A three-day regional workshop aiming to kick start the process of monitoring and reporting on national commitments to SDG Education 2030 Agenda was held at Dead Sea, Jordan, 25-27 June.
The workshop was organized jointly by UNESCO Beirut Office, the Arab Bureau of Education for the Gulf States (ABEGS), Regional Center for Quality and Excellence in Education (RCQE) and Regional Center of Educational Planning (RCEP). 50 participants, including officially appointed national SDG4 coordinators, UIS statistics focal points, SDG4 partners group members and UNESCO resources persons, attended the workshop.
The main purpose of this planning workshop is to provide necessary technical assistance to Arab member states in monitoring and reporting on their journey so far towards achieving the 2030 Agenda.
In September 2015, building on the 15-year framework of Millennium Development Goal (MDG) and Education for All (EFA), the global community adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Deemed central to the realization of this universal agenda, right to education is articulated in Sustainable Development Goal 4: “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”. Since then, member states and education partners in the Arab region have been making joint efforts towards its achievement. Against this background, this planning workshop aims to provide guidance to member states, in order to ensure that these efforts are illustrated in each SDG4 national report through restoring and revisiting initiatives, case studies, strategies framed, methods adopted, achievements, challenges, gaps and future directions.
During the three-day workshop, country representatives were informed by presentations from ABEGS, UNESCO, UNHCR and WPF, and thereby updated their understandings on the global and regional actions and coordination mechanisms under the framework of SDG4. Each participating country also took the chance to present actions and progress achieved on the national level, where successful experiences were shared and exchanged among member states.
As a guiding document for developing national report, “SDG4 National Progress and Prospects: Journey so far” was introduced to country representatives. Furthermore, Dr Venkatraman from UNESCO provided detailed step-by-step technical guidance on preparing for the SDG4 country progress report. Particularly, data issue was shed light on.
Significant time was reserved for country representatives for group works in practicing preparing work plans and internal review. Results of group works were presented. At the end of the workshop, a draft outline of regional synthesis report was presented and agreed upon, and the workshop concluded with commitments from countries and partners to undertaking national reporting and to contributing to the regional synthesis report.
