Cross post: Rio+20 fails to deliver on Health and Migration issues

-Cross posted from the International Centre for Migration Health and Development (ICMHD) at  http://icmhd.wordpress.com/ Rio+20 fails to deliver on Health and Migration issues As the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, also known as Rio+20 or the Earth Summit, wrapped up at the end of last week, responses from experts, media and civil society ranged from lukewarm notes of...

Sustainable Development And The Political Treadmill Of No Will

By Julian Velez Rio+20 was supposed to renew political commitment to Sustainable Development (SD) and poverty eradication by integrating the social, economic and environmental “pillars,” or dimensions. It was a conference that was supposed to build on previous agreements to bring the Sustainable Development agenda to the next step. But the spotlight of the conference was taken by the...

The Game of the G77

By Lara Shirley The negotiating strategies employed by the G77+China are very interesting. They are a political entity, and thus have to be highly conscious of the image they project not only to their fellow negotiators but to the wider global community of civil society and media. The G77 negotiators tend to use precise and sophisticated language, often being the only ones to explicitly...

The After Taste Of Non-Wins

By  Julian Velez  Civil Society, represented by Major Groups (MGs) within the conference, could not come to an agreement --  in informal consultations there where two attempts to create a united MG statement that fell apart because the perspectives of what was needed and the level of ambition that was required were very varied. The organization of the conference here at Rio...

The Point of It All

Point of No Return By Mariana Calderon Sitting back in a bed in a hostel in Rio de Janeiro, trying to regain some sense of normalcy through regular sleep and regular meals, I hardly dare to think back on the last two weeks - or the last 20 years - just yet. Some time to recover, please. Unfortunately, time is something we don’t have much of anymore. In the halls of the Rio Centro convention...