World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD)

THE EVENT: International conference devoted to finding ways to bring together developed and developing nations in the pursuit of sustainable and equitable development

DATES: August 26-September 4, 2002

The World Summit on Sustainable Development brought together thousands of participants from all parts of the world and from all levels of society, and in doing so focused worldwide attention on the needs of developing nations and the impacts of development on the environment. The summit produce the Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development, a statement of principles for international action and debate.

The 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development was held in Johannesburg, South Africa, and is thus sometimes referred to as the Johannesburg Summit; it is also known as Earth Summit 2002. The purpose of the summit was in part to follow up on and discuss the progress made since the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, known as the Earth Summit, which was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The 2002 summit also sought to focus the world’s attention on the problematic effects of current methods of development for the planet’s environmental health and the well-being of its peoples.

The charge of the summit was to bring into communication and collaboration a wealth of diverse powers, perspectives, and interests so that strategies could be devised and direct action taken toward a concrete plan for sustainable development. Participants addressed the challenges associated with a globalizing economy that increasingly suffers from mounting industrialization, urbanization, ecological degradation, and the depletion of natural resources, problems exacerbated by the world’s growing and ever-increasing demands for food, water, shelter, energy, health and services, and economic security.

At the Rio meeting in 1992, the international adopted Agenda 21, an unprecedented global action plan for sustainable development that was founded on the conviction that human beings had reached a defining moment in the history of humankind and of the earth. Agenda 21 calls for a radical departure from the development policies of the past, which have not only increasingly devastated the but also contributed to gaping economic divisions between haves and have-nots around the globe, with consequent increases in the levels of poverty, hunger, disease, and illiteracy worldwide. Agenda 21 is intended to chart a new course to improve the living standards of the masses of hopeless impoverished at the base of the economic system and to restore the earth’s ecological health in order to bring about a more prosperous future for humankind and for the planet. The 2002 summit provided a fresh opportunity for international leaders and world citizens to return to the plan laid out in Agenda 21—to assess progress toward its implementation, identify shortcomings in that progress, and renew commitment to quantified targets for its fuller implementation.

Planning and Participants

The World Summit on Sustainable Development was planned and organized by a committee of the tenth session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development in four preparatory meetings held in 2001 and 2002. A bureau consisting of ten representatives, two from each of five world regions, steered the preparations for the summit and worked to raise international awareness of and support for the summit among world governments and lay groups. A key element of the summit planning was the United Nations Secretary-General’s Advisory Panel, a team charged with exploring the challenges of sustainable development and making recommendations to the secretary-general concerning how those challenges might be addressed at the summit.

Because the summit was to be a mammoth global event and certainly the largest gathering of international delegates ever convened in Africa, its coordinators were committed to carrying out all aspects of the event according to the ecologically sound “best practices” that the summit would be promoting. The Greening the WSSD Initiative was established to oversee the environmental impacts of the summit and to ensure that minimal would be generated by the thousands of participants.

During the summit, while international governmental representatives were meeting at the Sandton Convention Centre on the outskirts of Johannesburg, a nongovernmental forum was also under way at the nearby NASREC Expo Centre. Numerous side events coordinated by the United Nations, as well as parallel events coordinated by independent groups, ensured the broad participation and inclusiveness that the summit’s planners considered to be key to the successful setting of realistic but high-reaching goals and gaining widespread commitment to those goals.

More than twenty thousand of people from every corner of the world and every level of society took part in various aspects of the summit, from heads of state and other national delegates to leaders of nongovernmental organizations, leaders in business and industry, and a broad variety of workers and trade unionists, farmers, indigenous peoples, local authorities, and members of the scientific and technological communities. The broad diversity of participants was intended to reflect the major groups identified in Agenda 21.

Approaches and Outcomes

Recognizing that poverty in the developing world is a complex, multifaceted problem that is integrally related to nations’ external indebtedness, internal corruption, global trade policies, lack of development capital, and many other factors, both national and international, participants in the World Summit on Sustainable Development sought to develop both global and country-specific plans for creating sustainable patterns of consumption and production. These included devising new tactics for optimizing global resource use, minimizing waste, transferring environmentally sound technologies across the globe, achieving greater equity in income distribution, and developing human resources in all corners of the planet through the generation of employment, the extension of basic education and professional training opportunities, and the establishment of effective primary and maternal health care systems. Whether the proposed sustainability initiatives were global or national, the summit encouraged a community-driven approach that would empower local and community groups and include women, youth, and children.

For the most part, the summit was deemed to be successful, because its broad participant base and the global media coverage it received focused international attention squarely on the problem of sustainability. Many celebrated the summit’s progress regarding aid to developing nations. Critics, however, argued that the summit’s success was reduced by the conspicuous absence of US president George W. Bush from among the more than one hundred world leaders who gathered to address such crucial issues as the spread of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and other diseases, the depletion of fish stocks around the world, and the need to promote environmentally friendly agriculture. Critics asserted that Bush’s absence reduced negotiators’ ability to address a number of tough issues, such as the problem of rich nations’ policies of farm subsidies, which render poor nations incapable of competing with rich nations agriculturally. Many delegates also complained that the United States led the developed nations in resisting the setting of new targets to phase out export subsidies and other trade-distorting domestic supports.

Bibliography

Bigg, Tom. “The World Summit on Sustainable Development: Was It Worthwhile?” In Survival for a Small Planet: The Sustainable Development Agenda, edited by Tom Bigg. Sterling, Va.: Earthscan, 2004.

Hens, Luc, and Bhaskar Nath. The World Summit on Sustainable Development: The Johannesburg Conference. New York: Springer, 2005.

Speth, James Gustave, and Peter M. Haas. “From Stockholm to Johannesburg: First Attempt at Global Environmental Governance.” In Global Environmental Governance. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2006.

Strachan, Janet R., et al. The Plain Language Guide to the World Summit on Sustainable Development. Sterling, Va.: Earthscan, 2005.