OBREAL Global co-organised together with the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the African Association of Universities (AAU) and the Latin American and Caribbean Higher Education Area (ENLACES), and with the support of the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Spanish Service for the Internationalisation of Education (SEPIE), the African Union, the EU-LAC Foundation, the University of Barcelona, the HAQAA initiative and the Colombian Association of Universities (ASCUN) a Cocktail-Debate on the Sustainable Development Goals – SDGs -.
During this event, participants had the opportunity to listen to interventions from experts from different parts of the world, who constituted a high-level and inter-regional panel.

The panel was composed of Dr. Michael Harms (Deputy Secretary General, German Academic Exchange Service – DAAD), Prof. Olusola Oyewole (Secretary General, Association of African Universities – AAU), Prof. Gaspard Banyankimbona (Executive Secretary, Inter-University Council for East Africa – IUCEA), Dr. Zakari Lire, (Director for Quality Enhancement, African and Malagashy Council for Higher Education – CAMES), Dr. Oscar Dominguez (Secretary General, Association of Colombian Universities – ASCUN), Executive Committee of ENLACES) and Dr. Myriam Moise (Secretary General, Universities Caribbean).

This cocktail and debate, entitled “Higher Education and the SDGs: Interregional Perspectives”, brought together more than 150 representatives from leading higher education institutions, organisations and government, and served as a networking space in which synergies were generated between the different regions of the world. The event has been featured as a pre-event to the UNESCO World Higher Education Conference which has taken place the same week. The organisations represented were asked to choose the SDGs which they found most important to their respective regions and state how universities would play a pivotal role in contributing to them.