UNESCO’s Education programmes are targeted to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Education transforms lives and is at the heart of UNESCO’s mission to build peace, eradicate poverty and drive sustainable development.
UNESCO believes that education is a human right for all throughout life and that access must be matched by quality. The Organization is the only United Nations agency with a mandate to cover all aspects of education. It has been entrusted to lead the coordination of the implementation of the Global Education 2030 Agenda/Sustainable Development Goal 4, Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship Education.
The Natural Sciences is one of UNESCO’s Major Programmes with a core mandate to advance and promote science in the interests of peace, sustainable development and human security and well-being. UNESCO acts as an advocate for science, a platform for generating and sharing ideas and standard setting, and promotes dialogue between scientists and policy-makers. It empowers and catalyses innovative initiatives in the field of international cooperation in science, in particular through networks and capacity development and high level technical expertise.
UNESCO’s Natural Sciences implement major international science programmes aimed at promoting and supporting sustainable development in all its Member States. The ‘S’ has been an integral part of UNESCO from its foundation in 1945. Over more than 70 years of existence, UNESCO has acted as a catalyst for the establishment of many, now leading scientific unions and bodies such as the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN, 1948) and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN, 1954) which saw the development of the Internet. Initiatives with far-reaching implications for sustainable human security and well-being – such as the International Hydrological Programme (IHP) or the Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB) – were launched in the first thirty years of UNESCO’s history.
The main focus of Social and Human Sciences programme in Central Asia is focused on fostering intercultural dialogue and engaging young women and men for peaceful and participatory societies. The Social and Human Sciences sector in UNESCO Almaty Cluster Office supports Member States in strengthening evidence-based public policy-making, building institutional and human capacities at all levels, to generate, manage and apply knowledge for inclusive and sustainable development that is founded on human rights and universal freedoms, with particular attention to the most vulnerable.
Social and Human Sciences is the third UNESCO’s Major Programme. Globally, its work focused on learning to live together, and among others, the following thematic issues: Culture of Peace, Youth Development; Human Rights; Gender Equality, Philosophy; Social Transformations, Bioethics and the Ethics of Science and Technology; and the Social and Human Dimensions of Climate Change.
UNESCO promotes culture as a driver and enabler of sustainable development. This means that we recognize that culture has an intrinsic and economic value in itself, but also, that culture needs to be taken into consideration for the development efforts to be successful. One of the priority areas of our work in culture is to raise awareness about and build the capacities in the sustainable management of cultural and natural heritage of Central Asia.
UNESCO promotes the common heritage in Central Asia, Iran and Afghanistan along the Silk Roads within a regional project that is funded by the European Union. The joint EU/UNESCO “Silk Roads Heritage Corridors in Afghanistan, Central Asia and Iran – International Dimension of the European Year of Cultural Heritage” project aimed at improving the livelihoods of the communities in the region, including youth and women through capacity building and creating new income-generating opportunities.
The mission of Communication and Information programme is Sustaining peace and development through freedom of expression and access to knowledge. In this regard the programme supports Fostering Freedom of Expression and Building Knowledge Societies.
In collaboration with local partners, the following priorities are defined:
- Capacity-building for the sustainable and pluralistic media;
- Fostering universal access to information;
- Developing training materials for pre-service and in-service journalists to promote quality reporting on issues ranging from investigative and gender-sensitive journalism to environmental journalism;
- Supporting the development of professional standards so as to promote media self-regulation in Central Asia.