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Partnership Initiatives for Sustainable Development
By Minu
Hemmati
Abstract The article describes the innovative framework of outcomes that developed in the Johannesburg Summit process, and discusses the pro's and con's of introducing "partnership initiatives" as Summit outcomes. It goes on to outline Stakeholder Forum's "Implementation Conference: Stakeholder Action for Our Common Future" as one mechanism developing such partnerships.
Framework of Summit Outcomes: Type 1 and 2 In the context of preparations for the World Summit on Sustainable Development General Assembly Resolution 56/226 encouraged “… global commitment and partnerships, especially between Governments of the North and the South, on the one hand, and between Governments and major groups on the other”. PrepCom 1 decided that Governments and major groups should “exchange and publicly announce the specific commitments they have made for the next phase of work in the field of sustainable development” (Decision 2001/PC/3, para 10). Based on these decisions, the World Summit for Sustainable Development process introduced an innovative framework of two types of outcomes: Type 1: negotiated documents, for adoption by all Member States at the Summit, ie the Johannesburg Programme of Action (PoA), or "Implementation Document", and the Political Declaration. Type 2: partnerships initiatives to implement Agenda 21. These are not negotiated but agreed by the partners – governments, intergovernmental bodies, stakeholders – who are committing themselves to specific initiatives. The idea is "to enable all stakeholders to make concrete contribution to the outcome of the Summit by launching implementation initiatives" (1). Partnerships are seen as a vehicle "to improve the quality of implementation by involving those stakeholders whose activities have direct impact on sustainable development" (ibid.). (2) The overall concept of type 1 and type 2 outcomes of the Johannesburg Summit seems to stem from two sources: Firstly, the acknowledgement that governments cannot achieve sustainable development on their own but that all stakeholders need to contribute. This is part of the vision from Rio and has been outlined in more detail in subsequent decisions of the CSD and other fora. Secondly, the concern that governments have not done enough to implement the Rio agreements, and that they might not be able to do so in the future, due to the lack of political will and the lack of resources. It is the first we need to emphasize, eg through partnership initiatives in type 2; and the second we need to reverse, ie through clear and strong commitments in type 1. Emphasizing the fact that governments and all stakeholders need to work together to achieve sustainable development effectively means a broadening of responsibility and an effort to enlist others for sustainable development goals. It should, however, not result in a diffusion of responsibility.
Hopes and Concerns Rio provided us with a vision. But vision is not leadership. Leadership is not action. And action can have some unintended outcomes. What we need is leadership and action. Leadership needs to come from governments and international institutions. Within a UN process, we need to build global consensus for effective leadership and action. Such leadership extends towards citizens and stakeholders. Only an international arena with a strong global consensus can inspire and empower the "coalitions of the willing" - as a permission to act, a forum to share their experiences, and as a challenge towards their creativity and commitment. Action needs to come from all, at all levels. Strengthening governments, international institutions and the multi-lateral system must be a primary goal of a UN process. Within the framework of type 1 and type 2 outcomes, this can only be achieved if governments are in the driving seat, providing leadership and challenging stakeholders on the basis of (inter)governmental authority. As a worst-case scenario, we will have a weak and patchy type 1 document, without effective commitments, targets, and benchmarks, and leaving out many of the more difficult issues, combined with no new or real partnerships being put forward under type 2. Part of the consequences would certainly a diminishing of the importance of sustainable development in the world as an overarching goal of policy making at all levels. Another scenario could be that Johannesburg ends with a weak type 1 document and a large number of partnership initiatives, mostly led by developed country governments and/or their corporations, employing processes that offer opportunities to developing countries rather than being demand-driven, and with a lack of consideration of where revenues will indeed end up. In the short term, this could further diminish citizens' trust in governmental authority and the value of intergovernmental processes. In the long-term, it could reaffirm and perpetuate the late 20th century shifts in power away from governments, particularly those of developing nations, and international institutions. At this point, it looks like we’re going to end up somewhere in between the worst and second-to-worst case scenario. In that case, we are at risk of witnessing an exquisite self-disempowerment exercise of (inter)governmental institutions. As a best-case scenario, we might have hoped for the following:
The challenge of the outcomes 'package' was and is to find the balance of authority and leadership vs. widespread responsibility and stakeholder participation. What we need is a strong push for the implementation of Agenda 21 that is based on a global consensual vision and will be carried out by all.
