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© UNESCO UNESCO’s education measures in response to COVID-19 2020-03-27  UNESCO observes that over 100 countries have implemented nationwide closures, impacting over half of world’s student population. Several other countries have implemented localized school closures. In our sub-region, in 3 countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan) schools and education institutions have been closed and moved to distant learning. UNESCO is currently looking on closely working with ministries of education in affected and concerned countries to ensure continued learning for all children and youth through alternative channels.UNESCO’s response to COVID-19 in education sector includes:* Technical assistance to quickly prepare and deploy inclusive distant learning solutions, utilizing hi-tech, low-tech and no-tech approaches.* Webinars for minister of education officials and other stakeholders to share information about country efforts to maintain the provision of inclusive education in different contexts.* A selection of digital learning resources that governments, schools, teachers, parents can use to open opportunities for learners unable to attend to school, some of these resources are also available in Russian.* A repository of national learning platforms designed to support the continuity of curriculum-based study, including in Uzbekistan.Examples of selected National learning platforms for Kazakhstan are found here , while for Kyrgyzstan they are posted here.In addition, the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (UNESCO IITE) has launched a new online platform COVID-19. Reducing the impact on education. Partners of this initiative are IITE, UNESCO institutes and bureaus, leading universities, major social networks, search engines and IT companies, as well as international non-profit organizations and associations dealing with ICT in education. ©UNESCO IITE The platform provides numerous partner resources – educational courses, webinars, distance learning portals, communities and technology solutions that allow you to organize training through social networks, as well as instructions and guides that allow schools, universities and individual teachers to switch to remote learning and interact with students. The materials include examples of practical solutions to support the educational process in the context of the COVID-19 epidemic.A separate section contains digital solutions for distance learning from Eastern Europe and Central Asia.On March 20 this year, UNESCO IITE in partnership with the Google for Education team have launched a new Teach From Home platform to help teachers in different parts of the world affected by the coronavirus epidemic support the educational process through online learning. ©UNESCO IITE Teach From Home is a temporary hub of information and tools for educators to organize interaction with students through video calls that allow them to invite entire class, get real time questions from students and livestream the lessons. The platform also provides learning opportunities and effective teacher-student interaction without video calls through making a special website to host lesson information, worksheets and videos, creating online quizzes and providing real-time feedback in Google Docs.Furthermore, there are ideas how to keep students engaged and sites for teachers to interact and share valuable resources and tips. Last but not the least, Teach From Home platform fully incorporates principles of inclusion and equity as it ensures equal access to education for all students with the use of assistive technology and accessibility features.As for digital learning solutions in the sub-region, UNESCO is planning to support cluster countries to deploy ICT Competencies Framework for Teachers (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan) and has been implementing the project on development of online modules for teachers to teach Education for Sustainable Development for 5-6 grades in Kyrgyzstan. The modules are expected to be piloted at selected schools in the second half of 2020.For more information please see UNESCO’s regular updates on the impact of COVID-19 on education and UNESCO Almaty’s webpage. URL: http://en.unesco.kz/unesco-s-education-measures-in-response-to-covid-19 ⓒ UNESCO Mother language day 2020: Celebrating cross-border languages for peaceful dialogue 2020-03-25 UNESCO is celebrating ‘Languages without borders’ for International Mother Language Day 2020 on 21 February. Local, cross-border languages can promote peaceful dialogue and help to preserve indigenous heritage. Cultural and linguistic diversity are key for sustainable societies and help preserve the differences in cultures and languages that foster tolerance and respect for others. Around the world, some local languages, rather than vanishing, are in fact flourishing. Many of these fast-evolving languages are cross-border languages. For example, both regional variants of Maori – spoken in New Zealand, in the Cook Islands, and Sami, spoken across