Contributing and supporting experts
Ms Vibeke Jensen, Director of the Division for Peace and Sustainable Development, UNESCO
Since 1st January 2020, Vibeke Jensen is the incumbent Director of the Division for Peace and Sustainable Development within the Education Sector at UNESCO Headquarters. The Division covers, amongst others, education for sustainable development, global citizenship education,, prevention of violent extremism, , sexuality and HIV education, school violence and bullying, school health, and the UNESCO Associated Schools network with 12500 schools around the world.She joined UNESCO in 1989 and has held various positions in the Organization, both at Headquarters and in the field. Since November 2014, she has been Director of the UNESCO Office in Islamabad and UNESCO Representative to Pakistan.Her previous positions include Head of the UNESCO Office in Hanoi from 2007 to 2009, Director of the UNESCO Office in Dar-es-Salaam Salaam (Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, United Republic of Tanzania) from 2009 to 2013 and UNESCO Director and Head, Secretariat of the Secretary-General's Global Education First Initiative (GEFI), United Nations, New York from 2013 to 2014.
Xiaoxia Zhou，Ph.DDr. Xiaoxia Zhou is the Director of the International Center for UNESCO ASPnet (ICUA). She joined ICUAI in July, 2019 to supervise the work of ICUA in connecting UNESCO ASPnet community through knowledge productions, capacity development, technical support and information sharing.Before working at ICUA, Dr. Zhou served as the Chinese director at Confucius Institute at China Institute in the U.S. in 2015-2019, at Confucius Institute at University of Basel in Switzerland in 2013-2015 and Turin Confucius Institute in Italy in 2009-2011. Dr. Zhou, with the support from the leadership and her counterparts of the above Confucius Institutes, had developed arrays of programs in terms of Chinese language learning and pedagogy , public lectures, exhibitions and cultural trips to promote the cross-cultural understanding. In addition, Dr. Zhou taught at East China Normal University from 1988-2008, at University of Nantes in France in 1999 and at Marshall University in the U.S. in 2007-2008. She also taught at a rural high school in Jiangxi Province, China in 1980-1982.
Mr Tigran Yepoyan, Chief of the Unit of ICT in Health Education, UNESCO IITEChief of the Unit of ICT in Health Education, UNESCO IITE, has worked in the field of HIV, education, health, social support, youth and community development in Eastern Europe and Central Asia for over 25 years with UNESCO, UNICEF and international NGOs.
Mr Sobhi Tawil, Chief, Education Research and Foresight, UNESCO
Sobhi Tawil (PhD) is head of Education Research and Foresight at UNESCO where he leads the Futures of Education initiative.
He has some 30 years of experience in teaching, education policy analysis, research and program management with diverse institutions and organizations.
Dr Tao ZHAN is the Director of UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE) located in Moscow. He received his Ph.D from Shandong University in China in 1987, majoring in number theory and later became a Research Fellow of Humboldt Foundation at University of Freiburg in Germany, and Professor of Mathematics at Shandong University. Before joining UNESCO IITE in 2017 he had served as the President of Shandong University and Jilin University, Director-General of Educational Management Information Center of Ministry of Education in China. Dr Zhan was also a member of the Drafting Group for Incheon Declaration 2015 and the UNESCO Framework for Action Education 2030. During the COVID-19 pandemic, IITE is working together with partners from different regions of the world to support teachers and students, parents and children in keeping learning during COVID-19.
Ms Julie Saito, Chief of the UNESCO ASPnet International Coordination
She joined UNESCO in 2007 as attaché de Press for the Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura and worked as programme specialist of Education for Sustainable Development to mobilize and empower youth leaders from 2012 until the current post.Ms. Saito initiated the UNESCO Kizuna Campaign in 2011 in collaboration with ASPnet to collect more than 20,000 message cards from the school children of over 60 countries, which were delivered to encourage the children affected by the Tsunami in Japan.
Ms Fouzia Belhami, UNESCO ASPnet Programme SpecialistShe joined the Associated Schools Network team in 2010 with the aim of promoting the image and communication of its stakeholders online. Her main task was driving the transformation of Network members' internal management, making admissions of new schools more effective, creating a dynamic place for the collaboration and the sharing of knowledge and practices between members, as well as making them more aware of how to support the mission and primary objectives of UNESCO and the United Nations. For this purpose, she set up the first online tool dedicated to the network community in order to promote innovative activities and learning experiences at a local, national, regional and international level. She is also responsible for coordinating and leading network members through projects, online campaigns, twinning projects, communication and visibility.
Ms Katja Anger-Delimi, UNESCO ASPnet Project Officer
She has worked for over ten years in Education, at UNESCO and OECD headquarters, as well as for NGOs and government agencies in Haiti, Rwanda and Mali. She is a passionate advocate of the transformative power of education towards more just, peaceful, inclusive and sustainable societies. As part of the ASPnet team, she leads the two global initiatives on global citizenship and climate change education.
Mr Simon Wanda, UNESCO ASPnet Associate Project OfficerHe joined the UNESCO Associated Schools Network (ASPnet) at the Headquarters in January 2020 as an Associate Project Officer to work on the Teacher Training in Support of Global Citizenship Education (GCED) project under the UNESCO – Hainan Provincial People's Government Fund for ASPnet. Simon previously managed various large projects funded by DFiD, which focused on education in Africa. In the last 5 years, he has specifically focused on transformative pedagogies in Higher Education in Africa. He has experience in designing, managing, monitoring and evaluating education projects and programmes in partnership with universities, schools and international development agencies.