WFEO-UNESCO Joint Meeting for Member States – The strategic role of engineering for accelerating the delivery of the 2030 Agenda

This joint event presented the UNESCO-WFEO partnership and contributions to the SDGs by working with Member States, especially on engineering capacity building and education, and how it is relevant to the variety of regional and national contexts with regard to building more inclusive and responsible communities. It took place at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, Room IV, Thursday 27 October 2022.

The World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO) was created under the auspices of UNESCO in 1968, and represents some 30 million engineers through its 100 members, which are national and regional professional engineering institutions.
 

General introduction by Prof. José Vieira, WFEO President
 
WFEO is an NGO in official relations with UNESCO (associate status), as well as in liaison status at the United Nations ECOSOC and with other UN agencies and intergovernmental agencies. UNESCO and WFEO have now a +50-year history of fruitful cooperation. In 2018, a symposium was held at UNESCO to celebrate this anniversary.

Engineering has always been a means to address UNESCO’s priorities, and has become increasingly important in order to progress the Sustainable Development Goals.

Amongst recent achievements, WFEO had initiated the creation of a UNESCO World Engineering Day (WED) for Sustainable Development (approved by UNESCO’s 40th General Conference, 2019), and since then has been coordinating the celebration of this Day worldwide, on 4 March of each year, bringing considerable attention to the role of engineers and engineering in achieving the 17 SDGs. The celebration of the World Engineering Day has greatly increased the awareness of SDGs in engineering communities and mobilized engineers all over the world actively engaged in the implementation of SDGs in engineering practices.
 

 
In 2021, WFEO worked closely with UNESCO and made significant contributions to the second edition of UNESCO’s Engineering Report, Engineering for Sustainable Development: Delivering on the Sustainable Development Goals, officially launched on 4 March 2021, in the context of accelerating actions to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals. The report includes important recommendations on many fields of engineering which are relevant to the SDGs, with a special focus on the critical role of engineering capacity building and engineering education to train more engineers with the right skills.