International Forum on National Sustainable Development Strategies

7-9 November 2001, Accra, Ghana

IISD's Summary Report in  HTML TEXT PDF

Delegates congregating on Wednesday, 7 November 2001, for the opening of the International Forum on National Strategies for Sustainable Development

Delegates congregating on Wednesday, 7 November 2001

                                       
La Palm Royal Beach Hotel, Accra, Ghana 
Overlooking the Atlantic Ocean was La Palm Royal Beach Hotel, Accra, Ghana, venue of the International Forum on National Sustainable Development Strategies, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean

Edward Osei Nkenkyire, Chief Director of Ghana's MEST
Edward Osei Nkenkyire, Chief Director of Ghana's Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology, opened the Forum at 9:15, outlined the origins of NSDSs and said the Forum would undertake a review exercise that could strengthen the adoption of NSDSs and provide impetus for the widespread adoption of NSDSs worldwide

Paa Kwesi Nduom, Ghana's Minister for Economic and Regional Integration
In his welcoming remarks, Paa Kwesi Nduom, Ghana's Minister for Economic Planning and Regional Integration, noted Ghana's commitment to, inter alia, good governance, the rule of law and zero tolerance for corruption, which he said constituted a foundation for sustainable development. He elaborated Ghana's efforts in the preparation of the NSDS and said all stakeholders would be involved in the soon-to-be-created monitoring and evaluation structure

Dominic Kwaku Fobih, Ghana's Minister for Environment, Science and Technology
Dominic Kwaku Fobih, Ghana's Minister for Environment, Science and Technology, shared some essential elements for the development of NSDSs, and expressed hope that the Forum's findings would result in a set of principles that could constitute an Accra Declaration on NSDSs.

Cielito Habito

Cielito Habito, Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines, chaired the Forum. In his opening remarks, he stressed the Forums purpose of exchanging experiences in pursuit of NSDSs and recommending approaches for the future, outlined session themes, defined expected Forum outputs and noted that recommendations and conclusions would be submitted to the WSSD Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) in January 2002, and would also be available for use in national and regional processes

Hiroko Morita-Lou, UN DESA, delivered a message on behalf of Nitin Desai, Under-Secretary-General of DESA, expressing appreciation to the government of Ghana, DFID, UNDP and Denmark for their support in organizing the Forum

Hiroko Morita-Lou

Mersie Ejigu

Mersie Ejigu, Partnership for African Environmental Sustainability, introduced 15 key principles and characteristics constituting sound NSDSs, and called participants' attention to a background document on guidance for preparing NSDSs

Working Groups
Working Groups on Key Principles and Characteristics Constituting a sound national sustainable development strategy. After reviewing what has worked, lessons learned, and examined the critical issues that have constrained NSDS implementation, they addressed three issues namely, principles that have been most easily applied, presented the greatest challenges, and are missing

Nadine Gouzée, Federal Planning Bureau of Belgium, presented on Belgium's experience with NSDSs. She explained each of the phases in the cycle and highlighted conclusions reached on the first Belgian sustainable development report, preparation and structure of the sustainable development plan, responses to the main parts of the preliminary draft plan and the lessons learned.

Nadine Gouzeé

Working Group
Gyan Prasad Sharma, National Planning Commission Secretariat, Nepal, listening to contributions from his Group, which proposed multisectoral bodies, legislative provisions, national dialogues, parliament involvement and interministerial committees in regard to Institutional Mechanisms and Other Arrangements for Strategy Development and Implementation

Working Group

One of the groups discussing Experiences in Consolidating Country Frameworks for NSDSs

Desta Mebratu, UNIDO/Eco-Tech Innovation, listening to the Working Group on Capacity Building that examined special skills needed for strategy processes and how to employ them, as well as how the strategy process itself could develop capacity. The Group focused on technical and negotiation capacity to further agendas; capacity to understand complexities of sustainable development; institutional capacity to adapt to change, particularly internal institutional change; capacity for evaluation, vision, integration, coordination and mobilization; cultural dialogue; and networking capacity

Working Group on Capacity Building

Christopher Pickard, Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (UK) (l) in deep conversation with Prof. Colin Kirkpatrick (r)

Prof. Colin Kirkpatrick, University of Manchester (r). Prof Kirkpatrick, presented his methodology on assessing effectiveness of NSDS processes, introducing a framework methodology that countries could use to assess the effectiveness of a process, particularly in identifying strengths and weakness, and ways to report the findings to the public

Mersi Ejigu (l), Partnership for African Environmental Sustainability, and Forum Chair, Prof. Cielito Habito (l), Ateneo de Manila University, assess progress on the Forum

Mersi Ejigu (l) and Prof Cielito Habito (r)

Experts from South Africa and Ghana

Panelists on the Discussion on Strengthening Capacity for NSDSs, from (l) to (r): Pablo Guerrero, World Bank; Kirsten Rohrmann, UN DESA; Forum Chair Habito; Oscar Serrate, UNDP/Capacity 21; and Barry Dalal-Clayton, International Institute for Sustainable Development

The Asian and Pacific Regional Group consulting on National/Regional follow-up actions. The Group decided that no changes were required in their regional strategy and called for an exchange of experiences and plans for future actions following WSSD, and urged external agencies could to respect country needs and not impose objectives upon them

The European and North American Regional Group observed that countries with national strategies had well developed mechanisms to assess the strategies and indicators, however, some countries needed to develop methods to assess production and consumption, and noted the need for meaningful participation of stakeholders and for coherence between poverty reduction and environmental degradation

Some of the donors and sponsors of the Forum

Forum Chair Habito

(l) to(r): Chair Habito; Forum Facilitator Steve Bass; Adrian Davis, Department for International Development, Penny Stock (Capacity 21); and Alison Drayton (Capacity 21) in discussion

Facilitator Steve Bass, and Chair Habito, moderator of the discussion on the Draft Report. A number of participants noted the need to use language that would not make PrepCom negotiations more difficult, repeatedly appealing to avoid a text-drafting approach

The Plenary considering the Draft Report of the Forum, including its conclusion and recommendations

The conclusion of the Forum

Facilitator Bass, Chair Habito and Hiroko Morita-Lou during the discussion on the Draft Report of the Forum

Facilitator Bass, Chair Habito and Hiroko Morita-Lou

Related Links

 United Nations - Sustainable Development                                   
 International Forum on National Sustainable Development Strategies
 National Strategies for Sustainable Developments