WSSD Event Calendar
Notice: As you may have been aware, the
World Summit was originally scheduled to end on September 11, 2002. The Summit
dates are being rescheduled to avoid the anniversary date of the US terrorist
attacks; the new confirmed dates of the World Summit are August 26th to September
4th, 2002.
Key Events in the World Summit Process
PrepCom II
January 28 - February 8, 2002: New York City, UN
Headquarters
Note: This event is now over, see link below for outcomes.
This is the first meeting where substantive discussion of the issues on the
Summit agenda will begin. there will be a lot of informal discussion of issues,
based on the results of national and regional preparatory activities, as well
as the contributions from multistakeholder dialogues on Tuesday through Thursday.
Issues, ideas, and potential action outcomes, rather than document text and
wording, will be the focus of PrepCom 2. It is likely that instead of a long
list of specific issues, the outcome will be an initial "clustering"
of related issues, identification of potential cross-cutting themes, and initial
exploration of potential partnerships. If you can only participate for a few
days, the middle of the first week affords the best opportunities for NGO
input via major groups dialogues.
Outcomes of PrepCom 2 can be found at:
http://www.citnet.org/worldsummit/events/PrepComOutcomes.aspx
PrepCom III
March 25 - April 5, 2002: New York City, UN Headquarters
PrepCom 3 will be further discussion and a focus on narrowing the scope of
discussion from PrepCom 2 into a summary document, as well as an attempt to
identify concrete elements of a potential future work program. There are no
multistakeholder dialogues scheduled for PrepCom 3, although major groups
will be able to make limited comments at certain points.
For more details:
http://www.johannesburgsummit.org/html/documents/prepcom3.html
PrepCom IV
May 27 - June 7, 2002: Jakarta, Indonesia
The review of PrepCom 3 outcomes by ministerial officials and the drafting
of final text for the Summit will occur at PrepCom 4. At this point in the
Summit process, the main points of the agenda will be set, requiring only
adjustments in wording and perhaps discussion of inclusion or exclusion of
specific points from previous PrepComs. A major goal of this PrepCom is also
to foster and build political commitment for sustainable development and the
World Summit. A multistakeholder dialogue is also scheduled, and will most
likely focus on ideas for multistakeholder partnerships.
For more details:
http://www.johannesburgsummit.org/html/documents/prepcom4.html
World Summit for Sustainable Development
August 26 - September 4, 2002: Johannesburg, South
Africa (NOTE NEW CONFIRMED DATES)
The World Summit will be the culminating event where final PrepCom documents
will be reviewed and full government delegations, including heads of state,
will debate and discuss the progress and constraints to implementing Agenda
21 in the past ten years. Debate will then move to a future workplan and partnerships,
which hopefully will establish a concrete course of action for specific implementation
of such a workplan, built on the principles of Agenda 21. Many NGOs are expected
to attend, and there will be a number of NGO events occuring in parallel to
the official proceedings.
Other Relevant Upcoming Events
World Economic Forum (WEF)
January 31 - February 5, 2002: New York City
The World Economic Forum is an annual event, described by The Economist as
"the summit of summits in the business world", formerly held in
Davos, Switzerland (and sometimes referred to as simply 'Davos'). The WEF
brings together business, political, media, NGO and academic leaders get together
to discuss topics of common interest. The goal is to help participants understand
and define "the global agenda". Of course, that's the more "official
" description, as many NGOs are opposed to the types of informal agreements
and discussions that go on between big business and governments, outside earshot
of NGOs, as well as the general agenda items, which tend to exclusively focus
on economic growth and trade (although the
WEF agenda for this year's meeting does address issues like poverty, equity,
governance, and citizen participation.)
Other sites are better equipped to fill you in on details surrounding WEF,
see our brief list of links. This is relevant to the
World Summit because it's been moved to New York (Switzerland didn't want
to cover the security costs of possible protests), and happens to occur during
the two weeks of PrepCom 2. Therefore, there will be a large number of NGOs
in NYC during these two weeks, probably several protests (along with tight
security/police presence), and likely a shortage of hotel rooms. There's also
the opportunity for strategic planning beween NGOs working on both/either
related events, although it's currently unclear how that will play out, if
at all.
Event Calendars on the Web
These sites have listings of events related to the World Summit. We will pull
these together into a unified listing of events relevant to US NGOs in the near
future, but wanted to provide resources to these links immediately.