Rio + 20
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‘Address the voice of the 99%’: Rio+20 interview with Jaehyun Jang, Programme Specialist, Reshaping Development Institute, Republic of Korea
Jaehyun Jang is a Programme Specialist and Researcher at the Reshaping Development Institute (ReDI) in the Republic of Korea. ReDI is an independent think tank in the field of international development cooperation that aims to promote global development, study and research, and policy for the advancement of global knowledge cooperation. Here he tells us about his pessimism about the official Rio+20 process versus his hope in the People’s Summit, and the dangers in the current promotion of green growth and the green economy.
What are your hopes and aspirations for Rio+20?
I don’t have much expectation and hope for the forthcoming Rio+20. This is due to the fact that the main agenda of Rio+20 looks ‘zero ambitious’ compared to the original Rio summit, considering the seriousness and urgency of the multiple crises we and the earth face at the moment. By looking at the recent Rio+20 negotiations on the zero draft, it also seems that the recent failures in the UN climate change negotiations, caused by a growing tension between developed and major emerging developing economies, will lead the Rio+20 into another failure.
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‘We don’t see the necessary urgency and commitment from member states’ - Rio+20 interview with Cristina Diez Saguillo, Main Representative to the United Nations, International Movement ATD Fourth World
Cristina Diez Saguillo has been a member of the International Movement ATD Fourth World's full-time volunteer corps since 2003. Prior to that she worked in the financial sector as a fund administrator and worked in grassroots projects with children and young people in poverty in disadvantaged urban areas of Spain. In 2010 she became the main representative of the organisation to the United Nations.
What issues is ATD Fourth World bringing to Rio+20?
The main issues we’re bringing to Rio+20 are human rights and the participation of all stakeholders, with special attention to those most affected by extreme poverty and exclusion.
The conference should contribute to building a new sustainable development framework and the outcomes should be based on internationally agreed upon human rights principles and standards. The work of the UN Human Rights Council in developing Guiding Principles on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights provides a useful reference point in developing a human-rights based approach to sustainable development and poverty eradication. A rights-based approach will ensure the following:
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‘Young women are a vital part of shaping the future’ – Rio+20 interview
A Rio+20 interview with Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, World YWCA
Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda is the General Secretary of the World YWCA, a global federation in 125 countries, and a human rights lawyer with extensive experience in CSO governance and transition management. She is also the Vice Chair of CIVICUS. She is active in trying to ensure that young women are able to help shape the future sustainable development agenda, and that the women's human rights impacts of climate change and sustainability challenges are taken into account. She talks to CIVICUS about her hopes for Rio+20 and the work of the World YWCA.
How is the World YWCA planning to advance women's issues, and participation at Rio+20?
The World YWCA will have a small delegation of YWCA representatives at Rio+20 with two clear goals – to ensure young people, and particularly young women, play a role in shaping the sustainable development agenda, and to ensure the agenda coming out of Rio+20 is inextricably linked with advancing gender equality and women's human rights. It is also essential that commitments are adequately resourced and that we continue to strengthen accountability mechanisms.
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An innovative proposal to inspire the world - An interview with Alice Vincent of World Future Council
An interview with Alice Vincent of World Future Council on the Ombudsperson for Future Generations proposal
In the latest of our interviews with key civil society figures on the road to Rio+20, we talk to Alice Vincent, Policy Officer at the World Future Council, an organisation which brings together representatives of governments, parliaments, the arts, civil society, academia and the business world to form a voice for the rights of future generations. It hopes to see Rio+20 commit to establishing an Ombudsperson for Future Generations.
What is the World Future Council's proposal for Ombudspersons for Future Generations?
The World Future Council is proposing an Ombudsperson or High Commissioner for Future Generations under the second theme of Rio+20, 'Institutional Framework for Sustainable Development'.
The World Future Council is an organisation that endeavours to bring the interests of future generations to the centre of policy-making. We identify existing innovative future-just policies and advise policy-makers on how best to implement these.
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CIVICUS Interviews Nikhil Seth, Head of the Rio+20 Secretariat
CIVICUS Director of Outreach, Henri Valot, interviews Nikhil Seth, Director, UN Division of Sustainable Development and Head of the Rio+20 Secretariat*
HENRI: What are your hopes and aspirations for Rio+20?
NIKHIL: My hopes and aspirations for Rio+20 are very high. First, I think it's going to be a very important convening of over 60,000 game-changers and people who have a deep impact on national policy. Representatives of civil society bring expertise in a wide range of areas, so it's not only a political governmental conference, but the ability to convene the largest UN conference in history, and the communities we will bring together at Rio will produce not one outcome which everyone focuses on - the political outcome - but thousands of outcomes, which bring together different communities of expertise, which has the potential for nurturing and brokering new partnerships. It has the potential of civil society engaging with different civil society from different parts of the world, so it's a mammoth assembly of people, and people forget that sometimes. So my hope is that in both the political outcome and in these other outcomes that I talk about that we will get real traction for the "future we want".
HENRI: In your opinion, what are the major challenges that the UN or member states are facing in establishing a concrete or ambitious outcome agreement? I know the problem on the Zero Draft and the negotiations that are happening. What are, for you, the main challenges?
NIKHIL: I think we are living in very difficult times. To start, news from all around the world is not good. The politics are kind of shot up globally, the economics are shot up globally, and people see only dark clouds in the global political, social and economic situation, so we are meeting in very difficult times, and meeting at such times, people wonder that groups will renege from the promises of the past, because the difficult situations mean difficulties for example, in financial resources. It means difficulties in various other commitments that have been made over the last twenty years, so the major worry is that other groups and countries might step back from their promises that will reduce the trust and the confidence and as a result people will not engage honestly and openly to solve the problems that we are out to solve. So my major worry is that the politics of the current times that we are living through will constrain significant progress.
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Post 2015 Development Agenda and the SDGs
In supporting the implementation of the Rio+20 outcome document on Sustainable Development Goals and the Post 2015 Development Agenda, the EMG senior officials in their eighteenth meeting in December 2012 agreed to provide a contribution, within the existing processes and through the frameworks established by the Secretary-General, providing the perspectives of the UN system agencies on the environmental sustainability dimension of the future development agenda.
The EMG contribution would facilitate the integration of the environmental dimension into sustainable development goals (SDGs), drawing on the information, assessment, and strategic views of EMG members. It would look into how the environmental goals and targets established by the multilateral environmental agreements such as on biodiversity and desertification could be integrated into the future development agenda.Read more at Environment Management Group