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Info. News ISSUE 4 June 2002 Part I 3 June to 9 June 2002 Compiled by Richard Sherman Edited by Kimo Goree |
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72) U.N. AND SCIENTIFIC ORGANIZATIONS LAUNCH FIRST INTERNET ATLAS OF THE WORLD'S OCEANS Associated Press Writer,
4 June 2002
UNITED NATIONS - On World Environment Day, the United Nations and leading scientific institutions launched the first Internet atlas of the world's oceans to monitor and hopefully heal the waters that play a critical role in sustaining life on earth. After a decade of planning and more than 2 1/2 years of development, the U.N. Oceans Atlas is online, initially with 14 global maps, links to hundreds of others, and over 2,000 documents on 900 subjects ranging from climate change, fishing areas and ship piracy to poisonous algae, offshore oil and recreation activities. Project manager John Everett said Wednesday's launch culminates a unique partnership between the public and private sectors to bring an encyclopedic resource to a wide cross-section of users - from school children to policy makers and scientific experts. "The oceans play a crucial role in sustaining life on earth," said Jacques Diouf, director general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization which led the initiative with primary funding of dlrs 500,000 from the United Nations Foundation, started by media mogul Ted Turner. "This important new tool ... will help coordinate and harmonize the work underway in various parts of the U.N. and in national agencies, academic institutions and other organizations, and will serve a major role in moving the world toward the sustainable use of oceans for food security and human development," he said. The need for an atlas was identified during the 1992 U.N. earth summit in Rio de Janeiro in response to a call to address the world's greatest environmental challenges. Everett said the atlas will better spotlight acute marine issues from over-fishing and destruction of coastal areas to the effects of climate change on ice cover and pollution from industry, farms and households. "Ocean-related issues will almost certainly dominate the international agenda later this century if, as predicted, the Earth's continued warming accelerates sea level rise and adds up to one meter (3.3 feet) to the height of our oceans," said Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program. Such a rise could affect over 70 million people in coastal China, 60 percent of the population of Bangladesh and the Netherlands, 15 percent of the people and 50 percent of the industry in Japan, 10 percent of the population of Egypt, and a 17,000 square kilometer (6,630 square mile) area - the size of Connecticut and New Jersey combined - in the United States. In low-lying countries like the Maldives or the Marshall Islands, the entire population would be at risk, the U.N. agency said. "Now we have the ability to see information on all the areas of the ocean, coming from all the reliable sources, through the United Nations, so there will always be a reliable control," said project director Serge Garcia, who heads the FAO Fisheries Resources Division. The website will be supplemented by a CD-ROM. Documents, maps and other material will also be published in cooperation with Cinegram Multimedia to reach audiences and regions where Internet access is difficult, said Everett, who is on loan to the project from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The National Geographic Society is making its map-producing machine and marine information available to the atlas and the Census of Marine Life is contributing its assessments of the diversity, distribution and abundance of marine organisms, he said. Both organizations are based in Washington. Garcia said the online atlas has the capacity to hold 100,000 documents and thousands of maps, and will be constantly updated. "If we're going to solve or prevent the world's biggest problems, the public and the private sector have to come together and we've done so on the atlas of the oceans," said former U.S. Sen. Timothy Wirth, who heads the United Nations Foundation. "This is a very ambitious and important partnership for monitoring, diagnosing and we hope helping to heal the great oceans of the world." For more information please see: http://www.oceansatlas.org 73) MINISTERS ARRIVE ON BALI TO HELP PUSH THROUGH TALKS ON ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION PLAN Associated Press, 4 June
2002
BALI, Indonesia - Economic and environmental ministers will be asked to help push through negotiations on the agenda of a much-anticipated U.N. environmental summit, delegates at a preparatory conference on Indonesia's island of Bali said Tuesday. The ministers began arriving in Bali on Tuesday to hold three days of talks on a separate political declaration. For more than a week, around 6,000 international delegates from 189 countries have been negotiating an "action plan" that will be voted on at the World Summit on Sustainable Development to be held in Johannesburg in August. But they have so far failed to finish the text of the plan because of disagreements over proposed programs to help countries reduce poverty and protect the environment. The plan had been expected to be completed last Friday night. Among the disputes, poor countries want more aid for the programs but