Public Diplomacy
Foreign Minister Taro Kono Meets with H.E. Ms.Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
August 29, 2019
On August 29, for about 25 minutes, from 3:15 p.m., Mr. Taro Kono, Minister for Foreign Affairs, during his stay in Yokohama to attend the Seventh Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD7), held a meeting with H.E. Ms. Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The overview of the meeting is as follows.
- Minister Kono mentioned that de-politicization of UNESCO including UNESCO’s reform of the Memory of the World Programme is important and that Japan would like to enhance its cooperation with UNESCO in terms of various actions including assistance toward Africa.
- In response, Director-General Azoulay explained that UNESCO has been making efforts on the comprehensive review of the Memory of the World Programme and UNESCO’s strategic transformation toward de-politicization and that UNESCO would continue to put effort into such reforms. Director-General Azoulay also expressed her pleasure about the progress of UNESCO’s cooperation with Japan in various fields such as AI, education, climate change and Disaster Risk Reduction, and mentioned that UNESCO would continue to cooperate with Japan.