The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) will convene a ballot to nominate the new UNESCO General-Director on October 9.
The run for the position saw the competition of eight candidates, namely Moushira Khattab (Egypt), Vera El Khoury Lacoeuilhe (Lebanon), Hamad Bin Abdulaziz Al-Kawari (Qatar), Audrey Azoulay (France), Qian Tang (China), Polad Bulbuloglu (Azerbaijan), Pham Sanh Chau (Viet Nam), and Saleh Mahdi Al-Hasnawi (Iraq).
At a meeting of the UNESCO Executive Council (from October 4-18), 58 member states would join a ballot to select the new UNESCO General-Director.
Earlier, the official website of the UNESCO affirmed that a candidate must gain a majority of votes to win the election.
The new UNESCO General-Director will take office from November 15 in a four-year term.
Pham Sanh Chau: veteran multilateral diplomat
The Vietnamese Government decided to nominate Ambassador Pham Sanh Chau, the Special Envoy to the State President and PM on UNESCO, a representative of Viet Nam at the UNESCO Executive Council to run for the post in the 2017-2021 tenure.
The decision was made in recognition of the standout competence shown by Mr. Pham Sanh Chau, who has devoted a lot of time in his distinguished career diplomat to the UNESCO.
Ambassador Pham Sanh Chau is a veteran multilateral diplomat, starting his diplomat career since 1983, supervising general activities of the UN on human issues.
Mr. Chau was appointed as the representative of Viet Nam at the Francophonie in the 2000-2003 term, the Vietnamese Ambassador in Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Head of the Vietnamese delegation at the UN (2011-2014 term).
He was the Vietnamese Ambassador and Head of the Vietnamese delegation at the UNESCO in the 2000-2003 term.
Especially, the Ambassador has contributed to drafting the 2003 Convention on intangible cultural heritages; served as a Vice President of the UNESCO Executive Council in 2001; and was the President of the 2005 Convention Drafting Group on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.
Mr. Chau was UNESCO Viet Nam General Secretary in two terms (2007-2011 and 2014-present), and is renowned as aleading expert in heritage.
With over 16-year experience with the UNESCO, Ambassador Pham Sanh Chau has broadly understood how the international body runs as well as its targets, programs, priorities, opportunities and challenges.
The Ambassador vowed to spare no effort to implement the UNESCO’s fields of priority, including in Africa, gender equality, consolidation of the Secretariat, transparency of administration, and harmonization of member states, climate change response, water management, and support for small island countries to implement the 2030 sustainable development goals./.
By Kim Loan