IHE Institute for Water Education

In 1986, UNESCO revived the focal point of LITERACY as a major weapon of mankind to break the cycle of poverty. Dr. Preciosa S. Soliven, then country representative to the UNESCO Executive Board witnessed the numerous literacy projects initiated particularly, "APPEAL" or Asia Pacific Program for Education for All, launched on 23 February 1987 in New Delhi, India.

In response to the objectives of APPEAL i.e. universalization of primary education (UPE), eradication of illiteracy (EOI), and continuing education for development (CEO), the then Ministry of Education organized an inter-agency Working Group to map out a plan of action to meet the above objectives. The Working Group was chaired by Dr. Juanita S. Guerrero, then Director of the Bureau of Elementary Education.

When the Education For All (EFA) campaign was launched in Jomtien, Thailand in 1990, the Philippines has just adopted the developed plan for APPEAL as that of EFA. UNESCO Director­General Federico Mayor urged Philippine NatCom SecGen (1990-1998) Lourdes R. Quisumbing (Executive Board member 1991-1995) to study the possibility of the Philippines being an Asia­Pacific Center for Lifelong Education. The same was reiterated to Ambassador Rosario Manalo who was the Philippine Permanent Delegate (PermDel) to UNESCO from 1990-1994.

In 2000, EFA was evaluated in Dakar, Africa revealing that although enrollment increased in developing countries, the quality of education remained substandard. The United Nations then declared the UN Millennium Development Goal as the basis of national plans for all UN Member States.

In 2002, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, 2005-2014, emphasizing that "education is an indispensible element for achieving sustainable development." It designated UNESCO as the lead agency to promote and implement DESD. UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura then redefined education as a process the should go beyond learning the 3R's and should result in behavioral transformation. This would require re-engineering education to develop economic sufficiency among the 192 UNESCO member states of the world particularly in developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

In October 2005, at the UNESCO General Conference in Paris, Philippine Foriegn Affairs Secretary and NatCom Chair Alberto Romulo together with Philippine NatCom Secretary General Ambassador Preciosa S. Soliven presented a Draft Resolution proposing the recognition of the Philippines as the Southeast Asian Center for Lifelong Learning for Sustainable Development.

To support this bid, Her Excellency President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed Executive Order (EO) 483, in December 2005, establishing the UNESCO Center for Lifelong Learning for Sustainable Development of the Philippines and designating Operation Brotherhood Montessori Center as the National Laboratory linking with DepED (Department of Education). TESDA (Technical Education and Skills Development Authority) and CHED (Commission on Higher Education) in addressing the life skills educational requirements towards building a knowledge society.

As shown in the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of EO 483 signed by the three education agencies (DepED, CHED and TESDA), the SEACLLSD has to work with DepED, CHED and TESDA to collaborate in putting the ESD component in thier educational programs for Early Childhood Education, Basic Education, techvoc programs and teacher training courses.

In April 2007, DG Matsuura endorsed the Philippine bid to the Executive Board. DepED Secretary Jesli Lapus and SecGen Soliven defended the proposal before the panel of experts during the UNESCO 176th EB Spring Session. Consequently, the Executive Board requested the Director General to conduct a feasilbility study of the Philippine proposal with the end in view of conferring on the Southeast Asian Center for Lifelong Learning for Sustainable Development (SEACLLSD) a UNESCO Category II status.

In compliance with this request, the Director General sent a team of experts to the Philippines on 24-29 March 2008 to conduct the requested feasibility study. Although the Feasibility Mission Team found a lot of merit in the proposal, they recommended nevertheless that the Philippine Government revise it to align its goals and objectives not only with UNESCO education for sustainable development goals and objectives but also with those of the southeast Asian sub-region. They accordingly urged the Philippine Government to conduct a regional mapping exercise for that purpose.

The Philippine Government anticipating the recommendation of the team of experts and to win support for its proposal from prospective member countries had already been conducting regional consultation exercises. On 3-4 March 2008, even before the team of experts came to Manila, the Philippine Government hosted a Regional Workshop on the proposal at the Legend Villas Hotel in Mandaluyong City, Philippines with the theme, "Vision, Policy and Practice in Southeast Asia." Representatives from Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Thailand, Timor Leste, Vietnam, and South Korea attended.

The larger regional mapping-cum-consultation exercises as recommended by the team of experts was held in Manila on 02-03 September 2008 at the invitation of the Philippine Government. Representatives from Lao PDR, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalm, Indonesia and Timor Leste attended and actively participated in re-wording and re-drafting the proposal, the text of which was discussed paragraph by paragraph and approved by consensus by the representatives of all the participating countries. As a result of this exercise, this is no longer solely a Philippine but a joint Southeast Asian sub-regional proposal.

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