Ghana re-elected on UNESCO Executive Board

Ghana has been re-elected into the Executive Board of the UNESCO at the 40th General Conference of UNESCO in Paris.

By this, Ghana rejoins the 58-member governing board of the UN body for another four-year term.

The Minister of Education, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, was elected unanimously at the conference as Ghana's representative on the board.

His alternate is HE Anna Bossman, Ghana’s Ambassador to France with concurrent accreditation to UNESCO.

The Executive Board of the UNESCO acts in an advisory capacity to the United Nations and also exercises responsibility for the execution of the programme adopted by the General Conference.

This re-election reinforces Ghana’s role at the UN body, a statement issued from the public relations directorate of the ministry had said.

It would be recalled that recently UNESCO awarded the Institute of Education Planning and Administration (IEPA) of the University of Cape Coast and the African Institute of Mathematical Sciences(AIMS-Ghana) UNESCO category II status as Centres of Excellence.

In 2018, the world gathered in Accra to celebrate World Press Freedom Day. In January 2019, the Director-General of UNESCO,Audrey Azoulay visited Ghana and met with the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

She took the opportunity to commend Ghana for its work at UNESCO and within the African region in furtherance of the aspirations of UNESCO which are in the areas of Education, Natural and Human Science, Communication and Information as well as Culture.

The statement quoted Dr Prempeh saying that "Ghana's re-election heralds an era of renewed impetus in driving forward her commitment to SDGs through UNESCO’s work."

He called for the support of all the ministries and agencies that worked within UNESCO’s field of competencies.