{"text":[[{"start":8.59,"text":"Editor's Note:Firmin Edouard Matoko, a candidate for the position of Director-General of UNESCO, is a senior international official with over three decades of experience within the organization. Born in Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo, and educated in economics and international relations in Italy and France, he joined UNESCO in 1990. His career includes roles as Director of UNESCO multi-country offices in Africa and Latin America, Director of the Africa Department at headquarters, and since 2017, Assistant Director-General for Priority Africa and External Relations. A skilled diplomat and thinker, he is known for his commitment to multilateralism, peace, and sustainable development, particularly in the Global South. Other candidates include Egypt’s former Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, Khaled El-Enany."}],[{"start":67.68,"text":"The nomination process involves the 58-member Executive Board selecting a candidate by secret ballot during its 222nd session in October 2025. The final vote will take place at the 43rd session of UNESCO General Conference in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. The article below outlines his vision for UNESCO’s cooperation with the Global South."}],[{"start":95.47,"text":"During my more than thirty years with UNESCO, work has taken me across the world—from its Paris headquarters to offices in Dakar, Quito, and Addis Ababa, from African Union meeting halls to grassroots communities in Latin America. On these busy journeys, chance encounters with UNESCO World Heritage sites have been a profound pleasure. Whether at the ancient Inca sanctuary of Machu Picchu in the Andes, China’s Grand Canal—a thousand-year-old waterway still pulsing with life on the eastern plains—or the architectural wonder of Great Zimbabwe in sub-Saharan Africa, I have often paused in admiration of humanity’s great civilizational achievements, only to be drawn into a challenging reflection: having established the World Heritage programme as an act of historical responsibility, enabling peoples to understand and appreciate the splendour of each other’s ancestral cultures, how will UNESCO work with its Member States—especially the Global South—to create future achievements that our descendants will look upon with equal pride and admiration? At this historic moment, the 80th anniversary of the United Nations in 2025, I am more convinced than ever that UNESCO has the potential and the leadership for this task. We must be not only guardians of heritage but also architects of the future."}],[{"start":190.11,"text":"As a UNESCO staff member, deep engagement and cooperation with the Global South have impressed upon me the organization’s untapped potential to contribute significantly to global development. On its path to emergence, the Global South faces complex challenges: widening inequality, climate crisis, digital divides, and questions of cultural identity. International organizations genuinely committed to walking alongside the Global South cannot remain stuck in a development-aid mindset. The belief that increasing aid funds alongside a Washington Consensus-style reform package can easily solve the problems of Southern nations has been shown, through extensive project experience, to be an ineffectual and wishful approach. Unlike some self-styled expert international economic institutions, UNESCO has built a tradition of listening to and understanding Member States’ needs on the ground, then inspiring and helping local people in an egalitarian manner to nurture innovation, blending indigenous knowledge with international experience into sustainable solutions."}],[{"start":267.35,"text":"For much of my higher education, I received academic training suited to a development economics scholar. Later, I witnessed how development economics was progressively marginalized within mainstream economic research as neoclassical economics gained dominance. The monolithic policy paradigm of liberalization, marketization, and privatization championed by neoclassical economics once monopolized the discourse on global development issues. I take some comfort, however, that the discipline’s marginalization did not prevent some Global South countries, through their own efforts, from breaking this dominant narrative on national development. The development practice of these nations over recent decades has proven that modernization paths rooted in local experience are entirely achievable. Therefore, real-world development solutions come not from equations on a blackboard in a University of Chicago classroom, or from group discussions in a conference room at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, but from the innovative activities of governments, enterprises, and citizens within each country."}],[{"start":341.49,"text":"The Global South of today is vastly different from the Southern partners UNESCO engaged within its early years. After many Asian and African countries shook off colonial rule and gained independence, UNESCO quickly threw itself into literacy campaigns and universal basic education, striving to help these new nations build the intellectual foundation for development. The rise of the Global South in the 21st century means UNESCO now engages not merely with partners in need of help, but with fellow travellers with whom we can jointly build a desirable future. On this encouraging path, UNESCO is already working with the Global South to explore critical issues such as AI ethics, education models fit for technological revolution, sustainable urbanization, and the protection of cultural diversity. Looking forward, UNESCO’s role as a debating space and ideas laboratory will grow clearer, grounded in principles that uphold universality without imposing uniformity, and governance based on transparency and trust. Thus, a beautiful vision must not remain mere rhetoric but become daily practice—pursuing goals and adhering to principles. In recent years, I have been pleased to note the Chinese government’s successive major international initiatives, such as the Global Development Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative, backed by tangible resources and immediate action. This reinforces my conviction that UNESCO will not be alone in advancing the cause of the Global South."}],[{"start":445.12,"text":"Today, UNESCO must respond nimbly to breakneck technological development. Having initiated the first African Forum on Artificial Intelligence, I brought together industry professionals, researchers, and government officials to discuss applying AI in local contexts—for instance, deploying AI to help many African countries protect endangered languages culturally, and optimize agricultural development and food security economically. The “Priority Africa” strategy I actively promote within UNESCO is not confined to a politically correct notion but is matched by a clear plan of action, enabling the organization to advance its mission by increasing investment in marginalized and vulnerable regions. The success of the African AI Forum demonstrated that even in relatively less developed parts of the Global South, discussion on frontier technology need not devolve into abstract talk. In AI development, UNESCO can act both as a technology advocate and promoter, and with a strong sense of responsibility, drive the implementation of technical norms and ethics."}],[{"start":525.16,"text":"While envisioning the future, I must acknowledge, as a career UN diplomat grown within UNESCO, that international organizations centred on the UN are facing growing challenges from unilateralism. In confronting these challenges, UNESCO cannot stand apart. It must leverage its advantages with firm conviction and reform internal shortcomings affecting institutional effectiveness. UNESCO’s deep engagement and cooperation with Global South countries reflect a shared commitment to the value of multilateralism. I firmly believe international organizations are not castles in the air detached from the nation-state system, nor should nation-states practice isolationism to become islands in the international system. To this end, UNESCO will fully mobilize and rely on its extensive network—including National Commissions, Category 2 Centres, UNESCO Chairs, and Creative Cities Networks—to demonstrate the substantial value of multilateral principles in solving real-world problems. This transnational policy network, pooling collaborative strength from governments, business, academia, and civil society, connects not only governments and people, states and markets, but can also revitalize South-South cooperation and North-South dialogue, ensuring local voices have a place in international decision-making."}],[{"start":625.4399999999999,"text":"The expectation of the Global South’s rise has often inspired key choices in my personal and professional journey. Starting from Brazzaville, I witnessed the struggles of post-colonial African development, studied development economics in Italy, and joined UNESCO to participate in global development policy practice. These experiences convince me that UNESCO is not only a bridge for knowledge exchange but a link between past and future. Its commitment to the Global South will guide us forward. UNESCO will strive to unlock potential through education, drive innovation through science and technology, foster identity through cultural exchange and mutual learning among civilizations, and assist Global South countries in charting their own modernization paths based on local wisdom. Looking toward the 2030 sustainable development goals and beyond, UNESCO stands ready to work with all partners to build a fairer, more inclusive, and sustainable world—one whose achievements, when looked back upon by future generations, will inspire in them the same pride and esteem we feel today."}],[{"start":717.5699999999999,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftmailbox.cn/album/a_1759029138_5417.mp3"}