The Minister of State for Environment, Malik Amin Aslam, underlined the importance of education in meeting the challenges of sustainable development in Pakistan. However, according to him, unlearning the ways impeding sustainable development was even more important than learning how to live sustainably. According to him, the coming decade would be the decade of implementing various international conventions on environment after the decade of ninetees was instrumental in reaching those conventions following the Rio Summit in 1992.

He was speaking at the launch of the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014) in Pakistan jointly organized by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the World Conservation Union (IUCN). A toolkit on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) for teachers, trainers and community organizers in Urdu was also launched on the occasion.

The Minister remarked that to date, the quality in education was lacking due to the non-implementation of education plans and he hoped that the UN Decade, with its focus on Education for Sustainable Development would support to bring about a positive change. He also highlighted some educational projects of the Ministry of Environment, especially the one in collaboration with the Ministry of Education for promotion of environmental concepts in the curricula of classes I to XII. In his opinion, the ESD toolkit would play an important role in achieving the goals of ESD decade in Pakistan.

The Federal Secretary of Education, Mr. Sajid Hasan, speaking on the occasion, pledged his Ministry's full support for ESD. However, in its implementation, he underlined the importance of locally relevant teaching and learning processes.

Earlier, welcoming participants in the ceremony, Mr. Abdul Latif Rao, Country Representative, IUCN Pakistan provided the background for DESD and the growing importance of ESD in both formal and non-formal educational sectors. He also highlighted the initiatives which his organization has undertaken in this field and laid a great stress on the need of partnership building for attaining national objectives in ESD.

Mr. Jorge Sequeira, Country Representative, UNESCO, the lead UN agency for implementing the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) highlighted UNESCO's current and future initiatives for DESD. He elaborated on the strategies to be followed by UNESCO for implementing and monitoring various initiatives for this decade. However, according to him, there were no cut-and-dried ESD models to adopted be replicated in a country like Pakistan. In one of his concluding remarks, he underlined the the need for coordinated action by multiple stakeholders, averring that no single agency could achieve the objectives of ESD.

A presentation on the basic concepts of ESD and its applications in formal and non-formal education sectors was made by Mr. Hasan Rizvi and Ms. Zohra Rehmat Ali of the Education, Communication and Knowledge Management Programme of IUCN Pakistan. ESD is a relatively new concept which encompasses the whole gamut of human activity covering the ecological, social and economic dimensions. It goes beyond schooling to include people of all ages for a process of life long learning and incorporates educational facets of environment, human rights, health, population, gender and equity. The presenters also came up with workable suggestions for carrying out national and local initiatives for ESD.