OUTREACH 1997

Vol. 1 No. 23

Monday 21 April 1997

speaking for the CSD/NGO Steering Committee

in collaboration with ECO 1997

ECO has been published by Non-Governmental Environmental Groups at major international conferences since the Stockholm Environment Conference in 1972

The Voices of the NGO Community at CSD

Countdown to Earth Summit II

CSD 5 SPECIAL EDITION

FINAL WEEK: STALEMATE CONTINUES

AT A GLANCE

COMMENTARY

YOUTH CORNER

RIO GRINDS

BOOK LAUNCH

NGO VIEWPOINT

NGO MATTERS

ANNOUNCEMENTS

NGO BALLOT

The opinions, commentaries and articles printed in OUTREACH/ECO 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, WFUNA, IUCN or ELCI.

COMMENTARY...
With one week left of the CSD 5, we let Peter Padbury of The Futures Institute In Ottawa, Canada, think about future development of CSD and sustainability.

CSD AND UN REFORM
A Vision of the CSD in 2002

by Peter Padbury, Futures Institute
Ottawa, Canada

What is the role of the Special Session in promoting UN reform? Several governments have expressed surprise at how timid the Secretariat proposals are. It is time to start thinking more strategically about the opportunity. Below are a few ideas to encourage reflection and creativity.

TOWARD A GLOBAL POLICY FRAMEWORK
In many countries, the social and economic dislocations of globalization are moving to the top of the public and political agenda. Sustainable development is the answer to the negative aspects of globalization. (Read the last two sentences again - they are very important). The Secretariat has define sustainable development as the progressive and balanced achievement of economic development, improved social equity and environmental sustainability. Unfortunately, as Mr. Gummer, the UK Minister of the Environment said, "free trade is the only global policy framework that matters, and it is not modified by any other values or principles." We need to use the Special Session to start a process to make sustainable development the real overarching policy framework for the planet.

ONE OF THE REASONS THE SOUTH IS NOT ENGAGED AT THE CSD IS
that the CSD does not really address or influence their concerns. (The G77 is recycling text from the Agenda for Development debate - surely there is a message there). If we are concerned about sustainable development we have to build a new North-South deal that includes economic, social and environmental dimensions. This will involve both sides asking some tough questions about equity and accountability.

RATHER THAN FOCUS ON THE PAST
(and a very predictable and sterile debate) we should focus on the future. We should build the new deal around the problem of how we maintain and share the carrying capacity of the global ecosystem. To avoid an unbelievably complex crisis within the next 30 years we need to put sustainable production and consumption, energy, population, debt, etc, all on the table. This will require a political willingness to systematically resolving differences in several fora at the same time.

A NEW INSTITUTIONAL HOME OR A NEW CULTURE?
To make sustainable development the overarching policy framework is a big task that is going to take some time. We need to set up a new forum for an integrated, high level policy dialogue that could engage the WTO and IMF and win. Its main role should be the creation and maintenance of a policy framework that promotes sustainability. There are many institutional options. I would suggest that the Trusteeship Council be re-mandated. It needs to be separated from the overwhelming agenda and hectic pace of ECOSOC. ECOSOC and its numerous sub-commissions should become a place for reporting, synthesis, policy coordination, collaboration and learning.

WHATEVER THE INSTITUTIONAL SOLUTION,
we need to escape and then avoid the stalemate of ECOSOC. The new culture has to be build around the following elements: 1) a real political commitment to a new deal where all issues are publicly and systematically examined and addressed; 2) a work plan and pace of work that allows governments, diplomats and citizens to work thoughtfully towards integration of all the dimensions of the framework; 3) innovative methods of work that allow people in capitals who "own" the problem to use the opportunity the CSD presents to solve their problem; and 4) we have to explore ways to make governments more accountable (to each other and to their own citizens) for their actions at the UN.

BUILDING A MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Governments have an important role to play in developing a policy framework to promote sustainable development. But others have roles and responsibilities as well. Governments at every level from local to global have to work with all the major groups to encourage and empower them to promote sustainability. We need to build a management system for sustainable development. To build the management system we need to translate international agreements into terms that are meaningful and operational at the local and national levels, we need to identify the tools we need to know we are behaving sustainably, we need to build new multi-stakeholder fora to resolve differences and promote collaboration among major groups and between levels.