Northern Europe, have benefitted from efforts on the part of governments to revitalize these languages, which started in the 1980s. Borders in many parts of the world have been artificially imposed. From sub-Saharan Africa, to the Middle East to Latin America, many borders were negotiated and drawn arbitrarily splitting communities, which had existed for centuries. This process has contributed to conflict all over the world. Linguists specializing in cross border languages have pointed out that for such communities very often official borders do not ‘exist’. They continue to trade, share cultural practices and communicate in a common local language. Cross-border languages are naturally dynamic because they are cross-fertilized by people from two or more countries. Among many other cross-border languages, Kiswahili is one such example. This sub-Saharan African language is spoken by 120 to 150 million people. It is a hybrid tongue composed of linguistic elements from Southern Africa, Arabia, Europe and India. Its evolution tells a rich story of migration, trade, slavery, colonialism. Today, it is both sub-Saharan Africa’s most important lingua franca, and an enabling force promoting African unity and diplomacy. It is a national and official language in the United Republic of Tanzania, a national language in Kenya and in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is a cross-border lingua franca in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, northern Mozambique and southern Somalia, and to a lesser extent, Malawi, Zambia and southern Sudan. Quechua is another example. The language of the ancient Incan Empire has now evolved to become a family of related indigenous languages, spoken by some 8 to 10 million people in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, Colombia and Argentina. The dynamism of cross-border languages means that they can provide space for indigenous culture and traditions to thrive. In the right circumstances, they can also be powerful tools for the promotion of peace between neighbouring countries. Bonds of empathy and shared heritage on either side of a border and among several countries in a region increase solidarity among neighbouring peoples and allow people to celebrate the complexity of their multi-layered identities. The development of Multilingual Education based on Mother Tongue Instruction, not only improves learning outcomes, but also helps to maintain linguistic diversity and multilingualism, a key element of inclusion. Cross-border languages have the potential to foster powerful emotional and cultural ties between neighbouring communities often living on either side of international borders.  International Mother Language Day Learn more about UNESCO’s work in languages URL:https://en.unesco.org/news/mother-language-day-2020-celebrating-cross-border-languages-peaceful-dialogue © UNESCO 过去25年间小学入学性别差距减半 2020-03-20  UNESCO unveils a new fact sheet on girls’ education today ahead of International Women’s Day. The data is published as part of the #HerEducationOurFuture initiative which focuses on the progress achieved over the past 25 years. It shows that girls’ enrolment rates in primary and secondary education have almost doubled in low-income countries, and that the gender gap in primary enrolment has been halved. But it also shows that the pace of change is not fast enough. At the present rate, getting every girl into primary school will only happen in 2050.  The fact sheet is published on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing in 1995), which culminated with the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, a key global policy document on gender equality and the most ambitious roadmap for the empowerment of girls and women. “Ignoring girls’ education is akin to ignoring one of the most effective solutions for development,” said the Director-General for UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay. “When girls access quality education, it emboldens them to break the social stereotypes that hold back gender equality. It also gives them the tools to better navigate future life-altering choices on pregnancy, childbirth, and health challenges claiming millions of children’s lives around the world. We cannot achieve the world we want without the education and empowerment of all girls and women.” The Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report at UNESCO shows that if all women completed primary education, maternal deaths would be reduced by two-thirds. If they had a secondary education, child deaths would be cut by half, saving 3 million lives, and there would be two-thirds fewer child marriages. If all girls in sub-Saharan Africa, and in South and West Asia had a secondary education, the number of pregnancies among girls younger than 17 would fall by close to 60%. But slow progress is preventing girls from reaping these benefits. As the new interactive website, https://www.education-progress.org/en/  illustrates, the primary enrolment rate of girls over the past 25 years has only increased by ten percentage points from 78% to 