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10th Asia-Pacific RCE Regional Meeting Report

Breakout Sessions for Review of AP RCE Action Plans – (Three Groups) Breakout Session on Schools and Youth Facilitators: Dr. Unnikrishnan of UNU-IAS, Prof. Munirah Ghazali of RCE Penang, Dr Chubamenla Jamir, RCE Delhi and Dr. Abdhesh Kumar Gangwar of RCE Srinagar. The document prepared after the Cha-am meeting, was circulated to all the participants. The facilitators initiated d iscussion and took update on each commitment made by the respective RCEs in Cha-am. It was discussed that most RCEs have been doing good work, which is not known to other RCEs. Hence it was agreed that RCE e-bulletin is the most su itable and convenient platform and all RCEs are encouraged to publish their news items in this bulletin benefitting other RCEs to get information and ideas and can also replicate the work, if it is relevant for their respective areas. It was further suggested that UNU should be requested to prepare a web portal where all the materials can be deposited and the material received is segregated, catalogued so that identification and accessibility becomes handy. For th ose material which is not in English or UN languages a summary in English should be made available by the same RCE that has p roduced it. Inter RCE cross learning, exchange of ideas, resources and people, collaborative projects were considered the need of the hour. RCEs should work towards it both nationally as well as globally in order to increase their visibility in different countries and among local governments and other stakeholders. This would also help in sensitizing different stakeholders abou t RCE com m u n ity‟s strong pool of information, resources, expertise, skills and experience. It was further discussed that since Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH) is one of the most important sectors especially for South Asian count ries, for example India has its flagship n ation al p rogram m e „Clean India Mission‟, by 2019. Therefore, RCEs in the Asia Pacific region should collaborate and implement joint activities under this theme since currently there are funds and capacity building opportunities readily available in this sector. It was also mentioned that WASH is important as it also relates to other sectors such as health and wellbeing of the people and p rogress of the community and the country at large. The delegates mentioned that Indian RCEs have been doing good work on WASH. Two success stories one each by RCE Bangalore and RCE Srinagar have contributed to UNU-IAS‟ 8 Key discussion points s case study publication that was announced during the First RCE Thematic Conference in Okayama 5-7 December 2017. Mr. Santosh R. Sutar, RCE Bangalore, has accepted to take the lead and can be contacted by other RCEs who wish to engage themselves in the WASH sector. It was informed, although RCE Guwahati and Lucknow were not present in the meeting; however they have also been doing very good work in this sector and can be contacted for support. Low Carbon Economy was another important thrust area identified. Reducing foot print is very important towards achieving sustainability. RCEs in Malaysia and India have good IEC material on this subject. CEE that hosts 6 RCEs in India have been running a climate change and sustainability education programme aimed at promoting low carbon lifestyle in more than 200,000 schools across India, having almost 200 N GO p artn ers. CEE th rou gh its „Global


10th Asia-Pacific RCE Regional Meeting Report
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