Indonesia gears up for final meeting before summit

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.