About IESALC

The International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (IESALC) is a UNESCO body dedicated to the promotion of higher education, and contributes to the implementation of the program, sanctioned every two years by the General Conference of the UNESCO, in the field of higher education in the Latin American and Caribbean region. Its headquarters are located in the city of Caracas, Venezuela.

Mission
Its fundamental mission is to contribute to the development and transformation of tertiary education by strengthening a work program that, among other purposes, ensures an instrument to support the management of change and transformations, in order to help higher education in the region to become an effective promoter of a culture of peace fostering sustainable human development, based on justice, equity, freedom, solidarity, democracy and respect for human rights, in an era of globalization.

The Institute, besides participating in the conceptualization, development and formulation of UNESCO’s programs, objectives and strategies in the field of higher education, particularly those related to the regional sphere, also contributes in close collaboration with specialized governmental and non-governmental organizations as well as with local academic community, to achieve these objectives. This is essentially done through the establishment of networks and the production and dissemination of studies and research on relevant aspects related to the higher education sector in Latin America and the Caribbean. It also counsels Member States on the formulation of policies at national. subregional and regional levels.

Vision
According to the participants of the Havana Conference (1996), in Latin America and the Caribbean there is an urgent need to progressively transform higher education. For this to be achieved, it is important to count with an instance for the harmonization, promotion and coordination of the initiatives and demands generated by the Higher Education systems, their members and the actors linked to them, in order to establish the new consensus that places “HEI in a better position to respond to the present and future needs of sustainable human development».

Goals
• Promote closer cooperation between the Member States of the region, their institutions and specialists in the field of higher education.
• Contribute to improving mutual knowledge of higher education systems in the region, in order to facilitate their comparison with other regions of the world and thus contribute to their development.
• Help any Member State requesting the Institute’s cooperation to improve and develop its higher education systems and institutions, within the reform process that it has undertaken.
• Promote and support within the framework of regional integration, greater mobility of professionals in higher education establishments, particularly in relatively less developed countries, with a view to make better use of human and educational resources and help facilitate greater fluency in the recognition of studies, degrees and diplomas of higher education among the region’s countries and those in other parts of the world.
• Promote national and regional mechanisms to strengthen the quality of higher education through evaluation and accreditation processes.
• Promote the use of new information and communication technologies in higher education institutions and facilitate the creation of “universities, laboratories and virtual libraries”, as well as the creation of local, national and regional networks, to prompt a new dimension to the work of higher education in the region.
• The Institute will also contribute in the planning, evaluation and monitoring of UNESCO’s programs in regard to higher education, in cooperation with UNESCO units and its approved programs. It will also work together with its various institutes, other governmental and non-governmental organizations, as well as with organizations of the United Nations system that carry out activities of this proposal at national, subregional, regional and international levels.

Background
The Regional Center for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (CRESALC) was created in 1974. In 1997, in compliance with the decision adopted by the General Conference at its 29th. meeting to transform the name of CRESALC into the UNESCO International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (IESALC), the Executive Council approved the Statute and Financial Regulations of the Institute. During the 1998-1999 transition period, the IESALC focused its activities on strengthening its organizational infrastructure and on starting several projects within the framework of the Action Plan for the transformation of higher education in Latin America and the Caribbean (CRES 1996 – Havana, Cuba). Several activities related to the «First World Conference on Higher Education» were also carried out. (Paris, October 1998).