Workshop on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Abstract

Introduction

As the United Nations (UN) Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) drew to a close in 2014, ESD experts and practitioners congregated at Nagoya to discuss the way forward with regard to the role of ESD in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Early in January 2016, the International Conference on ESD as a driver for the SDGs provided the first opportunity following the formal adoption of the SDGs by the UN General Assembly, to further deliberate on the ESD strategies that could be employed towards these goals. It is useful to revisit the recommendations and deliberations at the CEE-UNDESA workshop on ESD and SDGs in view of the sheer scale of the international participation and the integrated approach taken towards merging ESD concerns and values into all goal areas.

Workshop Report

During the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Conference on ESD, held during 10–12 November 2014 at Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, Centre for Environment Education (CEE) India and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs organized a workshop on ESD and Achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a side event. This was part of the Workshop Cluster IV: Setting the Agenda for ESD beyond 2014.

The workshop had five working groups with topics based on the Global Action Plan (GAP) areas identified by the UN. Setting the tone for the workshop, Dr Prithi Nambiar, CEE Australia, presented the workshop guidelines and approach to the participants.

Sustainable Development (SD) is context specific and needs educational input at every stage from negotiating what sustainability means to the individual and community, to implementing and continuing to adapt approaches to keep them sustainable.

ESD is a different type of education aimed at deep change to enable development that is inclusive and equitable and must therefore address issues of culture and power.

ESD must remove barriers to public discourse by empowering all to contribute.

Global citizenship can provide a suitable continuous learning framework for providing ESD-specific skills, values and capabilities in a non-ideological manner.

Five working groups to focus on key barriers to the achievement of all 17 SDG areas from each GAP perspective in order to arrive at appropriate educational interventions to address them.

Key points and recommendations from the five workshop discussions are given below.

Working Group 1

GAP Area: ADVANCING POLICIES

Facilitator: Neil Pratt, Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Montreal

This working group discussed policy issues across all 17 SDGs by grouping them into social, economic and environmental areas. The group emphasized the need for social protection, universal and equitable access to basic services and the need to focus on communication, education and public awareness (CEPA) as part of the efforts to integrate ESD into conventions and policy-making processes in all SDG areas. Case studies were discussed as examples of best practice in policy education for SD such as the Environment and Development project for Policymakers, which sought to identify innovative and sustainable approaches in natural resource management and bring them to the attention of key policy planners and decision-makers through publications, seminars and online discussions (CEE and Swiss Development Cooperation). The group also discussed the best practice example of Malaysia where the Prime Minister led the advocacy on SD.

Recommendations

To set up a coordinating mechanism of actors with common frameworks for UN countries.

Increase South–South cooperation and exchange experts between developing countries.

Ensure the availability of tools to increase capacities of policymakers to integrate the social, economic and environmental dimensions of SDGs in development strategies.

Increase policy support for poor people to be able to access markets.

Increase multi-stakeholder coordination and collective action.

Working Group 2

GAP Area: WHOLE INSTITUTION APPROACH

Facilitator: Jim Taylor, Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (WESSA)

This working group discussed key issues generally addressing all SDGs highlighting the need for leadership and governance. The group identified barriers to whole institution approaches to ESD as being due to leadership adopting a problem finding approach rather than developing positive visions and looking for opportunities to realize these visions. A uniting vision was thus needed that would stimulate synergy, agency and freedom in order to bring about the trans-disciplinary and multi-sectoral understanding and approach required to address SDG challenges.

Recommendations

Seeking trans-disciplinary synergies (through multi-sectoral cooperation).

Be practically (pragmatically) sustainable: Help the whole institution become more sustainable.

Leadership that engenders support (transformative).

Responsive and accountable—response-ability (reflexive competencies).

Participation through learning institutions.

