Mail & Guardian reporter
Today more than one billion people live on less than one dollar a day. Levels of inequality continue at unsustainable levels: for example, about 25% of the world’s people receive 75% of the world’s income.
It is clear that if the world continues along this unequal growth path, the threats of ill heath and disease, conflict over natural resources, under- development, environmental degradation and economic instability will undermine global prosperity.
The need to combat poverty has therefore become an international imperative: that is why South Africa has proposed that the overarching theme of the World Summit 2002 should be Poverty Eradication as the key to Sustainable Development.
The discussions at the second international preparatory committee meeting in New York early in February indicated that there is now an emerging consensus as to what World Summit 2002 should be about. There is broad agreement that it should not be about rewriting Agenda 21 or the Rio Principles. The summit should be about delivering on the commitments the global community has already made. As host country, South Africa believes that a successful outcome of the summit should be based on three main elements:
A Global Deal a high-level political agreement to accelerate the implementation of Agenda 21 and deal with the problems of global inequality and poverty.
A Johannesburg Programme of Action to deliver on Agenda 21 and the Millennium targets, focused on a set of concrete actions, with clear timeframes, delivery, monitoring and coordination mechanisms, and resource commitments.
A range of specific sectoral agreements and partnerships, in areas such as water, energy and food security, which give expression to the Global Deal at local, national, regional and international levels.
The Global Deal and Johannesburg Programme of Action must be based on the three pillars of sustainable development.
Clearly, it will require specific social and environmental interventions. These will include social and economic programmes to deliver improved access to quality education, healthcare, water and sanitation facilities, food security, energy services, shelter, safety and security and land. The deal must ensure targeted measures to deal with communicable diseases, especially HIV/Aids, cholera, tuberculosis and malaria. It will require far-reaching environmental programmes to build on the legacy of Rio and protect the environmental rights of the poor.
Perhaps, most significantly, the deal must rest on a fundamental shift in economic relations between the North and South.
If the world is to eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development, it needs a more equitable economic system. The summit is an opportunity to redress structural imbalances, in particular with regard to terms of trade and market access; levels and quality of official development assistance and foreign direct investment; debt relief; and global consumption and production patterns.
The Monterrey Conference on Financing for Development in March and the opening of a new round of trade negotiations in Doha are both important milestones on the road to Johannesburg in this regard.
The aim of the Monterrey conference is to create the economic conditions, and mobilise the financial resources needed to achieve sustainable development and eliminate poverty. It will consider ways of increasing foreign direct investment and other private capital flows.
In this context countries need to take steps to create the right enabling environment domestically, but these efforts must be complemented by increased support by international and regional institutions.
Official development assistance plays an essential role as a complement to other sources of financing for development, especially in those countries that are least able to attract foreign direct investment. In Monterrey and Johannesburg, South Africa will be pressing for a renewed commitment by developed countries toward the existing target of providing 0,7% of gross domestic product as development aid to developing countries, as well as coordinated efforts by recipient and donor countries and international institutions to make this aid more effective.
There is an imperative to strengthen the coherence and equity of global economic governance systems, particularly on the international monetary, financial and trading systems in support of sustainable development. This includes the improvement the relationship between the United Nations and the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and clarifying the relationship between the Multilateral Environmental Agreements and the WTO rules.
The agreement in Doha late last year to launch a new trade round was a significant breakthrough. If developing countries are to benefit from an increasingly liberalised trade regime, it is essential that trade rules are open and fair, enabling access to markets.
The negotiating mandate and work programme agreed to in Doha is an open agenda with significant ambiguities, and it will be essential to ensure that developing country needs and interests are at the heart of the agenda. South Africa’s aim is to use World Summit 2002 to build support for achieving developing country objectives in the WTO.
The summit is an opportunity to consider issues of unsustainable consumption. During the past 10 years, there has been significant progress in the development of policy tools to encourage sustainable consumption.
The key question is how the summit can encourage greater resource efficiency; promote greater corporate responsibility; develop new incentives to industry to adopt cleaner production methods; encourage sustainable consumption through green economic instruments; and facilitate the sharing of clean technology.