About
UNESCO REF
A multidimensional and multisectoral development institution, constituted under the UNESCO Provisions Framework and advancing the United Nations Global Goals across education, science, culture, and human resource development at national and continental scale.
Institutional Identity
A multidimensional and multisectoral development institution advancing the United Nations mandate across education, science, culture, and human resource development.
The Read and Earn Federation for UNESCO (UNESCO REF) is a multidimensional and multisectoral development institution, established in 2009 under the UNESCO Provisions Framework in Nigeria. Constituted through the National Commission for UNESCO under the authority of the 13th Session of the UNESCO General Conference, Paris, 1964, its institutional standing derives directly from the international normative framework of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. It does not derive from any domestic commercial registry, civil society register, or national corporate framework. This origin is not a procedural detail. It is the institution's primary credential.
The distinction between an institution constituted under an international normative framework and one registered under domestic law is consequential at every level of institutional engagement that matters to UNESCO REF: bilateral development partnerships, multilateral co-financing mechanisms, UN system cooperation agreements, and the corridors of the United Nations General Assembly where the quality and credibility of institutional standing determine whether a programme is received as a participant or as a petitioner. UNESCO REF is not a non-governmental organisation. It is not a civil society body. It is not a corporate entity. It is an autonomous development institution of international constitutional origin, mandated to operationalise the frameworks of the United Nations and UNESCO at national scale through 11 technical departments and the SIP-ALPHA Sovereign Initiatives Programme.
UNESCO REF exercises full legal and financial autonomy. This independence is not incidental but constitutive: it guarantees integrity of purpose, strategic consistency, and the long-term institutional gravitas required to operate credibly at the intersection of international mandate and national delivery.
Its structured federation, encompassing schools, community networks, and state representatives across all 36 states of Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory, functions as a coordinated national mechanism for translating the United Nations and UNESCO's international frameworks into ground-level programmes of measurable and auditable impact. From its establishment, UNESCO REF was constituted to advance the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and following their evolution in 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), demonstrating continuity of purpose and institutional relevance at the highest level of international development accountability.
Not just an act of studying, but something you build a life with.
International Development Mandate
From the Millennium to the Sustainable:
UNESCO REF and the United Nations Global Goals
The United Nations' approach to global development has evolved through two of the most consequential multilateral instruments in the history of international cooperation: the Millennium Declaration of September 2000, from which the eight Millennium Development Goals were derived, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development of September 2015, which established the 17 Sustainable Development Goals as the definitive framework for global human progress through 2030. UNESCO REF has been continuously and constitutionally aligned with both frameworks, not as a matter of retrospective positioning, but as a matter of institutional design. The institution was established in 2009 under the UNESCO Provisions Framework with the explicit mandate to advance the MDGs at national scale in Nigeria. That mandate was upgraded in 2015 to the SDGs without structural disruption, because the institution was built from inception to translate United Nations frameworks into national outcomes. This continuity across two United Nations development generations is not incidental. It is the most reliable evidence available of an institution that exists not for a project cycle, but for a purpose.
The Millennium Development Goals
On 8 September 2000, at the largest gathering of heads of state and government in history to that date, 189 member states of the United Nations adopted the Millennium Declaration at the UN Headquarters in New York, committing their nations to eight time-bound targets for reducing extreme poverty, improving health, advancing education, and promoting gender equality by 2015. These became the Millennium Development Goals, the first globally binding development framework of its kind, and the first international mandate to which UNESCO REF was constitutionally aligned at its establishment in 2009. Every UNESCO REF programme between 2009 and 2015 was designed, structured, and evaluated against the MDG framework, positioning the institution as Nigeria's most operationally committed domestic partner in the delivery of the United Nations' pre-2015 global agenda.
Source: United Nations General Assembly Resolution 55/2, Millennium Declaration, 8 September 2000. UN Millennium Summit Official Record, New York, 6–8 September 2000. UNESCO REF Programme Documentation, 2009–2015.
