Upper Egypt's Aswan wins 2019 UNESCO Learning Award

CAIRO – 4 February 2019: The UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) has named Upper Egypt's Aswan as one of the ten winners of the 2019 UNESCO Learning City Award.

The award's committee said these cities introduced ideal development and commitment to promote education and learning through innovative and determined policies and programs.

Developing the strategy of bringing together and diversifying projects, including gardening and water conservation in schools, and providing diverse training opportunities for all segments of society were among the most important factors for winning the award, said Mervat al-Samman, a coordinator for Aswan in the UIL.

The awards will be presented at the 2019 International Conference on Learning Cities in Colombia's Medellin. Medellin is one of the ten winning cities.

The cities also include Malaysia's Petaling Jaya, China's Chengdu, Greece's Heraklion, Nigeria's Ibadan, Ukraine's Melitopol, Mexico's Santiago, South Korea's Seodaemun-gu, and Denmark's Sonderborg.

The UNESCO Learning City Award aims at recognizing and displaying cities' good practices in introducing quality education and providing lifelong learning opportunities for all citizens at the local level.

This award is presented every two years to cities in each of the five UNESCO regions that have managed to achieve significant development in learning. Also, the progress should be achieved by implementing the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities guiding documents.

As Egypt chairs the African Union for this year, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi declared in November, at the closing ceremony of the World Youth Forum, Aswan as the capital for African Youths in 2019.