BUDAPEST: Assigned by His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tarik, Dr Madeeha bint Ahmed al Shaibaniyah, Minister of Education and Chairperson of the National Commission for Education, Culture and Science, presented the 2024 Unesco Sultan Qaboos Prize for Environmental Conservation to the Namib Desert Environmental Education Trust (NaDEET), a non-profit organisation dedicated to sustainable development and environmental education, in Budapest on Wednesday. It recognises NaDEET’s significant contributions to promoting sustainability and environmental education in Namibia. The prize includes a $100,000 cash.
The Namib Desert Environmental Education Trust embodies the fundamental spirit of the Unesco Man and Biosphere programme and of Unesco’s core mandate to ‘Build peace in the minds of men and women’. It does so through a constant commitment to building environmental commitment, centre by centre, community by community.
Established in 2003, NaDEET operates environmental education centres in and around the NamibRand Nature Reserve.
The Centre’s immersive, hands-on programmes work with adults and children to build sustainable practices, including solar cooking, water conservation, and recycling. Their activities encourage participants to live sustainably in one of the world’s most fragile ecosystems. Over 16,000 Namibians have already participated in a NaDEET Centre programme since its founding.
In addition to its Centre-based programmes, NaDEET is also extending its impact nationwide through initiatives on education for sustainable development. The 2-year programme has trained hundreds of teachers, leading to the implementation of over 740 activities on education for sustainable development in schools across Namibia, reaching more than 75,000 students and teachers.
NaDEET has also played a key role in shaping Namibia’s environmental policies. From 2017-2019, NaDEET was a lead organisation in the drafting and finalisation of the Namibian National Environmental Education and Education for Sustainable Development (EE/ESD) Policy, the first stand-along policy of its kind in southern Africa. The organisation’s efforts have been recognised through various accolades, including the 2018 Unesco-Japan Prize on education for sustainable development.
The award ceremony was held as part of the World Science Forum, organised by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in cooperation with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco), in the presence of Dr Tamas Solyok, President of Hungary, Sheng Kuo, Deputy Director-General of Unesco, ministers, in addition to representatives of many academic and scientific institutions from various countries around the world.
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