Duration: 2021 – 2024

Lead Partner: Secretariat of the Carpathian Convention

Funding: Advisory Assistance Programme (AAP) provided by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection of Germany

Project website: Establishing an Education for Sustainable Development network in the Carpathian region 

Project description:  

Based on the recommendations provided by the S4C and the First Carpathian ESD Seminar, the Carpathian Convention Secretariat, with support from the parties, and in close collaboration with the Science for the Carpathians Network (S4C), ESD experts from Hungary and Poland, as well as from Leuphana University Lüneburg, is working to identify how to best facilitate the establishment of an active Carpathian ESD Expert Network and embed it into the Convention structure.

In order to establish a Carpathian Network of ESD experts, which could eventually play a role similar to that of an official Working Group of the Carpathian Convention, it was necessary to develop a process on several levels:

• bring together experts from the Carpathian countries that are interested in ESD and willing to collaborate on a longer-term basis
• jointly develop a vision of the relevance of ESD-focused work under the Convention and a strategy for implementing ESD activities, linked with other fields of work of the Convention
• involve ESD experts in developing and implementing concrete ESD-related activities in cooperation with the Convention Secretariat and the Convention partners
• support continuous coordination and collaboration with the focal points of the Convention in order to ensure links between the ESD work and other Convention areas, and to jointly agree on and establish the best way of integrating a potential expert group into the Convention.

In order to facilitate sustainability of the above steps, it was important to further strengthen science-policy-practice interface in the field of ESD in the Carpathians and to attract state-of-the-art knowledge to this process, in order to support linkages between the ESD process and nature protection and sustainable development activities in other thematic areas of the Carpathian Convention.

Implemented project activities:

• An ESD workshop and session were organized during the 6th Forum Carpaticum, held virtually on June 21-25, 2021. The final report of the ESD activities at the forum can be found here.
• A Workshop on strengthening networks within the Carpathian Convention, organized as part of the Carpathian Convention Implementation Committee Meeting, followed by meeting of ESD experts of the Carpathian Countries. 
• Supporting participation of Carpathian ESD experts in the relevant Carpathian Convention, regional and international events.
• Supporting presentation of the Carpathian Convention ESD developments at the international level, including the 9th Environment for Europe Conference and the Regional Forum on Sustainable Development for the UNECE Region
• Supporting organization of the Second Carpathian ESD Seminar.
• Supporting ESD-related events at the 7th Forum Carpaticum
• Supporting participation of Carpathian ESD experts in the relevant Carpathian Convention, regional and international events, including the 11th World Environmental Education Congress, Prague, 2022 and the Interpret Europe Conference, Sighisoara 2023
• Integration of project results and developments into the Adopted Decisions of the 7th Conference of the Parties of the Carpathian Convention (DECISION COP7/8 Strengthening science-policy-practice interface and cooperation with scientific networks; DECISION COP7/19, Awareness raising, education and public participation, Article 13 of the Carpathian Convention)
• Presentation of the Carpathian ESD Expert Network and the project results at the 7th Conference of the Parties of the Carpathian Convention

To see the background on Carpathian Convention ESD activities, you can read the:

• Briefing on Integration of ESD into the Carpathian Convention
• A Journal article written by the ESD experts supporting the Secretariat and the Science for the Carpathians Network

*The project Carpathian ESD: Strengthening the ESD network in the Carpathian Convention via science-policy-practice interface was funded by the German Federal Environment Ministry’s Advisory Assistance Programme (AAP) for environmental protection in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia and other countries neighbouring the European Union. It was supervised by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation and by the German Environment Agency.