September 2007: The Brazilian government hosted a conference entitled “Ministerial meeting on Environment and Sustainable Development: Challenges for International Governance,” from 3-4 September 2007, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The event gathered Ministers of Foreign Affairs and the Environment from more than 20 countries, and sought to provide an opportunity to informally discuss issues related to international environmental governance (IEG) in the context of sustainable development.

Among other areas of convergence, participants agreed that: a clear mandate, appropriate and stable financial resources, and political authority is vital for an effective institutional structure of IEG; developing a new paradigm for cooperation (North-South-South) could facilitate international environmental action; and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) is as an insufficient financing source. On next steps to take collectively, the meeting noted the need to identify means and modalities for the progress of this dialogue, and to set a long-term objective for the discussion on environmental governance in the context of sustainable development. In a letter dated 24 September 2007, Brazil forwarded a summary of the meeting to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (A/62/356). [Conference website] [Brazil’s message to the UN Secretary-General]