News & Updates

Rio+20 abandons the people, favours corporate growth

As world leaders gather today to discuss a social, economic and environmental roadmap intended to address ecological degradation, they are holding a blueprint for the continued control and commodification of the world’s resources by a few for profits.

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From MDGs to SDGs: learning the right lessons for a transformative development agenda

The temptation to adopt the MDG-approach to the challenge of sustainable development is easy to appreciate. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have proven useful in sparking public awareness on poverty and other key development concerns, and generating consensus around the goal of addressing them. Against the plethora of social, economic and environmental problems confronting the world’s peoples, it is but rational to identify priorities and focus efforts accordingly.

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Lobby letter to government delegations to Rio+20

As you all know by now, the Rio+20 summit is happening next week. More than a hundred heads of state are expected to gather in Rio and many government delegations are heading for Rio next week to finalize the outcome document to be signed by world leaders on June 20-22.

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CSO strategy meeting on the Right to Water: challenges and imperatives for Rio+20 and beyond

Twenty years after Rio 1992, we are nowhere near the future that we want with respect to universal access to water. And our collective future is threatened with the further commercialization of nature. Join Water for the People Network and IBON International in a strategy session on the right to water and sustainability towards Rio+20 and beyond in Hanoi, Vietnam on June 10, 2012.

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Debunking the hype about the ‘Asian Century’ (May-June 2012)

This issue of the Education for Development Magazine (EDM) presents a comprehensive debunking of the hype about the ‘Asian Century.’ In particular, this issue will demistify the ‘Asian Century’ portrayal that projects the orient as a rising economic power despite the increasing unrest, worsening poverty and uneven development patterns in the region.

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Rio+20 must address global economic governance

Remarks made at the side event, “Right at Rio+20: A Rights-based Framework for Sustainable Development” organized by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, The Missions of Germany, Maldives and Norway with Ibon International, the Center for International Environmental Law and The Council of Canadians, in collaboration with the UNDG-HRM. April 27, 2012. UN Headquarters, New York

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RIO FOR PEOPLE: Strengthening People’s Capacity for Genuine Sustainable Development

Despite calls for renewed political commitment to the principles and goals of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to address the unequal and unsustainable character of dominant development patterns, Rio+20 is inclined to reinforcing the same neoliberal framework that was the very cause of the multiple crises of today. The Green Economy, premised on the commodification of nature and ecosystem services, allows for business as usual and very well suits the interests of the corporate sector.

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CSOs gather for 3rd High-Level Panel meet on post-2015 agenda

CSOs from across the world are gathered in Bali for the third meeting of a UN-convened High-Level Panel which will produce a report on how the Millennium Development Goals should be replaced in 2015. They are hopeful the HLP will produce the bold recommendations needed on the future of international development – or be prepared to live with the dire consequences of its failure, in the face of multiple crises and entrenched poverty and inequality.

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RIGHTS AT RISK AT THE UNITED NATIONS

We – the civil society organizations and social movements who have responded to the call of the United Nations General Assembly to participate in the Rio+20 process – feel that is our duty to call the attention of relevant authorities and citizens of the world to a situation that severely threatens the rights of all people and undermines the relevance of the United Nations.

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