During the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in 2002, Romania was one of the eight states, who included the Earth Charter in their official intervention during the official debates. Romania’s representative in his statement he affirmed that “the proposed Earth Charter further offers a moral underpinning for political action” for a “renewed commitment” for sustainable development.
In 2006 Dr. Mikhail Hardau, the Romanian Minister of Education and Research, instructed his staff to develop a broad action plan for integrating Earth Charter principles into the school- based curriculum, by developing new content, objectives and criteria for student proficiency. This helped to integrate sustainable development principles into the national core curriculum. These efforts were documented in the national report at the 2nd Meeting of the UNESCO Steering Committee on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in December 2006 in Geneva. The Ministry of Education recommended the following “…Promotion of the Earth Charter as an educational instrument/material to be used in pre-university education, through posting the Earth Charter on the ministry website (http://www.edu.ro); development of school- based curricula on the Earth Charter by county school inspectorates; and organizing extracurricular activities at the county and school level, based on the Earth Charter’s principles.”
In 2007 the Ministry offered funding for school contests related to subjects in which the Earth Charter principles were reflected. Four types of contests were organized at the local, county and national levels: interdisciplinary (“Earth Sciences”); civic (“Democracy and Tolerance,” as based on student portfolios); “Little Ambassadors for the Environment;” and ecology (“SOS Nature”). Among the best 14 schools that won the contest, School N13 Stefan cel Mare in the large city of Galati was selected as a case study of the successful adaptation of ministerial plans to sustainable educational efforts for presentation in the joint UNESCO-ECI publication “Good Practices using the Earth Charter”.
There was one Earth Charter Youth Group in Romania, called ECYG Constanta. They joined the Earth Charter Youth network in 2004. ECYG Constanta’s mission was to promote EC principles through education activities for students and adults.