The development of UNESCO National Education Support Strategy (UNESS) documents is required for the Organization to ensure its pertinence and effectiveness in response to countries’ identified needs and demands for national educational development by supporting their policy priorities and filling the critical gaps in terms of expertise, capacities and finance, in synergy with the development community’s contributions.

UNESCO has been asked by its Governing Bodies and Member States to play a much more strategic role in supporting national education priorities and to strengthen its partnership and synergy with other development agencies, in congruence with international development goals.

Such strategies can be built in light of the analyses of the country’s own priorities, the needs and/or gaps in terms of data, policies, capacities and finance, as well as the development community’s contributions. UNESCO’s own comparative advantage and international development priorities are to be related to the task. The UNESS documents themselves will be analytical arguments for UNESCO’s in-country strategies, based on all of the above, including a critical analysis of the roles the Organization has played and is playing in each of the countries concerned.

The UNESS process has been adopted as a method for planning the Organization’s Education Sector’s Medium-Term Strategy and biennial programmes, as well as for defining UNESCO’s programme priorities and implementation strategies in each country. UNESS documents will be developed as a priority in countries requiring special attention from UNESCO, then eventually extended to all Member States wishing to cooperate with the Organization for their educational development.