In August 2002, world leaders will come together in Johannesburg for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), to assess the progress that has been made on integrating environment and development concerns over the last ten years. Based on the performance of Indian representatives at the preparatory meetings leading up to the Summit, Indian NGOs have raised fears that the Indian government will show up at WSSD without any idea of what it wants from the meeting and how to get it.

In a meeting organised by Sarokaar, Centre for Advocacy Studies in coordination with Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and Experiments in Rural Advancement (ERA), civil society groups from two Northern hill states met in Dehradun on April 18 and 19, 2002 to discuss India’s priorities for WSSD, from a regional, national and international perspective.

Groups laid emphasis on an effective participatory process that reconnects people with their environment. They said sustainable development should be prioritised towards local communities while reflecting their ethical, cultural and social value systems and not merely economic concerns. Globalisation and consumptive lifestyles lead to the alienation of people from their natural resources, and results in the steady decline in the use of traditional sustainable practices. The groups therefore called for demand and consumption cycles to operate on a community basis without external intervention. The groups also highlighted the importance of sustainable livelihoods as the means to effectively achieve this. At a broader level, they said governance systems should be effectively decentralised, that is, people should be empowered to use and manage their natural resources, and be more closely involved with the framing of policies and laws. Furthermore, local communities’ efforts towards conservation must be recognised, and be adequately compensated for.

The groups recognised the importance of awareness creation and sensitisation across the social and institutional spectrum, including government, scientists, media and NGOs. Networking between these institutions can build their capacity to effectively address people’s needs, making sustainable development people-centric. This will lead to greater governmental accountability towards its people and the stand it takes on their behalf at international negotiations. Without this, the government will continue to adopt reactive stands at these negotiations as was amply demonstrated at the World Trade Organisation meet in Doha, and finally give in, one way or the other, simply because they have no proactive alternatives to present.

For instance, the Indian government has been mouthing a demand that WSSD should focus on poverty. However, the government is still to put forward even one single convincing idea on precisely what action will be needed to address poverty in India and in the developing world. The demand for poverty alleviation therefore lacks substance and remains rhetoric. The indications are that the Indian government plans simply to demand more aid to deal with poverty. At the third preparatory meeting in New York, for instance, developing countries called for the establishment of a World Solidarity Fund for Poverty Eradication.

Given the experiences of the past, even if this Fund or any other financial assistance materialises (which is unlikely, as was evident from the outcome of the International Conference on Finance for Development held in Mexico this year), the ‘trickle down’ effect on which this paradigm depends cannot ensure that it will reach the poorest of the poor, who live mostly in rural areas. The Indian government would do better to formulate a strong national and global action plan to empower these communities to help themselves by giving them the right to manage their immediate environment to meet their food, housing and energy needs, and implementing incentives to encourage ‘sustainable livelihoods’. Several such examples of poverty alleviation through good natural resource management exist in India, but these experiences are not reflected in the national position.

In 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) took place in Rio de Janeiro. The event saw the emergence of several differences in the approach to environment and development problems in developing and industrialised countries. While industrialised countries focused on mostly environmental issues alone, developing countries were more interested in protesting the right to development of their citizens, and were afraid that the environment would be used as an excuse to thrust trade conditionalities on them.

For instance, in the run-up to UNCED, the US had suggested a convention to protect the world’s biological diversity, most of which is found in the developing world. What the US and other industrialised countries wanted was a convention under which developing countries would take a conservationist approach, like industrialised countries, and set aside large tracts of land for preserving flora and fauna. Developing country representatives pointed out the flaw in this argument – that not only were natural resources a means of generating livelihood in developing countries, but also that several pharmaceutical and agricultural companies based in industrialised countries depended on this biological diversity, and exploited it with impunity without sharing profits with local communities.

In this particular case, developing countries triumphed and the final Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) recognised the rights of local communities on their biodiversity and the knowledge associated with it. The US was so against this turn of events, which affected the profits of their large pharmaceutical companies that it has not to this day, ratified CBD.

On the whole, however, the relationship between developing and industrialised countries was an unequal one at UNCED, and has been so ever since. Industrialised countries, particularly the US, have been unwilling to recognise their greater role in damaging the Earth’s environment.

UNCED resulted in the adoption of Agenda 21 - a legally non-binding blueprint for governments to promote ‘sustainable development’. The Rio summit also resulted in two legally binding conventions – the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD).

In 1997, a five-year review of UNCED was held. Participants agreed that UNCED had by and large failed to deliver. For instance,

1. carbon dioxide emissions had climbed to a new high since 1992
2. large areas of old-growth forest were degraded or cleared
3. poverty continued to be an enormous challenge, and
4. Agenda 21 largely unfunded.

• Since last year, sub-regional and regional meetings have been held in most regions around the world to decide the agenda for WSSD

• The South Asia sub-regional meeting in Colombo, held in late 2001, was disappointing. It was clear that governments still control the agenda, and limit civil society participation. At the regional Asia Pacific meeting held in Cambodia in November 2001, governments themselves had very little idea of what they wanted out of WSSD and how they would achieve it

• Four ‘preparatory committee’ (PrepCom) meetings are being held before WSSD, to prepare the groundwork. Three of these PrepComs have already taken place. At the first PrepCom in New York (April 30 – May 2, 2001) mostly organisational matters were discussed. At the second PrepCom, also in New York (January 25 - February 8, 2002), a ‘Chairman’s paper’ listed key issues that will be discussed. These included

1. Poverty alleviation
2. Changing unsustainable patterns of consumption
3. Sustainable development and health
4. Protecting and managing resource base of social and economic development
5. Sustainable development and globalisation
6. Means of implementation
7. Sustainable development and Small Island Developing States
8. Sustainable development and initiatives for Africa
9. Strengthening governance for sustainable development at national, regional and international level

There were no significant or new ideas on how to address each of these issues.

• At the third preparatory meeting that was held from March 25 to April 5, 2002, further additions were made to the Chairman’s Paper, resulting in a ‘compilation text’ simply listing all the suggestions. Countries can continue to contribute to certain sections of this text. The WSSD Bureau will then use this to draft a new text for negotiation at PrepCom IV. Among the key suggestions made at this meeting was the call for a World Solidarity Fund for Poverty Eradication by the G77 group of developing countries

• The fourth meeting, to be held in Bali from May 27 to June 7, 2002 will be the most important, as governments are expected to discuss the elements of a concise political document for WSSD.