Expertise
UNESCO Beijing in a Snapshot
Education: Ensuring quality education
UNESCO Beijing is guided by the overarching objectives of UNESCO's eight-year Medium Term Strategy, namely "Peace and Equitable and sustainable development" and "contribution to sustainable development and poverty eradication".
UNESCO is the custodian agency for Sustainable Development Goal 4, guided by the Education 2030 Framework for Action (FFA) and has been working in North East Asian countries with educational leadership, strengthening education systems in the countries of the group and responding to contemporary sub-regional educational challenges.
Culture: Protecting our heritage
East Asia is home to abundant heritage resources that need to be conserved and safeguarded; it is also one of the world’s fastestgrowing economies undergoing accelerating urbanization and globalization. Balancing heritage conservation and socio-economic growth is therefore a key challenge. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development recognizes for the first time culture’s enabling and crosscutting role in sustainable development. UNESCO, as the only UN agency with a dedicated mandate on culture and as the facilitator of key culture Conventions, is ready to contribute the expertise on culture-driven sustainable development, and to provide platforms for the dissemination of the region’s good practices and experience to a global audience, especially to other developing countries.
Natural Sciences: Scientific knowledge for a sustainable future
Recent years have seen rapid economic growth in most East Asian countries, but at considerable environmental costs, including depletion and pollution of scarce surface and groundwater resources, loss of biodiversity or increased natural disaster risks. Addressing these challenges calls for sustainable water and biodiversity management solutions promoted within the framework of UNESCO’s environmental programmes such as the “Man and the Biosphere” (MAB) Programme or the Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme (IHP). This will also require new advances in scientific knowledge and innovative applications of technologies through cooperation among member states and the mobilization of a wide network of partners (Universities, UNESCO Centers and Chairs).
Communication and Information: Promoting free flow of ideas
East Asia has seen a profound impact of the rise of digital technologies on ways in which information is produced, shared and used. UNESCO Beijing is assisting countries in East Asia to foster enabling environments for media pluralism and diversity, and to build inclusive knowledge societies.
Social and Human Sciences: Knowledge for inclusive societies
At a time when East Asian countries are facing challenges, UNESCO continues to push forward on its fundamental humanist mission to strengthen understanding among people, and to mobilize knowledge for just, fair, ethical, and inclusive societies. The Social and Human Sciences (SHS) Sector is assisting countries in East Asia to foster inclusive growth and reduce inequalities through producing knowledge to inform better policies and decision-making. Meanwhile, noting the acceleration of the use of frontier technologies such as artificial intelligence in the sub-region, SHS is also assisting Northeast Asian countries to develop their ethics infrastructure to better address issues related to these technologies, and to contribute to the global dialogue on bioethics and ethics of science and technology.