St. Kitts - Nevis National Commission for Unesco

05/06/2026

Happy World Environment Day 2026!

Message from H.E. Nerys Dockery, Secretary-General of the St. Kitts and Nevis National Commission for UNESCO

On World Environment Day, the St. Kitts and Nevis National Commission for UNESCO reaffirms a simple truth: protecting our natural heritage is inseparable from securing our human future.

For Small Island Developing States like St. Kitts and Nevis, this truth is lived daily. Climate change, biodiversity loss, and unsustainable practices threaten the very land and sea that sustain us. Yet they also inspire innovation, resilience, and stewardship.

This year, World Environment Day is being celebrated under the theme: "Inspired by Nature: Our Climate. For Our Future." In keeping with this theme, we draw strength and inspiration from the St. Mary’s Biosphere Reserve. As a UNESCO-designated site, St. Mary’s embodies the biosphere model: conserving ecosystems while empowering communities to thrive alongside nature.

Its achievements speak for themselves:
1. Strengthened biodiversity protection: The Reserve has advanced conservation of native flora and fauna, protecting critical watersheds and forest ecosystems that regulate water, prevent erosion, and store carbon.

2. Community-led stewardship: Local residents, farmers, and youth have been placed at the center of management, turning conservation from an abstract idea into daily practice. Training, awareness campaigns, and sustainable livelihood projects are building a generation of environmental leaders.

3. Integration with education: Through UNESCO’s Education for Sustainable Development agenda, St. Mary’s is becoming a living classroom. Students from across the Federation will soon engage in experiential learning on green energy, food security, and ecosystem health—learning from the land, not just about it.

4. A model for sustainable islands: St. Mary’s demonstrates how biosphere reserves can align conservation with development, showing that environmental integrity and economic opportunity can grow together.

UNESCO’s role is to support Member States in transforming places like St. Mary’s from protected areas into laboratories for solutions. Solutions for climate resilience, for green jobs, for food systems that work with nature, not against it.

On this World Environment Day, let us recommit to that work. Let the St. Mary’s Biosphere Reserve remind us that when we invest in nature, nature invests in us—with clean water, fertile soil, cultural identity, and hope for the next generation.

To the people of St. Kitts and Nevis: you are not just custodians of a biosphere. You are custodians of a vision for what sustainable island life can be. UNESCO stands with you as you continue to lead by example.

Happy World Environment Day!

May we all act—today and every day—for the planet we share.

29/05/2026

St. Kitts and Nevis Pioneers Education for Sustainable Development with UNESCO Support

With technical support from UNESCO, the UN’s specialized education agency, St. Kitts and Nevis is set to become one of the few Small Island Developing States (SIDS) to integrate Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) into its national curriculum beginning September 2026.

According to Dr. Tricia Esdaille, Senior Assistant Secretary in the Ministry of Education and lead for the national ESD initiative, the Ministry’s Curriculum Development Unit has strengthened ESD content across the curriculum. A pilot of the enhanced curriculum will launch in the 2026–2027 academic year, with Grade 3 and Grade 5 students among the first beneficiaries.

Plans are underway to scale ESD across all secondary schools before 2030. The approach will prioritize experiential learning focused on food security, green energy transition, sustainable industries, social protection, and sustainable communities—ensuring ESD moves beyond theory into practice.

ESD will be embedded from Grades 3–6 and within the secondary Social Sciences programme for Forms 1 and 2, including History, Social Studies, and Geography. Following three years of UNESCO-guided work to establish a national ESD policy framework and learning outcomes, courses will be aligned to the environmental, social, and economic dimensions of sustainable development. Teaching will emphasize learner-centered, action-oriented pedagogies such as inquiry-based and project-based learning.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education, Hon. Dr. Geoffrey Hanley, welcomed the milestone: “The successful conclusion of the ESD project is one of three UNESCO flagship projects being implemented in St. Kitts and Nevis, alongside the scaling up of teacher qualifications through remote training with the Open University of Tanzania, and the strengthening of biodiversity credentials at the St. Mary’s Biosphere Reserve in Cayon.”

The Ministry benefited from a UNESCO ESD Initiative funded by the Government of Japan. This support enabled the recruitment of two leading UNESCO ESD experts who advanced a “whole institution approach” through the development of a national ESD policy, strategy, curriculum integration framework, and teacher capacity-building programme.