EACH MAJOR GROUP HAS IMPORTANT RESOURCES
and tools that are essential in the task of managing sustainable development. For instance, the research agenda of the science community is a key tool. Analysis and advice of policy institutes can help understand how to manage global systems sustainably. The voluntary codes of business, if they were transparent and accountable could be a significant new tool. NGOs provide analysis, research and accountability mechanisms to help clarify the long-term public interest. Educators build awareness and skills to cope with the changes ahead. Yet we have not begun to mobilize the tools and resources that are easily available.

WE NEED TO CREATE MULTI- STAKEHOLDER FORA
(that include all major groups and government departments) at the local, national and international levels to translate international commitments and to facilitate consensus-building, goal-setting, coordination and action. We need to build reporting and consultation processes (up and down) so local efforts to promote sustainability are supported by national policies and national efforts are supported by international policies. We need to develop and monitor sustainability plans at each level that incorporate the contributions (roles, responsibilities and tools) of all major groups.

TO SUMMARIZE, THE CSD IS THE KEY NORM-SETTING FORUM
for sustainable development. A lot has been accomplished in the last five years, but we have a very long way to go. We have to use the Special Session to make the CSD more effective and strategic. We have to make sustainable development the overarching policy framework - noting that it is the solution to the negative aspects of globalization. We have to move from seeing sustainable development as a government problem, to seeing it as everyone's responsibility. We need to work together to give ourselves the tools to know we are behaving sustainably and the policies and institutional arrangements to cooperatively and proactively build a more sustainable world. Ultimately all of the above are the tools to help us make a historic shift from seeing ourselves as citizens of villages, counties, provinces, and countries, to seeing our rights and responsibilities as citizens of a planet.

YOUTH CORNER...

MEDIA INFLUENCE

Comments to CSD Plenary - 16 April
by Katrun Nada, Green Indonesia Club/ISMUN
on behalf of the Youth Caucus

On behalf of the youth present, I would like to express our concern that the relationship between media and sustainable development, and its effect on youth, has to be more fully understood.

Youth, almost by definition, are continually analyzing our social and political systems. However, media because of its aggressive advertising strategies, is far more difficult to analyze - due to its manipulative and overwhelming commercial bombardment.

Governments must realize that media effects youth in countries with strong education systems, and, perhaps with even more detrimental repercussions, effects our friends in countries without strong education systems.


RIO GRINDS...

Ten leading excuses by delegates to their heads of state as to why the negotiations failed

10. It was G-77's fault
9. It was the EU's fault
8. It was OPEC's fault
7. It was the US' fault
6. It was Switzerland's fault
5. It was my fault, sorry I spent too much time the Vienna Cafe
4. I was locked in the women's/men's/persons room
3. I thought Rio +5 was the main event, so I went there
2. New York City kept towing away my car
1. I realized that the NGOs were right and went home

O.K, let's make it a cool dozen reasons
0. Aliens ate my conference room papers
-1. Negotiations? I thought we were here to pick a fight!

BOOK LAUNCH...
Felix Dodds launches his book "The Way Forward - Beyond Agenda 21" on Tuesday. Dodds has edited this book with contributions from many leading environmentalists. Jonathan Porrit, well-known environmentalist from the UK, gives us some of the background for this book.

It seems to have become standard practice for many media cynics and world-weary environmentalists to dismiss the 1992 Earth Summit as "just another UN talk shop". I am therefore very grateful to Felix Dodds (UNED-UK's indefatigable and inspirational co-ordinator) for reminding us just how idiotic this throw-away contempt sounds when set against the principal outcomes of those two frenetic weeks in Rio de Janeiro five years ago. He summarizes these as follows:

Agenda 21
The Rio Declaration
The Forestry Principles
The Climate Change Convention
The Biodiversity Convention
The Desertification Convention
The UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD)
The CSD NGO/Major Groups Steering Committee to interface with the UN in the work of the CSD
The Conference on Small Island Developing States
The Conference on Straddling & Highly Migratory Fish Stocks
The Intergovernmental Panel on Forests
Over 2000 Local Agenda 21s around the world
Over 120 National Sustainable Development Councils
Over 120 National Sustainable Development Strategies
The development of sustainable development indicators at the local and national level
Enhanced involvement of stakeholders in the UN, national and local decision-making processes

UN - more than talk
Not bad for just another UN talk shop. In fact, the last five years have seen a most impressive take up of both the spirit and output of certain parts of the Rio agenda. This has been going on within all political parties, within local authorities, within the business community, within a host of the establishment institutions, such as architects, engineers, planners etc, and of course within the NGO community - though it's true that a recurring theme of many of the chapters in The Way Forward is the frustration felt at the lack of progress in the intervening five years.

