Nigerians, others emerge UNESCO leaders

THE 36th General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) opened yesterday in Paris, France, with the elections of two key women, including Nigeria's Permanent Delegate to UNESCO, Mrs. Maryam Katagum, to the executive of the world body.Katagum was elected Vice President, while Katali Bogyay, a Permanent Delegate of Hungary, was unanimously elected the President of the 36th General Conference.Bogyay took over the presidency of UNESCO from David L. Hepburn, the Permanent Delegate of the Commonwealth of Bahamas to UNESCO and President of the 35th Session. Before the elections, however, there were serious concerns by member-nations that the set targets of 2015 of Education for All (EFA) and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) might not be met by several countries, which are signatories to those historic international commitments.With the elections of Bogyay and Katagum, the presence of women at the helms of affairs of UNESCO further got a boost. They have effectively joined the Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, as well as the Chairperson of the Executive Board of UNESCO, Eleonora Valentinovna Mitrofanova, the Permanent Delegate of the Russian Federation to the UNESCO.Also elected were chairpersons, vice chairpersons and rapporteurs of the various commissions and committees of UNESCO. Nigeria's delegation is being led by the Minister of Education, Prof. Ruqayyatu Ahmed Rufa'i with the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Julius Okojie and his Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) counterpart, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, among others, accompanying her.In her speech, the director-general challenged member-nations of the UNESCO to work towards realising the targets of EFA and MDGs goals for the benefit of future leaders, who are eager to be part of the development process, saying: 'The agenda carries high stakes. The challenges we face are bigger than national differences. The global economic crisis is hitting societies hard across the world, especially the most vulnerable and least resilient.'We live in a time of profound change. This is accompanied by turbulence, by uncertainty, as well as by opportunity. We need to find new ways to build stability, sustainability. The world's seven billionth citizens will soon be born. Pressures are rising on land and resources, on jobs and opportunities.
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