Irina Bokova  © www.bokova.eu

So another News to certify that Male dominant world is slowly wading off. After a record four Women got Nobel Prize it's now the first women to be Elected as Director - General of UNESCO Irina Bokova.

The 35th Session of the General Conference elected Irina Bokova of Bulgaria as the tenth Director-General of UNESCO. The investiture will take place in a ceremony  in the afternoon of Friday 23 October 2009, when Irina Bokova will become the first woman to hold the post since the foundation of the Organization in 1945.

On september 22nd Irina Bokova, 57, defeated Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosny after a suspenseful and drawn-out race, sealing victory in the fifth round of balloting at the organization's Paris headquarters. The vote among UNESCO board members was 31 to 27. The race was tight and closely watched, with a flurry of secretive diplomatic efforts between each round, allegations of fraud and an uproar over Hosny's candidacy. For months, Hosny had been considered the favorite. But critics raised Egypt's contentious record of cultural censorship and highlighted his threat last year to burn Israeli books, a comment he later apologized for. Bokova's candidacy took off late in the race as delegates sought a consensus figure.  

The new Director-General, who will serve a four-year term, has been Ambassador of the Republic of Bulgaria to France and Monaco, Personal Representative of the Bulgarian President to the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie and Permanent Delegate to UNESCO since 2005. Born in 1952, Ms Bokova obtained a MBA at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations and has studied at the University of Maryland and at Harvard University in the United States of America.

Ms Bokova has over three decades of experience in the international arena, which includes serving as a representative to the United Nations and subsequently as Bulgaria’s Secretary of State for European integration and as Foreign Minister.Bokova, who has witnessed Bulgaria's transformation from an Eastern bloc nation to an EU member, was her country's foreign minister for a brief period in 1996-1997 and helped negotiate Bulgaria's entry into the European Union and NATO. 

"I shall be guided in my work by my concept of a new humanism for the 21st century,” said Ms Bokova after her election.

Irina Bokova's Portal