The Sustainable Development Goals
On 25 September 2015, at the 70th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, all 193 UN member states unanimously adopted Resolution 70/1: "Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development." This historic instrument, described by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as "a to-do list for people and planet," established 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 associated targets, succeeding the MDGs and extending the ambition of the international development agenda across all dimensions of human prosperity, environmental sustainability, and global partnership through 2030. UNESCO REF's institutional mandate was comprehensively upgraded in alignment with the SDGs, with the SIP-ALPHA programme constituting the most structurally complete national response to the 2030 Agenda currently operational in Nigeria, addressing all 17 Goals through 15 sovereign pillars of intervention across every state of the federation.
Source: United Nations General Assembly Resolution 70/1, 25 September 2015. UN Sustainable Development Summit Official Record, New York, 25–27 September 2015. UNESCO REF SIP-ALPHA Programme Documentation, 2022–2030.
All 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
UNESCO REF's SIP-ALPHA programme is the only nationally structured, internationally certified, multi-sector development initiative in Nigeria that addresses all 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals simultaneously through 15 sovereign pillars of intervention. This is not alignment by association. It is alignment by architectural design, with each SIP-ALPHA pillar constructed around specific SDG targets and indicators, ensuring its outcomes are directly reportable to the UN High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development and the African Union's Agenda 2063 Monitoring Framework.
Nigeria's implementation at this scale, across all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, positions UNESCO REF as the African Union's reference institution for sovereign, multi-sector, internationally accountable national development programming.
Vision, Mission & Goals
Our Vision
A world in which reading is not merely an academic exercise but a recognised and rewarding career pathway, one that generates knowledge, drives economic participation, and positions every citizen as an active contributor to the United Nations Global Goals.
Our Mission
To advance the mandate of the United Nations and UNESCO through rigorous, inclusive, globally relevant programmes, including our Flagship Programme, The SIP‑ALPHA, cultivating competencies of citizens across education, science, culture, and human resource development, in full alignment with the United Nations Global Goals.
Short Term Goal
To make reading a career, giving people everywhere the real opportunity to earn a living through reading, writing, knowledge sharing, and learning, where picking up a book is not merely an act of education but the beginning of a livelihood and a contribution to national development.
Long Term Goal
A future where any person, regardless of origin, income, or language, can build a life through reading and knowledge. UNESCO REF exists to demonstrate that learning is not merely something one does in school. It is something one does for a living, contributing in the process to a better world for everyone.
Working Together
for a Common Goal
The architecture of international development, as understood by the United Nations system, is not a bilateral relationship between a single institution and a single government. It is a structured ecosystem of complementary mandates, layered resources, and coordinated capacities in which the effectiveness of any one actor is contingent on the coherence of the whole. The Read and Earn Federation for UNESCO was constituted precisely to function within this ecosystem at the highest level of institutional fidelity. It operates in purposeful cooperation with sovereign government entities, intergovernmental organisations, bilateral development partners, multilateral finance institutions, non-governmental organisations, civil society bodies, academic institutions, and the private sector, engaging the full constellation of state and non-state actors whose mandates, resources, and institutional reach bear consequence for the advancement of the United Nations Global Goals. This cooperative orientation is not peripheral to the institution's mandate. It is the mechanism through which that mandate is delivered.
UNESCO REF functions as a convening authority of the first order, not a convener of events but a convener of systems, aligning institutional interests, mobilising complementary capacities, and coordinating action across sectors, levels of government, and national boundaries toward shared developmental objectives that no single institution, however capable, could achieve in isolation. The empirical record of development economics across six decades of international cooperation in Nigeria and comparable contexts is unambiguous on this point: fragmented, single-sector, single-actor interventions produce fragmented, temporary results. Structural transformation at the scale that the United Nations 2030 Agenda demands requires the kind of multi-institutional, cross-sector coordination architecture that UNESCO REF was designed to provide.
