PRESS CONFERENCE ON ‘COMMUNITY COMMONS – LOCAL PERSPECTIVES

ON MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS’

A United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) adviser stressed, this morning, that peace and security, human rights, United Nations reform and other geopolitical concerns must not overshadow day-to-day, human-reality issues of the environment, poverty reduction, hunger, education, health, gender equality, as the Millennium Review Summit considered the future of development and participating leaders sought agreement on the commitments of Governments.

Speaking at a Headquarters press conference on “Community Commons – Local Perspectives on the Millennium Development Goals”, Charles McNeill, UNDP Senior Adviser on Biodiversity and Poverty, said it was vitally important that the voice of local communities, often the last to be heard, be heard first.  Those who may think that accomplishment at the community level was too small-scale to have an impact, would have benefited from a meeting held at New York City’s Fordham University from 16 to 18 June and involving grass-roots and community groups from 44 countries.  They had discussed poverty and sustainable development issues and their conclusions would be presented as recommendations to the Civil Society Hearings on the Millennium Review Summit, to be held on
23 and 24 June.

He said UNDP and its partners in the Community Commons were strong advocates for putting communities at the centre of the development agenda and the range of partners indicated the growing support for that approach.  The partners included Fordham University; the Canadian and German Governments; Grass-Roots Organizations Operating Together in Sisterhood (GROOTS); Wildlife Conservation Society; Tribal Link Foundation; Global Call to Action Against Poverty; United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues; International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN); International Development Research Centre (IDRC); Television Trust for the Environment;
United Nations Foundation; and the Nature Conservancy.

Also attending the press conference were four panellists from the Fordham meeting:  Suzanne Shende of Garifuna Emergency Committee, Honduras;
Patrick Muraguri of Africa 21^st Century Development Organization, Kenya;
Benson Venegas of Talamanca Initiative, Costa Rica; and Gladman Chibememe of CHIEHA, Zimbabwe.

Ms. Shende said it was important for communities, particularly grass-roots women, to participate in the Civil Society Hearings and in the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, because they were a long-haul investment in the future and had no option not to be.  Not only had they come up with sustainable, integrated and holistic solutions to the challenges of development, disaster and peacebuilding, but they also knew the local conditions.

Mr. Muraguri emphasized the need for connectivity between members of local communities concerned about educating their children and caring for relatives living with HIV/AIDS, on the one hand, and officials, academics and researchers trying to formulate sustainable-development policies, on the other.

Echoing that, Mr. Venegas underscored the need to bridge the gap between those setting development targets and those being targeted.  Communities should be at the core of policymaking and be able to influence decision-making processes that would affect their lives.

Mr. Chibememe said that CHIEHA worked around the GreatLimpopo
Trans-FrontierPark, a protected area straddling the Zimbabwe, South Africa and Mozambique borders, adding that such areas should benefit local communities first.

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