SPAC Working Group Report on
Strategy Meeting
October 1, 2003
Held at UNEP Regional Office for North America
Washington, DC
Summary
After Hurricane Isabel forced us to cancel the previously planned meeting, members and friends of the Working Group on Sustainable Production & Consumption finally met this week in downtown Washington.
Hosted by UNEP's Regional Office for North America, the meeting aimed to catch everyone up on a number of meetings and activities taking place in the coming months: the 12 Session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-12), the 10- year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Production and Consumption, UNEP's Global Ministerial Environment Forum (GMEF) meeting, and the North American Sustainable Consumption Alliance.
CSD-12
Karin Krchnak of World Resources Institute (WRI) presented latest details on preparations for next year's CSD session. Karen also co-chairs, with Shiney Varghese (of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy), the NGO Fresh Water Caucus at CSD. The thematic focus in the next two CSD sessions is on "Water, Sanitation and Human Settlements," with production and consumption as an ongoing and overarching cross-cutting objective. The Fresh Water Caucus will of course play a central role in this process coordinating and representing NGO priorities and recommendations.
The CSD's Secretariat is currently gathering information on countries' implementation of their commitments on these issues. Drafts of the Secretary-General's report, which will be the basis for intergovernmental and stakeholder discussions at CSD-12, should be available in October or early November.
The Secretariat invites Major Group input to the Secretary General's State of Implementation report, due no later than October 31st . This is an opportunity for US NGOs as well as our partners in other countries to identify and highlight what points and priorities we would like to see on the CSD-12 agenda and mentioned in the Secretary General's report. This gives us only weeks to do the outreach compile and submit points.
The CSD Secretariat also mentioned the opportunity for Major Groups to meet with the Chairman of the CSD-12 Bureau this November, although details on this are not yet available. Further, the CSD is encouraging regional commission meetings to feed into the CSD process. Each of these regional processes should in turn encourage regional civil society input into these sessions.
Considering these various opportunities for intervention, Karen stressed the need for the Major Groups to plan and coordinate their activities and their input in order to make an effective intervention.
Inter-Caucus strategies
There was general agreement that with each of the individual thematic issues addressed by the CSD in the coming years (water, energy, food, etc.) that these are all interconnected and that the approach should stress this interconnection. We agreed that this should be part of the strategy for the caucuses at CSD, not just for the Fresh Water and SPAC Caucuses but also Women, Indigenous Peoples, Food, Energy, etc.
In response to Karen's call for more coordinated NGO planning, Jeffrey Barber of Integrative Strategies Forum (ISF) talked about the potential contribution which the Sustainable Development Issues Network can make to this effort. SDIN is a coalition of the majority of Issue Caucuses at the CSD, created a few years ago to improve communications among and within the Caucuses.
Gary Pupurs, also of ISF talked about methods of using information technology to improve this communication and coordination between and within NGO caucuses.
Karin Krchnak and Jeffrey Barber talked about the issue caucuses at CSD from their perspectives as the Coordinators of the Fresh Water Caucus and the Sustainable Production and Consumption Caucus, respectively. The Caucuses tend to be open ended in composition, although they mainly consist of NGOs. Membership is international. Many Caucuses have their own listserve and maintain a record of documentation. Although not present for the meeting, Linda Elswick (coordinator of the Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Caucus at CSD) had also expressed a desire for the caucuses to work together on strategy and coordinated information and actions.
Report from Marrakech: The 10-Year Framework on SPAC
Another item to be discussed at CSD-12 will be a report from the meeting in Marrakech on the 10-Year Framework, one of the initiatives mandated by the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD).
Veena Ramani of ISF reported on the International Expert Meeting on Sustainable Production and Consumption, held in Marrakech, Morocco in June 2003. She was one of a small number of NGOs invited to participate, the majority of participants being from governments. Substantively, the meeting consisted of an exchange of views and programs on SPAC in various countries, although mostly familiar discussions. Procedurally, the meeting launched the “Marrakech processâ€, which implied that follow up meetings would be held to discuss this topic. The meeting also placed importance on regional initiatives. Regional expert meetings on SPAC had been held in Argentina and Indonesia prior to the Marrakech meeting, and follow up meetings are being planned in October and November. However, the other regions are not making such efforts.
( See handout )
Throughout the WSSD process the Sustainable Production and Consumption Caucus had been highlighting the importance of adopting the commitment to a 10-year global work plan. Working in conjunction with the SPAC Caucus is the International Coalition on Sustainable Production and Consumption (ICSPAC). The Coalition consists of core SPAC Caucus members and others working on SPAC issues beyond the CSD. One of the main projects of ICSPAC is the SPAC Watch project to monitor progress towards sustainable production and consumption. ICSPAC plans to present a report to CSD-12.
Global Ministerial Environment Forum
Keith Robinson (UNEP) and Hilary French (Worldwatch) discussed the Global Ministerial Environment Forum (GMEF), which will be held in Korea in March 2004. In this meeting, environment ministers get together to discuss thematic policy issues. The GMEF in 2004, in preparation for CSD-12, will discuss Water, Sanitation and Human Settlements. UNEP is preparing a report for this meeting and will also seek regional Major Group input into the same.
One proposal is to organize a North American regional Major Groups meeting in November 2003. They also discussed the Global Civil Society Forum March 27-28 that would provide formal civil society input presented to the Ministers. UNEP is looking for ways to improve NGO caucus participation and the Issue Caucuses were suggested as a useful source.
North American Sustainable Consumption Alliance
Jack Luskin and Anne Blackman of the Toxics Use Research Institute (University of Massachusetts, Lowell) talked about the North American Sustainable Consumption Alliance (NASCA). The alliance, consisting of NGOs and the government, formed two years ago to promote sustainable consumption patterns in North America. NASCA plans to hold their third regional conference in Ottawa in April 2004, in order to provide a forum in which people can interact and network about SPAC issues. NASCA is also involved in organizing a North American survey on SPAC activities in Canada, Mexico and the US.
( See handout )
State of the World 2004
Susan Finkelpearl of the Worldwatch Institute talked about the Worldwatch's 2004 State of the World report that is focusing on consumption – both on overconsumption (or affluence) and underconsumption, which is linked to poverty. She also talked about the companion guide to the report, that focused on what individuals could do in order to impact consumption.
Conscious Consumer
Naomi Friedman of the Center for a New American Dream discussed the Center's Conscious Consumer web guide, which they recently launched.