delegates from rich countries want such aid to come with conditions, such as commitments to fight corruption which is rampant in much of the developing world. In addition, delegates from the United States and Japan have blocked proposals calling for deadlines for implementing the action plan, saying they were unrealistic. Emil Salim, the chairman of the Bali talks, said the ministers would be asked to help with the negotiations. "There are tough issues to cover," he told The Associated Press. Three representatives from South Africa, Brazil and Indonesia have been chosen to hold informal talks with the ministers to try to iron out the unresolved issues, Emil Salim said. Delegates will make a last attempt to edit the action plan during a plenary session slated for late Wednesday night. The action plan being negotiated includes U.N. targets, such as halving by 2015 the number of people who face poverty and hunger, and the number who lack access to safe drinking water and sanitation. Some 50,000 delegates are expected in Johannesburg in what will be the largest ever U.N. gathering. The meeting, dubbed "Earth Summit 2", will coincide with the 10-year anniversary of a summit in Rio De Janeiro, where the first global agreements on environmental protection were reached. However, critics say governments have failed to carry out programs needed to protect the environment agreed to in Rio 74) EU HEADS FOR CLASH WITH U.S. OVER JOHANNESBURG SUMMIT Inter Press Service, 4
June 2002
BRUSSELS, Jun 4 (IPS) - The European Union is heading for a clash with the U.S. at a preparatory meeting this week for the World Summit on Sustainable Development. Ministers from several countries will meet in Bali, Indonesia, from June 5 to 7 in final preparation for the summit in Johannesburg from August 26 to September 4. The preparatory meeting in Bali began at the official level May 27. Differences are evident already. The EU delegation tabled a proposal for concrete targets and a timetable on renewable energy Friday in Bali. The move is strongly opposed by the U.S. On Monday EU Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom who will negotiate on behalf of the EU at the ministerial meeting in Bali said "the challenge of the coming weeks, and of the meeting in Bali, will be to prepare credible political commitments to sustainable development backed by precise targets and deliverables." Wallstrom said: "My objective for the meeting is that we agree on ambitious but realistic political targets. I will also seek to rally partners around an agenda for change based on a series of initiatives on water, energy, health, sustainable patterns of consumption and production, globalization and trade and governance. Partnerships for action in these areas can help resolve some of the biggest problems on the international agenda." But as EU negotiators move to set targets and seek partnership with developing countries, the U.S. has already made coalitions with oil-producing countries to block any reference to timetables or targets, independent observers point out. It is perhaps no coincidence that the EU chose to deliver its ratification papers on the Kyoto Protocol on climate change at the United Nations headquarters in New York Friday, just days before the ministers meeting in Bali. The U.S., the world's largest polluter, withdrew its commitment to Kyoto after President George Bush took office. The first threshold for the Kyoto Protocol to come into force has now been reached. Fifty-five countries were required to ratify it, and 70 have done so. Japan plans to ratify the protocol this week. "The ratification of the Kyoto protocol is one of the most important political tools that the European Union can use in the Johannesburg process," says Michel Raquet from Greenpeace International. Greenpeace says it recognizes the positive stance taken by the EU in comparison to countries such as the U.S., Canada and Australia, although it would have liked the Europeans to go further. Raquet says EU proposals on energy are too vague. The EU should make a commitment to "clean, affordable, sustainable energy services" by 2015 to the two billion people without access to modern energy services. In a declaration issued May 30, environmental groups including the Worldwide Fund for Nature, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth International said: "The proposed 'plan of action' watered down even further this week in Bali is a 'plan of inaction', a recipe for social and environmental disaster." The groups blame the U.S., Canada and Australia for blocking progress. EU Commissioner for Development Poul Nielson has admitted he is concerned over the state of the preparatory meetings. "I am as worried as everyone else," he says. A meeting of the 15 EU development ministers agreed last week to achieving a results-oriented outcome to the summit. "The EU is a progressive and constructive force, and the rest of the world has big expectations on our performance," said Nielson after the meeting. "We are committed to multilateralism, and this is where we have a different approach to the United States." The EU text for Johannesburg proposes a series of concrete initiatives in health, water and energy "which should be grounded in the political declaration and program of action to be adopted at the WSSD." The European Commission the executive arm of the EU, will use the agreement to propose a series