Manos Antoninis has been the Director of the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report since 2017, having been previously responsible for the monitoring section of the report. He coordinated the financing gap estimates for the 2030 education targets, the projection on the achievement of universal primary and secondary education completion, and the World Inequality Database of Education. He represents the report team in the Technical Cooperation Group on SDG 4 indicators, of which he is currently co-chair. 

Dr. Sobhi Tawil is the Director of the Future of Learning and Innovation team at UNESCO where he currently leads the Futures of Education initiative, a project that, looking toward 2050, envisions possible futures in which education shapes a better world. A PhD in Education and Development from Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies in Geneva, he brings about 30 years of experience in teaching, education policy analysis, research and program management. 

Ms Stefania Giannini was appointed UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Education in May 2018, becoming the top UN official in the field. In this position, she provides strategic vision and leadership in coordinating and monitoring the implementation of the Education 2030 Agenda, encompassed in Sustainable Development Goal 4. 

Mr. Jeong-Pyo Hong served as a teacher from 1988 and served as a principal at Jeil Elementary School in Yongin, Republic of Korea. Afterwards, he served as the section chief of the Teaching and Learning Support Division at Gyeonggido Yangpyeong Office of Education, the director of the Gyeonggi-do Office of Education  Training Institute, the director of Human Resources Development Bureau at Gyeonggido Office of Education etc., and was recently appointed as the 2nd Deputy Superintendent in the Gyeonggido Office of Education. 

Seong Min Park is the Director of the Planning and Coordination Office of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea. He received his doctorate from the University of Iowa in the United States, and served as an administrative officer in the Office of the Presidential Secretary for Education and the Director of the School Policy Division of the Ministry of Education. In 2015, he was the Director of the Planning and Coordination Office of the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education, and was appointed as the Deputy Director of the Ministry of Education’s History Education Normalization Promotion Team, where he led the push for the nationalization of history textbooks. He later served as the Director of the Korea National University of Education and the Director of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Korea.

Renato Opertti is a Senior expert at UNESCO-IBE, President of the Council of Advisors of the Organization of Iberoamerican States (OEI), and Coordinator of the UNESCO-Catholic University of Uruguay Chair in Hybrid Education. One of his latest books is Curriculum in transformation mode: rethinking curriculum for the transformation of education and education (2023). 

Arathi Sripra is a sociologist of education at the University of Oxford. She has been examining the politics of education reform in the Indian and Australian contexts as well as the global governance of childhood and the family over a number of years. 

Farida Shaheed is a sociologist and the Executive Director of Pakistan’s leading gender justice organization, Shirkat Gah - Women’s Resource Centre. She is dedicated to promoting and protecting people’s rights, in particular marginalized groups. She is a former member of Pakistan’s National Commission on the Status of Women, and served as the first UN Independent Expert, and then Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights from 2009 to 2015. Recently, she took office as new Special Rapporteur on the right to education on 1st August 2022. 

Dr. Kais Hammami is the Director of the Strategic Foresight Center of ICESCO. He holds a Ph.D. in Strategic Foresight from Paris and served as holder of the UNESCO Chair for “Foresight, Anticipation, and Strategic Decision” in both the African and Arab regions. Also, he worked with several governments and international organizations including the United Nations and UNESCO, and taught foresight and strategic decision-making at numerous renowned educational institutions such as the Tunisian National School of Administration, the Diplomatic Institute, Sorbonne University, and Carthage University. 

Daniel Baril is Director General of Institute for Cooperation for Adult Education, a Canadian non-governmental research center. He has been active in adult education for 20 years as a specialist in the right to adult education and the policies and programs that implement it. He sits on several bodies of adult education organizations in Quebec, Canada and on the international scene, and the board of directors of the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL), of which he is President. 

Abdelijalil Akkari is a professor and the director of the research group on international education at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. He is also visiting professor at the Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Kazakhstan. Abdeljalil Akkari is a regular consultant for UNESCO and other international organizations. He was the Dean of research at the Higher Pedagogical Institute HEP-BEJUNE (Bienne, Switzerland) and assistant professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (Baltimore, United States). 

François Taddéi (French biologist) is director of the Centre for Research and Interdisciplinarity in Paris. Passionate about empowering Youth Education, he co-founded the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (CRI) in Paris in 2006, whose mission is to train the next generation of scientists working at the interface of life sciences, learning, and digital technologies. 

Ebrima Sall is the Executive Director of TrustAfrica, a pan African foundation and think tank. Previously, he was the Executive Secretary of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, CODESRIA, Africa’s leading social research counci.l He holds a doctorate in sociology from University of Paris I-Pantheon-Sorbonne and is the author of many publications on higher education and the social sciences, social movements, politics, micro-states, and development in Africa. He is currently a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of MOST/UNESCO. 

Tracey Burns is Chief Research Officer at the National Center on Education and the Economy, Washington, DC. Previously, she was Chief of Research for the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) at the OECD. She has additionally served as an Expert for UNESCO’s Broadband and Future of Education Commissions and is a member of UNESCO Santiago’s High Level Technical Council for their Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study. 

Abdel Basset Ben Hassan is the president of the Arab Institute for Human Rights based in Tunisia. With three decades of expertise in the field of human rights education, Ben Hassen has worked in the development and implementation of human rights programs and education reform in the Middle East North Africa region.  He has written on human rights, human rights education and culture and was a member of the drafting committee of the United Nations Decade for Human Rights Education. 

Elisa Guerra is a teacher and the founder of Colegio Valle de Filadelfia in Mexico and Director for Latin America for The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential. She was awarded the 2015 “Best Educator in Latin America” prize by the Inter-American Development Bank and Fundación ALAS and has also been a finalist for the Global Teacher Prize. Elisa holds two Master’s degrees, from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM) and from Harvard Graduate School of Education. She has authored 26 books and textbooks and is passionate about early learning, global citizenship, and innovative teaching. 

Fernando M. Reimers is the Ford Foundation Professor of the Practice of International Education as well as Director of the Global Education Innovation Initiative at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. An expert in the field of global citizenship education, his work focuses on understanding how to educate children and youth so they can thrive in the 21st century. He has written and edited or co-edited 40 academic books and published over 100 articles and book chapters focusing on the relevance of education for a changing world. He has also developed, with his teams of graduate students, several project-based curricula aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals which are in use in schools around the world. 

Hon. Ester Anna-Liisa Shiwoomwenyo Nghipondoka (Masters of Education, Bachelor of Education, Bachelor of Arts) is the Minister of Education, Arts and Culture in Namibia. She has been serving the Ministry for close to forty years. Before her appointment as Minister, Hon. Nghipondoka was the Deputy Minister of Education and prior to that appointment, Acting CEO for Namibia Training Authority (NTA). Prior to these endeavors, Hon. Nghipondoka served as a teacher from 1982-1992, then as a Principal of Otjikoto Secondary School in 1995. 

Sahle-Work Zewde was elected as the first woman President and the fifth President of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. She is also Chair of the International Commission of the Futures of Education. She served as Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the UN Integrated Peacebuilding Office in the Central African Republic. In 2011, she was appointed as the first dedicated Director-General Antonio Guterres appointed her as his Special Representative to the AU and Head of the UN office to the AU. She was the first woman to hold these positions at the UN.