Dr. Esdaille stated: “By 2030, St. Kitts and Nevis will have a fully transformed education system grounded in Education for Sustainable Development, empowering all learners with the knowledge, skills, values, and agency to drive sustainable development, strengthen national resilience, and build a just, inclusive, and environmentally sustainable society.”

She added: “This vision reflects the strengthening of our national ESD agenda since 2022–2023 and the significant progress achieved by 2026 in aligning policy, practice, and stakeholder engagement. It recognizes that education must respond directly to the interlinked challenges of climate change, environmental degradation, and socio-economic vulnerability faced by Small Island Developing States.”

Key long-term outcomes of the national ESD framework to 2030 include:
1. Full integration of ESD into the ongoing curriculum enhancement process.
2. Integration of ESD into the Education Management Information System (EMIS) and other data management systems.
3. Development of a “green school” accreditation system for schools meeting criteria outlined in the National Safe School Policy.
4. Integration of ESD into the Continuing Professional Development Framework for the Teaching Profession, expanding capacity-building for pre-service and in-service teachers.
5. Enhanced integration of sustainable development principles within the TVET sector to support economic resilience and green skills development.
6. Updated Education Sector Plan incorporating ESD across curriculum, learning environments, teacher accreditation, and school-parent-community relationships, aligned with SDG 4, Target 4.7.
7. Revision of the Education Act to reflect the new Education Sector Plan and ESD commitments.

Throughout implementation, the Federation maintained continuous dialogue with UNESCO ESD experts at Headquarters and regular briefings coordinated by Ambassador H.E. David P. Doyle in Paris with H.E. Takehiro Kano, Ambassador of Japan to UNESCO.

H.E. Ambassador Doyle noted: “St. Kitts and Nevis, along with Cabo Verde, were the only SIDS selected by UNESCO to pilot the ESD project. Guided by UNESCO’s ESD for 2030 framework, this initiative is advancing a whole-of-system transformation anchored in five priority areas: policy advancement, transformation of learning environments, educator capacity development, youth empowerment, and local action. These ensure ESD is embedded across formal, non-formal, and informal learning.”

H.E. Nerys Dockery, Secretary-General of the St. Kitts and Nevis National Commission for UNESCO, also welcomed the progress, stating: “This achievement demonstrates what is possible when national vision aligns with international expertise and partnership. ESD will equip our young people to lead St. Kitts and Nevis toward a sustainable future.”

27/05/2026

27/05/2026

Happening now

26/05/2026

UNESCO Advances Media and Information Literacy Across Generations Through SIM Caribbean

Between 13 and 14 May 2026, two engaging and innovative capacity-building sessions were hosted in a hybrid format by the Government of Saint Kitts and Nevis and organized by the UNESCO Office for the

26/05/2026

Tune in, May 27, 2026!

25/05/2026

Happy Africa Day!

From the UNESCO Routes of Enslaved Peoples Programme Committee of St. Kitts and Nevis.

Today, we celebrate Africa Day—not only as a commemoration of the founding of the African Union, but as a global recognition of Africa’s enduring spirit, creativity, and contribution to humanity.

From a UNESCO perspective, Africa Day is a call to remember, to reclaim, and to renew.

Through the Routes of Enslaved Peoples Programme, UNESCO honors the memory of millions whose lives were disrupted by the transatlantic trade in African people. But we do more than remember. We trace the living connections between Africa and the world—connections carried in language, music, spirituality, cuisine, resistance, and resilience.

Africa is not only the cradle of humanity. It is the source of cultures that survived rupture, crossed oceans, and transformed societies from the Caribbean to the Americas, Europe, and beyond. The masquerade of St. Kitts and Nevis, the rhythms of Brazil, the oral traditions of Haiti, the philosophies of Pan-Africanism—all speak to Africa’s unbroken presence and influence.

This year, as we mark Africa Day, the UNESCO Routes of Enslaved Peoples Programme Committee of St. Kitts and Nevis reaffirms that confronting this history is essential to building just and inclusive futures. By teaching this history, by protecting heritage sites, by amplifying African voices, and by supporting youth to engage with their roots, we turn memory into a force for dignity, reconciliation, and unity.

To the youth of Africa and the African diaspora: you are the living bridge between past and future. Your creativity, leadership, and demand for truth are what will ensure that the legacy of the Routes of Enslaved Peoples becomes a foundation for peace and solidarity.

Happy Africa Day.

May we continue to walk these routes together—with memory as our guide, truth as our foundation, and unity as our destination.

15/05/2026

15/05/2026

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