Mbow was the first African Director General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Born on March 20, 1921 in Dakar, Mbow voluntarily enlisted in the French Air Force during the Second World War. After the conflict, he studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, where he founded the Federation of African Students in France. Back in Africa, from 1951 to 1953 he was a professor at the Collège Rouge in Mauritania. Then, from 1953 to 1957, he created and directed a basic education service – literacy, social education and community development – in various locations in Senegal. During the period of internal autonomy of the first Senegalese government, Mbow became Minister of Education and Culture.
Supported by the African Group and the Non-Aligned Group, in 1970 Mbow was appointed Assistant Director-General for Education of UNESCO and in 1974 he was unanimously elected Director-General of the organization for a six-year term, becoming the second personality from a Third World country – after the Mexican Jaime Torres Bodet – to occupy this position, as well as the first African to lead a United Nations organisation. He was re-elected, with the same unanimity, in 1980, for a second seven-year term. During his mandate, Mbow worked to safeguard the cohesion of the member states around the ideals of the organization, working tirelessly for openness and mutual understanding of all the cultures of the world. Likewise, in the areas of education, through the promotion of knowledge and the strengthening of international cooperation and human rights, Mbow has always promoted in all his actions to the ideals of peace and human fraternity.
