UNESCO and Obreal formalize strategic cooperation
Unesco and Obreal have signed a Letter of Intent formalizing their cooperation in support of inclusive, high-quality and internationally connected education systems, in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The agreement was signed by Borhene Chakroun, Director of the Policies and Lifelong Learning Systems Division at Unesco, and Ramon Torrent, President of Obreal.
The Letter of Intent gives new institutional form to a working relationship built over recent years with Unesco Headquarters. This relationship has grown around shared priorities in quality assurance, higher education data, recognition of qualifications and policy dialogue across regions. The cooperation will focus on three main areas:
- Quality assurance, qualifications recognition and higher education data.
- Higher education policy dialogue and interregional cooperation.
- Capacity building, knowledge production and inclusive innovation.
The agreement also opens the way for a future Memorandum of Understanding to define concrete joint activities in these areas.
For Obreal, the formalization of the cooperation with UNESCO recognizes a way of working built over nearly two decades. International cooperation in higher education cannot be reduced to the transfer of models from one region to another. It must create spaces where regions define agendas, build capacities and shape global debates from their own institutional realities.
This approach is at the center of Obreal’s Interregional Dialogue Process, promoted with governments, universities, regional organizations, funding agencies and multilateral partners as a political proposition based on cooperation between regions, not around them.
A central pillar of the cooperation with Unesco will be the Interregional Dialogue on Education and Development, whose fourth edition will take place at the Headquarters of the African Union in Addis Ababa in December 2026. The Dialogue will connect Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, China and the Arab World around shared development challenges, placing higher education, science and innovation at the center of public policy and institutional capacity.
Higher education systems worldwide face common pressures around access, quality, recognition, mobility, data and digital transformation. The cooperation between Unesco and Obreal responds to these pressures directly, connecting regional priorities with global policy discussions rather than treating them separately. It also reflects a practical form of multilateralism: one built through regional engagement over time, sustained policy dialogue, and institutions working together across regions on concrete, shared problems.