Aziza BENNANI OF MOROCCO ELECTED CHAIRPERSON OF UNESCO’S EXECUTIVE BOARD

Paris, November 5 (No.2001-122) – Aziza Bennani, Permanent Delegate of Morocco to UNESCO, was today elected Chairperson of the Organization’s Executive Board for a period of two years.

Ms Bennani was elected unanimously in a single round of voting. She succeeds Sonia Mendieta de Badaroux (Honduras) who served as chairperson of the Executive Board since November 18, 1999.

Speaking to the Executive Board after her election, Ms Bennani said she saw in the decision to entrust the Chair to a woman and to a representative of the Arab region, as proof of UNESCO’s commitment to gender equality and of its rejection of the all too widespread confusion between Islam and terrorism.

Describing the events of September 11 in the US as a violation of human rights and of UNESCO’s Constitution, Ms Bennani said that “together we must reject any attempt to establish a hierarchy among cultures, [we must reject] the confusion between terrorism and any one culture, religion or nation”. She added that the present crisis highlighted the need for UNESCO to contribute to a new world order based on humanist values, recognizing the diversity and equal dignity of all cultures.

Advocating the pursuance of dialogue among civilizations, well beyond the Year 2001, dedicated by the United Nations to that theme, Ms Bennani said that UNESCO should help foster “a voracious appetite for the arts of all countries and of all epochs.”

Born in Rabat in 1943, Ms Bennani holds doctorates in literature from universities in Morocco and France. She has served as Morocco’s Culture Minister from 1994 to 1998 and has been her country’s Ambassador and Permanent Delegate to UNESCO since 1998.

The Executive Board’s 58 members, elected by the General Conference, meet twice a year. The Executive Board oversees the implementation of the programmes adopted by the General Conference, UNESCO’s supreme governing body.