The strategic and fiduciary coordination of this cooperative architecture is entrusted to The Lichfield Partners and Associates, a UNESCO REF Chartered Strategic Institute and the designated fiduciary custodian of the SIP-ALPHA initiative. The Lichfield constitutes the international diplomatic arm through which UNESCO REF's national development mandate reaches institutional audiences at the highest levels of the global system, with an operational presence across 47 countries and advisory relationships with sovereign governments, multilateral institutions, development finance bodies, and international professional associations that collectively represent the full spectrum of stakeholders whose engagement is necessary for the implementation of a fifteen-pillar national transformation programme at the scale and with the international accountability that UNESCO REF demands of its work. The Lichfield does not merely facilitate access. It provides the institutional translation layer between UNESCO REF's sovereign national mandate and the technical, diplomatic, and financial requirements of the international community whose partnership and co-financing are essential to the programme's full realisation.
A further expression of this cooperative mandate is the New Partnership Development for Education and Youths (NEPAD_EY), UNESCO REF's continental platform for galvanising partners across the educational and developmental landscape toward the United Nations Global Goals and Africa's 2063 Vision. NEPAD_EY operationalises UNESCO REF's recognition that Nigeria's development challenges, while sovereign in their expression, are continental in their significance: a Nigeria that succeeds in building the human capital, institutional capacity, and economic infrastructure demanded by the 2030 Agenda does not merely improve the lives of its 220 million citizens. It demonstrates the replicability of a model that the African Union needs, and that 54 member states are watching Nigeria deliver.
International Strategic Alignment
The African Union's Agenda 2063, adopted by all 55 AU member states as the continent's long-range development framework, identifies the transformation of human capital as the foundational precondition for every other aspiration it articulates: continental prosperity, democratic governance, integrated economies, people-driven development, and Africa's rightful place in the global knowledge economy. UNESCO REF's programmes are designed against all seven of Agenda 2063's aspirations simultaneously. The SIP-ALPHA programme represents the most structurally complete single-country programmatic response to Agenda 2063 currently operational in West Africa, addressing Aspiration 1 (prosperous Africa) through agricultural, economic, and digital enterprise development; Aspiration 3 (good governance) through peace, justice, and institutional capacity; Aspiration 5 (cultural identity) through the CHTI pillar; and Aspiration 6 (people-driven development) through youth advancement, gender equity, and quality education. Nigeria's full-scale implementation across all 36 states and the FCT positions UNESCO REF as the African Union's reference institution for sovereign, multisectoral, internationally accountable national development programming, demonstrating the replicability of a governance architecture that 54 AU member states are watching Nigeria deliver.
Nigeria's National Development Plan and the successive policy frameworks of successive Federal Government administrations have consistently identified human capital development, food security, youth employment, and digital economic transformation as the four structural priorities on which the country's trajectory from potential to performance depends. UNESCO REF's institutional mandate addresses each of these priorities not as separate interventions but as an integrated architecture. The Young Women in Agriculture programme targets the structural exclusion of women from Nigeria's agricultural economy, where women constitute the majority of smallholder farmers yet receive fewer than 10 per cent of agricultural credit. The Educational Financial Facility Scheme (EFFS) addresses the financing gap that drives Nigeria's 10.2 million out-of-school children. The August Project (TAP) and the VOICE Initiative address youth unemployment and digital enterprise development at national scale. Every programme carries sovereign government endorsement and is implemented with the explicit understanding that its outcomes are reportable against both Nigeria's National Development Plan and the United Nations 2030 Agenda simultaneously.
