Dr Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al Kawari with Norwegian State Secretary and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Laila Bokhari, and (RIGHT) with State Secretary to the Minister of Education and Research, Bjorn Haugstad, during his visit to Oslo.
Dr Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al Kawari, Cultural Adviser at the Emiri Diwan and Qatar's candidate to the post of Unesco Director-General, has called for including studies on human value in education curriculums.
Dr Al Kawari met with Norwegian State Secretary and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Laila Bokhari, during a visit at the invitation of Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) as part of the Oslo Urban Peace Week.
Bokhari praised the depth of ties between Norway and Qatar and their bilateral cooperation and work to establish global peace and cooperation in the fields related to Unesco interests, particularly in education and heritage, hailing the role of Qatar Foundation and its projects in service of education. Bokhari noted that Sweden, a member of Unesco 's executive board, supports his candidacy.
Dr Al Kawari also met State Secretary to the Minister of Education and Research, Bjorn Haugstad, and the meeting focused on the Qatari candidate's vision for the future of Unesco, particularly the challenges facing the organisation.
They also touched on cooperation between the two countries in the field of education.
Addressing a gathering at PRIO banquet dinner, Dr Al Kawari said, “values defended by great humanists become human shared values, they include tolerance, mutual respect among cultures, gender equality and human dignity. But these values should also be taught in schools and universities in order to address ethics as we address science and technology.”
He noted that a number of extremist leaders in the world were once students in the most important and largest universities in vital areas of the globe.
“Humanising study programmes is of the utmost importance in many countries since some terrorist leaders are graduated from well-known universities. Obviously, they gained technical knowledge and failed to acquire shared human values,” he said.
Dr Al Kawari, who is running for the Unesco Director-General position, stressed that, “this endeavour is for me a mission, and I have a message to the world: a message of peace, of human dignity and mutual respect among nations.”
“Personally, I am not looking for a job or a position, I had great positions in my life: many times as ambassador, minister, Unesco and UNO representative and more. All Unesco geographic groups have had a Director General except the Arab group. I am confident that Arabs will not be deprived of this right,” he added.
He also stressed that he has a strategy to face the sharp financial crisis that Unesco is facing. “I summarise this plan in an international communication campaign that shows explicitly the noble goals of Unesco in a way that donors, philanthropists and States worldwide adopt these goals and feel involved in Unesco by financing its projects.”
He said that Unesco, that was once a success story of the whole world, has gradually tarnished and started to lose its lustre.
“Today, we are in front of a historic responsibility that the world has to bear once again. We have to present Unesco again with its noble objectives and achieve another success story in the 21st Century. Let us work altogether hand in hand towards a new momentum for this great organisation.”
