Getting the Goods: 2005

Towards regional strategies for
sustainable production and consumption

Jeffrey Barber, Integrative Strategies Forum, USA

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Support for regional initiatives

Over the last few years we watched various efforts within the UN and several countries discussing implementation of the "10-year framework of programmes in support of regional and national initiatives to accelerate the shift towards sustainable consumption and production." In particular, the Production and Consumption Branch at the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Division for Sustainable Development in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) took the lead assembling governments and stakeholders to discuss this framework (dubbed the "Marrakech Process.")

Around the 2003 Marrakech meeting, we saw efforts in Latin America, Asia/Pacific, Africa, and Europe to organize regional consultations to discuss this process in relation to regional and national needs and conditions. Each regional meeting involved NGO participation, with reports recommending strategies to continue the discussion and increase support for regional and national initiatives.

Advances or odes to a sinking ship?

These efforts are signs of leadership on one of the world’s most critical and controversial cross-cutting issues. Yet many observers wonder how far this process will go, how strong the political will exists to move beyond the “low-hanging fruit” to the politically riskier realms of commitment.

In turn, how can the world assess whether significant progress is indeed taking place? How to evaluate these meetings, speeches and papers? Do they represent steps forward? Or do they represent more of the same arguments and commitments made in the past decade, leading to the same scenario of nominal improvements in awareness and technological effiency marked by worsening trends? Are these discussions strategic advances or odes to a sinking ship?

Measuring regional progress

To fulfill their responsibility to the public interest, policymakers and civil society need the means to effectively measure progress. We need to know which indicators to watch or develop, and to have access to data that matters.

Our proposal for Costa Rica and other meetings is creation of a multi-stakeholder monitoring system. The function of this system would be to track relevant
(1) state indicators: whether social and environmental impacts are getting better or worse (e.g., ecological footprints),
(2) pressure indicators: the causal and driving factors behind those negative impacts, and
(3) response indicators: the development, implementation and effectiveness of political and social responses to the problem.

Targets and timetables as indicators

Sustainability research tends to concentrate on identifying and understanding the the social and environmental impacts of rural and urban modernization, the driving forces involved, and the effectiveness of policy and program responses. The Marrakech Process should draw information from this research needed to evaluate progress, especially in meeting targets and timetables agreed upon by decision-makers. If there are no targets and timetables, however, the question of monitoring and of progress turns in upon itself.

The presence of meaningful targets and timetables as part of international, regional, and national strategies represents a critical response indicator in itself, as does the presence of concrete strategies. These might be considered a measure of political will. Without clear objectives and timetables to measure progress, the process can easily descend into a rhetorical maze, presenting illusions of progress but never arriving at any meaningful destination.

Toward regional SPAC strategies

In the coming months before Costa Rica we hope groups concerned with SPAC issues will look closely at the substance, outcomes and follow-up to the different regional consultations. Several members, associates and friends involved in the NGO SPAC Caucus at CSD and in the International Coalition for Sustainable Production and Consumption (ICSPAC) actively participated in these meetings and have their own assessments and ideas about these processes and overall regional progress. As a civil society input into this meeting, ICSPAC will again sponsor a SPAC Watch report on progress, this report focusing especially on the efforts, obstacles and possibilities of progress experienced by civil society in these different regions.

In this issue of Getting the Goods the authors report on developments (and difficulties) in several regions. Some reports focus on the more unique problems and possibilities in their country and region, others identify situations common to most if not all countries. In most cases, there is clearly a need for greater commitment and implementation by national governments in order to move towards sustainability. Hopefully, at Costa Rica and in further regional and national discussions, participants will agree to develop regional and national strategies with meaningful targets and timetables.

In turn, we hope to participate in the emergence of coordinated monitoring systems of relevance to and incorporating the inputs of concerned stakeholders. Although such strategies and monitoring systems are a responsibility of government, we hope to see all concerned stakeholders show the necessary will and leadership to producing these tools. Otherwise we can expect to see not tangible progress but exceptional success stories dwarfed by future trends of increased poverty and inequality, disease and environmental degradation, and shameful declines in the quality of life for all but those privileged segments not tied to the docks when the rising tides and tsunamis swamp everyone else.