PHM-Exch> Rio +20: Istanbul Declaration' adopted by Global Human Development Forum

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: HDR Bulletin <announcements at hdrdistribution.org>




Global Human Development Forum adopts ‘Istanbul Declaration’ urging bold
action at UN ‘Rio+20’ conference this June

*Istanbul, March 23*—Delegates to the first Global Human Development Forum
today unanimously adopted an “Istanbul Declaration” calling on the world
community to take bold action against global social inequities and
environmental deterioration at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development
in Rio this June.

“It is time to reset the global development agenda,” the Istanbul
Declaration states. “The world needs a renewed commitment to sustainable
development and strong political leadership to implement it.”

The Istanbul Declaration was adopted by consensus at the conclusion of the
two-day Global Human Development
Forum<http://e2ma.net/go/7495267731/208863040/232531662/36353/goto:http://hdr.undp.org/en/humandev/forum2012/>,
a gathering of more than 200 leading development experts, civil society
activists, government ministers, private sector representatives and UN
officials from all regions of the world.

The Forum was organized by UNDP’s Human Development Report Office and
Bureau of Development Policy in partnership with the Government of Turkey’s
Ministry of Development.

Today’s Istanbul Declaration was supported by the Government of Turkey as a
key contribution to the UN debates and discussions leading up to the Rio +
20 conference in June. Negotiations on the conference agenda and proposed
resolutions resumed this week at UN headquarters in New York.

The Declaration stresses the need for global and national development
strategies to put “strong emphasis on social inclusion, social protection,
and equity, in recognition of the fact that economic development has too
often gone hand in hand with environmental degradation and increased
inequality.”

Achieving those goals will require better-coordinated “mobilization of
global capital and local resources,” good governance on the local and
global level, and full empowerment of women “through access to education,
health care, basic services and their participation in the labour force,”
the Declaration says.

“I hope that this Forum will help establish new partnerships across
sectors, and that you will take these discussions and this Declaration home
to capture the imagination and interest of a much broader audience,” UNDP
Associate Administrator Rebeca Grynspan told Forum participants.

The Declaration<http://e2ma.net/go/7495267731/208863040/232531663/36353/goto:http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/Istanbul%20Declaration%2023%20March%202012.pdf>endorses
the recommendations of the Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on
Global Sustainability and UNDP’s 2011 Human Development Report on
Sustainability and Equity, and stresses “the need to maintain progress
towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals in 2015, while building a
consensus for a new post-2015 global framework that:

   - Is universal in character, with relevance for all nations;
   - Reflects the entirety of the sustainable development agenda, including
   the continuing importance of reducing poverty and inequalityparticularly
   for the least developed countries;
   - Addresses all three dimensions of sustainable development (social,
   economic and environmental), and their interconnections; and
   - Is based on measurable indicators that can promote effective
   monitoring of progress and response to challenges.”

In a personal message to Forum participants, UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon said: “Sustainable development recognizes that our economic, social
and environmental objectives are not competing goals that must be traded
off against each other, but are interconnected objectives that are most
effectively pursued together in a holistic manner. We need an outcome from
Rio+20 that reflect this understanding and that relates to the concerns of
all.”

More than 120 heads of state and government have confirmed their
participation in the Rio conference, making it one of the largest such
gatherings of world leaders in recent times.

Government and civil society leaders from developing countries have
strongly urged that the Rio conference address not only ecological threats
such as climate change and pollution, but place equal emphasis on such
critical social concerns as hunger, preventable disease and endemic
poverty. The 2011 Human Development Report, cited in the Declaration and
analyzed in depth at this week’s Forum, argued that simultaneous progress
on both fronts is essential. The 2011 Report showed that reducing social
and economic inequalities within and among nations should help reduce
environmental risks, while a failure to slow environmental deterioration
will further widen social and economic inequalities around the world.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://phm.phmovement.org/pipermail/phm-exchange-phmovement.org/attachments/20120324/fdb1b1b5/attachment.html>