United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development

The Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) 2005-2014 was an Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) initiative of the United Nations. The Decade was delivered by UNESCO as lead agency, and gave rise to Regional Centres of Expertise (RCE) networks, and the GUPES universities' partnership.

Based on proposals by Japan and Sweden, the United Nations General Assembly, at its 57th Session in December 2002, adopted Resolution 57/254 to start the DESD, following the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation which emphasised that education is an indispensable element for achieving sustainable development.

UNESCO was designated as lead agency for the Decade and developed a draft International Implementation Scheme] for the DESD.

Along with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) process, the Education For All (EFA) movement, and the United Nations Literacy Decade (UNLD), the DESD also aimed to achieve an improvement in the quality of life, particularly for the most deprived and marginalised, fulfillment of human rights including gender equality, poverty reduction, democracy and active citizenship. Whereas the MDGs provide a set of tangible and measurable development goals within which education is a significant input and indicator; EFA focuses on ways of providing educational opportunities to everyone; and the UNLD concentrates on promoting the key learning tool for all forms of structured learning, DESD was concerned particularly with the content and purpose of education. In concept and design, ESD challenges all forms of educational provision to adopt practices and approaches which foster the values of sustainable development.

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