For the boy who grew up taking family picnics between the paws of Egypt’s Great Sphinx, it is fitting that his ascension to head the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) comes just weeks before the opening of a new $300mn museum in Giza.
Getting 55 votes out of a possible 57, Egyptologist Khaled al-Anani was elected UNESCO’s next director-general at the organisation’s headquarters on Place de Fontenoy Square in Paris on 6 October. He is the first Arab to hold the position, and only the second African. Few subscribe more fully to UNESCO’s motto, that “heritage is our shared story”.
The man who once guided tourists through Egypt’s pyramids is now the guardian of humanity’s collective memory, from the Amazon’s vanishing tongues to the digital vaults of endangered archives. Born in the shadows of Giza’s pyramids, hearing the traffic over the call of the muezzins and distant hum of archaeological digs, al-Anani was cradled in a world between myth and modernity.
The new UNESCO head’s father was a civil servant and engineer who embodied the dedication of Egypt’s middle class. A job on the side paid for young Khaled to get the French schooling he coveted. His father took him to the ancient sites in different parts of Egypt as a boy. Wide-eyed, Khaled recalls tracing hieroglyphs with a stick in the dust, symbols that whispered of gods and eternity.
His mother, a French teacher, wove language into this tapestry of wonder, and at home, Arabic flowed seamlessly into French. It was here that al-Anani learned that stories usually transcend borders. He attended a French-speaking secondary school in Cairo, earning his Baccalaureate in 1988 with a scientific bent that pleased his father, who hoped his son would help design Egypt’s industrial future.
Hearing the traffic over the distant hum of archaeological digs, al-Anani was cradled in a world between myth and modernity
More than relics
Yet for Khaled, the pyramids were no mere relics. They were structures that pulsed with life, demanding interpretation. Defying paternal expectations, he chose to study Egyptology, graduating in 1992. By his early twenties, al-Anani was a licensed tour guide, navigating the crowds at Luxor and Karnak with the charisma of a born storyteller, reciting tales of Tutankhamun and other ancient kings and queens to European tourists in passionate, flawless French.
Revenues from guiding funded his Master's degree, completed in 1995. He then crossed the Mediterranean to study in Montpellier in the land of Jean-François Champollion, who helped decipher hieroglyphics using the trilingual Rosetta Stone more than 200 years ago. Amid the Languedoc's vineyards and the Roman ruins of southern France, al-Anani earned a postgraduate diploma in 1998 and a PhD in 2001, his thesis examining the social and economic impact of ancient trade routes.
He forged alliances and collaborations, such as with the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology (where he lectured) and the French Society of Egyptology. He has further taught at universities in Brandenburg, Germany, and Palermo, Italy. In an interview last year, he said Europe taught him method, whereas Egypt taught him soul.
Al-Anani returned to Egypt in 2002 as an associate researcher at Helwan University, later becoming Vice Dean at the Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality in 2012, then director of the Open Education Centre. For years, he taught ancient Egyptian language and civilisation, while co-authoring papers on sustainable heritage management with the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin. These ideas would later underpin his ministerial reforms.
In 2014, Egypt was trying to steady the ship after the Arab Spring revolutions overthrew Hosni Mubarak. Tourism had dropped dramatically, and some ancient sites and museums were looted amid the chaos. Al-Anani was tapped as director-general of the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation (NMEC) in southern Cairo, near the iconic Saladin Citadel and the City of the Dead. To him, this proved to be a crucible—the NMEC was a $1bn bet on cultural renaissance, housing 50,000 artefacts in a gleaming complex.
Egypt's Antiquities Minister, Khaled al-Anani, attends the 2nd Tutankhamun Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) conference on May 8, 2016, at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation (NMEC) in Cairo.
A museum come to life
Under al-Anani, the museum roared to life in February 2021. Its inaugural exhibit featured a royal mummy procession boasting 22 pharaohs, from Seqenenre Tao to Ramses II. Paraded through Cairo's streets in golden chariots, it evoked a pharaonic funeral barge, unseen for millennia. Al-Anani described it as "theatre for the soul". More than a million visitors flooded in. He installed disabled ramps and slashed entry fees for Egyptians, whose treasures belong to them.
In March 2016, al-Anani was sworn in as Minister of Antiquities, but this was a portfolio battered by revolution, with dozens of ancient sites under siege from urban sprawl, black-market smuggling, or the Islamic State group, which was active in Sinai and elsewhere. In addition, Egypt's antiquities coffers were running dry after the 2011 revolution, but despite the difficulties, he secured $300mn for the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), a colossal complex near Giza, which is due to open later this year.
He supervised major renovations, including the Baron Empain Palace in eastern Cairo, the Graeco-Roman Museum in Alexandria, and Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue in Alexandria, and by 2019—with tourism increasingly part of his portfolio—al-Anani boosted site protections and launched virtual tours, which drew millions during the COVID lockdowns.
The pandemic was a trying time for Egypt's $13bn tourism engine, with hotels shuttered and guides idled. In response, al-Anani slashed Egyptian museum fees nationwide, improved accessibility, and together with the fedora-clad Zahi Hawass, aka 'Egypt's Indiana Jones' (a former minister of antiquities himself), they launched a diplomatic blitz, hosting envoys at Luxor's temples, delivering lectures alongside lavish feasts—soft power that repatriated artefacts from New York auctions and Japan. Tourism rebounded 25% by 2022. The Valley of the Kings saw record crowds.
The UNESCO logo is seen during the opening of the 39th session of the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) at their headquarters in Paris, France, October 30, 2017.
Not without critics
Al-Anani has not been without his critics in Egypt. Some accused him of de-listing monuments to advance urban development, such as by removing protections for Cairo's Islamic cemetery ahead of a major highway development. Al-Anani said restoration had to be balanced against growth, pointing to 130 sites saved from encroachment.
A cabinet reshuffle ended his ministerial run in August 2022, but eight months later, in April 2023, Egypt nominated him for UNESCO. He launched his 'UNESCO for the People' bid at the NMEC in January 2025. Backed by the Arab League and the African Union, he toured the Global South, visiting the likes of Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and the Philippines, pledging to combat bureaucracy, foster agile field responses, and prioritise sites threatened with extinction through sustainable tourism.
Having got the nod, al-Anani's tenure now runs until 2029. His in-tray is ominous, and funds are scant ever since President Donald Trump withdrew the United States' funding, citing an "anti-Israel bias". Al-Anani's job, in part, will be to woo donors, vowing to roll out Holocaust education and fight intolerance, while trying to protect the heritage of places like Ukraine and the archives of Gaza, and limiting climate-related damage to places like Venice and the Great Barrier Reef. Al-Anani believes that UNESCO must be field-oriented, crisis-responsive, and 'people-first'.
After his appointment is ratified on 6 November in Uzbekistan, al-Anani's stewardship begins. In a fractured globe, where culture is both salve and casualty, this Egyptology scholar must be a bridge-builder. Privately, he is still the boy from Giza: humble, who spent his childhood digging and playing with interns. Today, he is more likely to be found in negotiations, though still with a mint tea. "Success is shared," he said in a newspaper interview in May. From the stone of the pyramids to the marble of UNESCO, he will now have to both preserve the past and fire up imagination for tomorrow.
