Japan’s Okayama City deemed as world leader in promoting ESD

Japan’s Okayama City is considered as a world leader in the promotion of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) which seeks to provide learners of all ages with the knowledge, skills, values, attitudes, and power to address interconnected global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, unsustainable resource use, and inequalities.

In 2016, the Okayama ESD Project received the UNESCO-Japan Prize on Education for Sustainable Development, a biennial prize that honors outstanding projects that advance the role of education in connecting the social, economic, cultural and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. Funded by the Government of Japan, the Prize consists of three biennial awards of $ 50,000 for each recipient to further advance ESD.

The Okayama ESD Promotion Commission has been promoting ESD since 2005. It was initiated by the United Nations University and has been recognized as a Regional Centre of Expertise on ESD. Okayama incorporated the promotion of ESD into the Kominkan policy in 2007, and thus started to include ESD in Kominkan activities.

“When the government became active to engage corporations, schools and civil society groups, it led to a major transformation,” Hirofumi Abe, Vice-President of Okayama University and Chairperson of the Okayama ESD Promotion Commission, said.

The Okayama ESD Project brings together organizations promoting ESD and facilitates a whole-city approach to ESD. The project involves the local community through both formal and informal education. It offers various activities and training organized in community learning centres called “Kominkan”, schools, parks and shopping malls as well as in places close to nature. For example, in Okayama City, ESD begins in elementary school: pupils have the opportunity to visit local farms, meet with human treasures (elders with specialized knowledge of the local area), as well as learn about the environment and recycling.

Kominkans serve as learning centers for residents and visitors of the city of Okayama, offering a broad range of educational courses, and even encouraging the community to initiate localized learning programs. Based on a whole-city approach, residents play a major role in planning and implementing ESD projects, incorporating issues that are important to them into the activities. This collaborative effort has allowed Kominkans to organize lectures and workshops based on ESD and civic collaboration that aim to solve regional issues, deepen learning, and create locally relevant projects.

Currently, more than 250 organizations are members of the Commission, including NGOs, companies, educational institutions, associations, social education organizations, non-profit organizations, and individual citizens. The project incorporates ESD into seven areas of particular importance to the city: safe and secure community development; environmental awareness and activities; good health; gender equality; child-rearing and youth development; and opportunities for older people to make friends and learn.