Maria Paola Azzario is President of the Italian Federation of Clubs and Centres for UNESCO (FICLU) since November 2014, reconfirmed during the Elections of April 2016.

She is Vice President of the European Federation of Clubs, Centres and Associations for UNESCO (EFUCA) and ex officio member of the World Federation of Clubs, Centres and Associations for UNESCO (WFUCA).

She is founder member and President of the Centre for UNESCO in Turin, recognized by UNESCO as an International UNESCO Centre.

Since 1983, she is UNESCO Consultant for training of trainers for ECA-UNESCO methodology and, since then, she organizes several training and information activities at local, national and international levels.

She is founder and coordinator of the Ipazia-UNESCO programme, created as follow-up of UNESCO Conference “Science in the XXI Century: a new commitment” (Budapest, 1999). Within the framework of the Ipazia project she initiated and organised a series of bilateral and multilateral Round Tables for women scientists in America, Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia.

As responsible for Italy and International Secretariat of the International Mediterranean Women’s Forum, NGO in official partnership with UNESCO and ECOSOC, based in Turin, at the Centre for UNESCO, she coordinated, between 2000-2003, training courses for the creation of a network of women trainers in the Mediterranean Basin on the subject “Women, Science and Development”. The result of this programme was the implementation of twenty development projects in: Albania, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey and the training of approximately 3,000 women trainers.

Maria Paola Azzario delivers keynote lectures and writes articles and essays in the fields of International Organisations, Intercultural Education, Human Rights, Equal Opportunities, Peace and Development. She is the Director of the book series “Research and Didactics” of the Centre for UNESCO in Turin, which counts, at April 2016, 110 publications, DVDs and videos.

From 1986 to 2014 she was member of the Italian National Commission for UNESCO. In 1995, she wrote “Italy for UNESCO”, the history of the Italian National Commission for UNESCO, internationally distributed in Italian, French and English.

In 2001 she wrote “I, too, speak, read and write Italian”, an Italian grammar textbook for foreign students, 2 Vols. Ed. Trevisini - Milan. In 2002 she was awarded the Aurelio Pecci Prize “for her contribution to the knowledge of the Italian language by children of other cultures”.

She is the editor of the “Guide to the UNESCO World Heritage in Italy and China” (published in 2015), two volumes which present the World Heritage sites in Italy and China, both with texts and captions in double language: Italian and Chinese.