UNESCO: Director General Audrey Azoulay re-elected for 2nd term

Audrey Azoulay was re-elected Tuesday for a second term as Director-General of UNESCO with overwhelming backing of member States of this UN specialized agency.

Following her re-election with 155 votes out of 169 ballots cast, Mrs. Audrey said: “I see this result as a sign of regained unity within our organization. Over the last four years, we have been able to restore confidence in UNESCO, and in some respects, this has also been about restoring UNESCO’s confidence in itself”.

“We regained serenity by reducing the political tensions that stood in our way and by looking for common positions on subjects that were divisive in the past,” she added.

Over the past four years, UNESCO has undergone a significant modernization process to improve the efficiency of its actions. The UN cultural agency notably embarked on the reconstruction of the old city of Mosul (Iraq).

Since the tragic double explosion in the port of Beirut in August 2020, UNESCO has rebuilt 90 schools in the Lebanese capital where it is also pursuing activities in the fields of heritage and culture.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, while hundreds of millions of children and adolescents were deprived of their right to learn, UNESCO set up the Global Education Coalition which made it possible to ensure educational continuity in 112 countries.