Fifty-seventh session
Second Committee
Agenda item 87 (a)
Environment and Sustainable Development: Implementation of Agenda 21 and the Programme for the Further
Implementation of Agenda 21
United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development
The General Assembly,
Recalling Chapter 36 of Agenda 21, on promoting education, public awareness and training, adopted at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992 (*1),
Reaffirming the internationally agreed development goal of achieving universal primary education, in particular that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling,
Appreciating the contribution made by the Commission on Sustainable Development to the issue of education for sustainable development since the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development,
Welcoming the fact that the Plan of Implementation adopted by the World Summit on Sustainable Development confirmed the importance of education for sustainable development and recommended that the General Assembly consider adopting a decade of education for sustainable development starting in 2005 (*2),
Emphasizing that education is an indispensable element for achieving sustainable development,
- Decides to proclaim the ten-year period beginning on 1 January 2005 the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development;
- Designates the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization as the lead agency for the promotion of the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development and request it to develop a draft international implementation scheme, clarifying its relationship with the existing educational processes, in particular the Dakar Framework for Action adopted at the World Education Forum (*3) and the United Nations Literacy Decade (*4), in consultation with the United Nations and other relevant international organizations, Governments, non-governmental organizations and other stakeholders, with a view to providing recommendations for Governments on how to promote and improve the integration of education for sustainable development in their respective educational strategies and action plans at the appropriate level;
- Invites Governments to consider the inclusion of measures to implement the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development in their respective educational strategies and action plans by 2005, taking into account the international implementation scheme to be prepared by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization;
- Decides to include in the provisional agenda of its fifty-eighth session the item entitled "United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development."
(*1) See Report of the United Nations Conference on Environmental and Development, Rio de Janeiro, 3-14 June 1992 (United Nations publication, Sales No.E.93.I.8 and corrigenda), vol.I : Resolutions adopted by the Conference, resolution 1, annex II
(*2) See Report of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg, South Africa, 26 August - 4 September 2002 (United Nations publication, Sales No.E.03.II.A.1), chap. I, resolution 2, annex.
(*3) See United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Final Report of the World Education Forum, Dakar, Senegal, 26-28 April 2000 (Paris, 2000).
(*4) See resolution 56/116.
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