Interregional Cooperation for Sustainable
Development:
Regional Challenges Ahead
Statement by Mrs. Brigita Schmögnerová,
Executive Secretary of the
United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE),
to the Economic and Social Council at its 2002 Substantive Session
(New York, 19 July 2002)
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Regional Ministerial Meeting for the World Summit on Sustainable Development
which took place in Geneva in September 2001, provided the ECE countries with
a timely opportunity to assess progress made in the region in the various
dimensions of sustainable development, to identify the challenges ahead and
to agree on the policy directions and activities to undertake in response
to these challenges. The Meeting directly addressed the wide range of sustainability
issues, which are at stake in the ECE region. It also reaffirmed the responsibility
of the region to take a leading role in global efforts to achieve sustainable
development. The regional platform adopted at the Meeting in the form of a
Ministerial Declaration fully reflects this willingness to deal with both
regional and global challenges. It was in this spirit that the ECE countries
not only reconfirmed commitments taken at the Rio Conference and thereafter,
notably the Millennium Declaration, but also agreed on further commitments
to address the three pillars of sustainable development in a mutually reinforcing
way.
Prior to presenting the main challenges ahead for the ECE region, I would
like to highlight the major trends related to these three dimensions of sustainable
development. In the economic dimension, Western Europe and North America have
experienced significant growth in GDP per capita over the past decade and
this trend has been accompanied by structural changes in the production system,
with a shift from material- and energy-intensive sectors to services. Progress
has been made in improving society's eco-efficiency and in decoupling resource
use and economic growth, but these gains have been offset by overall increases
in the volume of goods and services consumed and discarded. For their part,
the central and eastern European countries and the CIS countries are beginning
to recover from the transition recession. Yet, only a few of these countries
have surpassed their 1989 output level. All economies in transition aim to
accelerate their growth, restructure heavy industries, phase out obsolete
technologies, and raise energy efficiency. Given the low level of domestic
resources, the restricted access of many economies in transition to the international
financial markets and the limited amounts of official assistance they have
received, some of these countries face severe resource constraints, hampering
their progress towards sustainable development.
In the social field, poverty and unemployment are problems faced at varying
degrees by the region as a whole. In particular, they strongly affect a large
number of transition countries which record growing income disparities and
inequal access to education and health services. Life expectancy, particularly
for men, declined dramatically. In some countries, the number of people living
in poverty raised from 2-3% to 30-40% of the total population. Military conflicts
in different parts of the region have further aggravated the social situation.
People face many kinds of insecurity - in employment and income, in health
and education, in pension and general social protection, and in physical security.
Some groups, such as women, youth and pensioners are harder hit then others.
While some economic recovery is occurring, such trends affect the human capital
and, subsequently, risk to hamper the sustainability of growth and development
in a significant number of countries of the region.
Trends in the environmental fields shows that, in Western Europe and North
America, technological innovations have helped to reduce the energy and material
intensity of many consumer goods and a small but growing number of consumers
are also making life-style changes to lessen the health and environmental
impact of their consumption patterns. However, the increasing volume of goods
used and discarded and the structure of consumer demand in key areas, such
as energy and transport, have outweighed many of these gains. In North America
and Western Europe increases in consumption still result in increases in various
forms of pollution and in ever increasing amounts of waste. The developments
in transition countries differ substantially. Even if the old and wasteful
power plants and industries continue to operate, the overall degree of pollution
has decreased, due to the fall in the output. However, the new investments
in less polluting productive activities and the long-term capital required
for the needed infrastructure rehabilitation remain still insufficient in
many countries. In addition, the regulatory regime did not develop fast enough
to enable efficient environmental management.
In the area of energy, fuel switching and efficiency gains - mainly thanks
to technological improvements - have helped some countries of the region to
move towards significant eco-efficiency gains. However, in large parts of
the region, particularly in Eastern Europe and North America, such gains are
offset by an increasing use of oil, generating more emissions of CO2 and other
pollutants. In the area of transport, developments are jeopardising the ability
of countries to achieve their environmental and human health policy targets.
Much of the road and air transport infrastructure is used beyond its capacity
and gradual increase in the already-high urban population creates greater
demands for space and transport infrastructure. Such growing congestion generates
large quantities of waste and emissions to soil, water and air.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
In view of these major trends characterizing the region, I would like to
highlight four major challenges to be tackled by the ECE countries, both in
their national policies and through regional and sub-regional cooperation.
The first challenge is to address the issues of poverty, income disparities
and intergenerational solidarity in the context of ageing population, budgetary
constraints and economic competition. Social policies need to be revisited
accordingly and, in particular, to be linked to employment, life-long training,
social protection systems and other social transfer schemes. This "social
challenge" is closely connected with the sensitive issue of human security.
With the rise of extreme nationalist movements in a number of ECE countries,
what is at stake here is the political dimension of sustainability, the well
functioning of democracy and the respect for human rights.
The second challenge is to accelerate the process of moving towards more
sustainable patterns of production and consumption. Technological innovations,
fiscal measures, including subsidy removals, regulatory measures and various
forms of awareness-building need to be further developed in order to reduce
the energy intensity of production processes and the degree of pollution which
they generate. Similarly, on the consumption side, a mix of policies and measures
is required to stimulate behaviour and lifestyle changes, in particular as
they relate to the choice of consumer goods, of transport and other services,
and the management of waste. What is at stake is the decoupling of economies
growth from resource use by a combination of activities conducted both on
the supply and demand sides for goods and services.
