Uzbekistan Prepares to Host the 43rd Session of UNESCO’s General Conference
By: Fatima Badawi
In 2025, Samarkand will host the 43rd session of UNESCO’s General Conference – the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The decision was made in the previous session in November 2023. As reported by Gazeta.uz, this event will be held outside Paris for the first time since 1985.
On March 15, Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a decree regarding preparations for the international forum.
The document indicates that “in recent years, cooperation between Uzbekistan and UNESCO has reached a new level. UNESCO serves as an important platform to continue enhancing and strengthening our country’s authority in the global community, as well as expanding and deepening bilateral and multilateral cooperation.”
From 2017 to 2023, 14 unique examples of our national cultural heritage have been listed by UNESCO and internationally recognized as humanity’s heritage. The city of Bukhara is included in the Creative Cities Network. The resolution also announced that in September 2023, the 1050th anniversary of the birth of the great thinker and encyclopedist Abu Rayhan al-Biruni will be widely celebrated at UNESCO headquarters.
The resolution established an organizing committee to prepare for UNESCO’s General Conference, chaired by Prime Minister Abdullah Aripov.
The session will be held at the Silk Road Tourist Complex in Samarkand. The organizing committee will handle all organizational matters related to the session, particularly equipping the event venues in Samarkand with modern technical equipment and communication tools, as well as preparing facilities in Tashkent and Samarkand and necessary hotel accommodations.
During the session, cultural events, tours, and high-level receptions will be organized in Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva, and Shakhrisabz.
Media platforms and audiovisual works will be created to highlight the significance of the session in Samarkand, which will be broadcasted on local and foreign media, utilizing techniques such as hashtags and challenges on social media.
An album book titled “Samarkand – at the Crossroads of Global Civilizations” will be published in Uzbek, Russian, English, and French languages, in addition to a series of postage stamps, envelopes, calendars, visual advertisements, commemorative coins, silver, and gold coins.
The working body of the organizing committee is the Development Foundation for Culture and Arts in Uzbekistan. The main operator in preparing for organizing the session will be the unitary government institution InterForum. Heads of ministries and departments are personally responsible for the timely and high-quality implementation of instructions outlined in the resolution, in addition to other operational instructions of the organizing committee and the working body.
According to the decree, starting from April 1, two additional positions of advisor and second secretary and additional vehicle units will be added to the recruitment schedule for Uzbekistan’s permanent delegation to UNESCO.
Instructions have been issued to the organizing committee, the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Specialized Education, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as relevant ministries and departments, to take measures for “broad propaganda abroad about more than 3000 years of the history of our country’s development, the scientific, cultural, and spiritual heritage of our great ancestors, who made an invaluable contribution to world civilization, and the results of reforms implemented in our country, as well as continuing to develop cooperation with them.
Instructions have been issued to the Cabinet of Ministers of Karakalpakstan, regional administrations, and Tashkent, as well as relevant ministries and departments, in addition to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to organize “media and explanatory work aimed at detailing the importance of holding the session in our country, as well as transforming Uzbekistan into one of the centers of global politics and initiatives.
The Cultural Heritage Agency, in cooperation with the Development Foundation for Culture and Arts of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, has been tasked with organizing work on “preserving relevant cultural heritage sites in Samarkand, as well as immersive and thematic exhibitions”.
