Mr. Bernard Combes
Specialist, Early Childhood and Family Education Section, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)

Presentation:
Keynote speech -"Global Perspectives on Values Education"
Seminar -"Good Approaches for Values Education with Children"

Currently he coordinates the UNESCO Early Childhood Partnerships Programme and supervises the UNESCO early childhood presence on Internet. He is also involved with international initiatives on early childhood and values education, early childhood and HIV/AIDS, early childhood and ICTs; with several projects seeking to establish and support networks of early childhood professionals; with the development of multimedia materials to enhance early childhood and child rights awareness, advocacy and training; as well as two initiatives seeking the empowerment of women through early childhood programmes: one related to the development of play/learning spaces in toylibraries in poor neighborhoods in Latin America; and the other seeking to mobilize and train women to create innovative early education structures in West Africa.

He has also been active in information sharing, development of joint approaches/statements, and contribution to discussions/meetings related to the articles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child relating to young children and families (in particular Articles 5, 6, 12, 13, 17, 18, 28/29 & 31).

He participates in a number of advisory committees for initiatives involving the use of Information Technologies to improve information exchange and sharing on children's issues and child rights, such as the Children's House in Cyberspace initiative, the Francophone advisory group for the World Bank IMPACT (Information Management Project for Action, Communications, and Training) project, or the ECD Gateway advisory panel (part of the World Bank Global Development Gateway). He is a member of the advisory boards of several professional magazines related to children's issues. He is also a member of the Society for Technical Communication (STC) and the Society for International Development (SID), and has contributed articles to the journals of these associations.

Following graduation from the School for International Training (Brattleboro, Vermont) and prior to working with UNESCO's early childhood programme, he was involved with research, publications and databases on development and humanitarian NGOs and networks both at UNESCO in the Social and Human Sciences Sector and at the OECD Development Center. He also worked as a bilingual technical writer, designing and writing service documentation for Bull computer company support staff in Europe (manuals for the installation, use and maintenance of products and applications).

A French citizen, he has lived over 23 years overseas (Morocco, India, Singapore, South Vietnam, South Korea, United States) and has traveled in Asia, Southern Africa, the Caribbean and Europe. He has undertaken various missions (advisory, training, project negotiations) in Burkina Faso, Ecuador, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Senegal, Europe and North America.

Dr. K. K. Chan