Education diplomacy at UNESCO
President Ramaphosa will undertake a working visit to France from 10 to 12 July 2026. The trip follows an invitation from UNESCO Director-General Khaled El-Enany for him to co-chair the UNESCO High-Level Steering Committee on Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4) on education. The meeting will take place at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris on 10 July.
SDG4 focuses on inclusive, equitable and quality education and lifelong learning. For investors, it sits at the heart of long-term productivity and labour market depth. The steering committee will convene heads of state, ministers and education leaders to review progress and adjust global priorities. South Africa’s role as co-chair signals an active push to shape norms around access, quality and financing of education systems.
The UNESCO session will be followed by the Transforming Education Summit (TES) Stocktake. This stocktake is designed to assess global advances since commitments made at the original summit, including reforms on teacher training, digital learning and education resilience. While detailed agenda items remain to be published, the sequence places Ramaphosa in key conversations on education governance and delivery.
The Ramaphosa France visit also reinforces South Africa’s positioning within multilateral forums. It gives Pretoria a platform to connect domestic education reforms with global frameworks, and to frame education outcomes as a core development and investment issue. For development finance institutions and impact investors, signals from Paris will matter for future funding pipelines into African education infrastructure, EdTech and skills programmes.
Delville Wood and South Africa’s soft power
The working visit has a second anchor in historical diplomacy. On 12 July, President Ramaphosa is expected to attend the 110th commemoration of the Battle of Delville Wood at the South African Memorial in Longueval, around two hours from Paris. The event will honour South African soldiers who died during World War I.
Proceedings will include a wreath-laying ceremony and the unveiling of a UNESCO plaque at the memorial. This step links heritage preservation with the organisation’s broader mandate on culture and education. It also underscores how historical sites can support soft power, tourism and cultural exchange.
South Africa’s presence at Delville Wood keeps its long-standing military history visible in European memory. For policymakers, such engagements help maintain bilateral goodwill with France and deepen ties with UNESCO’s cultural agenda. For investors, stable and visible diplomatic relationships often correlate with smoother project execution and more predictable regulatory environments.
President Ramaphosa will be accompanied by several ministers and senior government officials. This points to a wider set of bilateral and multilateral engagements on the margins of the UNESCO meetings and the commemoration, including possible discussions on education partnerships, scholarships and institutional cooperation.
The Ramaphosa France visit therefore operates on two levels. It anchors South Africa inside global education policy debates while projecting historical continuity and respect for shared sacrifice.
As multilateral bodies revisit education targets and financing models, investors should watch how South Africa leverages this role into concrete programmes on skills, digital learning and youth employment, and how its soft-power diplomacy in France supports broader investment confidence across the public policy and education sector.
