The Office of Education, Science and Technology (OEST) is a division of the Executive Secretariat for Integral Development (SEDI) and was created in January 2005 through Executive Order 05-03, "Reorganization of the General Secretariat" . Its principal mission consists of supporting current efforts to increase human capital (educational, cultural, labor), and scientific and technological capacity of the member states, in the framework of increased social cohesion and respect for cultural diversity.
The OEST is organized into three programmatic areas: education and culture; science and technology; and social development and labor. Its main objectives are: i) to promote inter-American dialogue and to offer technical and operative support to specialized political forums, in particular to ministerial meetings and their respective inter-American work committees; ii) to promote partnerships for development, especially in horizontal cooperation based on the transfer of knowledge; iii) coordinate actions oriented towards promoting the eradication of poverty, social development, education, technology and science with other international organizations, cooperation agencies, governmental and non governmental institutions and civil society. |