Morocco was at the spotlight during a ceremony held on Wednesday at UNESCO headquarters to mark the opening of the UN organization’s Africa Week, under the theme ‘Education for Innovation, Development and Culture in Africa’.
Prior to the solemn ceremony of this week, which took place in the presence of His Majesty the King’s ambassador to France, Samira Sitail, ministers and representatives of numerous African states and diplomats, the delegations represented at UNESCO and the event’s guests were given an enthusiastic welcome to the rhythms of the Daqqa marrakchia, and were able to visit the Moroccan stand, which illustrates the richness and diversity of Moroccan culture and the age-old skills of Moroccan craftsmen.
In his speech on this occasion, Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid, Minister of Youth, Culture and Communication, guest of honor at the event, welcomed the organization of UNESCO’s Africa Week to celebrate the continent’s diversity and richness, while at the same time focusing on the challenges it faces, pa
rticularly in the field of education.
‘Properly mobilized, through education and cultural fulfillment, Africa’s youth will enable our countries to benefit from the demographic dividend of the coming decades. They will be the springboard for our common and plural emergence: economic, cultural, social and societal emergence,’ he said.
The Minister pointed out that plural African culture unfortunately remains marginalized worldwide. ‘For while our writers, musicians and film-makers contribute to making the whole world dream, to making it vibrate to the rhythm of our inspirations and our imaginations, this is most often done outside the continent.’
In his speech, as Chairman of the Organizing Committee for this 2024 Africa Week, Ambassador Samir Addahre, Permanent Representative of the Kingdom to UNESCO, said that one of the continent’s major global priorities is education, the theme chosen for this edition of Africa Week.
He pointed out that the African continent is experiencing major technological innovatio
ns, which have earned it the reputation of being a laboratory of innovation, noting that ‘Africa’s vocation is not to remain a laboratory, but on the contrary to become a platform from which innovative solutions emerge that could be duplicated elsewhere.’
Source: Agence Marocaine De Presse