Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow | |
---|---|
Director-General UNESCO | |
In office 1974–1987 | |
Personal details | |
Born | Dakar, French West Africa (now Senegal) | 20 March 1921
Education | Sorbonne University |
Occupation | Politician, diplomat, educator |
Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow GCIH (born 20 March 1921) [1] [2] is a Senegalese retired civil servant and former Director-General of UNESCO. Born in Dakar, M'bow served in France and North Africa during World War II after volunteering for the French Army, also serving with the Free French, and finally in the French Air Force. [3] After the end of the war, he studied geography at the Sorbonne University in Paris. He served at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris from 1953 to 1987.
M'Bow began working for UNESCO in 1953 and served as its Director-General from 1974 to 1987, being the first black African to head a United Nations organisation. His tenure has been described as marked by an alternative framework for the production of knowledge and information, moving away from Eurocentric tendencies and encouraging the diversity of experiences and cultures. [4] He was President of the PanAfrican Archaeological Association from 1967 to 1971. [5]
In 1978, he made the speech "A plea for the return of an irreplaceable cultural heritage to those who created it", where he called for the restitution of cultural heritage from the northern to the southern hemisphere. [6] His call followed the 1973 resolution no. 3187 about the Restitution of works of art to countries victims of expropriation, [7] but had no decisive effect on restitutions.
In May 1980, M'Bow called the Commission over the Problems of Communication which delivered the MacBride Report (so called after its president, Seán MacBride), supporting international claims for a New World Information and Communication Order. His departure in 1987 followed criticism for administrative and budgetary practices and the US withdrawal from UNESCO in 1984 (followed by the UK in 1985).[ citation needed ]
In 1980, M'Bow was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Belgrade. In february 1981, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Rijksuniversiteit Gent (Ghent University). He retired to his home country of Senegal in 1987 and celebrated his 100th birthday in March 2021. [8]
Mário Alberto Nobre Lopes Soares was a Portuguese politician, who served as prime minister of Portugal from 1976 to 1978 and from 1983 to 1985, and subsequently as the 17th president of Portugal from 1986 to 1996. He was the first secretary-general of the Socialist Party, from its foundation in 1973 to 1986. A major political figure in Portugal, he is considered the father of Portuguese democracy.
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The Restitution of African Cultural Heritage. Toward a New Relational Ethics is a report written by Senegalese academic and writer Felwine Sarr and French art historian Bénédicte Savoy, first published online in November 2018 in a French original version and an authorised English translation.
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