The Implementation Conference: Stakeholder Action for Our Common Future event was a stepping-stone in a long-term process that started in the summer of 2001, and will continue and spread out after the gathering in Johannesburg.

After three days of intense activity, stakeholders have reached agreement on twenty-six new action plans, programmes and partnerships aimed at delivering sustainable development. The IC has been acting as a hot house for developing new, collaborative action. Some four hundred stakeholders from over 50 different countries have been working in 25 working groups, supported by 25 facilitators from around the globe, to finalise their action plans. Fourteen draft Type 2 agreements have already been submitted and final agreements will be submitted within the coming days. Many other groups are considering the submission of type 2 initiatives.

The new partnerships are about action, not about lobbying governments. Impacting policy-making is not the primary concern of the participants who gathered at the IC. They met to agree action to implement existing (and emerging) policy agreements. However, it is hoped that the stakeholders’ actions and what we learn from them will indeed feed into policy making in the future.

The new partnerships fall within one of four broad issues of Food Security, Energy, Health and Freshwater.  The IC is the culmination of the first phase of Stakeholder Action for Our Common Future, which commenced twelve months ago and is aimed at contributing to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Agreements through collaborative stakeholder action.

At the opening IC plenary, Nitin Desai, Secretary General of the World Summit, John Turner, Head of the US Delegation and Gopalong Sekobe of the South African Health Department indicated their support for partnership development. Delegates were interested to learn about the discussions on follow-up mechanisms for type 2 outcomes, which Nitin Desai reported on. We heard intriguing remarks from John Turner about funding that needs to be made available for supporting partnership programmes, while Gopalong Sekobe pointed out the need for close linkage and complementarity between type 1 and type 2 agreements.

At the closing session on August 26, Prof Kader Asmal, Minister of Education, in the South African Government, Juoni Backman, Minister for the Environment in Finland, Achim Steiner, Executive Director of IUCN, and Dan Nielsen, Ambassador for the Danish Presidency of the European Union were amongst those who received the outcomes of the Conference and related them to the wider Summit agenda.

After addressing the IC participants over lunch on Monday, 26^th August, Prof Dominic Fobih, Minister of Environment, Science and Technology, Ghana, invited Stakeholder Forum to organise an Implementation Conference in Ghana, in order to develop collaborative stakeholders action for Africa. Building on the networks among stakeholders and professional facilitators, we will endeavour to help facilitate an IC process in Ghana in 2003, working closely with local and regional partners.

As an immediate follow up to the Implementation Conference itself, a half hour presentation of the process and outcomes was given on Saturday, August 31^st, in the Sandton Convention Centre, as part of the Partnership component of the Summit.

Implementation Conference Participants

For any questions please contact the Project Coordinators:

Minu Hemmati, email minush@aol.com;  Tel +44 20 7089 4309; Fax +44 207 089 4310
Robert Whitfield, email rwhitfield@earthsummit2002.org; Tel +44 207 089 4319
Fax +44 207 089 4310