Through its Global Education programme, the North-South Centre has been raising awareness and developing competences of formal and non-formal educators on global development issues, human rights, intercultural dialogue and global citizenship, through pedagogical support and through advocacy, particularly in the Balkans, Baltic, Visegrad and Southeast Europe and Mediterranean regions.

It promotes dialogue between practitioners and policy-makers and facilitates experience sharing and intercultural peer learning through its Global Education network and across its advocacy and capacity-building activities, namely the Global Education congresses, regional seminars and follow-up meeting and the Global Education Guidelines, eLearning and residential training courses.

More than 8000 youth multipliers and youth workers participated in the residential and online training courses as well as other capacity building activities the North South Centre promotes, gaining skills and knowledge about democratic participation, global education, the sustainable development goals and project management for youth organisations. Particularly in the context of the University of Youth and Development (Spain), the Mediterranean University on Youth and Global Citizenship (Tunisia) and the African University on Youth and Global Citizenship (Cape Verde and Kenya)

Young people, representative of youth organisations from different regions, benefit from a peer-to-peer education approach.

Following its bottom-up multilateral approach, the North-South Centre has been promoting activities to allow youth organisations and youth representatives to debate, advocate and cooperate with decision makers from local, national and international bodies.

Activities such as the Lisbon Forum, the quadrilogue seminars and the joint programme of the Universities provided fruitful opportunities to share good practice, jointly address concerns and create a common ground among youth policies’ stakeholders. The dissemination of the recommendations, declarations and official statements of these activities further enhance the participatory approach at the decision making process.

The Network on Youth and Global Citizenship that gathers youth-led organisations, youth platforms, governmental and intergovernmental institutions from Europe, the Southern Mediterranean and beyond is a fundamental tool to increase youth cooperation at interregional level.

The Africa-Europe Youth Cooperation programme contributed to increase the synergies between youth organisations in the two continents and to develop a joint youth policy framework establishing the Africa-Europe Youth Platform. This programme was implemented in the framework of the EU-Africa Joint Strategy and supported by the European Union and the African Union. International initiatives such as the “African Diaspora Youth Network in Europe” and the “Network of International Youth Organisations in Africa”, but also national ones such as the Tunisian Youth Council, stemmed from activities of the North-South Centre.

The Latin American University of Participation and Citizenship was another effort that increased the youth cooperation dimension of the North-South Centre looking also at Latin America scenario. This tie is still maintained through the participation of Foro Latino-Americano y Caribeño de la Juventud (FLACJ) at the Network on Youth and Global Citizenship.

The North-South Centre develops training courses seminars, research and focus groups of leaders specifically targeting Youth from the diaspora thus adding a trans-regional dimension to its cooperation work.

Since 2014, either crosscutting or within its specific programmes for the Empowerment of Women, the North-South Centre has promoted the role of women as drivers of the democratic processes and emphasized their strong involvement in building fair and peaceful societies.

The Rome Conference on "Women as agents of change in the Southern Mediterranean Region" in 2011, was a strong a example of this commitment. Thus was born the North-South Project For the Empowerment of Women in response to legitimate and necessary demands, not only for women, but also for Mediterranean societies as a whole.

The Rome Conference and Conference debate with Ms Souhayr Belhassen (Tunisia), President of the IFHR and 2011 North-South Prize was the inspiration for the  2012 PACE Resolution1996 : Equality between women and men: a condition for the success of the Arab Spring.

The Conference-debate "Women key players of the Arab Spring...and now?" which was part of the celebrations of the International Women’s Day, was chaired by the Deputy Secretary General, Ms. Maud de Boer-Buquicchio.

The North-South Centre gathers key stakeholders of the region in meetings, conference, workshops, etc. and organises training programmes and capacity-building activities for civil society multipliers on Council of Europe standards and tools to foster gender equality, such as Council of Europe’s Convention on Preventing and Combatting Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention.

By establishing a pool of experts, the North-South Centre is currently leading activities aiming to develop multi-stakeholder cooperation and coordination in combating violence against women.

The North-South Prize has been awarded since 1995 to two candidates who have stood out for their exceptional commitment to promoting North-South solidarity.

The candidates must have distinguished themselves in the protection of human rights, defence of pluralist democracy, public awareness raising on issues of global interdependence and solidarity. Despite the variety of nationalities and fields of action of those that have received the Prize since its creation, they all have in common a strong commitment to the promotion of North-South partnership.

Learn more about the Laureates.