Accra, Feb. 14 - The Director-General of the UN Educational, Scietific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), Mr Koichiro Matsuura arrives in Ghana on February 15 at the invitation of President John Agyekum Kufuor.

A statement from the UNESCO Office in Accra said Mr Matsuura would launch the 200th anniversary of the Abolition of the North Atlantic Slave Trade.

He would also open two conferences: 93From Slave Route to Heritage Route" being organized by the Ministry of Tourism and Diasporan Relations and 93Water and Culture" Conference, being organized by the UNESCO Cluster Office and the Ministry of Chieftaincy Affairs and Culture.

Mr Matsuura is also expected to break grounds at the Castle premises for the erection of a monument on slavery, visit the re-furbished Ussher Fort and attend a durbar of Chiefs of Old Accra as a Guest of Honour.

This is the second time Mr Matsuura is visiting Ghana after an earlier one in January 2004.

During his first visit, he commissioned a sub-regional Distance Education Programme at the Institute of Education, University of Cape Coast and also launched the United Nations Year to commemorate "The Struggle against slavery and its Abolition".