Irina Georgieva Bokova (; born 12 July 1952) is a Bulgarian politician and a former Director-General of UNESCO (2009–2017). During her political and diplomatic career in Bulgaria, she served, among others, two terms as a member of the National parliament, and deputy minister of foreign affairs and minister of foreign affairs ad interim under Prime Minister Zhan Videnov. She also served as Bulgaria's ambassador to France and to Monaco, and was Bulgaria's Permanent Delegate to UNESCO. Bokova was also the personal representative of Bulgaria's president to the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (2005–2009).Biography. unesco.org. Retrieved 21 July 2016
On 15 November 2009, she took office as the ninth Director-General of UNESCO, marking two firsts: she became both the first female and the first Southeastern European to head the agency. At UNESCO, Bokova advocated for gender equality, improved education and preventing funding for terrorism, especially by enforcing the protection of intellectual goods. Currently, she is co-founder and member of GWL Voices.
Childhood and early years Irina Bokova is the daughter of the communist politician Georgi Bokov, editor-in-chief of Rabotnichesko Delo, the official newspaper and organ of the Bulgarian Communist Party. By descent Bokova is Bulgarian."Стандарт", Брой 5860, 8 май 2009 . Bokova graduated from the First English Language School, and then went on to graduate from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, preparing young apparatchiks from the entire Eastern Bloc for future tasks such as diplomats and agents under the control of the KGB. Subsequently, she worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria, starting in 1977 as a third secretary and eventually becoming acting minister (ad interim) between 13 November 1996 – 13 February 1997. In 2015 German newspaper Die Welt discovered an error on her UNESCO biography page, where she was named the minister, and not the ad interim. When it came to public attention, the error was immediately removed.
Bokova was a member of the Bulgarian communist party until 1990, when the party was renamed in Bulgarian Socialist Party, and her membership was cancelled, after changes in the law that year required that employees of several ministries, among them Foreign Affairs, should not be members of any political party. Bokova was two terms member of the Bulgarian Parliament – the first term in 1990-1991 during the 7th Grand (Constitutional) National Assembly, elected as a majoritarian representative with the Bulgarian Socialist Party list, and the second, during the 39th National Assembly, in 2001–2005, with the Coalition for Bulgaria list.
Personal In addition to her mother tongue Bulgarian, she speaks English, French, Spanish and Russian. She is married to Kalin Mitrev, a director at EBRD, and has two children.
Education
1971: First English Language School, Sofia. 1976: Moscow State Institute of International Relations, MSc in international relations. 1989, January – August: University of Maryland, School of Public Affairs, Washington, D.C., Program on US foreign policy decision-making process. 1992–1994: NATO fellow, Program for Central and Eastern Europe on democratic institutions focusing on the national and legal mechanism for the protection of minorities. 1999, November – December: Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Executive Program in Leadership and Economic Development.
Career
Current positions
Former Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Bulgaria to France. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Bulgaria to the Principality of Monaco. Permanent Delegate of the Republic of Bulgaria to UNESCO. Representative of the Bulgarian Government to the executive board of UNESCO (since the election of Bulgaria in October 2007). Personal Representative of the President of the Republic of Bulgaria to Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF). Deputy Chairperson, Group of Francophone Countries at UNESCO. Chairperson of the Second Extraordinary Session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (February 2008, Sofia). Member of the Literary group Prix des Ambassadeur. In November 2021, Bokova was elected as a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science, an international organization consisting of scientists, scholars, and artists that addresses global challenges.
Parliamentary experience
Deputy Chairperson of the Foreign Policy, Defense and Security Committee. Member of the European Integration Committee. Deputy Chairperson of the Joint Parliamentary Committee Bulgaria – European Union.
