COP29: FutureLearn Encourages Learners To Be A Force For Good
As COP29 gets underway in Baku, Azerbaijan, the UK-based online learning platform FutureLearn is demonstrating its commitment to accelerating education for sustainable development.
Earlier this year, in June, during the OECD Local Skills Week 2024, Dr. Manal Awad, Governor of Damietta, Egypt, gave an opening speech during a virtual session on ‘UNESCO Learning Cities as drivers of lifelong learning’. Dr Awad, participated from inside the historic Damietta Bridge, “The Bridge of Civilisation”, in this session launched by the UNESCO Global Network.
During the session, the governor stressed the importance of learning to support development, highlighting that Damietta, a city that joined the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities (GNLC) in 2019 and received the UNESCO Learning Cities Award in 2021, has made great efforts to support sustainable development and promote a culture of learning. Dr Awad also confirmed that Damietta’s participation in the conferences held by UNESCO are a great opportunity to exchange experiences and reach best practices, and called on citizens to join the free online courses announced by The UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning and FutureLearn in September 2023.
Over a year later, the partnership has seen hundreds of enrolments from learners in UNESCO Learning Cities from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, Morocco, Australia, Brazil, Colombia, Greece, Germany and the United Kingdom.
Despite a growing demand for green skills and a clean energy workforce, reports from LinkedIn and the World Economic Forum suggest that there is still a green skills shortage, in part due to the lack of education.
With courses including Sustainable Cities: Governing Urban Adaptation Under Climate Change by The University of Groningen, Renewable Energy: Achieving Sustainability through Bioenergy and Renewable Energy: Sustainable Electricity Supply with Microgrids from the University of Leeds and The University of Reading’s Teaching Climate and Sustainability in Primary Schools: An Outdoor Learning Approach, FutureLearn and the GNLC have been able to invest in education for sustainable development, giving learners in UNESCO Learning Cities the opportunity to develop their green skills and learn about sustainable development issues around the world.
Ian Howell, FutureLearn’s Managing Director, says, “We’re proud of the progress this groundbreaking initiative has made in a little over a year. Through our strategic partnership with The UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, FutureLearn has been able to offer free, accessible online courses to learners all over the world, empowering them to learn more about climate change and sustainable development. From STEM teaching and social innovation to tackling food waste and the climate crisis, we’ve seen just how important education is for sustainable development, and we can’t wait to see just how learning transforms UNESCO Learning Cities around the world in the upcoming year.”
If you are a citizen of a UNESCO Learning City and would like more information about the free UNESCO sustainability courses collection, please visit our Help Centre. Check out our UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) partner page on FutureLearn to find out more.
For more COP29-inspired courses, please visit the COP29 course collection page.
