11 April 2002

WSSD Anticipated as Unique
Opportunity for Advancing Development

U.S., South African officials assess the prospects

By Jean-Jacques Cornish
Washington File Special Correspondent

Johannesburg -- Stakeholders in the forthcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) agree that it will be a unique opportunity to improve the plight of thousands of millions of people who do not have access to water, sanitation and energy.

When WSSD offers such promise, Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans, International Environmental, and Scientific Affairs John Turner said, the summit should not be squandered in revisiting old arguments. Turner spoke at the WSSD Outcomes Conference sponsored April 9 in Johannesburg by the U.S. and South African Governments.

More than 100 representatives of government, business and civil society attended the dialogue. They shared a broad agreement that the Johannesburg summit, which will attract at least 160 heads of state, should do more than produce rhetoric and reiteration of familiar positions.

"The United States and the government of South Africa are more interested in action and deliverables for the people of Africa, the people of South Africa, and around the world," said Turner in his opening remarks. He also emphasized the important role the private sector will play in achieving success. "If we do not have the involvement and the engagement and creativity and resources and the input of people like yourselves in the private sector, NGOs and civil society," Turner said, "then we will miss a great opportunity this fall at the summit."

The U.S. government looks forward to the August 26-September 4 meeting as an opportunity to find new answers to longstanding problems of poverty and development, Turner said, "a new approach for how we're going to raise the hopes and lives of people here in Africa and around the world."

Turner identified economic growth, social development, and environmental stewardship as the three pillars of sustainability. But he emphasized that donor governments need to rely on the private sector to achieve economic expansion. "The private sector, investment capital and trade and building domestic capital is the real source of economy," Turner told his audience.

While the Bush administration will count on the power of the private sector to generate economic growth, President Bush has also made a commitment to significant increases in U.S. government support for foreign assistance. Despite that, Turner said, governments cannot uplift countries on their own. "It is people like yourselves who need to help us now flesh out where are the opportunities, how to implement, who are the players, what are the resources we need," he said.

The participants in the Johannesburg meeting staked the greatest significance in two main themes -- water and energy. Turner said advance discussions with various governments have revealed that water purification, food, forestry, oceans and biodiversity are other important matters of concern, "but health, water, and energy seem to be a coalescing theme."

South Africans recall the failure of the U.N. World Conference Against Racism in Durban last year when delegates foundered on an agreement. With that memory fresh in mind, participants in the April 9 meeting repeatedly asked Turner what would become the most contentious issues at the Johannesburg summit.

He suggested that the linkage between good governance and sustainability could become a controversial debate because sustainability has long been considered primarily in the environmental context. "I think (good governance) is extremely important for Africa, as it is elsewhere -- anti-corruption, transparency, rule of law, fair judiciary, good contractual law, fair permitting, property rights and so forth."

Social welfare issues are closely tied to good governance, Turner said. "Our President feels very deeply about health and education as very important paths to sustainability and of course the whole area of good governance."

The South African government team was chaired by Dr. Crispian Olver, the director general at the Department of Environmental and Tourism Affairs, who said the WSSD will be "a huge event for us in South Africa." Olver continued, "It is going to set out, we hope, a number of specific outcomes that are going to have a major impact on us in the developing world and on the lives of the poorest and most marginalized people on this planet."