The role to be fulfilled by Latin America and the Caribbean within this international event was defined after a year of discussions, meetings, and declarations that took place in different parts of the continent. The Regional Conference on Higher Education (CRES 2008) was the meeting that established the foundations for adopting a common position of the region with the approach of the world event.

As part of the agenda of the WCHE, themes such as "higher education and world challenges", "social responsibility" and the situation in Africa will be discussed, as well as internationalization, access, equity and quality, learning, research, and innovation. At the end of the conference an international agreement will be signed that will recommend actions for assuring that higher education and research play strategic roles in the creation and exchange of knowledge for a more sustainable, integrative, and developed future.

The Director General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, will open the conference on July 05. He will be joined by a high-level representative from the Government of France, His Excellency Danilo Türk, President of Slovenia; Dr. Jill Biden, Second Lady of the United States; His Excellency Nahas Angula, Prime Minister of Namibia; Her Excellency Pearlette Louisy, Governor General of Santa Lucia, and Ángel Gurría, Secretary General of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), will offer opening remarks. In addition, representatives of all of the regions of the world will attend, accompanied by international specialists and representatives from the private sector.

According to the World Compendium of Education 2009 published by the Institute of Statistics of UNESCO, in only seven years, 50.7 million new students have enrolled throughout the world, and 2.8 million of them have done so outside their countries of origin.

Ten years after the first World Conference on Higher Education in 1998, the participants of the conference of 2009 will reaffirm the role of higher education in fulfilling global challenges – from the eradication of poverty to sustainable development – while they examine strategies for improving access, equity, and quality.

The WCHE 2009 will take place from July 05-08 at the world headquarters of UNESCO in Paris , France .

To see the complete program of the conference, see: http://www.unesco.org/es/wche2009/