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UNESCO-Japan Prize on Education for Sustainable Development

The Prize honours outstanding projects by institutions and organizations related to Education for Sustainable Development.

Laureates of UNESCO-Japan Prize on ESD

Laureates 2021

The winners of the 6th edition of the Prize were named on 15 November 2021.

  • World Vision Ghana (Ghana)

  • Media Development Center of the Birzeit University (Palestine)

  • Kusi Kawsay School (Peru)

    • Watch video - UNESCO Associated Schools Project Network (ASPnet)

Each of the three laureates received an award of US $50,000, and was invited to join the ESD for 2030 Global Network (ESD-Net) in order to tie long-term collaboration with UNESCO.
The award ceremony took place on 19 November 2021 during the 41st session of the General Conference of UNESCO. Watch the video of the event.

The Prize was renewed in November 2019 for a period of six years (2020-2025) with a biennial cycle. The laureates of the 2021 UNESCO-Japan Prize on Education for Sustainable Development – the first edition of the renewed second phase, were recommended by an independent international jury. 113 nominations were submitted by the governments of 54 Member States and 8 organizations in official partnership with UNESCO.

Laureates 2019

The winners of the 5th edition of the Prize were named on 15 October 2019.

  • the Camphill Community Trust (Botswana)

  • the Sustainable Amazon Foundation (Brazil)

  • the City of Hamburg (Germany)

Each of the three laureates received an award of US $50,000. The award ceremony took place at UNESCO Headquarters on 15 November, within the framework of the UNESCO General Conference.

The winners of this year’s UNESCO-Japan Prize on Education for Sustainable Development were chosen by an independent international jury from a record number of 115 nominations, submitted by the governments of 63 UNESCO Member States and ten organizations in official partnership with UNESCO. The core selection criteria were the projects’ potential for transformation, their innovative quality and ability to embrace all three dimensions of sustainability: the economy, society and the environment.

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Laureates 2018

The Director-General of UNESCO named the three winners of the 2018 edition on 21 September 2018. 

Each of the three non-profit organizations received an award of US$ 50,000. The award ceremony took place at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris on 9 October 2018.

The winners were chosen by an independent international jury from 87 nominations, submitted by the governments of UNESCO Member States and organizations in official partnership with UNESCO.

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Laureates 2017

UNESCO revealed the three winners of the 2017 UNESCO-Japan Prize on ESD on 21 September 2017:

Each of them will receive an award of USD 50,000, generously funded by the Government of Japan.
The 2017 winners, chosen by UNESCO’s Director-General based on recommendations from an independent jury comprised of five international ESD experts, are a school, a business and a non-profit organization of, respectively, local, regional and global scope.
The Director-General and the Japanese Minister of Education awarded the Prize to the three laureates in a ceremony at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris on 3 November 2017, during the 39th session of the UNESCO General Conference.
 

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Laureates 2016

The laureates of the 2016 UNESCO-Japan Prize on ESD were named by the Director-General of UNESCO on 15 September 2016:

This is the second edition of the Prize, which was established in 2014 to honour and showcase outstanding and innovative ESD projects and programmes within the framework of the Global Action Programme on ESD (GAP). Generously funded by the Government of Japan, the Prize comprises three annual awards of US$50,000 each.

Winners are selected every year by the Director-General of UNESCO on the basis of recommendations by an independent jury composed of five international ESD experts. The three laureates of this year’s Prize were chosen from among 120 nominations submitted by 64 UNESCO Member States and 10 NGOs in official partnership with UNESCO.

The Prize on ESD and its laureates highlight the crucial role of education in connecting the social, economic, cultural and environmental dimensions of sustainable development.

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Laureates 2015

The first winners of the UNESCO-Japan Prize were announced by the Director-General of UNESCO in September 2015, following the recommendations of an international jury.

The three organizations each received an award of USD 50,000.

They were awarded in a ceremony at UNESCO Headquarters on 5 November 2015 for their outstanding projects in the field of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), chosen from among 60 nominations received from Member State governments and non-governmental organizations in official relations with UNESCO.

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