Mail & Guardian reporter
The United Nations is the ultimate stakeholder in World Summit 2002. The UN will use the Sandton Convention Centre to host an expected 110 to 193 heads of state, as well as about 6 000 UN delegates.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has asked the president of the IUCN-World Conservation Union, Yolanda Kakabadse, to join his panel of eminent persons for the summit.
The primary aim of the panel is to identify issues and suggest ways to strengthen and deepen the multi-stakeholder commitment for sustainable development. It also aims to engergise global political will in tackling, head on, the need to design national policies and international cooperation policies to fully integrate the economic, social and environmental dimensions of long-term policy.
The IUCN is one of the world’s largest and oldest environmental organisations. Founded in 1948, it brings together 78 states, 112 government agencies, 735 NGOs, 35 affiliates and about 10 000 scientists and experts from 181 countries in a unique worldwide partnership.
Its mission is to influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve the integrity and diversity of nature, and to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable.
The organisation recently appointed Juanita Castao, vice-minister of Colombia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as IUCN special adviser on the world summit, to be hosted in Johannesburg from September 2 to 11 2002.
“Castao’s appointment is a major boost to IUCN’s capacity and credibility to deliver a substantive and effective input to the world summit process,” says IUCN director general Achim Steiner.
Castao took part in the Rio summit process and was chairperson of the G77 in negotiating the restructuring of the Global Environment Facility. She lead the Colombian input to the negotiations for the Climate Change and Biodiversity conventions, and became the IUCN’s regional director for South America before returning to the Colombian government.