The United Nations and its partnerships with higher education revisited: 75 years of being inclusive or exclusive?

International organizations are having an increasing influence on the policy planning and implementation of internationalization of higher education. When the United Nations (UN) reached its 75th anniversary, it was timely to review its partnership with the higher education sector through the UNESCO Chairs Program. This Program is purposefully selected because of its sophisticated and holistic nature, in terms of the research, curriculum, and activities that are embedded in the affiliated higher education institutions (HEIs). This chapter analyzes the qualitative data collected from the public documents of the UNESCO Chairs Program, the Education University of Hong Kong, and the University of Hong Kong back in 2019 through critical discourse analysis and post-colonial theory. The results of this global UN partnership show the unintended positive and negative consequences. While the HEIs have been benefiting from this global collaboration with the UNESCO Chairs Program, the collaboration also created a culture of being exclusive, which is contrary to the inclusivity written in the mandate of the United Nations. Copyright © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Shahrzad Kamyab and Rosalind Latiner Raby; individual chapters, the contributors.