By Lucien Royer
AttacAugust 21, 2002
Trade unions were quick to communicate with the WSSD government negotiators today in response to the recent positive news that 32 donor nations have pledged almost $3 billion to replenish the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), an unprecedented amount of money, as a major boost to the Johannesburg Summit.
While the replenishment will significantly increase the capacity of regions and organizations to implement 'environmental' outcomes of the WSSD, trade unions warn of the danger that the eventual GEF expenditures could merely reinforce RIO92 mistakes by failing to integrate the agency's programmes with the social and economic pillars of sustainable development.
Replenishing the GEF must usher a new vision to make the Facility a prime mover of sustainable development in its broadest sense, they say, inviting the WSSD Governments to heed what they have already agreed to in the Action Plan text, adopted last June in Indonesia, which called for the integration of the three pillars, and for poverty eradication, as well as measures to address the stark inequalities that have hindered sustainable development since RIO92.
A trade union delegation of more than 300 members is expected to participate in WSSD deliberations later this month, as representatives of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD (TUAC) and the Global Union Federations (GUF). Delegation representatives said statements that the new GEF funds would meaningfully address poverty issues were unfounded because there are NO CONCRETE MEASURES in place to ensure such outcomes. They say:
NEW INSTITUTIONAL LINKAGES TO THE INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGNANISATION (ILO) are required to ensure proper implementation of the social dimension. Unlike the economic and environmental pillars, which each have inter-governmental bodies to oversee their implementation, the social pillar remains an only orphan. Trade Unions at WSSD will also urge governments to draw in the new "WORLD COMMISSION ON SOCIAL DIMENSION OF GLOBALISATION", into the WSSD framework and for it to help oversee the integration of programmes for sustainable development, over the next decade.
GREATER COOPERATION AMONG ILO, UNEP, WHO, and the GEF are a prerequisite, given the nature of the 'poverty /health /environment' triad at WSSD, and of the need for strategic cross-sectoral planning combined with financial backing. These agencies must be given a clear mandate to cooperate during the post-WSSD period in joint approaches to foster three-pillar integration into their respective implementation plans."
EMPLOYMENT, WORKPLACE STRATEGIES, and SOCIAL IMPLEMENTATION must be placed on the GEF's radar screen. While a primary environmental focus for GEF can remain, in practice its programmes must be made to function in tandem with the goals of addressing poverty, social exclusion and employment for women, youth and vulnerable groups.
In their communication to WSSD negotiators, the trade unions urged that Governments support the development of 'sustainable impact assessments', as a remedy to current segmented 'environmental' or 'economic' impact assessment approaches. They also said the GEF could become more involved in research and development to promote a better understanding of the social impacts of changes and to foster integrated planning with environmental implementation.
The unions said that the GEF could play a facilitating role in the development of social and employment indicators and to promote them, along with national environmental reporting and in peer reviews of progress. This, they say, would go a long way toward identifying 'Just Transition' measures for the purposes of addressing the impacts of change on the most vulnerable sectors of society, in the decade to come.
WSSD POLITICAL DECLARATION TRADE UNIONS REQUEST WSSD NEGOTIATORS TO HELP REFOCUS NEW GEF MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR FUND TOWARD 'THREE PILLAR' STRATEGY.
-Paris: Saturday, August 10, 2002
The trade unions proposed the inclusion of the following text for the eventual WSSD Political Declaration.
They urge it to say:
"We set these agreements in the context of an integrated approach to ecosystems management to encourage greater international coherence. As to the social dimension of sustainable development, we call on all governments to ratify and fully implement currently agreed international Instruments, which address issues of social inequalities, poverty, and lack of access to resources, services and employment, in particular those adopted by the International Labour Organisation and by other intergovernmental bodies. We also commit to working with the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalisation to implement the social dimensions of WSSD outcomes".
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