NEWS                                      
                                                    OUTREACH 1997
                           The Voice of the NGO Community at CSD*
                                     Countdown to Earth Summit II
LETTER

Vol. 1 No. 10
Wednesday 5 March 1997

                      CSDI SPECIAL EDITION

                         THE PAPER CHASE

AT A GLANCE

TOWARDS EARTH SUMMIT II
NGO initial comments on Co-Chair paper

FEATURE
How Bright is the Future of the World's Green Fund?

RIO GRINDS

QUOTES: PAST & PRESENT

NGO CORNER
Introducing the Youth Caucus

SUSTAINABLE FASHION

-=-=-=-=-

TOWARDS EARTH SUMMIT II

NGO initial comments on Co-Chair paper

This paper has no intention of speaking for all NGOs, nor civil
society at large. Many NGOs can not sign up to positions other
than those in their competence.

NGOs have produced two substantive documents in preparation for
the CSD Intersessional which have been distributed. This document
is to highlight a few of the areas we feel are missing from the
Co-Chairs' text. We would refer governments to our two previous
documents for a more substantive overview of what NGOs are
calling for.

We call upon governments for the following commitments:

NGO Access to Earth Summit II and the General Assembly

Ensure that the arrangements for the UN General Assembly Special
Session are based on the newly revised Arrangements for
Consultation with NGOs - 1996/31 - and that these arrangements
should apply to strengthening NGO access to and participation in
the General Assembly and its committee.

1. Reflect their commitments at Earth Summit II in June in a
program of work to be completed by the 3rd Earth Summit in 2002.

Integration of Economic and Environmental Objectives

2. Complete sustainable development strategies by the year 2002
and ensure that all major groups are actively involved at all
levels of decision making in the formulation and implementation
of these strategies.

3. Ensures greater transparency, accountability and the public's
right to complain, as now accepted and implemented at the
International Financial Institutions, in the formulation and
realization of national strategies for sustainable development.

Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns

4. Organize empowerment and awareness raising campaigns among
most affected groups such as youth on sustainable consumption and
production patterns.

5. Set national resource consumption targets based on the
environmental space (with an equity approach to meet the basic
needs) and enhanced quality of life for all. Promote socially and
ecologically sound patterns of production and consumption through
an efficiency and sufficiency revolution.

Making Trade, ((delete Environment)), and Sustainable Development
Mutually Supporting

6. To convene a Trade and Environment Ministerial meeting before
the next Ministerial meeting of WTO to address the relationship
between trade and sustainable development.

7. Establish an Intergovernmental Panel or sub-Commission of the
CSD on Trade and Sustainable Development to explore and make
recommendations in regard to the implementation of fair trade vs
free trade.

Poverty

8. Coordinate the outcome of the World Summit on Social
Development on the integration of poverty strategies into
Sustainable Development Strategies. Countries should publish
their indicators on poverty and their strategies, including the
elimination of structural adjustment policies, to eliminate
poverty by the year 2000 in time for the General Assembly review
of the Copenhagen Summit.

Freshwater

9. To focus on the watershed approach to the issue of the
conservation of freshwater, ensure that democratic control of
water is supported and maintained.

Oceans

10. Establish an Intergovernmental Panel or sub commission on
Oceans to prepare a comprehensive scientific assessment on the
state of the oceans and the necessary policy recommendations,
drawing on efforts by UNEP and GESAMP - Joint Group of Experts on
Scientific Aspects of Marine Pollution - in this field; the Law
of the Sea treaty now in force should also be considered as a
policy dialogue forum; immediate action is necessary to redress
problems of excess of fishing capacity, wasteful fishing
practices, and unsustainable aquaculture. Governments must also
agree to protect the deep ocean.

Transport

11. Give priority to the allocation of road space for public and
non-motorized transport, support car-free areas in cities, apply
the "polluter pays principle" to transport to reflect the true
social costs of motorized travel; and promote land use planning
which reduces the need to travel by car.

Atmosphere

12. Endorse a legally binding CO2 reduction target of 20% from
1990 levels by the year 2005, and commensurate reductions of
other greenhouse gases, to be agreed at Kyoto, December 1997.

Population

13. Support the full implementation of the programmes of action
of the 1994 IPCD and the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women
and the 1996 Habitat II Conference.

