Organized by the NGO-UNESCO Liaison Committee in close cooperation with the UNESCO Secretariat, the 11th International Forum of NGOs in official partnership with UNESCO will take place at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France, on 16 and 17 December 2019, on the theme “Challenging Inequalities”, with a focus on areas such as youth, income, technology, gender and education. The main objective of the Forum will be to identify concrete examples of good practices and grass-root actions as well as develop a set of recommendations to tackle inequalities, with a focus on areas such as youth, income, technology, gender and education. The Forum will delve into the different dynamics and dimension of inequalities from thematic points of view, and from the notion of power and public policy, in the form of Panels. The thematic panels will be followed by two workshops; one focused on collecting experiences from the field and another on solutions and policy recommendations. To ensure a transversal and multi-stakeholder dimension, the two-day discussion will follow a structured dialogue approach with civil society, Member States, decision makers, programme experts, and academia. This Forum will gather NGOs in official partnership with UNESCO, but is also open to the participation of other institutions and representatives of Member States. The registration, the provisional programme, practical information and working documents are available on the website of the NGO-UNESCO Liaison Committee (www.ong-unesco.org). Within the framework of the Directives concerning UNESCO’s partnership with non-governmental organizations (36 C/Res. 108), the International Forums of NGOs are organized twice a year on a priority issue of the Organization, by the NGO-UNESCO Liaison Committee. The NGO-UNESCO Liaison Committee is an entity composed of NGOs in official partnership with UNESCO elected every two years by the International Conference of NGOs. CONTACTS: NGO-UNESCO LIAISON COMMITTEE Maison des ONG UNESCO 1, rue Miollis 75732 Paris Cedex 15 - France Tel.: +33 1 45 68 36 68 Fax: +33 1 45 66 03 37 E-mail: comite.liaison.ong@unesco.org Facebook: Ngo-Unesco Liaison Committee UNIT FOR CIVIL SOCIETY PARTNERSHIPS Bureau of Strategic Planning UNESCO 7, place de Fontenoy 75352 Paris 07 - France E-mail: ngo@unesco.org

Championing its role as a global laboratory of ideas, UNESCO will host the first Global Futures Literacy Design Forum at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris (Room III, IV and VII), on 16 December 2019. The Forum will bring the general public together with leading Futures Literacy practitioners, designers, facilitators, teachers and researchers. The Forum has two primary objectives. One is to prepare the ground for a UNESCO Ministerial Summit on Futures Literacy in late 2020 by showcasing and refining a range of already proven techniques for integrating Futures Literacy into government activities. Two is to build awareness and networking related to the development and diffusion of Futures Literacy. Participants in the Forum will be invited to engage in active learning-by-doing. This will not be a conventional one-to-many broadcast event with speakers from a podium. The laboratories that will be designed and curated by senior experts from the Global Futures Literacy Network will use collective-intelligence methods to explore the nature and practice of Futures Literacy as a capability. Get ready to work and play. The Forum will close with a living-theatre celebration of humanity’s capacity to imagine the future. The event will take place at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, on December 16, 2019. Futures Literacy (FL) is a capability: the capacity to use-the-future for different reasons, using different methods, in different contexts. The Global Futures Literacy Design Forum and The Ministerial Summit on Futures Literacy are being built on the foundation of UNESCO’s success at establishing a Global Futures Literacy Network. This network is composed of 11 UNESCO Chairs and a wide-range of communities of practice that are actively advancing Futures Literacy around the world. Why “Global Futures Literacy Design Forum”? The term 'design' is in the title because the focus of the Forum is on presenting and refining a set of practical tools for governments, enterprises and communities interested in integrating Futures Literacy into what they do. In order to achieve the goal of sharing and refining designs for such tools, UNESCO is inviting expert practitioners to curate special laboratory type experiences. Leading members of the Global Futures Literacy Network are working together to co-create these labs that will showcase and refine a range of different tools for exploring and building Futures Literacy. At the Forum participants will be able to experience and test different approaches to integrating Futures Literacy into the work of many communities, with an emphasis on the public sector. The labs all use a range of specific collective intelligence techniques, with different durations and outcomes, that invite people to engage in learning-by-doing. Or, what is often called, user-driven design. In the context of the event, they will cover a number of critical themes: Governance; Ethics; Evaluation and assessment; Identity and culture; Narrative and discourse. The Forum is being designed as a learning voyage, not a passive one-to-many broadcast type event. Experiential, performative, aesthetic, and creative activities aim to invite participants to encounter their own reasons and methods for imagining the future. The curated sessions will be an opportunity to deploy collective intelligence and learning-by-doing from a wide range of different perspectives. Towards the end the different strands will start to be drawn together: initially in a plenary session where members of the UNESCO and Futures Literacy communities will share their perceptions; and then in a celebration of humanity’s capacity to imagine the future - a living-theatre celebration that expresses the richness of being alive in a complex emergent universe.

The Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme (IHP) of UNESCO is organizing the Second Meeting of Water for Human Settlements related Chairs and Centres at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. The meeting’s objective is to discuss and update on current activities and joint areas of work related to urban water. Furthermore, it will discuss the way forward, vis-à-vis the Medium-term Strategy outlined in the Eight phase of the IHP (IHP-VIII), the "Nairobi Matrix" and IHP-IX Strategy. Experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) and UN-Habitat have been invited and will be participating in the discussion. Following the First Meeting in 2018, this Second Meeting will serve as an opportunity for relevant Chairs, Centers, and the Secretariat of IHP to: 1. Update and discuss the current activities and joint areas of work under the Theme 4: Water for Human Settlements; 2. Discuss the way forward, vis-à-vis the Medium-term Strategy outlined in IHP-VIII, the "Nairobi Matrix" and IHP-IX Strategy: a. Identify the activities required; b. Identify the Chairs/Centers responsible for the implementation of each activity; c. Prepare a work plan for 40/C5 d. Identify gaps and needs to be addressed under the framework of IHP-IX. UNESCO as the scientific arm of the United Nations family is expected to lead the scientific and research agenda of future challenges. The IHP is the only intergovernmental programme of the United Nations system devoted to water research and management, and related education and capacity development. Following the IHP-VIII’s (2014-2021) objective of putting science into action required for water security, the IHP-IX (2022-2029) will guide significantly the next phase of water development. Currently, the first order draft of IHP-IX is undergoing the second in-depth consultation with the UNESCO Water Family to further develop the draft document and adapt it to the needs of the Member States and other Water Family Members. Reference documents: Final report of Nairobi Meeting (11-13 September 2013) Strategy Plan for IHP-VIII (2014-2021) Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme (IHP) Theme 4 Water and Human Settlements Contact: Mr Alexandros Makarigakis, a.makarigakis@unesco.org

World Arabic Language Day is celebrated every year on 18 December. On this occasion, UNESCO will host three Round Tables dedicated to this year’s theme “Arabic Language and Artificial Intelligence”, followed by a concert, at its Headquarters in Paris on 18 December 2019. Experts, academics, artists and representatives of specialized institutions will gather to debate on: 1. The impact of artificial intelligence on the preservation and promotion of the Arabic language. 2. The computerization of the Arabic language and the cognitive future. 3. The launch of the regional report "Arabic as a gateway to access and transmitting knowledge”. This celebration is organized in collaboration with the Permanent Delegation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to UNESCO, in partnership with the Sultan Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud Foundation. UN Languages Days aim to promote and celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity, as well as the equality of all official languages used in the Organization and its agencies: Arabic (18 December), Chinese (12 November), English (23). April), French (20 March), Russian (6 June) and Spanish (12 October). The celebration also resonates with the International Decade for the Rapprochement of Cultures (2013-2022), for which UNESCO is the lead UN Agency.