Regional Exchange Programme
on Promoting Community-based ESD（ Hiratsuka, Japan / online ）August 10 -11th , 2021

Promoting community-based Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has been

advocated in the global society, which is also one of the ﬁve core working areas in

adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2019. ESD has been recognized as

playing a signiﬁcant role in pursuit of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. In thisregard and given the current COVID-19 pandemic globally, demands for collective learning on

policy-making, practices and research have grown among practitioners and trainers of trainers
working for the community education and development.

Under this background, Asia-Paciﬁc Exchange Programme on Promoting

Community-based ESD was held on 10 and 11 August in collaboration with Hiratsuka City andTokai University Student Achievement Center in Japan and funding support by the JapanFoundation Asia Center and UNESCO Beijing.

The overall objective was to review and discuss based on the experiences of UNESCOʼsregional project on community-based ESD and explore future actions in participating countries.

The Hiratsuka city of Japan, which was one of the participating communities in the project,hosted the workshop while participants from six countries joined online.

In the opening session, Mr. Yoshino Masahiro, Superiendent of Hiratsuka City Board ofEducation made an opening remarks, followed by Mr. Shahbaz Khan, Director of the UNESCO
Cluster Oﬃce in Beijing welcomed all the participants through a video message, stressing thecrucial importance of bottom-up approaches to ESD implementation in achieving sustainabledevelopment. During the 2-day workshop, cases from China, India, Japan, Lao PDR, Mongolia
and the Philippines were presented and around 50 participants including local ESD
practitioners and ESD experts exchanged their experiences and opinions.

The learning process in each country was shared and discussed, and the importance ofcontinuing to learn even amid COVID-19 was emphasized. As every learning takes place in a
local context, it is important to understand each need through such as intergenerational
dialogue and traditional knowledge with multi-stakeholder participation, which is also

highlighted in implementing the Reﬂect-Share-Act, a practical guide developed by the UNESCO
Regional Bureau for Education in Bangkok. In
this perspective, youth members in Japan'scommunity development initiatives shared theirstories on how the learning happens both

inside as well as outside of schools where

young people not only express their opinions

and interact with their communities, but also
share their own knowledge and experiences
across generations. The importance of© ACCUinstitutions and organizations as catalysts foryoung people's participation was also raised.

The workshop provided an opportunity for ESD promotion at

the local level recognised within an international framework, andcreated the network for the future collaboration on ESD activities.

For more information,please scan QR-code.

From case studies of each country© Jiger Calo and Jedidah Boko

© Soukanya Manivanh© Zhang Jing

© NCLE Mongolia© Shrenik Sadalgi     engages learners in critical reﬂection to review and analyse their own
experiences and practices from a sustainability perspective, and give meanings
to the concept of sustainable development in their own community contexts.

guides learners to share their reﬂections and understandings with others in
the community and engage them in a Reﬂect-Share-Act process.

 helps learners put their understandings of sustainable development into action.

Comments from participants ▶

Asia-Paciﬁc Cultural Centre for UNESCO (ACCU)
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Email:education@accu.or.jp
Tel:+81 3-5577-2852
URL: https://www.accu.or.jp/