UNESCO's Executive Board on Monday appointed Egyptian Khaled el-Enany as its next director-general. He will have the heavy burden of leading the organization for the next four years, accused of being politicized and shaken by the announced withdrawal of the United States.

This 54-year-old former Minister of Antiquities and Tourism, an Egyptologist by training, was well ahead of the Congolese candidate Firmin Edouard Matoko with 55 votes out of 57.

This vote must now be ratified on November 6 at the meeting of the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. The Conference has never gone against a choice made by the Executive Board.

This perfect French speaker, a graduate in Egyptology from the University of Montpellier, would then become the first Director General of UNESCO from an Arab country, and the second African after the Senegalese Amadou Mahtar Mbow (1974-1987).

"I wish Dr. el-Enany the best in fulfilling his noble mission," Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said in a statement.

Mr. el-Enany will officially take office on November 14, succeeding Frenchwoman Audrey Azoulay, who has been in office since 2017.

Speaking to the Executive Board on Monday, he promised to work "hand in hand with all member states to build a roadmap together to modernize UNESCO and project it into the future."

- "ground" -

Faced with Mr. Matoko, who highlighted his 35-year career at UNESCO, Khaled el-Enany promised during his campaign launched in 2023 to bring a "fresh perspective" and the know-how from a career spent "in the field" - as a researcher in Egyptology, director of the famous Egyptian Museum in Cairo, then minister - to give "more visibility and more impact" to UNESCO.

His ministerial action is generally welcomed at a time when this major sector of the Egyptian economy, a major provider of jobs and foreign currency, was shaken by bloody attacks claimed by the Islamic State in 2017 and 2018, then the Covid pandemic of 2020.

He also oversaw the creation of the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, which since 2021 has housed around ten royal mummies, including that of Ramses II.

However, his name has been linked to damage caused in 2020 by major urban development projects in Cairo's historic necropolis, "The City of the Dead." The eviction of precarious residents and the relocation of remains from this UNESCO World Heritage site had drawn fierce criticism.

The ministry headed by Mr. el-Enany then assured that it had not carried out "any destruction of monuments", only "contemporary tombs".

- Financial challenge -

He takes the reins of an organization undergoing a profound reassessment, accused in recent months of being politicized.

After Israel in 2017, this year it saw the departure of Nicaragua, announced in May after the awarding of a prize to an opposition newspaper, and especially of the United States, made official in July by the Trump administration, which accuses it of anti-Israeli bias, of promoting "divisive social and cultural causes" and of defending "an ideological and globalist roadmap."

This departure cuts into its finances - Washington provides 8% of its total budget - but also its prestige.

Khaled el-Enany has promised to work to bring the United States back, something Audrey Azoulay succeeded in doing in 2023, six years after Donald Trump first decided to withdraw his country.

"I want to try to depoliticize the debate within UNESCO. A child deprived of education, I don't want to know their nationality," he recently explained to AFP. "I don't come with an agenda, I don't come as a spokesperson for the Arab world, nor for the African continent."

Speaking to the press, he also mentioned the "enormous" role that UNESCO could play in conflict zones, "in Gaza as well as in Ukraine or Haiti", mentioning "the destruction of the school system", "journalists killed like never before in the world", "cultural sites that are disappearing"...

"But to be effective, it's money, it's budgets," he reminded us.

He also intends to develop UNESCO's financial base by attracting more voluntary contributions from governments or by calling on resources from the private sector (foundations, patrons, businesses, etc.).

The latter "represented 8% (of the budget) in 2024, there is room to increase them," he explains.