Working Group 3

GAP Area: EDUCATORS

Facilitator: Mahesh Pradhan, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Nairobi

This group discussed the central role played by universal access to early childhood education and training for educators in particular as well as dialogue, community learning and experiential learning. Professional development opportunities for educators need special attention and funding. Better coordination of existing networks was seen as highly essential in order to avoid waste of resources through duplication and reinvention of the wheel. Training and capacity building of educators at all levels including heads of academic institutions was needed to redress inequities within organizations. Special institutions in ESD and supporting networks were urgently needed in order to meet training and capacity building requirements of educators in the complex area of SD. The group also discussed the need to promote inclusivity, reflexivity and conviction as part of the ESD approach. Education also needed to address the community and all stakeholders, especially local authorities and leaders at every level, in order to further all SDGs. Several examples of best practice in non-formal education were discussed including Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education (ASPBAE) and European Association for the Education of Adults (EAEA).

Recommendations

Invest in trainings of trainers/service managers

Strong partnerships between government and civil society agencies

Recognize and integrate indigenous/traditional knowledge

Optimization of funding and resources (avoiding duplication)

Create bank of knowledge/resources

Focus on pedagogy, process and content

Address quality issues of professional development agencies

Use the experiential learning approach

Working Group 4

GAP Area: MOBILIZING YOUTH

Facilitators: (i) Frans Lenglet, Swedish International Centre for Education for Sustainable Development (SWEDESD) and (ii) Sally Asker, InSIGHT Sustainability Pty Ltd, Sydney, Australia

Discussions centred on poverty and the various challenges/issues that confront young people. Ensuring employment and learning opportunities for youth was seen as a critical means of empowering them for SD and providing them with the skills and knowledge to contribute to green economies. ESD needs to be used as a strategy to impart skills in thinking/reflection/problem solving. Youth need to be encouraged to participate in policy/advocacy as well as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) start-ups. The group noted that youth are often unaware of opportunities and have a great fear of failure, which makes them vulnerable to being exploited through ideological persuasions of all kinds. Once trapped into these persuasions, young people are often sidelined and further marginalized.

Recommendations

Scale up best practice in youth activities

Support/recognize/respect knowledge of youth and design methodologies for transformative learning

Require a fundamental shift in education systems with students involved at the centre of designing them around their core values/desires for future

Must support momentum through peer to peer approaches

Put youth at the centre of the policy-making framework

Youth-led platform to act as monitoring agents or watchdogs

Youth need training in leadership for SD

Need to ensure participation of youth from diverse backgrounds and enable them to have a voice

Education needs to be issue-based, looking at gender, consumption patterns and social cohesion

Need to rethink philosophy of ‘how’ to involve youth in dialogues for SDGs (1–17)—rethinking structures; need capacity building for leadership action.

SDG 16 key for role of ESD in changing behaviour and values and promoting competencies.

(SDG 7–9) Gender equality/equity: Girls need special emphasis while context-specific attention must be given to boys. Third gender equity issues must be specially highlighted and addressed. Work needs to be done urgently on developing a new equitable and non-restrictive view on gender roles.

Working Group 5

GAP Area: ENCOURAGING LOCAL COMMUNITIES

Facilitator: Kartikeya Sarabhai, CEE, India

This group discussed the urban–rural divide which cuts across all SDGs. The need to focus on developing trust backed by appropriate legal mechanisms to facilitate implementation, monitoring and conflict resolution was discussed as well as the critical role that leadership plays in enabling communities to address SDGs. The value of working on SDGs through existing community structures was noted as well as the need to ensure that ESD training and capacity building is undertaken in order to empower and nurture leadership among youth and the community so as to enable them to think critically and make choices in favour of sustainability. UNESCO could facilitate a forum at the local level where issues of sustainability could be discussed and choices for the village/community made.

Recommendations

Develop trust between communities and stakeholders which needs to be backed by legal mechanisms.

Promotion of peace and amity at the local level needs to be addressed through mechanisms for local level mediation and resolution of conflicts over resources, power sharing or communal issues. Peace builders and peacemakers need to be identified, recognized and institutionally supported.

Use existing community structures such as family and community to address SDGs.

Evaluate local knowledge and re-evaluate using participation and empowering processes with a focus on creating new validity for young people.

Develop leadership and empower communities.

