Sciences, Technology and Innovation (STI) provide key answers to build peace and bolster sustainable development. We need more integrated science to strengthen water management, to ensure the sustainable use of the ocean, to protect ecosystems and biodiversity, to tackle climate change and disasters, to foster innovation.
This is why STI stand at the heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. UNESCO has developed a unique approach to promote global scientific cooperation while encouraging local actions, with two focus: gender equality and Africa. In this spirit, UNESCO launched in 2017 a ground-breaking international symposium and policy forum on girls’ education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), to challenge the gender inequalities in STEM.
Today, the complexity of the world’s issues goes beyond the framework of a single discipline. Hence, UNESCO has made trans-disciplinarity the cornerstone of its work for sustainability; building networks with multiple stakeholders such as museums, universities, private and public actors, governments and NGOs. This year’s theme for the World Science Day for Peace and Development, Science for global understanding, encompasses UNESCO’s approach to develop scientific cooperation between and within societies, combining global sustainability and local actions and knowledge.
Read Ms. Irina Bokova’s full message here: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000259953_eng