At its thirteenth meeting (Geneva, 3 and 4 May 2018), the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Steering Committee on Education for Sustainable Development discussed the future of education for sustainable development with a view to providing innovative suggestions, tools and recommendations for bridging gaps and giving new impetus to education for sustainable development and the role of the Steering Committee at both the regional and the national levels beyond 2019 and after the completion of the fourth national mandatory reporting cycle (2017–2019). To address those issues, the Steering Committee agreed to set up an ad hoc advisory group (Ad Hoc Group on Strategic Planning) made up of its interested members, with the purpose of formulating concrete strategic proposals for the further promotion of education for sustainable development in the region until 2030a.
The Ad Hoc Group was given the task of drafting the concept note for the post-2019 implementation framework of the Strategy, which was elaborated during the two in-person meetings of the Group (respectively, The Hague (Netherlands) 27–28 November 2018, and Nicosia, 27–28 September 2019). The third meeting for finalizing the draft concept note, scheduled to take place in Nicosia in March 2020, was postponed due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. The Ad Hoc Group continued to work on the document remotely, holding a number of online meetings in the course of 2020 and 2021 to discuss emerging issues and to take into consideration the new challenges faced by the global education for sustainable development community in the current circumstances.
The present document contains a draft concept note for the framework for the implementation of the Strategy from 2021 to 2030, prepared by the Ad Hoc Group on Strategic Planning during the above-mentioned period, which includes the preamble and the four strands or priority areas. The pre-final draft of the concept note was discussed and approved at the online meeting of the Bureau in January 2022 and agreed to be submitted for approval at the seventeenth meeting of the Steering Committee. The Steering Committee is expected to consider this document at its seventeenth meeting and decide on the next steps.
