In compliance with its plan of activities, the Global Development Education programme of the North-South Centre of the Council of Europe has successfully implemented the activities planned for the first semester, contributing to the promotion and practice of global development education, through advocacy and capacity-building actions.

Global development education regional seminars follow-up meetings

The follow-up meetings of the two global development education regional seminars -held last year in the Baltic and Visegrad countries- took place respectively in Riga (April) and Warsaw (May). The two meetings were an opportunity to assess the state of play in the field of global development education in these regions, and focus on operational recommendations for improved policy development and pedagogical support. It was also an opportunity to work on an enhanced coordination between main actors in the field, policy-makers and practitioners.

In the same line, the North-South Centre is preparing the follow-up meeting of the global development education Balkan regional seminar, in cooperation with the Ministry of Science and Education of Croatia and the Centre for Peace Studies. The meeting will take place in Zagreb 10-11 October, in the framework of the Croatian Chairmanship of the Council of Europe. The Zagreb meeting will be followed by the South-East Europe and Mediterranean countries global development education follow-up meeting, planned for the 6th of November in Ljubljana, in cooperation with the Slovenian Platform for development cooperation and humanitarian aid – SLOGA.

Pedagogical support for formal and non-formal educators

As for the pedagogical support for formal and non-formal educators, the Global Development Education programme of the North-South Centre will work on a reinforced complementarity and scale action between its residential courses and eLearning courses: the 9th Training Course on Global Development Education for Youth Multipliers , taking place in Mollina (Spain) from 10-14 September 2018, in the framework of the 19th edition of the University on Youth and Development (UYD), will be followed by the eLearning courses on the Human Rights dimension of global development education (1-28 October) and the Intercultural dimension of global development education (29 October-25 November).

Albeit both courses will be submitted to an open call, the choice of the dates is motivated to allow participants from the UYD to complement their residential training with a four week long learning process which privileges a peer and intercultural experience, in particular through the collective assignments and simulation games, and through the discussion forum, dealing with the theoretic, political and practical dimension of global development education.

In order to reinforce the global development education advocacy and pedagogical activities, the Global Education Guidelines are being revised by a team of experts under the coordination of the North-South Centre. The first draft has been delivered and will be circulated among partners for their feedback. The drafting team will meet with the Media Literacy Task Force (in the framework of the UYD) to work on the complementarity between the new version of the Guidelines and the tool-kit, currently under preparation, which should reinforce the practical implementation, impact and visibility of global development education activities.

Global development education network

Global Development Education programme relies on the global development education network for the dissemination of its activities. In view of incrementing the advocacy role of the network coordinators, the global development education programme has launched a consultation process for a better understanding of their needs and priorities, in view of a more operational networking mechanism.