Jacqui Brown, CEO of the summit’s Civil Society Secretariat, is fired up to make Africa’s poverty the critical issue on the agenda. Glenda Daniels speaks to her
It’s countdown time. With just 39 weeks to go, bubbly Jacqui Brown has bloodshot eyes from lack of sleep. She has the whole world’s civil society agenda to finalise so that “Africa and poverty will come first” at the world summit.
Sleeping only four hours a night, Brown is coping with high stress levels by smoking and drinking coffee, she says from her office in Braamfontein.
Brown and her team at the Civil Society Secretariat are coordinating the NGO input for the summit. More than 40 000 NGO delegates are expected to attend the civil society “indaba”, which will be held at Gallagher Estate in Midrand.
In the meantime Brown is juggling a hectic schedule of preparatory meetings and trying to stay calm when things don’t go her way.
This week she discovered that her visa to visit the Cameroons for an NGO meeting had not come through. “I can make anything happen out of nothing,” she sighs. “I have never doubted for a moment that I am right for this job and that I can make this summit a success.”
Next week it’s off to Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, to chair the African caucus of civil society.
“My passion is to make this summit an opportunity to address the issues that keep Africa and the rest of the South poor,” says Brown, who describes herself as “driven”. She accepts that from now until the summit next September, she will hardly see her 11-year-old daughter Carlene and her six-year-old son Kevin.
Earlier this year the brown-eyed, bustling Brown was head-hunted from her position as chair of the Rural Development Sector Network to steer the secretariat.
She studied social development and planning at Wits University, and has wide experience of NGOs as executive director of the Environmental and Development Agency Trust, among others.
Now fired up with a sense of energy and purpose, Brown says the summit, which will be even bigger than the Durban race conference, has to be a success.
“There is a set time frame to get all these meetings done. They will get done. But I also know I can’t work alone. People at this office work late into the night and don’t ever complain,” Brown says.
The aims are ambitious and daunting. The goal of eradicating poverty while preserving the planet has been elusive for the past 10 years. Now the ball is beginning to roll and South Africa will play a leading role in creating an action-oriented plan that prioritises developing countries.
The landmark vision from the Rio Earth Summit, Agenda 21, has not been implemented. Ten years later there are crisis levels of poverty and planet devastation.
Now, according to summit documents, in the North there is a crisis of over-consumerism and in the South a crisis of under-development. Nearly 25-million people in the world die each year because of a lack of clean water and adequate sanitation. All 50 000 expected delegates at the summit are expected to agree that it’s time for action.
Implementing Agenda 21 will be a key focus at the summit, with special emphasis on the needs of developing countries, especially sustainable development and education.
The crisis of poverty and planet devastation is far reaching, but delegates from the North and South agree that the emphasis has to be people-centred social justice.
“This is a unique opportunity for Africa to drive the political process. Africa is gaining a new momentum, and from now until the summit civil society and governments can engage with each other,” says Brown.
The World Wide Fund for Nature says that at today’s level of economic activity the human race is operating at 30% above what the Earth can provide. Wildlife populations in forests, freshwater and marine environments have declined by one-third over the past 30 years.
Disaster-inducing climate changes will be discussed at the 2002 summit. For instance, the effects of El Nio could seriously affect all humankind in all parts of the world. So far it has been linked to the loss of 24 000 lives and the displacement of more than six-million people.
A representative on the Rio+10 committee from Kyrgystan, Elmira Ibraimova, says the year 2002 will be declared the year of the mountains. More than half of the world’s population depend on fresh water that originates in mountain sources, so mountain resources have a global significance for the survival of the planet.
Access to drinking water, says Rashid Alimov from Tajikisan, is a central issue in his country, with about five-million people affected every year by contaminated water. “One important task is to attract the attention of governments to the need to develop a comprehensive strategy in the area of water resources.”
China’s representative, Bai Yongjie, says the main reason why Rio’s Agenda 21 has not been implemented is that “international cooperation has not been carried out in conjunction with domestic efforts of different countries and that developed countries have not fulfilled their commitments”.
However, while the North is accused of increasing over-consumerism that contributes to the devastation of the planet, the environmental issues are still crucial and the South will bring to the developed world’s attention issues of human survival. The ball is now rolling with the Algiers civil society summit where Africa will put forward its agenda for the world summit.
According to the World Solar Programme (1996-2005), two-billion people have no access to commercial energy. Renewable energy programmes which will have benefits for rural communities and the urban poor will be an important focus at the summit.
“Yes,” says Brown, rubbing her eyes and taking a deep breath, “the issues are enormous. Yes, I am stressed, but I am more excited than anything else. What a challenge.”