In 2004, the United Nations General Assembly recognized quality education to be a key parameter for a sustainable future when it declared the period 2005-2014 as the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) and designated UNESCO as the lead agency for its international coordination and promotion. The Decade has a clear purpose, namely, that of highlighting the central role of education and learning in the common pursuit of sustainable development. As a framework for mobilizing collaborative action at international, regional, national and local levels, the Decade seeks to generate practical results through partnerships and joint endeavours. Sustainable development is an ethical challenge as well as a scientific concept. Through Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), our aim is to acquire a better understanding of the complex interdependence between human needs and the natural environment, betweenhood-economic development and culture, and between the local and the global. The regional and sub-regional levels are critical for ESD. This is because sustainable development issues tend to transcend national boundaries and to coalesce around problems shared by issues tend. As the lead agency for the Decade, UNESCO is responsible for the international coordinating of efforts to integrate the theme of sustainable development into educational processes, both formal and non-formal, at all levels. In addition, UNESCO is contributing substantially to the Decade through its programmes in its main fields of competence -education, the sciences, culture and communication – and in particular through intersectoral activities. In regard to both coordination and programmatic action, UNESCO is working closely with the full span of stakeholders involved in ESD: governments, other UN agencies, civil society organizations, the private sector and the media as well as schools, universities, research institutes, academic experts and students. The International Conference on "Sustaining the Future - Globalization and Education for Sustainable Development", convened jointly by UNESCO and the United Nations University (UNU) on 28-29 June 2006 in Nagoya, Japan, proved to be a valuable occasion to consider the issues, challenges and opportunities associated with this theme. The meeting marked the third such joint conference organized by UNU and UNESCO to concentrate on how various aspects of human development interact with and are affected by globalization. The importance of the Conference was further reinforced by the concurrent launch and adoption of the Asia-Pacific Strategy for the Decade, which had been developed in a participatory and interactive approach. A situational analysis of the Asia-Pacific region showed that ESD is still predominantly conceptualized by many stakeholders and decision-makers in the context of "environmental education" (EE). Moving from EE to ESD will be a major challenge for the Decade in the Asia-Pacific region. This publication presents the contributions and outcomes of the stimulating two day gathering in Nagoya, where representatives of governments, academia and civil society gathered to share their experiences and develop their ideas about how to ensure ESD within the context of globalizing societies. I am pleased, therefore, to present the record of these proceedings and to express my hope that this publication will help to highlight the potential of the Decade for improving the quality of life in the present, without compromising it in the future. Through the Decade, in this region and across the world, we shall seek to support partnerships and collaboration that enable education to play its full part in ensuring that a sustainable planet and a safer world are passed on to our children, our grandchildren and their descendants. [UNU website].

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