Message from the Global RCE Service Centre:

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

Registration for the 10th Global RCE Conference now extended!

23-25 November 2016, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Registration for the 10th Global RCE Conference has been extended until 4 November, 2016! Deadline for hotel reservations through the Conference Secretariat is 28 October. We are planning to live stream and record all plenary sessions at the conference. More information will soon be posted here. We look forward to seeing you in Yogyakarta, Indonesia next month!

IPBES Workshop, 22 November, 2016

After the successful completion of the first capacity building workshop in RCE Cha-am during the Asia Pacific RCE conference, a second workshop will be held in Yogyakarta, as a pre-event of the Global RCE Conference. The objective of this workshop is to orient RCEs on the importance of local biodiversity and ecosystem assessment for policy planning and hands on training on methodologies and strategies for such assessments. More details will soon be available here.

CBD-COP 13 RCE Side Event, Cancun, Mexico (Date TBC)

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) - 13th Conference of Parties (COP13) will be held in Cancun 4-17 December, 2016. An RCE side event is planned during the first week of COP. The event is jointly organized by UNU-IAS, the Global RCE network and the UNESCO GAP programme. During the side event, case studies from various regions will demonstrate the relevance of RCE projects linked to the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Global Action Programme (GAP) on ESD. More information will soon be posted here.

6th African RCE Conference Sees Youth Actively Engaged and Leads to Action Plans for Implementation of the GAP and SDGs

This year’s conference built on the momentum set in 2015, to formulate strategies on how to develop capacities of African RCEs to implement the GAP and achieve the SDGs in Africa. For the first time, since the first gathering of African RCEs in 2011, a Youth Plenary Session was held. To read about the outcomes and recommendations of the event click here. The conference was held back to back with the Sixth Tokyo International Conference for African Development (TICAD VI), where RCEs held a side event 'Strengthening the Role of African RCEs to deliver the SDGs through ESD'.

RCE Coordination Updates

Ali Bukar Ahmad, coordinator of RCE Kano has stepped down from his position for approximately one year. Usman Mohammad, leader of youth activities in RCE Kano will coordinate RCE Kano in his place. This change is ground breaking, as it is the first time in the history of the RCE network that a youth will be coordinating the activities of an RCE. Coordination for RCE Mauricie/Centre-du-Québec has now been transferred from Steven Roy Cullen to Lauréanne Daneau. We warmly welcome Lauréanne to the network!

Sincerely,

The Global RCE Service Centre

 

Upcoming Events

UN Winter School on Sustainable Consumption and Production in South Asia

7-19 November 2016, Sri Lanka

This event is being organized by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in partnership with the South Asia Cooperative Environment Programme (SACEP) and University of Peradeniya Sri Lanka, a member of ProSPER.Net.

Women and Tsunami-based Disaster Risk Reduction: Comparing Perspectives between Japan and Pacific States

November 7, 2016, UNU HQ, Tokyo, Japan

UNITAR will host a public session to provide multi-sided opinions on tsunami-based DRR and include specialists on gender and DRR from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, as well as several Pacific countries, universities, and international institutions. To learn more visit the UNITAR facebook page.

15th General Conference of the International Association of Universities

Bangkok, Thailand, 13-16 November 2016

The event held at ProSPER.Net member Chulalongkorn University will focus on sharing strategies how higher education institutions contribute to innovation and sustainability and how they can become true catalysts for change. Read more

For more events visit our ESD calendar.

Open Calls

A2R Climate Resilience Initiative

In collaboration with the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Resilience Initiative: Anticipate, Absorb, Reshape (A2R), this contest invites solutions on how the world should prepare and respond to climate extremes and climate hazards. Deadline is 10 February 2017. Read more

Latest News

RCE Greater Western Sydney organizes ProSPER.Net Roundtable

RCE Greater Western Sydney organized a two-hour Roundtable on ProSPER.Net at Western Sydney University (WSU) on October 4, 2016. Major points of discussion were ProSPER.Net's joint projects for curriculum development, and student, faculty, and researchers’ mobility across ProSPER.Net. Read more

Community Engagement Beyond Campus: RCE Greater Portland and UNU-IAS at AASHE

The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) Annual Conference and Expo was held in Baltimore, USA, 9-12 October. The theme of this year’s conference ‘Beyond the Campus’ emphasized the service role higher education institutions play in their local communities as well as globally in the production and dissemination of knowledge. Read more

2nd IPBES Capacity Building Forum Sees Capacity Building Rolling Plan Take Shape

Discussions during the 2nd IPBES Capacity Building Forum focused mainly on the outcomes of the current work programme and a strategy for national level implementation plans. UNU-IAS encouraged advancing the processes of engaging with stakeholder networks such as RCEs and the need for endorsing the capacity building activities, carried out by these networks. Read more

Non-State Climate Actors World Summit Provides Platform for Concrete Engagement

The Climate Chance Summit focused on non-state actors’ contributions to greenhouse gas emission (GHG) reductions and adaptation to climate change. Held on 26-28 September in Nantes, France, among the 3,000 participants there were city governments, sub-national governments, NGOs, the private sector, and universities.

