The mandate of the North-South Centre of the Council of Europe is to provide a framework for European co-operation designed to heighten public awareness of global interdependence issues and to promote policies of solidarity complying with the Council of Europe’s aims and principles, respect for human rights, democracy and social cohesion. The North-South Centre’s work is based on three principles: dialogue, partnership and solidarity. Governments, parliaments, local and regional authorities and civil society organisations constitute the partners in this quadrilogue approach and are involved in the Centre’s activities. The Centre carries out studies and organises debates, workshops and training courses. It acts as a catalyst by facilitating meetings between actors from different horizons and countries, working on issues of common interest and encouraging the formation of networks.

The North-South Centre’s activities involve two lines of action:

• raising European awareness of issues of global interdependence and solidarity through education and youth programmes;
• promoting North-South solidarity policies in conformity with the goals and principles of the Council of Europe through dialogue between Europe, the Southern Mediterranean countries and Africa.

The Network University (TNU) is a centre for collaborative learning. TNU is rooted in the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It offers innovative academic courses via the Internet to a worldwide audience of students and professionals. Participants with different professional backgrounds share their experiences in interactive group discussions and assignments. They become co-producers in joint knowledge networks.

TNU's activities are aimed at generating new knowledge and insights and then spreading these throughout the participating networks. These activities include the development and supervision of online courses, online debates, commissioned research, workshops combining online and face-to-face learning experiences and consultancy and strategy development on E-learning.

This online course is made possible through the Joint Management Agreement between the European Commission & the North-South Centre of the Council of Europe. This three year Joint Management Agreement signed between the European Commission (Europe Aid) and the North-South Centre aims at strengthening global education in the new member States of the European Union and promoting Africa-Europe youth co-operation in the context of the EU-Africa Strategy, targeting civil society actors and local authorities.

The North-South Centre will be responsible for the implementation of the project in close collaboration with non-state actors and civil society platforms, such as CONCORD and the European Youth Forum. The Global Education on-line training course is developed in the framework of this joint management agreement.