UNESCO director-general, Audrey Azoulay will make her first official visit to Egypt from Saturday to Monday to celebrate the country’s culturale heritage and support its safeguarding, also in the face of challenges posed by urbanization and sustainable tourism.
Azoulay will attend a ceremony marking the transfer of mummies from the Museum of Cairo to the new National Museum of Egyptian Civilization during the visit, according to a UNESCO statement.
"Seeing the mummies enter the new National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, knowing they are now more accessible, marks the end of much work to improve their conservation and exhibition," Azoulay said.
"We will see the history of Egyptian civilization unfold before our eyes,” she added.
After a visit to Cairo and its landmarks, Azoulay will travel to the Nile River city of Aswan in southern Egypt.
UNESCO and Egypt have had especially strong ties since the campaign to safeguard the Nubian monuments of Abu Simbel (between 1963 and 1968), which laid the ground for UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention of 1972, the statement noted.
Egypt and UNESCO work together in all of the organisation's key fields of culture, science and education and Egypt is also an "active participant" in as artificial intelligence and open science among other key areas for the future, said the statement.
