The aim of this symposium and the roundtable with the same name is to begin address the relationship between ESD and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs; also referred to as the Global Goals) and educational reform.  The last decades we have seen the start and end of the UN Decade for ESD followed by The Global Action Programme (GAP) shaping the post 2015 agenda of ESD. More recently, much attention has been given to the SDGs by governments around the world.  Following the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in June 2012, during a three-year process involving UN Member States, national surveys engaging millions of people, and thousands of actors from all over the world, the international community discussed a new global framework to re-direct humanity towards a sustainable pathway – the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The SDGs are the priorities of this Agenda. On September 25 2015, the UN General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (United Nations 2015) and on January 1 2016, it came into effect (UNESCO 2017). The Agenda and its 17 goals – the SDGs – have been designed to follow on from the Millennium Development Goals and were implemented in 2016 by the United Nations.

The SDGs have been planned to ensure that the challenges of all people are addressed through, for example, promoting social inclusion for most vulnerable groups and by setting environmental limits and critical natural thresholds for the use of natural resources. The SDGs identify that ending poverty must be linked to strategies that build economic development and address a range of social needs including education, health, social protection, and job opportunities, while tackling climate change and protecting the natural environment. The SDGs address key systemic barriers to sustainable development such as inequality, unsustainable consumption patterns, weak institutional capacity, and environmental degradation.

The symposium will explore the policy angle on these most recent global initiatives through intention papers with the goal of developing knowledge about

1. how the implementation schemes of the these global policy initiatives on ESD frame the view and expectations on the national and subnational governance;
2. how these global policy goals are narrated and contextualised in the current challenges of modern societies;
3. how these global policy goals are approached within the policy setting of specific countries’ governments

Following a brief introduction, the symposium will take the following form:

1) Jutta Nikel (Germany): Findings from a comparative document analysis on global policy implementation schemes on ESD

2) Thomas Nicolai Pedersen (Denmark): Transforming our world – transforming citizens!? 

3) Stefan Bengtsson (Sweden): Linkages between the GAP on ESD and SDG 4. National perspectives on linking the SDGs and the GAP on ESD

Following questions from the audience, Arjen Wals (Wageningen University, The Netherlands) will then draw together the discussion and summarise points that can be taken forward to the roundtable that will follow this event.

UNESCO (2017, in press). Guidance framework “Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)”. Paris.