Interview with Amadou-Mahtar M’Bow

Abstract

The senegalese Amadou-Mahtar M’Bow had a professional career related to cultural concerns. Geography Undergraduate at the Sorbonne University, M’Bow was a militant for his country's independence and has become Minister of Education during Senegal's period of self-government in 1956, when his country was about to become independent. In the following years, Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow started acting in UNESCO, when took part on the Executive Board as his country's representative. He also chaired the Programme and Programme and External Relations of the Executive Board from 1968 to 1970. In 1970, he became Deputy Director-General for Education, and was the UNESCO Director-General from 1974 to 1987. In M'Bow's rich testimony, several aspects of the World Heritage Convention are mentioned. Notably, he testifies to UNESCO's early missions for the protection of cultural heritage, which would eventually helping to mature the notion of a cultural heritage that belongs to all humanity. M'Bow also highlights the challenges that the Convention had to face, particularly in the conservation of threatened monuments, as mentioned in the case of the Acropolis of Athens, the city of Venice and the historic center of Warsaw. Regarding the successes and failures of the Convention, M'Bow mentions the successful case of the indication of Brasilia, as an expansion of the notion of heritage, and the failure in the case of Member States that did not take the conservation of their conservation of their properties.