ESD

The civil society has played a significant rolein ESD promotion in Japan.
This pamphlet is to present ESD-J’s activities
in Japan and Asia
as well as the ESD statement
and recommendations
developed by ESD-J
along with the ESD practitioners
from all over Japan in 2014.

Citizens’
Initiatives
in Japan
ESD-J was established in 2003.

The founders are the NGO members who made the proposal of “the UN Decade of ESD” in
the Johannesburg Summit and made a great effort in realizing it.
We have developed learning for problem solving, that the citizen sector had steadily built andparticipatory leaning and experience learning. We have been trying to integrate such learning into the mainstream of educational activities through “the UN Decade of ESD.”
Today, EDS-J has grown into a network NGO with 100 organizations and 250 members.
ESD-J has been working with the Japanese Government sometimes by making policy proposals to the Government and sometimes by working together on some projects. The proposals
from ESD-J resulted in a government Roundtable Meeting for ESD promotion.
ESD’s major concepts were identified through community meetings in 40 locations in Japanby ESD-J, which were incorporated into the National ESD Action Plan decided by the Japanese
Government in March 2006.
We have been focusing on promoting alignment between schools and communities and promotion and encouragement of ESD coordinators who can bridge various stakeholders.

Then 10 years have passed.
Various ESD activities were implemented in school education, social education and community building. Some of the communities now have the ESD promotion mechanism based on
partnership and collaboration of various actors.
Taking the UNESCO World Conference hosted in Japan as an opportunity, we worked withcommunities and schools who have been proactively promoting ESD, looked into the outlineof those implementations, shared the challenges and developed the recommendations.
These recommendations are to call for various stakeholders related to ESD to “take actions”
and propose policy support to the governments and other relevant administrative bodies.

We are conveying this statement to the world with our wish for further
development of ESD in and after 2015 and our commitment for continued
actions for the realization of sustainable future.

Statement on ESD Promotionby Citizens
The blessing of nature is unique to its community and has formed thefoundation of our livelihood through delivering food and energy to us.
This has created a way to support our livelihood and culture.
“Education for Sustainable Development :ESD” is an activity to learn
from wisdom nourished from the long history of such communities, revisit what we have today and develop a vision for the future.
You can find the ESD activities in your daily lives. Schools, workplaces
and communities are the places for learning, where both children andadults can be students as well as teachers. Various people get engagedand learn the challenges of their community from each other within theircommunity. For addressing such challenges, we take actions, so that “daily lives” of each one of us can be fulfilling and enjoyable for sustainable
future. Providing such sense of learning is what we are willing to achievethrough ESD.
ESD derives people’s ability to lead their lives proactively and empowers
the community’ with autonomy. Accumulating small steps of autonomy
can lead to a great power to change a society. Enormous issues that are
unlikely to be resolved such as the world’s poverty, environmental disruption, conflicts and discrimination are all linked with our lives. Thus, if
we change ourselves, the community will change. When the communitychanges, the world will change.
“The UN Decade of ESD” has brought various changes in schools, villages, towns and cities regardless of its size. Some of the activities may
not have been called as ESD, however, there is increasing number ofactivities where citizens take initiative to resolve a challenge for sustainable society, and business and government sector people take part andcooperate across sectors. We will build a network to promote sustainablecommunity, and continue to strengthen such movement.
While the social transformation called ESD may seem to be a roundabout
and optimistic approach, we commit to strongly promote this movement
further in and after 2015 through partnership with various stakeholders.

ESD Recommendations from communities
and the civil society
Promoting ESD from a communityas a whole[GAP5.Local communities]

1

Recommendation
Improve and enhance alignment between a local
community and a school, and promote ESD with thelocal community and the school together. A minimum
unit of a local community can be one school district
for an elementary or a junior high school level.

2

Recommendation
Identify, train and encourage ESD coordinators having ESD viewpoint. Develop opportunities for ESD coordinators to use their skills.

