Ambassador Talha Elected as President of UNESCO General Conference

Bangladesh Permanent Delegate to UNESCO Ambassador Khondker M Talha was elected as the President of the 43rd General Conference of UNESCO. The Executive Board of the Paris-based UN agency elected Ambassador Talha against Ambassador Takehiro Kano of Japan by 30-27margin at a voting that took place on 07 October during the 222nd Session of the Board.The election for the Presidency of General Conference was contested by Bangladesh, Japan, India and the Republic of Korea. However, Republic of Korea and India had withdrawn their candidatures earlier in September.
He is the first Bangladeshi to get elected for the apex position in the history of the country’s 53 years membership at UNESCO. He will succeed Ambassador Simona Mirela Miculescu of Romania for this position in the upcoming General Conference to be held Samarkand, Uzbekistan later in October.
Ambassador Talha is a senior career diplomat of Bangladesh Foreign Service with an experience of over three decades. He joined the service in 1995 as a member of the 15th batch. A graduate of economics and international trade, Ambassador Talha served at important Bangladesh Missions in New York, Tehran, Geneva and London. At the headquarters, he served as Chief of Protocol and Director General (East Asia and Pacific). He was made Ambassador to France, Monaco, Cote d’Ivoire and Permanent Delegate of UNESCO in 2021.
Ambassador Talha was the architect behind many diplomatic successes of Bangladesh at UNESCO. During his leadership, Bangladesh won six key elections including the UNESCO Executive Board and the Intergovernmental Committee for Safeguarding the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Bangladesh’s inscription for ‘Rickshaw and Rickshaw Art in Dhaka’ was also inscribed under his leadership.
Ambassador Talha was consecutively elected for two terms as a Sherpa of the High-Level Steering Committee for SDG4 implementation. He negotiated innovative financing solution for LDCs and Lower Middle-Income Countries to mitigate the global funding gap in SDG4 (education) implementation. Ambassador Talha also chaired the Intergovernmental Committee on Diversity of Cultural Expressions (2005 Convention) and the Committee for Non-Governmental Partners (NGP) besides the Asia Pacific Group at UNESCO.
In a quick reaction,Ambassador Talha expressed gratitude to the Hon’ble Chief Adviser of the Government of Bangladeshand the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for entrusting him with this prestigious nomination. He further thanked the Education Adviser Chowdhury Rafiqul Abrar and Cultural Adviser Mostafa Sarwar Farooki for supporting his nomination. He viewed that this election is a manifestation of the global community’s recognition of Bangladesh’s sustained andactive diplomatic engagement particularly in the multilateral fora. He also thanked the members of the Executive Board for their confidence in the capacity of Bangladesh. Marking this as a historic achievement for Bangladesh, he pledged to work relentlessly for upholding the mandate of UNESCO at this critical time for multilateralism. He dedicated his victory to the people of Bangladesh in home and abroad.