Linkages with the Millennium Development Goals
The eight goals and eighteen targets of the MDGs constitute an over-arching framework for international development cooperation, agreed at the level of the United Nations and gaining commitment from developing and industrialized countries. Two goals specifically address education and overlap with the agenda of EFA.
There are additional linkages between ESD and the MDGs, these include:
- sustainable development is a key to both initiatives
- environmental issues are a matter of concern for both the Millennium
- declaration and the Decade of ESD
- finally, both initiatives recognize that the issue of sustainability is relevant to both rich and poor countries
Although there are a number of important linkages and complementarities between the initiatives, there exist a number of differences also:
- ESD adds ethical and cultural approaches to development issues that the MDGs seeks to address
- the MDGs view sustainability in terms of environmental degradation, lack of access to safe drinking water, and poor quality of life for slum dwellers. This tends to characterize sustainable development as a problem of developing countries. The DESD also highlights social, economic and cultural dimensions and recognizes the relevance of sustainable development issues for all countries
- the two initiatives lack a common understanding of the concept of basic education. ESD expands education to new sectors and involves new stakeholders whereas the MDGs maintain a more traditional focus on literacy and basic/primary education. Furthermore, the MDGs take a fairly quantitative approach to education whereas ESD highlights the importance of quality in education
- the MDGs tend to disconnect environmental issues from larger social, economic and cultural issues, while ESD emphasizes the interdependence between all these issues;
poverty reduction is the overarching goal of the Millennium Declaration, while the reality of poverty only provides a context for the DESD to work. Still, the Decade of ESD is instrumental in realizing poverty eradication goal of the Millennium Declaration.
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