Tag: civil society

Responding to Youth Blast questions

Nathan Thanki June 13, 2012 0 Comments
by nathan thanki On the second morning of the international section of the #youthblast, the organisers asked those gathered as the Major Group for Children and Youth (the official Youth constituency for this UN process) a series of "questions you were always too afraid to ask" about Rio+20. As a group we hesitantly attempted to answer the following:   What do we do after Rio? How...

A Reminder of Reality

jvelez March 28, 2012 0 Comments
By Julian Velez This is a reflection of my time in the Sustainable Development negotiations that took place in New York City. These negotiations are called the “informal-informal negotiations”; they are a build up to the Rio+20 summit. I speak of Food Sovereignty as a refreshing term that contrasts with the concepts and environment that is present in this UN process. I find the process of the...

Bottoms up

COA Admin March 22, 2012 0 Comments
by Ana Puhac After witnessing the process of negotiations on the Zero Order draft compilation document for only three days, disappointment in the spaces of the UN Headquarters is laughably apparent. Disappointment is not an unforeseen ingredient when dealing with the global political scene and UN. However, when it is implied in mordant remarks of Staffan Tillander, Ambassador for Rio+20 while...

Vagabonds and Adventurists!

mcalderon March 21, 2012 0 Comments
By: Mariana Calderon                As part of the Major Group of Children and Youth and as a student studying international policy, I am very interested in what my role at international negotiations can be. In this respect, I am just one of a very large number of individuals, organizations, and groups – Major Groups, that is. There are nine major groups recognized by Agenda 21, and...

Media Messaging: The silent, subtle art of loudmouthing the innocent

Anjali Appadurai December 22, 2011 1 Comment
by Anjali Appadurai If there's one lesson we learned loud and clear at this COP, it was how important a role the media plays in determining the world's perception of the dangerous game being played out in the negotiating rooms. Throughout the COP, misguided messaging was a huge obstacle to a united civil society front. We saw a multitude of messaging angles on each major issue within the...