International jury of the UNESCO-Japan Prize on ESD

The five members of the independent UNESCO International Jury for the Prize on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) have been selected and appointed by the Director-General of UNESCO.

The jury will meet to assess the nominations and formulate the recommendations to the Director-General of UNESCO.

The jurors for the 2023 edition are:

Ms Nouzha Alaoui, Secretary-General of the Mohammed VI Foundation for Environmental Protection, has a wealth of experience in the field of environment and sustainable development. For last two decades, under the leadership of H.R.H Princess Lalla Hasnaa, Ms. Alaoui has led the Foundation to be evolved from an impactful aspiration into an established and recognized institution. She is an active and committed ESD promoter as Member of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council of the Kingdom of Morocco, Member of the Scientific Committees of COP22, the World Environmental Education Congress, the Education and Communication Commission of the international Union for Conservation of Nature as well as the Mission 4.7 Education Task Force of experts. Ms. Alaoui is also the Secretary-General of the Foundation for the Safeguarding of cultural heritage of Rabat. Previously, she held managerial positions in the Private Sector. She has academic background in sustainable development, organizational management and leadership in civil society organizations.

H.R.H. Princess Abze Djigma is a Mossi Princess from Burkina Faso and a leading representative of the traditional authorities in Africa. She is the Initiator and Leader of the MAMA-LIGHT® Initiative for Sustainable Energy, recognized by UN as one of the 14 breakthrough solutions achieving the SDGs. With her over 20 years of experience of rural development and working with local communities, she has become an internationally recognized role model for empowerment of women and youth in developing countries. She has several important positions including Administrator of the “West Africa Solar Pack”, the Chair of the H.R.H. Princess Abze Djigma Foundation, and Commissioner of the Global Commission to End Energy Poverty. She served as deputy head of Burkina Faso’s delegation of the COP23, 24 and 25 as well as Member of the ECOWAS Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREEE) Technical Committee.

Mr Dario Soto-Abril is Executive Secretary of Global Water Partnership (GWP). Before joining GWP, he served as Global CEO at Fairtrade International. He has extensive experience in strengthening partnerships with businesses, governments, and international organizations, leading transformational processes resulting in a greater focus on impact priorities and delivering positive change for millions of people around the globe. He spent the first part of his career as a corporate lawyer.

Mr Arjen Wals is a Professor of Transformative Learning for Socio-Ecological Sustainability at Wageningen University in The Netherlands and a Guest Professor on Whole School Approaches to Sustainability at the Norwegian Life Sciences University (NMBU). He also holds the UNESCO Chair of Social Learning and Sustainable Development. His teaching and research focus on designing learning processes and learning spaces that enable people to contribute meaningfully sustainability. A central question in his work is: how to create conditions that support (new) forms of learning which take full advantage of the diversity, creativity and resourcefulness that is all around us, but so far remain largely untapped in our search for a world that is more sustainable than the one currently in prospect? Mr Wals maintains a popular blog. See brief video of his key mission.

Mr Kazuhiro Yoshida is a professor at the Center for the Study of International Cooperation in Education, Hiroshima University, Japan. He served as co-chair and member (Asia and the Pacific region) of the SDG-Education 2030 Steering Committee. He is secretary of Africa-Asia University Dialogue on Educational Development, a UNITWIN network where 29 African and Asian universities conduct joint research on education issues. He is a member of the Japan National Commission for UNESCO. With extensive publications in English and in Japanese, his research interest is in education policies and reform in developing countries, aid effectiveness, and skills development. He has professional experiences in over 30 developing countries, through his former services at the World Bank, Japan International Cooperation Agency, a development consulting firm, and private companies. He holds a MPhil in development studies from University of Sussex.