Irina Georgieva Bokova (Bulgarian: Ирина Георгиева Бокова; born 12 July 1952) is a Bulgarian politician and a former Director-General of UNESCO (2009–2017). During her political and diplomatic career in Bulgaria, she served, among others, two terms as a member of the National parliament, and deputy minister of foreign affairs and minister of foreign affairs ad interim under Prime Minister Zhan Videnov. She also served as Bulgaria's ambassador to France and to Monaco, and was Bulgaria's Permanent Delegate to UNESCO. Bokova was also the personal representative of Bulgaria's president to the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (2005–2009).
On 15 November 2009, she took office as the ninth Director-General of UNESCO, marking two firsts: she became both the first female and the first Southeastern European to head the agency. At UNESCO, Bokova advocated for gender equality, improved education and preventing funding for terrorism, especially by enforcing the protection of intellectual goods. Currently, she is co-founder and member of GWL Voices.
Irina Bokova is the daughter of the communist politician Georgi Bokov, editor-in-chief of Rabotnichesko Delo, the official newspaper and organ of the Bulgarian Communist Party. By descent Bokova is Bulgarian. Bokova graduated from the First English Language School, and then went on to graduate from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, preparing young apparatchiks from the entire Eastern Bloc for future tasks such as diplomats and agents under the control of the KGB. Subsequently, she worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria, starting in 1977 as a third secretary and eventually becoming acting minister (ad interim) between 13 November 1996 – 13 February 1997. In 2015 German newspaper Die Welt discovered an error on her UNESCO biography page, where she was named the minister, and not the ad interim. When it came to public attention, the error was immediately removed.
Bokova was a member of the Bulgarian communist party until 1990, when the party was renamed in Bulgarian Socialist Party, and her membership was cancelled, after changes in the law that year required that employees of several ministries, among them Foreign Affairs, should not be members of any political party. Bokova was two terms member of the Bulgarian Parliament – the first term in 1990-1991 during the 7th Grand (Constitutional) National Assembly, elected as a majoritarian representative with the Bulgarian Socialist Party list, and the second, during the 39th National Assembly, in 2001–2005, with the Coalition for Bulgaria list.
In addition to her mother tongue Bulgarian, she speaks English, French, Spanish and Russian. She is married to Kalin Mitrev, a director at EBRD, and has two children.
1971: First English Language School, Sofia.
1976: Moscow State Institute of International Relations, MSc in international relations.
1989, January – August: University of Maryland, School of Public Affairs, Washington, D.C., Program on US foreign policy decision-making process.
1992–1994: NATO fellow, Program for Central and Eastern Europe on democratic institutions focusing on the national and legal mechanism for the protection of minorities.
1999, November – December: Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Executive Program in Leadership and Economic Development.
Former Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Bulgaria to France.
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Bulgaria to the Principality of Monaco.
Permanent Delegate of the Republic of Bulgaria to UNESCO.
Representative of the Bulgarian Government to the executive board of UNESCO (since the election of Bulgaria in October 2007).
Personal Representative of the President of the Republic of Bulgaria to Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF).
Deputy Chairperson, Group of Francophone Countries at UNESCO.
Chairperson of the Second Extraordinary Session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (February 2008, Sofia).