UNESCO Thematic Forum: “The Role of Private Sector Partnerships, South-South and Triangular Cooperation and Domestic Finance in Achieving Sustainable Development”

As part of the first UNESCO Partners’ Forum held on 11 and 12 September 2018 at its Paris Headquarters, UNESCO organized a Thematic Forum on “The role of Private Sector partnerships, South-South and Triangular cooperation, and domestic finance in achieving sustainable development” on 11 September.

Ms. Hana Mitri SHAHIN, Executive Director, King Hussein Foundation (Jordan), moderated the panel and described how the international landscape is changing with developing countries increasingly taking strong leadership in promoting development cooperation in UNESCO’s areas of competence. She noted that the objective of the panel was to showcase UNESCO’s South-South and Triangular Cooperation initiatives with its partners, and identify opportunities for scaling up our work in this area, including through increasing engagement with the private sector and by mobilizing domestic resources.  The Minister of Education of Brazil, Mr Rossieli SOARES DA SILVA, noted the excellent cooperation with UNESCO on the Criança Esperança programme, which also utilizes TV Globo, a major media company in Brazil, to communicate about the programme. Brazil is extending its support to other countries from the South, particularly Portuguese speaking countries, to share with them their experience and to support the development of similar programmes. Brazil has mobilized domestic resources to implement projects with UNESCO – an important financing modality which can be used by other countries to mobilize funding for projects with UNESCO.

The Ambassador of Malaysia to UNESCO, Mr Anesee BIN IBRAHIM, explained how the Malaysia Cooperation Programme is a model of South-South Cooperation. Through the Malaysia Funds in Trust modality, 9 million USD has been mobilized to support 29 projects in more than 70 countries, with an emphasis on LDCs and SIDS in Africa and the Asia Pacific region.  Projects have focused on TVET, education for sustainable development, engineering, and integrated sustainable water management, among others, contributing to 13 SDGs. The Director-General of Artiel Gabon, Mr Alain KAHASHA NTUNWA, highlighted the partnership with UNESCO on “Training my Generation-Gabon 5000”,  which provides scientific and entrepreneurial training through ICT to thousands of young people in Gabon, and delivers new skills to secondary school teachers. He noted that there was keen interest from other countries in the region, particularly Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon to adopt a similar programme to educate and train young people. Dr Charmaine VILLET, Dean, Faculty of Education at the University of Namibia, explained how Namibia was benefitting from the Enhancing Teacher Quality in Africa project, which is financed through the Chinese Funds in Trust modality. She emphasized that the project helped to build a sustainable teacher education programme in Namibia with strong buy-in from the government. The positive results of the programme have led to increased funding from the Government for teacher training. Ms Carole Guertler, Head of Department Levant, Drosos foundation (Zurich), described how UNESCO helped the Drosos Foundation access Jordan, providing it with its networks and increasing the visibility of the project, which provides vocational training and business skills to help empower women through handicrafts. The Secretary General’s Special Envoy for South-South Cooperation and Director of United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation, Jorge Chediek, provided a video message, through which  he recognized UNESCO’s work to promote South-South and Triangular Cooperation, and spoke about opportunities for further expanding South-South Cooperation in the context of BAPA +40.

©c.stark, from left to right – Rossieli SOARES DA SILVA; Anesee BIN IBRAHIM; Hana Mitri SHAHIN; Alain KAHASHA NTUNWA; Dr Charmaine VILLET; Carole Guertler

Conclusions and next steps:

• Identify opportunities for scaling up South-South Cooperation initiatives with Brazil for Portuguese-speaking countries, Malaysia, China and other countries from the South;
• Increase the visibility of UNESCO’s donors and partners to implementing the Organization’s programmes and ensure joint ownership of results;
• Identify how to scale up the “Train my Generation– Gabon 5000” project with Artiel Gabon to other countries in Africa;
• Encourage countries to mobilize domestic resources to implement projects with UNESCO, following the model of Brazil and Malaysia;
• Ensure buy-in from beneficiary countries for projects, which should include the principle of co-creation, and build on ongoing initiatives. Capacity building should be conducted at the early stages of the project and utilize local expertise where available;
• Develop tools and frameworks on how to work with the private sector and universities and build capacity on improving monitoring and evaluation of projects using a solid evidence base;
• Identify how to scale up multi-stakeholder partnerships to achieve the SDGs through the use of multi-donor trust funds.