Capacity builds communities to be able to leap frog by enabling critical choice and critical thinking.

Have a full conference focused on community engagement and good practice.

SD at the local level needs special platforms/forums which need to be facilitated.

Key presenters and panellists during the workshops also made significant points towards achieving SDGs. Some important points are given below.

Nikhil Chandavarkar, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, in his introductory presentation, discussed the 17 SDGs and suggested that the difficulty in negotiating this exhaustive list from a policy perspective be addressed by grouping them in the following manner:

The first 7 relate to social issues; the next 5 to economic issues and the next 3 goals to the environmental agenda. The final 2 relate to enabling conditions.

SDG 16 (on peaceful and inclusive societies, justice and effective institutions) bridges the economic and political agenda.

SDG 17 spells out the means of implementation which is particularly important from the developing world perspective.

SDG 4 focuses on education and is cross-cutting across all 17 SDGs.

He also highlighted the need for a movement from negative to positive actions using the example of the two murals in the UN General Assembly by a Brazilian artist, one shows destruction and as you walk through the building, the other one shows peace.

Kartikeya Sarabhai averred that the current paradigm of development was unsustainable as world consumption levels already exceed what the planet can produce—as indicated by ecological footprint. Developing nations need to avoid imitation of unsustainable models but also need to have the capacity to leapfrog ahead through carefully chosen SD approaches. In order to enable SD, people should be empowered to make the right choices. Pick Right rather than Kick the Habit was the campaign, which India adopted for the World Environment Day, 2008. Kick the Habit was appropriate for countries that had already developed in a certain way and needed to change. The focus of ESD should be to build capacity to make such choices. The Handprint was a concept initially developed by CEE and now used by several groups across the world to stand for positive action for sustainability.

Anantha Kumar Duraiappah, Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP), India, while speaking on GAP, said that while SDG 4 emphasizes the major role education plays in SD, the first order conditions necessary for SD are peace and the requisite institutional frameworks. The second order conditions necessary are (a) learning to be reflective (psychological), convictional (beliefs) and behavioural (agency and change and (b) inclusive and open dialogue and exchange of information and knowledge: the formation of the knowledge commons. He also reiterated that as the global population increases from seven to nine billion, moving towards global citizenship is important and building his into the curricula is essential.

Neil Pratt, in his presentation at the panel discussion on ESD and SDGs—From the policy perspective, said that a key challenge is translating the global frameworks (SDGs/Aichi Targets) to national level—policy into practice—and enabling implementation that integrates multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral involvement. He also highlighted how the Aichi Biodiversity Targets adopted at the CBD COP10 in Nagoya are founded on SD concerns as opposed to looking at conservation in isolation. As he mentioned, biodiversity provides a foundation to food security and water security and has a crucial role in climate change mitigation and adaptation, disaster risk reduction and other areas related to SD and human well-being.

Frans Lenglet, in his presentation during the workshop on ESD and SDGs—Local Communities, mentioned that working with local communities in different areas has highlighted the fact that transformative learning does not just happen within education systems, but often outside of them in informal environments. Multiple stakeholders need to come together to start collaborative learning on issues related to SD, especially in a conducive environment that helps in bringing people together to understand solutions and build consensus for decision-making. The process of collaborative learning on SD also helps in empowering voiceless or marginalized people. To facilitate this process, it is also essential to train people at the local level.

Mahesh Pradhan, at the workshop on ESD and SDG—Educators, highlighted the importance of curriculum change, and how networking with educators and creating synergy are important processes for strengthening the capacity of educators in the changing landscape of education. He also mentioned that facilitating discussions that connect national to global priorities and goals would help to make SDGs relevant at the national level, and also that facilitating interlinkages between the SDGs themselves need to be considered by all programmes and initiatives.

Jim Taylor, in his address during the workshop on ESD and SDG—Whole institution approach, brought out the importance of giving a spiritual dimension to ESD. He also highlighted examples of whole institution, multi-stakeholder practices like bio monitoring of water to collect river health data and using smart phone apps to spread messages across communities through global systems like google earth.