Environmental sustainability and social justice.
But there is another recurring theme that made an even more powerful impression on me in reading this stirring book: that sustainable development as a concept means very little if its two fundamental elements - environmental sustainability and social justice - are not being given equal attention. In mainstream political discourse in most OECD countries today one gets the disturbing impression that sustainable development has become all but synonymous with conventionally defined environmentalism.

So it's worth remembering (however many revisionist interpretations of it there may now be!) that there was undoubtedly a 'deal' on the table at the Earth Summit. G77 and emerging countries implicitly agreed to sign up to a variety of action plans for addressing some of the big environmental issues (global warming, deforestation, loss of biodiversity etc), whilst OECD countries implicitly signed up to the idea of increased aid flows and other forms of development assistance as the quid pro quo for their buy-in on the environment agenda. This deal was brokered quietly by a lot of diplomacy behind the scenes, despite the prevailing political climate engendered by the Reagan / Thatcher years.

Over-consumption not an issue.
But the deal couldn't quite be made to stick even at the time. At the behest of the United States and the UK, the crucial concept of over-consumption in northern industrialised countries was entirely excised from the conference documentation and discussed only on the fringes. This did not impress delegations from the South. 'Conventionitis' broke out in a bad way, masking the kind of political challenges which should really have been addressed.

From that point on, the deal began almost immediately to unravel. Within Europe, for instance, the European Union proved itself completely unable to agree on ways for coming up with the three billion ecu aid pledge made as part of its Agenda 21 commitment at Rio. The usual fights broke out: what proportion of this should be determined by the EU itself and what proportion by member countries? Over what period should the money be spent? Under what budget titles should it be allocated etc etc. That pledge has never been turned into additional assistance.

Why does cynicism grow?
This (and many similar decisions elsewhere in the developed world) has led to a profound sense of cynicism amongst most southern countries. Some of the consequences of that retrenchment (with the total volume of aid declining from around $65 billion then to under $55 billion today) were starkly mapped out in last year's very powerful Human Development Report published by the UN Development Programme. Richard Jolly, the chief author of the report, pointed out that whereas the richest 20% of the world's population was 30 times better off than the poorest 20% in 1960, they are now 61 times wealthier. The one statistic that really does concentrate the mind in all these discussions is the fact that the wealth of the world's 358 billionaires is equal to the combined annual incomes of around 2.2 billion people. In a splendidly provocative article that sets the tone for the whole report, Nobel economics prize-winner Robert Solow goes to the heart of the environment and social justice issue: "Those who are so urgent about not inflicting poverty on the future have to explain why they do not attach even higher priority to reducing poverty today".

Not a question that one hears asked very often here in the UK, let alone answered, by any of the major groups involved in Agenda 21. The business community, for instance, has retreated from what proved to be the uncomfortable and still unfamiliar zone of ethical and socio-economic engagement into the much more reassuring territory of eco-efficiency. Though this is a powerful enough agenda in its own right, it's not the same thing as genuinely sustainable development.

Environmental justice on the agenda.
By the same token, the environmental NGOs in many developing countries, went along with the 'Rio deal' in full knowledge of its significance, but the exigencies of moving the environment agenda forward since 1992 means that they too have been largely side-lining the social justice aspect. The principal exception to this would appear to be in the United States where NGOs have consistently pursued an agenda driven by the concept of environmental justice, with an uncompromising emphasis on the disproportionate environmental impact on communities of colour and lower incomes. In this context, sustainable development can be explained to people as the next phase of the environmental justice movement, with the output of the Earth Summit providing a powerful confirmation of the centrality of this whole approach to environmental issues.

Whichever way you look at it, however, it is hard to deny a cumulative loss of momentum on the integration of environmental and social justice issues since 1992, as is confirmed by many of the authors in this comprehensive review of the post-Rio scene.

But if the Earth Summit (and the Brundtland process that led up to it) really did mark a step change in the way nations both think about and practically address the twin crises of poverty and environmental degradation (as I would argue strongly they did), then it seems highly regrettable that we should be giving up that hard earned territory without much more than the occasional whimper.

5th February 1997
Jonathon Porritt is Chair of the organization called "The Real World," former Director of Friends of the Earth, and author of Seeing Green

The production of OUTREACH is made possible through the generous financial support from the Danish and Norwegian Governments as well as additional assistance from WFUNA.

NGO VIEWPOINT...

