A School Agenda 21 Programme (PA21E) from ICLEI member city Barcelona (Spain) was amongst the 12 winners at the 2010 Dubai International Award for Best Practices to Improve the Living Environment. PA21E is an initiative aimed at schools and was designed in the year 2000 by the Barcelona City Council Environment Department.

The School Agenda 21 Programme was promoted in 2001 by Barcelona City Council in collaboration with the AGBAR Foundation and the Barcelona Municipal Institute of Education. It is a unique programme for the stimulation and support of the school centres so that they may design, carry out and appraise plans of action with the aim of becoming more sustainable schools. An essential element of the Barcelona Agenda 21, the programme sees hundreds of environmental projects implemented each year.

During the school year 2009/10 alone, the School Agenda 21 Programme has directly involved 81,882 pupils, 7,583 teachers, 1,481 supplementary staff members of the educational centres and 62,970 families. All non-university level schools participate in the PA21e: nursery (0-3 year olds), infants (4-6 year olds), primary and junior (7-12 year olds), secondary (13-18 year olds) and all levels of special education schools. TA report on this victorious best practice can be downloaded in English or Spanish.

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