THE UN: The UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, has put forward a 10-point plan on the actions that need to be taken at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg later this year to advance the agenda of the Earth Summit 10 years ago.
These include tackling issues regarding globalisation, poverty, health, energy, habitat protection, fresh water, finance and technology, initiatives for Africa and unsustainable patterns of consumption and production and international governance.
At the outset of two weeks of talks in New York to prepare for the Johannesburg Summit, Mr Annan said progress towards the goals set at Rio de Janeiro in 1992 had been slower than anticipated and that, in some respects, conditions have become worse.
Identifying practical initiatives and new partnerships that can realistically improve economic, social and environmental conditions globally will be the focus of the New York talks between governments, business, environmental and other groups.
Already, there is extensive agreement among participants that the long-term vision for sustainable development adopted at the Earth Summit, called Agenda 21, is still a valid basis for action and that efforts must be made to reinvigorate it.
"Rio gave us the concept and Johannesburg will give us action," the chairman of the preparatory committee, Mr Emil Salim of Indonesia, declared.
"We as governments know what the problems are. We need to concentrate on solutions."
Many governments and others involved have already welcomed the idea of an action-oriented summit at a brainstorming session earlier this month and endorsed the UN Secretary-General's 10-point plan as a sound basis for initiatives.
An international conference on financing for development, to be held in March in Monterrey, Mexico, is expected to make headway on the question of availability of resources. The challenge for Johannesburg is to ensure those resources go to sustainable development.
