Background:
The Asia-Pacific ESD Monitoring Project aims to assist with the monitoring of progress and achievements during the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) in the Asia-Pacific region. The first phase (pdf, 20kb) of the project produced a set of Guidelines that provide UNESCO Member States with a practical resource for developing Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) Indicators at the national level. Project planning commenced in November 2004 when the IUCN Commission on Education and Communication and UNESCO Bangkok signed an agreement to develop guidelines to assist countries in the Asia-Pacific with developing monitoring systems for ESD. The Asia-Pacific DESD Indicators Project was officially launched in March 2006 responding to the DESD International Implementation Scheme's (IIS) recommendation to develop indicators for ESD.

The second phase (word, 50kb) of the project aimed to take stock of the challenges, lessons learned and next steps UNESCO Member States in the Asia-Pacific were taking to develop their national DESD monitoring systems. This undertaking has been named the Country Update process which evolved from discussions during the Workshop for the Development of Asia-Pacific National DESD Monitoring Systems held in Bangkok, Thailand, on 2-4 April 2007.

Through the Country Update process, every three months, beginning in June 2007, UNESCO Member States in the Asia-Pacific were invited to submit Country Update progress reports to UNESCO Bangkok outlining their achievements, challenges, lessons learned and tentative next steps toward the development of their national ESD indicators, data collection and reporting mechanisms. Responses were compiled and distributed in report form to UNESCO National Commissions in the region for the purposes of sharing learning. All countries in the Asia-Pacific region were invited and encouraged to take part in the County Update process.

Country Updates Progress Report 1 (pdf, 830kb)

Country Updates Progress Report 2 (pdf, 200kb)

Country Updates Progress Report 3 (pdf, 230kb)

Country Updates Progress Report 4 (pdf, 240kb)

Country Update Compilation: Progress Reports 1-4 (pdf, 400kb)

Progress: National DESD Monitoring System Development

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Lessons Learned

At the conclusion of the Country Update process in 2008, several lessons were learned regarding the process for developing national ESD monitoring systems. In particular, there is an underlying notion that an enabling environment is necessary to pave the way for the development of national ESD indicators. This enabling environment seems to involve, in many cases, the establishment of a national ESD committee, the engagement of stakeholders from across sectors, the development of a national plan for ESD and the creation of a of working group to focus on ESD indicators and monitoring.

In addition, core challenges need to be overcome in order to move the development of ESD indicators and monitoring systems further. Two of the most notable challenges include the need to: 1) coordinate the wide range and scope of ESD activities and actors at the national level; and 2) raise awareness among potential key partners that ESD is an intersectoral platform that goes beyond the education and the environment to also engage other sectors such as science, culture, communications, etc.

Next Steps

To assist UNESCO Member States in addressing these challenges, UNESCO Bangkok, in collaboration with UNESCO Offices and UNESCO National Commissions in the Asia-Pacific region are conducting a series of subregional workshops, sponsored by the Japanese Funds in Trust, to assist Member States in:

• Building capacity for ESD leadership and coordinationin an effort to strengthen political will for ESD and link and establish support for new and ongoing ESD initiatives;
• Establishing conceptual and practical linkages between ESD, ongoing education initiatives such as EFA and national sustainable development strategies; and
• Mapping national and subregional ESD resources, activities (e.g. curricula/materials development, teacher training and private sector, media and youth initiatives, etc.), actors and their scale of involvement in ESD and needs for moving ESD forward.

Subregional workshops are intended to assist UNESCO Member States in establishing an enabling environment for further developing national ESD indicators and monitoring systems, beyond initial stages, and later assessing ESD progress and achievements at the national level.

Project Stages:

• Phase 1 (flowchart): Guidelines Development (pdf, 20kb)
• Phase 2+ (flowchart): Development of National DESD Monitoring Systems (draft) (pdf, 30kb)

Project Activities:

• Workshop for the Development of Asia-Pacific National DESD Monitoring Systems, UNESCO-IUCN CEC Asia-Pacific DESD Indicators Project, Bangkok (Thailand), April 2-4
  
  
• Indicators Project Meeting at the 10th APEID Conference (Bangkok, Thailand), 7 December 2006
  
  
• Review Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Guidelines for National DESD Indicators (Hiroshima, Japan), 10-11 August 2006

Resources

For further information on the UNESCO-IUCN DESD Asia-Pacific Indicators project, please contact Mr. Derek Elias esd[at]unescobkk.org at UNESCO Bangkok.