6 September 2001: The third meeting of the Bureau of the tenth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD 10) acting as the Preparatory Committee for the WSSD took place from 5-6 September 2001, in Jakarta, Indonesia.

The meeting was chaired by Emil Salim, who is Chair of the WSSD’s Preparatory Committee. During this meeting, the Bureau assessed the state of preparations for the Johannesburg Summit, focusing on the regional and sub-regional levels. It also considered the specific details of the programme of work for the second session of the Preparatory Committee scheduled for early 2002 in New York and decided on the organization of multi-stakeholder dialogues during the second PrepCom session. In addition, participants agreed on the Bureau’s activities leading up to the second PrepCom session.

In taking stock of the state of regional preparations, members of the Bureau raised concerns that regional assessments are not always based on national assessments, that they did not place enough emphasis on the economic and social pillars of sustainable development and that some regional processes were concentrating primarily on global issues rather than regional platforms.

The Bureau underscored the need for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to go beyond supporting countries in undertaking their national assessments and to become more actively involved in the Johannesburg Summit preparatory process. It also highlighted governance as an important issue on the WSSD’s agenda. More information on this meeting is available online at: http://www.johannesburgsummit.org/web_pages/jakarta_bureau_notes.htm