Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

The first prepartory meeting for RiO+20 finished on Wednesday. We are still waiting for the Chairs text to come out but it was a good start. The Stakeholder Forum, UN NGLS conference on May 15th attended by over 200 people set the seen for the prepcom. Report will be on Stakeholder Forum Earth Summit 2012 site soon. At the UN Commission on Sustainable Development the previous week Felix Dodds of Stakeholder Forum presented some governance reform ideas in the session " Multi-stakeholders Dialogue on Advancing the Implementation of CSD Decisions .2 This can be watched on the UN TV site

As preparations for Rio+20 are building with the first prepcom on the 17th,18th and 19th of May the UN Secretary General releases his background paper -- the UN web site for 2012 is now up as well. UN NGLS and Stakeholder Forum are organising a conference on the 15th of May to discuss the themes of the Rio+20 Conference.

he April issue of MEA Bulletin has a guest article by Felix Dodds on Rio+20. Stakeholder Forum and UN NGlS to host Rio+20 Conference in New York on the 15th of May just before the first preparatory meeting. It will cover One Planet Living: Green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication Emerging Issues Scenarios for 2032 Sustainable Development Governance Role of Stakeholders Register through Hannah Stoddart at hstoddart (at) stakeholderforum.org Revamped 2012 Web site launched To help people and organizations keep abreast of 2012 developments the web site has undergone a transformation have a look at it click here.

UNEP Global Minsiters Environmental Forum agrees its first Ministerial Declaration for ten years. The Nusa Dua Declaration gives UNEP a key role in the Rio+20 deliberations over the next three years. Stakeholder Forum and UN NGLS are organising a Rio+20 Conference in new York on the 15th of May. Details from Stakeholder Forum.

The United Nations General Assembly in December agreed to a new Earth Summit in 2012. The Summit will be held in Brazil and will focus on four areas: The Green Economy Emerging Issues Sustainable Development Governance Review of previous commitments Follow developments on the Earth Summit 2012 web site.

The Commonwealth Peoples Forum meeting prior to the Commonwealth Heads of State meeting endorsed that Rio+20 should have a major focus on the green economy

Sweden speaking for the Euroepan Union and the Candidate Countries Turkey, Croatia* and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia*, the Countries of the Stabilisation and Association Process and potential candidates Albania, Montenegro and Serbia as well as Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova and Armenia align themselves with this statement Mr. Jakob Ström, Counsellor with the Permanent Mission of Sweden to the UN said to the UN General Assembly "With appreciation for the G77 proposal, the EU values a High-level Event on Sustainable Development in 2012 as an opportunity to make further progress on the mainstreaming of sustainability policies that foster green economy and reduce poverty. For an event to be meaningful there has to be broad agreement in this Assembly on how it can complement already ongoing processes in the field of sustainable development and be planned so as not to divert resources from or negatively affect them. The EU looks forward to engage actively in the forthcom...