Global Action Plan International

Ahead of the global 'half-way' conference for the UN Decade for ESD (to be held in Bonn in March), the European countries have their own summit:

UPCOMING UNECE STEERING COMMITTEE
ON EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

 The UNECE Steering Committee on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) will have its fourth meeting in Geneva on 19–20 February 2009.

The UNECE Steering Committee on ESD established by the High-level Meeting of Environment and Education Ministries (Vilnius, 17–18 March 2005) will discuss progress made by member States in implementation of the UNECE Strategy for Education for Sustainable Development. The Strategy has now entered its second phase of implementation (2008-2010) with the two identified priorities: (a) the development of competences in ESD and (b) the development of national action plans for ESD.

The Steering Committee will address progress made by the Expert Group for Indicators for Education for Sustainable Development. The Expert Group has finalized its work on indicators and the supporting tools for reviewing the progress in implementing the Strategy and has prepared a comprehensive guidance for reporting.

Addressing sustainable consumption through education for sustainable development will be discussed at a special session during the meeting. In particular, the Steering Committee will address the work undertaken by the Task Force on Education for Sustainable Consumption established under the Marrakech process. This Task Force, with support from the UNEP, is developing of a set of recommendations and guidelines “Here and Now: education for sustainable consumption”.

The Steering Committee will also address contribution of the UNECE region to the UNESCO World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development to be held in Bonn, Germany, from 31 March to 2 April 2009.

The documents of the fourth meeting are available at http://www.unece.org/env/esd/SC.Meet.htm