Rethinking Community-based ESD in the COVID-19 Era

Abstract

In the search for achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), two approaches are integral: local community-based and multi-stakeholder participation and partnership. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), which is addressed in Target 4.7, is at the heart of these approaches to attract diverse stakeholders for the efforts at the local community level. The stakeholders share their diverse experiences and knowledge to create a new knowledge for sustainability. Therein, tension and conflict that they may experience can lead to a critical learning process for individual and social transformation. This article reports the preliminary results obtained from the project, which examines the effectiveness and relevance of local community-based and multi-stakeholder approaches to the efforts for sustainable community development during the COVID-19 pandemic. The project focuses on the experiences of member organizations of the Regional Centre of Expertise on ESD (RCEs) in the Asia-Pacific region, which was established by the United Nations University, Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS). The article proposes further direction of research based on the key findings at this stage, including digitalization and youth participation, which are to be further analyzed for the advocacy and relevant international and national policies on SDGs and ESD for 2030 from the perspectives of local communities.