Take charge of your ability to leverage the outcomes in systems to accomplish the goals of the Earth Charter and SDGs.
The Earth Charter, the SDGs, and other frameworks work to protect the integrity of our planet and its ability to support life on it in a just, inclusive manner. They seek to transition our ways of living on the planet to become sustainable. Organizations working to accomplish these goals; however, are independent, fragmented, working to relatively narrow mandates with closed decision processes. To ensure the success of humanity at transcending these challenges we need to create institutional capacity for systems leadership.
Short Description
The course brings together those motivated to lead and accomplish the missions of the Earth Charter, the SDGs, and other similar programmes. It equips them with the ability to recognize the systems that drive outcomes for their missions, discover places to intervene, and build systems that overcome fragmented, independent, and closed decision processes and build responsive ones.
The course will build individual and organizational capacity to address the systemic causes for the problems and challenges of the systems that decide to embrace the vision of the Earth Charter and the SDGs. It will provide participants with an opportunity to develop habits to see the whole relating to the Earth Charter or the SDGs. It will provide them with the opportunity to build the habits that drive the behaviour and change that affects the Earth Charter and the SDGs, not just the parts that constitute the indicators of the symptoms that they work hard to hide.
This course is an opportunity to build a global system of systems leaders who help their organizations to discover meaningful ways to turn conscience into action to accomplish the Earth Charter and the SDGs.
This course will have live sessions every week that will be recorded for those who might not be able to attend.
This course is designed as a complementary course to the Introduction to Systems Thinking course, which begins on 21 September 2020.
Learning objectives
This course will support participants to:
- Recognize the systems and principles of systems that address the Earth Charter or that require more attention or strategies for that.
- Search for leverage to change the behaviour of systems that will turn conscience into action
- Recognize and address the challenges of governance of systems that impact the Earth Charter
- See and analyze a system the want to intervene through the lenses of the Earth Charter
Participants Profile
If you have taken our course on Introduction to Systems Thinking and are looking for opportunities to learn more about it and how this relates to the implementation of sustainability and the Earth Charter vision, this course if for you. If you are in a leadership position in government, NGO or business working to address the goals of the Earth Charter, the SDGs or other similar frameworks, and you feel the need to find leverage to make a meaningful impact, you will want to be part of our course on Systems Leadership, the Earth Charter and SDGs. If you influence foundations and funding agencies that support projects that work to accomplish the Earth Charter or the SDGs and other similar mandates, and want to ensure the success of your programmes and projects, this may be the retreat to build capacity of your team and grantees to accomplish their objectives. As an impactful leader, you will bring humility, compassion, inclusiveness and sharing to the course.
Course format / Methodology
Systems Leadership, the Earth Charter and SDGs is an online, facilitated course of five weeks involving 20 hours.
Participants will be introduced to the concepts through content and facilitation that include videos, articles, live conversations, a project, and discussion forums. In each session, participants are expected to actively participate in conversations, focused inquiry, and complete the project.
At the end of the course, participants will submit a 5-minute video summary of their project along with a report on the system they investigated during the course. This course will encourage interaction between participants, expect them to build connections, and collaborate with each other.
Themes
- The participants and purposes of systems required to accomplish the Earth Charter, SDGs and other similar framework’s goals.
- The governance of systems that drive the Earth Charter and SDG and its consequent outcomes and impact.
- The ideas of dependent, unfragmented, working to relatively broad mandates with open decision processes.
Schedule and Session Topics
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Week 1 |
Respect and care for the community of life
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Week 2 |
Ecological integrity
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Week 3 |
Social and economic justice
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Week 4 |
Democracy, non-violence and peace
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Week 5 |
Turning Conscience into Action
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Live sessions will take place every Wednesday at 8AM (GMT-6). These live sessions will be recorded in case a participant is not able to attend.
Partners
UNESCO Chair
This course was developed under the framework of the UNESCO Chair in Education for Sustainable Development with the Earth Charter, coordinated by the Earth Charter Center for Education. The Chair is a collaborative effort between UNESCO, Earth Charter International, and the University for Peace to develop educational programmes and research activities related to education, sustainability, and ethics using the Earth Charter as a fundamental reference.
Earth Charter Center for Education for Sustainable Development
The Earth Charter Center for Education for Sustainable Development, established by Earth Charter International, has a mission to “promote the transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework that includes respect and care of the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace,” with a special focus on education.
The Center offers a variety of executive, formative, and educational programmes in leadership for sustainable development, for policy makers, education professionals, youth, and the general public. Research projects are specially developed in partnerships with institutions of national and global relevance.
Facilitator
Anupam Saraph
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Close description
Systems thinker, Future Designer, and scientist, Anupam Saraph established the actor-based understanding of systems laying the foundation of the practice of change research and future design, as a means to create symbiotic, sustainable, anti-fragile, and resilient systems.
His research for the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, in 1993-94, gave rise to actor based modelling that models the interaction of individual actors in a system, allowing them to recognize the consequences of their actions and search for interventions that accomplish the common purposes of their systems.
He has been applying actor-based understanding of systems and the principles of governance of complex systems to design legislation, policy, strategy, and business models.
He works with leaders, and mentors’ teams, to help them to identify their systems, recognize the common purposes of its actors, and accomplish their toughest shared challenge – their mission.
He also serves on the boards of Public and Private Sector companies and NGOs and as a Professor of Sustainability and Governance of Complex Systems at universities in Asia, Europe and the United States.
UNESCO Chair
This course was developed under the framework of the UNESCO Chair in Education for Sustainable Development with the Earth Charter, coordinated by the Earth Charter Center for Education. The Chair is a collaborative effort between UNESCO, Earth Charter International, and the University for Peace to develop educational programmes and research activities related to education, sustainability, and ethics using the Earth Charter as a fundamental reference.
Earth Charter Center for Education for Sustainable Development
The Earth Charter Center for Education for Sustainable Development, established by Earth Charter International, has a mission to “promote the transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework that includes respect and care of the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace,” with a special focus on education.
The Center offers a variety of executive, formative, and educational programmes in leadership for sustainable development, for policy makers, education professionals, youth, and the general public. Research projects are specially developed in partnerships with institutions of national and global relevance.