UNESCO Beirut promotes Global Citizenship Education (GCE) policy dialogue, mainstreaming of GCE into education systems and promoting sharing of resources and innovative practices to advance the GCE agenda. It has contributed to the development of different programmatic GCE documents, as well as to the development of a GCE Framework for the Arab Region.
Through the constitution of the Arab GCE Network, UNESCO Beirut works actively on promoting GCE through national policies, curriculum developments, and teacher professional development trough mobilizing dedicated networks of education specialists and stakeholders. The Arab Network will serve as catalyst for integrating GCE in national education systems based on sound policy and delivery mechanisms. It includes Intercultural and Inter-faith dialogue based on the work of dedicated communities of practice across the Arab Region.
Given the increase in radicalism and terrorist attacks the world over, Preventing Violent Extremism through Education (PVE-E) has become a priority for UNESCO. Faithful to its belief that “it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed”, UNESCO developed a series of materials dedicated to promoting PVE-E through appropriate learning content and environments, as well as meaningful teaching and learning strategies. One such capacity development tool is UNESCO’s Teacher Guide on the Prevention of Violent Extremism (2015) that UBO helped translate into Arabic. The document has been used to clarify the PVE-E concept in the context of integrating prevention of violent extremism in initial teacher training in Lebanon. UNESCO Beirut also supports the Government of Lebanon in the elaboration of its national strategy on PVE-E and is an active member of the Regional Task Force on PVE.
Peace Building and Intercultural Dialogue
UNESCO believes in the key role of universities in bringing about change and progress in societies and that the promotion of a culture of understanding, dialogue, and conflict resolution skills is crucial to ensuring a positive transformation in crises and induces peace and stability. UNESCO Beirut Office and its partners (University of Saint Joseph's Professional Center for Mediation, Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie) engaged in training students from 9 Lebanese universities in skills and competencies to help them solve conflicts in non-violent ways.