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In Chapter Three, Ros Wade examines the international education commitments of the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit on environment and development in relation to trends in education policy and practice over the last 20 years. Agenda 21 emphasised the imperative to reorient education systems towards sustainable development and laid out a clear programme for governments. The chapter highlights the urgency of this initiative in turning round the oil tanker of overconsumption and unsustainable lifestyles in the wealthier parts of the world and addressing the challenges of poverty, social justice and environmental destruction in the developing world. However, an overview of current education practice across a range of countries indicates that although policy commitments have increased, practice lags rather far behind. There are clear reasons for this. The last 20 years have seen neoliberal perspectives provide the dominant overarching framework for policymaking. The chapter will argue that marketisation and privatisation trends have frequently skewed educational practice towards unsustainable development. Yet, without a sea change at international and national levels, educational policy will fail to address the huge challenges that the world is facing in the 21st century.

Chapter Eight presents three case studies of regional centres for expertise (RCEs) in ESD. RCEs were set up to achieve the aspirations of the UN Decade for Sustainable Development (DESD), 2005–14, and to help create a global learning space for sustainable development. An RCE is a network of formal, informal and non-formal organisations mobilised to act as a catalyst for the delivery of ESD. Although sharing common aims, RCEs have a considerable degree of autonomy and are able to determine their own particular priorities based on local circumstances.The three case studies are: RCE Saskatchewan, Canada; RCE Greater Sendai, Japan; and RCE Greater Nairobi, Kenya. These RCEs have all grown up organically and have been developed by a variety of social actors and stakeholders in their respective regions. They all have different focuses and have responded in different ways to the challenges of sustainability. This is a good example of subsidiarity in terms of ESD policymaking and practice. The case studies are framed within the context of civil society organisations and social movements, with an analysis of the impact and effectiveness of RCEs as agents for change.

Chapter Seven presents a number of case studies on education and learning undertaken by postgraduate researchers in education for sustainable development (ESD). The case studies are drawn from Uganda, Rwanda and Malawi. They focus on examples of organisational, local and national change and provide an insight into the interrelationship between local and global issues. Reference is made to the importance of context and appropriacy and to the crucial relevance of local community and indigenous knowledge. The case studies are set within the framework of the politics of knowledge and the challenges that current dominant global knowledge systems pose for ESD.