UNESCO chief pledges stronger cooperation with China across all fields

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) aims to deepen its cooperation with China across all fields, thereby reinforcing its partnership with the Global South as a whole, said UNESCO director-general Khaled El-Enany.

El-Enany visited China's Hangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai from May 11 to 14, his fourth time in the country and first time as UNESCO director-general. Speaking with CCTV in Beijing during the visit, he highlighted the significance of cooperation with China, noting that the partnership goes beyond the bilateral scope.

"I'm here to deepen the partnership, the very strong and well-established partnership with China, one of the big partners to UNESCO. And when you deal with China, I think it's beyond a bilateral relationship. We are dealing with the global South. We are working with China in all the fields of competence of UNESCO - in education, science, culture, communication, information. Since I arrived at UNESCO in November 2025, I'm building a very strong partnership with your permanent delegation at UNESCO, a very active one," El-Enany said in an interview that aired on Friday.

In Hangzhou, the UNESCO chief attended the opening and the plenary session of the 2026 World Digital Education Conference. He described the meeting as fruitful in terms of consensus-building.

"We [all agreed] that digital transformation and using AI [in education] is a must, but it must complement what human beings are doing. It must be ethical, equitable and inclusive," he said.

El-Enany highlighted his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on May 12.

"He reiterated his strong commitment to intercultural dialogue, to mutual learning among the civilizations. And this resonated [with] what he had said at UNESCO in his historic visit in 2014 to UNESCO in March, which is very aligned with the mandate of UNESCO - to build peace in the minds of women and men and to defend peace through education, science and culture," said the director-general.

UNESCO chief pledges stronger cooperation with China across all fields

The Prize for Girls' and Women's Education has played a vital role in promoting gender equality in education, said Khaled El-Enany, director-general of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

China and UNESCO jointly established the Prize for Girls' and Women's Education in 2015. It is the organization's only prize for promoting girls' and women's education, which plays a vital role in publicizing the concept of gender equality in education and related good practices and in implementing gender equality as a global priority.

"This prize is a very important one. It has been there since 2015, and it allowed laureates from around the globe (to be recognized). It supports initiative that supported the education of girls, women around the world, as there are more than 130 million girls out of school. When it comes to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education, they are underrepresented in scientific fields as well, so it's a big priority," said El-Enany in an interview with China Central Television (CCTV), which aired Friday.

UNESCO chief reiterates significance of prize for girls', women's education