Date: 31 August - 2 Sept 2009
Venue: United Nations offices in Nairobi, Kenya (UN Gigiri)
Co-hosts: UNEP, UN-HABITAT
The goal of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014, DESD), for which UNESCO is the lead agency, is to integrate the principles, values, and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning. This educational effort will encourage changes in behavior that will create a more sustainable future in terms of environmental integrity, economic viability, and a just society for present and future generations.
Achieving the goal requires close UN collaboration. To this end, the Inter-Agency Committee (IAC) has been established, which brings 15 UN agencies together. The rotating Chairmanship of the IAC will be jointly held by UNEP and UN-HABITAT from September 2009. The IAC-DESD Annual Meeting for 2009 will thus be organized and held in Nairobi, under this Chairmanship.
This meeting will be the first opportunity for the IAC to meet after the UNESCO World Conference on ESD that took place in Bonn, Germany from 31 March to 2 April 2009. It will, therefore, provide a critical occasion to renew the IAC’s commitments in promoting the decade. The Bonn conference marked the moving into the second half of the Decade on ESD, and followed four objectives; to highlight the relevance of ESD to all of education; to promote international exchange on ESD, especially between the North and the South; to carry out a stock-taking of the implementation of the UN Decade and to develop strategies for the way ahead. The conference reviewed the first five years of the Decade, and saw best practices exchanged from all world regions, often focusing on exchange between developing countries, those in transition and industrialized countries. Participants also discussed regional, national and cultural differences as well as challenges in the implementation of the UN Decade. The conference closed with the adoption of a declaration reflecting the debates and proposing guidelines for the implementation of the UN Decade in its second half.
Half of humanity now lives in cities, and around one billion urban residents live in slums. The urbanization of poverty is therefore one of the most daunting challenges of the 21st century. Cities offer opportunities, but most urban development is largely toxic, segregated and inefficient. Reversing this trend requires institutions that support sound governance and regulatory regimes, and deliver public infrastructure and social services.
If cities are to come to terms with rapid levels of urbanization, they require leaders, managers and staff capable of adopting innovative and robust approaches to planning, developing, managing and financing growth for all citizens. Without a strong education and research sector change is not possible.
Globally, climate change is now recognized as one of the defining challenges of the 21st century. Global warming, characterized by: rising sea levels, ever frequent and stronger tropical cyclones, inland flooding, melting ice, snow cover, increasing ground instability in permafrost regions, rock avalanches in mountain regions, and changes in ecosystems, has become significant in most public debate and media coverage on the impacts of environmental changes. The general understanding from these discussions and debates is that anthropogenic global warming has a significant impact on many physical and biological systems, and that the future of hundreds of millions of people in urban areas across the world will be affected by the different impacts of climate change. The overall vulnerability of human settlements will therefore increase.
The future of hundreds of millions of people in urban areas across the world will be affected by the different impacts of climate change. However, mitigation and adaption capacity is not equally distributed worldwide and in developing and least developed countries vulnerability is substantially different compared to developed countries. Climate change impacts can undermine a country’s efforts to achieve the goals of sustainable development and will worsen poverty in developing and least developed. At the same time certain aspects of urbanization provide an opportunity to relieve the pressure on ecosystems.
The knowledge and understanding of managing sustainable urban development varies across countries, regions and continents. There is also a resource gap to address climate change in many developing economies. Current platforms for sharing of experience and knowledge are not well enough developed to make meaningful interventions that impact on the lives of the poor in vulnerable countries. It is also important to note that the knowledge gaps must be addressed at several different levels; there is a need for knowledge generation and management, tool development and capacity building, for all stakeholders, through a variety of avenues, including through professional associations, universities and local government training institutes.
Education for Sustainable Development plays an important role in promoting knowledge, skills and values that are necessary for the realization of sustainable society. It also assists learners to learn to cope with today’s challenges, such as climate change and urbanization, and to build a safer and more sustainable world.
The Symposium will bring together external experts, including resource persons from the East Africa region, to identify needs and demands at city level, and existing and possible UN agency responses.
