4/20 – United Nations Good Practice Recognition – Twice

This is the fourth entry in ACTAsia’s 20 Years, 20 Wins series, marking two decades of work connecting the wellbeing of animals, people and the planet. Each instalment celebrates a milestone from our journey; this one is about the United Nations awarding ACTAsia’s Caring for Life education for children programme ‘Good Practice,’ twice. 

 

Since its founding in 2006, ACTAsia has treated education not as one programme among several, but as the entry point for everything else it hoped to achieve. It is the mechanism through which compassion for animals, people and the environment take hold. Caring for Life (CFL) is where that belief was built into a curriculum: a six-year programme teaching children that empathy for animals, care for people and respect for the environment comprises one entangled basis upon which we can inhabit the world. This has always been ACTAsia’s own framing of its work. In 2021 and again in 2022, the United Nations agreed with it.

Recognised Twice, by Two Different UN Bodies 

In 2021, the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) listed CFL as a ‘Good Practice’ under the Sustainable Development Goals framework, published on the UN’s SDG Good Practices platform. The following year, CFL was recognised again – this time at the UN Transforming Education Summit, evaluated against a different set of criteria tied specifically to SDG 4, the global goal for quality education.

These were not the same award given twice. They were two independent UN mechanisms, assessing ACTAsia’s CFL programme against two different sets of standards, a year apart, and arriving at the same answer. For a charity the size of ACTAsia, this kind of repeated, independent validation from an institution of the UN’s global standing is rare.

What ‘Good Practice’ Means  

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a set of 17 interlinked targets adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2015 as a blueprint for a more sustainable world by 2030. Being named a ‘Good Practice’ within that framework is the UN identifying a programme as one worth studying, replicating and scaling – evidence that an approach works well enough such that other organisations, in other countries, should be doing something similar.

For CFL specifically, the ‘Good Practice’ recognitions rested upon the incredible reach ACTAsia achieved with the curriculum through the Pioneer school network. Built upon the UNESCO Four Pillars of Education, CFL develops emotional intelligence, empathy and critical thinking in ways that shape how children carry themselves into adulthood. The Transforming Education Summit’s criteria pushed further still, examining the programme’s ethical grounding, its equity and community involvement, and, critically, its potential to be scaled even further. 

Why This Matters  

For ACTAsia, the significance of CFL’s ‘Good Practice’ recognitions from the UN DESA and the UN TES go far beyond credibility and validation. As founder and CEO Pei Su states, 

“We cannot see our work in isolation. It is about connecting the dots, starting with care, with empathy with animals and education. This is our entry point to the wider movement.”

And this is the point of this ‘Good Practice’ win. CFL is not merely about teaching children to be kind to animals; it was always meant as a starting point connecting to a much larger idea: that a person who learns empathy for animals as a child carries that same instinct into all of their interactions, including with other people and the natural world. This is the argument central to CFL education for children. That a prestigious outside body, applying its own independent criteria, examined the programme and reached the same conclusion ACTAsia has long held, confirms this work belongs at the centre of a much larger effort.

The ‘Good Practice’ wins are proof that ACTAsia’s approach to compassion and education has moved from the margins into the mainstream, recognised as part of the same conversation the world is having about how to address conflict, inequality and environmental collapse. That recognition matters because it means ACTAsia’s methods are no longer just its own conviction. Rather, they are considered part of the solution.

20 Years 20 Wins – More to Come 

Two UN ‘Good Practice’ listings, a year apart, are a strong signal that ACTAsia’s approach belongs in the wider conversation about how the world reaches its sustainability goals. It is one recognition among several the organisation has earned over 20 years. To see the fuller list, visit ACTAsia’s awards page. Learn how you can get involved and consider donating today. 

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