The UN Conference on Environment and Development
Back from Rio

The Earth Summit, the largest political event in history, is now over. It brought, around one table, more than one hundred national leaders to commit themselves jointly to address some of the most pressing issues confronting mankind today: the global environment, eradication of poverty planetary survival.

During the first 14 days of June 1992, senior government officials from 140 countries met at the RioCentro, outside Rio de Janeiro to prepare for the Earth Summit and to hammer out agreements on issues ranging from forestry and biodiversity to consumption patterns and climate change. they agreed on "The Rio Declaration", a statement of 27 principles which must guide societies in their future development policies. They also worked out an "Agenda 21", setting up plans of action for the twenty-first century for some forty areas pertaining to sustainable development.

Yet, many of the fundamental problems of today’s inequitable and rapidly degrading world were not (could not be?) addressed by the official conference. The issues of poverty, pollution, and resource depletion were central to the rhetoric of most delegations, but few were able to address the underlying causal relationships.

For reasons that might be understandable, but not justified, neither the inequities of national political systems nor of the international economic order ever came up for real discussion. Neither the exploitation of nature by people, nor the exploitation of a subjugated majority by the dominant minority were issues amenable to formal statements that form the grist of the United Nations mill.

At the other end of town, at Flamengo Park, some 40 Kms. from RioCentro, another unique kind of summit took place. The ‘92 Global Forum was certainly the largest gathering of independent sectors to take place anywhere. After more than one year of careful preparations, Flamengo Park a beautiful forest of trees stretching two kilometers along Rio’s famous beach had been converted into a vast conference facility, with nearly 40 structures for meetings and 600 stalls for exhibitions. In addition, some 40 other auditoriums and meeting places were booked for conferences in various parts of Rio.

Over a period of two years, the independent sectors had been preparing their inputs to the Earth Summit. When it became clear that the large numbers of NGOs planning to be at Rio could not all possibly be accommodated at the official conference, the International Facilitating Committee and the Brazilian NGO Forum felt that additional facilities were necessary. Thus, the ‘92 Global Forum was created to make space for a series of simultaneous events where all sectors could express their independent views at the time of the Earth Summit.

This issue of the Development Alternatives newsletter is devoted largely to the events at Rio this June. In it, we have tried to capture some of the successes and failures of the Earth Summit and the ‘92 Global Forum. We hope that those who could not be at Rio can nevertheless get a reasonable feel of what took place there.

by Ashok Khosla

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