Special Keynote Address: Federico Mayor Zaragoza

In this special address, Ambassador Federico Mayor Zaragoza, former two-term UNESCO secretary general, and longtime advocate for global peace through education, brings his experience to bear on the current global context, calling for cooperation in education, but also action. Ambassador Zaragoza reminds us that the preamble to the United Nations constitution is a call to action in the name of "we the peoples", and that education is at the heart of that action.

Federico Mayor Zaragoza

Federico Mayor Zaragoza is a Spanish scientist, politician, and diplomat. A biochemist and researcher with a PhD in Pharmacy, he taught at the University of Granada and then at the Faculty of Sciences in Madrid, where he founded the Severo Ochoa Molecular Biology Center in 1974.

In the same year, he began his political career as Undersecretary to the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science. In 1977, he was elected a member of the Spanish Parliament and chaired the Parliamentary Committee for Education and Science before acting as an advisor to the President of the Government of Spain in 1978. He then served as Minister of Education and Science between 1981 and 1982. In 1987, he represented Spain in the European Parliament.

He began his involvement in UNESCO (The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) in 1978, serving as Deputy Director-General to Mr Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow before succeeding him in 1987. He was Director-General of UNESCO for twelve years until 1999, and during this period he launched the Culture of Peace programme. At the end of his term, he returned to Madrid to create the Foundation Cultura de Paz of which he currently serves as President. In 2011, he also became President of the International Commission on the Abolition of the Death Penalty. He is currently the Honorary President of the Council of the United Nations Peace University’s European Center for Peace and Development (ECPD).

A scientist and poet, Ambassador Mayor Zaragoza has published hundreds of articles and several collections of poetry.

About the Presenter(s)
Federico Mayor Zaragoza is from the European Center for Peace and Development (ECPD), United Nations University for Peace, Serbia

See this presentation on the full schedule – Friday Schedule

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