The representatives of RCE Yogyakarta, Dr. Rachmawan Budiarto and Dr. Agus Maryono have attended The Workshop on Future Expectations for RCEs with ESD for 2030 held by RCE Okayama. The milestone both for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development/ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) elected as the main theme of the workshop. The current phase of the Global Action Programme (GAP) on ESD, the follow‐up to the UN Decade on ESD, has been addressed as one of the purposes of the workshop. The new framework for ESD 2020‐2030 was discussed and endorsed at the United Nations General Assembly by the end of 2019. The basic document, entitled “Education for Sustainable Development: Towards achieving the SDGs (ESD for 2030)” was already discussed at the UNESCO Executive Committee in April and would be adopted at the UNESCO General Meeting.
The UNU‐IAS ESD Project has actively worked for generation, acceleration and mainstreaming of ESD by implementing GAP and through contribution to achieving the SDGs. Regional Centres of Expertise on ESD (RCEs), as the flagship activity of ESD Project, is now moving to the next step for ESD. In order to discuss on how the RCE activities could be further developed from the viewpoint of ESD for 2030, UNU‐IAS organized a “Workshop on Future Expectation for RCEs with ESD for 2030” on 23rd November in Okayama, Japan in conjunction with the “ESD Forum and ESD Okayama Award 2019”, 24th November 2019. The discussion was held among Japanese RCE members and a few RCE members overseas.
Ownership of RCE activities lies on the respective RCEs. With this recognition, UNU-IAS expects further development of RCE activities and collaboration among RCEs (e.g., peer learning on specific themes such as partnership with private sectors, collaborative projects such as research and school excursion).
During the worksop, these are several points that have been addressed:
◼ How RCE activities should be further developed with the 2030 Agenda/ SDGs and “ESD for 2030”? How ESD/RCE could relate to SDGs?
◼ Ideas on how RCE networks could collaborate together?
◼ What is your expectation on added values of RCE network at the new ESD phase from 2020?
RCE Yogyakarta now is trying to make design and plan programs for 2020 agenda in Yogyakarta.
