Today, Princess Marie attended the launch of the Danish UNESCO National Commission’s new strategy for 2019-2022. Princess Marie is Patron of the Commission and the Commission started working on the strategy last May in a seminar that Princess Marie attended.

UNESCO has been working on goal 4: “a good education for all” out of the 17 goals set out by the UN to ensure the planet’s sustainable development by 2030. The Danish Minister of Education said: “In more than 70 years UNESCO has worked globally for freedom of expression, respect for all human worth, good education for all and the preservation of valuable culture and natural heritage. These are values that Denmark is known for around the world. But we can not take them for granted. The world is changing rapidly, and each generation must reinvent and defend basic Democracy and freedoms. Denmark is among the best in the world to achieve the goal of a good education for all, but there are still challenges. The things we do is to get all of the conditions to complete an education, make it attractive to acquire vocational training and creating inclusive learning environments free from bullying. That can UNESCO and the World Goals help us to do better. “

The new strategy focuses on five main strategic initiatives. For each strategic initiatives, the Danish UNESCO National Commission set out goals to ensure that they can do better in those fields between 2019 and 2022:

• Partnerships for the future
  • show how UNESCO and the Danish UNESCO actors contribute to achieving world goals and develop cooperation with all relevant stakeholders in relation to achieving the government’s target world ambitions.
  • be a catalyst for the opportunities, skills, and ideas for new initiatives and collaborations and we will bring stakeholders together.
  • mobilize resources and seek partnerships to UNESCO-related activities in Denmark and to projects that have a global focus.
  • strengthen communication about what we do, why we do it and what we achieve
  • strengthen the partnership with the Danish UNESCO institutions like the Danish UNESCO Center (the Center for Problem Based Learning in Engineering Science and Sustainability) and the UNESCO Chair in Cultural Rights and to ensure that they are a resource in implementing the strategy for working with UNESCO
  • encourage Danish stakeholders to engage in the UN Decade for Marine
• Good education and global citizenship
  • help to ensure that all children and young people know the world goals. This will be done through the national work with education as a force for democracy and sustainable development through cooperation with relevant stakeholders, including UNESCO World undersized schools and adult education initiatives.
  • examine how UNESCO can play along with the Danish science strategy and promote the narrative that science is important for children and young people’s general education and contribute to solutions to global challenges.
  • inspiration to several Danish cities will be part of the global network of cities as UNESCO learning cities and UNESCO creative cities.
  • support and strengthen vocational schools and technical science education focusing on sustainable development. This will be done in collaboration with pupils, students, schools and universities and the parties behind the programs
  • work to ensure that UNESCO continues to provide quality data in the form of “Global Education Monitoring Report” and the results disseminated and used.
  • along with libraries, schools, and civil society to support strategic and concrete activities that promote reading  – for example in the UN reading days each year on 8 September.
  • maintain focus on the right to education for refugee and migrant children in collaboration with civil society organizations, UN and other relevant training actors.

