The Second Interregional Dialogue on Education and Development in Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean brought together more than 200 higher education representatives from 54 countries. Government representatives, ambassadors, rectors and directors of cooperation agencies from countries in Africa, Latin America, North America and Europe met at the headquarters of the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for three days of intense work and networking.
The Commissioner for Education, Science, Technology and Innovation of the African Union Commission, Mohammed Belhocine, opened the event by emphasizing the importance of addressing the challenges of education systems, assuring that education is intrinsically linked to poverty, health and governance. Colombia’s Minister of Science, Technology and Education, Yesenia Olaya, also highlighted Colombia’s interest in“building bridges of knowledge and cooperation that allow us to face together the challenges of sustainable development, social justice and shared prosperity“.
The president of CAPES, Denise Carvalho, thanked the organization of the event, celebrating that the presence of representatives from more than 50 countries shows that there is interest in increasing South-South cooperation. On the other hand, OBREAL’s Director of Strategy, Nicolás Patrici, stressed the importance of governments in both the North and South seeing education as a radical tool for development.
Plenary sessions, workshops and side events at the II Interregional Dialogue on Education and Development
The event, organized by the African Union, the Brazilian Ministry of Education and OBREAL, was divided into different activities aimed at fostering cooperation and dialogue between the different regions and representatives present. To do so, we organized different panels with participants from different countries during the first day. Different educational systems were presented, priorities in education and development were discussed, and financing opportunities were analyzed, among others.
But beyond these plenary sessions, and in response to the request during the first Interregional Dialogue to “take action”, we organized thematic working sessions. Thus, during the second day, the participants chose which thematic sessions to participate in to deepen their understanding of the following topics:
- Engaging institutions for sustainable development
- Education and work: the role of TVET
- Food security and health
- Digitalization for inclusion
- Energy, climate change and sustainable development
- Teacher training for basic education
Finally, during the third and last day of the event, we carried out a series of parallel activities to work together on relevant issues. Specifically, we carried out three activities. One discussed the possibility of creating an Africa, Latin America and Europe team on higher education to jointly increase its quality and impact. In another, actions to promote policies to foster gender equality in science and higher education institutions were analyzed and discussed. And in a third activity, we worked on building resilient training systems for the future of work,
Targets met and a new date for 2025
During the event we were able to meet many of the objectives we set at the beginning: to involve partners from the different norths, agree on priorities, share experiences… in short, to continue advancing in a fundamental political dialogue to generate a common working framework .
In this sense, OBREAL will continue to focus on advancing along this path with concrete, collective and solidary actions. In fact, during the event, the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation of the Ministry of Colombia, Yesenia Olaya, announced that Colombia will host the third edition of this Interregional Dialogue on Education and Development in Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean in 2025 .
OBREAL is grateful for the Colombian government’s confidence and we welcome the interest and reception generated by these dialogues. With our sights set on Colombia 2025, we are now working to make progress on the priorities established in Addis Ababa.