A joint UNESCO-UNODC partnership working to promote the rule of law through education is launching a series of virtual regional dialogues to bring young people together with policymakers to hear what they want from education and justice systems in the post COVID-19 future.
The dialogues will focus on Central America, South Asia and Europe and the Middle East and North Africa and will seize the opportunity for change offered by the pandemic to build discussion among young people, policy-makers, educators and representatives from education and justice sectors to engage them in building back better.
UNODC and the world football's governing body, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to step up their joint cooperation to address threats to sport posed by crime.
The MoU, which was signed at UNODC's Vienna-based headquarters by UNODC Executive Director Ghada Waly and FIFA President Gianni Infantino during the 'Tackling Corruption and Crime in and through Sport' event, also pledges to consider ways in which football can be used as a vehicle to strengthen youth resilience to crime and substance use through the provision of life-skills training.
Worldwide, schooling in 2020 has been marked by unprecedented interruptions to children's learning and teacher's efforts to educate. With COVID-19 first leading to school closures, and later to social distancing measures, the pandemic has forced educational systems to adapt and develop new ways of learning, as well as identify solutions to mobilize youth remotely. In West Africa, where the COVID-19 reaction measures reflect much of the rest of the world, one of the ways this is now being achieved is through the region's first educational television station, Télé-Ecole, with whom UNODC recently partnered.
Since ancient times, China has always advocated for a culture of integrity. The famous philosopher Confucius once said, "An intellectual who inspires himself in the pursuit of truth, but is ashamed of old clothes and coarse food, is not worth consulting." Attaching great importance to judicial integrity, China's Chief Justice Zhou Qiang clearly points out that "Judicial corruption should be resolutely punished with a zero-tolerance attitude." The Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China and the Judges Law of the People's Republic of China have made provisions for the corrupt behaviour of judges, such as the perversion of justice for bribes and abuse of power.
With the 2020/21 academic year in Uzbekistan kicking off in early-September, the country's Ministry of Public Education recently announced the launch of a new curriculum for primary schools. Among several new additions are lessons designed to provide children with learning opportunities centred around a strong educational framework that promotes fairness, justice and integrity in a fun and interactive way - a perfect fit for UNODC's friendly space characters, the Zorbs, and with it their messages around peace and justice.
Uzbekistan's new curriculum looks to use multimedia applications and interactive tools, drawing from both national and international educational knowledge.
