Second International RCE Conference

The second International RCE Conference was held in Penang, Malaysia on the 7^th and 8^th of August, 2007. About 130 people from 30 acknowledged RCEs, more than 10 RCE candidates and relevant agencies participated in this conference organized by UNU-IAS in its role of the Global RCE Service Centre and hosted by the University of Science Malaysia as RCE Penang to exchange ideas and experiences of RCEs.

Sessions on experiences of selected RCEs, on RCE networks including the RCE server currently under development, major challenges and ESD research and capacity building were some of those held. Breakout sessions on teacher training and retraining, on sustainable production and consumption and on sustainable energy use were also held during the conference. The African, Asian and European RCEs had separate meetings during the event to exchange common experiences.

Proceedings of the conference will be available shortly.

Second Meeting of the Ubuntu Committee of Peers

The Ubuntu Committee of Peers for RCEs held its second meeting on 6 August 2007 in Penang, Malaysia. During the meeting, the committee reviewed 16 new RCE applications and recommended 13 of these for acknowledgement, some on the condition that specified RCEs would respond to the committee’s comments.

The 13 RCEs are Kano and Lagos, Nigeria; Yogyakarta, Indonesia; Chubu, Japan; Hyogo-Kobe, Japan; Graz-Styria, Austria; Ireland; Samara, Russia; Creias-Oeste, Portugal; North East, UK; Montreal, Canada; Western Mexico and Greater North Central Texas, USA.

At the meeting, the Ubuntu Committee recommended all RCEs to take action on the following points.

- To develop a portfolio of RCE projects with flagship projects indicated.

- To provide detailed information on the governance structure of each RCE with names, affiliation and institutions of the members of the governing bodies.

- To pay specific attention to school-based ESD activities especially at primary and secondary schools.

- To consider the most appropriate geographical scope of their RCEs for now and in the future, so that they may initially focus on a relatively focused area such as a large city, but will gradually expand their activities to broader areas such as the wider urban region.

- To conduct and strengthen broad consultation processes among all different actual and potential (new) ESD stakeholders.

For more information:
Nami Akimoto
Programme Support Assistant
akimoto@ias.unu.edu