World Summit on Sustainable Development: Daily Highlights

Johannesburg, South Africa (26 August-4 September 2002)

Wednesday 28 August

Major progress has been made in the negotiations on the major outcome document for the World Summit on Sustainable Development on issues relating to trade and finance questions. About 99 per cent of the text concerning finance has been agreed upon, and about 80 per cent of the section on trade
Overall, about 88 per cent of the outcome document is complete, and of the 156 paragraphs that were in dispute at the start of the Summit, 76 are still outstanding.
John Ashe, Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations from Antigua and Barbuda, who is chairing the talks on trade, finance and globalization reported that that the key to the progress so far has been the “good spirit in the room” that allowed delegates to work to 3:00 in the morning. On the outstanding issues, Ashe said negotiations were continuing on the issue of phasing out subsidies, and there were still disagreements on how to characterize the effects of globalization, as an opportunity as well as a challenge.
In other negotiations, countries agreed to restore depleted fisheries by 2015. About three-quarters of the world’s fisheries are fished to their sustainable limits or beyond. Neroni Slade, Permanent Representative of Samoa to the United Nations, and Chairman of the Alliance of Small Island States, said agreement was an acknowledgement of a situation that has existed for years. “The specific target of 2015 is an attempt to reverse the trend,” adding that, “this is a very satisfactory result.”
Today’s plenary sessions—conversations moderated by the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy to the Summit Jan Pronk--focused on water and sanitation and energy. In the water session, concern was raised that insufficient high-level political attention had been given to the issue, which is vital for development, fighting disease, and management of water resources. Margaret Catley-Carlson, chair of the Global Water Partnership, said water management is still given low priority perhaps because only the poorest countries and people suffered from the problem.
191 countries are attending the Summit, one of the largest turnouts for any UN conference.
The number of people attending the Summit continues to grow. So far, 17,417 people have been accredited, including 7,681 delegates, 6,585 NGOs, and 3,151 media representatives.