Establishment

The Paris Chapter of the Group of 77 was created in 1969 in Paris at UNESCO headquarters. Its emergence may be considered as one of the most important developments in the Organization.

The Paris Chapter's membership of 133 countries consists of countries from all six Electoral Groups represented at UNESCO and constitutes the largest single group of delegates to the Organization The first chairpersonship was held by Senegal representing the African Electoral Group. The first chairperson was Amadou Mahtar M'Bow who went on to become the Director-General of UNESCO. The chairpersonship has been rotated since the beginning from one electoral group to the next every biennium. To date, there have been fifteen chairpersons who were, in every case, the Ambassador/Permanent Delegate of his or her country accredited to UNESCO:

1969-71 H.E. Mr Amadou-Mabtar M'Bow (Senegal)

1972-73 H.E. Mr Gabriel Betancur-Mejia (Colombia)

1974-75 H.E. Mr Ahmed Derradji (Algeria)

1976-77 H.E. Mr Reza Feiz (Iran)

1978-79 H.E. Mr Issac Manda (Zambia)

1980-83 H.E. Mr Alfredo Tarre-Murzi (Venezuela) (during 1983 replaced when absent from Paris by H.E. Mr Gonzalo Abad Grijalva (Ecuador) and then H.E. Mr Joseph Antoine Emmanuel Guerrier (Haiti))

1984-85 H.E. Mr Aziz-AI-Hajj Ali Haidar (Iraq)

1986-87 H.E. Ananda W.P.Guruge (Sri Lanka)

1988-89 H.E. Mr Yahya Aliyu (Nigeria)

1990-91 H.E. Mr Giullermo Putzeys Alvarez (Guatemala) until June

1990 and then H.E. Mme Ruth Lerner Almea (Venezuela)

1992-93 H.E. Mr Musa bin Jafar bin Hassan (Oman)

1994-95 H.E. Mine Nina Sibal (India)