Since 30 September 2020, the FEDE has been an official partner of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). The so-called ‘consultative’ status granted to our Federation will allow it to develop close relations with UNESCO – an international organisation and world reference in education. Everyone on the FEDE team is excited about the prospects that this new partnership will bring.

About UNESCO

In 1942, during the Second World War, some of the countries fighting against Nazi Germany and its allies met in the United Kingdom for the Conference of Allied Ministers of Education (CAME). Their aim was to find ways to reconstruct their education systems. The project soon took on an international dimension, and UNESCO was officially founded on 4 November 1946. UNESCO aims to secure peace through international cooperation in education, science and culture. UNESCO programmes also help to implement the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set out in the 2030 Agenda adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015. As of 1 January 2019, UNESCO has 193 Member States.

UNESCO’s vision

More than 75 years after the end of the bloodiest conflict in history, cultural diversity is under attack, and new forms of intolerance, denial of scientific facts and violations of freedom of expression are threatening peace and human rights. In such a context, UNESCO has a duty to reaffirm the humanist goals of education, science and culture. Political and economic cooperation between governments is insufficient to ensure durable and sincere commitment to universal peace; peace must be based on dialogue, mutual understanding and the moral and intellectual solidarity of humankind.

In this spirit, UNESCO develops educational tools to help each individual to live as a world citizen and to provide every child and adult with access to quality education. UNESCO promotes programmes and scientific policies, which serve as development and cooperation platforms to strengthen relations between nations by promoting cultural heritage and the equality of cultures. UNESCO acts as a laboratory for ideas, playing an essential role in consolidating the foundations of durable peace and sustainable and equitable development. UNESCO carries out its activities through five key programmes: Education, Natural Sciences, Social and Human Sciences, Culture, Communication and Information.

UNESCO’s educational goals include:

– to lead the construction, at an international level, of structures providing access to education for people from every part of the world;

– to provide expertise and encourage the creation of partnerships to build the capacities of all countries to provide quality education to all;

– to urge states and the international community to accelerate progress towards the UN’s educational goals, and to measure the progress made.

FEDE-UNESCO relations since 2018

The FEDE compiled and submitted a request for official UNESCO partnership (consultative status) in May 2018, having begun the process in 2017. The application included proposals for activities that would draw on the FEDE’s education-related skills and expertise. In support of its application, the FEDE requested a number of high-level meetings. In December 2018, the FEDE Chairwoman met with two senior UNESCO staff members at the Organisation’s headquarters – the Director for Cultural Policies and Development (Culture Sector) and the lead specialist within the Cultural Policies and Development Programme. She went on to meet, in April 2019, with the Head of the Section of Education Policy within the Division for Policies and Lifelong Learning Systems and with an expert on world citizenship education. The FEDE Chairwoman also got in touch with a number of UNESCO ambassadors. During these meetings, the UNESCO experts particularly appreciated, on the one hand, the educational links inherent to the FEDE’s network and, on the other hand, its academic research and its involvement at the Council of Europe, where our Federation’s activities have a strong relevance for UNESCO (as a reminder, the FEDE produced an anti-corruption teaching programme in collaboration with GRECO and is leading the creation of a white paper on European cultural identity). UNESCO enthusiastically participated in a FEDE-organised white paper consultation focusing on world citizenship education. The collaboration of the two organisations on this subject of shared interest enabled the FEDE to demonstrate its expertise. In October 2019, the UNESCO’s Director of Education supported the FEDE’s stance concerning the dreadful situation of schoolchildren in the Sahel and replied to a letter sent by the President of the FEDE’s Human Rights Committee Farhang Ghassemi. UNESCO also recognised the FEDE’s commitment to humanism, as demonstrated by its official statements and its annual Human Rights Prize. It has become very difficult for an NGO to obtain consultative status at UNESCO since UNESCO requires that applications be both of high quality and relevant to its policy interests.

FEDE-UNESCO: a win-win partnership

The FEDE’s areas of expertise are highly relevant to UNESCO’s objectives. Like UNESCO, the FEDE is convinced that education is an essential driving force in improving the situation of both states and their citizens. The FEDE’s educational programmes allow learners to take career-oriented courses while simultaneously developing the skills needed to become open-minded citizens.

As an official UNESCO partner, the FEDE intends to play an active role in UNESCO’s collective and bilateral cooperation mechanisms, particularly as regards the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the UN in 2015. The FEDE is particularly eager to contribute to SDG 4, which aims to ‘Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’. By working together to this end, the FEDE and UNESCO will help, at their respective levels, to meet this ambitious SDG by 2030. Thanks to their partnership, the FEDE and UNESCO will be able to draw on their respective skills, knowledge and resources to step up the impact and visibility of their activities. For UNESCO, the 10,000 students and large number of teachers belonging to the FEDE network constitute an important group of people as they are likely to be interested in UNESCO educational programmes and in sharing their experience. This collective work is clearly useful for both the FEDE and UNESCO as it can only help to verify and potentially improve their respective programmes and educational materials.