The countdown begins
Professor Tan Sri Dato' Dzulkifli Abdul Razak
Learning Curve: Perspective
New Sunday Times - 5-1-2014
THIS month marks the countdown of one of the most important decades -- the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD) launched in 2005.
The idea was mooted by the Japanese government and introduced as one of the aims of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) Preparatory Committee IV in Bali, Indonesia in June 2002. The vision of the DESD is a world where everyone has the opportunity to benefit from education and learn the values, behaviour and lifestyle required for a sustainable future and positive societal transformation. The committee highlighted the need to change the way we think and our lifestyle, consumption and work habits because the present ways are leading to ecological 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 with the creation of a sustainable future.
ESD aims to inclusively empower all people to take charge, collaborate and create a sustainable future. The WSSD held in 2002 at Johannesburg, South Africa -- a decade after the Rio Summit of 1992 -- endorsed the key role of education to attain the desired outcome. Indeed, for 10 years after Rio, very little was achieved.
Although Agenda 21 called for all countries to implement an ESD by 2002, only a handful had drafted strategic frameworks for advancing this process at the national level.
Education, in fact, was marginalised despite recognition of the fundamental role it must play in the achievement of sustainable development at the global level. Unfortunately, its potential was not optimally harnessed. Therefore, in 2002, WSSD made education a foundational step that was reaffirmed by the United Nations, resulting in the adoption of the DESD, which featured significantly in the Plan of Implementation adopted at Johannesburg in 2002 which involved more than 20,000 participants, including heads of states, non-governmental organisations, businesses and other major groups.
The UNDESD was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly as a 10-year period for education action beginning on Jan 1, 2005.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) was designated as the lead agency in the promotion of the DESD.
The primary DESD goal is laid out in the UN General Assembly resolutions 59/237 in which the General Assembly "encourages governments to consider the inclusion... of measures to implement the decade in their respective education systems and strategies and, where appropriate, national development plans".
The overall goal of the UNDESD is to integrate the principles, values, and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning to address the social, economic, cultural and environmental problems we face in the 21st century.
This educational effort will encourage changes in behaviour that will create a more sustainable future in terms of environmental integrity, economic viability, cultural vibrancy and a just society for present and future generations.
ESD, in particular, emphasises the importance of culture and society in the transition to a sustainable future.
With global diversity and the number of stakeholders involved, the greatest ESD challenge is ensuring multilateral cooperation between stakeholders and finding a negotiable balance between their priorities and interests in meeting the four major thrusts of the UNDESD: promoting and improving quality education; reorienting existing education to address sustainable development; building public understanding and awareness; and providing practical training. The effectiveness of the UNDESD depends on the strength and inclusiveness of the partnerships, networks and alliances that develop among stakeholders at all levels.
The General Assembly also "invites governments to promote public awareness of and wider participation in the decade, inter alia, through cooperation with and initiatives engaging civil society and other relevant stakeholders, especially at the beginning of the decade".
In the Asia Pacific, the launch was undertaken by the then UNESCO director-general Koïchiro Matsuura on June 28, 2005 at the Nagoya University, where the strategy for the decade based on the concepts of the draft scheme and the needs and priorities of stakeholders in the region was released. One of the steps is the innovative implementation of the concept of the Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development which proved to be highly successful as discussed previously (Learning Curve, Dec 8, 2013).
The next 12 months will be the last stages in meeting the DESD targets with their far-reaching objective to speak with one voice in defence of human dignity, touching the many aspects of lives of the world's population.