Chemicals

14. Commit to a legally binding instrument on Persistent Organic
Pollutants (POPs) that will focus on 'reducing and eliminating'
them, not just controlling them; come to an agreement on Prior
Informed Consent and a global harmonized system for the
classification and labeling; and develop a Framework Chemicals
Convention without delaying the expeditious negotiation of a
treaty on POPs.

Biodiversity Convention

15. Ratify the Biodiversity Convention by the end of 1997.

Transfer of Environmentally Sound Technologies

16. Clean up and dispose of all toxic military waste in an
environmentally sound manner; implement an immediate ban on the
production, sale, use and transfer of anti-personnel land mines.

Finance

17. Replenish and increase in the GEF; fulfil the commitment to
the 0.7% GNP target for aid by 2005 ensure all aid is focussed to
the implementation of the agreement of Rio and of the other
recent global conferences.

18. Recognize and act on the urgent need for an intergovernmental
process, under the aegis of the CSD, aimed at reaching global
consensus on a range of financial issues and formulating concrete
recommendations for action at the international and national
level. These include innovative financial mechanisms, the balance
between and respective roles of ODA and FDI, the coordination of
subsidy reductions, and the creation of a policy environment and
international mechanisms that maximize the contribution of FDI to
sustainable development.

19. Recognize that Governments who can proceed faster than others
in commitments to funding sustainable development and all other
multi lateral activity should be encouraged to do so.

Indicators

20. Recognize the need to use appropriate sustainable development
indicators appropriately as a tool for community decision making;
taking into account that: a) data must be objective as possible;
b) all interests, including beneficiaries, must be involved -
everyone who is impacted, particularly grass roots women.

Major Groups

21. Establish National and Major Group reporting to a sub
commission of CSD. This would offer a peer group review of the
work being done.

22. Address the fact that there has been very little progress in
relation to indigenous peoples' issues.

23. Establish a Permanent Forum for Indigenous Peoples within the
UN system and adopt the Draft Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples in its present form. Both measures would
further the objectives of Agenda 21 and the UN Decade of the
Worlds' Indigenous Peoples.

-=-=-=-=-

ANNOUNCEMENTS

On Wednesday, 5 March, UNA-NY has organized a meeting with H.E.
Mr. Razali Ismail, President of the General Assembly, at the UN
Church Centre from 6:00-7:30 p.m.

The Sixth International Conference of The World Information
Transfer will be held at United Nations Headquarters on 17 -18
April 1997. Running parallel to CSD V, this conference, which is
being co-sponsored by the Government of Chile, will focus on
"Environmental Degradation: Its Effect on Children's Heath."
Further information can be obtained by contacting the following:

tel: (212) 686-1996 fax: (212) 686-2172
email: wit@igc.apc.org

-=-=-=-=-

FEATURE...

HOW BRIGHT IS THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD'S GREEN FUND?
Briefing on the GEF by Mohammed El-Ashry, Chief Executive Officer
of the GEF, 4 March

A personal commentary by Rob Lake
UNED-UK/BirdLife International

Mohammed El-Ashry, the Chief of the Global Environment Facility -
the 'world's green fund', set up just before Rio and due to spend
$2 billion on tackling biodiversity, climate change,
international waters and ozone depletion problems between 1994
and 1997 - gave a briefing and answered questions for
governments, NGOs and others at a lunch-time meeting yesterday.
El-Ashry outlined the complex structure of the GEF: an Assembly
of all participant countries (over 150) is the ultimate governing
body, while policy decisions are made by a 32-member Council made
up of 16 developing countries, 14 developed countries and 2
countries with economies in transition. The Council meets twice a
year; votes are taken by a 'double weighted majority' - decisions
have to be approved by both a majority of members of the Council
and countries representing the majority of funds. NGOs - who
select their own representatives - attend Council meetings as
observers and have speaking (but not yet voting!) rights. The GEF
is co-ordinated by Secretariat in Washington D.C., while projects
are actually run by the 'Implementing Agencies' - the World Bank,
UNDP and UNEP. The GEF acts as the 'financial mechanism' - the
official source of funds - for the implementation of the
Biodiversity Convention and the Climate Change Convention.