• Freedom of expression and information creating democracy
  • actively promote global monitoring of artistic expression and relate it to Danish conditions and examine how the experience of working for the safety of journalists can be transferred to artists and scholars of the same challenges.
  • work to strengthen UNESCO’s monitoring of the right to science, culture, education, and freedom of scientific research. The Danish UNESCO Chair at the University of cultural rights will generate and communicate new knowledge and insights based on UNESCO conventions and recommendations
  • seek cooperation that strengthens digital imaging and media and information knowledge that can promote the desire to participate in an informed, critical and respectful democratic conversation.
  • highlighting the importance of equal access to information and preparedness to respond to propaganda and misinformation
  • support active Danish efforts of UNESCO’s International Program for Media Development (IPDC) and set up a campaign that Denmark elected into the program expert for the period 2019-2023.
  • follow up by Danish media actors and relevant ministries to prepare a national action plan for the safety of journalists, as recommended in the “UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity”
  • engage in dialogue with relevant stakeholders, including municipalities, the potential of several refuges or other measures to ensure artistic freedom and protect persecuted artists.
• World heritage and communities in development
  • support the Danish authorities’ ongoing work with the Danish World.
  • support networking and exchange of experiences across the World Heritage in Denmark.
  • focus on how Denmark’s World Heritage sites, living heritage, cultural values, geoparks, and biosphere reserves and city networks contribute – individually and collectively – to education for sustainable development and global citizenship.
  • bring knowledge of the world compared to Danish educational institutions including through UNESCO collections at Moesgaard Museum and distribution of UNESCO guides and educational resources through relevant channels and EMU, Denmark learning portal.
  • demonstrate the importance of being a UNESCO designation, among other sustainable tourism, local identity, and the economy. It could be done through analysis and good examples.
  • engage in initiatives that make cultural heritage – both the living and material – relevant to children and young people and puts it in a contemporary context.
  • support Denmark’s involvement in the protection of cultural property during armed conflict, including cooperation with research institutions, museums, public authorities, and other actors.
• Equality and Inclusion across all initiatives
  • systematically integrate a gender perspective in the strategy’s action plan and equality assess all initiatives.
  • seek cooperation with Danish media actors in order to strengthen the focus on gender equality, both among media actors in content, through source selection and resourceful to stories, speakers and panelists at conferences and the like.
  • maintain UNESCO’s efforts to promote sex education in developing countries. Denmark is working actively to UNESCO’s “International Technical Guide on Sexuality Education”, used to strengthen sex education in schools.
  • strengthen the focus on sex and gender disparities on the importance of girls ‘and boys’ education practice
  • maintain UNESCO’s monitoring of global trends and challenges in relation to violence and bullying in schools based on gender, sexuality and gender identity. Denmark has joined UNESCO’s Call for Action as an important tool to promote learning environments free of discrimination both in Denmark and globally.
  • support more women to choose research road. L’Oréal/UNESCO prizes to young women researchers is a recognized model to be developed, including the possibility of concluding cooperation with other UNESCO concepts.

To launch the strategy, Princess Marie made a speech:

It is my great pleasure and pleasure to be able to participate in the launch of the new strategy for the Danish UNESCO work.

Congratulations to us. Congratulations to us that we now have a completed strategic framework for the Danish UNESCO work for the next 4 years. The work was started, as many of us were together not far from here at Blox last May. The final strategy that lies ahead of us has come to the world based on a great effort from many different subject areas and from many places in the country. It is in the spirit of UNESCO and I would like to thank you.

The UN’s 17 world goals play a central role in the strategy and world goals are not only important to us in UNESCO, but also to more and more organizations and businesses that have taken it on. The world goals are the most important conversation of our time, and I am pleased that in the Danish UNESCO work we can help carry this on to an even larger circle.

UNESCO is the UN body responsible for world goals 4 on a good education for all. And we are proud and happy about that. Everyone has the right to education! UNESCO’s work with world heritage is known throughout Denmark – and that is important.

Fewer people know about the Geopark in Odsherred and the Biosphere Reserve on Møn. Or for concepts such as UNESCO learning and creative cities. It is a shame … Because when a municipality engages in the opportunities and the “brand” UNESCO can offer, one will experience an increasing local commitment and pride. 

In our work, we must strengthen our knowledge of the many opportunities and potentials that exist in UNESCO. There are countless resources in the Danish UNESCO landscape. The challenge for the next 4 years is to connect them in new ways. We must strive to see new synergies and work across sectors and organizations.

We need to help each other strengthen the knowledge of the many tools that UNESCO offers to the member states. UNESCO’s programs and networks are an offer for everyone to engage in our common future. But it can be difficult to do alone. Therefore, the strategy aims to explore new opportunities to work across and to enter into new partnerships. In Denmark, we have seen a growing interest in UNESCO in recent years in the form of a stronger commitment at local, regional and national level. The strategy points to 5 initiatives that can lift UNESCO’s work in Denmark

Besides partnerships for the future, this is about good education and global citizenship, freedom of expression in the press, art and science as well as world heritage and local development and not least equality and inclusion. The efforts go across all UNESCO mandates. It’s ambitious and it’s great.

Our children will inherit the world after us.

Therefore, I am very pleased to read that the Danish UNESCO National Commission wants to promote an approach that recognizes young people as actors who can create change and sustainable development. We cannot do without the engagement of the young! Later today, work must be done to link concrete actions and activities to the strategy and I look forward to following the work for the next 4 years.

Princess Marie wore a fully recycled outfit today! She paired her Armani Collezioni jacket with her Hugo Boss dress that she debuted in 2017.

She accessorized with her favorite Jimmy Choo ‘Romy’ pumps and her Naledi Copenhagen Ostrich clutch. Her scarf is also by Naledi Copenhagen.

We’ll next see Princess Marie on February 3rd when she’ll attend the premiere of LEGO Movie 2 with her family.