Education Q&A with UNESCO's Irina Bokova | Big Think

Education Q&A with UNESCO's Irina Bokova

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UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova on investing in girls’ education to combat poverty.

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Irina Bokova:

Irina Bokova, born on 12 July 1952 in Sofia (Bulgaria) has been the Director-General of UNESCO since 15 November 2009, and reelected for a second term in 2013. She is the first woman to lead the Organization.

Having graduated from Moscow State Institute of International Relations, and studied at the University of Maryland (Washington) and the John F. Kennedy School of Government (Harvard University), Irina Bokova joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria in 1977, where she was responsible for human rights issues. Appointed in charge of political and legal affairs at the Permanent Mission of Bulgaria to the United Nations in New York, she was also a member of the Bulgarian Delegation at the United Nations conferences on the equality of women in Copenhagen (1980), Nairobi (1985) and Beijing (1995). As Member of Parliament (1990-1991 and 2001-2005), she participated in the drafting of Bulgaria’s new Constitution, which contributed significantly to the country’s accession to the European Union. She launched the first seminar of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on the European Convention on Human Rights.

Irina Bokova was Minister for Foreign Affairs and Coordinator of Bulgaria-European Union relations (1995-1997) and Ambassador of Bulgaria (2005-2009) to France, Monaco and UNESCO and Personal Representative of the President of the Republic of Bulgaria to the "Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie" (OIF). As Secretary of State for European integration and as Foreign Minister, Irina Bokova has always advocated for European integration. Active member of many international experts active in civil society and especially President and founding member of the European Policy Forum, she has worked to overcome European divisions and to foster the values of dialogue, diversity, human dignity and human rights.

As Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova is actively engaged in international efforts to advance quality education for all, gender equality, cultural dialogue and scientific cooperation for sustainable development and is leading UNESCO as a global advocate for safety of journalists and freedom of expression.

Irina Bokova is Executive Secretary of the Steering Committee of the UN Secretary-General’s Global Education First Initiative (GEFI) and co-Vice-Chair of the Broadband Commission.

Irina Bokova has received state distinctions from countries across the world and is Doctor honoris causa of leading universities.

In addition to her mother tongue, she speaks English, French, Spanish and Russian.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Irina Bokova: We do believe at UNESCO and I personally am very much committed to girls’ education and women’s empowerment. I do believe in the first place that education is one of the best investments in order to achieve sustainability in any development but particularly girls. Because in many parts of the world girls are a synonym with poverty in the rural areas. Girls are the marginalized communities in the communities. There are still a lot of stereotypes and because poverty has sometimes a women’s face. Investing in girls’ education and we have a lot of data, a lot of research in this particular area – improves communities standard of living, eradicates poverty, has a particularly important and positive impact on health. We know that educated women that have passed through primary education are caring better for their children, for their families. And also for the environment. Investing in girls’ education is also one of the main, I would say, objectives of education for all which is the second millennium development goal.

And without achieving gender parity in primary education and also moving to the secondary education, we cannot achieve also what nowadays is considered one of the objectives of the international community to eradicate extreme poverty by the year 2030. And why we speak now about girls’ education? Because still inequalities are there. Only 58 percent of the countries have achieved gender parity in primary education and only 38 percent gender parity in secondary education. When girls are in school and our appeal is let’s keep girls in school. They marry late, they get pregnant late.

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