting consensus as a means of collective decision-making within UNESCO, and defending the independence of world civil servants.
Amadou Mahtar M’Bow expressed his “deep held belief that the world is one, and that the struggle for human rights is the same in all places”. He believed that “humanity has an obligation to live in the age of solidarity, if it does not want to experience the age of barbarism”.
Amadou Mahtar M’Bow also argued forcefully in favour of a ‘Unique World Order of Facts and Verbal exchange’ – since on the time world records changed into once supplied exclusively by 5 main press companies, all based totally mostly in Europe and North The United States, with the resulting records flowing the truth is from North to South.
The M’Bow technology changed into once marked by lengthy-lasting initiatives corresponding to the World Programme for the Pattern of Verbal exchange (IPDC) created in 1981; the World Heritage Committee, build of dwelling up by the 1972 World Heritage Convention and established in 1976, which conducted a serious role in elevating UNESCO’s popularity; and two years later, the Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Foundation or its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation.
It changed into once also beneath Amadou Mahtar M’Bow’s mandate that basically the most important biosphere reserves had been designated: accept areas recognised by UNESCO as model areas that reconciled biodiversity conservation and sustainable pattern.
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- UNESCO Courrier: Amadou Mahtar M’Bow, sixth Director-Customary of UNESCO : from a village in the African Sahel to the head of a serious world organisation
- Amadou M. M’Bow – Election of the Director-Customary of UNESCO, 1974
- Oral Archives of the World Heritage Convention : Interview with Amadou Mahtar M’Bow
About UNESCO
With 194 Member States, the United Worldwide locations Tutorial, Scientific and Cultural Organization contributes to peace and security by leading multilateral cooperation on training, science, tradition, verbal exchange and records. Headquartered in Paris, UNESCO has offices in 54 countries and employs over 2300 of us. UNESCO oversees more than 2000 World Heritage internet sites, Biosphere Reserves and Global Geoparks; networks of Artistic, Discovering out, Inclusive and Sustainable Cities; and over 13 000 connected schools, college chairs, coaching and learn institutions. Its Director-Customary is Audrey Azoulay.
“Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed” – UNESCO Structure, 1945.
