ESD Okayama Award 2021

The world has become more intertwined and borderless, and what happens here will affect other parts of the world today and in the future. The various challenges that we face, such as climate change, loss of biodiversity and poverty cannot be solved alone. In order to facilitate action to build sustainable societies around the world, 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were created to implement the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, which was adopted by world leaders in September 2015 at the UN Summit. Promoting Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is considered critical to ensure quality of education for achieving these goals. Furthermore, the new international framework of ESD has started since January 2020, which is named “ESD for 2030”. ESD is expected to promote now more than ever. In Okayama, since the establishment of the ‘Okayama ESD Project’ in 2005, diverse stakeholders have been working together to promote ESD in the region. Okayama City hosted the Stakeholder Meetings of the UNESCO World Conference on ESD in 2014 and played a leading role in accelerating collaborative actions among people working for ESD. Okayama City was selected as one of the UNESCO Key Partners of the Global Action Programme on ESD (GAP, 2015-2019) in Priority Action Area 5 (Accelerating sustainable solutions at local level). Okayama City launched the ‘ESD Okayama Award’ in 2015. The ESD Okayama Award is organized by Okayama City and the ESD Okayama Award Steering Board, composed of organizations which have been promoting ESD in Japan and around the world. The Award aims to showcase good practices worldwide. ESD is a key enabler to achieving of all targets of SDGs. Therefore it also aims for further advancing SDGs. We sincerely look forward to receiving your application. The award conducted by Okayama City and ESD Okayama Award Steering Committee will reward outstanding ESD practices in local communities around the world to support the organizations carrying out ESD activities and promote ESD to local communities globally through showcasing their initiatives.