UN Commission on Sustainable Development 16th Session (UN CSD-16)

The UN CSD-16, the sixteenth session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, which will be coming to New York in May of 2008. Here is a little bit of back-story: the UN Commission on Sustainable Development was established in 1992 after the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, also known as the Earth Summit. The CSD's function is, essentially, to continually follow up on that conference, and review progress towards implementation of Agenda 21, a blueprint for sustainability at the global level which governments signed on to at the Earth Summit. The CSD meets each year in New York, and participation is open to both government and civil society. Its annual meetings are organized into two-year cycles; the first year of each cycle is a review year, discussion-focused, and the second is a policy year, implementation-focused.

The thematic clusters for the period 2008-2009 are Agriculture, Rural Development, Land, Drought and Desertification.

The geographic focus will be on Africa. In accordance with decisions take at CSD 13, the issue on Water and Sanitation will be revisited. ANPED together with TWN, Third World Network and ELCI will again function as co-organising partners for the global NGO community through their collaborative efforts know as the SDIN Group.

The CSD Secretariat has compiled Guidelines for Major Groups to facilitate contributions to the review process and participation in the CSD 16 review session, including its Regional Implementation Meetings (RIMs). The guidelines include chapters that outline the reporting process for the review year, provide important deadlines for written submissions, and include essential information for your participation in the RIMs and in the CSD 16 meeting itself.

The two-year cycle of CSD 16 and CSD 17 will focus on implementation in the areas of agriculture, rural development, land, drought, desertification and Africa.

In addition, a review will be undertaken in 2008 of the implementation of WSSD target on Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM).  Countries are also being asked to provide updated information on national sustainable development strategies (NSDS) and national programmes on indicators for sustainable development.

The CSD encourages member States to provide national reports, on a voluntary basis, that reflect on progress made in the areas under consideration. To assist in this reporting process, guidelines for national reporting have been developed and are being circulated to all member States both through their respective missions to the United Nations and to their nominated focal points for sustainable development.