In recent days, the President of the United Nations General Assembly (UN) and the President of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (UN ECOSOC) convened a special High-Level Dialogue on the Sustainable Development of Africa on 20 July 2022, at UN Headquarters, New York. Participation is from UN Member States and Observers at the highest political level, as well as from UN System entities, and other stakeholders etc.

The theme of the High-Level Dialogue (HLD) is “The Africa We Want: Reconfirming the Development of Africa as a Priority for the United Nations System”. The HLD provides a global platform for Member States to discuss the impacts of the recovery from COVID-19 and the climate emergency on African development, and culminates in a call to action to accelerate the sustainable development of Africa. As an non-government organization (NGO) in special consultative status, the World Eco-Design Conference (WEDC) is invited to participate in the HLD.

In recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic crisis has brought multiple impediments to the sustainable development of Africa: Weak foundation for sustainable economic development and unpromising economic outlook; Large size of population, rapid population growth yet with low levels of healthcare and education, critical issues of education and healthcare security; Increasingly serious damage to the natural environment and so on.

In 2015, the African Union (AU) convened a summit and adopted the African Union’s Agenda 2063 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital. This agenda is an ambitious vision and action plan of Africa, which calls for action by all segments of society to work together and build a prosperous and united Africa based on shared values and a common destiny. 

In the context of the pandemic, strengthening the education support for the African countries is one of the major measures to achieve the African Union’s Development Agenda 2063. To enhance the industrial design capacity and education support for Africa, the WEDC, UN Technology Bank for Least Developed Countries (UN Technology Bank) and Zhejiang University, Ningbo (ZJU, Ningbo) jointly launched an International Design Education (IDE) Program in 2021. The IDE Program is open to the world’s 46 least developed countries (LDCs), provides postgraduate course in industrial design engineering with scholarships, which aims to enhance the industrial design capacity and competitiveness for the LDCs. So far, 36 African students have been granted scholarships.
 

The establishment of friendly cooperation partnerships is a foundation of supporting the sustainable development and joint promotion to achieve the African Union Agenda 2063. During the peak season of the pandemic, the WEDC and UNTB joint hands to donate 100,000 face masks to the Kingdom of Lesotho in an effort to protect frontline workers from COVID-19, so that we can work together to build a community with a shared future for mankind fighting against the common enemy of COVID-19.

To increasingly engage with the UN affairs, and be more responsive to the call of the immediate action for African development, the WEDC has always insisted to promote the integration and sustainable development of ecology, design and society, and strengthen the cooperation partnerships in a global scale WEDC will provide more support for the education of Africa and even the world by constructing an International Design Education Alliance, so as to jointly accelerate the progress towards the UN Agenda 2030 for the sustainable development and the African Union’s Agenda 2063.