Hopes for sustainable at Johannesburg summit

Hira P. Jhamtani, Board Member National Consortium for Nature and Forest Conservation in Indonesia (KONPHALINDO), Jakarta

A message of hope was in the title of Emil Salim's address as the Chairman of the Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) for the World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD), to be held on Aug. 26 to Sept. 6 in Johannesburg. He had presented a text for negotiations of a plan of implementation for sustainable development during PrepCom II in New York, titled A journey of hope.

But strengthening the commitment to a socially just and environmentally sustainable development as pledged in the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro has been merely laced with rhetorics as reflected during the PrepComs.

Only a draft plan of implementation was supposed to have been agreed at PrepCom IV in Bali, the last stop before Johannesburg. But at the closing of the PrepCom on June 7, some 70 percent of the text was already agreed on. Bali was also supposed to produce initial elements for political declaration to be negotiated and finalized in Johannesburg. The plan of implementation and the political declaration are one package; if there is no consensus on one, the other should not materialize.

The main thorn in the plan of implementation was the North- South (developed-developing country) divide over some important issues, similar to what happened in Rio. The remainder of the text yet to be agreed on regards finance, trade and globalization.

Final negotiations in Bali over the trade and finance aspects involved ministers, not senior officials. And yet no consensus was arrived at. This was clearly not a matter of lack of time for negotiations, but rather lack of a political will to make the WSSD a success.

The bone of contention was the objections of U.S. and European Union over debt relief/reduction for developing countries, greater market access for agricultural products from developing countries and phasing out of market distorting subsidies, new and additional financial resources.

The grouping of developing countries, G 77 and China, wanted to include an action plan to "reform the global financial architecture" but was willing to accept a weaker language since developed countries did not want this either. These are issues that would address the inequitable economic power relations between the North and South as part of sustainable development process. By refusing to tackle them, the North clearly does not want to commit itself to sustainable development.

The text will be sent as it is to Johannesburg, and thus there would be no informal negotiations. But informal consultations are going on among delegations in the UN headquarters in New York. G77 and China would like the consultations to concentrate on conceptual issues rather than the text. How this can happen in such a short time between Bali and Johannesburg is an important question. And WSSD Secretary General Nitin Desai has also warned that the informal consultations should not substitute negotiations to be held in Johannesburg. The tendency is to stress success on the process -- not the contents of WSSD.

So what will happen in Johannesburg? First, WSSD may successfully produce a plan of implementation together with a political declaration (a "type one outcome") plus the partnership initiatives (a "type two not-negotiated outcome"). Yet this would not necessarily a concrete and strong commitment. The language on trade and finance would be simply "cut and paste" from the ministerial declaration of the fourth WTO (World Trade Organization) ministerial meeting in Doha and the Monterey consensus on Financing on Development.

G77 and China's language on reform of the global financial architecture would be watered down to meaningless sentences. We might see a repetition of Rio, in which developing countries would lose out, and developed countries would not have strong obligations to pioneer sustainable development. The world would still have faith in the international negotiation process; but lose a real opportunity to save the earth and humankind.

The second possibility may be that no consensus would be reached on the plan of implementation and political declaration. This would be akin to the Rio plus five meeting. The partnership initiative might be salvaged but this would be a mere list of partnerships with no long-term commitment.

Thus the G 77 and China would have to stick to their positions on trade and finance. Previous negotiations show this is unlikely. Also, during the ministerial segment of the PrepCom IV, there was a general agreement that the "type two outcome" is no substitute for the "type one outcome", and so this might happen only if the North-South divide is so large as during Rio Plus Five. Criticism from non government organizations would be high and the partnership might not even materialize beyond mere announcements in Johannesburg. Ultimately, it would be only a face saving means for the UN negotiation process.

The third, least, possibility would be "no outcome". This would be consistent with the commitment made in Bali. For this to happen, NGOs and other groups would have to apply very strong pressure to boycott the partnerships. The UN and the international negotiation system would lose credibility, and resources would have been wasted.

The fourth possibility would be "a total success of WSSD"; the plan of implementation would contain strong language for concrete actions, the political declaration would be as strong as the Rio Declaration, and the partnership initiatives would involve all stakeholders in a transparent and equitable manner.

This would have to be the real destination of the "journey of hope". For this to happen, the North-South divide would have to be bridged, the entire plan of action will have to be rewritten and the partnership initiatives in the pipeline will have to be totally revised.

As Johannesburg is less than a month away and conceptual differences remain high, this is a very, very remote possibility. This can happen only through tremendous public pressure on governments both in the North and the South, and on the UN.

This would need actions on the scale of the Seattle social movement during the fourth Ministerial Conference of the WTO in 1999, and the World Social Forum in 2002 that declared the powerful message "We believe another world is possible".

But the realistic thing to do would be to go to Johannesburg with an honest appraisal. The WSSD would be the real destination of the journey of hope if all participants would honestly acknowledge the lack of commitment to sustainable development, the problems for that lack of commitment and start fresh building new commitments.

Johannesburg should just serve as a soul searching exercise to ask difficult questions that we, and especially governments, have been avoiding.

One simple question: Why is it so easy for governments to commit to the agreements at the WTO or commitments made with IMF/World Bank, while it is so difficult to commit to the commitments envisaged by Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration? The honest answer would be the beginning of the journey to real hope.