The Rio+20 Outcomes document should be celebrated for committing to promote Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) beyond the UN Decade and for identifying the importance of non-formal education programs for sustainable development. However, there still is a tendency to assume that ESD and education more broadly is about teaching young people for the future. While this is important, how do we extend this commitment to embrace lifelong learning within an Australian education policy and practice context? In this session, our presenter, Jose Roberto Guevara, discusses who, as adult and community educators, we should be working with to advance this advocacy. Dr Guevara is a Senior Lecturer, International Development, School of Global Studies, Science and Planning at RMIT University. He is also President of Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education (ASPBAE), which promotes quality education for all and transformative and liberating, life-long adult education and learning.

1. ALA webinar:
Reflecting on the Rio+20 Outcomes –
ESD and Lifelong Learning
Jose Roberto Guevara
President, Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education
(ASPBAE)
Vice –President (Asia-Pacific), International Council for Adult Education
(ICAE)

2. ABSTRACT
The Rio+20 Outcomes document should be celebrated for
committing to promote Education for Sustainable
Development (ESD) beyond the UN Decade and for
identifying the importance of non-formal education
programs for sustainable development.
However, there still is a tendency to assume that ESD and
education more broadly is about teaching young people
for the future.
While this is important, how do we extend this commitment
to embrace lifelong learning within an Australian
education policy and practice context?
Who, as adult and community educators, we should we be
working with to advance this advocacy.
RMIT University©2011 Information Technology Services 2

