Rio 1992 made it clear that education, public awareness and training for sustainable development are essential. How far have we come since then? The IUCN Commision on Education and Communication looks at the issues.
Ten years ago at the Rio Earth Summit, education, public awareness, participation and training were the most mentioned words in Agenda 21 after the word “governments”. There seemed to be clear recognition that to achieve any of Agenda 21’s objectives the social instruments – education, public awareness and training – were essential.
The “Rio Conventions” – Climate, Desertification and Biological Diversity – all have articles pointing to the need for education and awareness. There seemed to be implicit recognition that sustainable development is a social issue, to be won and fought with and through people’s participation.
How well have we progressed in engaging people and in making the social instruments a priority means for achieving action? There were warning signs in 1996 that all was not going well. In the Secretary General’s Report to the Commission on Sustainable Development, it was stated that education was likely to be the “forgotten priority of Rio”.
Indeed, the conventions are only now addressing the articles on education/awareness. The parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity approved a work programme on CEPA – communication, education and public awareness – in April 2002. The Climate Change Convention is still discussing the development of a work programme on Article 6 on education, awareness and training. Of course, many parties are undertaking communication and education about these issues, but the trend has been to focus on the more technical aspects of the conventions. In contrast, the Desertification Convention has embarked on a “bottom-up approach” to involve people in seeking solutions.
In a huge effort to assess countries on the basis of how well are people, how well is the ecosystem and how are people and ecosystems affecting each other, The Wellbeing of Nations 2002 reported “at present, no country is sustainable or even close”. Ten years, of course, is a short time for a country to become sustainable. Even the indicators to assess sustainability are contentious.
This is even more difficult when, as Robert Prescott Allen says in The Wellbeing of Nations,”People still need ways of living that correspond to their views of the good life. But these ways of life must be equitable – both within and among societies and between present and future generations and they must safeguard the diversity, productivity and resilience of the ecosystem.
“Nobody knows how to meet these new demands. There is no proven recipe for success. In fact, no one has a clear sense of what success would be. Making progress toward ways of living that are desirable, equitable and sustainable is like going to a country we have never been to before with a sense of geography and the principles of navigation but without a map or a compass. We do not know what the destination will be like, we cannot tell how to get there, we are not even sure which direction to take.”
Perhaps it is no wonder that the progress in communication, education, awareness and training is less than hoped for. How do you educate for a concept that is difficult to define? In fact, sustainable development calls for additional and different processes than those traditionally thought of in education. The quest for sustainability demands new approaches to involve people, rather than convey a body of knowledge.
To reach the Millennium Development Goals, great emphasis is being put on decreasing the extent of illiteracy and on primary education for all. This is consistent with one of the suggestions of Agenda 21, chapter 36. However, discussion on basic education tends to leave out consideration of the content and approaches consistent with sustainable development.
Agenda 21 called on formal education to reorient to sustainable development. Environmental education, having gained some ground, was required to reinvent itself, taking on more of the socio-economic factors as well as environmental ones.
Debates over whether environmental education is the same or part of sustainable development education are actively going on. There is a concern that by the time education deals with all the issues raised in international summits and agreements, like human rights, peace, equity, women’s rights, science, culture, environment, biodiversity, climate and desertification, that in fact this is just “good education”. Certainly the call from the many different agreements needs to be dealt with in a coordinated way.
Since Rio, formal education (including higher education) has received much of the attention, with teacher education initiatives and resources mobilising most of the support. Major initiatives include the production of international guidelines to reorienting teacher education, the establishment of an international network of teacher education institutions and the development of a multi-media teacher education programme, Teaching and Learning for a Sustainable Future, by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) in 2001.
Unesco International Associations of Universities has also recognised the importance of educating for a sustainable human development and many universities are trying to become sustainably managed institutions. Other partners involved in these initiatives are the Global Higher Education for Sustainability Partnership, Cre-Copernicus and University Leaders for a Sustainable Future.
Many countries, including Australia, Canada, China, England and Wales, Hungary, The Netherlands, Scotland, Spain, Norway, Finland, have developed national strategies for education for sustainable development, including some financial mechanisms to encourage implementation both in and out of formal schooling. Most countries are still in the early stages of implementing initiatives. An IUCN project worked with Southern African Development Community countries to stimulate policy development in environmental education. Reorienting formal education is a costly and large-scale endeavour. The task is made more difficult as education is based on strong sectoral approaches, whereas sustainability is calling for more integrated approaches. In addition, education policy is often decentralised to states within nations, so there is no national educational policy.
Another difficulty is to match the aspirations of the international policy agreements and those of the education sector. There is resistance among educators to using education as an instrument of policy, and of adding more issues to already over-charged curricula. Then there is a challenge in how to deal with unsustainable consumption and lifestyle patterns in developed nations, when the pervading cultural context is in opposition.
It is to be expected that progress in this sector will be slow, but essential.
Aside from the formal education sector, it is difficult to assess how much attention has been applied to involving key multipliers in government agencies, indigenous, women, religious or community groups, in developing sustainability with and through their constituents. While some corporations are engaged in how to mainstream sustainability with their workforces, there is much to be done to make sustainability a part of corporations, big and small, as well as integrating sustainability in other sectors. Most associate education for sustainable development as a curriculum process, whereby knowledge has to be transferred. As Prescott Allen suggests, we do not necessarily have the answers. That is why we need new processes, less oriented to instruction and more oriented to action for sustainability – and why there needs to be more emphasis on working with adults in the here and now to change how we go about our business and lives, especially where it causes degradation to others and to ecosystems.
This does not mean we all have to be made “experts”. Marketing approaches that present people with options for action can be most successful.
Investment needs to be increased so that communication is more effectively used as a policy instrument, to motivate, market and involve stakeholders to seek solutions. Too often funding is oriented to studies, research and less to people processes. Too often approaches focus on “awareness” when people are already aware. Rather, we need to invest in listening and sharing solutions, from local government to local government, from community to community.
The Johannesburg Summit on Sustainable Development needs to focus on certain priorities. It must restate and renew commitment to the role of communication and education as instruments to sustainable development and an integral part of government strategies. Since it is not what we say but what we do, governments have to mainstream sustainability in their own practice, to set an example for society. Forums and means to share progress are to be encouraged between government, NGO, community and corporate sectors. The social instruments of communication and education need to be part of the planning in all government sectors and receive part of the annual budget. People need to be given feedback on their progress towards targets.
Funding by bilateral and multi-lateral organisations, development banks, foundations and the corporate sector needs to be mobilised to support the actions of networks, NGOs, governments, community groups and enterprises in their efforts to involve people in taking new actions.
The Johannesburg Summit must call on the business and corporate sector to integrate sustainability with its management and workforce along with the principles of corporate social responsibility.
Unesco, as task manager of chapter 36, has to be supported by UN agencies and other international organisations and NGOs in its efforts to increase the motivation, capacity and knowledge-sharing to foster sustainability education. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) needs to encourage its members and hold them accountable to address unsustainable consumption. The summit could encourage the adoption of common terminology of CEPA – communication, education and public awareness – already used by the Conventions on Wetlands and Biological Diversity, and encourage the use of these instruments to implement all Rio conventions and post-Rio agreements.
The governments should pledge commitment to provide resources and invest in action to integrate communication and education as instruments in their work and plans from the outset. It should apply these instruments to priority actions and target groups.
Daniella Tilbury is IUCN Commission on Education and Communication (CEC), Chair in Education for Sustainable Development; Denise Hamú is IUCN CEC Chair; and Wendy Goldstein is an IUCN member.