That historic event in Rio de Janeiro a decade ago set out a clear and farsighted vision to protect and preserve our environment while ensuring that future development is sustainable.

The Millennium Summit two years ago, gave us shared, timebound set of targets in the form of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), with the overarching aim of halving extreme poverty by 2015.

And the Monterrey Conference on Financing for Development earlier this year set out a path for achieving both sets of goals: through a new Global Deal by which rich countries provide the trade opportunities, aid, technology transfer and other support to poor countries that have the commitment to undertake serious political and economic reform aimed at achieving those Goals.

Now, in Johannesburg, we have an opportunity to build on this strong foundation, and map out practical plans of action that both close the ìimplementation gapî that opened up after Rio and lay a strong foundation for global and national efforts to meet the MDGs over the next 13 years.

What we need are concrete plans that will help developing countries make progress in all these areas. And a key focus for those plans must be not simply about providing access for developing countries -- to markets, or technology or even wealth -- but about building strong, democratic institutions at all levels of society.

Because we know -- as will be spelled out in UNDP's Human Development Report 2002 -- that tackling poverty and the other deprivations from disease to environmental degradation that both contribute to and exacerbate the plight of the poor; that poverty is at root a question of building and providing access to sound, transparent, accountable institutions capable of protecting the environment while delivering services from clean water to basic health care to justice to economic opportunity to the poor.

That is why capacity development is at the core of UNDP's ongoing reforms -- and why it is so central to broader UN efforts to help meet the Secretary-General's five priority areas for Johannesburg -- Water, Energy, Health, Agriculture and Biodiversity -- all of which will help contribute to the achievement of the MDGs.

Because as a global community we now better understand sustainable development. We recognize "subsidiarity" and the promise of participation at the local level. We recognize the power of an enabled civil society, which both stands guard against inequity and finds innovative solutions. We recognize the power of women as key catalysts of change. We appreciate that the private sector is strategically placed to help make the critical shifts towards sustainable consumption and production. And we all agree that we need comprehensive and far-reaching action and results.

There is a lot of work to be done. In March, UNDP released a new report on the MDGs entitled "How Many Countries Are On Track?"

The good news is that for universal primary education and gender equity in education, many developing countries have already achieved the goals or are on track to do so. Because of the importance of education to so many areas of development, this situation strengthens the possibilities for progress towards the other goals. Furthermore, over 60 percent of the world's people live in 43 countries that have met or are on track to meet the goal of halving the number of people who are hungry.

The bad news is that in other areas more than half the countries for which data are available will not achieve the goals without significant acceleration in progress. Many of these are least developed countries in sub-Saharan Africa. While 50 countries have achieved or are on track to achieve the safe water goal, 83 countries with 70 percent of the worldís people are behind. With regard to income poverty, more than 40 percent of the worldís people live in countries that are on track to meet the goal.

The situation is perhaps most serious for under-five mortality. While 66 countries are on track to meet the goal, 83 countries with around 60 per cent of the worldís people are lagging behind -- in 10 countries; under-five mortality rates are actually increasing.

One of the most startling conclusions is the fact that not all the goals can even be monitored since there are insufficient data to assess the reduction of poverty and maternal mortality or the incidence of HIV/AIDS. There is clearly an urgent need for improved statistics on even these most basic aspects of development.

UNDP, working through the UN Development Group, is now helping to map out a broader UN strategy around the MDGs that ranges from incorporating them into the UN's country level operational work and planning instruments, to supporting new research and advocacy campaigns around the MDGs, to the preparation of new country level MDG Reports that will measure progress in every developing country. The first nine of these are complete with 40 currently underway and every developing country due to have completed its first by 2004.

But real progress will depend on building new partnerships for action that can use this work as a platform to move forward.

Partnerships improve transparency and foster innovation. They allow a more comprehensive analysis of issues than any one stakeholder group can achieve. They allow markets and business to deliver on public goods. They help leverage additional resources. And perhaps most importantly, they offer new forms of governance that recognizes the comparative advantage of governmental, inter-governmental and non-governmental partners.

For sustainable development, we need to focus in particular on creating more effective partnerships with the poor to empower them to implement their own solutions to key national and global development challenges. Some of the most effective partnerships of this kind bring small non-government organizations and community-based organizations to work closely with multilaterals and multinational businesses.

For the past 10 years, for example, UNDP's Capacity 21 programme has been helping countries build these kinds of multi-sectoral partnerships in over 80 countries and in Johannesburg it will be relaunched and expanded to focus more on the MDGs and the deadline of 2015 for achieving our overarching aims.

Developing countries are not waiting for help. Initiatives like the New African Partnership for Development show how governments are taking responsibility for their own challenges and addressing the needs of their citizens directly. But there can be no escaping the need for greater commitments through trade opportunities, technology transfer and development assistance. And this assistance is clearly an investmentó both in terms of direct benefits to the millions who will live longer, healthier and more productive lives as a result, and also in promoting global human and ecological security.

We must also increase our efforts to empower women. Gender equality as it relates to education is a Millennium Development Goal but we all recognize that the issue pervades all our overarching objectives. In the words of the Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, "What begins as the neglect of interests of women ends in causing adversity for the health and survival of all."

Finally, since the poor suffer most from the degradation of their land, air, water and biological resources, achieving the MDGs requires attention to links with the environment and energy. This is clear with regard to the first goal of reducing income poverty by half by 2015 since most of the rural poor depend directly on the environment and natural resources for their livelihood -- and are in need of greatly enhanced energy services to pull themselves out of poverty.

To achieve the maternal and child mortality goals we must find ways to prevent the estimated 3.4 million deaths of children each year due to inadequate water supply, sanitation and hygiene -- and the more than two million additional deaths due to indoor air pollution. Similarly, since rural women play a key role in managing their natural resources such as food, water and fuelwood, and are disproportionately impacted by the degradation of those resources, achievement of the gender equality goal will also depend on improvements in environmental management.

And the energy sector offers especially promising potential. Measures that promote renewable energy and increase energy efficiency will simultaneously support multiple development objectives, including job creation and poverty reduction, while also protecting the environment and helping to mitigate climate change.

There is much to do. In Rio ten years ago, the wall between environment and development came down, but we have not yet been able to take the next step of integrating those priorities into concrete plans of action that deliver results where they are most needed: for the very poorest. By re-igniting that global commitment in Johannesburg and launching powerful new partnerships aimed at delivery rather than rhetoric, the World Summit offers a unique opportunity to launch a new, coordinated global effort towards sustainable development and the achievement of the MDGs.

(Mark Malloch Brown is Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme.)