| What is The United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (UNCSD)?
How did it come about?
The United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) was established by the UN General assembly in 1992. It ensures effective follow-up from the 1992 Earth Summit and the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development. What does it do?
The UNCSD is responsible for reviewing the implementation progress of Agenda 21 and
the Rio Declaration. It also provides policy guidance according to the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation at the local, national, regional and international levels.
How often is it held?
The UNCSD is conducted in two-year cycles, meeting every year, for review and policy sessions that focus on clusters of thematic and related issues. The 17th policy session in 2009 focussed on five thematic issues: Africa, drought and desertification, agriculture, land and rural development.
Who are the groups involved?
The UNCSD has opened its sessions to encourage participation from both governmental and non-governmental organisations. It supports a number of innovative activities, such as partnership fairs, the learning centres and a series of panels, round table discussions and side events.
Our team representing Singapore
The Singapore team from ECO Singapore comprised Loy Sye Yuet, Su Wei Xin, Andrea Low, Thea Tan and Shirlynn Sham.Under the guidance of ECO founder Wilson Ang, the team attended the two-week conference at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. Under the structure of the youth caucus, youths from around the world interact and voice their concerns, ideas and suggestions on sustainable development. The youths at this year’s UNCSD came from many countries, including Australia, Canada, Croatia, Nigeria, and The Netherlands. It was an enriching experience to share and learn about ideas on sustainable development from all around the globe.
The youth caucus organised a booth at the side events area at UNCSD-17 to facilitate communication and promote partnerships. Interested participants could stop by at our booth to find out more about the issues that we as youths felt strongly about. We sat in official plenary sessions and learned not just by listening but also interacting with other participants at the sessions, including industry experts, government delegates and members of other NGOs.
We were also given opportunities to contribute our ideas by writing articles and participating in dialogues with other major groups such as the Women’s Major Group, Indigenous Peoples and the Scientific Community groups.
The different backgrounds of the youths at UNCSD-17 brought to the caucus a diversity of experiences in government dialogue sessions, lobbying for different causes and proposing innovative solutions. Each youth member was equipped with different skills based on their respective backgrounds and experiences and had an active role in contributing to the work of the youth caucus.
Andrea’s reflections
I was involved in the discussion group on rural development. However, through my participation in many side events and workshops, I also had the opportunity to learn more about other current environmental issues such as climate change, food security, capacity building and biofuels.
An interesting side event that I attended was a screening of the documentary, “Meat the Truth”. It was presented by Marianne Thieme, leader of the Party for the Animals in The Netherlands. The film displayed the massive impact of livestock farming on climate change. It left viewers with the statement, “animals are the victims of our excesses.” It showed me another perspective on the issue of climate change and reminded me of how we as individuals could make a conscious choice to reduce our intake of meat.
One of the best memories I had was visiting a farmer’s market located just a block away from the United Nations Building at dag Hammarskjold Plaza. Amidst other stalls and exhibitions, there was also a youth-led education program on nutrition and live cooking demonstrations using international recipes. The special feature of this market was the collaboration between urban youth and regional farmers. As a youth, I felt encouraged to see how these youths played a part in creating sustainable efforts for agriculture. Coming from Singapore, a largely urban area, it inspired me to think of relevant ideas to introduce into my community and work towards the goal of sustainable development.
Wei Xin’s reflections
UNCSD -17 has been a life-changing experience for me. It was amazing to meet people, not just youths, from all walks of life and all around the world under the unifying theme of “Sustainable development”. I was fortunate to be able to hear from experts and affected stakeholders about the solemn reality of the ecological, social and economic challenges that humanity faces. However, the greatest privilege was the chance to be engaged in the problem solving and discussion sessions, and lobby for inter-government-coordinated political action in addressing environmentalissues.
I gained so much knowledge and intrinsic experiences that I cannot possibly share everything here. However, my key takeaway from the event is that a true “green revolution” is not an affair of science. Rather, it is one where every single member of humanity, with all of his occupations and stakeholders, reaches a state of ecological awareness and will to act for sustainable development without the sacrifice of either quality of life or our environment.
It is now crunch time for everyone to be ecologically awakened and act in whatever small ways we can. Each one of us can start small by practising “sustainable consumption” or taking a proactive role by volunteering with a non-government organization like ECO Singapore or your own institution’s environmental clubs.
Together, we can save Mother Earth and ourselves.
A collective effort by the youth to prevent waste
Towards the end of UNCSD-17, the youth caucus embarked on a new creative effort: folding origami flowers out of the numerous leftover flyers strewn outside the conference halls of the UN building. On the final day of the conference, all the youth participants wore these flowers proudly on their lapels. attached to each flower was a leaf that emblazoned boldly: “WASTE?”
What’s the point of all this? Quite simply, it was a way to express the growing fear of many attendees that UNCSD-17, upon its conclusion on May 15, would turn out to be nothing but a waste. This concern, expressed admirably in a front-page article in the 14th May issue of Outreach (a daily publication at the UNCSD), was both about the production of material and immaterial waste.
Given the possibility that government delegates might not reach a conclusive agreement by the end of the two-week discussions, there could ultimately be nothing to show for UNCSD-17 but a futile exhaustion of resources (paper, power, airplane fuel) and individual capacities (time, energy). Being an action-oriented team of youth, we found this unacceptable. Thus, this mini “flower” campaign served as a platform for us to display our inclination towards proactiveness.
We felt that this spontaneous campaign was especially memorable as it was a concerted effort by the youth caucus to make a statement and remind the governmental sector of their duty to make responsible choices for the good of the people and the environment. E |
