Resources
Explore a wide range of valuable resources on GCED to deepen your understanding and enhance your research, advocacy, teaching, and learning.
164 Results found
Leveraging Artificial Intelligence to Enhance Early Action towards the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework Year of publication: 2024 Author: Nicole DeSantis | Lea Phillips | Christina Supples | Julien Pigot | Jamison Ervin | Doley Tshering | Juan Calles Lopez | Dharshani Seneviratne | Enrique Paniagua | Monica Mora Corporate author: United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) This publication releases the methodology behind the National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAP) Target Similarity Assessments and identifies key lessons learned and opportunities for future applications. 
Climate Equality: A Planet for the 99% Year of publication: 2023 Author: Ashfaq Khalfan | Astrid Nilsson Lewis | Carlos Aguilar | Max Lawson | Safa Jayoussi | Jacqueline Persson | Nafkote Dabi | Sunil Acharya Corporate author: Oxfam International The world faces twin crises of climate breakdown and runaway inequality. The richest people, corporations and countries are destroying the world with their huge carbon emissions. Meanwhile, people living in poverty, those experiencing marginalization, and countries in the Global South are those impacted the hardest. Women and girls, Indigenous Peoples, people living in poverty and other groups experiencing discrimination are particularly at a disadvantage. The consequences of climate breakdown are felt in all parts of the world and by most people, yet only the richest people and countries have the wealth, power and influence to protect themselves. With that power comes huge responsibility.If no action is taken, the richest will continue to burn through the carbon we have left to use while keeping the global temperature below the safe limit of 1.5°C, destroying any chance of ending poverty and ensuring equality. The world needs an equal transformation. Only a radical reduction in inequality, transformative climate action and fundamentally shifting our economic goals as a society can save our planet while ensuring wellbeing for all. 
Climate Equality: A PLANET FOR THE 99%; Executive Summary Year of publication: 2023 Author: Ashfaq Khalfan | Astrid Nilsson Lewis | Carlos Aguilar | Max Lawson | Safa Jayoussi | Jacqueline Persson | Nafkote Dabi | Sunil Acharya Corporate author: Oxfam International The world faces twin crises of climate breakdown and runaway inequality.The richest people, corporations and countries are destroying the world with their huge carbon emissions. Meanwhile, people living in poverty, those experiencing marginalization, and countries in the Global South are those impacted the hardest. Women and girls, Indigenous Peoples, people living in poverty and other groups experiencing discrimination are particularly at a disadvantage. The consequences of climate breakdown are felt in all parts of the world and by most people, yet only the richest people and countries have the wealth, power and influence to protect themselves. With that power comes huge responsibility.If no action is taken, the richest will continue to burn through the carbon we have left to use while keeping the global temperature below the safe limit of 1.5°C, destroying any chance of ending poverty and ensuring equality. The world needs an equal transformation. Only a radical reduction in inequality, transformative climate action and fundamentally shifting our economic goals as a society can save our planet while ensuring wellbeing for all. 
Mapping Cultural Policies in Small Island Developing States: Amplifying SIDS Voices in the Global Policy Dialogue on Culture and Sustainable Development Year of publication: 2025 Corporate author: UNESCO Mapping Cultural Policies in Small Island Developing StatesSpanning three sub-regions – the Atlantic, Indian Ocean and South China Sea (AIS), the Caribbean, and the Pacific – the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) represent 39 UNESCO Member States and 9 Associate Members. Countries and regional organizations have increasingly demonstrated their commitment in the context of fast-evolving policy landscape and cultural ecosystems, encompassing the different dimensions of culture through its diversity and a wide spectrum of concerned stakeholders. Today, a SIDS-specific, culture-led development vision is on the rise.Culture has a multifaceted impact on sustainable development pathways of the SIDS, from climate action, biodiversity protection and food security to economic diversification, social inclusion, gender equality or urban sustainability. The voices and aspirations of SIDS must be heard in the global policy dialogue, in acknowledgement of their priorities, opportunities and insights. International cooperation efforts by UNESCO and other organizations are also essential in identifying areas for future policy investment and adaptation at the national and regional levels.Following the UNESCO World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development – MONDIACULT 2022, SIDS are championing culture for sustainable development towards the adoption of a new Programme of Action, the Antigua and Barbuda Agenda for SIDS 2024-2034. 