OK. That's the bureaucracy. But what are the real issues?
The first question to El-Ashry, by the representative of
Colombia, went right to the heart of all the big technical and
political questions currently surrounding the GEF. Negotiations
amongst donor countries start on 12 March in Paris on the
'replenishment' of the GEF - i.e. its new budget. How much does
Mr El-Ashry expect the donors to provide? Will there be changes
in the GEF's scope, for example to include desertification - as
has been called for by many developing countries and which some
donors may support? Will the GEF streamline its procedures and
make it easier for developing countries to get projects approved?
What is the future of the controversial 'incremental cost'
principle, under which the GEF only covers the difference in
costs between activities a country would pursue for its own
national development benefit, and actions needed for the benefit
of the global environment - a topic that has generated
considerable discontent in the Biodiversity Convention Conference
of the Parties in particular.

El-Ashry's replies were frank, but diplomatic, and sometimes
personal. Unsurprisingly, he revealed nothing on replenishment:
no-one knows how much money the donors will be prepared to give.
He did not mention that rumours abound that the environment-
friendly development ministry in one key donor country is under
pressure from its finance ministry to cut GEF contributions (a
recently re-unified EU country with a big budget deficit), while
other donors talk enthusiastically of increasing the GEF (low-
lying coastal countries known for their wooden shoes).  On
widening the GEF's mandate to include desertification, El-Ashry
argued firstly that the GEF can already fund land degradation
projects anyway, secondly that any new areas must genuinely be
global environmental problems, and thirdly that new work must be
accompanied by significant new money - otherwise the GEF will
just do more things less well.

On streamlining procedures, El-Ashry said the GEF is doing all it
can. Fast-track systems have been introduced for 'medium-sized'
projects up to $1,000,000 (of particular interest to NGOs), and
the Implementing Agencies are trying to standardise their
paperwork and get things done faster. This may be true, but there
is still clearly considerable frustration amongst recipient
countries - and NGOs - with the complexity and bureaucracy of the
system. Incremental costs is an issue that seems to generate more
heat than light. While many countries complain that the principle
is opaque and obstructive, some insiders argue that in reality a
very flexible approach has been taken to biodiversity projects in
particular, and that incremental costs has in fact meant total
costs. This seems to be another area where the GEF needs to put
more effort into clarifying and communicating its message.

This author's view on the great GEF debate? It may not be
perfect, but it's the only global environmental fund we have. In
a political and economic climate in nearly all donor countries in
which public spending is under severe pressure, not to mention
the hostility to internationalism in the US in particular, NGOs
should support the GEF - while working to improve it. Donors
should increase their funding, while resisting temptations to
create a broader GEF unless they can provide sufficient (i.e.
substantial) resources to guarantee that they will not just
create more problems by weakening the institution. 

-=-=-=-=-

RIO GRINDS...
overheard at the coffee bar

Rumor has it that UN Reform Czar Maurice Strong is looking
favorable at a management buy out at the Centre for Human
Settlements. Unfortunately, staff were unable to distinguish any
managers to produce the required bid.

The refurbishment of the Vienna Cafe by the Austrians has had
NGOs thinking that perhaps the renaming of the space between the
toilets as Bonn Ice Cream Parlor might see movement towards one
of the NGO targets.

Rumor has it that the Secretary-General has been seen speaking to
leading DNC fund raisers. Could this mean that the 38th Floor
will soon be rented out to visiting "FOK" to give funds to save
the UN and reform it?

President Clinton was through New York for the second time in two
weeks this weekend for Chelsea's birthday party. NGOs are looking
into the possibility of organizing a party for "Socks" (much
cheaper than Chelsea!) For June to secure Clinton's participation
in the Special Session.

-=-=-=-=-

QUOTES: PAST & PRESENT

past:

"Many members of Congress today complain that 4% of our federal
budget is too much to devote to aid - yet in 1951, that program
amounted to nearly 20% of our budget - 20% in 1951 and 4% today.
They refuse today to vote more than $4 billion to this effort -
yet in 1951 when this country was not nearly as well off, the
Congress voted $8 billion to the same cause. They are fearful
today of the effects of sending to other people 0.7% of our GNP -
but in 1951, we devoted 2.8% to this purpose.

The Congress has already reduced this year's aid budget $600
million below the amount recommended by the Clay Committee. Is
this nation stating it cannot afford to spend an additional $600
million to help the developing nations of the world become strong
and free and independent - an amount less than the country's
annual outlay for lipstick, face cream and chewing gum?"

