Education and Awareness: Decisions of the GA and CSD

United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (A/RES/59/237)
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United Nations General Assembly, 58th Session (2003)

United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (A/RES/58/219)
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United Nations General Assembly, 57th Session (2002)

United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development  (A/RES/57/254)
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Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, Chapter X. Means of implementation

116. Education is critical for promoting sustainable development. It is therefore essential to mobilize necessary resources, including financial resources at all levels, by bilateral and multilateral donors, including the World Bank and the regional development banks, by civil society and by foundations, to complement the efforts by national governments to pursue the following goals and actions:

(a) Meet the Millennium development goal contained in the Millennium Declaration of achieving universal primary education, ensuring that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling;

(b) Provide all children, particularly those living in rural areas and those living in poverty, especially girls, with the access and opportunity to complete a full course of primary education.

117. Provide financial assistance and support to education, research, public awareness programmes and developmental institutions in developing countries and countries with economies in transition in order to:

(a) Sustain their educational infrastructures and programmes, including those related to environment and public health education;

(b) Consider means of avoiding the frequent, serious financial constraints faced by many institutions of higher learning, including universities around the world, particularly in developing countries and countries in transition.

118. Address the impact of HIV/AIDS on the educational system in those countries seriously affected by the pandemic.

119. Allocate national and international resources for basic education as proposed by the Dakar Framework for Action on Education for All and for improved integration of sustainable development into education and in bilateral and multilateral development programmes, and improve integration between publicly funded research and development and development programmes.

120. Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education by 2005, as provided in the Dakar Framework for Action on Education for All, and at all levels of education no later than 2015, to meet the development goals contained in the Millennium Declaration, with action to ensure, inter alia, equal access to all levels and forms of education, training and capacity-building by gender mainstreaming, and by creating a gender-sensitive educational system.

121. Integrate sustainable development into education systems at all levels of education in order to promote education as a key agent for change. 

122. Develop, implement, monitor and review education action plans and programmes at the national, subnational and local levels, as appropriate, that reflect the Dakar Framework for Action on Education for All and that are relevant to local conditions and needs leading to the achievement of community development and make education for sustainable development a part of those plans.

123. Provide all community members with a wide range of formal and non-formal continuing educational opportunities, including volunteer community service programmes, in order to end illiteracy and emphasize the importance of lifelong learning and promote sustainable development.

124. Support the use of education to promote sustainable development, including through urgent actions at all levels to:

(a) Integrate information and communications technology in school curriculum development to ensure its access by both rural and urban communities and provide assistance, particularly to developing countries, inter alia, for the establishment of an appropriate enabling environment required for such technology;

(b) Promote, as appropriate, affordable and increased access to programmes for students, researchers and engineers from developing countries in the universities and research institutions of developed countries in order to promote the exchange of experience and capacity that will benefit all partners;

(c) Continue to implement the work programme of the Commission on Sustainable Development on education for sustainable development;

(d) Recommend to the United Nations General Assembly that it consider adopting a decade of education for sustainable development, starting in 2005.