[sustran] UN CSD9 coming up soon!

Paul Barter geobpa at nus.edu.sg
Sat Mar 24 11:32:49 JST 2001


Dear sustran-discussers

This message is based on information received from ITDP in New York. 

As you may know, from 16-27 of April the United Nations' Commission on
Sustainable
Development (CSD9) will hold its 9th meeting in New York City.  Formed
in the wake of the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, the CSD has met
each year to discuss critical issues involved with sustainable
development.  The topics of the 2001 meeting are energy and
transportation.

Five separate 'Major Groups' provide input to this process: business and
industry, workers and trade unions, scientific communities, local
authorities, and non-government organizations.  Each major group has
been asked to prepare a 'dialogue paper' in the months leading up to the
CSD9 event.  These papers will be distributed as part of the official UN
CSD materials and become official UN documents.  The Institute for
Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) and the Sustainable
Transport Action Network for Asia and the Pacific (SUSTRAN Network)
serve, respectively, as the Northern and Southern co-chairs of the CSD
Non-Governmental Organizations' Caucus for Sustainable Transportation
and are coordinating the NGO involvement for CSD9.

CSD9's main events (April 16-20) will be 'Multi-Stakeholder Dialogues'
on sustainable transportation.  Two separate sessions will be guided by
the topics: 1) Public-private partnerships to achieve sustainable energy
for transport, and 2) Sustainable transport planning: choices and models
for human settlements, designs and vehicle alternatives.  The text of
these events become UN documents and will be used by the Secretariat of
the CSD to produce a report and list of recommendations, so any
decisions and agreements that take place will be officially noted.

Thus, this session of the CSD is a prime opportunity to start laying the
ground work for global data collection, monitoring, and regulation of
transportation related development issues.  The NGO Transport Caucus is
calling for the creation of a global framework on transportation safety
in the following categories:

** road safety - to protect all non-motorized transport users, with special
attention placed on women, children, and the poor
** fuel and lead - calling for a global ban on leaded gasoline
** ambient air quality and tailpipe emissions - to set global minimum
levels
** vehicle design safety - to protect pedestrians and non-motorized road
users in the event of an accident

The NGO Transport Caucus hopes to assemble an international community of
transport activists to exchange information and, hopefully, set the
stage for the creation of a global network of transportation NGOs.

For more information go to
http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/csd9/csd9_2001.htm.  There you can find
copies of the five Multi-stakeholders' dialogue papers and other
background information on CSD9 as well as links to relevant websites.

Or contact Walter Hook, Executive Director, ITDP, Northern Co-Chair, CSD NGO
Caucus for Sustainable Transport. (mobility at igc.org; www.ITDP.org) 

Best wishes, 

Paul

Dr Paul A. Barter
Visiting Fellow, Department of Geography
National University of Singapore
1 Arts Link, Singapore 117570
Tel: +65-874 3860; Fax: +65-777 3091
E-mail: geobpa at nus.edu.sg
(I'm also known as A Rahman Paul Barter)

PS  I am still volunteer contact point for SUSTRAN Network information
services
http://www.geocities.com/sustrannet

But for all other SUSTRAN Network matters contact the NEW SECRETARIAT:
Dr Bambang Susantono and Ms Moekti H. Soejachmoen
Sustainable Transport Action Network for Asia and the Pacific (SUSTRAN
Network)
c/o Pelangi Indonesia, Jl. Danau Tondano No. A-4,
Jakarta 10210, Indonesia.
Tel. +(62 21) 573 5020, 571 9360
Fax +(62 21) 573 2503
csti at pelangi.or.id



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