3

Recommendation
Create a vision of a “sustainable community/society”
in harmony with local, regional,national and global
challenges with participation of various stakeholders
from a community.

Youth participation [GAP4. Youth]

7

Recommendation
Higher education institutions including universities
should promote ESD with participatory approach andapproach addressing local communities’ challenges inwhich students are encouraged to join.

8Recommendation
Municipal governments and other local organizations
should proactively involve the youth in their activities
to teach and train the youth.

Developing the system to promote ESD[GAP1. Policy support, GAP3. Whole-institution approach,
GAP5. Local communities]

9

Recommendation
By defining the “praise system” through sharing ofESD best practices and existing awards, develop asystem which increase a number of stakeholders engaged in ESD as well as improve ESD quality.

10Recommendation
Raise funds for ESD promotion through various channels and ensure operation of ESD activities.

11

Recommendation
Establis “Local ESD Council”where major local stakeholders can participate at the prefecture or municipallevels.

12

Promoting educational reform[GAP1. Policy support, GAP2. Educators,
GAP3.Whole-institution approach]4

Recommendation
Include an“ESD”section in the curriculum guideline asa new direction for education (educational reform), andnot only setting the ESD’s concept but also clearly positioning ESD in the subjects of primary and secondary education.

5Recommendation
Integrate ESD training in all opportunities including
the teacher training/re-training curriculum, basic
training for active teachers (i.e. first year or 10th yeartrainings), and the principals’ training.

6Recommendation
Develop “sustainable economy education” which
realizes “sustainable production and consumption”
together with academic, industry and government
sector experts.

Recommendation
Relevant ministries should work on measures contributing to ESD respectively, designate their existing regional branches as ESD promotion facilities, and support ESD efforts in local communities.

13Recommendation
Establish “National ESD Promotion Council”, a network of multiple stakeholders at the national leveland “ESD National Center” an implementation bodyof such policies to support local ESD activities.

Establishment of Asian NGO Network on ESD (ANNE),
to promote ESD in Asia
ESD-J has developed partnership with NGOs in Asia in order to promote ESD in this region since its establishment in 2003 and “Asia Good ESD Practice Project (AGEPP)” was conducted from 2006 to 2008. NGOs from sevencountries in Asia participated in AGEPP that allowed us to share ESD good practices at local community level byNGOs and enhanced mutual learning among us. AGEPP showcased 34 NGO practices of the member countries
in English and developed a multi-language website introducing the case reports in different Asian languages
as well as English(www.agepp.net/).
Through this project, the member NGOs shared our views on how to empower the local community whileachieving sustainable community development, and clarified the critical role of NGOs in such process. AGEPP
member NGOs also engaged in the policy advocacy activities for the Hokkaido Toyako G8 Summit (2008), theESD World Conference (2009), the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD/COP10, 2010), and the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20, 2012).
Through these case study and policy advocacy activities, the AGEPP members agreed on the necessity of a NGO
network on ESD in Asia.
In October 2014, Asia NGO Network on ESD (ANNE) was formally launched with NGO members who participatedin AGEPP.
ANNE Founding Members
India
Philippines
Indonesia
South Korea
Japan

Centre for Environment Education (CEE)
Environmental Broadcast Circle (EBC)
BINTARI Foundation
Korea Institute Center for Sustainable Development(KICSD)
ESD-J

ESD side event at Rio +20 (2012)

Field visit and workshop in Surabaya (2010)

ANNE Launcing Ceremony in Okayama (2014)

Local community eco-enterprisewith micro-financing in IndiaContact

Japan Council on the UN Decade of Educationfor Sustainable Development (ESD-J)
5-38-5-201 Nishinippori, Arakawa-ku, Tokyo 116-0013 Japan
E-mail:anne@esd-j.org TEL:+81-3-5834-2061 FAX:+81-3-5834-2062
URL:http://www.esd-j.org/

This pamphlet was developed with funding support from 2014 Japan Fundfor Global Environment,Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency.

Organic farming in the Philippines