GENEVA, 16 October 2017—UNAIDS warmly welcomes the nomination by the Executive Board of the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO) of Audrey Azoulay as its new Director-General.
“Audrey Azoulay’s commitment to promote respect for diversity, gender equality and access to education and culture will be invaluable in her new role. They are values we share,” said Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of UNAIDS. “UNAIDS looks forward to working closely with Ms Azoulay and UNESCO to further strengthen our engagement with the education, scientific and cultural sectors as part of our joint efforts to end AIDS by 2030.”
UNESCO was founded in 1945 with the mission of contributing to peace and security by promoting international collaboration through education, science and culture. UNESCO is one of UNAIDS’ 11 cosponsoring organizations and leads efforts to support countries in scaling up the education sector response to HIV.
Education is essential to an effective response to HIV and contributes to fostering economic growth, reducing poverty and improving general health. Education has the capacity to transform lives and enable people to thrive in their environment, take healthy decisions and build a more just, inclusive, safe and sustainable world. The role of the education sector includes providing the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values that can contribute to safer behaviours, eliminate stigma and discrimination, seek treatment and enable them to stay healthy and free from HIV.
UNAIDS
The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) leads and inspires the world to achieve its shared vision of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths. UNAIDS unites the efforts of 11 UN organizations—UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP, UNDP, UNFPA, UNODC, UN Women, ILO, UNESCO, WHO and the World Bank—and works closely with global and national partners towards ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. Learn more at unaids.org and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
