United Nations Headquarters to Host Meeting Aimed at Accelerating

Implementation of Sustainable Development Decisions, 1 February

 

A one-day meeting will be held at United Nations Headquarters in New York on Monday, 1 February, to accelerate the pace by which decisions on sustainable development are turned into action.

Convened by the Division for Sustainable Development of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the meeting will bring together Government representatives, finance experts, the United Nations system and representatives of the major groups to review the steps taken to implement decisions from the 2009 session of the Commission on Sustainable Development.

“Meetings, discussions, exchanges of ideas and decisions are all helpful, but they are the first steps toward implementation,” says Sha Zukang, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs.  “We need to see the forward-looking decisions from the CSD translated into action on the ground ‑‑ measures, policies and programmes that feed, educate and raise people out of poverty.”

Tariq Banuri, Director of the Division for Sustainable Development, described the 1 February meeting in New York as part of a longer-term effort to advance progress on the internationally agreed sustainable development agenda.

The sustainable development agenda has major implications for addressing challenges that include everything from food production and water availability, to economic growth and climate change.  The 2009 Commission on Sustainable Development ‑‑ its seventeenth session ‑‑ resulted in 278 decisions on agriculture, rural development, land use, drought, desertification and sustainable development in Africa.  The focus on the implementation of such decisions comes as the international community gears up for a conference marking the twentieth anniversary of the historic Earth Summit, where countries unanimously agreed on Agenda 21 ‑‑ the comprehensive blueprint for sustainable development.

Like the 1992 Earth Summit, the “Rio + 20” Conference will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  Its themes will include the green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication, the institutional framework for sustainable development, emerging issues, and a review of present commitments.

More information on the meeting can be found at http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/csd/csd_csd17_followup.shtml.

For further information, please contact Dan Shepard, United Nations Department of Public Information, tel.:  1 212 963-9495; e-mail:  shepard@un.org.

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For information media • not an official record