Sustainable Developments |
International
Forum on National Sustainable Development Strategies
7-9 November
2001, Accra, Ghana
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Delegates congregating on Wednesday, 7 November 2001, for the opening of the International Forum on National Strategies for Sustainable Development |
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Cielito Habito, Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines, chaired the Forum. In his opening remarks, he stressed the Forums purpose of exchanging experiences in pursuit of NSDSs and recommending approaches for the future, outlined session themes, defined expected Forum outputs and noted that recommendations and conclusions would be submitted to the WSSD Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) in January 2002, and would also be available for use in national and regional processes |
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Hiroko Morita-Lou, UN DESA, delivered a message on behalf of Nitin Desai, Under-Secretary-General of DESA, expressing appreciation to the government of Ghana, DFID, UNDP and Denmark for their support in organizing the Forum |
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Mersie Ejigu, Partnership for African Environmental Sustainability, introduced 15 key principles and characteristics constituting sound NSDSs, and called participants' attention to a background document on guidance for preparing NSDSs |
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Nadine Gouzée, Federal Planning Bureau of Belgium, presented on Belgium's experience with NSDSs. She explained each of the phases in the cycle and highlighted conclusions reached on the first Belgian sustainable development report, preparation and structure of the sustainable development plan, responses to the main parts of the preliminary draft plan and the lessons learned. |
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One of the groups discussing Experiences in Consolidating Country Frameworks for NSDSs |
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Desta
Mebratu, UNIDO/Eco-Tech Innovation, listening to the Working Group on
Capacity Building that examined special skills needed for strategy
processes and how to employ them, as well as how the strategy process
itself could develop capacity. The Group focused on technical and
negotiation capacity to further agendas; capacity to understand
complexities of sustainable development; institutional capacity to adapt
to change, particularly internal institutional change; capacity for
evaluation, vision, integration, coordination and mobilization; cultural
dialogue; and networking capacity
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Prof. Colin Kirkpatrick, University of Manchester (r). Prof Kirkpatrick, presented his methodology on assessing effectiveness of NSDS processes, introducing a framework methodology that countries could use to assess the effectiveness of a process, particularly in identifying strengths and weakness, and ways to report the findings to the public
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Mersi Ejigu (l), Partnership for African Environmental Sustainability, and Forum Chair, Prof. Cielito Habito (l), Ateneo de Manila University, assess progress on the Forum |
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Participants from South Africa and Ghana "catch-up" during the coffee break | |||||
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Some of the organizers of the Forum: (l) to (r), Jonathan Hobbs, Department for International Development; Hiroko Morita-Lou, UN Department for Economic and Social Affairs; Remi Paris, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development; Adrian Davis, Department for International Development |
(l) to(r): Chair Habito; Forum Facilitator Steve Bass; Adrian Davis, Department for International Development, Penny Stock (Capacity 21); and Alison Drayton (Capacity 21) in discussion
Facilitator Bass, Chair Habito and Hiroko Morita-Lou during the discussion on the Draft Report of the Forum
