The Diplomat
The Organization of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture (OEI) will hold this coming Friday, November 25, in the Dominican Republic, the XIV Ordinary Meeting of its General Assembly, in which Mariano Jabonero, candidate of the Government of Spain and current secretary general of the organization, will present his candidacy for re-election to this position for the four-year term 2023-2026.
The event will be hosted by Ángel Hernández, Minister of Education of the Dominican Republic and President of the OEI Board of Directors, and will be attended by the President of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader, and Ministers of Education of countries in the region, including Spain’s Pilar Alegría. Likewise, the country that will hold the next presidency of the Board of Directors, which will host the next OEI General Assembly, will be elected.
The meeting will also present the OEI’s report of activities over the past four years, a period marked mainly by the COVID-19 crisis and, consequently, by the closure of educational centers in the region, which affected some 180 million students. Advances in the digital transformation of education in Ibero-America, the strengthening of a shared higher education space, the promotion of creative and cultural industries and the consolidation of Spanish and Portuguese as scientific languages are some of the milestones that can be found in this report, which provides an account of the organization’s lines of action and activity during this period.
The OEI’s General Assembly, which is held every four years, is the organization’s highest authority and serves as its legislative body. It is made up of official delegations from its 23 member states (Andorra, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Spain, Guatemala, Equatorial Guinea, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Venezuela).
The meeting will also include the participation of OEI observer organizations: the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), the Central American Integration System (SICA) and the EU-LAC Foundation. In addition, invited entities such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), UNESCO, the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF), the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB) and the International Youth Organization for Ibero-America (IYO) will also participate.
The last General Assembly of the organization was held in 2018 in Mexico City, where Mariano Jabonero, candidate of the Spanish government, was elected as secretary general for the period 2019- 2022, succeeding the Brazilian Paulo Speller. The OEI, the senior organization of the Ibero-American community, is headquartered in Madrid.