88%, less than half a point per year. The new fact sheet shows progress since 1995 in global commitment to girls’ right to an education through international Conventions as drawn from UNESCO’s HerAtlas, and areas where improvements are still needed. In 1995, the Beijing Platform for Action urged countries to eliminate gender discrimination in education, which is now prohibited by the constitutions of 90 countries. Since the Beijing Platform for Action, the number of States that have ratified the UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education (CADE) has increased from 82 to 105. However, this still means almost half have not signed it. By 1995, 150 States had ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, which provides for equal rights for men and women. It has now been ratified by 189 States Parties, but 27 countries signed it with objections to particular articles on child marriage and discrimination policy. A new social media campaign, under #HerEducationOurFuture, is being launched in partnership with multiple education organizations to help advance the commitments made on education in the Beijing Declaration. The campaign calls on girls and teachers to add their voices to call for change by saying what they would want to improve for the next generation. It is launched on International Women’s Day and the Commission for the Status of Women, which will feed inputs into The Generation Equality Forum. This is a global gathering for gender equality, convened by UN Women and co-chaired by France and Mexico, with civil society as a leader and partner. The Forum will kick-off in Mexico City, Mexico, (7-8 May 2020) and be concluded over three days in Paris, France (from 7 to 10 July 2020). ****For more information and interviews, contact Kate Redman k.redman@unesco.org +33(0)671786234 URL: https://en.unesco.org/news/gender-gap-primary-school-enrolment-halved-over-past-25-years ⓒ UNESCO Предстоящее Десятилетие языков коренных народов (2022–2032 гг.) будет сосредоточено на правах носителей языков коренных народов 2020-03-09 Participants at the High-level event, “Making a decade of action for indigenous languages,” on 28 February issued a strategic roadmap for the Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-2032) prioritizing the empowerment indigenous language users. More than 500 participants from 50 countries, including government ministers, indigenous leaders, researchers, public and private partners, and other stakeholders and experts, adopted the Los Pinos Declaration, at the end of the two-day event in Mexico City, which was organized by UNESCO and Mexico. The Declaration places indigenous peoples at the centre of its recommendations under the slogan “Nothing for us without us.” The Declaration, designed to inspire a global plan of action for the Decade, calls for the implementation of the internationally recognized rights of indigenous peoples, expressed notably in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 2007, the UN System-wide Action Plan (SWAP) on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 2017, and other standard-setting instruments such as UNESCO’s Convention against Discrimination in Education (1960),the UN’s International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1965), International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966). In its  strategic recommendations for the Decade, the Los Pinos Declaration emphasizes indigenous peoples’ rights to freedom of expression, to an education in their mother tongue and to participation in public life using their languages, as prerequisites for the survival of indigenous languages many of which are currently on the verge of extinction. With regard to participation in public life, the Declaration highlights the importance of enabling the use of indigenous languages in justice systems, the media, labour and health programmes. It also points to the potential of digital technologies in supporting the use and preservation of those languages. Building on the lessons learnt during the International Year of Indigenous Languages (2019), the Declaration recognizes the importance of indigenous languages to social cohesion and inclusion, cultural rights, health and justice and highlights their relevance to sustainable development and the preservation of biodiversity as they maintain ancient and traditional knowledge that binds humanity with nature. Current data indicates that at least 40% of the 7,000 languages used worldwide are at some level of endangerment. While reliable figures are hard to come by, experts agree that indigenous languages are particularly vulnerable  because many of them are not taught at school or used in the public sphere. More statistical data will become available once UNESCO’s Atlas of Languages, a database about practically all human languages, becomes available later this year. **** More about the International Year of Indigenous Languages and its outcomes URL:https://en.unesco.org/news/upcoming-decade-indigenous-languages-2022-2032-focus-indigenous-language-users-human-rights © UNESCO / C. Alix UNESCO and OHCHR strengthen cooperation to advance human rights 2019-12-04 A fast changing world requires quick, but meaningful responses to challenges that can tear at the fabric of our communities. In order to ensure that human rights are respected and protected, UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay and Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, today signed a new memorandum of understanding to promote joint action for advancing human rights. “At a time when human dignity, equality and justice are under attack, UNESCO and OHCHR reaffirm their resolve to work closer together towards a stronger implementation of human rights in response to new challenges worldwide,” said Ms. Azoulay following the signing. The agreement focuses on emerging trends and new fields of human rights today, especially human rights-based responses to new scientific and technological developments, notably on artificial intelligence. This comes at a time when UNESCO Member states are expected to launch the elaboration of a normative instrument on the ethics of artificial intelligence upon its conclusion of its General Conference on 27 November. UNESCO and OHCHR will also strengthen their work tackling racist propaganda and hate speech online and offline, linked to the UN Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech (2019). Looking ahead to the anticipated development of new standard setting frameworks for AI at UNESCO, Ms. Bachelet sees opportunities emerging from this new agreement. “Taking these steps will guide technology for all the good it can produce,” she says, “but we can avoid the misuse in terms of hate speech, and also in terms of harassing journalists, human rights defenders or critics.” This new cooperation also identifies areas of convergence across the mandate of UNESCO. These include the advancement of the right to education, the right to take part in cultural life; the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications and the right to water and sanitation. It also includes the right to freedom of expression and access to information, in line with the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity spearheaded by UNESCO. URL:https://en.unesco.org/news/unesco-and-ohchr-strengthen-cooperation-advance-human-rights © Asian Development Bank Uzbekistan ratifies the Protocol of 2014 to the Forced Labour Convention 2019-11-17  Uzbekistan becomes the 40th ILO member State having ratified the Protocol On 16 September 2019, Uzbekistan deposited its instrument of ratification of the Protocol of 2014 to the Forced Labour Convention, 1930, thereby becoming the fortieth country worldwide to ratify the Protocol. Through the ratification of the Protocol, Uzbekistan marks the ILO’s Centenary by expressing a strong commitment to tackle all forms of forced labour, including trafficking in persons. This ratification is also a crucial step towards the objective of 50 ratifications by the end of 2019. The Protocol, adopted by an overwhelming majority by the International Labour Conference in 2014, calls on ratifying States to adopt effective measures to combat forced labour, including debt bondage, forced domestic labour or trafficking in persons, and to protect victims and ensure their access to remedies and compensation. By ratifying the Protocol, Uzbekistan is moving ahead towards the achievement of decent work and the delivering of the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals, in particular SDG target 8.7. The Protocol will enter into force for Uzbekistan on 16 September 2020, one year after its ratification. URL:https://www.ilo.org/moscow/news/WCMS_719392/lang--en/index.htm ⓒ UNHCR / Chris de Bode Kyrgyz Human Rights Lawyer Wins UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award 2019-11-17 A lawyer, whose work has supported the efforts of the Kyrgyz Republic in becoming the first country in the world to end statelessness, has been selected as the 2019 winner of the UN Refugee Agency’s Nansen Refugee Award. Azizbek Ashurov is welcomed with traditional bread and horse’s milk, as he leads the Ferghana Valley Lawyers Without Borders mobile team on a visit to a community of formerly stateless persons in a remote area of Kyrgyzstan. A lawyer, whose work has supported the efforts of the Kyrgyz Republic in becoming the first country in the world to end statelessness, has been selected as the 2019 winner of the UN Refugee Agency’s Nansen Refugee Award. Azizbek Ashurov, through his organization Ferghana Valley Lawyers Without Borders (FVLWB), has helped well over 10,000 people to gain Kyrgyz nationality after they became stateless following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Among them, some 2,000 children will now have the right to an education and a future with the freedom to travel, marry and work. Statelessness affects millions of people worldwide, depriving them of legal rights or basic services and leaving them politically and economically marginalized, discriminated against and particularly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. “Azizbek Ashurov’s story is one of great personal resolve and tenacity,” said Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. “His commitment to the cause of eradicating statelessness in Kyrgyzstan – an achievement secured in partnership with the Kyrgyz government and others across the country – is a compelling example of the power of an individual to inspire and mobilise collective action.”- Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugee As part of the Soviet Union, with no internal borders in place, people moved across Central Asia with internal documentation, acquiring residency and getting married. After the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 and the formation of new states, many people became stranded across newly established borders, often with now invalid Soviet passports or no means to prove where they were born. This left hundreds of thousands of people stateless throughout the region, including in Kyrgyzstan. Women were disproportionately affected, often left without citizenship after marrying and settling outside of their own state before the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the establishment of new borders. As a result of hereditary citizenship laws, their statelessness was passed onto their children. Motivated by his own family’s difficult experience of achieving citizenship after arriving from Uzbekistan in the aftermath of the dissolution, Ashurov helped to found FVLWB in 2003 to offer free legal advice and assistance to vulnerable displaced, stateless and undocumented people in the southern part of Kyrgyzstan. “I cannot stand still when I see an injustice,” said Ashurov. “Statelessness is injustice. A stateless person is not recognized by any state. They are like ghosts. They exist physically, but they don’t exist on paper.” “Our role in reducing statelessness is to help people do what they cannot do themselves. We don’t give them citizenship, we give them back a right that they should have had from birth.”- Azizbek Ashurov “I realised that if it was this difficult for me, with my education, and as a lawyer, then imagine how hard it must be for an ordinary person,” he said. As more and more people approached FVLWB for help with citizenship issues, he turned the organization’s focus onto statelessness, working with others to map cases across the country for the first time and setting out to tackle the devastating problem once and for all. Ashurov and FVLWB formed mobile legal teams which travelled to remote areas of the south of the country to find vulnerable and socially marginalized groups. In their mountainous country, the mobile legal teams relied on a battered four-wheel drive or travelled on horseback. His close work with the Kyrgyz authorities, including on the launch of a temporary ‘amnesty’ for those without crucial papers, helped large numbers of stateless people to gain citizenship. “Our main method was to work with the government,” said Ashurov. “We managed to get their attention and make them our friends. We were little warriors – but behind us was a big tank.” “Similarly to Kyrgyzstan, a number of states in the wider region have initiated campaigns through which some 46,000 stateless people have so far been identified and over 34,500 cases have been successfully resolved to date.” Notes to Editor Media materials including photos and b-roll video are available at the following link: https://www.unhcr.org/media-nansen-refugee-award-2019 For media enquiriesStephen Pattison, pattison@unhcr.org, +41 79 500 8774Babar Baloch, baloch@unhcr.org, +41 79 513 9549 About UNHCR’s Nansen Refugee Award: UNHCR’s Nansen Refugee Award honours extraordinary service to the forcibly displaced. Recent winners include South Sudanese surgeon Dr. Evan Atar Adaha, Sister Angelique Namaika from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Zannah Mustapha, a lawyer and mediator from Borno state in north-eastern Nigeria. The award includes a commemorative medal and a US$150,000 monetary prize generously donated by the governments of Switzerland and Norway. In close consultation with UNHCR, the laureate uses the monetary prize to fund a project that complements their existing work. The Nansen Refugee Award program is funded in partnership with the Swiss Government, The Norwegian Government, the State Council of the Republic and Canton of Geneva, the Administrative Council of the City of Geneva and the IKEA Foundation. The 2019 Nansen Refugee Award Ceremony The 2019 Award ceremony will take place on October 7 at the Bâtiment des Forces Motrices in Geneva. It will feature a performance by Venezuelan singer Danny Ocean and a keynote address by Nadine Labaki, the Lebanese director of the Cannes Jury Prize winner, and Oscar-nominated film, Capernaum. It will be hosted by award-winning South African TV presenter Leanne Manas. Other performers joining them on the night will be Swiss musician Flèche Love and German poets and stage performers Babak Ghassim and Usama Elyas. About UNHCR UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, leads international action to protect