Successfully organized ForHimSDG Workshop

The 3 days’ workshop named ‘Strengthening Teaching on Sustainable Development Goals: Curriculum co-development workshop’, shortly ForHimSDG, dated on July 26-28, 2022, has been successfully conducted, which was organized by Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (Germany), Asian Institute of Technology (Thailand), and Kathmandu University (Nepal). The workshop was attended by 50 participants representing from 12 different countries namely Germany, Austria, Sweden, UK, Thailand, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Bhutan, Afghanistan (online), Myanmar (online) and Nepal.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sunil Prasad Lohani (Lead – Renewable and Sustainable Energy Laboratory and PI of the ForHimSDG Project from KU) briefed the project with an introductory remarks and moderated the opening session of the workshop. The welcome remarks was given by Prof. Dr. Bhola Thapa (Vice Chancellor, KU) and the keynote speech by Prof. Dr. Jürgen Kropp (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, ICIMOD Independent Board Member). The opening session panel discussion was moderated by Prof. Dr. Shobhakar Dhakal (Vice President-Academic Affair, Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand).

With insights from expert presenters, incredible panel and group discussions and feedback from dedicated representatives, the workshop not only directed new insights to work out on curriculum development but also gave a clear picture for sustainability and sustainable development goals. The overall program has enlightened all the representatives and the outcome of this workshop will indeed reflect in the curriculum.

ForHimSDG is funded by DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) under the call SDG Partnerships, which is financially supported by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany. The aim of the workshop was to address the issue of countries on being on track to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 which was further aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic through teaching and research in the HKH region.
ForHimSDG workshop was organized with the following objectives:

• To share knowledge and experiences on sustainability-related curriculums among higher educational institutes in the HKH regions
• To co-develop introductory and advanced courses on global sustainability goals and approaches for sustainability, considering the local context
• To build a ForHimSDG network among the institutes to promote teaching and research on SDGs and topics related to local and regional sustainability
• To explore burning sustainability-related topics for research exchanges

Edited for website by: Prabin Dhakal and Sundar Shrestha