Betsan Martin from RCE Waikato in New Zealand coordinated the organization of the workshop “Leaders in Transformative Education: practices for sectoral and thematic integration” on the RCE model for multi-stakeholder engagement around ESD as it relates to climate change. The RCE concept was showcased as a model for non-state actors to initiate climate change education programmes on low carbon development and lifestyles. RCE Iskandar, Malaysia and RCE Skåne, Sweden co-designed the workshop. Read more

Indian RCEs meet during International Conference on ESD

CEE India organized an International Conference on ‘Education for Sustainable Development for Transforming Education for Children and Youth’ on 16-18 September, 2016. One of the workshops ‘ESD and Youth’ focused on RCEs and their work in promoting ESD engaging Youth. Read more

Socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes (SEPLS) in Africa

The side event ‘Enhancing Resilience against Climate and Ecosystem Changes in Sub-Saharan Africa through Utilizing Indigenous and Local Knowledge’ was held at the Sixth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD VI), on 25 August 2016 in Nairobi, Kenya. Topics included programmes and research findings on biodiversity, ecosystem and climate change as well as best practices for enhancing the resilience of Africa’s diverse and vulnerable landscapes.

The publication Socio-ecological Production Landscapes and Seascapes (SEPLS) in Africa developed by UNU-IAS and the University of Tokyo building on the Satoyama Initiative was presented during the event.

Mapping the World Bank’s Support for Education

The Smarter Education Systems tool demonstrates how the World Bank helps countries ensure "Learning for All" through support to countries on both the financing (loans, grants, and more) and knowledge (research, publications, and more) fronts. Read more

Symposium on the Integrated Approach for Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean

UNEP has been working on collecting experiences from the region, which show the efforts of a diverse range of stakeholders to solve complex issues with an integrated approach that advances sustainable development at local, national or regional levels. The experiences to advance sustainable development at local, national and regional levels have now been published in ‘Sustainable Development in Practice: applying an integrated approach in Latin America and the Caribbean’.

Sri Lankan youth leaders boost recycling and resource efficiency on campus

Two Sri Lankan youth environmental leaders are getting two of the country’s most important universities to scale up resource efficiency and recycling while spurring behavioural change among students. Read more

Results of the Wenhui Award 2016

With a focus on partnerships, two ProSPER.Net Members TERI University and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia had been shortlisted for their work on teacher capacity development and community transformation respectively. The winners of the Wenhui Award 2016 have now been announced here

SDG Knowledge Hub

For each of the SDGs the International Institute for Sustainable Development has published related news, events, policy briefs and more. Read more

New Urban Agenda – Key Commitments

The New Urban Agenda is a Roadmap for building cities that can serve as engines of prosperity and centres of cultural and social well-being while protecting the environment. The Agenda also provides guidance for achieving the SDGs.Read more

SDGs in Action App

The SDGs in Action app features: 1) Information on all 17 goals, including targets, videos, and key facts 2) Latest news 3) Innovations that help to achieve these goals 4) Actions and events to support the goals. Read more

SDG-Based City-Level Strategies

The USA Sustainable Cities Initiative (USA-SCI) is supporting SDG achievement strategies in three pilot cities in the US. These cities will be the first to develop SDG-based city-level development strategies that will serve as a model for cities worldwide. Read more

SuliTest

The Sustainability Literacy Test is an international online tool to assess Sustainability Literacy. Read more

ESD Books, Publications and Other

The Learning Teacher Magazine

The Learning Teacher Magazine is an illustrated publication primarily targeting school teachers on all levels of education. The magazine is issued four times a year. Read more

Country Readiness to Monitor SDG 4 Education Targets

This publication examines the challenges and countries’ readiness to monitor the SDG 4 targets at the global level. The Survey results on Asia and the Pacific countries’ show that there are data gaps for certain targets, such as 4.7 on SDG and Global Citizenship. To read the report, click here

UNESCO Global Report on Culture for Sustainable Urban Development

UNESCO’s report on Culture for Sustainable Urban Development draws on a global survey with nine regional partners and insights from scholars, NGOs and urban thinkers. Read more