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What can Johannesburg do?
Jo'burg must reorient global discussions back towards sustainable development, with clear investments in participatory action, a commitment to social justice, and a priority for the concerns of the most marginalised
Dr. Abid Qaiyum Suleri
After a ten-year cycle since the historic UN Conference on Environment and
Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro 1992, the UN will hold another conference in an attempt to address sustainable development. The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), unofficially known as Rio+10, will be a UN summit gathering at the highest level. World governments, UN agencies, civil society organisations, multilateral financial institutions and businesses will gather to assess global change since the UNCED.
The official agenda of the World Summit is to review the achievements that have been made since the Rio Summit. Governments will debate what participating countries have done so far to implement the Rio action plan "Agenda 21", if they have ratified the conventions eg to prevent biodiversity loss and what obstacles have been encountered; and if they have adopted national sustainable development strategies, as was agreed they would, by 2002. Governments will also investigate new factors that have emerged since UNCED and what mid-course corrections need to be made.
"Preserving the environment and pursuing the development of the South"--what had been identified in Rio as the common responsibility of the South and the North and the hope that the world's nations could cope with those central problems in a joint effort is still valid. Despite the fact that very little has changed for the people living in the developing countries, there is a great change in the way of thinking in the South now. In 1992, the South felt that "Sustainable Development" has been imposed on it and they perceive it as a foreign agenda. However, 10 years later southern states have owned the concept and now are asking their northern counterparts to enable them to turn this concept into reality.
Unlike the WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha, the world would be divided into two blocks in Jo'burg. Developing countries, often referred to as G77 and China, would emphasise on the intensification of the development problems and poverty by demanding more financial aid in support of the implementation process of sustainability. On the other hand, the US--and to a lesser degree the EU and Japan--will want to redefine economic growth as sustainable development strategies, and their focus would be on market liberalisation, foreign direct investment (as main motor and funding mechanism), public private partnerships or good national governance (to safeguard property rights).
There seems to be a crisis of implementation in the UN system. It has failed miserably in getting implemented the commitments of powerful member nations. Be it the agreements of the WTO or the commitment to halve world hunger by year 2015, one comes to know that lack of political will and lack of finances have resulted in lack of implementation. Governments are always vocal in international summits and conferences. However, all these voices become silent once the meetings finish, and that happened with the Rio 1992 too.
A lot has been worded since Rio, but not much has changed. The challenges are still there, while the situation has worsened. The UN system has once again proved disappointing for many of us. Dashed hopes, false promises, and missed opportunities outweigh the achievements by far. As the preamble of a statement on WSSD issued by RING (Regional and International Networking Group) alliance of policy research organisations rightly points out, even accounting for the naive optimism invested in the Rio process and outputs, the track record since then has been dismal. Governments have refused to invest the new resources that had been promised or implied. Civil society continues to be distanced from the locus of global decision-making, in spite of the fact that it has grown in size and achieved many successes at the local level.
The hopes that sustainable development would build new bridges between North and South or between governments and civil society remain largely unrealised. The much-celebrated Rio compact-the supposed understanding between South and North that environment and development needs to be dealt with an integrated set of concerns within the context of current and future social justice and equity-lies bruised and neglected.
It is in this context that civil society organisations are concerned that WSSD will become yet another venue for rehearsing routine admonishments. The hopes were high for the World Food Summit Five Years Later (WFS) too, but it turned out that developed countries had not placed the issue high enough on their agendas, and the conference was attended by only two of the developed nations' heads of state. Lack of interest from developed nations resulted in the failure of WFS and the same is expected to be the fate of WSSD. President Bush has already announced that he would not be attending the summit. How can he when he knows that it would be difficult to defend the US stance on Kyoto Protocol!
Ten years ago, the South was sceptical about the idea of sustainable development. Today the level of awareness has increased manifolds in southern nations and their citizens are not only criticising the irresponsible attitude of northern nations, but are also pointing out the double standards adapted by their own governments. Hence, it was the Pakistani civil society, which raised the issue of socio-economic and ecological impacts of corporate farming and informed the world that the government of Pakistan was backing out from its commitment that it made to the international community through UNCCD Secretariat to distribute three million acres of state-owned land among landless farmers.
Absence of President Bush from WSSD would be a symbolic triumph of international civil society organisations and friends of the South who should try to re-orient sustainable development back to its original course. There must be ample pressure and force behind the demand of sustainable development so that WSSD is forced to recuperate the original version: an orientation towards participatory action; the protection of environmental life-support systems; the maintenance of the diversity of life; a priority for the poor; a commitment to social justice and human security; and a respect for human dignity.
The WSSD needs to challenge governments to fulfil their commitments voiced since UNCED in 1992, in particular those crucial agreements like the Convention on Biodiversity and the Convention on Climate Change, which are still awaiting ratification. There are six such conventions to examine:
* The Framework Convention on Climate Change with the Kyoto Protocol (FCCC)
* The Convention on Biological Diversity with the Cartagena Protocol (CBD)
* The Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD)
* The Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP)
* The Convention on Straddling and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks
* The Convention on the Prior Informed Consent (PIC) Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade
There are no new conventions on the table for Johannesburg. Nonetheless, it is much more important that the ratification processes for some of the existing conventions and protocols be finalised and that a regulatory framework for the resulting outcomes, as well as for resolution of conflict be found. In addition, the institutional and financial obstacles that presently hamper the implementation process must be removed.
A holistic and integrated approach besides political will is required to make the above mentioned conventions really work. The anti-FCCC stance of US has made it virtually ineffective. CBD is under threat due to the Trade Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) regime under WTO. Governments do not take UNCCD very, seriously as is evident from Government of Pakistan backing out from its own commitments and introducing corporate farming for industrial agricultural activities instead of distributing the state lands among the landless and poor. In this scenario, a meeting like WSSD seems to be mere wastage of time and resources.
While disappointed from governments, many think that the World Summit will provide opportunities for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to reintegrate environment and development and to reinvigorate government's commitment to develop a sustainable conceptual framework for the next century. However, the NGOs need to be clear headed and well determined in their demands, otherwise there are chances that international financial institutes (IFIs) would co-opt them and their voice would be silenced in the guise of IFI jargons such as "national poverty reduction strategy" etc.
Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) and other RING members believe that there is no way forward but sustainable development. Sustainable development is not just an environmental demand; it is a development necessity and Jo'burg must reorient global discussions back towards sustainable development, with clear investments in participatory action, a commitment to social justice, and a priority for the concerns of the most marginalised. This network feels that there is no need for global environment governance. There is an urgency to strengthen existing arrangements-for example, giving UNEP the resources and authority it needs, making GEF more democratic, and uncluttering multilateral environmental agreements proliferation.
SDPI and partner organisations call for a discussion on a post-Kyoto climate regime-one that focuses on the needs of the most impoverished and most vulnerable; one that invests in the resilience capacities of the most threatened countries; one that mandates meaningful and real emission reductions; and one that is rooted in a framework of equity and fairness within and between generations.
WSSD would never be able to bring any change until and unless we don't change our approach and attitude towards international assistance. It is not charity and it should be based on clear understanding that the global ecological services provided by the poor need to be compensated. All institutions -from multilateral development financiers to national and local recipients-must be made transparent and held accountable. Governments, northern and southern, must be pushed to fulfil the promises they made at Rio.
Finally, it goes without saying that all of this would be in vain without facilitating the local communities through a process of empowerment in their quest for sustainable livelihoods; and the best way to empower them is to develop strong and accountable local institutions in order to ensure that local needs and priorities are not ignored in the transition to sustainable development.
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