UNESCO IN THE WORLD — UNESCO'S REGIONAL STRATEGIES AND ACTION
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1970-1990, GROUPING ACTIVITIES REGIONALLY, CREATING NETWORKS The 1970s brought the end of UNESCO funding for the regional institutions set up ten years previously and activities were regrouped in the Regional Offices. This regrouping was undertaken at the same time as promoting the establishment of regional networks of educational innovation for development created between 1973 and 1984 in response to the worldwide surge of interest in innovation which also had repercussions on the international scene with the publication in 1972 of Learning to Be and with the creation in 1974 of the International Educational Reporting Service (IERS) within the International Bureau of Education (IBE). The interest aroused by the Asian Programme of Educational Innovation for Development (APEID) inspired the establishment of the other four networks, CODIESEE for Southern and Eastern Europe, NEIDA for Africa, CARNEID for the Caribbean and EIPDAS for the Arab States. These networks are one of the first tangible examples of a new concept of co-operation, technical co-operation among developing countries, meaning that these countries took on a greater share of responsibility in international co-operation activities and contributed to project execution rather than being merely recipients as in the past. The networks were to contribute to a process of decentralization of activities, which from then on were programmed regionally, not by Headquarters, and were carried out by a network of associated national centres. The most active networks have been those best able to mobilize national resources, attract voluntary contributions and negotiate directly with certain funding agencies. The Major Project in the Field of Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (the second major project in the region), launched in 1981, also made use of networks of specialized national institutions. In terms of strategy, it served as a bridge with the major regional programmes for the eradication of illiteracy and universalization of primary education which developed from 1984 onwards in Africa, Asia (APPEAL) and the Arab States (ARABUPEAL). All these programmes have their own intergovernmental governing bodies. For higher education, regional centres were set up for Europe in 1973 (CEPES), and for Latin America and the Caribbean in 1978 (CRESALC), and regional networks were established in Asia and Africa.
SINCE 1990, The World Conference on Education for All held in Jomtien (Thailand) in March 1990 engendered a new strategy which came in addition to the existing ones, but was more far-reaching: transregional co operation. For instance, the scientific and technological literacy project, Project 2000+, was from the outset planned on a global scale. Likewise, for higher education, the UNITWIN/UNESCO- Chairs Programme is expanding existing mechanisms for regional co-operation by establishing lasting links between universities and scientific institutions throughout the world, on a South-South, as well as a North-South axis. With regard to sub-Saharan Africa, UNESCO joined forces with the United Nations for its New Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s (UN-NADAF) launched in 1991, by drawing up a specific programme for the region, the ‘Priority: Africa Programme’. The experience gained with this programme has enabled the Organization to become lead agency in three of the twenty areas for priority action provided for under the United Nations System-Wide Initiative for Africa launched in March 1996, namely basic education, information technology for devel-opment and communications for peace-building. Following an agreement reached in 1993 at the New Delhi Summit on the theme of education for all, attended by nine high-population developing countries, UNESCO is encouraging these countries (Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan) to engage in closer direct technical co-operation and dialogue on measures to be taken. What we have here is not, therefore, a regional programme but transregional co-operation, based on a similarity of problems to be solved rather than on membership of a particular geographical area. Meanwhile UNESCO Offices have evolved along multi-disciplinary lines, an example being the Regional Office for Education in Asia and the Pacific, which has become the Principal Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, and the number of field units has grown (sixty-nine on five continents in May 1997) with the aim of better ensuring UNESCO’s presence at the service of its Member States.
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