Dr Ray Bondin presented his credentials as Ambassador and Permanent Delegate of Malta to UNESCO to the Director General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, (picture attached) at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. He has been officially appointed to this position by the Government of Malta on the 15th of May 2010.
Ray Bondin has a career of twenty five years in the field of heritage protection. He set up, and was Executive Coordinator of the Valletta, Mdina and Cottonera Rehabilitation Projects from 1987 to 2007. Since then he has been working at Heritage Malta where he is responsible for the EU and International Office.
He has a long career in international organisations and was at the top positions of a number of important organisations. Until the 15th of May, he was the President of Civvih, the International Committee of Historic Towns and Villages, senior advisor to the Global Heritage Fund and advisor to Governments on sites being nominated for world heritage.
He was the Founder and President of ICOMOS Malta. For nine years he was a member of the ICOMOS International Executive and of their World Heritage Panel. For eight years he represented Malta on the Council of ICCROM. He performed a large number of evaluation and monitoring missions directly for UNESCO, some as part of high level delegations, or for organisations that are consultants to UNESCO. He is already very well known at UNESCO.
The Director General of UNESCO warmly welcomed him as a person coming from the field of heritage protection and showed her appreciation for the choice made by the Government of Malta. The position is a non resident and an honorary one.
