Mission 4.7 at the Global Conference on Sustainable Development in Hong Kong
Three of SDSNs flagship initiatives – ASEAN Green Future, Mission 4.7 and SDG Academy –were prominently featured at the Global Conference on Sustainable Development (GCSD), in Hong Kong recently.
The GCSD was held on 4 and 5 October 2023 at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and organized by the Hong Kong Chapter of SDSN and The Institute of Environment, Energy and Sustainability (IEES), to enable meaningful exchange among academia, philanthropy, civil society, the government and the private sector on the challenges and ways forward, in achieving the SDGs.
Mission 4.7 was featured in a panel session on Strengthening Regional Partnership in Advancing the SDG Agenda. The panel was chaired by Professor Wong Chin Huat, SDSN’s Director of Institutional Design Studies. Mission 4.7 was represented by Karen Chand, and on the panel also was Professor Leong Yuen Yoong, who presented the ongoing work of the ASEAN Green Future project that she leads out of SDSN’s Asia office.
Karen shared her team’s analysis that identified three key areas for ESD implementation in the Asia Pacific region: teacher professional development, leveraging trans-disciplinarity in the curriculum, and pursuing whole-of-school approaches. These interventions are especially needed given that learning poverty rates in many developing Asian countries exceed what these countries’ development levels should show. She emphasized the urgency of capacity-building for educators, evidenced by data showing gaps in this area, but also data showing how well-trained teachers can make an instrumental impact on the learning outcomes and future prospects of their students. She shared the growing regional partnership that has been newly established among stakeholders in the region, that have committed to working together to turn respective national policies into real impact and, in particular, to jointly deliver localized educator capacity-building programs over the next five years.
The SDG Academy was featured in another dedicated panel session on Education for Sustainable Development. It was chaired by Professor Paul Walsh, Director of the SDG Academy, and on the panel was Sherlina Kaur, Education Manager of SDG Academy and Professor Charles Hopkins, member of SDG Academy’s High Level Advisory Council. With education cited as a key enabler of the 2030 Agenda, the panel expounded on SDG Academy’s mission to support the achievement of the SDGs through the creation and delivery of high-quality resources, accredited degree programs, training initiatives, thought leadership, and communities of practice. Sherlina Kaur shared the impressive collection of SDG online resources covering the extensive component subject matter encompassed within sustainable development, that is available online, for free, and to a global audience.
Professor Hopkins emphasized the importance of higher education institutions (HEIs) and sources of transformative change through ESD, but believes that HEIs themselves have a long way to go to orient their governance, education, research and outreach toward sustainable development.
Professor Paul Walsh stressed the need for Open Educational Resources (OER), which would involve the adoption of strategies and relevant technologies to ensure OER in any medium are shared openly to maximize equitable access. He believes that, for impact, a global community of practice must be established to help co-creation, curate, collate and disseminate high quality OER for ESD.
Aside from these flagship projects of SDSN, the GCSD also shone the spotlight on themes including the climate crisis, food systems, biodiversity protection, sustainable tourism, health, green financing, age-friendly cities, and sustainable development governance; with expert insight and solutions presented all round.