Woodcraft Folk - Sust'n'Able - Educational Resource Packs

Drafting

Sunday 1 September

I have faith in the youth of the world! Finally we’re planning a revolution! (well not quite but this is the youth caucus you know!). Today the drafting committee for the final youth statement to the Multi-stakeholder Event (MSE – no longer MSD as its not an interactive dialogue…) decided to take a risk and really tell the governments of the world what we think of them and this whole farcical process.

It all started in the youth caucus meeting this morning, we had submitted the first draft of the statement (a document I was far from happy with) and I asked for input from the rest of the caucus (only a few of us at a time had been involved in the drafting).

Voicing our frustration at the lack of progress over the past few days, Carlos from Mexico (really right-on, don’t worry I have his card!) put a suggestion to the assembled group – 'Lets disengage from this whole process - its going backwards!' It certainly got us talking, for the first time in the last few days we had some real debate, not discussion within UN defined boundaries but a free, exciting and stimulating examination of the real issues – you can’t imagine what a refreshing change it made!

I could hardly keep up with the note-taking such was the torrent of ideas coming from all sides! So we’ve pretty much ditched the first draft (phew – it was bland, uninspired and far too diplomatic) and tomorrow immediately following the joint youth caucus meeting, the whole of the drafting committee will work together on a final statement and I have a lot of faith that its going to be really good, hard-hitting and unapologetic – watch this space.

The process wasn’t all plain sailing however, yet again we were confronted with global North/ South issues. Set up on Friday, the group was made up of regional representatives (North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia Pacific, Africa and indigenous peoples). It should have worked quite well but for some reason the African region unilaterally decided it needed three representatives instead of one…

The imbalance was difficult and made it almost impossible to produce a document we could all be happy with. It was especially uncomfortable for the US representative (Michelle from Oxfam, really sorted) and me, as any time we suggested changes, we were told that as people from the global North we were only interested in the environment and knew nothing about poverty so shouldn’t comment.

By the end of the session on Friday, we had both reached the stage where we thought it was more trouble than it was worth to try to input ideas, not a very satisfactory position but you can see how we produced such a weak document. Today wasn’t much better to begin with, having waited most of the day for the rest of the group to arrive, Michelle, Carlos and I decided to have a look at the text and try to incorporate some of the ideas put forward by other people (not making any permanent changes).

The African representatives still hadn’t arrived by the time of the Youth Caucus meeting, so also missed the ‘moment of revolution’(!) Huge misunderstandings about what we were doing followed including a walk-out from all three of the African representatives… Diplomacy eventually prevailed however, and I now feel like we’re all approaching the task from the same direction and all want the same outcome; one homogenous and strong youth position on the summit.

Other news:

Lloyd and Kate have been visiting the ‘Your Wake Up Call’ delegation for their conference today.

Tilly, Rhino, Martha and Rachel met Nicky Gavron, the deputy mayor of London, and visited a township eco-village – by all accounts it was a fantastic morning with lots of good dialogue with Nicky.

Elle, Will and Rachel laid in to Michael Meacher at the UK Government briefing about youth involvement in the WSSD process and the state of the negotiations.

They’re all asleep by now so more from them all tomorrow.

In other other news:

The EU have agreed to the inclusion of a statement which allows the WTO to overrule any UN agreement on trade, development or the environment – it’s not yet been agreed by everyone and we’ll be working on getting it dropped tomorrow.

Rows continue over energy targets – a hideously complex deal seems to be happening involving Brazil, the EU and the US – watch this space for more as things develop.

Agricultural subsidies – specifically removing those that are economically distorting or environmentally damaging – continue to be debated.

Love from Tamsin and the delegation

PS. For pictures from Sunday, check back on this page later

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for more news about the Woodcraft Folk's Sust'n'nAble project

In the early hours of Friday morning, the Woocraft Folk's second delegation to Johannesburg arrived in South Africa. Sarah-Jade Franks, Emily Hutchison and Simon Phillips are the Folk's participants in the UK United Nations project 'Yourh Wake Up Call' Read their first reports here:

Day 1
Day2

The delegation would love to help feed your views into the Summit. The links below take you to a number of the douments which are currently being drawn up by the Youth Caucus. Please e-mail the delegation with your views on these.

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to visit the official United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development website

Those of us who can't be in Jo'burg can watch live coverage of events there through the UN News Service web cast.

Glossary of Summit-speak

Confused by all the strange terminology and acronyms... We hope the glossary below will help:

WSSD - World Summit on Sustainable Development
Rio +10 - WSSD but it refers to the fact that this summit is ten years on from the original summit in Rio.
Agenda 21 - the environmental agenda for the Twenty First century. This was created at the Rio summit and the idea was that all aspects of society should be looked at from the perspective of Agenda 21.
Stakeholder - anybody who has an interest in the issue that is being discussed. In the case of WSSD it is probably everyone on the planet.
Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue (MSHD)- this is no more no less than a meeting of all people who have an interest/stake in the issue. With reference to WSSD, this has been split into nine Major Groups such as women, youth etc. and bodies have been created to represent the needs and opinions of these particular groups.
Major Groups - the nine stakeholder groups who can make an input into the summit: Women, Youth, Farmers, Indigenous Peoples, Local Authorities, Scientists, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), Trade Unions, and Business and Industry.
Type I outcomes - agreements made at the Summit in Johannesburg which are legally binding on an international level
Type II outcomes - promises made by governments, regions, businesses, and other organisations, maybe in partnership with others, to do things to achieve sustainable development - not enforcable though.
CSD - Conference on Sustainable Development. This is the United Nations body which has met every year since Rio. The WSSD is its 10th annual conference but has been made into an extra specially important meeting and called a Summit.
PrepCom - a meeting of CSD to make the arrangements and preparations for the Summit.
International Youth Summit on Sustainable Development - a conference organised by the youth caucus which was held just before the main Summit
Caucus - a group of people with a common interest (eg women, youth) who meet together to organise themselves and work to further that interest.
Youth Caucus - the 'youth' Major Group - a group of youth organisations and youth representatives who we are working with in Bali and will be part of in Johannesburg.
Global People's Forum of the WSSD - The part of the Summit which is open to participation from civil society delegates
Civil Society - all organisations, groups and individuals who are not part of governments - not politicians or civil servants.
NASREC is where the Global Civil Society Forum is. This is the non-governmental side of the Summit. Sandton is where the Governmental Conference is.