<p><font color="#33711E"><strong>Day 2 – Plenary Session III: Partnerships for Development</strong></font></p>
Queen's Park 1, 13:30 - 15:30
Collaboration between Universities and Local Stakeholders for ESD in Okayama City: Achievements and Challenges
Hirofumi Abe
Dean, Graduate School of Environmental Science, Okayama University
It had been pointed out that, in spite of the proposals outlined in Agenda 21 and announced at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the following ten years saw no significant improvement in terms of natural resource protection. In this context, the Japanese Government called for the United Nations Decade for Sustainable Development (UNDESD) at the 2002 Johannesburg Summit. The Decade began in 2005 and in April of that year an agreement was reached in Okayama City among experts and leaders, including researchers at universities, to work together to create a local base for the promotion of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). This resulted in the establishment of the Okayama ESD Promotion Commission. A variety of initiatives, especially in the spheres of "environment" and "international understanding", have been undertaken in recent years in Okayama City, and the central stakeholders are local non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The NGOs and the relevant organizations in Okayama hold international conferences each year and in the last three conferences ESD was raised as a major theme. In June 2005, the United Nations University (UNU) recognized Okayama as the Regional Centre of Expertise (RCE) for ESD. Okayama University submitted a proposal for a UNESCO Chair Programme for ESD to UNESCO and received accreditation in April 2007. The proposed Chair has been collaborating with NGOs, RCE Okayama, local governments, University Consortium Okayama and other stakeholders to promote ESD activities in Japan and the Asia-Pacific region. This paper presents an overview of the ESD activities in Okayama City, focusing on the development of partnerships between universities and local stakeholders. It concludes by discussing the challenges facing ESD in Okayama City.
Download the paper (pdf, 630kb) and presentation (pdf, 750kb)