INTERREGIONAL DIALOGUE PROCESS

ABOUT

Interregionalism is not a technical concept. It is a political proposition. It asks what becomes possible when regions with different histories, capacities, languages and knowledge traditions build cooperation together, not around each other. The Interregional Dialogue Process gives institutional form to this proposition.

Promoted and sustained by Obreal with governments, universities, regional organisations, funding agencies and multilateral partners, it has consolidated a polycentric architecture across different Souths and Norths. Its purpose is not to add another forum to the international calendar. It is to create a sustained space where regions define agendas, produce knowledge, build institutional cooperation and develop long-term capacities together.

The Process begins from a clear political premise. There is no single South and no single North. There are multiple Souths and multiple Norths, each with distinct histories, responsibilities, priorities and capacities. Serious cooperation must be able to work with that plurality. This is why the Process is multilingual by nature and polycentric by design. It treats diversity not as a difficulty to be managed, but as the condition for more legitimate and effective cooperation.

Multilingualism is not a logistical accommodation. It is a political declaration. Women’s participation is not a programme. It is a condition of legitimacy. Polycentric governance is not a preference. It is the architecture through which different Souths and Norths can co-produce what no single centre can produce alone.

Interregionalism does not replace multilateralism. It strengthens the political and institutional conditions through which multilateral cooperation can become more grounded, more inclusive and more operational. Where multilateralism provides the grammar of common rules and shared principles, interregionalism creates the political practice through which those principles connect with regional capacities, institutional realities and shared responsibility.

TWO STRATEGIC AXES

The Process operates through two strategic axes where development, governance and knowledge converge. All Souths and all Norths face versions of the same structural challenges: climate transition, digital transformation, governance reform, educational inclusion and the restructuring of global trade. The Process does not transfer solutions from one region to another. It creates the conditions for regions to co-construct responses, share what works and build common capacities for challenges no single region can address alone. Not transfer. Not aid. Working with others.

Education and Development places scientific capacity, higher education and innovation at the centre of development. Universities are not treated as academic spaces apart from the world, but as actors of development: generating knowledge that shapes policy, building institutional capacity that outlasts any single project, training the professionals who run public institutions, and contributing to more equitable and sustainable societies from within. Cooperation in education, research and science is never merely technical. It shapes the capacities through which societies define and pursue development.
Multilateralism, Trade, and Integration addresses one of the defining questions of the present international order: who contributes to the rules of the global economy, and on whose terms. This axis connects knowledge with regional cooperation, equitable negotiation, integration processes and the governance frameworks that will determine how different regions participate in a more plural international order. Trade, integration and multilateral governance cannot be sustained without knowledge, institutional capacity and political voice. Regions need the capacity not only to adapt to rules, but to help shape them.

GUIDING PRINCIPLES

Reimagining cooperation

Political and institutional innovation is essential to generate transformative impact and turn dialogue into concrete pathways for action.

Multilingualism
as a policy

Cooperation begins by listening in the language of others. It is not just translation; it is recognition, reciprocity, and the plural circulation of knowledge.

Universities as strategic actors

Universities generate public value and act as bridges between knowledge, public policy, and territories.

Polycentric architecture

Multiple poles from which to shape thinking on development and cooperation, without a single predefined agenda.

Women at the centre

There is no just development without women’s full participation, leadership, and enabling conditions in education, science, and innovation.

Renewed multilateralism

Strengthening and updating multilateralism through interregional cooperation by linking it with regional capacities and implementation agendas.

HOW THE PROCESS WAS BUILT

The Interregional Dialogue Process was built through political encounters, institutional commitments and sustained partnerships. Its foundations were laid through Obreal’s consultations in 2020 and 2021 with governments and university associations from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and Europe. It took institutional shape in Barcelona in 2022 and developed through successive stages in Buenos Aires, Windhoek, Addis Ababa and Bogotá, each one deepening its political, academic and institutional architecture.

First Phase: establishing the conceptual and political foundations of the Process
In Barcelona, Obreal convened the First Interregional Encounter on Education and Development with the support of the Government of Catalonia, the Argentine CELAC Presidency, the African Union Commission and the Forum for Sustainable Development in Higher Education, acting as a Team Europe Initiative in coordination with the EU-AUC HAQAA flagship. That encounter gave the Process its first institutional expression.
Second Phase: transforming a statement of intent into a living mechanism
The First Dialogue was held in Buenos Aires in 2023, co-organised by Obreal and the African Union Commission under Argentina’s CELAC Presidency. Later that year, in Windhoek, Obreal, the AUC, the AAU and the Government of Argentina convened university associations from Africa, Latin America and Europe at the margins of the AAU Vice-Chancellors’ Conference, consolidating commitments and presenting outcomes achieved since Buenos Aires. In 2024, the Second Dialogue moved to Addis Ababa, co-organised by the African Union Commission and the Government of Brazil, and hosted at the African Union headquarters within the framework of the AU Year of Education. This phase consolidated the alliance between Obreal, the AUC and the AAU as a cornerstone of the Process.
Third Phase: operationalizing and expanding
Launched through the Third Dialogue held in Bogotá in 2025, co-organised by the CELAC Pro Tempore Presidency under the Government of Colombia, the African Union Commission and Obreal, with the support of DAAD, IDRC Canada, UNESCO, the Government of Catalonia, the Association of Arab Universities and the Government of Egypt, this phase focuses on translating shared principles into governance structures, action plans and sustainable financing. It also expands the geographical and political scope of the Process by incorporating the Arab world, the Mediterranean and China, while fully integrating Trade, Integration and the rethinking of multilateralism as a central axis of the Dialogue’s agenda.