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

17/10/2025 7:10

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."



Born in 1971, El-Enany began his career as a tour guide and is now a professor of Egyptology at Helwan University, where he has taught for more than three decades. If confirmed, he would become the first Arab and only the second African to lead UNESCO since its founding 80 years ago.