Colombia: the National Bioethics Committee will receive its first training from UNESCO’s ABC project

The UNESCO Regional Bioethics Program will carry out the first training of the National Bioethics Commitee (CNB) of Colombia, by virtue of the memorandum of understanding signed in 2020 between UNESCO and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation of the Republic of Colombia.

This training is part of the ABC Project (Assistance to the National Bioethics Committees) which aims to strengthen and provide quality training and technical advice to the National Bioethics Committees of the region. On this occasion, the training will be from February 24 to April 22 and in virtual format.

For the Colombian initiative, there will be the presence of three prominent teachers from the region:

– Ignacio Maglio, Coordinator of Science Ethics of the UNESCO Bioethics Network;

– Victor Pacheco, President of the network of National Bioethics Committees, and

– Eleonora Lamm, Consultant of the UNESCO Regional Bioethics Program.

Together they will coordinate two months of training with all the members of the NBC.

The opening of the training will be led by Lidia Brito, Director of the UNESCO Montevideo Regional Office of Sciences and Dr. Mabel Gisela Torres Torres, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation of Colombia.

The content of the trainings, formulated and directed by UNESCO staff and international experts, is based on a series of guides developed by UNESCO specifically for this purpose, and also on its Basic Bioethics Curriculum, designed from the norms of ethics and international human rights standards.

Thus, once again the UNESCO Bioethics Program accompanies the formation and growth of National Commissions and Committees within the framework of the NBC’s network.