UNESCO chief nominee Khaled El-Enany pledges closer cooperation with China

UNESCO’s sole candidate for director-general, Khaled El-Enany, has said the organization will work together with China across all areas, highlighting heritage preservation as a key shared priority.
A former Egyptian minister of Tourism and Antiquities, El-Enany was nominated for the top UNESCO post during the 222nd session of the agency’s Executive Board on Oct. 6 in Paris. His nomination will be submitted to the UNESCO General Conference for approval on Nov. 6 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
“China is a great country and a major partner of UNESCO. I have visited several times and was very warmly received,” El-Enany told Xinhua in a recent interview. He praised China’s Global Civilization Initiative, saying the world needs efforts that “bring peoples closer together, foster dialogue among civilizations, and combat hate speech, ignorance, and supremacism.”