联合国可持续发展教育十年

UN Decade for Education for Sustainable Development
(2005-2014)

The World Summit on Sustainable Development recommended to the United Nations General Assembly that “it consider adopting a Decade of Education for Sustainable Development starting in 2005”. In December 2002, resolution 57/254 on the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development beginning 1 January 2005 was adopted by consensus.

The United Nations General Assembly resolution designated UNESCO as the lead agency for the promotion of the Decade and requested the Organization to develop a draft international implementation scheme. Improving the quality of education and reorienting its goals to recognize the importance of sustainable development must be one of UNESCO’s and the world’s highest priorities.

Concepts

Education as the foundation of sustainable development was reaffirmed at the Johannesburg Summit, as was the commitment embodied in Chapter 36 of Agenda 21 of the Rio Summit, 1992. The Plan of Implementation establishes the linkages between the Millennium Development Goals on universal primary education for both boys and girls, but especially girls, and the Dakar Framework for Action on Education for All. The creation of a gender-sensitive education system at all levels and of all types – formal, non-formal and informal – to reach the unserved is emphasized as a crucial component of education for sustainable development. Education is recognized as a tool for addressing important questions such as rural development, health care, community involvement, HIV/AIDS, the environment, and wider ethical/legal issues such as human values and human rights.

There is no universal model of education for sustainable development. While there will be overall agreement on the concept, there will be nuanced differences according to local contexts, priorities and approaches. Each country has to define its own priorities and actions. The goals, emphases and processes must, therefore, be locally defined to meet the local environmental, social and economic conditions in culturally appropriate ways. Education for sustainable development is equally relevant and critical for both developed and developing countries.

Objectives

The Decade of Education for Sustainable Development pursues a global vision: The vision of education for sustainable development is a world where everyone has the opportunity to benefit from quality education and learn the values, behaviour and lifestyles required for a sustainable future and for positive societal transformation.

Its objectives may be articulated at each level, from community to the global context, but at each level the Decade should offer a framework for enhanced action and a link to other contexts and other levels. The following objectives focus on the global level, but are intended to be generic enough that they may serve as relevant input into the formulation of objectives at other levels – a process that will be a necessary part of the implementation of the Decade.

The proposed DESD objectives are to:

1. give an enhanced profile to the central role of education and learning in the common pursuit of sustainable development;
2. facilitate links and networking, exchange and interaction among stakeholders in ESD;
3. provide a space and opportunity for refining and promoting the vision of, and transition to sustainable development – through all forms of learning and public awareness;
4. foster increased quality of teaching and learning in education for sustainable development;
5. develop strategies at every level to strengthen capacity in ESD.

The Decade focuses on ESD in all parts of the world, developing and industrialised countries, in equal measure. The messages of sustainable development, as a global concern, are equally applicable and equally urgent in industrialised as in developing countries. The impact of over-consumption and wasteful lifestyle patterns wherever they occur make a strong argument for increased attention to ESD.

The Decade offers a platform for existing international agreements, such as those on biological diversity, combating desertification, climate change and wetlands conservation, and will provide a framework for strengthening the public awareness and educational activities of the various secretariats.

The Decade provides an opportunity for developing countries to define for themselves the kind of path they wish to follow. From the perspective of sustainable development it is clear that models derived from the industrialised countries are neither appropriate nor desirable, given the pressing need for those countries themselves to adopt more sustainable lifestyles. Building on strong commitment to values of community and solidarity, the developing countries have a chance to develop – and to model – viable, alternative approaches to sustainable development.

Links with other international initiatives

The UN Decade of Education on Sustainable Development starts at a time when a number of other, related international initiatives are in place. It is essential to situate the Decade with respect to efforts in which the international community is already engaged. In particular the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) process, the Education for All (EFA) movement, and the United Nations Literacy Decade (UNLD) have close links with aspects of the DESD. All of them aim to achieve comparable impacts: an improvement in the quality of life, particularly for the most deprived and marginalised, fulfilment of human rights including gender equality, poverty reduction, democracy and active citizenship. There is also a common consensus around the central importance of basic education and the need to extend it and enhance its quality.

What is the place of the DESD in relation to these existing and significant international initiatives? It is clear that concept of sustainable development goes beyond education and touches upon all aspects of the social and institutional fabric. In this sense sustainable development provides a way of articulating the overall social project and aim of development, alongside other over-arching concepts such as peace and human rights. Education for sustainable development focuses therefore on underlying principles and values conveyed through education and is more concerned than the other three initiatives with the content and purpose of education, and, more broadly, of learning of all kinds. Conceiving and designing ESD also challenges all forms of educational provision to adopt practices and approaches which foster the values of sustainable development. Thus, ESD must also address pedagogical processes, the validation of knowledge, and the functioning of education institutions.

