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.