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Press
Release
Highlights
of the Side Event
Main
Speakers and Panelists for the Side Event
Mr. Rubens Ricupero, Secretary General, UNCTAD
Mr. Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director, UNEP
H.E.
Ion Iliescu, President of Romania
Honourable Kenny Anthony, Prime Minister of Saint Lucia
Mr
Rolf Boehnke, Managing Director, Common Fund for Commodities
Mr Koos Richelle, Director General, DG Development, European Commission
H.E. Ruhakana Rugunda, Environment Minister, Uganda
Representative of the WTO Secretariat
Announcement Flyer for the Side Event
(in PDF)
Announcement Flyer in French
Agenda of the Side Event
Registration form for the side event
UNEP/ETB documents for the WSSD
UNEP/ETB is contributing to the WSSD through a series of reports/papers:
- From Globalization to Sustainable
Development: UNEP's work on trade, economics and sustainable development
- Enhancing Synergies
and Mutual Supportiveness of Multilateral Environmental Agreements
and the World Trade Organization
- Economic Reforms,
Trade Liberalization and the Environment: A synthesis of UNEP Country
Projects
- UNEP Briefs on Economics,
Trade and Sustainable Development
UNEP's Capacity-Building
Activities on Environment, Trade and Development
UNCTAD-UNEP
Capacity Building Task Force, Concept Note
UNEP/ETB's Capacity Building
Webpage:
Enhancing institutional and human capacities for integrated decision
making.
UNEP/ETB Capacity Building Workshops
16 July 2002
Workshop on Capacity Building, Washington, DC
15 March
2002 Workshop on Capacity Building, Geneva
ETB publications
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UNCTAD-UNEP
side event on Capacity Building in Trade and Sustainable Development,
at the WSSD, 3 September 2002
A
joint UNCTAD-UNEP side event, took place at the World Summit on
Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, on 3 September
2002. The event was co-chaired by Secretary General Rubens Ricupero
of UNCTAD and UNEP's Executive Director, Dr. Klaus Töpfer. The Managing
Director of the Common Fund for Commodities, Mr. Rolf Boehnke, together
with ministers from a number of countries attended this side event.
The WTO Secretariat has also been invited.
The event demonstrated the growing collaboration between these organizations
in undertaking capacity building activities to enable governments
to identify and respond to linkages between trade, environment and
development. Ministers at the 4th WTO Ministerial Conference in
Doha, explicitly recognised the need for more capacity building
on this policy interface, and this side event sought to demonstrate
how UNEP, UNCTAD and its institutional partners were responding
to this need.
The event showcased specific programmes and projects set in the
context of the needs and priorities of developing countries. This
included the eleven projects so far completed or in progress under
the auspices of the UNEP-UNCTAD Capacity Building Task Force (CBTF)
on Trade, Environment and Development. Projects specifically designed
for the Least Developed Countries were in the pipeline, and the
CBTF is poised for new and larger initiatives, particularly at the
regional level.
It was clear that the WSSD presented an opportunity to move towards
better resourced, more effective, coordinated and complementary
capacity-building activities on trade, environment and development.
This is necessary to meet the needs of developing countries and
countries in transition in strengthening their capacities to articulate
national and regional policies and participate in the work programme
agreed in Doha. In this side event, ministers and senior officials
representing the donor community and beneficiary countries, as well
as representatives of intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations,
had the opportunity to explore how this could be achieved.
Interested representatives of governments, intergovernmental and
non-governmental organisations were invited to join the side event
to contribute their perspectives on these issues and activities.
It was clear to UNEP and UNCTAD that a broad multi-stakeholder partnership
was necessary to devise the policies required to maximize the net
sustainable development gains from trade and the ongoing WTO negotiations.
It is intended that this side event would contribute to further
developing collaborative activities that have already been initiated.
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