of concrete initiatives. It plans, for example, to table a proposal to use satellite systems to map the flow of logging and enable a clampdown on the illegal timber trade. The EC wants to strengthen current monitoring systems by funding controls on tropical wood at borders. The EU proposals are based on the Agenda 21 plan of action for the environment adopted by world leaders at the Rio summit ten years ago, and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to reduce poverty. EU ministers reaffirm what they see as the main aims of sustainable development: eradicating poverty, promoting sustainable production and consumption, reconciling globalization and sustainable development, conserving and managing natural and environmental resources, and enhancing international environmental governance. But divisions have arisen within the EU as well over subsidies for agriculture and fishing. Northern states like Sweden want a commitment to "reduce or as appropriate eliminate subsidies which have been assessed as environmentally harmful." Southern European states such as Spain and Italy blocked commitments on subsidies. The text agreed now proposes only to "encourage reform of subsidies." 75) RI, BRAZIL, SOUTH AFRICA TO SPEED UP BALI TALKS The Jakarta Post, 4 June
2002
NUSA DUA, Bali (JP): Indonesia, Brazil and South Africa have been appointed to mediate negotiations on an action plan aimed at balancing global economic development with the environment, in an effort to break the apparent deadlock three days before Friday's deadline. The appointment came amid estimates by some delegates that a near standstill may force negotiations to continue in the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa -- a notion the Indonesian delegates reject. The chairman of the preparatory committee meeting in Bali, Emil Salim said on Tuesday that the three countries would call in opposing parties to get them to compromise on a number of unresolved issues in the action plan. An early draft of the revised action plan was released on Sunday. It is called the Draft Plan of Implementation for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, and replaces the first draft known as the Chairman's Text. The draft plan, once agreed upon, will be called the Bali Commitment, and will serve as a blue print for sustainable economic development over the next decade. Emil said that negotiations were already speeding up in the final days of the two-week meeting in Bali. "Everyone knows that negotiations will end on Friday, they know there will be no other day," Emil said. Delegates worked in groups, and reported the results to the plenary meeting on Tuesday night. One Indonesian delegate said groups that have not finalized talks would be sent back to negotiate. Emil said that with the time pressure starting to work, the three appointed countries must coax delegates to "show their cards" and make deals. Their appointments, he said, were necessary as he would be busy chairing meetings for the political declaration for Johannesburg. South Africa has been appointed because it would host the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg next August. Brazil hosted the first summit at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, which resulted in the Rio declaration. Several delegates and non governmental organizations have blamed the slow progress on the U.S. delegation's tough stance and its dominating presence throughout all meetings. Emil said the U.S. delegation consisted of experienced negotiators who would not reveal their positions "early in the game". "The question is now, what motivates them," he said. Emil said that one thing in favor of the Bali Commitment was that current politics in the U.S. required the Bush administration to at least appear proactive on environmental issues. President George Bush's administration has come under fire from environmentalists for the alleged heavy involvement of oil and gas companies in drawing up the country's energy policy. Bush's efforts to open up areas in Alaska for oil drilling operations and alleged interests of a U.S. oil and gas company behind the war in Afghanistan have further tainted the administration's image. But a senior U.S. delegate said that developing countries were demanding too much from the U.S. and warned against pushing the envelope. He said that sustainable development should start with developing countries improving their law and order and guaranteeing economic freedoms. "It takes two to tango ... We will lead the dance but don't step on our foot," said one American delegate who refused to give his name. The delegate also played down hopes by many in Indonesia that his government would agree on additional aid for poverty reduction and environmental conservation efforts, due to the fact that many developing countries failed to obey laws and regulations. He also expressed his doubts that more assistance would actually reach needy people or protect the environment. "The U.S. delegation insists that they will only reach a compromise when the rest of the world considers the U.S. interests," he said. 76) WORLD SUMMIT VENUES TO USE ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY POWER Business Day via All Africa,