                                        President John F. Kennedy
                                      New York Protestant Council
                                                  8 November 1963

present:

"Development aid is no longer needed to strengthen the American
position in the Cold War against Soviet Communism. Development
aid is now viewed by some skeptics as welfare gone global.
Development aid is treated by a jaded political class as money
down a rat hole instead of an investment in economic take-off for
the prosperity -- and participation in global markets -- of 3/4
of the world's people.

Yet, the wealthy countries need rapid economic strides in
developing countries in order to secure their own future
prosperity. Liberalization of trade -- the hallmark of the 1980s
and 1990s -- has been an important stimulus to economic growth
but private investors alone will not invest in the schools, the
water systems and transportation networks that are needed for a
developing economy to sprint forward. Certainly, the reconciling
of environmental sustainability with economic growth requires a
strong public component as we build the metaphorical bridge to
the 21st Century."

                                                    Jeff Laurenti
                             Executive Director of Policy Studies
                                                          UNA-USA

-=-=-=-=-

NGO CORNER...

There are more than 550 accredited NGOs behind the NGO Steering
Committee. Together they represent millions of people on all
continents. We will be using this column in the next few days to
introduce a few of these NGOs to you.

The youth by itself is a numerous and formidable group. They are
also one of the stakeholders. Today, we introduce representatives
from the Youth Caucus.

YOUTH CAUCUS

Maybe you've seen us around...we are this week, six youth
representing q2000 from Sweden, the Canadian Environmental
Network Youth Caucus' Youth Sustainability Project, REJULADS
(Latin American Youth Network for Sustainable Development) and
Rescue Mission Planet Earth. We have been working hard to ensure
that youth perspectives play a central role in planning for the
CSD and in the sustainable development movement. By bringing
together our different experiences and skills, we have
successfully formed a dynamic and assertive group of young people
brainstorming, lobbying and contributing to the NGO position on
many issues.

We are all involved in local Agenda 21 projects and bring to this
forum the concerns of youth working on global issues in their
communities. While we care about the well-being of the whole
earth, some of our priority issues are sustainable consumption
and production patterns; youth empowerment; education and
participation; fair trade; finance for sustainable development;
bio-technology and organic agriculture. Many governments and NGOs
have responded positively to our lobbying efforts and ideas.

We are forging ahead with the proposed CSD 5 agenda for youth
which includes:

- an orientation session prior to the start of CSD 5;
- a strong youth caucus process with daily caucus meetings;
- an interactive issue-based Youth hour to which all are welcome;
- a working group structure including documents, media and
activism committees.

We hope to be pro-active in making CSD 5 inclusive of gender and
diverse regional perspectives from youth. In order to acknowledge
and avoid chronic over-representation by Northern countries, we
have agreed that every Northern NGO youth delegate will be
matched with a Southern NGO youth delegate.

While still here at the Intersessional, we will use this
opportunity to respond to the paper prepared by the Co-Chairmen.
We want a commitment for action, to change current consumption
and production patterns, with special regard to youth
empowerment, media literacy among youth, and an end to subsidies
on manipulative or eco-damaging advertising.

We also urge all governments to include NGO youth representatives
in their delegations in the coming meetings on sustainable
development. As a major group, youth are fully capable of
articulating and working on all issues.

We will continue to work to be seen, heard and included, welcome
your support.

-=-=-=-=-

The opinions, commentaries and articles printed in OUTREACH are
the sole opinion of the individual authors or organizations,
unless otherwise expressed.

They are not the official opinions of the NGO/CSD Steering
Committee or of WFUNA.

-=-=-=-=-

The Steering Committee has a web page.
http://www.igc.apc.org/habitat/csd-97
There is also a general list server for those interested it is
csdgen@undp.org To be added to he list, just send a message to
 with the one line message:
subscribe csdgen

The complete NGO statement referred to under "UPDATE" will be
posted on the web site in a couple of days.

-=-=-=-=-

OUTREACH '97
CSD NGO Steering Committee

World Federation of United Nations Associations (WFUNA)

Editors
Jan-Gustav Strandenaes
Sharon McHale
David Fingrut

OUTREACH 1997
Please send material /enquiries to
Jan-Gustav Strandenaes
Fax (+1 212) 963-0447
Tel (+1 212) 963-5610
E-mail: wfuna@undp.org