{"id":4536,"date":"2013-09-06T06:27:14","date_gmt":"2013-09-06T05:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=4536"},"modified":"2013-09-06T06:27:14","modified_gmt":"2013-09-06T05:27:14","slug":"the-un-takes-a-dim-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2013\/09\/06\/the-un-takes-a-dim-view\/","title":{"rendered":"The UN takes a dim view"},"content":{"rendered":"

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has initiated a number of processes to help devise the sustainable development goals (SDGs) that will maxise benefit for humanity during the years 2015-2030. \u00a0One of these, the sustainable development solutions network<\/em> (SDSN) has identified ten priority challenges of sustainable development in a recent report:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. End extreme poverty including hunger<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Achieve development within planetary boundaries<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Ensure Effective Learning for All Children and Youth for Life and Livelihood<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Achieve Gender Equality, Social Inclusion, and Human Rights for All<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. Achieve Health and Wellbeing at All Ages<\/span><\/li>\n
  6. Improve Agriculture Systems and Raise Rural Prosperity<\/span><\/li>\n
  7. Empower Inclusive, Productive, and Resilient Cities<\/span><\/li>\n
  8. Curb Human\u2010Induced Climate Change and Ensure Clean Energy for All<\/span><\/li>\n
  9. Secure Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity, Ensure Good Management of Water and Other Natural Resources<\/span><\/li>\n
  10. Transform Governance for Sustainable Development ..<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \u2026 which, it says, could form the basis for the SDGs that would apply to all countries up to 2030.<\/p>\n

    This report has nothing to say about ESD, although there is a reference to \u201ceducation in sustainable development\u201d (see below).\u00a0 There are, however, numerous references to learning, including the idea that children everywhere should actually learn the SDGs to help them understand the challenges that they will confront as adults.<\/p>\n

    Section 3, where reference to ESD might have been anticipated, is really an updating of the UN\u2019s Education for All<\/em> goals.\u00a0 But if you want to see how little the UN understands about sustainable development, then turn to Annex 2 which sets out educational statements, disaggregated across the \u201cfour dimensions of sustainable development\u201d [sic<\/em>].\u00a0 These include \u2026<\/p>\n

    GOAL 3 \u2013 <\/strong>Ensure Effective Learning for All Children and Youth for Life and Livelihood<\/strong> <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    Economic Development and Eradication of Poverty<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

    Effective learning is critical for creating job opportunities and livelihoods for people at all ages, which in turn drives economic development<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Social Inclusion<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

    Effective learning is critical for creating job opportunities and livelihoods \u00a0for people at all ages, which in turn promotes social inclusion<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Environmental Sustainability<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

    Improved education and awareness, including education in sustainable development, will generate innovation and leadership for environmental sustainability<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Governance including Peace and Security<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

    Educated and informed citizens will contribute to and uphold good governance and lower the risk of conflict and insecurity<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    It\u2019s hard to know what to make of such an unsophisticated confection, save that the UN takes no notice of UNESCO, or the Decade, and has an astoundingly na\u00efve view of sustainable development. \u00a0All this is hugely disappointing, but instructive for those activists who promote ESD in that it's not ESD that important to the UN; rather it's sustainable development and what it terms 'effective learning'.\u00a0 It follows that promoting an interest in learning our way into the future in the post-Decade decade will be better done if the focus is on what students, academics and teachers are themselves interested in, and not what ESD orthodoxies tell them they really ought to be focused on.\u00a0 Then there might be more young, and not so young, people whose learning engages with key existential issues \u2013 such as the future of life on the planet.\u00a0 Without this, there is the risk that we shall all continue to be ignored by those whose job it is to run mainstream education institutions and systems.\u00a0 They have, after all, had considerable practice at doing just this. \u00a0Happily, however, there is emerging evidence that young people do take seriously the dilemmas and threats that we face.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has initiated a number of processes to help devise the sustainable development goals (SDGs) that will maxise benefit for humanity during the years 2015-2030. \u00a0One of these, the sustainable development solutions network (SDSN) has identified ten...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-new-publications","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4536\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}