Short Biography of the Director General of The United Nations Organization on Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO)

Koichiro Matsuura was born on 29 September 1937 in Tokyo, Japan.

Education:

1956-1959 - Law Faculty, Tokyo University.

1959-1961- Economy Faculty, Haverford College, USA.

He started his career in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan in 1961.

In the period from 1961 to 1988 he was occupying diplomatic positions in Ghana, at the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (Paris), in the USA and Hong Kong, as well as Central Office of the MFA.

From 1988 - Director General of the Economic Cooperation Bureau of the MFA of Japan.

From 1990 - Director General of North-American Department of the MFA of Japan;

In 1992-1994 - Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan;

From 1994 - Ambassador of Japan in France and combining authorities - in Andorra and Djibouti;

In 1998-1999 - Chairman of the Global Heritage Committee of UNESCO.

In 1999 he was elected as the Director General of UNESCO (for the period of 6 years).

In 2005 he was reelected as the Director General of UNESCO for 4 years.

Koichiro Matsuura is the author of six books on Japanese diplomacy, in the area of the development of relations between Japan and France, on history and perspectives of the "Great Seven" meetings, economic cooperation diplomacy, on the history of relations between Japan and the USA.

Languages spoken are Japanese, English, French and Spanish.

He is married and he has two sons.