3. ASPBAE endorses the Education Working Group Statement at
Rio + 20 - “The education we need for the world we want”
“Although the Rio+20 Outcome Document
mentions the need to reaffirm the
commitment to universal primary education
and to quality education at all levels, it fails
to recognize that an integral aspect to
human rights for all necessarily includes
universal access to free education at
secondary and tertiary levels too.
In addition, the document fails to
recognize the need for lifelong
learning- including formal, non
formal and informal education at all
levels - if people are to play a full
part in securing sustainable
development.”
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4. OVERVIEW OF KEY INTERNATIONAL EVENTS
ENVIRONMENT AND EDUCATION
STOCKHOLM CONFERENCE: The UN
Conference on the Human Environment was
held in Stockholm, Sweden, 5-16 June 1972
BRUNDTLAND COMMISSION: In 1983,
the UN establish an independent, World
Commission on Environment and
Development that published ‘Our Common
Future’
UN CONFERENCE ON ENVIRONMENT
AND DEVELOPMENT: UNCED, also
known as the Earth Summit, was held from 3-
14 June 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
WORLD SUMMIT ON SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT: The WSSD met 26
August - 4 September 2002, in Johannesburg,
South Africa. The Decade of ESD was
approved.
UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON
SUTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
(UNCSD or Rio+20) will mark the 40th
anniversary of the first major international
political conference that specifically had the
word “environment” in its title.
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5. INTERNATIONAL EVENTS AND COMMITMENTS
ENVIRONMENT AND EDUCATION
STOCKHOLM CONFERENCE: The UN CONFINTEA (Adult Ed Conference)
Conference on the Human Environment was
held in Stockholm, Sweden, 5-16 June 1972 – Denmark 1949,
– Canada 1960,
BRUNDTLAND COMMISSION: In 1983,
the UN establish an independent, World – Japan 1972,
Commission on Environment and – France 1985,
Development that published ‘Our Common
Future’ – Germany 1997, and
– Brazil 2009.
UN CONFERENCE ON ENVIRONMENT
AND DEVELOPMENT: UNCED, also
known as the Earth Summit, was held from 3- EDUCATION FOR ALL (EFA) by 2015
14 June 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Jomtien, Thailand 1990
WORLD SUMMIT ON SUSTAINABLE - Dakar, Senegal 2000
DEVELOPMENT: The WSSD met 26
August - 4 September 2002, in Johannesburg,
South Africa. The Decade of ESD was UN DECADE OF EDUCATION FOR
approved.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON (DESD) 2005-2014
SUTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
(UNCSD or Rio+20) will mark the 40th
anniversary of the first major international MDGs by 2015
political conference that specifically had the Goal 2: Universal Primary Education
word “environment” in its title.
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6. Earth Summit 1992 - AGENDA 21 – CHAPTER 36
Promoting Education, Public Awareness & Training
36.1. Education, raising of public awareness and training
are linked to virtually all areas in Agenda 21, and even
more closely to the ones on meeting basic needs,
capacity-building, data and information, science, and the
role of major groups. This chapter sets out broad proposals, while
specific suggestions related to sectoral issues are contained in other
chapters. The Declaration and Recommendations of the Tbilisi
Intergovernmental Conference on Environmental Education, organized by
UNESCO and UNEP and held in 1977, have provided the fundamental
principles for the proposals in this document.
36.2. Programme areas described in the present chapter are:
(a) Reorienting education towards sustainable development;
(b) Increasing public awareness;
(c) Promoting training.
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7. Rio+20 – The Future We Want
Education Section (Paragraphs 229 – 235)
229. We reaffirm our commitments to the right to education and in this regard, we commit
to strengthen international cooperation to achieve universal access to primary
education, particularly for developing countries. We further reaffirm that full access to
quality education at all levels is an essential condition for achieving sustainable
development, poverty eradication, gender equality and women’s empowerment, as well
as human development, for the attainment of the internationally agreed development
goals, including the Millennium Development Goals, and for the full participation of both
women and men, in particular young people. In this regard, we stress the need for
ensuring equal access to education for persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples,
local communities, ethnic minorities and people living in rural areas.
230. We recognize that the younger generations are the
custodians of the future and the need for better
quality and access to education beyond the primary
level. We therefore resolve to improve the capacity of our education systems to
prepare people to pursue sustainable development, including through enhanced
teacher training, the development of sustainability curricula, the development of training
programmes that prepare students for careers in fields related to sustainability, and
more effective use of information and communications technologies to enhance
learning outcomes. We call for enhanced cooperation among schools, communities
and authorities in efforts to promote access to quality education at all levels.
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8. Rio+20 – The Future We Want
Education Section (Paragraphs 229 – 235)
231. We encourage Member States to promote
sustainable development awareness among youth,
inter alia by promoting programmes for non-formal
education in accordance with the goals of the United
Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable
Development, 2005-2014.
232. We emphasize the importance of greater international cooperation to improve access to education, including
through building and strengthening education infrastructure and increasing investment in education, particularly
investment to improve the quality of education for all in developing countries. We encourage international
educational exchanges and partnerships, including the creation of fellowships and scholarships to help achieve
global education goals.
233. We resolve to promote education for sustainable development and to integrate sustainable development more
actively into education beyond the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development.
234. We strongly encourage educational institutions to consider adopting good practices in sustainability management
on their campuses and in their communities with the active participation of, inter alia, students, teachers and local
partners, and teaching sustainable development as an integrated component across disciplines.
235. We underscore the importance of supporting educational institutions, especially higher educational institutions in
developing countries, to carry out research and innovation for sustainable development, including in the field of
education, to develop quality and innovative programmes, including entrepreneurship and business skills training,
professional, technical and vocational training and lifelong learning, geared to bridging skills gaps for advancing
national sustainable development objectives.
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9. CONFINTEA V – HAMBURG DECLARATION 1997
http://www.unesco.org/education/uie/confintea/pdf/con5eng.pdf
We commit ourselves to:
35. Promoting the competence and involvement of civil
society in dealing with environmental and
development problems:
(a) by making use of adult education activities in order to
increase the capacity of citizens from different sectors of
society to take innovative initiatives and to develop
programmes based on ecologically and socially
sustainable development;
(b) by supporting and implementing adult education
programmes designed to give people the chance to learn
and interact with decision-makers on environmental and
development issues, in particular on the need for changes
in production and consumption patterns;
(c) by integrating indigenous and traditional knowledge of the
interaction between human beings and nature into adult
learning programmes, and by recognizing that minority and
indigenous communities have special authority and
competence in protecting their own environment;
(d) by ensuring the accountability of decision-makers in the
context of policies relating to the environment, population
and development;
(e) by integrating environmental
and development issues into all
sectors of adult learning
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10. CONFINTEA VI – BELEM FRAMEWORK OF ACTION
http://www.unesco.de/fileadmin/medien/Dokumente/Bildung/CONFINTEA_VI_Belem_Framework_for_Action_Final.pdf
9. We are convinced and inspired by the critical role of
lifelong learning in addressing global and educational 16. At best referred to only
issues and challenges. It is furthermore our conviction
that adult learning and education equip people with in the broadest terms,
the necessary knowledge, capabilities, skills,
competences and values to exercise and advance adult learning and
their rights and take control of their destinies .
education feature sparingly
Adult learning and in many international
education are also an education agendas and
imperative for the recommendations, and are
achievement of equity and often viewed as a
inclusion, for alleviating synonym for basic literacy
poverty and for building acquisition. Yet literacy is indisputably of
equitable, tolerant, immense consequence, and the persistently vast
scale of the literacy challenge presents an indictment
sustainable and of the inadequate adoption of the measures and
initiatives launched in recent years. Consistently high
knowledge-based illiteracy rates question whether enough has been
done politically and financially by governments and
societies. international agencies.
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11. The Rio+20 Outcomes document should
Open Discussion be celebrated for committing to promote
Education for Sustainable Development
(ESD) beyond the UN Decade and for
identifying the importance of non-formal
education programs for sustainable
development.
However, there still is a
tendency to assume that ESD
and education more broadly
is about teaching young
people for the future.
While this is important, how do we extend
this commitment to embrace lifelong
learning within an Australian education
policy and practice context?
Who, as adult and community educators,
should we be working with to advance
this advocacy?
RMIT University©2011 Information Technology Services 11

12. However, there still is a tendency to
Open Discussion assume that ESD and education
more broadly is about teaching
young people for the future.
RMIT University©2011 Information Technology Services 12

13. Open Discussion While this is important, how do we
extend this commitment to
embrace lifelong learning within an
Australian education policy and
practice context?
RMIT University©2011 Information Technology Services 13

14. Who, as adult and community
Open Discussion educators, should we be
working with to advance this
advocacy.
RMIT University©2011 Information Technology Services 14

15. The Rio+20 Outcomes document
Open Discussion should be celebrated for committing
to promote Education for Sustainable
Development (ESD) beyond the UN
Decade and for identifying the
importance of non-formal education
programs for sustainable
development.
However, there still is a tendency to
assume that ESD and education more
broadly is about teaching young
people for the future.
While this is important, how do we
extend this commitment to embrace
lifelong learning within an Australian
education policy and practice
context?
Who, as adult and community
educators, we should be
working with to advance this
advocacy.
RMIT University©2011 Information Technology Services 15