Last 21 and 22 November, UNESCO-APCEIU invited the North-South Centre to its "2018 Europe and North America Regional Global Citizenship Education Network Meeting". Held in Lisbon, the event was co-organised by the Asia-Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding (APCEIU), in cooperation with UNESCO, its Regional Bureau for Science and Culture in Europe and the Global Education Network Europe, to strengthen regional action in the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Over 50 stakeholders, from ministries of Education and Foreign Affairs, academia, intergovernmental and civil society organisations, identified steps to further advance global citizenship education, both at the conceptual and implementation levels. At the conceptual level, the different stakeholders expressed the need to further clarify global citizenship education’s connection with other concepts such as human rights, peace, cultural diversity and sustainable development, whereas in terms of implementation, the priorities of the network are mainstreaming mechanisms, political engagement, leadership and financing.

The meeting provided a platform to discuss ways to reinforce global citizenship education networking strategies within and beyond the region, map different initiatives and explore areas of possible collaboration to solidify regional and global action at the levels of advocacy and pedagogical support.

It was also an opportunity to take stock and provide an overview of various European and North American experiences and case studies at different levels: governmental (such as Ministries of Education), intergovernmental (such as UNESCO, EU-related programmes, and the North-South Centre), university and research centres and civil society.

Last in a series of Regional Global Citizenship Education Network meetings co-hosted by APCEIU (after the Arab States; Asia-Pacific; Latin American and the Caribbean; and Sub-Saharan Africa) to monitor UNESCO Global Citizenship Education programme implementation, the meeting was an opportunity to propose a global networking mechanism for Global Citizenship Education.

As a follow-up and based on one of the recommendations of the Lisbon meeting, a steering committee, which includes the North-South Centre, was created to follow-up on the outcomes and establish a working thread between the main international gatherings of 2019:

• The UNESCO World Forum on Global Citizenship Education, in July;

• The annual meeting of the Global Citizenship Education Global network, in September;

• The Helsinki meeting in the framework of the Finnish EU Presidency, in October.

The steering committee held its first video-conference on 20 December.