FIRST* MEETING OF THE PREPARATORY COMMITTEE
MAY 2001, NEW YORK
Four international meetings of the "Preparatory Committee" (PrepComm)
prepare the summit on an international level. The first PrepComm was also
the tenth of the annual meetings of the CSD and
took place on May 2-5, 2001, in New York, USA, and discussed the modalities
for the preparatory process as well as the Summit itself:
+ The Summit will take place from September 2 - 11, 2002 in Johannesburg,
South Africa.
(NOTE that the date has now been changed to August 26 - September
4, 2002, in order to avoid clash with the anniversary of September
11)
+ The preparations for the Summit will include the local, regional,
national, and international levels in co-operation with an official
UN preparatory meeting.
+ A revision to assess the implementation progress of Agenda 21 should
take place before the 2002 Summit in order to provide room for the discussion
of new and controversial issues.
+ A large number of reports from different UN institutions and programs
will be provided prior to the Summit to support this process.
+ Donor countries should provide more financial assistance to developing
countries in order to guarantee the participation of representatives.
+ Governments have agreed to take into consideration the results of
relevant international conferences such as the third Conference on Least
Developed Countries, the Financing for Development Conference and other
Conferences of the Parties to different global UN conventions in order
to prepare for the WSSD.
Compared to the preceding CSD-9, where national
narrow-mindedness had played an important role, the 1st PrepComm was characterised
by a much more constructive and positive atmosphere - after all there
weren't such controversial issues as energy or transportation discussed.
*Four international meetings of the "Preparatory Committee"
(PrepComm) prepared the summit on an international level. This first PrepComm
discussed the modalities for the preparatory process as well as the Summit
itself. The second meeting intended to look
at issues such as the implementation of Agenda
21 and reviewing national and regional progress. The third
meeting pledged but failed to come up with an outcome document. The
fourth meeting re-negotiated the text from
the third PrepComm and finally agreed on 80% of the draft outcome text
that contains hardly any clear targets or timetables. Pressing for these
is what NGOs now demand governments to
prepare for in the run up to the World Summit.
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