Marrakech, November 14, 2016
HRH Princess Lalla Hasnaa delivered the keynote address at the high-level session of the Education Day, held on Monday November 14 in the COP 22 blue zone in Presence of Ms. Patricia Espinoza, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, Ms. Erina Bokova Director-General of UNESCO, and Mr. Rachid Belmokhtar, Moroccan Minister of Education . She highlighted “the crucial importance of education, training and awareness-raising in the fight against climate change,” reaffirmed by the 2015 Paris Agreement in its article 12. HRH Princess Lalla Hasnaa noted that the Foundation she chairs has been working tirelessly in this direction for fifteen years.
During the session, Ms. Espinoza and Ms. Bokova submitted the first Global Monitoring Report (GEM-Planet Report 2016) to Her Royal Highness following the United Nations launch of the UNESCO Decade of Education For Sustainable Development in 2004.
Subsequently, representatives of the Young Reporters for the Environment (JRE), a flagship environmental education program sponsored by the Foundation since 2002, launched a Call for Youth before Her Royal Highness. This call, read by Aicha Oujidi, a JRE from Morocco, and Melvin Lie Morris, a JRE from Kenya, contains nine recommendations discussed and agreed by the JREs from 11 different countries (Morocco, Kenya, Ghana, South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania, Portugal, Canada, Romania, Kazakhstan and Malta), which the Foundation organized on November 13 and 14 in Marrakech on the theme of reducing the ecological footprint. One of the nine recommendations was adopted by YONGO, which committed to bring it to the UNFCCC level.