Education for Democracy

Encourages the Secretary-General, United Nations agencies such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the United Nations Population Fund, the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), and other relevant stakeholders to strengthen their efforts to promote the values of peace, human rights, democracy, respect for religious and cultural diversity, and justice and the rule of law through education;

Strongly encourages Member States and national, regional and local education authorities, as appropriate, to integrate education for democracy, along with civic education, human rights education, education for peace and education for sustainable development into their education standards and to develop and strengthen programmes, curricula and curricular and extracurricular educational activities aimed at the promotion and consolidation of democratic values and democratic governance and human rights, taking into account innovative approaches and best practices in the field, in order to facilitate the empowerment of citizens and their participation in political life and policymaking at all levels;

Encourages Member States and national, regional and local education authorities, as appropriate, to further efforts to strengthen, through education, the connections between democratic governance, peace, sustainable development and the promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms;

Encourages Member States to intensify their efforts towards educating and empowering young people, in particular to shape, in the aftermath of COVID‑19, societies that are anchored in respect for human rights and the rule of law;

Calls upon Member States to continue to increase investment in accessible, safe, inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning for all, allowing for the intergenerational acquisition and transfer of knowledge and skills to advance the prospects of future generations and foster the building of peaceful, just, democratic and sustainable societies;

Also calls upon Member States to work with relevant stakeholders to take steps to close the digital divides between and within countries, including the rural-urban, youth-older persons and gender digital divides, and strengthen and adopt measures and mechanisms to ethically and responsibly harness the potential of digital technologies, including artificial intelligence, to advance education for democracy while promoting digital inclusion by addressing the challenges associated with access, affordability, digital literacy and digital skills, ensuring that the benefits of new technologies are available to all, including those living in rural and remote areas, taking into account the needs of those who are in vulnerable situations and the importance of promoting inclusive learning environments, and providing distance learning opportunities, especially in developing countries;

Encourages Member States to further their efforts to develop and strengthen educational policies and initiatives that contribute to combating disinformation, misinformation, stigmatization, racism, xenophobia, hate speech, discrimination, exclusion, and violence, in particular through accessible media and information literacy and digital literacy to improve education for democracy in the emerging digital environment;

Invites United Nations agencies, funds and programmes, including the United Nations Democracy Fund, the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Youth Office and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, to provide appropriate expertise and resources for the development of relevant educational programmes and materials for democracy;

Encourages international, regional and other intergovernmental organizations, within their respective mandates, to share their best practices and experiences in the field of education for democracy, including but not limited to civic education, with each other and with the United Nations system, as appropriate;

Invites Governments, the agencies and organizations of the United Nations system and intergovernmental and non‑governmental organizations to intensify their efforts to promote education for democracy, requests the Secretary-General, in cooperation with the Director General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, to submit a report, within existing reporting obligations, to the General Assembly at its eighty-first session on the implementation of the present resolution, and invites the Special Rapporteur on the right to education, within her existing mandate, to contribute to the report of the Secretary-General.