USP - a Regional Centre of Expertise for the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development
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 | Representatives from the seven pioneer RCE's appointed by the UNU-Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU-IAS). Professor Koshy is pictured second from left in the front row. |
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The University of the South Pacific has been identified as a Regional Centre of Expertise (RCE) for the promotion of Education for Sustainable Development in the Pacific Island Countries. This follows negotiations by the Pacific Centre for Environment and Sustainable Development (PACE-SD) which will coordinate the decadal activities in the region. “RCE Pacific” was launched at the International Conference on Globalisation and Education for Sustainable Development, Nagoya, Japan recently. The conference was organised by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the United Nations University (UNU) for the promotion of United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD).
PACE-SD Director Kanayathu Koshy received the Certificate of Acknowledgement for "RCE Pacific" from Prof. Hans van Ginkel, Rector of United Nations University, during the conference.
RCE Pacific was one of the seven Pilot RCEs launched at Nagoya. The seven RCEs are
Barcelona, Spain; Greater Sendai Region, Japan; Okayama, Japan: Pacific Island Countries, University of South Pacific, Fiji; Penang, Malaysia; Rhine-Meuse+ region, Netherlands/Belgium/Germany; and Toronto, Canada.
In December 2002, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring a "Decade of Education for Sustainable Development" (DESD) to begin in 2005, as part of the commitments UN made during the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), Johannesburg, 2002. Subsequently UN launched DESD on 1 March, 2005 in New York. UNESCO, together with UNU, is serving as the lead agency for this Decade, and nations and educational institutions are being encouraged to establish their own Decade-oriented initiatives.
DESD has four major thrusts, which were originally defined in Chapter 36 of Agenda 21 and have been expanded upon in the CSD Work Programme. This includes the promotion of basic education; reorienting existing educational programmes to accommodate social, environmental and economic knowledge in an inter-disciplinary manner; promotion of public understanding and awareness of the principle and development of specialised training programmes to enable a wider cross-section of the community to perform their work in a sustainable manner
Since globalisation, quality education and sustainable development are intricately linked, the Nagoya Conference was seen as an early opportunity to explore the key interface between ESD and globalisation, including the special role higher education plays in this regard. Thus, ESD complements other international initiatives with relevance for the education sector such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), the Education for All (EFA) movement, and the United Nations Literacy Decade (UNLD).
Within the Pacific region, PACE-SD together with SPREP, has been involved in the promotion of ESD as part of the WSSD “Capacity Building” Type 2 initiative, designed to promote sustainable development through education, training and research, and RCE Pacific will substantially enhance these efforts.
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