The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted unanimously by 193 member states through General Assembly Resolution 70/1 on 25 September 2015, established 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 associated targets as the global community's definitive framework for human progress through 2030. UNESCO REF's alignment with this framework is not aspirational. It is constitutional: the institution was designed from inception to operationalise UN mandates at national scale, and the SIP-ALPHA programme's 15 pillars are each structured around specific SDG targets and indicators, ensuring their implementation outcomes are directly reportable to the UN High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. Primary programme alignments include SDG 1 (No Poverty) through enterprise-based income generation, SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) through the YWA agricultural programme, SDG 4 (Quality Education) through the EFFS and educational access initiatives, SDG 5 (Gender Equality) through gender-responsive programme design, SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) through TAP and the VOICE Initiative, SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions) through the CPSC and NRSCC pillars, and SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals) through the GKEPP twinning and global partnership framework. SIP-ALPHA is the only nationally structured programme in Nigeria designed to address all 17 SDGs simultaneously through a single, integrated national framework.
The Authority
Behind the Mission
UNESCO REF's principals of international standing combine sovereign authority, scholarly excellence, and strategic command to translate the UN Global Goals into measurable action across education, culture, science, and human resource development.
Dr. Khaled El-Enany
Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Candidate endorsed by the African Union & League of Arab States
Few figures in international cultural diplomacy carry the breadth of distinction that Dr. Khaled El-Enany brings to UNESCO. Born in 1971, a Professor of Egyptology at Helwan University with over thirty years on faculty, his career took a defining turn when he became Egypt's Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, overseeing more than two thousand archaeological sites, forty museums, and a workforce of thirty-five thousand. Under his watch, the Grand Egyptian Museum rose to completion. Named Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by France, honoured with the Order of Merit by Poland, and awarded the Order of the Rising Sun by Japan, his international standing is unambiguous. His candidacy for UNESCO Director-General is endorsed by both the African Union and the League of Arab States.
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H.E. Dr. Hajo Sani, OON
Ambassador, Permanent Delegate of Nigeria to UNESCO, Paris · Officer of the Order of the Niger
A school principal who rose to become a Minister, an Ambassador, and one of Nigeria's most consequential voices on women's rights, Dr. Hajo Sani's career is a masterclass in purposeful public service. Holding a Doctorate in Public Administration and Policy Analysis, she served as Nigeria's Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, leading Nigeria's delegation to the United Nations and defending the country's report on CEDAW at the 19th Session of the UN General Assembly in New York. Founder of Women and National Development (WAND), and former Director at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, she was appointed by the Federal Government of Nigeria as Ambassador and Permanent Delegate to UNESCO in Paris in 2021.
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Dr. Lateef Idowu Olagunju
Secretary General, National Commission for UNESCO, Nigeria
Dr. Lateef Idowu Olagunju serves as the Secretary General of the National Commission for UNESCO in Nigeria, the apex governmental body charged with coordinating and advancing Nigeria's obligations within the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. In this capacity, he functions as the primary institutional interface between the Federal Government of Nigeria and UNESCO's global mandate, overseeing the implementation of UNESCO programmes across education, science, culture, communication, and the social sciences at the national level. His role places him at the nexus of international educational diplomacy and domestic policy execution.
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Prince Abdulsalami Ladigbolu-Oranmiyan
President, Read and Earn Federation for UNESCO · Scientist, Statesman & Senior Fellow, UK Association of Business Executives (UK‑S.FABE)
A scientist, statesman, and Senior Fellow of the United Kingdom Association of Business Executives, Prince Abdulsalami Ladigbolu-Oranmiyan is a leader whose intellectual authority is anchored in three immutable principles: Bravery, Loyalty, and Truth. A direct descendant of Oranmiyan, the supreme Yoruba warrior-statesman whose authority extended across the Oyo Empire, the Benin Kingdom, and the throne of Ile-Ife, his great-great-grandfather, Alaafin Ladigbolu I of Oyo, was a signatory to the Amalgamation of Nigeria in 1914. His career spans the convergence of science, humanitarian governance, and international development, commanding a rare distinction as a strategist whose vision has consistently translated into systemic, measurable advancement within the United Nations' global mission.
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