To summarise:

- if the MDGs provide a set of tangible and measurable development goals within which education is a significant input and indicator;
- if EFA focuses on ways of providing educational opportunities to everyone, and;
- if the UNLD concentrates on promoting the key learning tool for all forms of structured learning;
- then the DESD promotes a set of underlying values, relational processes and behavioural outcomes which should characterise learning in all circumstances.

Clearly there will need to be constant monitoring of the links between these initiatives in order to ensure that the maximum synergy, cooperation and therefore impact are attained. The primary context of the implementation of these initiatives is the national level – it is there that clear coordination between all the relevant processes will make for effective impact: EFA forums, planning for poverty reduction (eg PRSPs), literacy networks and ESD groupings. At regional and international levels, cooperation should include the integration of ESD issues into the agendas of the Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD), MDG, EFA and UNLD meetings and events.

Implementation Scheme

UNESCO has a dual role to play in relation to education for sustainable development: one as a substantive implementer of ESD, and the second as the lead agency for the Decade. As a substantive implementer UNESCO will determine how best to contribute to the fulfilment of the WSSD educational objectives, selecting strategic projects, programmes, activities and efforts to maximize quality and impact with available human and financial resources. As the lead agency, UNESCO must play a catalytic role in dialogue and consensus-building to make recommendations on the draft implementation scheme and to facilitate the work of the Decade.

The Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) is a far-reaching and complex undertaking. Its conceptual basis, socio-economic implications, and environmental and cultural connections make it an enterprise, which potentially touches on every aspect of life. The basic vision of the DESD is a world where everyone has the opportunity to benefit from education and earn the values, behaviour and lifestyles required for a sustainable future and for positive societal transformation.

The concept of sustainable development continues to evolve. In pursuing education for sustainable development, therefore, there must be some clarity in what sustainable development means and what it is aiming at. This plan presents three key areas of sustainable development – society, environment and economy with culture as an underlying dimension.
- Society: an understanding of social institutions and their role in change and development, as well as the democratic and participatory systems which give opportunity for the expression of opinion, the selection of governments, the forging of consensus and the resolution of differences.
- Environment: an awareness of the resources and fragility of the physical environment and the affects on it of human activity and decisions, with a commitment to factoring environmental concerns into social and economic policy development.
- Economy: a sensitivity to the limits and potential of economic growth and their impact on society and on the environment, with a commitment to assess personal and societal levels of consumption out of concern for the environment and for social justice.

The values, diversity, knowledge, languages and worldviews associated with culture predetermine the way issues of education for sustainable development are dealt with in specific national contexts. In this sense, culture is just not a collection of particular manifestations (song, dance, dress, …), but a way of being, relating, behaving, believing and acting which people live out in their lives and which is in a constant process of change and exchange with other cultures.

ESD is fundamentally about values, with respect at the centre: respect for others, including those of present and future generations, for difference and diversity, for the environment, for the resources of the planet we inhabit. Education enables us to understand ourselves and others and our links with the wider natural and social environment, and this understanding serves as a durable basis for building respect. Along with a sense of justice, responsibility, exploration and dialogue, ESD aims to move us to adopting behaviours and practices which enable all to live a full life without being deprived of basics.

ESD mirrors the concern for education of high quality, demonstrating characteristics: such as:
- Interdisciplinary and holistic: learning for sustainable development embedded in the whole curriculum, not as a separate subject;
- Values-driven: sharing the values and principles underpinning sustainable development;
- Critical thinking and problem solving: leading to confidence in addressing the dilemmas and challenges of sustainable development;
- Multi-method: word, art, drama, debate, experience, … different pedagogies which model the processes;
- Participatory decision-making: learners participate in decisions on how they are to learn;
- Locally relevant: addressing local as well as global issues, and using the language(s) which learners most commonly use.

ESD will be shaped by a range of perspectives from all fields of human development and including all the acute challenges, which the world faces. ESD cannot afford to ignore their implications for a more just and more sustainable process of change. The plan notes the important perspectives provided by: human rights, peace and human security, gender equality, cultural diversity and intercultural understanding, health, HIV/AIDS, governance, natural resources, climate change, rural development, sustainable urbanisation, disaster prevention and mitigation, poverty reduction, corporate responsibility and accountability, market economy.

