Tomorrow today; 2010 - unesdoc - Unesco

• Exposure to Swedish and international ESD experiences andfront-line initiatives, sharing of regional experiences,understanding of change processes and access to professionalnetworks supports innovative approaches and development ofnew ESD methods and processes.Much gratitude is extended to the many partners supporting theESD ITPs in both Africa and Asia but it is essentially the ITP participantsthemselves to whom we owe the most thanks. It is they whoare changing the way people are living on the planet and ensuringthat the future is sustainable and continues to support life on Earth.The Swedish International Centre of Education forSustainable DevelopmentAt the 2002 UN World Summit on Sustainable Development inJohannesburg, the Swedish Government announced that it wouldundertake special efforts to promote the concept and practice of educationfor sustainable development, internationally and domestically. Inaddition to the International Training Programme on ESD describedabove, this led to the international consultation entitled ‘Learning tochange our world’, held in Gothenburg in May 2004. The consultationwas followed by five international workshops on learning forsustainable development, all held in Gothenburg. The fifth workshopproduced the Gothenburg Recommendations 7 inviting and challenginggovernments, civil society and in particular, educators all over theworld, to prioritize processes that develop and strengthen educationfor sustainable development. The Gothenburg Recommendations wereofficially submitted to the UNESCO World Conference on Educationfor Sustainable Development in Bonn, Germany, in April 2009.In 2008, as a result of another set of efforts, the Swedish governmentcommissioned Gotland University in Visby, capital of the island of Gotlandin the middle of the Baltic Sea, to establish the Swedish InternationalCentre of Education for Sustainable Development (SWEDESD), forwhich it made available an initial funding of SEK 75 million.SWEDESD’s mission is to facilitate the development of capacityamong practitioners, decision makers and researchers associated witheducation for development, to formulate, implement and evaluaterelevant, appropriate and effective policies, initiatives and activities.The activities of SWEDESD support the further development andpractice of education for sustainable development through training,learning, research, evaluation, information exchange, networking, partnerships,policy analysis and capacity development. They are designedand implemented in close cooperation with national and regionalpartner organizations in countries in the Global South with whichSweden is engaged in development cooperation, while building onexperience and expertise available in Sweden and elsewhere. Currently,the India-based Centre of Environmental Education (CEE) and theSouth Africa-based Regional Environmental Education Programmeof the Southern African Development Community (SADC REEP) areSWEDESD’s key partner organizations in Asia and Africa.SWEDESD contributes to the official Swedish developmentassistance policy, operating within the international developmentframeworks of the UN Millennium Development Goals, Educationfor All (EFA) and the DESD.Integrating the principal components of ESDIn essence, ESD rests on the combination and integration of two principalcomponents. The first component is the ‘substance’ of sustainabilityand sustainable development. The second component is the multitude ofapproaches and methods for acquiring knowledge of sustainabilityand the skills and attitudes needed to move sustainabledevelopment forward. It is in the integration of these twocomponents, that the strength of ESD will manifest itself.SWEDESD’s niche is to make the best ESD insights and practicesfrom around the world available to ESD practitioners.As far as the content component is concerned,SWEDESD and its partners are focusing on concepts andissues of ecosystem services and strong sustainability;particularly on how investing in and accounting for ecosystemservices can enhance sustainability and, consequently,livelihoods and well-being. With respect to the methodcomponent, they are focusing on clarifying the principlesof and conditions for effective educational processes forchange towards greater sustainability, emphasizing situatedlearning and the importance of agency.Programmes and activitiesSWEDESD is a new organization, which is graduallyfinding its place in the international networks of organizationsof practitioners, researchers and policy makerswishing to make ESD and its constituent componentspart and parcel of daily educational and learning realities.Its portfolio, developed and implemented with itspartners, currently contains four main programmes:• A professional development programme oneducation in and for sustainable cities• An international flagship course on ESD• A professional development programme onecosystem services, strong sustainability and agency• A professional training and certification programmefor sustainability learning facilitators.SWEDESD’s research and development programmeincludes projects on:• Climate Change Education Research (with UppsalaUniversity, Rhodes University and the University ofZambia)• The ‘Pattern Laboratory Approach’ to ESD initiativesand projects (with Global Action Plan International)• Early Childhood Education and Sustainability (withGothenburg University and OMEP)• The use of simulations and scenario building (withGotland University’s Game Design department)• Stage art for sustainable development.An active web presence (www.swedesd.com), which iscontinuously growing in depth and breadth, supportsSWEDESD’s programmes and activities.Sweden’s continuing role in ESDThrough its direct and indirect support for the DESD,Sweden has emphasized that education, in its manymanifestations and throughout life, is one of the moststrategic means for people to gain understanding ofthe interaction between the social, economic andecological dimensions of development. The activitiesoutlined in this article are evidence of Sweden’scommitment to ESD.[ 91 ]