Preparatory Process WSSD Bureau Vice-Chairs Jan Kara and Diane Quarless conducted a series of informal consultations during PrepComs 3 and 4. These consultations were held in a very open and informal manner and resulted in a set of guiding principles for partnerships (3). The principles address issues of objectives of partnerships; affirm their voluntary nature while respecting fundamental principles of the Rio Declaration and the Millennium Declaration; should be international in their impact; underline that partnerships are to complement intergovernmental agreements and that they are to integrate the economic, environmental and social dimensions of sustainable development; should take a multi-stakeholder approach; adhere to principles of transparency and accountability; deliver tangible results; and should identify sources of funding. The question of novelty was addressed several times in the discussions and people felt that type 2 partnership initiatives should be new or outline significant added value to on-going work. Maybe the type 2 outcomes were introduced with too little guidance in the beginning, and into a process already overloaded with tasks, expectations and contentious matters. The new framework of type 1 and type 2 outcomes has certainly led to confusion among governments and others. NGOs and other have very soon pointed to the dangers of the framework – eg the draining of energy from the negotiating process, which has surely happened. Another risk is that scarce resources will be diverted from funding the implementation of type 1 agreements into type 2 partnerships. Many developing countries would be left with even less support, and many issues would remain uncovered. It is unclear at this point how many partnerships will be ready for launch at the Summit. There is a risk of some partnerships not being developed enough nor able to withstand the scrutiny of critics. The Summit should rather be used to highlight a limited number of partnerships as indicative examples of what the international community seeks to see more of in the future. The collection of highlighted type 2s needs to be balanced in terms of who initiates them, they need to be multi-stakeholder and equitable in nature, and they need to comprise big initiatives impacting on a global scale, as much as small, concrete ones which have proven to often deliver change in a more tangible manner. And they need to be as closely linked to the type 1 agreements as possible. Ideally, proposed partnerships would quantify their contribution to implementing specific targets.
Partnership Initiatives The framework of type 1 and 2 outcomes challenges governments and all stakeholders to develop concrete implementation initiatives for the future. It also provides opportunities to acknowledge the specific conditions and needs at regional and national levels that require specific measures and approaches. Given a short time frame and lack of clarity on the type 1 outcomes, identifying the most desirable actions and relevant partners, creating the necessary trust, and identifying funding is an enormous challenge for those developing partnerships. Many stakeholders (and governments) are nowadays prepared to talk to each other, but joint action is a very different matter. Active brokering is required. But it needs to be based on stakeholder input and consultations, making conscious choices, and building on successful models. Partnership initiatives should not be limited to large, global proposals that the Summit process is likely to attract. Experience has shown the effectiveness of small-scale projects, interventions and investments - for example, community-to-community exchanges arranged by networks of local stakeholder groups; micro-finance investments and revolving funds; small scale experimental and flexible approaches.
Follow-Up of Type 2s Although type 2 partnerships shall implement their own accountability mechanisms, they will be expected to report back to the CSD. A baseline analysis of measuring input and outputs of partnerships needs to be part of monitoring the actual benefits of the type 2 approach over the coming years. Details are still being discussed at this point. Such mechanisms could create a forum for joint monitoring, learning, knowledge building and management, networking, and replication. There is much to be learned from existing programmes that have managed to initiate small-scale projects, and those that include networking, exchange and knowledge management components (4). It will be important to build on the tradition of stakeholder involvement at the CSD, and improve them to address the new challenges. One idea is to introduce a multi-stakeholder council in close linkage with the CSD Secretariat. Its mandate could be to establish a reporting framework, continue to engage stakeholder constituencies, and promote successful examples, and gradually build a body of knowledge of partnerships for implementation. Members of such a council would need to be appointed through a transparent process of consultation within stakeholder groups. A more radical idea would be to create a unit that is 50:50 funded and governed by the UN and stakeholders. With a team of 3-5 staff, seconded by governments, NGOs, and business, and strategic partnerships with other units and organizations, a substantive work programme could be delivered.
