The UN Chronicle Online, which debuted in 1997 when webzines were still in their infancy, has continued to grow in its content and its readership. The site features the news behind the news, including in-depth analyses and reports by a range of authors — from Presidents and Nobel Prize winners to scholars, international experts, activists and non-governmental workers.

Its articles, web-exclusive features and links offer a valuable gateway to the entire United Nations system and a global forum for reasoned comment that often challenges established ideas and spurs creative debate.

For more on sustainable development, you can look at UN Chronicle E-mail Alert Vol. 1, Issue 1.

• In Issue 3, 2002, Ambassador Lars-Göran Engfeldt of Sweden discusses "The Road from Stockholm to Johannesburg", and the achievements of the past thirty years.



• Ernst von Weizsaecker, the founding President of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, also takes a look back, determining that “aggressive strategies to increase resource productivity” are needed to “show the way for a true harmonization of environmental and developmental goals”.



• In Issue 1, 2002, Nitin Desai, Secretary-General of the Johannesburg Summit, spoke to the Chronicle about Agenda 21, sustainable development and the Johannesburg Summit.



• Jean De Ruyt, Permanent Representative of Belgium to the United Nations, looked ahead to the Summit in his essay, “Towards Johannesburg”, featured in Issue 4, 2001.



• In Issue 3, 2001, Joachim von Braun, Director of the Center for Development Research at the University of Bonn, Germany, made a case for “Good Globalization”.

Related stories from earlier issues include:

2000

• Dr. J.E.J.M. van Landewijk, President of the Hazard and Emergency Society of Ghana, declared that “the people of the world want to have faith in the United Nations and its original Charter”.
  
  
  
• A. Hamid Zakri, professor at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and former Chairman of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice of the Convention on Biological Diversity, discussed why it is easier to rally support for particular biological assets, tigers or wetlands, than for a relatively abstract biodiversity.
  
  
  
• Beatrice Weder, in “Of Institutions and Development”, said that “in fostering development, the international community has to ensure aid helps in institution-building”.

1999

• 1999 marked the thirtieth anniversary of Project LINK, a cooperative venture of more than fifty macroeconomists, which the Project links together to allow for globally consistent short-term economic forecasting. (For more about Project Link visit www.chass.utoronto.ca/link.)
  
  
  
• Roy Culpeper called on the United Nations to work with people “to help build the political will necessary to ensure that peace, justice and sustainable development are not just principles, but are upheld in practice…”
  
  
  
• The Chronicle published excerpts from a paper presented in 1997 to the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development by Lahe'ena'e Gay, Chairwoman and President of the Pacific Cultural Conservancy, who was killed in March 1999 by kidnappers while visiting Colombia.
  
  
  
• In “Dry Tears of the Aral”, Beatrice Grabish said that “environmental experts have rung the death knell for the Aral Sea in Central Asia”.

1998

• President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom of the Republic of Maldives argued the necessity of a “multi-pronged approach” to eradicate poverty.
  
  
  
• Archbishop Desmond Tutu talked about the relevance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in post-apartheid South Africa.

1997

• Ambassador Tommy Koh of Singapore offered some personal reflections about the five years following the Earth Summit in
  Rio de Janeiro in the Chronicle Essay for Issue 2.
  
  
  
• John Kenneth Galbraith shared his wisdom in “The New Internationalism: The Fact and the Response”.

These stories and more can be found at UN Chronicle Online at www.un.org/chronicle.

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