Although Mongolia has 1.56 million square kms of territory with natural landscapes, in the last decade the environmental condition has sharply deteriorated. Natural processes such as rivers and lakes drying up, desertification and sand covering are caused by climate warming and its drying effects, but the pollution and destruction caused by human activities is even worse. Even though Mongolia is sparsely populated, with 2.5 million people, nearly two-thirds of the nation's inhabitants now reside in the capital city-Ulaanbaatar.

Poverty is a key issue, as severe economic problems in the 1990s resulted in a significantly lower standard of living. Solid waste management is a serious problem in rapidly growing urban areas. There is no recycling system, which means every used product becomes rubbish. This issue cannot be solved only through new and advanced technology, so it is very important to raise the educational level of the population. Sexually transmitted infections (STI) in Mongolia are common and increasing, both in the general adult population and among vulnerable groups such as out-of-school youths and poor uneducated adults. High incidence of STI could contribute to the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS in the country. Particularly vulnerable to this threat are young people, adolescents and street children, as much needs to be done to change behaviour patterns.

The Mongolian Action Programme for the 21st century was created in 1998, and contains a national sustainable development strategy including education. But, the term "Education for Sustainable Development" itself is a totally new concept in Mongolia and is familiar exclusively to certain people, often being confused with "Environmental Education".

The curriculum and contents related to ESD are very insufficient, even non-existent in both formal and Non-Formal schooling. Thus, it is of crucial importance to develop and produce learning and teaching materials, which are ESD-oriented in order to raise public awareness through NFE. For this reason, we are developing and submitting this project proposal on NFE Capacity Building for ESD. The NFE "Enlightenment" centres in rural areas and partner agencies would play a major role in facilitating the participation of the communities.

The specific objectives of the project are to:

• Develop the curriculum of Non-Formal Education for Sustainable Development (NFESD) to raise public awareness;
• Develop audio-visual learning materials on different topics (textbook, book, guideline and CDROM, video and audio);
• Strengthen NFESD trainers and facilitators;
• Strengthen CLCs and NFE centres at grassroots level;
• Conduct training for targets through CLCs based on distance learning.

Proposed activities:

• Translation and publishing of DESD documents;
• Study best practices from the developed countries on the NFESD;
• Based on other countries' practices develop its own curriculum of NFESD;
• Developing and producing teaching/learning materials on ESD;
• Conduct training of trainers;
• Selection of teachers to conduct the training in target areas;
• To conduct training for the local people through the NFE Enlightenment centres and CLCs;
• Monitoring and evaluation;

1. Drafting report;
2. Submitting final report of the project.

Main expected results:

1. To develop the curriculum of Non-Formal Education for Sustainable Development (NFESD);
2. To provide basic knowledge on ESD and problem solving on environmental issues;
3. To produce easy-to-understand learning materials on ESD never before produced for all age groups, school drop-out children, low-educated adults in rural remote areas and to distribute them through the NFE "Enlightenment" Centres;
4. To increase public awareness, understanding and knowledge of environmental education and ESD, and to decrease environmental pollution;
5. To increase NFE personnel capacity on ESD;
6. To set up ESD Network and training materials production;
7. To set up a policy on ESD;
8. To establish a favourable learning environment to organize Sustainable Development training for adults and dropouts in CLCs;
9. To improve life quality by assisting all people to acquire environmental education, and improve their awareness and knowledge of environmental protection for a healthy life.

Training for school dropouts while the Non-Formal Education (NFE) facilitators participate in a sharing meeting View of LRC room in the NFDE/LRC Literacy training in the Ger (traditional housing of Mongolia) LView of the Video studio of the NFDE/:LRC which prepares audio and video materials Capacity building/Training of NFE facilitators (one of the functions of NFDE/LRC)

The National Centre for Non-Formal and Distance Education (NFDE), which is a governmental organization under the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science of Mongolia, conducts several activities through the LRC Programme to improve and strengthen literacy education, and it will contribute to the achievement of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development in Mongolia. The NFDE is supporting and assisting to improve the literacy rate, Non-Formal education and a variety of training for all people, especially adults, house-women, drop-outs, out-of-school-children, people in remote areas who cannot receive education, and socially vulnerable groups. Additionally it is developing and disseminating training materials in order to implement the DESD aims. Therefore, the NFDE is focusing on cooperation with international organizations such as UNESCO, UNICEF, ACCU, APPEAL and ILO, and is conducting seminars and workshops, adapting and disseminating training materials in a Mongolian version developed by the organizations within the framework of the implementation of various projects on literacy and NFE. Since 2003, the NFDE has been successfully implementing about 10 projects such as "Non-Formal Education for Girls and Women", "English Education for Secondary schools through Distance Learning" with support from UNESCO, and "Improvement of Quality and Delivery on Equivalency Education" supported by IPEC/ILO, Local Production and Utilization of PLANET-1 and PLANET-3 by the ACCU. Additionally, the NFDE focuses on the partnership with LRCs in Asia and the Pacific Region countries, and dissemination of the best experiences and practices of those countries in the Mongolian context. Objectives of LRC Programme/NFDE in Mongolia are: To act as a documentation centre and data bank for literacy, adult and continuing education To act as a centre for dissemination of information about all aspects of NFE, particularly for promotion literacy To design and develop suitable NFE teaching learning materials for different target groups To increase capacity of literacy and NFE personnel To improve information and research on theory and methodology of NFE To ensure networking and coordination between GOs and NGOs in the field of literacy and NFE To promote innovation and best practices to improve delivery system and curriculum of the NFE system

Photo copyright © National Centre for Non-Formal and Distance Education (NFDE), Ministry of Education, Culture and Science