THE HALIFAX DECLARATION RECOMMENDATIONS

From: Creating a Common Future: An Action Plan for Universities. Follow up to the Halifax Conference on University Action for Sustainable Development, December 9-11, 1991. Halifax : Lester Pearson Institute for International Development, Dalhousie University, 1992.

These ideas were put forward by persons attending the conference and are not ranked, nor were they formally ratified by the conference.

1. Local
2. Regional
3. National
4. International
   
6. A. Within each university, activities could include:
7. identifying a unit focal point on campus to be responsible for developing a sustainable development strategy for the university;
   
8. completing an initial sustainable development strategy for the university by the sustainable development unit within two months of establishment;
   
9. a meeting between the president and senior management of the university to explain the Halifax UASD Conference;
   
10. organizing at least one public panel presentation on the challenge and content of sustainable development and how this relates to UNCED;
    
11. a commitment to encourage faculty to review curricula to see how sustainable development concepts might be integrated into their courses. Some form of support seminar may be necessary for this idea to work;
    
12. sponsoring prizes in sustainable development linked to UNCED. These might be for students, faculty, and administration;
    
13. examining all university linkage projects to explore how sustainable development elements might be infused;
    
14. conducting an environmental audit of the university;
    
15. participation in a Sustainable Development Day linked to UNCED in June, 1992. Universities around the world could ideally agree on the same date;
    
16. examining the university in the context of the Green Plan (or comparable documents in other countries);
    
17. examining existing research programs to see how they might contribute more to sustainable development imperatives;
    
18. endorsing the Talloires declaration;
    
19. the distribution of the Nova Scotia Round Table on Environment and Economy and the Tufts University papers dealing with education and curriculum development (or comparable documents) to students and faculty for comment and response;
    
20. designing new and collaborative environment and sustainable development research projects involving faculty and students;
    
21. meetings with faculty, students, and the Board of Governors to respond to the challenge of how the university will deal with the sustainable development;
    
22. increasing the number of fellowships for students from developing countries to study in Canada;
    
23. encouraging innovative educational technologies for communicating environmental issues;
    
24. developing more partnerships with business and industry for sustainable development;
    
25. developing more partnerships with NGOs in order to learn about their work with sustainable development and also as a means of contributing to it. Some examples, using the Red Cross and Red Crescent as a model, might include:
    
    1. exploring cooperation with national and international Red Cross or Red Crescent societies and then linking university research to support the societies' field operations for sustainable development,
    2. exploring methods of twinning university projects with Red Cross or Red Crescent societies' projects to see how they can reinforce each other,
    3. helping reinforce South/South cooperative projects with the Red Cross/Crescent. This is a Red Cross priority approach and is frequently put into practice,
    4. linking some centers of excellence with Red Cross/Crescent centres of strength, e.g. the Bangladesh cyclone centers and early warning systems; Finnish Red Cross blood bank and research; several disaster preparedness centres which are linked to sustainable development, such as in Ethiopia,
    5. supporting research, advocacy, and training into- the ever-growing plight of refugees, working with the Red Cross/Crescent or UNHCR,
    6. encouraging faculty to be available for front-line environment project work with the Red Cross for which advice is frequently needed,
    7. cooperating with the Red Cross in such fields as women and sustainable development and bringing the handicapped more fully into society,
    8. cooperating with the Red Cross/Crescent to provide training for sustainable development to persons willing to work as Red Cross/Crescent volunteers.
       
27. publicizing the student winners of the Globe '92 Environmental Audit Competition and supporting annual event among Canadian universities;
28. encouraging university libraries to purchase more documents written or published in the South;
    
29. examining the realignment of existing academic units to address sustainable development while at the same time not compartmentalizing the theme;
    
30. building more South/North research projects as a means of learning about sustainable development from both perspectives;
    
31. enabling and encouraging more South/South cooperation in linkage projects;
    
32. developing teaching teams to serve as models for interdisciplinary research;
    
33. fostering two-way exchanges of personnel to promote capacity building for sustainable development;
    
34. establishing chairs in sustainable development and sponsoring links between universities for sharing speakers in this field;
    
35. designing continuing education programs with respect to environmental issues for NGOs, public service units, and businesses;
    
36. designing an environmental literacy program that would be widely available and encouraged;
    
37. meeting with local town and city councils to see how they might cooperate in support of sustainable development;
    
38. developing forums for awareness and information exchange, education, and public debate;
    
39. designing interdisciplinary seminars which examine a sample of university linkages from the point of view of sustainable development;
    
40. encouraging leading issue research programs and teaching orientations that foster inter-disciplinary work;
    
41. supporting a network on universities and sustainable development within the region;
    
42. encouraging outward bound sustainable development projects that reach across the university and into the regions where the university is situated;
    
43. establishing a prestigious prize to encourage far-reaching analysis and thought on sustainable development;
    
44. funding scholarships in sustainable development;
    
