<h6><strong>The Diplomat</strong></h6> <h4><strong>The Organization of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture (OEI) celebrated, on October 26, 75 years of history, which makes it the leading organization of Ibero-American cooperation. With headquarters in Madrid, it is currently the international organization with the greatest physical presence and impact in the region, with an average of 11 million direct beneficiaries in the last five years.</strong></h4> Founded under the name of the Ibero-American Education Office at the First Inter-Ibero-American Education Congress, held in Madrid in 1949, “the OEI reaches its brilliant anniversary as the leading organization of Ibero-American cooperation with the greatest expansion in its history and important achievements for the benefit of the development and integration of Ibero-America,” the organization indicated this week in a press release. Among these achievements, the most recent of all, the award of the 2024 Princess of Asturias Award for International Cooperation, presented on October 25 in Oviedo by the Princess of Asturias, Leonor de Borbón, to the secretary general of the organization, Mariano Jabonero. The award recognized the work of the OEI which, “since its foundation, has carried out a fruitful task of promoting Ibero-American multilateralism and a bridge in relations between Europe and Ibero-America.” “Cooperation and multilateralism are hallmarks of an organization that seeks the cohesion of the Ibero-American community of nations,” said the Princess of Asturias during the award ceremony. According to the press release, thanks to its high-impact programs and initiatives in recent decades, the organization has contributed to the drastic reduction of illiteracy in Ibero-America, as demonstrated by the results of the Ibero-American literacy plans implemented since 1992 or projects such as ‘Luces para Aprender’, which, until 2016, provided electricity and connectivity to 55,000 rural schools in the region, laying the foundations to promote a process of educational digitalization that was increased years later throughout the region due to the coronavirus pandemic. Currently, 23 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) are part of the OEI, in addition to several observer countries and organizations. Thus, the OEI represents one of the largest cooperation networks in the world with workers of 21 nationalities. “Without the OEI, it is difficult to understand the cooperation of the last seven decades in the region,” said the organization. Since 2020, the OEI has impacted the lives of 11 million people who benefit from the nearly 600 projects managed each year on average. Of these, more than half a million correspond to students served, more than 60,000 to trained teachers and more than 4,500 to cultural managers and artists who are direct beneficiaries of the initiatives that are launched in the different lines of work of the organization: education, science, culture, human rights, languages, training and digitalization. In 2020, an Ibero-American Digital Transformation Program was launched that has accompanied the countries of the region in their educational digitalization process, while also launching 'Universidad Iberoamérica 2030', a macro strategy to provide the region with a shared space for research and work that contributes to the quality and progress of regional higher education. In the field of culture, the OEI has championed studies on digital culture and the protection of Ibero-American artistic creation in digital contexts. On the other hand, the organization has promoted the appreciation of Spanish and Portuguese as languages of science and culture, and since 2021 has promoted an Ibero-American Program on Human Rights, Democracy and Equality, with which it seeks to implement strategies that, from ethical and values-based education, contribute to addressing democratic disaffection in the region, while it has also committed to strengthening the training offer related to international cooperation through avant-garde methodologies that it develops from its Ibero-American Training Institute.
