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The purpose of this paper is to explore the relevance of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in East Timor and proposes a set of ESD indicators to be implemented in the formal education sector.

A detailed analysis of relevant literature concerning national development plans (Republica Democrática de Timor-Leste, 2011), literature centred in East Timor and international perspectives about ESD principles, policies and values (UN reports) was carried, in order to examine the relevance of ESD in East Timor and to assist the selection of a set of ESD indicators. These indicators are proposed in order to assess and monitor if the current national policies, educational programmes, secondary school content, learning goals and activities in formal education express concerns related with ESD promotion in terms of specific curricular themes, learning characteristics, learning resources, skills, values and attitudes.

This paper argues that the East Timor government has intentions in ESD promotion and implementation. Thus, ESD indicators could be helpful in assessment of new curricular practices. However, even though ESDI may indicate that secondary school programmes, content, learning goals or activities are aligned with ESD principles, it is also important to assess if they then contribute effectively to sustainable development.

The case study of East Timor adds to the literature about the current interests of young countries such as this in progressing towards a sustainable future, starting from the selection and implementation of ESD indicators in the current curriculum reform. If it is successful, ESD will contribute to transforming not only education but also the quality of life of the East Timorese.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are fundamental to the socioeconomic development of a country or region. They directly contribute to increasing employment generation and improving income distribution. Despite the importance of SMEs, there are still opportunities for developing works that support and guide SMEs to use digital technologies, especially to digitalize their customer service. Therefore, this work aims to propose drivers containing recommendations for developing and improving the digitalization of customer service in SMEs.

This work uses a qualitative approach to systematize the main SMEs' characteristics and identify the boosting elements of the digitalization of customer service in the scientific literature. To this end, the authors conducted a content analysis of the most influential empirical and theoretical articles on the theme published from 2016 to 2021 in the Scopus database.

This work identified 38 boosting elements of the digitalization of customer service based on the scientific literature. These elements were grouped into six drivers for developing and improving the digitalization of customer service. The drivers contain recommendations that were adapted for SMEs according to their characteristics and based on the experience of the authors of this work.

This work contributes to promoting socioeconomic development, providing important solutions for managers and owners of SMEs to improve their customer service. The proposed drivers support and encourage the use of digital technologies for developing and improving customer service, overcoming the challenges of digitalization in these companies. Thus, SMEs will be able to increase the satisfaction of their customers and improve their competitiveness.