Stakeholder Forum's Implementation Conference An example of a process developing partnership initiatives is Stakeholder Forum's Implementation Conference: Stakeholder Action for Our Common Future (IC) (5). It draws heavily on Stakeholder Forum’s years of experience with coordinating multi-stakeholder roundtables and dialogues (6). Bringing stakeholders together in a neutral space that allows them to communicate constructively, identify common ground and possibly develop joint strategies, if appropriate. More recently, Stakeholder Forum developed a methodological framework for multi-stakeholder processes, which includes a set of principles for conducting multi-stakeholder processes as well as a check list of questions for those who are involved in their design and practice. The guidelines for the IC endeavour are the key principles of stakeholder collaboration, such as: effectiveness; equity; flexibility; inclusiveness; learning; transparency; shared ownership and a spirit of cooperation. We started working on the IC in May 2001. Initially, we consulted our multi-stakeholder International Advisory Board, which includes over 45 organisations of different stakeholders, as to which issue had scope for collaborative stakeholder action and which would likely be key issues for the Johannesburg Summit. There was broad agreement that the issues of freshwater, energy, food security, health, and corporate / stakeholder citizenship (7) were best candidates – if the process took an approach that was mainstreaming cross-sectoral issues into the sectoral ones: When developing action on the sectoral issues, focusing on poverty eradication, social inclusion and empowerment, good governance and gender equity would be essential. We then gathered multi-stakeholder advisory groups on have been identifying focus areas for joint action as well as possible partners, and produced initial issue papers, based on consultations with those advisory groups. Building partnerships takes time and a lot of communication, consultation, consensus-building, seeking out the appropriate partners, ensuring proper balanced between interests, and creating action plans that enjoy strong commitment from everybody involved. Participation, equity, transparency and integration builds ownership and commitment. Innumerable occasions of bilateral and group communication have been created to arrive at about 25 partnerships under development through to finalisation at the IC event (24-26 August, Johannesburg), which will be attended by 300-400 representatives. Representatives from several stakeholder groups organisations are involved in each initiative. IC outcomes are building on good practice and address identified gaps. The partnerships under development roughly fall into five categories: capacity building; operational / development projects; networking & knowledge building; research & policy; and public awareness campaigns. They range from creating a global rainwater harvesting initiative, to addressing the issue of migration of health professionals to replicating best practice renewable energy projects in developing countries. The IC process is laying the foundations for collaborative stakeholder action, involving various groupings of business, NGOs, trade unions, women’s groups, farmers, youth, local authorities, media, as well as intergovernmental organisations and governments. Based on analyses of existing agreements, we have identified priorities for stakeholder action, and, among those, the issues and challenges that would benefit most from a partnership approach. The idea is that partnerships should be developed where they can add real value: Increased quality of work due to engaging the wider expertise of different stakeholders; increased credibility due to the integration of different interests; and the opportunity for wider outreach due to the networks that different stakeholders bring. Thus, the IC is not just a conference – it is a process of collaboration that has quickly been picking up speed, and will continue after Johannesburg when the outcomes will be put into action and monitored, replications of successful activities will be sought, and larger networks will be built. We hope that such action-oriented messages will support the good spirit of the Summit and help to make it a success with a strong and lasting legacy.
Footnotes (1) see www.johannesburgsummit.org – FAQs on type 2 outcomes (2) We define stakeholders as are those who have an interest in a particular decision, either as individuals or representatives of a group). This includes people who influence a decision, or can influence it, as well as those affected by it. This definition combines rights and responsibilities of stakeholders: Stakeholders should be able to participate meaningfully in decision making; and they should play their part in delivering sustainable development. (3) see www.johannesburgsummit.org (4) For example: the GEF Small Grants Programme; the UNDP Equator Initiative (5) more information at www.earthsummit2002.org/ic (6) For example, the Stakeholder Dialogues at the Informal Environment Ministers Meeting in Norway, Sept 2000, and the International Conference on Freshwater in Bonn, Dec 2001. Also see Hemmati, M. 2002: Multi-stakeholder Processes for Governance and Sustainability: Beyond Deadlock and Conflict (Earthscan), and www.earthsummit2002.org/msp (7) The latter was dropped later in the process due to capacity constraints at Stakeholder Forum and the cross-cutting nature of the issue.
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Copyright © Minu Hemmati, 2006 |
