An “Opportunity” for Sustainable Development and Sustainable Land Management Studies

Within the framework of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), SDG 4 on “Quality Education” and SDG 15 on “Life on Land” are an opportunity for Cambodia to address quality issues in education in combination with addressing the unsustainable use of natural resources and land degradation and to assure life-​long learning and employment. The unsustainable use of natural resources, and land resources in particular, impacts the livelihoods of both rural and urban populations. According to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), 55% of the rural population in Cambodia were living on degrading agricultural land in 2010, which is an increase of 38% in a decade. Land degradation restricts people from vital ecosystem services such as food and water, influences people’s livelihoods, increasing risk of poverty. The annual cost of land degradation is estimated at 677 million USD, equal to 8% of Cambodia’s Gross Domestic Product.

In Cambodia, the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE) has been collaborating with the Royal University of Agriculture (RUA) Cambodia within the framework of the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) funded project ‘Scaling-​up Sustainable Land Management with smallholder farmers in Cambodia, Lao PDR and Uganda’ since 2016. RUA was the national executing partner of this project in Cambodia, capacitating and supporting Cambodian agricultural extension services, which are part of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (MAFF).

The agricultural extension service assesses, implements and scales up Sustainable Land Management (SLM) with smallholder farmers, addressing issues of food insecurity, land degradation, climate change and disaster risk. The project has also made an effort to involve RUA Bachelor and Master students – of which a large majority after obtaining their diploma will work as agricultural officers for MAFF or other governmental, non-​governmental or international organizations. The opportunity grant was submitted together building on the existing project collaboration.

The curriculum for “Sustainable Development and Sustainable Land Management (SD & SLM)” for bachelor and master students at the Royal University of Agriculture (RUA), has been developed in a collaborative process by CDE and RUA researchers, a process involving several months of face-​to-face and online meetings to tailor the course content to the Cambodian context. The preliminary content of the curriculum was discussed with key stakeholders and students, and adjustments made based on the collected feedback. CDE researchers carried out two face-​to-face trainings on the curriculum for lecturers at RUA. The final training was a “Training of Trainers”, in which the language barrier of some lecturers was sometimes quite challenging, as well as the new Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)-​oriented teaching. This new approach, which is novel to almost all Cambodian lecturers, challenges both lecturers and students to become more open to new learning methods and settings. During the ToT, we observed a lot of enthusiasm for the innovative teaching–learning methods.

The Opportunity grant offered a great possibility to fill a gap noted during several years of collaboration between CDE and RUA in the IFAD project. It became clear that there were knowledge gaps amongst students and researchers on the topic of sustainability in general – a pre-​condition to understand and assess sustainable land management (SLM). Besides, in the current RUA curriculum, there is no focus on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in relation to natural resources. In the course of the IFAD project, CDE and RUA researchers therefore started discussing the possibility of establishing a curriculum on sustainability topics at RUA and other higher education institutions in Cambodia. Given that the Opportunity grant supports curriculum development, this was an excellent chance to start a collaboration with RUA and update their curriculum with ESD approaches and a specific curriculum focusing on SD and SLM.

The project offered an excellent opportunity to deepen the partnership between CDE and RUA. The RUA (which is part of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forest and Fisheries, MAFF) is in a unique position to contribute to a sustainable transformation in Cambodia by providing quality education and preparing students through Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) for shaping a sustainable future.

The curriculum got support from the highest political level in Cambodia, both from the UNCCD focal point due to the topical relevance and from the university rector with an interest to reshape the curriculum with ESD approaches. The curriculum was officially launched in January 2020 at a “High-​level Launch Event’’ in Phnom Penh. This was the starting point of a long-​term collaboration between the Ministries, the RUA as well as CDE, helping to transform and shape the tertiary education in Cambodia.

So far, the curriculum has already been piloted two times at the faculty of Forestry, but in an online format due to Covid-​19 restrictions. The course is available in English and Khmer, and a teaching manual was developed for the RUA lecturers. In future, a joint SD-​SLM course is planned with other relevant BSc Faculties fostering the interdisciplinary set-​up. The future vision is that the RUA will become a leading research institution in the field of SD and ESD.

From the CDE side, it was very interesting to get access to the Cambodian university system and to start collaborating with RUA researchers on the topic of sustainability. The curriculum is linked to an IFAD project, in which certain gaps related to the topic of sustainability were detected. Hence, it was very fruitful and timely to reflect upon how we can capacitate the young generation on sustainability topics. This context gave the project a very practical as well as meaningful aspect. We reflected upon the competencies required by students to foster sustainable development in their future jobs, as well as how effective teaching-​learning arrangements can be created to build up these competencies. Moving from knowledge to action enables students to become future change agents. Establishing such new teaching–learning arrangements in a curriculum will take some time, and requires a close evaluation of the whole process to assess its effectiveness.

Mr. Tim Sophea, lecturer at RUA, and partner in Cambodia: “I do find the ESD approach important as it is new to us and this curriculum comes timely as our university is updating its curriculum. Applying the SD and SLM curriculum makes our university quite advanced in the sustainability subject.”