UN Forges Global Alliance with Institutions of Higher Education
HUMAN RIGHTS, SOCIETY & CULTURE
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
On November 18-19, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon officially launched the United Nations Academic Impact ("UNAI"). The UNAI is an initiative of the UN's Department of Public Information aimed at creating a global alliance of institutions of higher education and research that agree to commit themselves to a set of ten principles derived from the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the UN Millennium Development Goals. The UNAI is similar in purpose to the UN Global Compact, which the UN uses to advance its international human rights agenda in the global business community.
At the UNAI launch event, more than 300 university presidents, senior faculty members, and student representatives from among the close to 500 members of the UNAI joined the UN Secretary-General and other senior UN officials in announcing what the Secretary- General earlier described as “a clearing house to better match academic innovation with particular areas of work of the United Nations.” A list of the UNAI members is available on the UNAI website.
According to the UN, the essential “frame of reference” for the UNAI is:
1. To bring into association with the United Nations, and with each other, institutions of higher learning throughout the world.
2. To provide a mechanism for such institutions to commit themselves to the fundamental precepts driving the United Nations mandate, in particular the realization of the universally determined Millennium Development Goals.
3. To serve as a viable point of contact for ideas and proposals relevant to the United Nations mandate.
4. To promote the direct engagement of institutions of higher education in programs, projects, and initiatives relevant to this mandate.
Among the ten principles to which UNAI members must commit are:
1. A commitment to encouraging global citizenship through education;
2. A commitment to addressing issues of poverty through education;
3. A commitment to promoting sustainability through education; and
4. A commitment to promoting inter-cultural dialogue and understanding, and the “unlearning” of intolerance, through education.
Participants in the UNAI are expected to undertake to promote within their institutions policies and programs that reflect adherence to the ten principles. This specifically includes undertaking one new activity each year to actively address at least one of the ten principles. Examples provided on the UNAI website include research projects and papers, the hosting of a conference, the financing of participation of students in a specific UN activity or field, or a specific action or activity on campus. The UN suggests that details of these activities be prominently placed on the academic institution’s websites, or in periodic printed publications.
The UNAI plans to hold its first conference on December 15, 2010 in Asturias, Spain.
Jim Kelly is the President of Solidarity Center for Law and Justice, P.C., a public interest civil and human rights law firm based in Atlanta, Georgia. The opinions expressed herein are his own.
A JOINT PROGRAM OF
