WHAT HAPPENS IN THE RUN-UP?

The World Summit on Sustainable Development is not just the single event in August/September 2002 in Johannesburg. In fact, there is a long and extensive process leading up to the summit. The success of the WSSD largely depends on the sucess of the preparatory activities throughout the world.

On the national level, governments are similarily reviewing progress in implementing the UNCED agreements in terms of national strategies for sustainable development; strengthening integration and participation. Implementation problems are being investigated and addressed in the form of national and regional action programmes. The national processes intend to develop recommendations for national and regional action plans for the WSSD. The CSD has encouraged to define four to five national targets to foster national sustainable development forward.

Regional meetings have been held all over the world. The purpose of those meetings was to identify and prepare the issues that need attention at the WSSD. There is a strong feeling that the regional focus will become imperative in the follow-up of the WSSD, with heightened importance for bodies such as the UN Regional Economic Commissions (that also were responsible for the regional meetings), as most of the issues can be dealt at this level best anyway. The UN WSSD Secretariat has compiled an overall review of the outcomes of the Regional Prepcoms for WSSD in terms of the priority areas that have been identified. [ D O W N L O A D Regional PrepComm review paper -- rtf; 14 pages ] 

Four global meetings of the "Preparatory Committee" (PrepComm) prepared the summit on an international level. The 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. Building on the process that began at the country and regional levels, and after dialogues among all the major groups at the global level, Preparatory Committee Chairman Emil Salim of Indonesia issued, after the PrepComm II, a summary identifying key topics to be addressed in Johannesburg. The third meeting pledged but failed to come up with an outcome document, on the basis of the Chairman's Paper, ending in a deadlock of brackets and disagreements. The fourth meeting re-negotiated the text from the third PrepComm and finally agreed on 80% of the draft outcome text that, however, still needs further negotiation and 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.

CIVIL SOCIETY IN THE RUN-UP

The peparatory process foresees input from "major groups", as defined by the UN, at various levels. Most effectively, non-governmental organisations and NGO networks engage in the national review processes (e.g. in Ethiopia, Sudan or Thailand, where the Heinrich Boell Foundation is also involved), with some NGOs even preparing a "shadow report" parallel to the governmental report (e.g. in Israel or Cambodia, with some involvement of the Heinrich Boell Foundation). Many of the regional meetings had civil society forums preceding the ministerial meetings (e.g. in Africa or Asia, again with involvement of the Heinrich Boell Foundation) to enable civil society to discuss strategies and develop input into the ministerial meetings. Eventually, several Multi Stakeholder Dialogues are part of the global process, with dialogue sessions at the PrepComm II and another one at the PrepComm IV. NGOs from all over the world demand that the preparatory process not only looks at reviewing past achievements (most NGOs agree that after all, there are not many achievements) but puts more focus on the new proposals and needs for the new century, particularly with the commitment to develop an agenda for the WSSD that allows target and time bound action plans instead of warm words with little action behind it.

MORE EVENTS LEADING TO THE SUMMIT

Various additional UN conferences have been or will be preparing sectoral and cross-sectoral issues in the run up to the WSSD. The Financing for Development Conference plays an especially decisive role because so-called 'hard' topics such as trade and finances will be discussed for the first time under the umbrella of the UN. The main goal is to find solutions for the permanent financial crises most of the Southern countries find themselves in.

Among those conferences are/were:

+ Third UN Conference on the Least Developed Countries, May 2001, Brussels
NGO Forum -- [ http://www.oneworld.org/liaison/forum/en/home/introduction.htm ]
Official Web Site -- [ http://www.unctad.org/conference ]

+ International Conference on Freshwater in December 2001, Bonn
Official Web Site -- [ http://www.water-2001.de ] + [ read intro ]

+ International Conference on Financing for Development in March 2002, Monterrey
Official Web Site -- [ http://www.un.org/esa/ffd/index.html ] + [ read intro ]

+ Conferences of the Parties for the various UN global conventions
Climate Change -- [ http://www.unfccc.org ]
Biodiversity -- [ http://www.biodiv.org ]
Desertification -- [ http://www.unccd.int ]