Indonesia gears up for final meeting before summit

Yogita Tahilramani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesia is gearing up for the last preparatory meeting of the World Summit, where ministers of participating countries will hammer out a political declaration on sustainable development and fighting poverty.

Much is reportedly at stake at the World Summit in August, when the international community is scheduled to determine how far it will commit itself to promoting economic growth in a globalized world, fighting problems such as poverty, environmental degradation, diseases such as AIDS and unemployment.

Over 6,000 delegates from 189 governments are expected to attend the preparatory meeting at the Bali International Convention Center in Nusa Dua, to be held from May 27 to June 7. The summit for sustainable development will take place in Johannesburg, South Africa between Aug. 26 and Sept. 4.

"During the Bali meeting, participants are expected to complete and endorse negotiated texts, which revolve around proposals to launch action-oriented partnership initiatives at the Summit," spokesman for the preparatory meeting's organizing committee Wahid Supriyadi said on Tuesday.

The partnership initiatives between governments, the private sector and citizens' groups, have been seen as a major outcome of the Summit that could lead to tangible results in fighting poverty and improving living standards, while preserving natural ecosystems and resources for future generations.

"Financing for development, poverty eradication, clean water and sanitation, energy, health, globalization, are just some of the issues which will make up most of the Bali meeting," Wahid said.

The two texts to be completed and endorsed at the Bali meeting are termed the Comprehensive Review and Assessment of the Implementation of Agenda 21, and the Program for Further Implementation.

Despite the consensus reached in the form of Agenda 21, the blueprint for sustainable development adopted at the 1992 Earth Summit remains a long-term vision, while implementation has reportedly been sluggish and the participants maintain widely varying positions on how to move forward.

The Summit dubbed one of the largest gatherings of world leaders ever to be held, will take place in Johannesburg from Aug. 26 to Sept. 4.

Emil Salim, who chairs of the summit's preparatory committee, had earlier said that the process of negotiations on the action program had been challenging, even as governments were still engaged in determining which proposals were realistic.

Like the first preparatory meeting, which was held last year, the second and third meetings for the Summit were held recently this year at the UN Headquarters in New York.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan had earlier said that the World Summit on Sustainable Development was not as some people thought, simply another conference on global environment.

The whole idea of sustainable development, he said, as had been reflected in the Rio Earth Summit 10 years ago, was that "the environment and development were inextricably linked."

He added that sustainable development was an "exceptional opportunity" -- economically, to build markets and create jobs; socially, to bring people in from the margins; and politically, to reduce tensions over resources that could lead to violence and to give every man and woman a voice, and a choice, in deciding their own future.

Governments have their responsibilities, he said, but so do corporations, civil society groups, and private individuals.