World Social Report 2023 : Leaving No One Behind in an Ageing World Year of publication: 2023 Corporate author: UN. Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population ageing is a defining global trend of our time. People are living longer, and more are older than ever before. Spectacular improvements in health and survival and reductions in fertility have driven this momentous shift, which has begun or is expected to begin soon in all countries and areas. This change brings both challenges and opportunities as countries strive to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In 2022, the world marked the twentieth anniversary of the adoption of the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing. To commemorate this landmark, the World Social Report 2023 explores the economic and social implications of the ageing of the human population. It builds on the Plan of Action’s framework for national policies to create equitable, inclusive societies for people of all ages, providing recommendations to put the rights and well-being of older persons at the centre, across the life course. Population ageing is an inevitable result of the demographic transition towards longer lives and smaller families. While the shift towards older populations is largely irreversible, collective actions and policy decisions shape its path and consequences. Postponing critical measures that allow societies to benefit from and adapt to population ageing would impose high social, economic, fiscal and health-related costs, for both current and future generations. By contrast, with appropriate foresight and planning, Governments can manage the challenges from population ageing while enhancing opportunities for all people to thrive and ensuring that no one is left behind. As elaborated in this report, population ageing needs to be widely understood as more than just a set of discrete concerns mainly for one group of people who have advanced beyond a given age. Ageing touches all parts of economies and societies, from health care and education to employment and taxation. Each stage of life can contribute to or detract from well-being at older ages. 
Teaching resource kit for dryland countries: a creative approach to environmental education Year of publication: 2007 Author: Thomas Schaaf Corporate author: UNESCO Entitled A Creative Approach to Environmental Education/Teaching Resource Kitfor Dryland Countries, the kit is intended for secondary-school teachers in countries affected by desertification and is based on an innovative approach appealing to the creativity and artistic sensibility of pupils aged 10 to 15 years. This approach favours discovery of the environment through the senses, and emphasizes the visual and exploratory aspects of environmental study. The idea of using creativity and artistic sensibility to promote ecological awareness may in the future become a source of collaboration to be explored in detail by the different sectors of UNESCO. 
EIU Best Practices Series No. 43: Embracing Sustainability: You Can Make a Difference Year of publication: 2016 Corporate author: APCEIU This monograph is one of APCEIU's EIU Best Practices Series, which aims to encourage educators, scholars, and activists to implement and share local initiatives on EIU. The Series No. 43 introduces a programme called “Embracing Sustainability: You Can Make a Difference”, designed by a teacher in New Zealand to allow his students to think about sustainability from a global perspective. The programme has been successful in engaging disengaged youth by giving them a sense of self-worth and helping them to understand sustainability and see their place in the global society. The valuable insights provided in this case will also be able to inform those who intend to embed EIU/GCED principles in the existing curriculum. 
EIU Best Practice Series No. 17: Climate cool schools project in Malaysia: creating awareness and understanding of climate change Year of publication: 2010 Author: Maria Salih Corporate author: APCEIU The Climate Cool Schools (CCS)-Global Platform project is a multilateral learning portal for students in Malaysia, the UK, and Hong Kong to work together to explore local and global climate change issues. The learning portal enables these students to learn from each other about what actions are possible, and to find a voice to advocate wider actions at the local and global levels. The project was initiated in late 2007 and in early 2008 embarked on a two year trial basis with the British Council (BC), Sultan Idris Education University (SIEU), and the Perak State Education Department (JPN, Perak) as the partners. This project is a follow-up from the ZeroCarbonCity project launched in 2005 by the British Council. Repositioning and reconceptualizing the curriculum for the effective realization of Sustainable Development Goal Four, for holistic development and sustainable ways of living Year of publication: 2015 Corporate author: UNESCO International Bureau of Education (IBE) The purpose of this discussion paper is two-fold, it is to reposition curriculum at the center of the national and the global development dialogue and to highlight its power to give effect to national and to global aspirational statements on the role of education in holistic development. When well designed and effectively enacted, curriculum determines the quality, inclusiveness and development-relevance of education.Second, is to reconceptualize curriculum as a fundamental force of integration of education systems and as an operational tool for giving effect to policies on lifelong learning. Curriculum leads all core aspects of education that are known to determine quality, inclusion, and relevance such as content, learning, teaching, assessment and the teaching and learning environments among others. Its horizontal and vertical articulation, as well as its articulation across learning settings is what gives effect to lifelong learning policies.This paper therefore seeks to reposition curriculum as an indispensable tool for giving effect to SDG Goal 4. 
Kindness: The Force That Will Help Us Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (The Blue Dot Issue 11, 2020) Year of publication: 2020 Corporate author: Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP) In the eleventh issue of The Blue Dot, we focus on ‘Kindness’ – as the force that will help us achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, towards making the world more peaceful and sustainable – a better place to live in the future for our children. We hear from Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’, Minister of Human Resource Development, Government of India on ‘The Need for Kindness and Compassion – Embodying the values of Mahatma Gandhi’, experts such as Zoran Josipovic on the neuroscience behind kindness; Michael Karlin and Brendran Ozawa-De Silve on the science and theory behind kindness, and from educators (Vicki Zakrzewski and John-Tyler Binfet) on how kindness can be practiced in our classrooms.Our cover story on ‘Kindness – the force to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals’ discusses the biology of kindness, how kindness can help us achieve the SDGs and Kindness and SDGs and the Youth. Further, we have a hand-picked collection of youth stories on kindness, extracted from the 7,300+ stories we have from 120 countries around the world as part of UNESCO MGIEP’s #KindnessMatters for the SDGs youth campaign.