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What is the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development?

The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), held in Johannesburg 2002, highlighted the need to change the way we think, live, consume and work as current actions are leading to environmental degradation, poor quality of life and associated human suffering. Education, learning and capacity building were endorsed as means to bring about change and engage people in creating a sustainable future.

Despite recognition of the fundamental role that education must play in the achievement of sustainable development at the global level, the potential of these processes has not been harnessed so far. For example, Agenda 21 called for all countries to develop and implement an education for sustainable development strategy by 2002. To date, only a handful of nations have drafted strategic frameworks for advancing this process at the national level.

To catalyse, encourage and highlight the contribution of this important area of work, the Japanese government conceived of the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development and introduced the idea at the WSSD Preparatory Committee IV (Bali, Indonesia June 2002). With the support of lobbying efforts of many international governmental and non-governmental organisations pre and during the World Summit, education for sustainable development (ESD) featured significantly in the Plan of Implementation agreed at Johannesburg in 2002. The WSSD recommended that the United Nations General Assembly consider adopting a Decade of ESD.

The 57th Session of the UN General Assembly, December, 2002 adopted a Resolution 57/254 declaring the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD) from 2005 to 2014, designating UNESCO as the lead agency to promote it.

UNESCO was requested to:

develop a draft International Implementation Scheme to clarify relationship with existing educational processes including 'Education for All';
develop the scheme in consultation with the UN, international organisations, governments, NGOs and other stake holders; and
provide guidance for governments to incorporate concrete measures to promote ESD in national education plans;

Starting with an initial consultation with UN partners in September 2003, UNESCO shared a framework for the draft International Implementation Scheme worldwide. More than 2000 contributions were received, many of these representing the consolidation of opinions of hundreds. Following its submission, in July 2004 to the High Level Panel on the Decade, the draft International Implementation Scheme was presented at the 59th session of the UN General Assembly on 18-19th October 2004 in New York.

The UNESCO 171st meeting of the UNESCO Executive Board 2005 asked that the draft International Implementation Scheme be consolidated into a shorter form providing more of a strategic focus on the implementation of the Decade. The Consolidated International Implementation Scheme was released following discussion at the UNESCO Executive Board session in September 2005.

In the meantime, the UNESCO Asia-Pacific region released its strategy for the Decade in July 2005 based on the concepts of the draft scheme and on the needs and priorities of stakeholders in the region.

The Asia-Pacific Regional Launch of the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development was undertaken by the Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura on 28 June, 2005 at Nagoya University, Japan.

The Aims of the Decade

'The outcomes of the Johannesburg Summit and the establishment of a Decade of Education for Sustainable Development affirm the need to integrate sustainable development into education systems at all levels in order for eduction to be a key agent for change. The Decade aims to promote education as the basis for sustainable human society and to strengthen international cooperation towards the development of innovative policies, programmes and practices of education for sustainable development.

Governments have been invited to consider the inclusion of measures to implement the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development in their respective educational strategies and action plans by 2005, taking into account the international implementation scheme to be prepared by UNESCO.'

United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (2003, p.1)'

UNESCO and the International Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2015)'Connect XXVIII(1-2).

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