From the UNESCO Regional Office for Science in Latin America and the Caribbean, the 2019 Edition of the International Online Course "Inequalities in Latin America and the Caribbean: Research, Policies and Management for Social Transformations", to be held on the 17th June to July 14, 2019. It is a regional course that is offered in an open and free way since 2017, in editions in Spanish and English, with a duration of 4 weeks and made through the educational platform FutureLearn that counts with international exhibitors. It was designed within the context of the UNESCO's Management of Social Transformations (MOST) Programme as a contribution to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The course addresses the current regional panorama of inequalities, their multiple dimensions and their relationship with social policies and public management, offering transformative strategies to overcome the dramatic situations that the region is experiencing. It is structured in four modules; each one deals with a specific topic: knowledge, politics and management; the dimensions of inequalities; knowledge management for policies; transformative ways against inequalities.

International Open Online Course

Inequalities in Latin America and the Caribbean
Research, policy and management for social transformations.
(Third edition, 2019)

Inequalities are one of the main challenges that Latin America and the Caribbean region faces, and these are a constant worry for their governments. As the 2016 World Social Science Report, published by UNESCO and the International Council of Social Sciences, points out, inequalities must not only be understood from the economic point of view, but must also be studied and intervened from a political, social, cultural, racial, ethnic, territorial, and gender perspectives. Furthermore, the permanent interaction of these variables generates a vicious circle of inequalities.

In 2017 the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Sciences in Latin America and the Caribbean launched the Pilot Edition of the International Open Online Course on “Inequalities in Latin America and the Caribbean. Research, policy and management for social transformations”. A third edition will run in 2019, in English and Spanish.

MOOC LAC
This MOOC (Massive Online Open Course) has been conceived and carried out by UNESCO's Regional Science Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, within the context of the Management of Social Transformations (MOST) Programme, as a contribution to the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development.

Titled "Inequalities in Latin America and the Caribbean: Research, Policies and Management for Social Transformations", the course addresses the current regional panorama of inequalities, their multiple dimensions and their relationship with social policies and public management, offering transformative strategies to overcome the dramatic situations that the region is going through.

Important organizations will contribute with high-level resources, strengthening the contents offered in the course. Among them: IDRC/CRDI, CEPAL, SEGIB, CLACSO, Using Evidence Inc. (Canada), Dejusticia (Colombia), Grupo Faro (Ecuador), onthinktanks.org (global plataform), Cetic.br (Brazil), Mujer y Salud en Uruguay (NGO MYSU), University of Manchester, University of Oxford.

The course is free and open access, 4-weeks long. It has the participation of international experts and it is supplied through the online platform FutureLearn.

This MOOC is the first capacity-building activity of its kind in the LAC region.

Contents addressed:

MODULE 1:
KNOWLEDGE, POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
What do we do with what we know and what we do not know?
Do we know in depth the inequalities in Latin America and the Caribbean?
What knowledge are we producing and where is it?
What knowledge are the political decision-makers requiring and what do they use it for?

MODULE 2:
DIMENSIONS OF INEQUALITY
Have the questions changed in the XXI Century?
What is inequality?
Why are we the most unequal region in the world?
Is fighting poverty enough to reduce inequality?
Sustainable development and inequality, is it possible?

MODULE 3:
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT FOR POLICIES
Sources, means and strategies to face inequalities.

MODULE 4:
TRANSFORMATIVE PATHWAYS AGAINST INEQUALITIES Towards new architectures of knowledge and public action.

The 2019 Edition is updated and expanded, introducing new contributions from experts on topics of strategic importance to the region, such as Inequalities and violence in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as the state of Democracy and its relationship with inequalities.

Course’s Methodologies:
Theoretical-methodological content
Institutional lessons learnt
Practical cases
Voices of stakeholders (experts, policy-makers, public managers, activists, communicators, social networks)
Debate communities (forums)
Innovative learning communication items
Repository with more than 120 documents, technical reports and links to specialized libraries