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UNU Update | |
The newsletter of United Nations
University and its network of research and training centres and programmes |
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Issue 19: September 2002 |
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COMMENT
Strengthened international organisations By
W. Bradnee Chambers
The
World Summit on Summit Development (WSSD) begin at the end of August
amidst chaotic preparations and dire predictions of failure. Since
the last world summit in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, environment and
development problems have steadily worsened. More than 8 percent of
children in developing countries still die before the age of five, and in
some of the poorest countries, one in five children die before their first
birthday. In many
developing countries, poor health conditions prevail as a result of
contaminated water, poor sanitation, severe indoor air pollution, malaria
and other infectious diseases, and the spread of HIV/AIDS. Seventy-five
percent of the world’s energy comes from burning fossil fuels,
increasing CO2 emission levels by 1 percent each year, despite
reduction commitments being established since the adoption of the Climate
Change Treaty. The 14
hottest years since 1860, when systematic measuring began, have all
occurred in the past two decades. The loss of 2.5 percent of forests
globally each year, along with the threat of extinction of 24 percent of
mammals and 12 percent of birds, leads experts to the estimate that we are
losing one major drug every two years that could have come from such
species. If this current development continues, biodiversity will be
threatened on up to 74 percent of the land area by 2032. In the
same time period that we see little or slow progress, we also see a
proliferation of organizations created to improve environmental issues and
sustainable development. But why is it that, with the level of
international cooperation and institutional responses increasing, we still
do not see better indications of improvement? The answer is simple: the
institutions we have crafted to address these problems are weak and, to a
certain extent, inconsequential to solving sustainable development
problems. Strong
institutions are a precondition for building any kind of international
cooperation. Yet, in the sustainable development world, global
institutions are perhaps amongst the weakest and most poorly coordinated.
There are over 500 environmental treaties that address highly interrelated
issues in the natural ecosystem, such as water, soil, atmosphere, and
forests, but the secretariats of these treaties are spread around the
world, cooperate only superficially and governments implement these
treaties separately at the national level. The Nairobi-based UN
Environment Programme (UNEP), which is supposed to be the premier UN body
on the environment, is still not a full-fledged UN agency and has a
smaller budget and staff than most national ministries of environment. The
concept of sustainable development stresses the notion of balancing
environment, economy and society, but in reality there is no coordination
or overall framework for these sectors to cooperate effectively. And so
economic organizations like the World Trade Organization end up having
differences with environmental treaties or there is lack of coordination
with social institutions like the World Health Organization.
No one organization is obliged to cooperate for sustainable
development as each has their own mandate and contracting parties. The UN
regional institutions, which one would expect to be able to work on the
ground at a more practical level, are also weak. The UN coordinates its
environmental action through UN social and economic regional organizations
that were created in the late 1940’s, long before the environmental
movement began. In
1945, when the UN Charter was signed the environment was not even a
concern. Out of the necessity to solve environmental issues that know no
boundary, UN organizations and treaties evolved and were created in an
impromptu manner. More than 55 years later, we have hundreds of
institutions working on the environment within a weak and ineffectual
global organizational system. Serious
reforms are needed. In
a new report, experts at the advanced studies division of United Nations
University, the Tokyo based UN think-tank, examines how changes in international institutions – and better
coordination between them – can help improve environmental quality and
promote development. There is
an irony that scientists routinely conduct
environmental assessments on the ozone layer or climate but there has
never been a major assessment of our sustainable development
organizational framework. Strong institutions are an important key to solving the world’s most pressing sustainable development concerns. WSSD will be a strategic meeting where progress on these issues could be made. But before considering major reforms or creating yet another weak organization, the WSSD should call for a comprehensive and independent assessment of the current sustainable development governance framework and how it could be strengthened. More WSSD coverage:
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