Open-ended drafting group meeting,

3-4 September 2001, Geneva, Switzerland

GCI participated in the Open-ended Drafting Group Meeting. The Chair had prepared a preliminary draft statement, following the 27th July meeting. The aim of the Open-Ended Drafting Group Meeting was to discuss this draft. Delegations and stakeholder groups had the possibility to send their comments one week before. Our comments concerned access to safe drinking water, education, and armed conflicts. We generally affirmed our preferences for a stronger and more specific resolution. The Secretariat circulated a compilation of the comments received, but unfortunately, our comments on water were not mentioned, and our comments on armed conflicts have been classified under the “general comments” of the compilation, a part that the President has decided not to address.
The second Regional Consultative meeting for the WSSD is expected to complete the negotiations on the draft ministerial statement for submission and adoption to the Regional ministerial meeting. The latter is expected to adopt a political declaration that will represent the key political part of the regional input in the WSSD, and identify future priorities, commitments and proposals for regional and global actions.

Many delegations affirmed the need for equilibrium between the three pillars of sustainable development. They also expressed their intention to produce a concise text, without too many details. It must also be said that Canada and the United States often expressed that the declarations did not reflect their own concerns, and wanted to modify all paragraphs that did not really preoccupy North America. Decisions were taken by consensus, and the President called governments to make all possible concessions to obtain consensus.
A representative of the European Union made comments and declarations on behalf of the 15 members. Representative of Central Europe and countries in transition did not attend this meeting because of lack of resources, but they certainly will be in Geneva for the two next meetings.
Hungary noticed that more than ten issues have been evoked to be discussed at the Johannesburg Summit, and expressed the need to clear up the text. The Unites States invited other delegations to think about the manageable-sized message they want to send.
Several paragraphs did not obtain the delegations consensus, and they will certainly be discussed during the next meetings. This would be the occasion to reinforce the issues mentioned above.

GCI contacted Ministers of the Environment and Ministers of Foreign Affairs who are supposed to attend the Regional Ministerial Meeting on 24-25 September 2001, to sensitise them to the issues we would like to reinforce. We contacted in particular Belgium (which is President of the European Union), France, Russia and Switzerland, as well as Kazakhstan in the context of the Central Asian PrepCom (19-21 September, Almaty).

By Céline Duret. Geneva, September 10, 2001