19 April 2012
Online Multistakeholder Dialogues Opened to Feed Ideas to Rio+20
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The UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the Government of Brazil, as chair of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20), have launched ten online thematic multistakeholder dialogues to generate ideas and recommendations, and set the stage for the civil society discussions - the Sustainable Development Dialogues - to be held just before Rio+20.

RIO+2017 April 2012: The UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the Government of Brazil, as host of the June 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20), opened 10 online discussions to generate ideas and set the stage for the civil society “Sustainable Development Dialogues,” to be held in Rio de Janeiro, from 16-19 June 2012, immediately preceding the UNCSD.

Each online theme corresponds to a discussion track of the Sustainable Development Dialogues in Rio de Janeiro. The 10 Dialogues, opened online on 16 April 2012, are grouped under the following themes: oceans; food and nutrition security; sustainable development for fighting poverty; sustainable development as an answer to the economic and financial crises; sustainable energy for all; water; the economics of sustainable development; sustainable cities and innovation; unemployment, decent work and migrations; and forests.

The Government of Brazil hopes that the dialogue process will encourage non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the academic, civil society and business communities to identify practical ideas, resulting in a broad-based, multistakeholder agenda for action to support and complement the intergovernmental outcome. It hopes that resulting partnerships and initiatives will help developing countries, especially, to deliver on the vision set out in the UNCSD declaration.

To help initiate discussions, experts from the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Network of Global Agenda Councils have offered their analyses of key issues and suggested action ideas for each of the dialogue themes. The compilation of their responses was released on 17 April 2012 by WEF in an informal discussion paper titled “The Rio+20 Multistakeholder Dialogues: First Reactions from World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council Experts.” Among the experts’ suggestions is for governments and corporations to invest the equivalent of 2% of gross domestic product (GDP) in the green economy of 12 target countries across seven industries, which they predict will create 48 million decent jobs over five years. Regarding food and water security, they recommend replicating successful initiatives, such as Brazil’s Zero Hunger Program and the Scaling Up Nutrition initiative, and increasing the role of multistakeholder partnerships such as the New Vision for Agriculture, the Water Resources Group and the Alliance for Water Stewardship. [Concept Note] [Rio+20 Dialogues Website] [WEF Press Release] [The Rio+20 Multistakeholder Dialogues: First Reactions from World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council Experts: An Informal Discussion Paper]


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