3 - Global Policy Initiatives: Historical Trajectories and the Biopolitics of the Present

Summary

This chapter provides a short history of global ESD policy initiatives as coordinated by UNESCO, alongside a biopolitical analysis of the current framework, ESD for 2030.

The chapter begins by revisiting the contested concept of ESD and introducing UNESCO as its leading global promoter. Thereafter, the chapter provides a short history of the three consecutive UNESCO initiatives for the implementation of ESD worldwide: the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005– 14), the Global Action Programme on Education for Sustainable Development (GAP) (2015– 19) and ESD for 2030 (2021– 30). This short history contextualizes, and traces the trajectory between, these three initiatives which arguably reflect the emergence of a global ESD regime (Tikly, 2020, pp 92 and 105). The continuity between the initiatives, as well as how priorities and procedures have changed over time, is highlighted. The chapter then proceeds with an in-depth biopolitical analysis of ESD for 2030. This analysis brings attention to the biopolitical rationalities underpinning the framework, including the conception of life and how human populations are distinguished between on socio-economic grounds. Moreover, the analysis demonstrates how notions of transformative pedagogy, community, and the individual assume functions as biopolitical techniques. Overall, the analysis points to the peculiar ways in which humanity is both united and separated. While the framework invites all of humanity to join the educational quest for sustainable development, the findings also demonstrate how, already at the global policy level, a form of biopolitical differentiation can be discerned whereby rich and poor populations are assumed to need different kinds of ESD interventions. The final section summarizes the main arguments.

ESD and UNESCO: entering contested terrain

UNESCO's engagement in educational, developmental and environmental concerns has a long history, and since the early 2000s the UN General Assembly has tasked UNESCO with serving as the global lead agency for ESD. Before we introduce UNESCO as the world promoter of ESD, however, it is important to realize that we are entering complex and contested terrain. This compels us to make two immediate clarifications.

First, as indicated in Chapter 1 , the meaning and origin of the concept of ESD is contested (see, for example: Hesselink, van Kempen and Wals, 2000).