3 June 2002 In keeping with the theme of the summit, venues will make use of electricity from renewable energy resources FOUR of the main venues to be used during the World Summit on Sustainable Development which starts in August in Johannesburg the Sandton Convention Centre, the Hilton Hotel in Rosebank, the Expo Centre at Nasrec and the Ubuntu Village will be making use of "green electricity". Although this is to cost the venues up to 35% more than conventional electricity, their extra costs will be repaid by donors in the "green electricity" sector. Green power is generated from renewable, sustainable energy resources. This is seen as more environmentally friendly than coal or nuclear power and commonly used in the UK, Australia, Germany and the US. This power can be generated from wind, solar energy, certain types of plants or heat from the core of the earth. At the moment less than a percent of electricity in SA could be called "green", but this is expected to change after the summit, according to a green energy service company, Agama. Agama project leader Glyn Morris said negotiations on future tariffs for green electricity in SA would be thrashed out with the National Electricity Regulator at the summit. "It will be a chance to experiment with the development of a green tariff, possibly a shadow tariff, that is not legally binding. "While there is as yet no mechanism for trading green electricity in a regulated market in southern Africa, a likely mechanism is green power certificates certified and monitored by the National Electricity Regulator," Morris said. The higher cost of green power has to do with it being a new technology with few users. The higher tariff also represents the "full" cost of the product, which unlike coal and nuclear power, is not subsidised by outside bodies. Health hazards and research are costs associated with conventional electricity, said Morris. 77) DELEGATES SCRAMBLE TO OVERCOME DIVISIONS OVER ACTION PLAN FOR U.N. DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE Associated Press Writer,
3 June 2002
JAKARTA, Indonesia - International conference delegates raced to complete an agenda Monday night for a much-anticipated U.N. summit, but they couldn't agree on who will pay for programs to help countries reduce poverty and protect the environment. Poor countries want more aid for programs expected to be approved at the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development, to be held in Johannesburg in August. But rich countries want such aid to come with conditions, such as commitments to fight government corruption. Delegates at the preparatory conference "will be working through the night" to finish the agenda before environmental and economic ministers from their respective countries arrive Wednesday to consider it, said Pragati Pascale, a U.N. spokeswoman for the conference. The delegates had agreed on over 80 percent of the plan and were due to finish it by Tuesday. But a U.S. delegate said some other countries were holding the plan hostage to technical issues, such as the deadlines to implement programs. Thousands of delegates have been meeting at the May 27-June 7 fourth preparatory summit meeting on the Indonesian island of Bali to finish an "action plan" that is considered crucial to making the Johannesburg conference a success. Some 50,000 delegates are expected for what is being dubbed the "Earth Summit 2" in Johannesburg. The meeting is timed to fall on the 10-year anniversary of the first Earth Summit in Rio De Janeiro, where the first global agreements on environmental protection were reached. Critics say many of the environmental protection measures that governments promised in Rio have not been achieved. Three earlier preparatory meetings for the Johannesburg summit identified five areas for negotiation: water and sanitation, energy, health, agriculture and preserving natural ecosystems. Delegates at the Bali meeting were expected to adopt official U.N. targets, such as halving by 2015 the number of people who face poverty and hunger, and the number who lack access to safe drinking water and sanitation. The United Nations estimates that 1.2 billion people around the world live in poverty. At least 1.1 billion lack access to safe drinking water. Environmentalists at the talks have accused wealthy nations - led by Japan and the United States _of blocking proposals that would tie governments to a timetable for implementing the action plan and providing money for development programs. Delegates from rich nations urged those from poorer countries to address the corruption rampant in much of the developing world through new good governance laws and stronger law enforcement 78) WORLD SUMMIT ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: "POLITICAL COMMITMENT KEY INGREDIENT FOR SUCCESS IN JOHANNESBURG" European Union, 3 June
2002
