“While donors nowadays emphasize on sustainable development, the finance of such development is becoming scarcer and scarcer. For this reason, governments will need to shift away from traditional external donor funding and move towards more sustainable finance mechanisms that can be allocated and managed in-country.”

UNITAR courses don’t just provide information — they help individuals develop ideas and solutions to the problems they face. They help individuals cultivate sustainable solutions. Mamunur Rahman is one of these individuals.

"Our project has already raised SCP Awareness in almost 500 Sri Lankan students ranging from school-aged children to university staff. At the same time, I am also working to develop a model green university in Sri Lanka, where SCP practices will be developed and, I hope, adopted by other universities in the country to become more environmentally friendly.”  

“Since our app became available, we have seen users from 10 different countries using it. Through the app, it has created a new network for stakeholders to collaborate in order to promote safety practices for nanotechnologies.”

"In the future, I plan to work in the entrepreneurship field, maybe as a business developer or even with my own company. "

“I had the idea in my mind since some time, but the courses I took helped me improve it. And since it also helped me to find more funds, it definitely helped the project to take off.”

 “We developed a small curriculum that introduced students and teachers at several schools to sustainability. The students and teachers then competed for the titles of Sustainable School and Sustainable Ambassadors.”

“There is a tremendous work to be done, and we need to target influential individuals and institutions."

“We need to find different ways of talking to each other about climate change, rather than leaving this to formal education, and the best way to do this is to start young.”

Avoiding an ‘ecological credit crunch’ requires training and education for new skills and a change in attitudes to enable countries to leapfrog towards sustainable consumption and production practices. Children in Bhutan are proving to be valuable agents in this process.