Tomorrow Today

[

] 175

Looking beyond the Decade:

UNESCO’s contribution

Aline Bory-Adams, Chief of Section for DESD Coordination and Shivali Lawale, Section for DESD Coordination,

Division for the Coordination of United Nations Priorities in Education, UNESCO

o problem can be solved by the same consciousness that

created it. We have to learn to see the world anew. These

words by Albert Einstein aptly sum up the role that

education for sustainable development (ESD) plays today, espe-

cially in this era of rapid change in which the social, economic,

environmental and cultural realms of global society are faced

with daunting challenges.

As an educational paradigm shift, ESD goes beyond the traditional

premise of education by providing populations, children and adults

alike, with the savoir-faire to tackle the complexities of tomorrow

today. Elements like critical thinking, problem solving, futures

thinking, systemic thinking and linking the global to the local form

the cornerstones of the ESD enterprise.

Given its wide scope and outreach, ESD is not just supportive

but also contributes to other education and international develop-

ment initiatives like Education for All (EFA) and the Millennium

Development Goals (MDGs). It addresses the issue of quality within

the EFA endeavour by promoting the idea of an expanded vision of

education. Since ESD addresses the social, economic,

environmental and cultural domains, it plays a catalytic

role in the achievement of the eight MDGs. Single-issue

or emerging educations like peace education, educa-

tion for HIV and AIDS, climate change education and

human-rights education, among others, are intrinsically

linked to ESD.

The growing importance and evolution of ESD can be

traced through the series of international conferences

that span the last two decades and in the culmination of

the UNESCO-led United Nations Decade of Education

for Sustainable Development (DESD) 2005-2014, thus

bringing it to the political centre stage. The DESD

aims to “articulate the overall social project and aim

of development”

by supporting the inclusion of ESD

in traditional forms of learning as well as encourag-

ing new forms of learning that can help populations

to respond to sustainable development challenges. To

bring this mandate to fruition, UNESCO has been given

UNESCO: Leading and implementing the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development