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The KIP International School

The KIP International School was established in 2011 as an independent institution based on the experience of the multilateral human development programmes implemented in many countries.Since 1989, these programs, framed in the national policies of the different countries, have promoted integrated and participatory territorial development processes, with the support of public, private and civil society actors. Over the years, they were held in Albania, Angola, Belize, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Libya, Macedonia, Morocco, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Serbia, South Africa and Tunisia.

The KIP International School works promoting knowledge, innovations, policies and territorial practices that are coherent with the objectives and values that the international community agreed on through the United Nations Agenda 2030. Its main activities in interested countries and at the international level are the production and dissemination of knowledge, the networking of territorial laboratories of change, the implementation of training and higher education initiatives and the implementation of innovative strategic projects.

The KIP School works through an international network of research and training institutes, benefiting from the advice of experts and personalities from the worlds of science, culture and cooperation. It has permanent linkages with a network of experiences, organizations, specialized centers and universities of interested countries who intend to work together to construct new knowledge and develop new tools for planning and managing development processes. It is also engaged in research for innovation and in building capacities of development actors.

The KIP International School is guided by its Scientific Committee, chaired by Edgar Morin. This Scientific Committee was created in 2004, before the establishment of the KIP School, by UNESCO in collaboration with UNDP, UNIFEM and UNOPS, and in 2010 also linked with ILO, UNEP and WHO. The Scientific Committee suggested the creation of the KIP International School following a period of presentations and consultations that included: the President of the United Nations General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto on 9 September, 2009; France’s National Assembly in Paris during a conference given by Edgar Morin on 14 October 2009; the Vice-President and a group of Members of the European Parliament in Brussels on 4 May 2010; the Cairo Forum on territorial knowledge on 4 June 2010; during an international conference on decentralized cooperation in Dakar on 4 and 5 December 2010; during the international meeting on decentralized cooperation and European integration in Tirana on 13 and 14 January 2011; at the plenary meeting of the Poverty Group of the OECD DAC in Paris on 17 and 18 March 2011.

The KIP School aims to collaborate with national and local governments, international organizations and social actors who are working to achieve the goals and values that the international community agreed on through the United Nations Agenda 2030, recognizing the serious difficulties they encounter. While on one hand, the Agenda indicates a path towards an equitable, participatory, and environmentally sustainable development, on the other, reality everywhere continues to be characterized by excessive competition leading to exclusion, poverty, social tensions, pollution, irrational use of natural resources and other dangerous imbalances.

The KIP School promotes a territorial approach to development based on the active role of local communities, on enhancing local natural, human and historical resources, on integrating different sectoral contributions and on the participation, without exception, of all social actors. It is an approach rooted in specific local cultures and realities, but aimed at building a wide network of exchanges for a local, national and international development centered on meeting human needs and peaceful cooperation. The territorial approach not only corrects the fragmentation and dispersion of resources typical of the traditional sector-specific approach, but also enhances and harmonizes the qualitative contribution of experiences addressing specific issues.

The operational structure of the School, based in Rome, has a President, two Co-Presidents, a General Secretariat, an international group of experts in the various fields of social and economic development based in various countries, and three international cooperation Programmes that are the following:

The ILS LEDA programmeset up in 1998 with the collaboration of ILO, UNDP and UNOPS, provides technical assistance related to the governance, strategies and implementation of local economic development processes. In particular, it supports the creation, functioning and networking of Local Economic Development Agencies (LEDAs). Local Economic Development Agencies LEDAs are territorial services, managed by associations of local public, private and non-profit actors, whose mission is to support businesses, enhancing local resources and capacities and integrating vulnerable groups into economic activity. More than 60 LEDAs are operating in 18 countries, and they participate to the ILSLEDA network (www.ilsleda.org). Contact: g.canzanelli@ilsleda.org.

The IDEASS programme, set up in 2001 with the collaboration of ILO, UNDP and UNOPS, identifies and disseminates innovations that can contribute to high quality territorial development. To learn about the innovations promoted by IDEASS and its current activities, please visit the website www.ideassonline.org. This site, with visitors from over 190 countries, is an important instrument of the KIP International School’s permanent cultural campaign. Contact: giulia.dario@ideassonline.org.

The UNIVERSITAS programme, launched in 2001 with the collaboration of ILO, UNDP and UNOPS, supports research and training for human development. It organizes intensive international courses for development actors in collaboration with universities of different countries and interested public administrations. It promotes research for the identification and systematization of innovative practice and publishes such work in its electronic journal Universitas Forum (www.universitasforum.org). Contact: sara.swartz@kipschool.org.

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KIP International School

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