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Tatsuo Kawabata, Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan
The United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD), proposed by the
Japanese government at the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg, South
Africa in 2002 and at the 52nd UN General Assembly of the same year, began with the blessing of many
countries, and we have now already reached the halfway mark. Thus far, considerable discussion on
the necessity, basic concepts and objectives of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has taken
place in the international community and the importance of passing on ESD to future generations has
been widely recognized. Now, however, we are facing our most important challenge of figuring out
how countries that are at different stages of development will be able to take part in the latter half of
the DESD in order to make it a success.
In this context, Japan is carrying out various forms of assistance for ESD initiatives in cooperation
with UNESCO, which is the lead agency for promotion of ESD, and with other UN agencies and
Member States. Japan has, in particular, been making annual financial contributions to UNESCO for
the expansion and promotion of ESD, and has been supporting various projects for teacher training in
Asia and Africa in order to boost understanding of its monitoring and evaluation in the field.
In addition, since the Japanese government believes that it is of vital importance not only to
cooperate with international endeavours but also to reinforce ESD initiatives nationally, we are
presently considering strategies for the expansion and promotion of ESD. Accordingly, as one
effective tool, we propose that the UNESCO Associated Schools, which is an international network of
UNESCO schools, be utilized as a base for the promotion of ESD. We believe that under the principles
of UNESCO, these schools will be able to connect the individual areas of environmental education,
education for international understanding, energy education and world heritage education and,
through the construction of an international network, will serve as a driving force for the expansion
and promotion of ESD.
Our goal in Japan is to increase the number of UNESCO Associated Schools in the country from just
over 200 to 500 by 2014, which is when Japan will host the End-of-Decade Conference of the DESD,
and we are aiming to transmit the best practices of these schools to the world. We believe that it is
necessary to further expand and promote ESD in the future, not only in Japan, but also throughout the
entire world.
Tatsuo Kawabata
Minister of Education, Culture, Sports,