RCE Regional Advisors

RCE Regional Advisors serve to provide advice to the Global RCE Service Centre on policy and strategic and operational matters in relation to the promotion and development of RCEs. Areas include governance, collaboration, research and development, and transformative education, informed by active engagements with the RCE community in their region.

In addition, RCE Regional Advisors provide support to RCEs in order to enhance regional and thematic collaborations, and can provide guidance to candidate RCEs wishing to establish RCEs.

The current RCE Regional Advisors for the 2022-2023 term are as follows:

 Africa
Dr Akpezi Ogbuigwe

Apz.African@gmail.com
Dr Akpezi Ogbuigwe is the Founder of Anpez Centre for Environment and Development, Nigeria, and the Star Advantage Network which seeks to tell better stories in all sectors of education and community transformation. She is also a former Head, Environmental Education and Training and Coordinator, Ecosystem Sub-programme, UNEP (2002 –2014), and was a Dean for 5 years at the Law Faculty in Rivers State University (RSU) where she was appointed Reader in 1999. Between 2010 and 2012, she was appointed as a guest professor at the Tongji University, Shanghai, China. She currently serves as an RCE Regional Advisor for the African region, where she works to facilitate cooperation and partnerships for sustainable development.

Dr Ogbuigwe’s publications include: The Imperative for Legal Education Responsiveness to the Climate Change Exigency, in Faculty of Law RSU 40th Anniversary Publication (2022); SDG 17 Partnerships for the Goals: A view from inside Africa’s Higher Education Institutions, in Approaches to SDG 17 Partnerships for the SDGs (SDGs), GUNI, 28-36 (2018); Climate Change Education in Africa, SAJEE, 2009. Access her TEDXFGCU talk on Africa: An Alternate Narrative here; and plenary keynote lecture at the 2018 AASHE Conference here.

Asia-Pacific
Dr Kiran Banga Chhokar

kiranbc@gmail.com
Dr Kiran Banga Chhokar is an independent ESD consultant and editor. Since January 2016 she has been Regional Advisor to the Asia-Pacific Community of the RCEs but has been involved with the RCE programme since its inception, and was responsible for setting up the first five RCEs in India.

She has worked for more than 35 years in the fields of ESD and Environment Education, 25 of them at the Centre for Environment Education (CEE). She headed the Higher Education Programme at CEE, where over the years she was also responsible for training, research, editing and content writing.

Dr Chhokar has taught at several Indian and foreign universities as a visiting professor, the most recent being at the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi.

Dr Chhokar was the founding editor of the international, peer- reviewed Journal of Education for Sustainable Development, and has been on the Editorial Board of academic journals such as the Australian Journal of Environmental Education, and FACTS Reports of the Institut Veolia Environment, Paris.
 

Dr Eun-kyung Park

ek_pj@yahoo.com
Dr Eun-kyung Park is a former Vice-Chair of the Korean National Commission for UNESCO, and has also served as a founding Chairperson of the UNESCO National Committee on Education for Sustainable Development (2009-2018). In 2005, Dr Park established RCE Tongyeong along with the Tongyeong Municipal Government, which later developed into the Tongyeong Education Foundation for Sustainable Development.

Dr Park has served as a board member of the UN University’s Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS) and also as an Eminent Person for the Asia-Pacific Region for the Sub-regional Environmental Policy Dialogue (SEPD) of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). She has also served as the chairperson of the NGO Global Forum at the IUCN World Conservation Congress 2012. During her time as an Ambassador of Water Resources at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea (2011-2013), she became a successful Chairperson of the Korean Bidding Committee for the 7th World Water Forum at Daegu and Kyung-buk Province, Korea. Dr Park also served as the President of the Korea Water Forum and a bureau member and governor of the World Water Council, Marseille (2009-2012).

Dr Park completed a PhD in Anthropology, and has taught at the Seoul National University, Ewha Womans University, and Yonsei University along with a visiting professorship at Tokyo University and Munchen University. She currently serves as the Chairperson of the Tongyeong ESD Foundation.

Europe
Ms Betsy King

betsyking@lfsscotland.org
Ms Betsy King has been the Development Manager at RCE Scotland since it began in 2013. RCE Scotland, locally known as Learning for Sustainability Scotland, is hosted by the Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh, and serves the whole of the country.

Ms King is a former Geography teacher, and worked at the Peak National Park Centre, for the University of Papua New Guinea and for a number of NGOs in the UK, most recently WWF Scotland. With a long-standing commitment to ESD (termed Learning for Sustainability in Scotland), she is passionate about the role that education and lifelong learning can play in making progress towards a more just and sustainable world. She has been involved in developing many partnership RCE initiatives in Scotland; weaving connections between sectors and taking action on local sustainability priorities, while learning from others across the global RCE network.

Americas
Dr Roger A. Petry

roger.petry@uregina.ca
Dr Roger Petry is a Professor of Philosophy at Luther College at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada. He teaches in the areas of ethics, sustainable development, and philosophy of religion. His research explores strategic dimensions in moving to sustainable systems including historic transitions in production, disruptive technologies, and the role played by universities. He coordinates the University’s Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Program and Certificate in Sustainability.

Dr Petry is Co-coordinator of the Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Saskatchewan (RCE Saskatchewan) acknowledged by the United Nations University (UNU) in 2007. He enjoys celebrating ESD projects in Saskatchewan through his leadership with the RCE’s annual ESD Recognition Program. He is passionate about advancing sustainable consumption and production initiatives (SDG 12) both regionally and globally along with the role RCEs can strategically play in shaping development policies for sustainable development. Further background can be accessed here..