Asia-Pacific Regional Seminar on Sub-Regional Cooperation for Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4)

6 June 2017

UNESCO Bangkok organized a seminar on Sub-Regional Cooperation for Achieving SDG4-Education 2030 in Bangkok, Thailand, on 29-31 May 2017.

Around 20 representatives of sub-regional cooperation bodies and organizations, including the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization and South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, as well as Malaysian authorities, participated in the event. They took part in sessions on the development of action plans and initiatives for realizing the SDG4 at sub-regional, regional and country levels. In addition, the participants discussed progress and challenges in implementing the SDG4 and ways of improving collaboration among sub-regional organizations in the Asia-Pacific region.

The workshop had three main objectives:

Officials of the sub-regional organizations gained knowledge on facilitating sub-regional cooperation among Member States for achieving SDG4-Education 2030;
Senior officials of the sub-regional organizations agreed on a roadmap to facilitate sub-regional cooperation and identify capacity gaps; and
Country officials deepened their understanding of roles of sub-regional bodies/organization for information sharing and mutual learning from neighboring countries for achieving SDG4-Education 2030.

Lina Benete, Education Programme Specialist, UNESCO Almaty Cluster Office, delivered a presentation on education processes to achieve the SDG4 in Central Asia. She also facilitated the working group discussion on strengthening collaboration on education between Central Asia and South Asia. One of the mentioned ways to achieve this was to share best practices between both sub-regions.

In September 2015, the UN General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with its 17 goals in order to promote a more inclusive, equitable and sustainable society. It set the Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4) for ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning for all.

With support from the Government of Malaysia, the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Regional Bureau for Education in Bangkok launched a regional project on “Strengthening National Capacity for Sector-wide Planning to Achieve SDG4 in Asia-Pacific through South-South Cooperation” in 2016. The project aimed at building the Member States' capacity to develop and implement sector-wide, evidence-based and results-oriented education sector plans to meet the challenges of SDG4 through South-South cooperation. Specifically, the project focused on enhancing sub-regional coordination mechanisms through mutual learning.

Permanent link: http://en.unesco.kz/asia-pacific-regional-seminar-on-sub-regional-cooperation-for-achieving-sustainable