I am happy to announce that Croatia has become an observer country of the Agency in 2014. We warmly welcome Croatia into our organisation and look forward to working with Croatia when it becomes the Agency’s 29th member country in the near future.
At the beginning of May we had interesting meetings with UNICEF-CIS/CEE and UNESCO-IBE in Geneva. The meetings focused on the exchange of information regarding current and future activities in the field of special needs and inclusive education, as well as general co-operation and preventing any overlap in activities. The meetings were very productive and clear agreements were made with respect to joining each other’s activities, participation in conferences, co-operative actions in future projects and in the long term, potentially co-producing work on shared areas of interest.
Then I would like to draw your attention to some important upcoming activities at our field. First, the next Conference of State Parties meeting on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities will take place 10–12 June 2014 in New York.
The World We Want initiative is a global online consultation that gathers people’s priorities towards sustainable development. This work is leading to the re-stating of the Millennium Development Goals. The consultations on education aim to synthesize key recommendations on how education should be part of the overall post-2015 development framework, to be taken forward by decision-makers in the intergovernmental discussions over the next two years.
Also, please have a look at the UNICEF annual report State of the World’s Children 2014 in Numbers: Every Child Counts that was recently published. The report aimed to reveal disparities and advance children’s rights by presenting the latest data on the situations of children, along with a brief analysis discussing the numbers and their potential to lead to positive change for the world’s 2.2 billion children.
UNICEF’s Forum on the Global Partnership on Children with Disabilities (GPcwd) will take place 9–13 June this year and will examine some of the disparities indicated in the report. In this week-long meeting, UNICEF in co-operation with the GPcwd are planning to engage young advocates with and without disabilities in a number of advocacy and learning activities. Highlights include training on the Post-2015 Agenda and advocacy, as well as discussions on disability, inclusion and innovation. The young people will also have bilateral meetings with their respective missions to advocate for an inclusive post-2015 agenda.
The UNICEF event has a similar goal as the Agency’s European Parliament Hearings. The Hearings are a good opportunity to engage young stakeholders from around Europe to identify and formulate a collective vision on inclusive education. The fourth Agency Hearing will be held in Luxembourg in October 2015.
Follow our news about this event and other activities here and on the Agency website.
Cor J. W. Meijer
Agency Director