World Summit on Sustainable Development: "Political commitment key ingredient for success in Johannesburg" Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström will head the European Commission Delegation at the Ministerial Meeting in Bali 4-7 June. The meeting will prepare the World Summit for Sustainable Development to be held in Johannesburg at the end of August this year. Commissioner Wallström said: "The results of the Bali meeting are critical for ensuring the success of the World Summit. The launching of the Doha Development Agenda and the successful outcome of the Monterrey Summit are important steps on the road to Johannesburg but a successful outcome of Johannesburg is not yet assured. The challenge of the coming weeks, and of the meeting in Bali, will be to prepare credible political commitments to sustainable development backed by precise targets and deliverables. Rio in 1992 was a breakthrough for sustainable development but many of the actions agreed there have still not been implemented. Johannesburg must move us from words to deeds". Commissioner Wallström continued: "My objective for the meeting is that we agree on ambitious but realistic political targets. I will also seek to rally partners around an agenda for change based on a series of initiatives on water, energy, health, sustainable patterns of consumption and production, globalisation and trade and governance. Partnerships for action in these areas can help resolve some of the biggest problems on the international agenda". The European Commission has stressed on many occasions that the European Union has a lot to offer in these priority areas, in terms of experience, expertise, public funds and private sector and civil society involvement. The Commission will use the Ministerial meeting in Bali to forge partnerships to secure concrete deliverables at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) and to bring all of the elements of sustainable development together in a convincing plan of action for the next decade. BACKGROUNDThe fourth preparatory meeting (PrepCom4) for the WSSD takes place in Indonesia between 27 May and 7 June. The Ministerial meetings are scheduled 4-7 June. The Indonesian chair has set three main objectives for PrepCom4: to adopt a political declaration, an action plan and to identify partnerships to deliver the agreed priorities. The European Commission believes that the political declaration should signal a renewed commitment by all countries to sustainable development. It should be clear, ambitious and realistic. The action plan should have realistic targets and focus on concrete deliverables, upon which countries can be held accountable. Partnerships for action, involving all stakeholders should be formed to implement the action plan. The EU's position is also that if partnership initiatives are to be the main vehicle for implementing the outcome of the WSSD then they should also be monitored in order to ensure that promises are delivered. In its partnership initiatives the EU will pay particular attention to the needs of Africa. 79) ECUMENICAL TEAM CALLS FOR A CHECK ON CORPORATE POWER All Africa, 3 June 2002
Geneva, Jun 03, 2002 (African Church Information Service/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) -- As the negotiations at the 4th Preparatory Committee to the World Summit on Sustainable Development (PrepCom4 WSSD) proceed, one issue takes centre stage: the consolidation and expansion of political and corporate power. "It is time to acknowledge this," says Wendy Flannery from the Sisters of Mercy. An ecumenical team of more than 15 people from World Council of Churches (WCC) member churches and associated ecumenical organizations is attending the PrepCom taking place in Bali, Indonesia from 27 May to 7 June. The Summit itself will take place in Johannesburg, South Africa, in August. Sr Flannery was speaking as a team member at a 29 May press conference jointly organized by the Government of Fiji, the WCC, the South African Council of Churches, Christian Aid and the ecumenical team. The debt issue, as seen from an ecological perspective, is high on the team's agenda. Martin Robra from the WCC's "Justice, Peace and Creation" team, explains: "People and Jubilee movements call for the cancellation of foreign debt. But we should not only question the legitimacy of the foreign debt of indebted countries in the South. We should also recognize what the North owes the South after centuries of colonialism, slavery and exploitation of natural resources, as well as the resulting ecological debt - a debt that accumulated over the centuries and continues to do so at an ever-accelerating speed." The ecumenical team recommends the identification and quantification of the historical, social and ecological debts owing to the peoples and countries of the South, not only in monetary terms, but in terms of the contamination and destruction of the affected communities' sources of life and sustenance. Shanthi Sachithanandam from Christian Aid in the UK takes a critical look at the issue of energy: "Low-cost energy and cheap access to resources are seen as fuelling economic development. Highly industrialized countries gave those providing energy and other essential resources of industrial production special privileges and power. The lessons learned in the past about the dangers of global warming and climate change and measures taken, such as the Kyoto Protocol, are being taken off the agenda. They have been replaced by the naive promise of "energy for all" without sufficient consideration for the need to move away from the carbon and nuclear-based development path. Regarding energy the ecumenical team recommends: o ensuring Indigenous Peoples' communities access to and control of their land and resources, including the repeal or reform of unjust mining policies and laws, and a moratorium on new applications for large-scale extraction activities and land acquisition in Indigenous Peoples' territories; * a global moratorium on exploration for new oil and coal deposits; * phasing out of nuclear energy plants everywhere in the world; * adopting and implementing the