UN Commission on sustainable development in New York

De komende twee weken gaan Don en ik de stem van de Nederlandse jongeren vertegenwoordigen bij de VN commissie voor duurzame ontwikkeling in New York.

Dit jaar is een belangrijk jaar voor de VN commissie. Gerda Verburg, de Nederlandse minister van Landbouw, Natuur en Voedselkwaliteit, zal de commissie voorzitten. Onderwerpen als landbouw, droogte, verwoestijning en Afrika staan op de agenda.
Hieronder meer informatie over The United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) van Don:

The United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) was established by the UN General Assembly in December 1992 to ensure effective follow-up of United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the ‘Earth Summit’.
The Commission is responsible for reviewing progress in the implementation of Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development; as well as providing policy guidance to follow up the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI) at the local, national, regional and international levels.
This practically entails to spur sustainable development in its widest sense around the world, by means of international cooperation.
The CSD members meet annually in New York, in two-year cycles, with each cycle focusing on clusters of specific thematic and cross-sectoral issues, outlined in its new multi-year programme of work (2003-2017).
During CSD 17 in May 2009, the thematic issues: Africa; land use; land; drought; desertification; agriculture; and water will be discussed for policy implementation.
The CSD is a special commission under ECOSOC, since it has opened its sessions to broad participation from both governmental and non-governmental actors. It supports a number of innovative activities, such as the Partnerships Fair, the Learning Centre and a series of panels, roundtables and side events.
The High-level segment features dialogue amongst ministers and ministers also hold a special dialogue session with Major Groups, which are women; farmers; business and industry; indigenous peoples; NGO’s; local authorities; workers and trade unions; scientific and technological communities; and children and youth.
Some UNCSD member states involve a youth representative into their official delegation, amongst which the Netherlands.
The role of a youth delegate is to convey a representative message of the youth’s opinion of their respective home member state, informally as well as formally throughout the conference.
Hence, youth representatives inform officials, participate in speech writing for delegates and occasionally give speeches themselves for the UN as well.
Importantly, a youth representative has to know what the opinion of youth in their member state actually is! Therefore, getting a lot of input from youth between 12-30 years old is essential.
This year’s CSD session is a very special one, since the Netherlands will hold the chair. Minister Verburg from agriculture, nature and food quality has the challenge to lead the discussions to a good end to further encourage sustainable development at the different scale levels, written down in a chair’s report. She’ll be given a strong and concise position paper prepared by the Dutch youth.
The CSD member states will gather between 2-16 May in New York. Let the negotiations start.