October, 2002

Analysis of the World Summit on Sustainable Development

Maha Sirag

The UN World Summit on Sustainable Development, the second Earth Summit, met from 26 August to 4 September 2002 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Its goal, according to UN General Assembly -UNGA- Resolution 55/199, was to hold a 10-year review of the UN Conference on Environment & Development -UNCED- held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The Johannesburg conference also aimed at reinvigorating global commitment to sustainable development. It concluded with the adoption of two main documents: the Plan of Implementation and the Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development.

The international environment for the conference was of course drastically different to that of 1992. The international political system has changed markedly, with the United States becoming the world leader and its main superpower, and Washington is adopting a different policy agenda since the events of 11 September 2001. The global environment has also changed, with many natural disasters around the planet leaving hundreds of thousands of victims as a result of global warming.

The International Conference on Financing for Development, held in Monterrey, Mexico, in March 2002, and the last World Trade Ministerial Conference both tackled several issues on the agenda in Johannesburg, including trade, agriculture and international assistance. This allowed the developed countries to oppose negotiating these issues, despite their importance to the developing nations, on the grounds that it would be mere duplication of matters previously covered.

The main issues discussed at the summit, as identified by the UN secretary-general, were water and sanitation, energy, health, agriculture and biodiversity – collectively abbreviated to WEHAB. Delegates in the summit agreed on the importance of achieving several targets pertaining to these issues. However, overall it could be argued that the agreed Plan of Implementation was generally a reiteration of the goals of the Millennium Declaration, the Monterrey conference and last year’s WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha. The critical weakness of the plan lies in its failure to identify the costs and sources of financing sustainable development.

However, perhaps the most positive aspect of the summit is the new partnership that has emerged between the private sector, NGOs and academia, on one hand, and governments, on the other, in order to achieve sustainable development. Many analysts consider this new private-public partnership, now known as a ‘Type II’ initiative, the most innovative aspect of the summit.