The big news today, says  BioRegional Development Group International Policy Advisor, is the key highlights of the Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Global Sustainability ‘Resilient People: Resilient Planet, A Future Worth Choosing’

This morning the Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Global Sustainability presented a number of key highlights from their report ‘Resilient People: Resilient Planet, A Future Worth Choosing’, which is to be published on Monday. The report makes 56 recommendations.

Several areas mentioned by the panel included emphases on the need for transformation of the economy and the private sector, the importance of making strong linkages between the 3 pillars of sustainability, and, more specifically, a call for the creation of a task force to work on the development of Sustainable Development Goals that have been proposed to complement the Millennium Development Goals and integrated into a post 2015 framework.

• Statements given by governments, Major Groups and UN agencies this morning echoed many of the points made yesterday in plenary- the zero draft text lacks ambition and vision, with a need for stronger emphasis on means of implementation and action on the ground;
• I was reassured to hear many governments recognising the need to strengthen the role of civil society, with the Government of Brazil calling for an ‘effective, realistic and active orientated’ draft text  that they believe is needed to ensure civil society will fully engage in the Rio+20 agenda;
• There has however been growing concern amongst Major Groups that the issue of occupied territories could stall negotiations, as witnessed during the CSD19 process;
• The informal-informal negotiations on sections I and II of the zero draft began this afternoon. While this process may be slow at times, a text is beginning to form which we only hope will deliver successful outcomes at Rio in June.

To access the Global Sustainability Panel’s report ‘Resilient People: Resilient Planet’, which will be available online from Monday 30th of January, go to: www.un.org/gsp

This article is cross-posted from Stakeholder Forum’s Outreach, a multi-stakeholder magazine on environment and sustainable development.

Rio +20 editions of Outreach can be found here: 25th, 26th and 27th of January