Africa
UNESCO is contributing to Africa’s Consolidated Plan of Action as concerns improving policy conditions and building mechanisms for innovation. UNESCO is also working with African countries to develop or review national science, technology and innovation (STI) policies. Several national projects are ongoing.

In April 2012, UNESCO and its partners organized a major conference on STI in Africa for youth employment, human capital development and inclusive growth.

Arab States
UNESCO and the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALECSO) are spearheading efforts to develop an Arab Plan of Action for Science and Technology.

UNESCO is also working with Arab countries to develop or review national STI policies. The policy for Lebanon was launched in 2006 and a policy for Iraq is currently under development.

In 2011, UNESCO launched an Arab network for the expansion of converging technologies (NECTAR) involving scientific and engineering institutions in the region.

Asia
UNESCO’s regional and cluster offices implement programmes and projects to develop the capacity of Asian member states to develop appropriate science, technology and innovation (STI) policies and map the development of STI in their country.

European Union
Read the chapter on the European Union in the latest edition of the UNESCO Science Report 2010, which updates the status of science worldwide every five years.

Latin America
UNESCO is carring out a consultative process with a view to establishing a Regional Strategic Action Plan in Science, Technology and Innovation Policy for Latin Amercia and the Caribbean.

North America
Read the chapters on Canada and the USA in the latest edition of the UNESCO Science Report 2010, which updates the status of science worldwide every five years.

Southeast Europe
UNESCO is helping the post-conflict countries of Southeast Europe reconstruct their science systems and integrate pan-European science. UNESCO is giving particular attention to Albania, Armenia and Serbia in the formulation of their national STI policies.

Small island developing states (SIDS)
UNESCO is contributing to the implementation of the Mauritius Strategy (2005) for the sustainable development of SIDS.

Regional networks

Over the past two decades, UNESCO has set up a number of regional networks which operate under its auspices.

UNESCO is also fostering inter-parliamentary cooperation to improve knowledge-based science legislation. Sub-regional parliamentary fora have also been established around the world by UNESCO since 2004.

Read about two e-learning networks, the Avicenna Virtual Campus and the African Virtual Campus.

Regional centres

The International Centre for South-South Co-operation in Science, Technology and Innovation was inaugurated in Kuala Lumpur in May 2008. It functions under the auspices of UNESCO. 

Regional projects

Archaeomap
The Archaeomap project – for Archaeological Management Policies – coordinated the elaboration of integrated science policies for the Mediterranean’s coastal zone in 2008-2010. in 2011, UNESCO and its partners adopted an action plan establishing a network of UNESCO Chairs to ensure the continued exchange of information among participating universities and training for civil servants and public authorities. (More)

Aral Sea
For more than a decade, UNESCO helped the countries around the Aral Sea develop science policies to help their institutions to mitigate the ecological and socio-economic damage done to the Aral Sea region, within a project involving the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research which wound up in December 2011.