WSSD Secretary-General Nitin Desai held a briefing on the WSSD process on Tuesday morning, 18 June 2002.

Conference Room 5 at UN Headquarters was standing room only as Desai opened the briefing stating that he wanted “to take stock of where we are and what we have to do” before Johannesburg.
Desai made the following points:
– A decision was taken in Bali to send the text as it was on Friday, 7 June, to Johannesburg. Therefore, there will be no changes to the text before Johannesburg and any work done in between will have to be put forward by delegations once the WSSD begins in August.
– With regard to the state of the text, 73% has been agreed and 27% remains bracketed. Almost all of the bracketed text is in the chapters on globalization and means of implementation, especially those paragraphs dealing with trade and finance. Most of the programmatic and institutional text has been agreed on.
– Other outstanding issues include: time-bound targets, principles, GEF replenishment, the GEF and desertification, governance, human rights and labor standards.
– Aside from Monterrey, a greater percentage of the text has been agreed on than at this stage in any other conference, including Rio.
– The problem is not time, but finding common ground. This is the challenge for Johannesburg.
Desai stressed the importance of keeping everyone informed, and proposed having a weekly briefing session so that everyone knows what is going on. This briefing will be of a stock-taking nature, not negotiating.
He also mentioned that a group coordinated by UNDP’s Luis Gomez Echeverri will be meeting to flesh out key initiatives under the WEHAB agenda (Water, Energy, Health, Agriculture and Biodiversity). This senior team of both academics and high-level UN agency officials will be trying to draw up a plan on how to implement this agenda. They will not produce negotiating documents but will present ideas on necessary actions.
South Africa expressed that her delegation was pleased with the progress in Bali. Bali was a success. Although we didn’t finalize everything, the issues are not insurmountable. We need the political will. She said that South African President Mbeke is engaging with Heads of State in preparation for Johannesburg and will use the upcoming G-8 meeting and others to raise issues relevant to the WSSD. The Minister of Foreign Affairs is in Europe visiting European capitals. The Mission in New York is exchanging views with other delegations to move the work forward. She proposed holding informal consultations the last week of July, right after ECOSOC, in New York. She supported the regular briefings proposed by Desai.
Indonesia agreed with Desai that the problem was not time, but lack of political will. He said there is a need for political dialogue among key players before Johannesburg. He suggested using the high-level segment of ECOSOC (first week of July) to discuss how to proceed. He also proposed informal consultations on the remaining paragraphs with written agreement before Johannesburg. Earth Negotiations Bulletin Editor, Pamela Chasek outlines these discussions in detail at http://enb.iisd.org/wssd/news.html#briefing18june