The CSD - the Commission on Sustainable Development - offers the world one of the most open and participatory intergovernmental processes on sustainability issues. With a renewed mandate from the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI), CSD has started to work on its second round of cluster themes.
Over the years, a great number of highly respected civil society representatives have however turned their back on a number of UN processes, leaving space open to itinerant global conference participants, poor on representation and issue knowledge and with even less accountability. As a result of this, the UN and civil society have become vulnerable to a variety of critical views pointing to the fact that the intergovernmental processes are far removed from the people themselves as well as their concerns. By appearing to remove the intergovernmental processes from "we, the peoples", the very basis upon which they were supposed to rest, both the UN and civil society seem to fail to deliver on the basic values of democracy. Participation, transparency and accountability appear to be illusory values and whereas CSD could be conceived as a watch-dog for sustainability and environmental governance, the present praxis threatens to turn CSD into a travesty of democracy.
The main purpose of the ANPED NGO Capacity Building and Training on CSD is to bring about a renewed interest in the CSD process and in particular to bring into play NGOs from Central and Eastern Europe, South Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia to try and establish more concerted NGO action within the UNECE region in particular with regard to the current CSD cluster themes of Energy for Sustainable Development, Industrial Development, Air Pollution/Atmosphere and Climate Change.
ANPED's overall programme focus is on Sustainable Production and Consumption. This will mean that the CSD activities will be put in the context of the crosscutting issues, with particular attention being paid to Sustainable Production and Consumption as one of the three overarching objectives of Sustainable Development. ANPED's work in this area is linked closely with the monitoring of national strategies for sustainable development and the incorporation in these strategies of support for the 10 Year Framework/Marrakech process.
Together with WWF and Greenpeace ANPED has formed a coalition on Environmental Governance with the purpose to monitor what is happening within the UN on this issue in relation to ‘initiative 169’. This information will be shared with the participating NGOs in order to help build a better understanding of the issues at stake.
The underlying objective of the programme is to build the capacity of NGOs in UNECE countries (with a strong focus on EECCA, to on the one hand assist them to monitor their national governments on CSD performance and on the other hand develop NGO strategies to translate the content of the CSD cluster issues into relevant programmes for the NGO constituencies on national and local level. The purpose of such strategies would be to help NGOs monitor their country’s progress in developing and implementing relevant national and regional policy frameworks and programmes (e.g. 10 Year Framework) in dialogue with government and other stakeholders.
As part of the programme 5 (sub) regional workshops will be organised for the UNECE region (minus North America): West Europe (EU + Norway, Switzerland, Iceland & Liechtenstein), Central Asia, Caucasus, South Eastern Europe, Russia/Ukraine.
Although the workshops will focus on the current CSD issues it is the intention to establish a long term commitment and involvement from the within the NGO constituency with CSD.