ESD is for everyone, at whatever stage of life they find themselves. It takes place therefore within a perspective of lifelong learning, engaging all possible spaces of learning, formal, non-formal and informal, from early childhood to adult life. ESD calls for a re-orientation of educational approaches – curriculum and content, pedagogy and examinations. Spaces for learning include non-formal learning, community-based organisations and local civil society, the workplace, formal education, technical and vocational training, teacher training, higher education educational inspectorates, policy-making bodies, …and beyond.

It is true to say that everyone is a stakeholder in education for sustainable development. All of us will feel the impact of its relative success or failure, and all of us affect the impact of ESD by our behaviour which may be supportive or undermining. Complementary roles and responsibilities devolve to a number of bodies and groups at different levels: local (sub-national), national, regional and international. At each level, stakeholders may be part of government (or intergovernmental at regional and international levels), civil society and non-governmental organisations, or in the private sector. The media and advertising agencies will support broad public awareness. In addition, indigenous peoples have a particular role, having an intimate knowledge of the sustained use of their environments, and being particularly vulnerable to unsustainable development.

Seven interlinked strategies are proposed for the Decade: advocacy and vision building; consultation and ownership; partnership and networks; capacity building and training; research and innovation; information and communication technologies; monitoring and evaluation. Together they form a coherent approach to the incremental increase over the Decade of the promotion and implementation of ESD. They will ensure that change in public attitudes and educational approaches keep pace with the evolving challenges of sustainable development.

DESD implementation will depend on the strength of stakeholder commitment and cooperation at local (sub-national), national, regional and international levels. Networks and alliances will be the crucial element, forging a common agenda in relevant forums. A small but dynamic and high-quality ESD Hub at national level will bring energy to promotion and implementation, receiving input regularly from a multi-stakeholder ESD Consultative Group. At the regional and international levels, an ESD Caucus and DESD Inter-Agency Coordination Committee respectively will push the ESD agenda forward through focused meetings and events responding to particular concerns. A high-profile international group of ESD Champions, well known and committed personalities, will serve to spearhead the movement.

The outcomes of the DESD will be seen in the lives of thousands of communities and millions of individuals as new attitudes and values inspire decisions and actions making sustainable development a more attainable ideal. For the DESD process as such, eleven expected outcomes are derived from the DESD objectives and relate to changes in public awareness, in the education system and in the integration of ESD into all development planning. These outcomes form the basis for indicators used in monitoring and evaluation; however, stakeholder groups at each level will decide specific indicators and the kinds of data needed to verify them. Qualitative indicators must figure equally with quantitative indicators to capture the multiple connections and societal depth of ESD and its impact.

In assessing the need for resources, full account must be taken of existing programmes and available personnel. The need for additional resources should be driven by the need to facilitate action and interaction around specific ESD challenges and issues.

Monitoring and evaluation

An initiative as long and as complex as a Decade must put in place adequate processes of monitoring and evaluation from the start. Without that, it will be impossible to know if the Decade is making any difference and what that difference is. A key aspect of monitoring and evaluation will be the identification of suitable, relevant and measurable indicators at every level – local, national, regional and international – and for each initiative and programme. As the Decade puts major emphasis on cooperation through the integration of ESD concerns into existing networks and alliances and through the creation of new ones, each grouping should set up its own objectives, outcomes and indicators within the Decade framework. Thus monitoring and evaluation will take place at many levels and will be an integral part of the new thrusts and directions which the Decade may stimulate. The results of monitoring and evaluation will be used for the assessment and reorientation of programmes during the course of the Decade, in order to ensure ongoing relevance and effectiveness. For advocacy purposes, as well as to report publicly on DESD progress, a report should be published every two years, aimed at a broad audience.

In terms of qualitative analysis, ethnographic approaches will enable a close look to be taken at specific communities in terms of changed behaviours, awareness of the values of sustainable development, and adoption of new practices. Longitudinal studies as well as community-wide ethnographic studies and analyses will provide data and will show the multiple connections in people’s lives between the changes, values, practices, behaviours and relationships which sustainable development implies. It will be important to identify places for longitudinal studies at the start of the Decade, in both industrialised and developing countries, and in relation to different kinds of ESD initiatives – in formal schooling, public campaigns, non-formal approaches.

At international level, it will be the role of the lead agency, UNESCO, to establish a database of indicators and means of verification, and to work with countries in increasing their capacity to undertake meaningful monitoring and evaluation. As part of this process, UNESCO will work closely with other international monitoring initiatives, including the EFA Global Monitoring Report, the UN Literacy Decade monitoring initiatives and the ongoing monitoring of the Millennium Development Goals.

(adopted from the UNESCO document by Mr.Chen Kun)

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