The Workshop on Inter-sectoral collaboration, that was postponed from Decembre 2021 due to COVID-19, is organized under the theme “Promotion of Education for Intangible Cultural Heritage, Sustainable Development, Ecological Civilization and Rural Revitalization”. It is co-organized by UNESCO Beijing Office, UNESCO Category II Center International Research and Training Centre for Rural Education (INRULED) and Ningbo Adult School, with support from the Ministry of Education, the Chinese National Commission for UNESCO and the Ningbo Municipality Education Bureau. This is among the first exercises of UNESCO at country level to initiate the inter-sectoral initiative of “Education and Culture together in action to advance the SDGs”.

Faced with the socio-emotional toll of a long and challenging global pandemic, schools should prioritize happiness and well-being as as means to improve learning outcomes in both the short and long term. In this context, and on the occasion of International Day of Education, UNESCO in partnership with the Learning Planet Institute is organizing a webinar to kick-off a global dialogue on the importance of making the pursuit of happiness a guiding principle of all places of learning. The event will discuss the findings and lessons learned from the pilot implementation of the regional Happy School Framework (HSF) in Japan, Lao PDR, and Thailand. Representatives from other regions will also be invited to reflect on the impact of the pandemic on happiness in schools. The webinar will feature a panel discussion with participation from education policymakers, school leaders, teachers, parents and other relevant education stakeholders, partners, and researchers.

Illicit trafficking of cultural property impoverishes the countries of origin and fuels money laundering, tax evasion and the financing of terrorism. Effectively combating this scourge requires close cooperation between multiple actors who need to be trained to do so, including in the financial sector. This is all the more crucial for Europe, which is a major destination for trading and transiting cultural property.

UNESCO and the Musée d’art et d’histoire de Judaïsme are organizing an online round table to highlight the work and legacy of the journalist and writer Hersh Fenster and that of the 84 Jewish artists that he has portrayed in his book “Our martyr artists”, published in Yiddish in 1951.

UNESCO and the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain present the exhibition “Generations: Portraits of Holocaust Survivors” in partnership with the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, the Imperial War Museum, Jewish News, the Association of Jewish Refugees, the United Kingdom Permanent Delegation to UNESCO and the World Jewish Congress.

UNESCO, in collaboration with Thailand’s Designated Areas for Sustainable Tourism Administration (DASTA) and Thammasat University, will organize an ASEAN-level VMAST Workshop: Introducing the UNESCO's Visitor Management, Assessment & Strategy Tool (VMAST) for ASEAN World Heritage Sites, from 14 February through 18 March 2022. This online workshop is an activity under the project “Promoting Sustainable Tourism in ASEAN World Heritage sites with Visitor Management Assessment”, funded by the ASEAN Secretariat through the Ministry of Tourism and Sports, Thailand. The workshop is divided into three sessions: Session 1:      14-15 February 2022A two-day workshop to introduce UNESCO’s VMAST tool to representatives from World Heritage Sites in ASEAN. Session 2:      16 February and 16 March 2022A one-month site assessment exercise on using VMAST to assess World Heritage Sites, wherein the country representatives work together in applying the VMAST tool to their selected World Heritage Site(s) and produce short assessment report(s) from VMAST web-based programme. Session 3:      17-18 March 2022A two-day seminar to present the assessment results and discuss strategies forward.