| Gears
can be heard shifting into position and wheels
creaking again into action as "PrepCom III" gets
underway today at the United Nations Headquarters
in New York. The two-week session, which continues
through April 5, marks the third in a series of
four preparatory sessions leading up to the World
Summit
on Sustainable Development to be held in Johannesburg
in August. At
the previous session (PrepCom II) held in New York
two months ago, Chair Emil Salim remarked that, "Facing
a turbulent world, we must be successful in drawing
the map for a journey of hope to reach the goal of
a world without poverty." He emphasized that
the success of the Johannesburg Summit largely depended
upon the delegates' ability at the PrepComs to delineate
a clearly defined road map to hope.
PrepCom
III's priority will be to flesh out what Salim
calls
a "do-able and workable
program, not another Agenda 21", referring
to the largely unrealized plan of action drawn
up at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio. At the time,
Agenda 21 was considered an unprecedented global
plan of action for sustainable development. However,
many question the success of its implementation.
Delegates are eager to reinvigorate the process
at Johannesburg, when tens of thousands of participants,
including heads of state and government, leaders
from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), businesses
and other major constituencies, will focus the
world's attention on the challenges of endemic
poverty, unsustainable lifestyles and environmental
degradation.
At
the conclusion of PrepCom II, Chair Salim stated, "We have agreed somehow on a frame
of a map; the map can be fleshed out at PrepCom
III." Given the diversity of views amongst
the delegates thus far, the emphasis has been
on reaching a broad consensus on which issues
to address. As Salim indicated, there have been
many brilliant ideas put forward, but unless
they can be proved workable during the PrepCom
sessions, they will not appear in the final document
that will direct the Johannesburg Summit.
PrepCom II defined the overarching goal of the
summit to be poverty eradication. Under this,
rank issues such as changing unsustainable patterns
of consumption, managing natural resources, health
and sustainable development, and specific means
of implementation of these initiatives. During
the next two weeks, PrepCom III will negotiate
how these items will be defined and prioritized
at the Johannesburg summit.
Emphasis will also be placed on how to actively
pursue and implement Agenda 21 into a coherent
strategy before PrepCom IV -- the high-level
ministerial and final session to be held in Bali,
Indonesia from May 27 to June 7. The aim is to
have an agreed-upon text by the end of PrepCom
III, so that a concise and focused document can
be drawn up in Bali that will be used to set
the agenda in Johannesburg.
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