The Director-General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, will travel to Ghana on her first official visit to the country as Director-General of UNESCO on January 30. This mission is at the crossroads of two of UNESCO’s main priorities: gender and Africa. 

The Director-General will participate in a High-Level Dialogue on girls’ education, in the presence of Ministers of Education and Health and senior officials from 17 countries across sub-Saharan Africa. The Our Rights, Our Lives, Our Future (03) Programme will be officially launched during the conference. With the support of Sweden and of Ireland, the Programme builds on current efforts by UNESCO to improve health education for adolescents and young people.

Ms Azoulay will then visit the Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT (information and communication technology) to meet young girls who benefited from the UNESCO-led “Girls Can Code” project. Launched by the First Lady of Ghana, this programme has already successfully trained 150 girls and 10 adult female ICT teachers in computer application development and coding.

The Director-General will also hold a bilateral meetings with the President of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, and with several Ghanaian ministers in charge of subjects in UNESCO field of competence.