recommendations of the World Commission on Dams with regard to hydro-power projects involving large-scale dams; * giving priority in the generation and use of energy for appropriate, affordable, ecologically-sustainable and accessible energy for the world's poorest people, reaching a level of at least 10% of sustainable renewables in 2007 and 25% in 2012. Looking ahead from Bali to the Summit in Johannesburg, Sipho Mtetwa of the South African Council of Churches asks: "While we are here negotiating text in Bali, the questions being asked back home in Africa are: Who is the World Summit going to benefit? Will it benefit the people of townships like Soweto and Alexandra outside Johannesburg?" Communities in the global South have been and are continually being plundered through various forms of extraction and exploitation. More and more, the WSSD process is using the rhetoric of partnership, a concept that is of value within the lives of families and communities. True partnership is a relationship between equals. Regarding corporate power the ecumenical team recommends: * a regulatory framework for transnational corporations, as proposed in the vice-chairman's implementation text, including mandatory compliance of transnational corporations with principles of corporate social and environmental responsibility, operational transparency, accountability, allowing access to information, and conformity with enforceable codes of conduct; * re-institution of the UN Commission on Transnational Corporations. Regarding climate change the team recommends: * ratification of the Kyoto Protocol by the time of the Johannesburg Summit and implementation thereafter; * initiation at the earliest possible date of a new round of negotiations on the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. 80) NEGOTIATORS AT UN TALKS IN BALI WORK TO RESOLVE DIFFERENCES OVER FINANCING, TRADE United Nations, 3 June
2002
3 June - Government representatives negotiating a draft action plan for adoption at the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development were working to resolve differences over financing and trade issues, United Nations officials said today as preparations for the forum entered its second and final week in Bali, Indonesia. A senior UN official with the Summit secretariat said that some of the issues that continued to be negotiated - such as financing, trade and the launching of new programmes - were interlinked, so a new version of the draft document was put together over the weekend to incorporate all the cross-cutting issues into one package. The sticking points facing delegates were similar to the ones faced at the end of last week, including various aspects of the means of implementation of Agenda 21, such as trade and finance, Lowell Flanders told a press briefing in Bali. Meanwhile, "fairly good progress" had been made on the issues of oceans and energy, he added, and most countries had it in mind to complete negotiations on the text in Bali rather than hold them over until the Summit, which will convene from 26 August to 4 September in Johannesburg, South Africa. As for the upcoming ministerial segment of the preparatory session, which will begin Wednesday, Mr. Flanders said that the ministers would be focusing their attention on discussing another major Summit output - the political declaration. The ministers, he added, might also take up some of the political questions underpinning the implementation programme. United Nations, 3 June
2002
03 June, BALI, Indonesia- In the ten years since the Rio Earth Summit opened up the decision-making process to include nine major groups from civil society, the process of interactive dialogue has evolved in a manner that could serve as a new model for future negotiations within the multilateral context. The multi-stakeholder dialogues that concluded last week featured focused discussions on the central objective of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, which is to promote sustainable development activities that will achieve measurable results on the ground. In separate sessions covering sustainable development governance, capacity building for sustainable development and the issue of partnerships, the representatives of major groups voiced a wide-range of proposals to government delegates. These ranged from the need for a legally binding convention on corporate accountability to equal representation of women at all levels of economic decision-making, and the need for prerequisites and principles for partnerships. (See Chairman's Summary of the Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue). The dialogues were noteworthy for the number of government delegates who attended and participated, and PrepCom Chairman Emil Salim said the ideas from the major groups are "important contributions and deserve our careful consideration." The idea of allowing representatives of major groups-the groups closest to people in society-to participate in the intergovernmental discussion on sustainable development was radical when it was proposed, but in its present incarnation of facilitated dialogues, it is even more radical-representatives of major stakeholders can address their concerns directly to each other, or to government delegates. As an answer to the problem of dialogues becoming forums for lengthy statements and monotonous monologues, the Bali multi-stakeholder dialogues used