Nigeria’s extreme poverty rate, which has been soaring over time, reached its peak by June, 2018 when the country topped the list of 10 most extremely poor countries globally and in Africa and was consequently declared the ‘poverty capital of the world’. Available statistics indicate that rural populations in Nigeria have all along borne the brunt of the country’s poverty endemic. In September 2015, the United Nations (UN) adopted seventeen (17) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) designed to eliminate barriers to global sustainable development by 2030, focusing, especially, on African and other countries facing special developmental challenges. The first of these Goals, SDG 1, is to end poverty in all its forms everywhere. Having made Education a key instrument for achievement of the SDGs, UNESCO, an agency of UN, developed a specific Education Curriculum Framework for SDG 1 which has suggested desirable environmental sustainability learning objectives, content and delivery processes. Successive Federal Governments of Nigeria adopted various strategies to mobilize the citizenry for poverty eradication/alleviation with no significant success. Notably, the strategies have been devoid of environmental education for the production of environmentally literate citizenry which many authorities, including UNESCO, have considered germane to effective environmental resources management and utilization necessary for socio-economic development and poverty eradication/alleviation. This paper was designed to crystallize the role of Environmental Literacy Education (ELE) in the mobilization of Nigeria’s rural populations for poverty eradication/alleviation within UNESCO’s Education 2030 Curriculum Framework for SDG 1.
Keywords: Environmental literacy education, Sustainable Development Goals, education 2030 agenda, mobilization strategies, poverty eradication/alleviation, rural populations in Nigeria
