HE the adviser at the Emiri Diwan, Dr Hamad bin Abdulaziz al-Kuwari, who is Qatar’s candidate for the director general post at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), yesterday stressed that his programme would be a fresh start for the organisation.
Speaking in Doha to a German News Agency, HE al-Kuwari said that electing an Arab personality for the first time to be the Unesco director-general would provide a great opportunity for a number of parties to co-operate. He said that he had visited a number of African, European, Latin American and Asian countries to seek their support for his nomination. He used the chance to listen to the priorities those countries had for Unesco and left feeling there was a strong commitment to education and heritage across the globe.
He highlighted his visit to Italy which backed him for the post. During the visit, Qatar’s candidate gave a speech that showed the link between the poor education system and extremism. He noted in the speech that most terrorists were holders of university degrees, which showed that higher education was not enough to stop extremism, and that required rethinking on how to improve education. He said that one way going forward, would be to focus on moral values along with academic education.
Asked on his vision for education in the Arab world, he responded that education was a global issue and its solution should not be geographical regions. On how Arab countries responded to his candidacy, he said that he got 19 Arab countries to endorse him before other Arab countries decided to nominate their own candidate.
He stressed, however, that he respected the decision of those countries, whether Egypt or Lebanon. He added that the choosing a candidate was a matter of sovereignty.
If he is elected as director-general, he said the top priority on his agenda would be to promote Unesco’s goals. His second priority was finding creative solutions to the organisation’s financial problems. He noted that there were small and poor countries around the world that simply could not carry out the necessary projects to promote education. As a result, a new way for providing finances must be implemented in order to help those countries.
On how he will deal with Unesco’s financial problems, al-Kuwari said that business leaders from around the world could finance educational programmes on a larger scale than what was currently taking place.
On the Educate A Child (EAC) programme, he said that (EAC) would provide education to 10mn students across the globe by the end of 2016.
He highlighted that the State of Qatar heavily supported Unesco programmes, giving an example with financially to maintain world heritage sites in Sudan and Yemen among others.
The Qatari candidate also discussed the efforts he will make to bring the United States back into Unesco. He said that the US was a major power and should not stay out of the organisation for long. He said that there were plenty of good signs he saw during his visit to the US, where he met with US secretary of state John Kerry.
He said that Unesco, under his leadership, would host an annual summit in Paris on education, culture and science. He added that this was one of many ideas he had for promoting the role of the organisation and financing its projects.
HE Dr Hamad bin Abdulaziz al-Kuwari: Qatar’s candidate for the director general post at Unesco.
