Education is a human right, essential to well-being and dignity, and is key to achieving the United Nations Agenda 2030. Further, an ethos of global citizenship is required in order to fulfil this bold, people-centered, universal, and planet-sensitive development framework. (Gyeongju Action Plan).
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New York City, 24 January 2021 (CoNGO InfoNews) — Education is a human right. Inclusion and equity are crucial for transformative education. Education as common public good requires public funding. Education at primary and secondary levels is universal and adult education primordial. Online education has blessings and perils. Safety and wellbeing is crucial at education venues. Education must be portable across borders. Global citizenship education is critical to multilateral collaboration. Educate to increase hope and decrease fear.
These are the thematic headings of a 26-point statement issued on the occasion of the International Day of Education 2021 by Liberato C. Bautista, president of the Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations (CoNGO), and joined by Maria Helen Dabu, secretary general of the Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education (ASPBAE), Franklin Shaffer, president and chief executive officer of CGFNS International, and Montse Rafel, director general of Dianova International.
The statement reaffirmed education as a human right, a public good and a public responsibility, and must be publicly funded.
The leaders recognized the blessings and perils of online education, naming the digital divide exacerbated by the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the same vein, they recognized the importance of education especially for health and allied professions and their portability across borders, given the high demand but shortage of health workers at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Education must foster civic engagement, democratic participation and social innovation, ” the statement said. “Now is the time to develop global civic consciousness and innovate on a global civics education that fosters global citizenship and multilateral collaboration. Each of our countries, our people and the planet will be better for it.”
The leaders spoke of basic and adult education in a time of intersecting pandemics. They called for “education to increase hope and decrease fear.”
“Education must expose fear brought about by threats to and violations against the dignity and human rights of persons, such as those generated by increasing racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance that alienate and divide people and communities from one another. These, on top of fears and anxieties resulting from intersecting crises of pandemic proportions—health crisis, racial crisis, climate crisis, migration crisis, economic crisis, violence, and more.”
The statement closed with an urgent call for “advocacy and partnerships for education among civil society organizations, and among NGOs, the UN System, and States.”
Read the full statement here.
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New York City, 4 January 2021 (CoNGO InfoNews) — In a new year message, CoNGO president Liberato (Levi) Bautista called on non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to decrease fear and increase hope. He lamented the surplus of fear and deficit of hope in the year just ended.
“To decrease fear, we must continually affirm human dignity and human rights as inherent, inalienable, indivisible and interdependent. To increase hope, we must build a common future for all the inhabitants of the earth and their natural ecology, refusing pillage and plunder in our economic life, and instead, promoting and safeguarding the common public goods and services indispensable to securing life and life’s flourishing” Bautista said.
President Bautista foresees more consultation and collaboration with all its members and partners, and with the numerous entities of the United Nations System. This statement comes after meetings in late December of 2020 with Marc-André Dorel and Lydiya Grigoreva. Dorel is officer-in-charge of the NGO branch at the office of intergovernmental support and coordination for sustainable development at the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Grigoreva is the head of the NGO liaison unit of the Office of the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva.
A global briefing on UN-NGO relations and areas of consultation and collaboration is envisioned to be held sometime in February. NGO liaison officers at UN Office at Vienna will be contacted.
In issuing President Bautista’s message in English, French, Spanish and Esperanto, CoNGO aimed to reach more of its growing membership and constituency, hoping to engage them in varied arenas of collaboration and cooperation. Membership recruitment is also ongoing. Under Bautista’s leadership, eighteen NGOs have been added to CoNGO’s membership roll which stands at a little over 500.
President Bautista also announced a discount of 25 percent in membership dues for NGOs whose applications for new membership are approved and paid by the end of February.
Read the full text of President Bautista’s new year message in four languages, here.
Learn more about how to become a CoNGO member here. Get the application form here.