Closely linked to the changes in production and consumption patterns, the
third challenge is the preservation of the "global commons", mainly
air, water and biodiversity. As I mentioned before, policies changing the
supply and demand for energy and transport are key in this respect. In addition
halting the loss of biodiversity and restoring ecosystems calls for strengthening
the environmental dimension in agriculture, landscape, forestry and marine
policies. Finally, specific programs and policies have to be further developed
for reducing the pollution of groundwater, rivers and lakes, internal seas
and coastal zones of the region.
The fourth challenge is the strengthening of governance and participatory
democracy for sustainable development. The Aarhus Convention is an outstanding
tool for reaching this purpose in the environmental field. More generally,
addressing this challenge requires enhanced practices and institutional mechanisms
which, on one hand, fosters public participation in decision-making in all
dimensions of sustainable development and, on the other, increases integrity,
transparency and accountability on the part of public entities, both at national
and local levels.
There is no quick fix for making significant progress in tackling the four
challenges mentioned above, which concern all ECE countries in various degrees.
Based on political willingness, it is up to each country to design the appropriate
mix of tools tailored to its specific circumstances, combining economic instruments,
legislation and regulations, research and technological innovations, and awareness-raising.
Furthermore, each country needs to stimulate and support the involvement of
the local authorities, the private sector and civil society organizations
in addressing the various facets of these challenges.
These joined efforts within a national framework need themselves to be accompanied,
supported and, sometimes, even guided by regional cooperation.
The latter is indispensable for designing regional strategies which promote
policy convergence, for sharing national experiences on how to achieve common
objectives and for addressing transboundary issues. In this context I would
like to highlight the approaches and processes used so far by the ECE for
fulfilling its regional role and how they might be consolidated in the aftermath
of the Johannesburg Summit.
A first approach is the support of sub-regional and regional processes engaged
in the ECE region and related to sustainable development. An outstanding example
is the Environment for Europe process which is served by the ECE and which
represents a highly productive forum for harmonizing environmentally sound
and sustainable development policies on a Pan-European level. The Ministerial
Meetings, organized every 3 years, lead to establishing institutional arrangements
for coordination of assistance, adopting Pan-European strategies and new environmental
agreements, assessing environmental performance and taking further steps in
integrating environmental and sectoral policies. The ECE plays a central and
catalytical role in the preparation of these ministerial Meetings which also
involve all the other regional organizations and institutions active in the
environmental fields such as the European Environmental Agency of the European
Union, the OECD, UNEP and UNDP.
The ECE assumes this responsibility of coordinating and providing substantive
support for a number of other regional processes related to sustainable development.
A major outcome of one of these processes is the Transport, Health and Environment
Pan-European Programme which has been recently adopted at a High-level Meeting
jointly convened by the ECE and WHO/EURO, where the three sectors concerned
agreed to cooperate on a series of actions contained in the Programme. I would
like also to mention the preparation and follow-up of regional strategies
adopted at other ECE High-level meetings, such as the Policy Statement on
Sustainable Energy Development, and the Ministerial Declaration and Strategy
for a Sustainable Quality of Life in Human Settlements in the 21st Century.
A second ECE approach to sustainability issues is the development of legally
binding instruments, focused on two major groups: the five ECE environmental
conventions and their related protocols, and those ECE agreements, norms and
standards which are geared to promoting sustainable transport. An important
development to be noted is the extension of the multilateral environmental
agreements in the ECE region from solving transboundary problems (pollution
of air and of international rivers and lakes) to establishing European-wide
domestic principles and norms in such issues as national environmental impact
assessments and access to public information in environmental matters.
A third approach is the support provided to countries with transition economies
in their own efforts for moving towards sustainable development. This is done
through the organization of environmental performance reviews for individual
countries, as well as through capacity-building and policy advice for the
implementation of legal instruments and of regional strategies and policy
guidelines. To the extent possible, support is provided to groups of countries
in a given sub-region; this is, for example, the case for countries of Central
Asia on the important issue of the rational use of water and energy.
The ECE is determined to further strengthen these approaches and processes
for sustainable development which are based on the fundamental characteristics
and proven assets of the Regional Commissions. After Johannesburg, and in
view of the expected role and functions assigned to the regional commissions
for the follow-up to the Summit's outcome, we shall seek ways to consolidate
our work along the following directions:
- extending our analytical capacity to the social dimension of sustainable
development;
- using this capacity, together with the selection of core sustainable
development indicators, to monitor progress made in addressing the regional
challenges mentioned above;
- prompting high-level policy dialogue on the basis of this monitoring
work;
- strengthening our support to sub-regional initiatives in those parts
of the ECE region which meet major difficulties in achieving sustainable
development.
Finally, I would like to stress our willingness to enter into increased interregional
cooperation. So far such cooperation focused on making known some of our environmental
conventions to other regional commissions in - particular ESCAP and ECLAC
- interested in initiating the discussion on basic common principles in the
same areas for their own membership. We have also developed cooperation with
ESCWA and ESCAP on the issue of water. A step forward would be to share methodologies
for integrated analysis of sustainable development, the identification of
obstacles and policy gaps, and the tools for monitoring, at the regional level,
the implementation of the commitments taken at the Summit.
In conclusion, we shall spare no efforts to foster intra and inter-regional
cooperation for sustainable development. The continuing importance attached,
during the preparatory process of the Summit, to the regional dimension of
sustainable development is a strong encouragement to move ahead into this
direction.
Thank you for your attention.
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Ref: ECE/GEN/02/19