Civil society experience
Founder and Chairperson of the European Policy Forum (since its inception in Sofia in 1997), a non-profit, non-governmental organization. Patron of the Asian University for Women (AUW) in Chittagong, Bangladesh. The university, which is the product of east–west foundational partnerships (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Open Society Foundation, IKEA Foundation, etc.) and regional cooperation, serves extraordinarily talented women from 15 countries across Asia and the Middle East.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
2005–2009: Ambassador of Bulgaria to France and MonacoTasho Tashev, Bulgarian ministers 1879-1999 / . p. 61 (Book about members of the Bulgarian cabinets since 1979, in Bulgarian) 2005–2009: Ambassador of Bulgaria to UNESCO November 1996 – February 1997: acting at the ministry of foreign affairs (ad interim) June 1995 – February 1997, other positions held in the cabinet of Zhan Videnov, Bulgarian Socialist Party: First Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs in charge of UN, OSCE, EU and NATO. Chief co-ordinator of Bulgaria–EU relations. Co-chairperson, Bulgaria – EU Association Committee. National PHARE Co-ordinator. Chairperson, Inter-Agency Co-ordination Commission on European Integration (at deputy ministerial level). Took part as head of delegation or keynote speaker in a number of international fora. Member of the Board of Trustees of the Centre for European Studies. 1984–1990: second and first secretary, Department UN and Disarmament 1982–1984: third secretary, Permanent Mission of Bulgaria to the UN 1977–1982: intern and third secretary, Department UN and Disarmament
UNESCO On 22 September 2009, Bokova was elected Director-General of UNESCO. She defeated nine candidates at the election in Paris, with Farouk Hosny ultimately being defeated by 31–27 in the fifth and last round of voting. Hosny had been expected to win but attracted criticism from figures such as Nobel Peace laureate Elie Wiesel over his anti-Israel statements. She took over the position from Koïchiro Matsuura of Japan. She entered the office of the Director-General as both the first woman, and the first Southeastern European to take this role. On 15 October 2009, the 35th session of the General Conference elected Irina Bokova of Bulgaria as the tenth Director-General of UNESCO. The investiture took place in a ceremony in Room I in the afternoon of Friday 23 October 2009.
On 4 October 2013, the executive board of UNESCO nominated her for second term as Director-General. She was re-elected by the UNESCO General Conference on 12 November 2013.UNESCO General Conference elects Irina Bokova for second term as Director-General
In 2009, while most of the Bulgarian media was supportive of Ms. Bokova's future role at the helm of UNESCO, some raised questions about her past as a daughter of a member of the totalitarian communist elite."Is Bokova's Win a Win for the Entire Nation" a blog posting by Ivo Indzhev, a prominent Bulgarian journalist and blogger (In Bulgarian) Bulgarian-born German writer Iliya Troyanov criticised Bokova's election as Director-General of UNESCO in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, calling it "a scandal", in light of Bokova's father's communist past.Warum die Unesco-Wahl ein Skandal ist (German), Summary in English, In Bulgarian On the other hand, The New York Times not only published an article, explaining who Mrs. Bokova is,Bulgarian Who Is to Lead Unesco Advocates Political Pluralism, The New York Times, 24 September 2009. but also officially supported her nomination on the grounds that "[s]he played an active role in Bulgaria's political transformation from Soviet satellite to European Union member. That should be a strong asset in leading an organization badly buffeted in the past by ideological storms."The Right Head for Unesco, The New York Times, 28 September 2009.
On 16 January 2014, Irina Bokova yielded to pressure from the Arab League and postponedInformation regarding the planned exhibition, "People, Book, Land – The 3,500 Year Relationship of the Jewish People to the Holy Land" (information from UNESCO) for five months an exhibit entitled The People, the Book, the Land – 3,500 years of ties between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel, following protest from the Arab states in UNESCO, arguing it would harm the peace process. Invitations had already gone out and the exhibit was scheduled to run from 21 January through 30 January at UNESCO's Paris headquarters with fully prepared exhibition material already in place. In a letter to Bokova, Abdulla al Neaimi, an official from the United Arab Emirates, expressed "deep worry and great disapproval" over the program showing the age old connection between Israel and the Jewish people. The US State Department said it was outraged at the move, "UNESCO's decision is wrong and should be reversed." Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs said "is no appropriate rationale to delay the exhibition and deeply disappointed by the decision made to postpone it". The Wiesenthal Center called the move an "Absolute outrage, the Arabs don't want the world to know that the Jews have a 3,500-year relationship to the Land of Israel". The exhibition was opened on 11 June 2014 in Paris, in a ceremony with participation by Mrs. Bokova and the Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Rabbi Marvin Hier."People, Book, Land: The 3500 Year Relationship of the Jewish People with the Holy Land" exhibition opens at UNESCO (information from UNESCO web site) The exhibit was co-sponsored by Israel, Canada, and Montenegro, and was called "a breakthrough" by its author, professor Robert Wistrich.UNESCO deletes ‘Israel’ from title of its exhibit on Jewish ties to Israel (article in The Times of Israel) On 18 November 2015 Irina Bokova was given the Special Award of the Simon Wiesenthal Center at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., for the inauguration of the exhibition People, Book, Land: The 3,500 year Relationship of the Jewish People with the Holy Land in the U.S. capital. Bokova inaugurated the exhibition in the presence of Edward Royce, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Eliot Engel, Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Israel's Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer and Rabbi Marvin Hier.
On 28 March 2015, she launched Unite4Heritage, a campaign aiming to create a global movement "to protect and safeguard heritage in areas where it is threatened by extremists". The campaign was triggered by the programmatic destruction of cultural heritage conducted in Iraq and Syria by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) since 2014, in particular after the circulation of videos of looting at Mosul Museum, destruction in the city of Nimrud and the UNESCO World Heritage site of Hatra.