EU Presidency Statement - Sustainable development

Madame Chair,

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union. The Central and Eastern European countries associated with the European Union Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia and the Associated countries Cyprus and Malta align themselves with this statement.

The European Union welcomes the essential input given by the "Report of the Secretary-General on "Information for Decision making and participation" to the ninth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development". The EU also considers the work of the "International Expert Meeting on information for decision making and participation", organised by UNDESA and UNEP and sponsored by the Government of Canada in September 2000 in Ottawa, to be of crucial importance to the discussions of CSD 9. An EU paper outlining key areas of concern and suggestions for recommendations by the CSD is attached to this statement.

Since the Rio Conference, progress has been made on all fronts of information for decision-making and participation. Countries have made substantial efforts towards providing data, developing indicators, reporting, as well as providing access to information.

While there is data available on the status and trends of sustainable development, its accuracy, quality, coherence, cost-effectiveness and accessibility still needs to be enhanced. There is also a need for improved information on decision-making and planning policies and processes and their respective impacts.

Madame Chair,

The EU sees four priority areas of action and possible recommendations by CSD9, namely: information collection and dissemination; indicators for sustainable development; access to information and public participation; and the role of the media and the private sector in providing information.

The first priority area for further action concerns the collection and dissemination of information about the state and evolution of our environment and of our societies, as well as the pressures and potentials of economic and other human activities.

Improved co-ordination and harmonisation of data collection and dissemination on the national and international level can promote efficient use of resources, which would contribute to easing the burden on countries. The CSD could encourage governments to provide information which is relevant to sustainable development decision-making and to allocate responsibility for integration and harmonisation of national data, including reporting to international organisations. Support to developing countries' endeavours is likely to be required. International organisations should be encouraged to harmonise and rationalise their reporting requirements as well as to streamline their data collection by building on existing efforts in harmonisation of indicators, methodologies and data standards. The same applies to the guidelines for reporting adopted by Parties of different conventions. The EU welcomes progress made so far, including the revision process of the CSD reporting mechanism. We would encourage further efforts on the forward-looking assessments of environment and sustainable development including the Critical Trends report prepared by the CSD, the UNEP Global Environment Outlook (GEO) reports, and the World Resources Reports (by the World Resources Institute, WRI).

Globalisation, the development of new information and communication technologies and the emergence of a new "knowledge economy" offer the potential for more effective, wider and faster collection and dissemination of information, including for public participation. But information and communication technologies also pose threats of a "digital divide". We need to ensure that these developments benefit all regions and all groups and lead to an increased global solidarity. That requires adequate training and investment in people and specific strategies in the field of information and communication technologies.

The second priority area deals with indicators as important tools to reduce complexity of information and to communicate complex information on sustainable development. Since UNCED, a large number of sub-national, national and international groups and organisations have been active in exploring approaches to the overall measurement of sustainable development. There is a widespread political call for indicator based reporting to set a frame for national and international sustainable development strategies.

The EU encourages countries to develop and use sets of indicators for sustainable development, appropriate to national conditions and priorities, in defining, implementing and reporting national goals for sustainable development, and to support active involvement of all stakeholders in their further development and use.

The CSD Work Programme on Indicators of Sustainable Development has helped to build national and governmental awareness of sustainable development issues in general. As a result, a representative core set of 58 indicators for sustainable development has been identified. The core set is a valuable and flexible starting point for countries to develop national sustainable indicator sets. Further work on the basis of the experiences and results of the testing phase as well as other national and international experiences will help to increase the role and the acceptance of indicators, and the UN-DESA should be requested to advance further work in this area. Developing countries and countries with economies in transition should be assisted with adequate information in establishing national sustainable development indicator programmes.

Madame Chair,

The third area that the EU wants to emphasise is access to information and public participation, which are crucial elements of sustainable development. Real progress towards sustainable development requires public access to environmental information and the active involvement of major groups and the civil society in general. This is why the necessity of access to information and public participation is highlighted in Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration.

Elements of the Rio Principle 10 are reflected in various global legally binding instruments, e.g. article 23 of the Cartagena Biosafety Protocol, 2000. The ECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters adopted in 1998 constitutes the first comprehensive, general, international legal framework for its implementation. Other initiatives with regard to access to information and public participation have been taken in the framework of other regional organisations, for example OAS, ASEAN and OAU.

The EU would now welcome a broad process, involving all actors at various levels, to consider the feasibility and modalities of the development of legal instruments in the field of access to information; public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters, or the adhesion to existing legal instruments such as the Aarhus convention, taking into account the specific socio-economic and cultural conditions in the different regions. The EU also looks forward to the assessment and evaluation of international instruments reflecting Rio Principle 10 to be presented by UNEP next year.

The fourth and final priority area deals with the roles of the media and the private sector. Both decision-makers and the public rely on the media as an essential provider of information on environment and development issues. The media has an important role in sustainable development by identifying emerging issues, awareness raising and promoting appropriate action. Therefore an open, interactive information policy by governments on policies and actions is a prerequisite. The CSD should call on governments to provide an operational environment for an independent, objective media and to encourage the media to provide reliable information on sustainable development issues.

The private sector generates a growing amount of sustainable development-related information, which should be utilised in relevant decision-making, planning and monitoring processes. There is however a trend towards privatisation and commercialisation of this information, limiting its access to the public. Policy guidance is needed to distinguish between such information uses which can effectively be privatised and those that should be freely available to the public. The CSD should call on governments, the private sector and other stakeholders to share experiences gained in disclosure of information and to promote measures to give developing countries access to sustainable development information, originating in their territories but held in developed countries.

Thank you, Madame Chair.

| Top |

• Commissioner Wallström's speech on Global Sustainability (26/2/2002)
• Sustainable development and a fairer world (13/2/2002)
• EU Presidency Statement - Sustainable development (13/3/2001)