On 8th November 2017, at the election held during the 39th General Conference of UNESCO, Bangladesh has been elected as the member of UNESCO Executive Board for the third consecutive term. As one of the three main Governing bodies of UNESCO, the Executive Board is responsible for the execution of the programme adopted by the UNESCO General Conference.

39th Session of General Conference has elected total 27 Member States from six electoral groups. From the Asia Pacific Group, along with Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Japan and the Philippines have been elected. As an elected member Bangladesh will serve the Executive Board of UNESCO from 2017 to 2021. This is for the 7th term Bangladesh becomes a member of the Executive Board.

A nine-member delegation led by Mr. Nurul Islam Nahid MP, Hon’ble Education Minister of Bangladesh is attending the Conference. His Excellency the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to UNESCO and the members of Bangladesh Embassy in Paris have also been actively participating in the General Conference and the election process.

Bangladesh became a member of UNESCO on 27 October 1972. Since then, it has been playing a positive and constructive role in fulfilling UNESCO’s core mandates in the fields of Education, Culture, Science, Communication and Information. Bangladesh too has been immensely benefited by the membership to UNESCO. Recently the Historic 7th March speech of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman has been inscribed in UNESCO’s International Register as a ‘Memory of the World’. Other recent achievements of Bangladesh at UNESCO include inscription of Mangal Shobhajatra on Pahela Boishakh and Jamdani Weaving in the Representative list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2016 and 2013 respectively.

One of the most remarkable achievements in the history of Bangladesh-UNESCO cooperation was the recognition of the 1952 Language Movement and the proclamation of 21st February as the International Mother Language Day. In 2015, UNESCO recognized our International Mother Language Institute as the UNESCO Category II Centre.