Our work with the Asia-Pacific Cultural Centre of UNESCO (ACCU) as one of the five Centres of Excellence (COE) for ESD since 2006 is one arena where the integration of EFA and ESD is being operationalised.
Since October 2006 Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education (ASPBAE) has been part of the Asia/Pacific Cultural Centre for UNESCO (ACCU) Centre of Excellence (COE) Program for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). ASPBAE is one of five COEs in the Asia-Pacific Region, and aims to promote ESD in the UN Decade for ESD (2005-2014). For the duration of the Program ASPBAE‟s main objectives as a COE will be to promote ESD to its members, partners and networks, build capacities of national education coalitions in research and advocacy and linking national to regional education advocacy efforts, promote indigenous peoples issues and act as a model COE.
Over the past two years ASPBAE as a COE has undertaken new steps in promoting and linking ESD concepts directly to ASPBAE‟s regional programs, strengthening its networks and partnerships, continued capacity-building of national education coalitions such as Papua New Guinea Education Advocacy Network (PEAN), strategizing to develop ASPBAE training modules to integrate ESD components, and expanding the preparation and writing of status papers on Indigenous Perspectives on National Education.
Prior to the World Conference in Bonn, Robbie met with Ms. Tomoko Shibao from ACCU and Prof. Yoshi Nagata from Sacred Heart University in Tokyo to discuss the monitoring and evaluation outcomes of the ten Innovation Projects that were conducted as part of the ACCU-UNESCO ESD Program.
ASPBAE as an ESD COE participated in the monitoring and evaluation of the Innovation Projects. Santi Phongsavan, ASPBAE Program Officer in Canberra was part of the monitoring team that went to Malaysia in late 2008. Robbie who was a member of the ACCU-UNSECO ESD Experts Panel since 2005 (prior to becoming ASPBAE President in 2009) was part of the team that went to Bhutan and Thailand also in 2008.
By Santi Phongsavan and J. Roberto Guevara
ESD (Education for Sustainable Development) in Practice
