Making our societies sustainable will continue to be the main focus of the work performed by the SDIN group, with the added challenges of contributing to fulfilling the MDGs. To accomplish this, many questions, existing as well as new ones, need to be reformulated and answered, often in a new way and in a new context. What to do with private enterprise? What to do with a retrenched government? What to do with the multilateral system, especially in relation to local action? What to do with NGO global partnerships? What are the insights learned that would help further sustainability in Northern Society? Who must go and do the work if government is not able to respond in a timely manner?
Many of these sought after answers will be found in network-wide contexts.
Some of these questions may seem obvious. The role originally defined at the Bergen Conference in 1990 for ANPED, i.e to be the leading NGO network linking smaller and larger groups in the industrial world in furthering sustainable development is unchanged. But a redefinition of focus, and a reaffirmation of this mission were needed especially considering the disappointments already voiced within the NGO community about the potential outcomes of Johannesburg. With the advent of the five-year review of the MDGs, such a redefinition has acquired a new urgency.
A working global network such as the SDIN group, will be able to provide elements of the answers to the above questions. But new modalities on the more formal, global scene are also needed. The way CSD is now to be organised, is in all likelihood an organisational response to these new challenges.
As such the so-called ‘added value’ contribution from civil society will be enhanced.
New Modalities for Work between Southern and Northern NGOs
The main objective of these new modalities of work at CSD would be to give, all stakeholders, and in our case global NGOs a platform to follow up the WSSD work plan. The North has its own responsibilities towards achieving Sustainability worldwide, and has to change its production and consumption patterns to more sustainable ones. Yet the preparations for the WSSD have already taught us that Southern partners treat Northern NGO calls with slight suspicion when these calls are made to enhance policies with, among others Extended Producer Responsibility, ECA reform, subsidy reform, taxation, green standards, accepting an environment agenda. Hence the need for intensified co-operation between the members of ANPED and the members of our partner NGOs in the South. Hence, the necessity for further strengthening the SDIN group and philosophy of cooperation.
These are but some of the reasons why the SDIN group was approached by the UN and asked to perform the aforementioned jobs on behalf of the UN CSD.
