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Earth Summit 2002 - Preparations and Women's Activities
By Minu Hemmati, UNED Forum
In December 2000, the United Nations General Assembly decided to hold a World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, 2 - 11th September 2002 - popularly known as Earth Summit 2002. Women are gearing up towards this important event.
The Summit process is focusing on two activities: a review of the implementation of Agenda 21 and discussions on a number of priority issues where progress seems possible. Which issues these are going to be remains unclear - some that are being talked about are freshwater, energy, forests, globalisation, HIV/AIDS. The goal is to look at issues in an integrated manner, and to come to agreements which are precise, concrete, and benchmarked so that implementation can accelerate and be monitored. The Summit will also address the question of the international institutional architecture for sustainable development.
Part of the preparatory
process and the Summit itself are so-called 'multi-stakeholder dialogues'.
Since 1998, multi-stakeholder dialogues were held at the UN Commission on
Sustainable Development (CSD) meetings. The dialogues are an important
opportunity for stakeholders to communicate in an issue-focused manner, aiming
to listen to each other and identify commonalities (sometimes unexpected
ones) and differences. NGOs, for example, are coordinating and revising their
papers extensively to produce during the preparations. A number of
recommendations out of the dialogues have found their way into CSD decisions
every year, and several ongoing processes came out of the CSD dialogues (eg
on tourism, sustainable agriculture), aiming to create more space for
stakeholders to interact and moving forward contentious issues. The dialogues
are a key component of stakeholder participation in the CSD and the Earth
Summit 2002 process and it will be crucial for women to take an active,
well-prepared role in them.
At the 1st PrepComm held 30 April - 2 May 2001 and focusing on organisation
matters, stakeholders provided their views on the first day. It was remarkable
to see how many aspects of the statements related to each other and overlapped.
This had a significant effect on the delegates who were impressed with the
common notions of Major Groups that they stand ready to contribute, reach
out into their constituencies and, above all, work together towards a
constructive process and a significant outcome of the Summit - the concrete
actions for change which we so desperately need.
NGOs in the Earth Summit
2002 Process
The CSD was created after the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. It is the principal
focus for international follow-up to the United Nations Commission on Environment
and Development (UNCED) and the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. There has been significant
and active NGO involvement in the CSD process since Rio mostly through issue
or major groups caucuses on issues such as freshwater, energy & climate
change, tourism, sustainable agriculture, finance.
Among the most active caucuses are the women's caucus, the youth and the
Indigenous Peoples caucus. Most of these caucuses are operating email list
serves, which you can join (see women's caucus website for more
information).
Caucuses meet regularly at the CSD and Summit Preparatory meetings. Caucus
members work together to prepare coalition NGO position papers, and to lobby
government delegates. Caucuses are also a place for members to network and
share information and ideas about approaches to sustainable development.
UNED Forum has since 1999 worked towards the preparations of Earth Summit
2002, and has created the main information hub for stakeholders
(www.earthsummit2002.org), with background information, news, schedules,
briefing papers, and a monthly e-zine, Network 2002, which goes to over 25.000
people around the globe.
Women in the Sustainable
Development Process
Women were a key group setting the agenda in 1992. The CSD Women's Caucus
has picked up the challenge of the process towards 2002, aiming to ensure
gender mainstreaming of all decisions to be taken. The Women's Caucus grew
out of the 1991 Miami Conference, organized by WEDO, and its outcome document,
the Women's Action Agenda for a Healthy Planet. It is a working group of
women and men who are interested in the mainstreaming of gender into sustainable
development policies and practical implementation strategies. The caucus
works towards the recognition of gender issues and adequate action on
gender-related aspects of sustainable development issues by providing information
and research as well as lobbying on recommendations based on up-to-date analyses
and consultation within the caucus.
Between meetings, the women's caucus operates an email list serve, and
information is available at the women's caucus website (see below).
Being aware that we need to target not only governments but NGO colleagues
and other stakeholders as well, the women's caucus uses several strategies:
During periods meetings and sessions, we meet daily, organise side events
(and encourage member organisations to do so), attend government-NGO briefings,
and lobby delegates. As the negotiations move into final stages, we produce
line-by-line amendments to draft texts and discuss them with delegates. Quite
often, the women's caucus will be asked for its opinion or suggested
"language".
In general, one can say that many government delegates and other stakeholders
in the CSD / Earth Summit 2002 process are aware of the need for gender
mainstreaming and many are willing to improve decisions in that sense. However,
there is a lack of expertise within many government delegations to provide
detailed knowledge and produce substantive, concrete input into decisions.
Members of the women's caucus have been working to advance the debates beyond
general recognitions of the need for women's participation in decision-making
and the like. In the run-up to Earth Summit 2002, expertise on the various
issues will be needed to provide concrete recommendations and help make the
outcome documents useful to take home and work with it at the regional, national
and local levels.