45. forming think-tanks, with people drawn from government, industry, and academe to examine the interaction of sustainable development with particular disciplines;
    
46. examining appropriate technology and recognize that to be "appropriate" technology must be environmentally sound, economically viable, and relevant in the social context;
    
47. assessing community needs for environmental information, assessment, and technology transfer and seeing how university programs might respond;
    
48. examining the Environmental Management Development in Indonesia Project model for its application to linkages;
    
49. developing fund raising methods for sustainable development to determine the applicability of innovative approaches, such as debt-for-nature swaps, developed by organizations like Conservation International;
    
50. reviewing all linkage programs to see how sustainable development elements can be injected;
    
51. adjusting the university reward system to account for community service and outreach as a balance for other criteria for tenure and promotion;
    
52. examining how indigenous knowledge might be given greater weight in curricula;
    
53. giving a series of talks in school on sustainable development and UNCED;
    
54. specifying multi-disciplinary research as an area which requires extensive support;
    
55. building more multi-disciplinary teams to tackle environmental concepts and issues;
    
56. accessing state-of-the art curriculum on sustainable development and circulating it;
    
57. building twinning relationships with institutions in twinned cities;
    
58. encouraging urban issues as areas for teaching and research while at the same time not neglecting the rural;
    
59. including alumni in efforts to address sustainable development;
    
60. involving chambers of commerce in the university's efforts to address sustainable development;
    
61. working with faculty and students to develop sustainable development strategies, policies, and action plans;
    
62. tasking key faculty members to feed sustainable development through the university system;
    
63. involving government, business, and NGOs in the university's efforts to address sustainable development;
    
64. involving students in the university's linkage projects both at home and in the host country;
    
65. Listing sustainable development expertise on campus such as was done at the University of Manitoba;
    
66. developing a strategic plan for sustainable development within the university;
    
67. preparing a manual on "Sustainable Development in Universities"; other publications could include "How Universities can work with NGOs in Contributing to Sustainable Development;
    
68. preparing a mission statement which articulates a commitment to the environment and general environmental principles;
    
69. preparing an advisory paper to encourage and guide graduate students on how they might link their thesis subjects to the goals of UNCED;
    [The Halifax Recommendations | The Halifax Declaration]
    
70. B. Within the Region, university activities could include:
    
71. </

• encouraging universities which were not at the conference to participate in the process and to endorse the Halifax Declaration;
  
• having the presidents and the sustainable development unit representatives of universities in the region meet with the provincial Minister of the Environment to discuss mutual goals;
  
• establishing a network among universities in order to share information about the "Greening" of the universities: this could be linked to the national university network.
  [The Halifax Recommendations | The Halifax Declaration]
  
• C. On a National Level, university activities could include:
• the establishment of a sustainable development advisory group within bodies representative of a national community of universities to review progress at the national level;
  
• working with the national delegation for UNCED preparatory to the conference;
  
• reviewing key public policy documents on sustainable development;
  
• supporting national citizen participation programs;
  
• approaching national media services to identify practical ways the universities can contribute to national programs on sustainable development;
  
• seeking to have universities play a more central role in strategic planning and decision making with respect to capacity building;
  
• encouraging governments to identify strategic plans for capacity building;
  
• circulating to students through the national university association the Youth Declaration on Environment and Development;
  
• establishing a national university network to be linked to the national university association;
  [The Halifax Recommendations | The Halifax Declaration]
  
• D. At the International Level, university activities could include:
• providing support for the president of the IAU, in cooperation with UNU, to represent the international university community at UNCED;
  
• establishing an international council for sustainable development linked to the IAU; IAU to draft a proposed mandate in cooperation with UNU and Halifax Conference organizers;
  
• pushing to have environmental education placed higher on the UNESCO agenda;
  
• promoting a "Brundtland" prize or some distinguished international prize in sustainable development;
  
• building into all the international linkage programs of those universities present and signatories to the "Halifax Declaration", a sustainable development component and drawing upon the key principles found in the EMDI model insofar as they are appropriate;
  
• circulating the "Halifax Declaration" and "Plan of Action" as widely as possible, in different languages, to university organizations at the national, regional and international levels, appropriate NGOs including youth organizations, relevant UN. bodies, and the mass media;
  
• increasing interaction between the university community and those UN organizations concerned with sustainable development such as UNU, UNESCO, and UNEP;
  
• encouraging international agencies to use their requirements for information and policy development to build up local capacity in the universities;
  
• encouraging government to assign a percentage of external aid funding for basic education and training in sustainable development;
  
• for the countries represented at the UASD Conference, Zimbabwe, Brazil, Indonesia and Canada, forming a partnership for cooperation for sustainable development;
  
• accepting the offer of the Brazilian rectors to attend the pre-UNCED Academic Scientific Parallel Conference and have the Brazilian rectors also put forward the view of the universities, in addition to the IAU presentation.