people forced to flee their homes because of conflict and persecution. We deliver life-saving assistance such as shelter, food and water, help safeguard fundamental human rights, and develop solutions that ensure people have a safe place to call home where they can build a better future. We also work to ensure that stateless people are granted a nationality. For more information about UNHCR, visit https://www.unhcr.org/about-us.html URL:https://www.unhcr.org/centralasia/en/11163-kyrgyz-human-rights-lawyer-wins-unhcr-nansen-refugee-award.html ⓒ United Nations in Uzbekistan Government of Uzbekistan and United Nations launch joint initiative to accelerate social protection for the most vulnerable 2019-11-16 TASHKENT, 19 September 2019 – Aziz Abdukhakimov, the Deputy Prime Minister of Uzbekistan, and Helena Fraser, United Nations Resident Coordinator, spearheaded discussions on the issues of social protection in the country. Parliamentarians, representatives of ministries and UN agencies including UNICEF, UNDP and ILO participated in the meeting. In 2018, the UN Secretary-General launched a fund to accelerate progress towards Sustainable Development Goals around the world. This SDG Fund is a financing mechanism to support countries to deliver on their commitment to ‘leave no one behind.’ The first allocation from the Fund will support initiatives to develop and implement social protection measures, in order to reduce and prevent vulnerability. Across the globe, UN teams in 114 countries worked with respective Governments to apply for this fund. Only 24 of these teams made it through, and one of them is Uzbekistan. . “Despite good initial efforts by countries to nationalize the SDGs by identifying priorities in domestic contexts, it is widely acknowledged that the ambition of Agenda 2030 requires a rapid acceleration of efforts and results. This means getting the right economic, social and environmental policies in place and taking them to scale as quickly as possible,” said Helena Fraser, United Nations Resident Coordinator in Uzbekistan. “Here in Uzbekistan, we believe investing in a robust, coherent social protection system that draws on best global standards and experience will help Uzbekistan’s ambitious national development agenda to succeed while protecting the most vulnerable.” In partnership with Government, the UN team in Uzbekistan has developed a joint programme on social protection which prioritizes institutional reform and will ensure pilot programmes benefitting people with disabilities. In Uzbekistan, social protection functions are currently distributed across multiple ministries and agencies, and although Uzbekistan has invested about 8-9% of its GDP in social protection and committed to SDG targets on social protection, gaps in the system have been growing in recent years. Most people with disabilities are not adequately covered by social protection. Social allowances have decreased considerably with two-thirds of eligible low-income families with children not receiving any support. Only 10% of eligible people have access to social allowances and active labour market programmes, and 30% of persons of pensionable age have no access to income security. “The lack of integration at policy and institutional levels is a root cause of ineffectiveness and inefficiencies. This means that social protection cannot be effectively provided to any group,” said Sascha Graumann, Representative, UNICEF. He added that “in practice, this means that people in need cannot obtain the services or support they are entitled to and don’t even know where to turn to secure their entitlements. Creation of a single body would enable an integrated approach to address the needs of individuals, families and children.” URL:http://www.un.uz/eng/news/display/343 ⓒ U.S. Embassy in Uzbekistan The United States and the Ministry of Public Education partner to improve early grade reading and math skills in Uzbekistan 2019-11-16 A team of five U.S. education experts have arrived in Uzbekistan to work with education experts from Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Public Education (MOPE) to develop reading and mathematics assessments for students in grades 2 and 4. The data from this assessment, which is supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), will be used to conduct a national-level survey of how well students are developing foundational skills in primary school. The survey results will provide Uzbekistan a comprehensive set of data on student outcomes that will inform strategies to improve teaching and learning so that all students have the opportunity to succeed. The Uzbekistan and U.S. team will develop more than 28 assessments for math and reading in eight local languages (Uzbek, Russian, Karakalpak, Kazakh, Tajik, Kyrgyz, Turkmen and English). Forty staff from the central ministry and regional offices will be participating in the 8-day exercise, which will use the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) and Early Grade Math Assessment (EGMA) as foundations for evaluating students’ skills and