ISLAMABAD, Nov 28: The government and Unesco will work together to develop curriculum for environmental education and capacity building of the environmental journalists to promote the cause of sustainable development in the country.

This was agreed in a meeting of Unesco Director/Representative Maurice Robson with Federal Minister for Environment Hameedullah Jan Afridi here on Friday.

In a statement issued, the federal minister said mass awareness and education had been identified as one of the main areas of the activities under the One UN Reform Programme.

He said the government was looking forward to Unesco assistance for mass awareness and education programme of the ministry to be launched in connection with celebration of 2009 as the Year of Environment.

He said the curriculum regarding environmental education from primary to ninth grade level had been developed and curriculum committee had been formulated to fine-tune the syllabus.

The minister said the issue of the inclusion of environmental education at the higher education and university level had been taken up with the Higher Education Commission. He asked the visiting UN representative to be part of the activities organised during the Year of Environment.

In his remarks, the Unesco representative said the organisation would like to assist the Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Education to fine-tune the syllabus of environmental education at primary, secondary and higher level.

As proposed by the minister, he agreed to be the part of the curriculum committee on environmental education. Mr Robson apprised the minister that the Unesco was closely working with other UN agencies on initiatives under One UN Programme to capitalise advantages of linkages in different sectors.

He said the Unesco would actively participate in mass awareness activities being launched by the Ministry of Environment to promote cause of sustainable development in the country.

He suggested that strong cross ministerial linkages should be developed to streamline the efforts in this regard. “We would like to seek out areas of cooperation for future working for the mutual benefits of the ministry and Unesco,” he added.