Ecology and Indigenous Peoples Face Disaster in South America:
"The Hidrovia, Reinventing the Wheel"

by Miguel Lovera Rivas
Netherlands Committee for IUCN, April 1997

The scale of land management is important for both integrating ecological concerns and ensuring peoples' participation. The Hidrovia Paraguay-Parana Waterway project in South America which is outlined in the report "The Hidrovia, Reinventing the Wheel" is an illustrative case study of this. The project aims to ensure year-round navigability by large barges (of about 2,000 tons) on roughly 3,400 km of the Paraguay-Parana river system and make it accessible for ocean-going vessels. The project involves five countries (Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay). It is expected to generate improved transport capacity and economic gains for the countries involved. Countries outside Latin America play an important role in the project. In Europe, investors, dredging companies and mineral and food importing companies have a direct interest in the project and hope to benefit from the increased economic activity in the area.

The impact of this project on nature will be huge. It will be necessary to dam many of the small tributaries and lakes adjacent to the river. Extensive dredging will be needed to deepen the channel to accommodate vessels with a draft up to 3 meters. Profound detrimental impacts on biodiversity are expected in unique ecosystems such as the Gran Pantanal, the largest wetland zone in the world. Additional land will be converted for agricultural purposes (soy beans) and will at least double the current agricultural surface. This transformation of critical portions of the Paraguay-Parana project watershed will considerably increase erosion and runoff rates. Furthermore, the project will traverse indigenous peoples' habitats and territories.

Already 300,000 hectares of forest and wooded savannahs have been cleared by individuals and companies in north-eastern Paraguay Chaco zone. The Ayoroe and Chamacco Indians live in this region and they were enable to secure their territories. The number of people that would be deprived of their source of livelihood are estimated in the tens of thousands. Environmental considerations have so far played a minor role in the planning of the project. Although the project is still in a preliminary phase of implementation, all environmental studies are still incomplete.

The report makes the following recommendations:
To ensure proper environmental and social impact assessments and to guarantee full compliance with their results, the global community needs to undertake action. The report identifies a number of means to enter upon a dialogue or to develop campaigns, with a special focus on the European Union:

* Cheque compliance of the project executors/investors with and identify violations of (1) national laws and regulations, (2) criteria from international organizations and (3) international codes of conduct;

* Urge the EU countries and the European Commission to refrain from participating in the project as long as internationally accepted standards are violated.

* Urge countries to hold their own companies responsible for any activities relating to the Hidrovia project

* Focus the attention of European consumers on the consequences of the current demand for minerals, soy and other expected food products from the Hidrovia project.

* Multilateral institutions are supported and promoted to start a dialogue on the Hidrovia project, including working alternatives.

For more information please contact Miguel Lovera Rivas, Netherlands Committee for IUCN, Plantage Middenlaan 2B, 1018 DD Amsterdam, the Netherlands, tel +31-20-6261732, fax. +31-20- 629-3749, email: mhl@nciucn.nl
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TRANSLATING TALK INTO ACTION: LEAD POISONING PREVENTION

National governments have made numerous commitments in the CSD and elsewhere to prevent lead poisoning by phasing out leaded gasoline expeditiously and controlling other sources of lead exposure. In order to identify action steps necessary to fulfill these existing commitments and to link prevention efforts to broader sustainability initiatives, the Alliance To End Childhood Lead Poisoning hosted Preventing Lead Poisoning: Implementing the CSD Agenda and Other International Commitments on Wednesday evening (4/16).

The seminar featured Don Brown, U.S. Delegate to the CSD; K.W. James Rochow, Alliance To End Childhood Lead Poisoning; Dave Jacobs, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; Joan Luckhardt, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey; and Valerie Thomas, Princeton University. The speakers identified strategies to translate existing international commitments on lead poisoning into action. Participants agreed that an international network of individuals committed to preventing lead poisoning is important to ensure continued cooperation and collaboration and that the Alliance should explore developing such a network.

For additional information, or to join the Alliance's international network please phone (01-202-543-1147), fax (01-202-543-4466), or e-mail (aeclp@aeclp.org) the Alliance.

CSD 5 Mantra: (Repeat)...Urgent Situation; Far Too Little Being Done; Bold Actions Needed; Measurable Steps Required; (Repeat)....

NGO MATTERS...

