Over the past years, the Kyrgyz Republic has confidently and persistently increased its participation in the context of global initiatives aimed at forming the Sustainable Development Goals.
Within the framework of the seminar “Conceptual Foundations of Education for Sustainable Development,” organized on February 8, 2015, by the Eco-Movement “BIOM” with the support of the European Union and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation as part of the EU project “Stimulating and Monitoring Reforms in Education,” some results of our country’s work in this direction were summarized, and prospects for the period after 2015 were outlined.
An important achievement of the republic has been the signing of the foundational document on development issues – the Millennium Declaration. Thus, Kyrgyzstan has committed to fulfilling 8 goals of this Declaration, covering a vast array of issues faced by all countries in the world, regardless of their level of development. The Millennium Development Goals have become a global barometer that allows for an objective assessment of the successes and failures in the development of countries that have joined this initiative. Last year marked the 15th anniversary of the program’s work in Kyrgyzstan and worldwide concerning the Millennium Development Goals.
At the same time, last year saw the emergence of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, developed through dialogue with more than 5,000 respondents.
“Kyrgyzstan has managed to achieve certain progress in achieving the SDGs. This primarily concerns reducing the level of extreme poverty, defined as an income of less than 1 dollar per person per day, as well as ensuring environmental sustainability. A number of goals still require increased attention, and some are likely to be unattainable, including those related to reducing maternal and child mortality, combating HIV/AIDS, and ensuring gender equality,” says the Advisor to the Minister of Economy Lyubov Ten, “It is important that over the past 15 years, useful lessons have been learned in the process of implementing the SDGs.”
Of course, in the early years, the coordination mechanism was still weak, but in 2009, an institutional management mechanism was created – the Coordinating Committee for the SDGs. After 2012, when the country’s political course towards sustainable development was officially declared, basic legislative and methodological foundations for strategic planning for Sustainable Development were established in the KR, and a training module on Sustainable Development for state and municipal employees and other target audiences was developed and tested. SDG indicators were implemented into the National Strategy for Sustainable Development. “Thanks to this significant work, the KR was included among the 100 pilot countries for target strategic orientations and the transition to a Sustainable Development strategy,” said the Prime Minister of the KR Temir Sariev, “Today, Kyrgyzstan has politically and strategically defined its future development model focused on Sustainable Development.”
“2015 became a new ‘starting point’ in the development of Kyrgyzstan within the context of global initiatives for formulating goals for the POST SDG-2015 period,” said Lyubov Ten.
The advisor presented to the seminar participants the 17 SDGs and 3 key stages of the Roadmap for implementing the SDGs into the long-term Concept of Sustainable Development by 2030. This includes analysis and evaluation of the implementation of the National Strategy for Sustainable Development from 2013 to 2015 and recommendations for updating it. This involves conducting national consultations, public coordination and adaptation of the global SDGs, and their approval by the SDG Committee. And finally, it includes recommendations for integrating the SDGs into the Long-term Sustainable Development Strategy by 2030.
The Deputy Minister of Education Nurmat Esenkulov emphasized the importance of implementing an educational module on the SDGs in his speech at the seminar. The UN ECE strategies for SDGs provide the foundation of competencies as learning outcomes for all levels of education. They can be classified as methodological (skills), social, and personal.
However, it was immediately stated that although “human resources are key,” we still have a shortage of such personnel. The Ministry of Education of the KR plans to launch a retraining system for civil servants.
An analysis of the sectors of the economy of Kyrgyzstan, presented to the participants by Advisor Lyubov Ten, showed that currently, the issues of sustainable development have not been adequately reflected in all sectors of production within the domestic education system. However, it was found that each sector has considerable potential for integrating Sustainable skills and “green” specialties into the system of primary, vocational, secondary-specialized, and higher education. There is a need to implement sustainable development across all areas, and the education system should work proactively in this regard. In the system of environmental education and upbringing, the final stage belongs to higher educational institutions, many of which have already introduced courses on the basics of ecology, study of natural resources, and environmental protection. Several universities have opened departments with an ecological focus: ecology and natural resource management, protection of the environment, and land management. It was also noted that despite the country’s efforts to promote sustainable development, there is still a significant lack of educational and methodological literature in both Russian and Kyrgyz languages.
The seminar covered issues related to economics, sociology, education, and intersectoral cooperation.
