The Future of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development

Released by the U.S. Mission to the United Nations

Mr. Chairman, the U.S. offers its congratulations and a warm welcome to the new Bureau members of the Commission on Sustainable Development. We also congratulate Morocco as it assumes leadership of the G77, as well as Greece, as it takes on the presidency of the EU. The U.S. looks forward to collaborating closely with all of you, as well as other member states and stakeholders from civil society and the private sector, in helping to guide the Commission's work.

In leading the U.S. delegation to the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, Secretary of State Colin Powell stressed that "actions speak louder than words." The WSSD demonstrated the international community's broad consensus on the need for an action-oriented agenda. In adopting the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI), nations called for the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) to place greater emphasis on actions that enable implementation of Agenda 21 at all levels.

We have a critical and complex task ahead of us. The CSD has achieved some successes over the past ten years. However, in order to ensure its continued relevance, the CSD can and must do more to facilitate implementation of our sustainable development objectives. That was the resounding call from states in Johannesburg. For the United States, the promise of a reformed, relevant CSD is the perfect example of what we look for in a reformed and increasingly relevant United Nations.

Between today and the Eleventh CSD session, we have 14 weeks. During these weeks, we must explore how the CSD can evolve into a truly innovative forum. Our goal is a CSD that better engages the full stakeholder community to achieve our goals. Given that we can only meet these goals with the full participation of all stakeholders, the challenge for the CSD is to attract more participation from a broader cross-section of government agencies as well as stronger participation from non-government actors. We believe civil society and the private sector will respond, but only if governments lead by example and take innovative approaches at the CSD.

We also call on the participants from civil society and the NGO [non-governmental organization] community to take this opportunity to reexamine your participation in the CSD. Send representatives with constructive messages based on development experience to share ideas and lessons learned, and to offer new opportunities for positive collaboration.

Based on our initial consultations with other governments, non-governmental organizations, and private sector groups, two things are clear. First, there is considerable agreement on the need for the CSD to focus now on implementation.

Second, it is clear that most, if not all, of us are just beginning to grapple with the complexities involved in reforming the CSD. In response to the Secretariat’s open call for input, we prepared some papers outlining our initial thoughts on the future of the CSD. In an effort to promote further dialogue, we are pleased to share these with you today. These papers outline the types of CSD outcomes we believe are most likely to promote implementation. They also lay out a menu of potential processes that this Commission might use to achieve such outcomes. Additionally, we look forward to the Secretary-General’s forthcoming thoughts on the topic.

Fourteen weeks is not much time to come to agreement on an issue as complex and critical as this. Our mandate is this: focus on implementation. Our job in the coming weeks is to ensure that the CSD evolves into the forum for innovation, ideas, and action on implementation.