EARTH COUNCIL FACES THE MUSIC

17 April 1997
by Rob Sinclair, Executive Director, Environment
Liaison Centre International (ELCI), Nairobi

Ever since Maurice Strong announced at CSD-4 the Earth Council's plan to mount the Rio+5 process to culminate in a mega-event in Rio de Janeiro this past March, they have been faced with criticisms from NGOs about the legitimacy and usefulness (or counter-productiveness) of the initiative. Many questions were asked, particularly about how the Earth Council assumed it had the mandate from civil society to organize their collective contribution to the five-year review of UNCED, and about the diversion of donor resources and NGO time and energies away from the process being organized by the DPCSD and the CSD-NGO Steering Committee to a parallel process that had questionable legitimacy.

Now, with the presentation of its report last Wednesday evening and the highly critical response this elicited from the audience, the failure of the Earth Council to effectively address those concerns has come back to haunt them. The presentation was chaired by Maximo Kalaw, Executive Director of the Earth Council, supported by others who were involved in the programme. They presented a summary of the recommendations emanating from the Rio+5 process, a review of progress in developing an Earth Charter, and an interpretation of these results for future action.

After the presentation the floor was opened for comments and questions. What followed was an hour-long series of interventions, ALL of which were highly critical of the Earth Council initiative. The attack was opened by the representative of the Netherlands government, who began his extensive analysis by describing himself as a "survivor" or Rio+5. This could have been a light-hearted comment, but turned out to be a true description of his feelings about his experience. He questioned the legitimacy of the recommendations presented by Mr. Kalaw, saying, "We all came away from Rio with no pieces of paper summarizing the recommendations". The accusation of non-transparency set the theme for the interventions that followed.

The Dutch representative also questioned the validity of the Earth Charter. The charter is nowhere near completion, and is expected, according to the Council, to be ready for presentation to the UN General Assembly in the year 2000 or 2002. After all this expense and effort, once it reaches the GA it will be debated and devoured by the delegates, and probably end up no better than it now is, or than it was five years ago at UNCED. Is all this expenditure worth it? And this comment comes from the very government that provided the funds for the original development of the Charter by the Earth Council.

This initial blast was followed by a litany of critiques from NGOs in the audience. No other governments chose to respond - likely because there were very few government delegates who dared to attend the meeting. When Maurice Strong had presented the Rio+5 results to the high level session at the beginning of CSD-5 there were no critical responses. But corridor discussions inform us that the Dutch are not alone among governments in their viewpoint. Was the absence of government representation at the Earth Council presentation an indication of diplomatic silence?

As stated above, the theme of the critique through the evening was non-transparency and non-legitimacy. It began with the Costa Rican NGO Council who declared their serious disappointment in the Rio+5 process, noting that participation was not adequate in representation from the South. A Mexican NGO claimed that Rio+5 was a waste of resources. An NGO from India asked whether the Earth Council is doing anything serious with all this paper and money; what is really being done for the South? An Ecuadorian NGO shared his feeling of frustration with Rio+5, stating, "Are we trying to build our own mechanisms for a sustainable world or are we just investing this energy in preparing another UN document to put on the shelves?" A Belgian NGO asked why there could not be more transparency in the process.

The one positive - if barbed - intervention came from Robert Pollard, coordinator of the Info-habitat programme, who drew the room's attention to item #8 in the Earth Charter, concerning transparency, and observed that the Council obviously needs to put it's own house in order in this regard, and offered his services to help design an information dissemination system that would achieve this proscription. He noted that during the Rio+5 meeting there was precious little information disseminated to the world waiting for updates on the deliberations in Rio de Janeiro.

Perhaps one of the toughest questions was posed by Magdi Ibrahim of ENDA-Tiers Monde, who deplored the lack of collaboration between the Earth Council and the CSD-NGO Steering Committee, and asked how the Earth Council justified setting up a parallel process to the one being implemented by the Steering Committee, including the Dialogue Sessions with Major Groups organized with the CSD Secretariat.

The questions posed by the audience were direct and deep. The responses from the Earth Council were defensive and brief (they had allowed the interventions to go on so long that little time was left for response and no time for dialogue). The glaring question that remains with all of us is an appropriate next action. Clearly the Earth Council's performance has been called into question, and must be addressed - by the Council itself, by the UN, and by the CSD-NGO Steering Committee. The total lack of confidence in the Earth Council exhibited in Wednesday's meeting cannot be just swept under the rug.

At a meeting the following day of the combined caucuses of northern and southern based multi-regional NGOs, a recommendation was agreed that the CSD-NGO Steering Committee should consider a formal response to the UN concerning the status of the Earth Council in relation to the UN. Questions should be raised about the reasons why this organization should be afforded a special status outside the recognized procedure for NGO participation in the CSD (ie. through the Steering Committee). If there is a special status mandated by Agenda 21 or other UN procedures and agreements, then what is the mechanism for monitoring and regulating its operations and participation in UN activities?

