The Baltic Agenda 21 & Baltic 21 Education
The Baltic Agenda 21 is one of the first international inter-governmental formal agreements and multilevel actions for sustainable development in a larger region. This regional agenda and action programme is a multi-stakeholder process, initiated in 1996 by the Prime Ministers of the countries around the Baltic Sea.
The pillars for the process are:
- long-term aspects,
- regional co-operation,
- sector responsibility,
- openness,
- democracy and transparency.
Baltic 21 includes the member countries, the EU-commission, intergovernmental organizations, inter-national financial institutions, international and sub-regional city and business community networks, and international non-governmental networks. The Baltic 21 Action Programme addresses all dimensions of Sustainable Development, and includes goals and indicators featuring 30 different actions. The focus is on sectors of crucial importance to this region.
Education is one of these sectors:
Baltic 21 E
– an agenda and action plan for the education sector.
In 2000 the Ministers of Education of the Baltic 21 countries met in Haga (Sweden) to establish a sector network to develop an Agenda 21 for Education in the Baltic Sea Region (The Haga Declaration). The Sector network for Education is headed by two Lead Parties (Lithuania and Finland).
The E-sector has 3 working groups, chaired by different countries:
- Pre-school to upper secondary education and formal adult education. Chair: Sweden
- Universities and university colleges and other institutions of higher education. Chair: Finland
- Non-formal education; mainly adult level Chair: Denmark
The Baltic 21 E Action Programme includes:
- Policies and strategies
- Competence development within the education sector
- Continuing education. Teaching and learning resources
- Research on and development of ESD
