Overseas Assistance to Environmental Education by NGOs

—With reference to a project by the Common Agenda Round Table—

Abstract

The importance of overseas assistance to environmental education (EE) activities by NGOs has been increasingly recognized. The purpose of this paper is to make an academic contribution to the further promotion of such activities. An environmental education project by the Common Agenda Round Table (CART) is examined, due to its uniqueness: it tries to develop an ‘NGO EE network’, which seems to be beneficial for the promotion of EE by NGOs.

The hypothetical benefits of a network in promoting EE can be categorized into 3 groups: (1) Improvements in Communication and Resource-Sharing among members (2) Improvements in External Relations (3) Promotion of Social Learning.

The examination of the situation of NGOs in developing countries from the viewpoint of network's benefits has clarified the needs of such network.

The study has revealed that CART project has contributed to the development of such a network in quantitative and qualitative terms. CART has provided assistance to Environmental Education Network of Indonesia (Jaringan Pendidikan Lingkungan: JPL) from its infancy. CART project has increased its membership as well as the budget of JPL. Also, JPL has shown that it has generated the three hypothetical benefits of network. The study has shown that the first benefit has been clearly recognized by the JPL members themselves. In fact, information exchange has been greatly encouraged, which has contributed to the improvement of the members' activities. In addition, JPL has successfully attracted much domestic and international assistance, which can be recognized as the result of the second benefit. Even the third benefit, ‘promotion of social learning’, has also been recognized.

This study explains the effectiveness and feasibility of establishing a network to promote EE by NGOs in developing countries, which can be a model for the future efforts.