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SECRETARY-GENERAL'S
HIGH-LEVEL ADVISORY PANEL
Terms of Reference
The Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 will forge a
global partnership for sustainable development and provide a strategic focus
for the implementation of Agenda 21, based on an assessment of the emerging
challenges and opportunities for the international community. The United
Nations Millennium Declaration articulated a set of shared values and
objectives including the commitment to spare no effort to free all humanity
from the threat of living on a planet whose resources could no longer be
sufficient for their needs and to adopt a new ethic of conservation and
stewardship. Globalization, associated changes in the functioning of financial
markets, technological change that has transformed industry and production, the
growth of large urban settlements, the marginalization of large segments of the
world's population and the crushing burden of poverty linked to the degradation
of the natural resource base pose new risks which require a refocused global
vision of implementing sustainable development beyond current arrangements. The
realization of these principles and goals for international cooperation for
supporting sustainable development requires enhanced international
understanding and a reinvigorated basis for decision making, resource
mobilization and technology transfer.
To assist in the strategic challenges in a visionary way, the Secretary-General
is convening a Panel of Eminent Persons, which will explore the multi-faceted
challenges and make recommendations for meeting them. The Panel will provide
assistance to the Secretary-General in ensuring political visibility to the
process. Individual Panel members can contribute in their special areas of
interest and serve the Summit within these areas of influence and impact. The
work of this Panel is also intended to assist member states, especially in the
context of the substantive preparatory process culminating in the final
preparatory session to be held in Indonesia in May 2002.
The Panel will help identify issues and suggest ways to strengthen and deepen
the multi-stakeholder commitment for sustainable development. The Panel will
also energize global political will in tackling, head on, the need to design
national policies and international cooperation policies that fully integrate
the long-term economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable
development.
The Panel would, inter alia, focus their work on:(i) New and
emerging issues in the sustainable development agenda and making globalization
compatible with sustainable development;
(ii) Ways to support the articulation of the objectives of
sustainable development with poverty eradication programmes;
(iii) Environment and health-related policy especially in the
areas of food safety, drinking water, sanitation and air quality;
(iv) Technology transfer for sustainable development and
strategies for knowledge sharing; and
(v) The mobilization of financial resources for sustainable
development.
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Copyright © United
Nations
Department of Economic and
Social Affairs
Division for
Sustainable Development
Comments and suggestions
24 August 2006
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