Okayama joins the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities and reinforces its partnership with the UNESCO Global Action Programme on Education for Sustainable Development. Okayama is inspiring learning cities in Japan and worldwide by putting education for sustainable development at the core of its initiatives.

On the occasion of World’s Wetland Day 2016, CEE Himalaya together with the JSW Foundation and RCE Srinagar organized a series of activities for the inhabitants of Kuroli village, a small and picturesque village, located in Bhatwari Block in Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand. Youths, adults, elderly, school children, teachers, and many others participated in the event.

Early this year an online platform was launched by the United Nations to assist cities to become more sustainable. It aims to identify challenges that are having an impact on urban development across the world. The launch of the Smart Sustainable Cities online community comes ahead of the first World Smart City Forum to be held in Singapore in July.

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On 6 November 2015 the United Nations University organized the symposium “Implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, as part of a series of events celebrating 40 years of UNU’s academic work. The symposium considered the adoption of the 2030 Agenda by UN Member States and the challenges faced by this ambitious global plan and the 17 SDGs.

The ESD Okayama Award was established by the ESD Okayama Award Steering Board and City of Okayama in 2015, to showcase and promote ESD worldwide. 50 applicants applied for the ‘ESD Okayama Award’ with 29 applicants from 27 countries and 21 national applications from Japan. 30 applications were received for the ‘Okayama Regional Awards’. The initial screening left the jury with nine finalists for the global award and five finalists for the regional award. Finally the judges selected two winners for each award. However, the judges managed to select two winners for each award category.

RCE Iskandar, in collaboration with many stakeholders and ESD experts, successfully organized the Iskandar Malaysia Ecolife Challenge (IMELC) 2015. The initiative included Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), the Iskandar Region Development Agency (IRDA), the Johor State Education Department (JPNJ), IM KIKO Pte. Ltd., and all 226 primary schools that are partners of RCE Iskandar.

RCE Greater Dhaka organized a field trip on biodiversity on 28th Nov, 2015. The trip organized by the Department of Environmental Science was led by Prof. Rahman and Dr Dastagir for 150 students currently enrolled in sustainability related courses at the International University of Business Agriculture and Technology (IUBAT). This initiative was part of the planned semester activity of the students. The National Botanical Garden of Bangladesh with an area of approximately 84 hectares is located at Mirpur in Dhaka. Established in 1961, it is the largest botanical garden in Bangladesh.

The UN-ESCAP report on integrating the three dimensions of sustainable development introduces useful concepts and practical tools to assist policymakers in promoting integration of the three dimensions of sustainable development across the policy cycle. It explores the use of qualitative scenarios and quantitative input-output analyses for sustainable development policymaking, outlining the limitations and knowledge and information requirements of each.