The UNESCO-IHE governing board has approved the plans to start preparation activities for the UNESCO-IHE Global Campus for Water & Development. The decision was made unanimously at the board’s annual meeting held on November 22.
The campus is an international UNESCO-IHE networking organization with education and research sites as well as nodes of excellence. The Global Campus will provide more education at a regional level to young talented people via partners and in the future also in collaboration with regional UNESCO-IHE institutes.
“The Global Campus enables UNESCO-IHE to better understand local needs and react more swiftly to requests coming from local partners and stakeholders,” says András Szöllösi-Nagy, rector of UNESCO-IHE. “Water is closely linked to a number of key global challenges. It acknowledges the importance of integrating water in sustainable development and underlines the critical importance of safe drinking water, sanitation and sustainable water use. This is the future we want to contribute to.”
Potential Global Campus members include regional UNESCO-IHE institutes, partner universities and research institutes, knowledge networks and public private partnerships, Category II centres, and UNESCO chairs. The executive board of UNESCO commissioned a comprehensive study for the establishment of a UNESCO-IHE Global Campus in 2013. From 2014 onwards a phased implementation of related activities will be realized aiming at a fully operational UNESCO-IHE Global Graduate School on Water & Development in 2018.