FLACAM Network and its trajectory in Latin America during the last 30 years

 

 

Launched in 1989 and designated UNESCO FLACAM Chair Unitwin Network for Sustainable Development in 1995, FLACAM has continuously been performing activities for 30 years.

 

With more than 20 Member institutions across Latin America and Spain, among incorporated and adhering ones, its main focus is the training of human resources in the formulation and management of projects connected with sustainable development at masters level.

 

In 2017, a varied offer through short virtual courses in areas such as sustainable tourism, landscape, environment architecture, social housing and urban inclusion, environment projection, sustainable city, education for sustainability, urban design, strategic planning and sustainable policies, among others, was added to its well-known masters training offer that has been taught for more than 20 years throughout Latin America. These masters train thousands of professionals/students from diverse disciplines and from more than 15 countries.

Many of these courses play key roles in NGOs, teaching and research in state or private universities or in Latinamerican government areas and their significance and impact at local, regional and national level increases and consolidates year by year. In 2019, FLACAM Network commemorates the 30th anniversary of its creation by institutions from Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The anniversary is intended to be celebrated with the support of the UNESCO Office and it will be held in the same Field Office where FLACAM was created.

 

Besides its intensive work in education/training, it develops a major

projecting activity, through which it has got on the ground hundreds of projects, consistent with the Sustainable Development Goals fostered by the United Nations.

 

The UNESCO-FLACAM Chair for Sustainable Development reaffirms day by day its commitment in pursuit of education on sustainability by being present at national and international events and seminars, many of them coordinated with other UNESCO Chairs, and by devoting its efforts on information, communication and promotion in their website and social networking sites.

 

Based on its own experience on the development of research/action projects across all Latin America and the world, it stimulates and promotes the training of transformative professionals, experts in sustainable development, by means of a transdisciplinary methodology and the participation and involvement of civil society, for their empowerment to reach an endogenous and genuine development at local and regional level.

 

After 30 years, FLACAM considers that it is the right moment to widen its presence and its convocation, as well as to enhance the discussion and the co-construction of knowledge south south in pursuit of sustainable development.

 

This South-South Congress called "Our Own Solutions" is promoted in order to present and discuss specific projects which have engendered the reinforcement of the applied project for sustainability and which make it possible to regenerate and strengthen the path towards sustainability.  That path begun 25 years ago with the Book which has the same name, and which was also presented with the support of UNESCO in Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit in 1992. 

 

25 years after that ecumenical event, and 30 years after the creation of FLACAM, with more than 600 professionals trained at master level, more than thirty projects got on the ground by the UNESCO Chair, more than 10 books published, dozens of articles and papers at international level and thousands of people involved directly or indirectly in participatory processes carried out in their projects of concrete transformation of reality, we believe it is time to give global visibility to the tradition developed by this UNESCO-FLACAM Chair for Sustainable Development, showing the path followed but mainly sharing the acquired knowledge, in order to contribute to the UN SDG and to the UNESCO effort for the improvement of the quality of life worldwide.  

 

General Goals

 

• Contribute to the consolidation of sustainability  as a goal at local, national and international level.

• Enhance reflection and co-construction of knowledge  in this vein.

• Promote education and training on sustainability in all levels, formal as well as informal.

• Contribute to a better strategy of articulation and intervention South-South (and not only Latin American) as regards education and sustainable development in public and private policies.  

• Strengthen the overview of sustainability as a framework for action towards the common good and the new economy.

 

Specific Goals

 

• Present lectures and offer conferences about the specific actions for the implementation of sustainability in the governability and the governance of our countries.

• Distinguish between the actions of sustainability for the strengthening of local identities and the continuity of the economic and cultural dependencies of global economies.

• Identify the best practices in the implementation of sustainability projects.

 

 

Addressees and scope

 

• students and professionals from any discipline, interested in reflecting critically and discussing the  way to reach sustainability at local, regional and even international level.

• local, national and international scholars and researchers that are interested in the subject matter, from a theoretical-conceptual point of view as well as methodological.

• officials and/or people in charge of public and private policies at local, regional or national level.

• NGOs leaders and members who are committed with sustainable development, cities and territory management and who have sustainability in general as a goal. 

• active educators, trainers of trainers, and education leaders who want to strengthen and enhance their pedagogical and didactic strategies of teaching-learning.

• FLACAM Network members, specially representative and adhering institutions, students and former students, professors and researchers.  

 

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