The rise in initiatives aimed at promoting the internationalization and globalization of higher education, in particular the rapid development of crossborder higher education have underlined an increasingly urgent need to establish robust frameworks for quality assurance and the recognition of qualifications.

UNESCO’s actions in this area focus on providing information and capacity to empower higher education stakeholders for better-informed decision-making in the new world of higher education.This initiative aims to provide information to protect students from inadequate learning resources, low-quality provisions. It also aims to provide decision-makers at the governmental and institutional level with information and skills necessary to better navigate in the new higher education space.

Quality assurance is the systematic review of educational programmes to ensure that acceptable standards of education, scholarship and infrastructure are being maintained. Recognition refers to the acceptance of a foreign certificate, diploma or degree of higher education as a valid credential by the competent authorities and the granting to its holder the same rights enjoyed by persons who possess a national qualification which the foreign is assessed as comparable.

The Global Forum on International Quality Assurance, Accreditation and the Recognition of Qualifications is key in UNESCO intitiatives in this area. The Global Forum on International Quality Assurance, Accreditation and the Recognition of Qualification was launched to serve as a platform for exchange between the various partners and stakeholders in international and crossborder higher education and to address the social, political, economic and cultural dimensions underpinning globalization and higher education. This forum is designed to work in a complementary fashion with other UNESCO initiatives of the Medium-Term Plan 2002-2007.