Third Youth Update from CSD-12
Another little update from CSD 12 - April 29, 2004
I went to an interesting side event on Corporate Social Responsibility.
There were discussions on how this should be tied into the CSD
process but
instead is working on a parallel track. They also discussed started
to
similar process to Sustainable Consumption and Production which
has been
discussed at international conferences in particular Marrakech.
Yesterday Kofi Annan opened the high level ministerial meeting.
He focused on the importance of water issues etc etc. He also
said that the US and Russia must ratify the Kyoto protocol because
the whole world is waiting for< them to be able to progress on
combatting climate change. He also noted that there must now be
a focus away from the war on Iraq and onto sustainable development.
The speaker that spoke after who is working on the Millenium Development
Goals Mr. Jeffrey Saks said that 900 billion dollars are going
into armament internationally while only 50 billion are going
into development, that IDA must not be giving as loans but as
grants and that the private sector needs to get more involved.
We noticed during the plenary that the majority of delegates
are men, the
vast majority, and that it seemed as if the women on delegations
were all
runners and assistants rather than directors. In the Canadian
delegation the
majority of the delegates are women, but the heads of the delegation
are all
men.
At 6 pm we had our second meeting with Richard Balhorne and Gary
Pringle the
two heads of our delegation and civil society. The Minister was
supposed to
be there as well but was unable to make it. We discussed several
civil
society concerns including having a women as chair of CSD 13 instead
of a
man. A man who chairs UNESCO office in Toronto talked about Canada
doing
more to add sustainable development to the education system in
particular
during the Decade. Dick and Gary encouraged us as civil society
to take the
lead in the decade and there was discussion of organizing a meeting
in the
upcoming months to discuss this. The youth caucus also thanked
the Canadians
for having youth delegates and asked whether they would fund a
southern
youth delegate in the future. They said that CIDA was sending
money to the
CSD secretariat to fund some southern delegates and that we could
speak with
them to have some of this funding put aside for a youth delegate
that the
International Youth Caucus would nominate along with the two we
already
nominate funding by the secretariat. This was very exciting news!
Today the youth caucus is handing out a few things. First I put
together a
contract along with another Canadian for delegations to have a
youth
delegate for CSD 13. We put it together like a real contract and
they can
sign it and return it to us if they want. I have attached a copy.
Second a
letter on the youth caucus possition on education which was also
presented
to Minister Anderson this morning during our delegation meeting.
Third we
are wearing green ribbons to show that we think that we are consuming
too
much in the UN buidling and to encourage others to practice what
they
preach.
Things are starting to calm down, the partnership fair and the
learning
center and basically ending today. The minister leaves tonight,
I think
tomorrow is going to be very calm.
The major groups are giving their statements to the Ministers
this
afternoon, only catch, they were all given 1 minute each to talk!
So the
groups decided to merge their statements together so that they
have more
time.
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