| Introduction
of the Documents: Chairman's Summary of the PrepCom; Chairman's
Summary of the Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue; Chairman's Paper; and
Proposals for Partnerships and Initiatives to Strengthen the Implementation
of Agenda 21
|
 Chair
Emil Salim presented his paper to the PrepCom. In an inspiring
speech, he said the fundamental principle of sustainable development
is diversity, but that we have to find areas of commonality. He
said poverty alleviation is key to environmental and social sustainability.
He noted the diversity in views, said it was difficult to have
one agreement on all issues, and emphasized the importance of
capturing converging ideas. He said the focus must be on producing
a workable and doable program. He said that many brilliant ideas
have been put forward, but said if they are not workable, they
will not appear in the document. He said the PrepCom is making
a map for a journey of hope to Johannesburg. In outlining his
paper, he said the overarching goal is poverty eradication, that
all efforts must concentrate on this, and that other issues are
of lower priority. The next section focuses on changing unsustainable
patterns of consumption and production. The section on protecting
and managing the natural resource base of economic and social
development has paragraphs related to, inter alia, water,
oceans, global warming, biodiversity, forests, agriculture, desertification,
mountains, sustainable tourism and mining. The paper also has
sections on: sustainable development and a globalizing world;
health and sustainable development; sustainable development of
SIDS; sustainable development initiatives for Africa; and means
of implementation. He also introduced his Proposals for Partnerships/Initiatives
to Strengthen the Implementation of Agenda 21 to be worked out
from now until Jakarta. He reiterated that at PrepCom III, negotiations
will begin. |
