UNESCO Executive Board Elects Mohamed Sameh Amr of Egypt as New Chairman

Mohamed Sameh Amr, the Ambassador and Permanent Delegate of Egypt to UNESCO, has been elected on Friday Chairman of the Organization’s Executive Board for a period of two years. H.E. Amr replaces Ms Alessandra of Barbados, who had served as chairperson over 2012 and 2013.

H.E. Amr was born in Cairo in 1966. He holds a Ph. D in International Law from the London School of Economics and a Master’s degree in Public and Private Law from Cairo University. A fluent speaker of Arabic, English and French, he is the author of numerous publications on matters of International Law, and led a distinguished academic career as a Professor of Public International Law at Cairo University.

H.E. Amr has been closely connected to UNESCO since 2000, representing Egypt on a number of international committees and in negotiations concerning several UNESCO Conventions, notably those concerning Underwater Cultural Heritage, Intangible Cultural Heritage, Doping in Sport and the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.

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, which ended its 37th session at UNESCO on Wednesday 20 November.

This comes after Egypt won a seat a week earlier in the executive board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) after snatching 136 votes.

Egypt won the UNESCO membership, which is one of the most important programs of UNESCO, in the elections that were held on the sidelines of the 37th meeting of the UNESCO’s general conference currently held in Paris, the Egyptian diplomat said.

“That represented a significant recognition of Egypt’s leading role in the international arena,” H.E. Amr said.