More mega-summits would not be the way to get global development and environmental plans off the ground, the European Union said on Wednesday.
”Honestly speaking, I don’t think more mega-summits is the way to secure implementation,” EU council president Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on the final day of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Sandton.
Rasmussen said the 10-day conference on ways to fight poverty and reverse environmental degradation had achieved concrete political results.
”The Johannesburg summit has delivered, but I don’t think we should automatically start planning for a Johannesburg plus five (years) or 10,” he said.
”The 1990s were the decade of mega-summits. I think we should make the next 10 years the decade of action.”
Practical steps to put the summit objectives into effect should be monitored by the United Nations.
More than 100 heads of state and delegations from 195 nations attended the summit that was to be wrapped on Wednesday afternoon with the adoption of an action plan and a political declaration.
A ministerial group finalised the draft plan on Tuesday night.
Rasmussen said the global deal provided for free trade, better access to world markets for developing countries, more aid to such states, and a commitment to a better environment and good governance.
Concrete commitments had also been made.
The aim was to halve by 2015 the number of people without access to sanitation, to secure the safe use of chemicals by 2020, to curb the loss of biodiversity by 2010, and to restore fish stocks by 2015.
Rasmussen said a framework of 10-year programmes would be drawn up to promote sustainable consumption and production. The use of renewable energy would also be increased.
”We must now secure effective implementation through an effective monitoring mechanism.”
President of the European Commission Romano Prodi agreed the time for concrete action had arrived.
”We must get speed, and the EU will take the lead to implement Johannesburg,” he said. – Sapa