Delegates push ahead for partnership
Delegates push ahead for partnership
A'an Suryana, The Jakarta Post, Nusa Dua, Bali
Representatives of governments, non-governmental organizations
(NGOs), businesses and multilateral organizations assembled
together here on Tuesday for a multi-stakeholders meeting to
promote sustainable development through partnerships among the
stakeholders.
However, the consenting parties were still debating on the
details of the partnerships. And they were working on these
details so that the partnership initiative would be ready for
endorsement by world leaders at the upcoming World Summit on
Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in August and September.
Jan Kara, vice chairman of the preparatory committee meeting
for the Johannesburg Summit, said that the meeting's participants
agreed to pursue partnerships since governments could not work
alone in dealing with the sustainable development drive.
"The views and roles of all stakeholders are needed to help in
dealing with the issues of sustainable development," Kara told
The Jakarta Post, after chairing the main meeting held at the
Bali International Convention Center.
The stakeholders meetings on Tuesday focused on two separate
issues, first on the framework for a partnership initiative and
on capacity building for sustainable development.
David Kaimowitz, director general of the Center for
International Forestry Research (CIFOR), supported the
preliminary outcome of the main multi-stakeholders meeting, that
was pursuing partnerships.
He said that each sector should cooperate to support
sustainable development efforts, otherwise it would fail.
"CIFOR could work together with international organizations
such as the World Bank to deal with sustainable development
matters, to complement our expertise."
"This meeting provides us an opportunity to build such a
partnership," said Kaimowitz, after chairing a side meeting held
by the UN Forum on Forest Secretariat at BICC entitled
'Collaborative Partnership on Forests.'
Kaimowitz added that the problems of sustainable development,
including deforestation, could not be solved by one party only.
Many parties, with different interests, are involved in
deforestation. Local people exploit the forest for their
agriculture needs, while other people want to maintain
biodiversity in the forest.
"The failure to cooperate would spark conflicts between
stakeholders, which could end up into violence. Therefore,
dialogs and partnership are needed to deal with the problems," he
said.
Despite the optimism over the initiative which will be brought
to the World Summit, the debate remained intense among the
developed and the developing countries.
According to Kaimowitz, developing countries are worried that
developed countries would merely use partnership as a weapon to
avoid any real commitments, with time-bound measures, to
implement sustainable development.
"Developing countries want to see real and concrete support,
not just the partnership to be announced," said Kaimowitz.
Developing countries have demanded that time-bound measures
should be produced from the fourth preparatory committee meeting
for the World Summit on Sustainable Development here. Then,
partnerships should be drawn to achieve those time-bound
measures.
Failure to produce such time-bound measures, according to
developing countries as well as civil society groups, would just
repeat the failure of countries to implement Agenda 21, which
does not have any time table for implementation.
According to a dialog paper produced by NGOs for the stake-
holder dialogue, the promotion of partnerships, without any time-
bound agreement, could result in governments evading any
meaningful commitment to sustainable development.
"Governments and the United Nations cannot relegate the vital
goal of sustainable development to largely voluntary initiatives,
especially since the current emphasis is on global private-public
sector partnerships," the paper said.
The reality, according to NGOs, is that private corporations
are a major part of the problems of unsustainable development.
Corporate accountability and regulations are needed, and not
further expansion of corporate rights.