The COVID-19 pandemic is causing unprecedented economic and social disruptions in nearly every aspect of people’s livelihoods, including the education sector. To ensure that learning and training activities are part of a post-COVID-19 recovery, the Green Growth Knowledge Partnership (GGKP) and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) jointly launched the Green Learning Network (GLN).
The network – introduced on 3 November during a GGKP webinar on Rebuilding Better: The role of training and education – is an online collaborative space that aims to advance learning for sustainable development. Ultimately, it aims to help build a critical mass of knowledge and skills to advance green economy policies and actions. The GLN will showcase a wide range of green learning opportunities for students and provides an exchange space for demand-driven collaboration on green learning among practitioners.
“Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have seen an increase in the demand for online courses, so there has been a change in learning behaviour, said Ramesh Durbarry, Director-General of the Civil Service College in Mauritius. “The GLN is an excellent tool to help people adapt to the current situation.”
With more learning activities moving online, the GLN aims to provide the necessary infrastructure for remote learning by removing geographic boundaries and addressing isolation during this time of crisis.
Angus Mackay, Director of the Division for Planet at UNITAR, further elaborated on how COVID-19 is reshaping the education sector and learning: “There has been a massive increase for on-demand content focusing on sustainability. The GLN can help us reach many more people.”
Institutions and professionals providing green learning are also often limited by the boundaries of individual thematic fields or geographical regions, while learners lack the resources to identify the right training and learning opportunities.
“The GLN will enable the delivery of green growth trainings in cases where trainers are unable to deliver these in person,” said Mariski Nirwan, Knowledge and Capacity Development Programme Lead at Global Green Growth Institute Indonesia.
Supported by the Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE), the GLN offers a unique platform for providing learning opportunities, enhancing collaboration and knowledge exchanges in green economy learning, and keeping members informed and inspired. Members will have access to an online library of green learning courses, programmes, publications, a demand-driven virtual collaborative space on various green learning topics, and online conversations and live events.
To explore various courses the GLN offers, visit the Learning Hub page.