In his response to questions about the "parallel" route being taken by the Earth Council, Mr. Kalaw claimed it was justified because the Rio+5 process was based on a multi-stakeholder consultative mechanism at the national level, including the core participation of the so-called "national councils for sustainable development", and therefore was qualitatively different from the sectoral structure under which the Steering Committee functioned. Yet many NGOs question the reality of the "national councils" claim, and state that many of the councils identified by the Earth Council either don't exist or else are government-controlled mechanisms. Where is the system for assessing the legitimacy of these national councils, and what is the legislative authority for giving them a separate status within the UN system at this time. All these questions need to be addressed urgently, and the CSD-NGO Steering Committee must take the lead in ensuring that they are addressed.
________________________________________

NOTE: The CSD/NGO Steering Committee held a meeting on Friday attended by 80-100 NGOs to review the issues and the Earth Council response and to identify next steps. This report will be available Monday morning for discussion in the Tuesday morning NGO Strategy Session (9:15 a.m., Conf. Rm. D). Copies can be obtained from Conference Room C. Outreach will carry this report in full on Tuesday.

ANNOUNCEMENTS...
The Way Forward - Beyond Agenda 21
U.S. Book Launch

When:Tuesday, 22 April, 6:00 p.m.
Where: Vienna Cafe

Contributors who plan to be present include:
Nitin Desai, U.N. Under Secretary-General
Derek Osborn, Co-Chair of CSD Intersessional
Barbara Bramble, US Nat'l Wildlife Federation
Peter Padbury, Futures Institute
Tom Bigg, UNED-UK
Carole Saint Laurent, WWF International
Philippe Sands, FIELD

Authors include:
Elizabeth Dowdeswell, UNEP Executive Director
Prof. Klaus Topfer, Former CSD Chair
James Gustave Speth, UNDP Administrator
plus many others

Copies can be obtained from the UN Book Shop or by calling
WFUNA (212) 963-5610 or UNED-UK (44 171) 930 5893.
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DAILY MEETINGS:
(unless otherwise announced)

Women's Caucus
8:45-9:15 a.m., Room D

Youth Caucus
8:30-9:00 a.m., Church Center

NGO Strategy Session
9:15-10:00 a.m., Room D

Transport Caucus (from 21-25 April)
11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m., Room 9

Press & Communications Committee
12:00-1:00 p.m., Cafeteria

Process Sub-Committee
6:00 p.m., Vienna/Room E
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Other Caucus Meetings

Fresh Water Caucus
Monday, 21 April, 2:00 p.m., Indonesian Lounge

Energy Caucus
Monday, 21 April, 2:00-3:00 p.m., Room E
Tuesday, 22 April, 2:00-3:00 p.m., Vienna Cafe
Wednesday, 23 April, 8:30 a.m., Vienna Cafe
Thursday, 24 April, 2:00-3:00 p.m., Vienna Cafe

Human Rights Caucus
Monday, 21 April, 10-11 a.m., Room E
Tuesday, 22 April, 10-11 a.m., Room E
Wednesday, 23 April, 10-11 a.m., Room E
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Conference on Reform of the Security Council

When:Monday, 21 April
12:00 to 4:30 p.m.
Where: Church Center, 8th Fl.

The NGO Working Group on the Security Council is organizing a conference on Reform of the Security Council. Confirmed speakers are: Amb. Razali, President of the GA, Amb. Powles of New Zealand, Amb. Fulci of Italy, Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies, and Catherine Dumait-Harper of Doctors without Borders.

Other invited speakers are: Amb. Richardson of the US, Amb. Garcia of Colombia, and Victoria Tauli-Corpuz of Third World Network. The Conference is open to all NGOs, to the public and to the press. The current intense negotiations on Council reform make this conference especially timely. Amb. Razali will speak about his March 20 proposal. Contact the GLOBAL POLICY FORUM: phone: +1 (212) 501-7435, Fax: +1 (212) 595-8134; Web Site: www.globalpolicy.org

OUTREACH `97
CSD NGO Steering Committee

World Federation of
UN Associations (WFUNA)

Editors: Jan-Gustav Strandenaes
Sharon McHale

Journalist: Michael Strauss
___________________

ECO `97

Staff: Frederique Minderhoud
___________________

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

www.igc.apc.org/habitat/csd-97