facilitators to keep the discussions moving and on topic. "Negotiation in the multilateral setting is broken and needs to be fixed," according to Paul Hohnen, one of the facilitators. "Too much time, and too much money, is spent on achieving too little." A good part of the dialogue in the sessions was interactive, and delegations were put on the spot on occasion. But according to Ida Koppen, the other facilitator, as long as the setting is so formal, it will be hard to get away from people just making statements. "I was impressed by the level of commitment by the representatives of the major groups," Koppen said, but she added that there were widely varying degrees of preparations. She noted that for many major groups, meeting beforehand was prohibitively expensive. Many major groups, she said, enter the discussions from a feeling of powerlessness, and consequently become defensive. But through preparation, she said, there are ways to gain power, such as coming with well-prepared proposals. Hohnen said the UN was showing leadership through the multi-stakeholder dialogue, not only in raising issues, but also in process. 'We covered a lot of ground in a short time. This is a road to go down further in the decision-finding process." Both facilitators said that dialogues could be enhanced if they could break down into smaller groups and if the dialogues were not so closely tied to the formal negotiating sessions. That, they said, caused many groups to assume postures from which they could not budge in order to find common ground. In fact, non-governmental organizations asked at one point during the discussion on partnership, "where is this conversation going." The NGOs said that discussing the partnership initiatives might make it seem as if they accept the idea, when they reserved the right to reject it altogether if governments fail to make serious commitments in the negotiated outcome document. The proposals put forward by the major groups for consideration by delegations contain suggested elements for partnerships and the means and mechanisms for monitoring the follow-up after the Johannesburg Summit. The proposals call for partnerships that are credible and have measurable objectives and targets, can be monitored and have proper financing mechanism. They also called for the partnerships to be guided by principles such as equality, transparency, the precautionary and polluter-pays principles, and for full participation at an early stage. The idea of respect for rights, and the idea of equity between generations, were also stressed by the major groups. United Nations Press Release,
3 June 2002 As the fourth Preparatory Committee for the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development entered its second and final week, government representatives continued their work on the draft implementation plan to be adopted by the Summit this September in Johannesburg, South Africa. Speaking at the daily briefing held by the Department of Public Information, Lowell Flanders, a senior United Nations official with the Summit Secretariat, noted that some of the issues that continued to be negotiated -- such as financing, trade and the launching of new programmes -- were interlinked. With this in mind, a new version of the draft had been put together over the weekend so that the negotiators could see all the cross-cutting issues in one package. He said the sticking points facing delegates were similar to the ones faced at the end of last week, including various aspects of the means of implementation of Agenda 21, such as trade and finance. "Fairly good progress," he added, had been made on the issues of oceans and energy. Most countries, he believed, had it in mind to complete negotiations on the text in Bali rather than hold them over until the Summit. Discussing the upcoming ministerial segment of the preparatory session, which will be held from 5 to 7 June, he noted that the ministers would be focusing their attention on discussing another major Summit output -- the political declaration. The ministers, he added, might also take up some of the political questions underpinning the implementation programme. The draft programme of implementation (see document A/CONF.199/PC/L.5*) comprises an introduction and chapters on poverty eradication; changing unsustainable patterns of consumption and production; protecting and managing the natural resource base of economic and social development; sustainable development in a globalizing world; health and sustainable development; sustainable development of small island developing States; sustainable development initiatives for Africa; means of implementation; and an Institutional Framework for Sustainable Development. Also today, side events sponsored by civil society and government representatives were held on such topics as: partnerships for water, sanitation and hygiene and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). As of Saturday evening, over 3,711 people are participating in the preparatory meeting, including 1,458 government delegates, 1,132 representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and 150 journalists. A formal plenary meeting has been scheduled for 8 p.m. tonight to discuss the draft programme of implementation. WSSD.Info News Issue #4 Part I : sections: 1 2 3 4 5 6 Red Road to the World Summit on Sustainable Development Indigenous Environmental Network - Subject Page |