By Kumi Naidoo
CivicusAugust 27, 2002
I write this week's message moments before the official opening of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, and in the midst of a flurry of activity around the city to prepare for what is being touted as a gathering critical to the long-term sustainability of the planet and all its inhabitants.
A few days ago, South African President Thabo Mbeki, chair of the WSSD, hosted a two-hour meeting with civil society organisations to hear their concerns and views. This is the first time that the chair of a UN conference has initiated such action and it should be welcomed. He spoke for no more than five minutes and listened intently to the views of some 30 organisations including GreenPeace, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Friends of the Earth International. I stressed the need for civil society and governments to work together to reform the UN so that future global policy making initiatives become more democratic and where civil society's role is respected by governments and other global leaders.
During the months of lead-up to the WSSD, there have been many discussions and debates about the process, the various agendas of stakeholders (governmental and non-governmental), the principles surrounding decision-making and implementation, and the lack of interest and cooperation shown by some key roleplayers. Myriad groups from the private to public to the community-based sectors have entered the arena of debate, pushing their particular positions on key issues.
Yet, to date, no clear agreements beyond the existing framework of Agenda 21 adopted at the last Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro a decade ago have been tabled. There seems little hope of any breakthroughs on matters of principle, no new environmental treaties and fewer financial commitments to the nuts and bolts of making development accessible and sustainable for the majority of the world's citizens. Where hopes were high in Rio, expectations for the outcomes in Johannesburg seem low. A weaker version of Agenda 21 and a political declaration on key issues of sustainable development are, at this stage, the likely outcomes of the WSSD. Indeed, the lack of progress on the important agreements reached in Rio, including the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on Climate Change, is an indication of the very hard work that lies ahead for those committed to environmental and social change.
Ironically, at the Summit event itself, the diversity of voices is celebrated in the shadows of a fractured and starkly contradictory geography. The official UN meeting is taking place in the plush suburb of Sandton, where heads of state, civil servants and other international delegates will gather to thrash out agreements on issues such as climate change, water resources, agricultural production and energy. In the neighbouring suburb of Alexandra, several hundred thousand people live in overcrowded, polluted conditions, some having no access to safe drinking water, sanitation or electricity. The Civil society sector's parallel Global Forum meeting happens almost 20 kilometres away on the edge of Soweto - a relic of apartheid social planning in which the majority of inhabitants live clearly unsustainable lives.
In spite of these contradictions and the seeming lack of clear direction on some of the most pressing problems impacting on sustainable development, the possibility of a failed WSSD does not imply the failure of the ideas or proposals that premised it. These are as relevant today as they were a decade ago. Neither does the lack of political will and cooperation to implement the fundamentals render civil society incapable of pressing ahead with renewed commitment to ensure the accountability of leaders and other powerful roleplayers.
Indeed, the diversity of civil society organisations working together around the globe toward a more sustainable future is exciting. Some will be present at the WSSD to promote a collaborative approach to the common problems facing the poor and marginalised in particular. Others will gather in the streets to raise their voices in protest against the alienating policies of international and local capital that contribute to unsustainable development of both humans and the environment. Regardless of the chosen methods, there is a common thread that increasingly binds civil society organisations and activists alike; an understanding that the problems of development affect people differently, depending on their immediate environment, but also that the fundamentals of development must benefit the majority. Platforms of unity are being built all over the world - not only at international conferences such as the WSSD, but in communities both rural and urban, where people are joining forces on a small scale to ensure sustainable livelihoods and futures.
The arrest last week of several activists from the Landless People's Movement, who were peacefully protesting outside the offices of the Premier of the province in which the Summit is taking place, has raised numerous criticisms from civil society organisations. We urge the South African government and the police authorities here, who have laregely been very helpful, to resist taking precipitous, rash and disproportionate actions. Peaceful protests by civil society should not only be tolerated but should be encouraged if we want a multiplicity of voices and concerns to inform the deliberations taking place within the conference halls.
Whether civil society action will ultimately influence the outcomes of the WSSD is up for debate. The path to Johannesburg is already littered with discord and disappointment, making meaningful collaboration between civil society and other stakeholders a difficult exercise. However, the power of civil society actors in collaboration for social and environmental change will likely resonate long after the conference halls empty and the delegates jet out of Johannesburg. Ensuring that this power is harnessed to implement real, not cosmetic, change in the lives of millions of the world's citizens is the bottom line.
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