competencies. These assessments are the first component of the $50 million, five-year Development Objective Agreement (DOAG) that was signed between the Ministry and USAID on September 28, 2019, as the Ministry places greater emphasis on a competency-based approach to education. Minister of Public Education Sherzod Shermatov addressed participants, noting “This is the first international assessment taking place in Uzbekistan that will help get an accurate gage of the learning outcomes in primary schools. This will assist the Ministry in developing new methodologies for improving the education system.” USAID and MOPE elected to conduct a comprehensive, nationwide survey to gather as much data as possible so that specific, targeted programs can be developed. This assessment is only one component of the overall education assistance the United States will provide to Uzbekistan. USAID has enlisted RTI International to collaborate with MOPE during the workshop by providing reading, mathematics and assessment expertise. In November 2019, RTI International will work with MOPE to conduct a small-scale pilot of the EGRA and EGMA instruments, and then, based on that pilot, conduct the national-level in 2020. URL:https://uz.usembassy.gov/the-united-states-and-the-ministry-of-public-education-partner-to-improve-early-grade-reading-and-math-skills-in-uzbekistan/ © UNDP ПРООН начинает кампанию «Предупреждение насильственного экстремизма, способствующего терроризму в Центральной Азии» и проводит первое совещание по составлению карт доказательств и исследовательской базы 2019-11-16 13 September 2018 Bishkek – The Regional Dialogue devoted to mapping the research in the area of Violent Extremism Conducive to Terrorism in Central Asia was officially commenced by Mr. Ozonnia Ojielo, UN Resident Coordinator / UNDP Resident Representative in the Kyrgyz Republic, H.E. Mr. Yoshihiro Yamamura, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to the Kyrgyz Republic and Zakir Chotatev, Deputy Director of State Agency for Religious Affairs of the Kyrgyz Republic. The Regional Dialogue was the first among five regional dialogues to be hosted by the Central Asian countries. The dialogue series is part of the regional UNDP initiative aimed at prevention of violent extremism conducive to terrorism in Central Asia, and generously funded by the Government of Japan at the amount of US$ 6.4 million. The initiative focuses on both programmatic activities in select Central Asian communities and research. The Bishkek Regional Dialogue was the first step towards providing a platform for Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) practitioners and expert community to work together and thereby contribute towards broader PVE research efforts in the Central Asia region. The initiative is spearheaded by the UNDP country office in Kazakhstan and jointly implemented with UNDP offices in the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan, with a strategic support from the UNDP Istanbul Regional Hub. “Violent extremism is a challenge for Governments of Central Asia that they tackle in multiple ways. The workshop gathers practitioners and professionals to design the right solutions and support national institutions to address this challenge effectively”, said UNDP Resident Representative Dr. Ozonnia Ojielo in his welcome speech. In his opening speech, Ambassador Yoshihiro Yamamura mentioned that "Countering terrorism is an important task for both Japan's diplomacy and the international community. The fight against terrorism is one of the basic principles of Japan's international cooperation. I express the hope that due to the assistance to the social development of youth in cooperation with UNDP, the risk of radicalization of citizens will be reduced, which in turn will contribute to the maintenance of stability in the countries of Central Asia". The intensive technical discussions of among 60 PVE researchers, experts and practitioners from around the globe representing UN agencies, academia, and think tanks, civil society organizations, and other partners from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan as well as Eurasia, Africa, Europe, and America facilitated:  The discussion of the state of knowledge on violent extremism dynamics in Central Asia and across the globe, Establishment of linkages between expert community and the identification of synergies between ongoing and future researches, The mapping of research gaps in the PVE area and the prioritization of upcoming research plans. In his closing remarks, UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative for Kazakhstan Mr. Norimasa Shimomura mentioned that the Regional Dialogue is essential in further accelerating/strengthening regional cooperation among knowledge community and outlined such further steps will calibrate achieving tangible results for the benefit of people in most vulnerable communities in Central Asia.  URL:https://www.kg.undp.org/content/kyrgyzstan/en/home/presscenter/pressreleases/2018/09/undp-commences-preventing-violent-extremism-conducive-to-terrori.html