EDITORIAL

Regional Dimension of Sustainable Development: Looking beyond Johannesburg

In the 30 years since the Stockholm Conference on Human Environment to the Johannesburg Summit, significant shifts have occurred resulting in the international community’s acceptance of sustainable development as the overarching goal for human endeavours. True, the agreed outcomes of the WSSD were not as forthright in certain areas as many would have liked. Yet, if Rio was the wake-up call, Johannesburg certainly underscored a heightened sense of urgency to act. More than that, it provided a framework for action, cementing the consensus to give a sharper focus on the MDGs and adding to these other key targets on “WEHAB” issues, (Water and Sanitation, Energy, Health and Environment, Agriculture, and Biodiversity and Ecosystem Management). The Plan of Implementation, which was adopted in Johannesburg, contains over thirty targets, with poverty as a running theme. While serving as a sobering reminder that 80 countries have lower per capita income today than they did at the time of the Rio Conference, WSSD underlined the indispensability of balance among economic, social and environmental concerns for the achievement of sustainable development.

The Johannesburg Summit also brought to the fore the importance of the regional dimension of development, not just in its essential interrelationship with national and global initiatives, but also as a necessary platform for greater integration of the three pillars of sustainable development (economic development, social development and environmental protection). In addition to devoting two of the eleven chapters of the Plan of Implementation—on Africa and other regional initiatives, with specific programmes spelled out for each region—WSSD embraced the regional dimension as one of the strategic approaches for a variety of objectives in other fields as well. For instance, the final text stressed:

• To reverse the current trend in natural resource degradation, it is necessary to implement strategies that include targets adopted at the national and, where appropriate, the regional levels to protect ecosystems and to achieve integrated management of land, water and living resources;

• Strengthening regional trade and cooperation agreements;

• Implementing initiatives in SIDS and LDCs

Further, in different regions and subregions, some initiatives are already underway. For example:

• NEPAD, which provides the framework for sustainable development in Africa;

• 17 Black Sea and Danube Basin countries have committed to reduce organic and toxic discharges into their waters by 30% in the next decade;

• Six Central American countries and Mexico are linking their national parks, biological and forest reserves to form the Meso-American Biological Preserve to traverse an entire region.

Such initiatives should be replicated and many more promoted in a variety of fields in different regions, with wide effective participation of various stakeholders, including the United Nations system.

The Plan of Implementation, in elaborating institutional arrangements at the regional level, called for the regional commissions to enhance their capacity, encouraged multi-stakeholders participation, partnerships, and support for regional programmes. This is an onerous responsibility. Nonetheless, this is a mission that the regional commissions consider indispensable, and look forward to its realization through effective partnership with various stakeholders including, in particular, the active support and substantive cooperation of the Member States.