Education for Change

In this issue
It’s the half-way mark for the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. A three day
World Conference was organized in Bonn in April 2009 to highlight the relevance of ESD to all
of education; promote international exchange on ESD, especially between countries of the North
and the South; carry out a stock-taking of the implementation of the UN Decade, and develop
strategies for the way ahead. The conference, titled ‘Moving into the Second Half of the UN Decade’, was organized by UNESCO and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, in cooperation with the German Commission for UNESCO.

The conference’s final declaration recognized that the knowledge, technology and skills already exist to turn around unsustainable development models. It is now imperative for developing and developed countries, civil society and international organisations to act to bring about long-term change. The proceedings of the Bonn Conference on ESD are available at http://www.esd-world-conference-2009.org/

While education must help people with large footprints change their lifestyles, education must
also empower young people to improve their quality of life and access to self-reliant healthcare
and nutrition. This issue of Education for Change describes a school medicinal garden project
in Andhra Pradesh which could be a small step towards this goal.

“ESD emphasises creative and critical approaches, long-term thinking, innovation and empowerment for dealing with uncertainty, and for solving complex problems.- Bonn Declaration, UNESCO World Conference on ESD, 2009”