Activities Towards Earth
Summit 2002
The women's caucus has identified a number of projects and tasks that
include:
· Women's Action Agenda for a Healthy Planet 2002 (WAA2002): A re-launch
of the 1991 Agenda is underway, coordinated by WEDO, working with a team
of women from around the world. The first draft will be circulated in August
2001, and undergo a series of revisions, based on consultations with as many
networks and organisations as possible. WAA2002 will serve as a lobbying
platform for the Summit process and beyond.
· Work on specific issues, such as energy, freshwater, finance for
development, is taken on by issue specific networks (eg ENERGIA, Gender &
Water Alliance).
· Regional facilitators aim to coordinate regional input into the official
preparations (Regional PrepComms) and the work of the women's caucus.
· A group of women in South Africa, who have also been involved in the
media work around Beijing+5, are preparing a media campaign and women's
newsletters towards and at the Summit.
· Involve in multi-stakeholder dialogues and relating to the UN has
been taken on mainly by WEDO and UNED Forum.
· An annotated database is being built by the Commonwealth Women's
Network.
· Skills training for operating effectively at UN meetings will be provided
by a group of organisations prior to upcoming meetings.
· The list serve and website are being maintained by UNED Forum.
You can find updates on activities, contact details, and scheduled meetings
on the women's caucus website (see below). We hope that many organisations
and networks will join into this important effort. Earth Summit 2002 offers
a great opportunity for striking a New Deal for sustainable development -
between North and South, between the major stakeholders. Since 1992, we have
had the blueprint - now, we put it into action.
Useful web-sites:
Women's Caucus:
www.earthsummit2002.org/wcaucus/csdngo.htm
includes schedules, meeting reports, position papers, who does what in the
women's caucus, etc.
www.earthsummit2002.org/workshop
"Gender Perspectives for Earth Summit 2002: Energy; Transport; Information
for Decision-making". Workshop January 2001, Berlin, at UN Sustainable
Development Site: www.un.org/esa/sustdev
UN 2002 site:
www.johannesburgsummit.org
UNED Forum 2002 site:
www.earthsummit2002.org
IISD Linkages (incl. Earth Negotiations Bulletin)
www.iisd.org/about/prodcat/infores.htm
NGO Link (lists UN Headquarter events)
www.ngos.net/events/upcoming
- Boell -Foundation newsletter (English/Spanish)
www.boell.org/docs/HBF-WorldSummit2002-NewsletterNoIengl.doc and:
www.boell.org/spanish/463.html
Addresses:
- Women's Environment and Development Organisation (WEDO), 355 Lexington
Ave, 3rd floor, New York, NY 10017, USA, Tel +1 212 973 0325, Fax +1 212
973 0335, web: www.wedo.org, Contact person:
June Zeitlin, Email: june@wedo.org
- UNED Forum, UNED Forum, 3 Whitehall Court, London SW1A 2EL, UK, Tel: +44
20 7839 1784, Fax: +44 20 7930 5893, web:
www.unedforum.org and:
www.earthsummit2002.org, Contact person: Minu Hemmati, email:
minush@aol.com
- UN Division for Sustainable Development, Major groups Focal Point: Zehra
Aydin-Siphos, aydin@un.org
- NGO Unit in DPCSD: (For accreditation) One U.N. Plaza, DC1-14th floor,
(1st Ave btw. 44th and 45th St), tel + 1 (212) 963 8652 , fax + 1 (212) 963
9248 or 963 4114, e-mail: Hanifa Mezoui
mezoui@un.org
- UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service: One U.N. Plaza, DC1-1106, tel +1 (212)
963 3125, fax + 1 (212) 963 8712, email:
ngls@un.org
- Earth Summit 2002 Contact in South Africa
Bryan Ashe, Interim Co-ordinator, SA Interim NGO Earth Summit 2002 Caucus,
Tel: +27-11-4036056, Fax:+27-11-3394584, e-mail:
admin@earthsummit2002.org.za
Dr Minu Hemmati, a psychologist by profession, has been working with UNED Forum as an independent project coordinator since 1998. Her projects focus on areas such as women/gender and sustainable development (tourism; consumption) as well as participation and collaboration of various stakeholder groups. She is living in London, Great Britain.
Preparations for the Summit
are ongoing at national, regional and global levels. Nationally, governments
are preparing their reviews of implementation - 10 years after Rio - and
are in many cases working with NGOs, industry, trade unions and other
stakeholders such as women's groups.
There will be Preparatory Committee meetings (PrepComms) in all of the five
UN regions, beginning in September 2001. National reports are feeding into
the regional (and the global) preparations to identify priority issues, barriers
and success factors for implementation. Internationally, the processes comprises
4 PrepComms - the first, an organisational meeting, having been held in May
2001; the 2nd to held in 28 January 8 February 2002, the 3rd in 25 March
- 5 April (both in New York), and the 4th and final one in 27 May - 7 June
2002 in Bali, Indonesia. Parallel to these meetings, there will be global
and regional round tables with 'eminent persons', discussing priority issues
and inter-linkages.