Friday, May 16, 2008

CSD Then and Now

By: Beth Schaefer Caniglia, PhD, Associate Professor of Environmental Sociology, Oklahoma State University

While the overall integration of major groups at the CSD has vastly increased since Johannesburg, the Interactive Dialogues with Major Groups have lost much of their effectiveness. The CSD Multistakeholder Dialogues, first launched at CSD6 in 1998, have served as a model for hybrid governance across and beyond the UN system. Their earlier effectiveness stemmed largely from their facilitative structure, which enabled ample time for focused, interactive exchange. Post-Johannesburg, the length of the dialogues has been vastly shortened, leaving insufficient time for collaborative and synthetic exchange.

In the good old days

Pre-Johannesburg, the dialogues consisted of twelve hours of focused discussion, broken into four three-hour sessions. These were typically held over the course of two days, and efforts were made to ensure they were scheduled at times that did not compete with other sessions. Each session began with 8-minute opening statements by each major group and one 8-minute statement each from a Northern and Southern government representative. After these statements, the floor was opened for 2-minute statements from anyone in attendance who wished to clarify, extend, or build upon the ideas that had been entered for consideration. Most years, the Chair choreographed the conversation to encourage collaborative problem-solving and the resolution of long-standing sectoral disagreements. The results were impressive to observe, especially in those years when multi-sectoral initiatives were born and endured well beyond the CSD meetings. SARD [2000] and the Multi-stakeholder Review of Voluntary Initiatives [1998] were two such impressive outcomes of the dialogues.

Nowadays…

During CSD-16, the dialogues are allotted approximately one-third of the time, broken into three 1.5 hour slots, spread across the two weeks of meetings, and they compete with other sessions. The challenges presented by this structure were highlighted by the first dialogue at CSD-16 held last Tuesday afternoon. Each Major Group was asked to present a 3-minute statement representing their sectors’ views on agriculture and rural development. The difficulty of this task was illustrated by the fact that only one of the Groups presented a statement in three minutes or less. There was certainly insufficient time to address any dimension of agriculture or rural development in a way that recognized its complexity. In essence, this dialogue bit off far more than it could chew and retired substantive rigor in favor of symbolism.

Mutual exchange

The purpose of the dialogues is to facilitate interaction between Governments and the Major Groups. The Pre-Johannesburg dialogues were characterized by mutual exchange of best practices, the establishment of new models for the achievement of sustainable development, and synergistic outcomes that continued Major Group – Government collaborations beyond the dialogue sessions and well after the CSD. The strides gained were in large part facilitated by a structure that encouraged conversations that were focused on very specific dimensions of the year’s theme.

For example, CSD6 featured four sessions at its dialogue. Each of the specific topics was addressed in a three-hour conversation, enabling extensive and thorough discussions that confronted and often overcame strong sectoral disagreements. These 1997 - 2000 dialogues frequently addressed questions of program implementation, monitoring, reporting, and multistakeholder review; they allowed time for the Major Groups to highlight their perspectives on existing programs and make suggestions for their improvement on the ground. Such detailed and complex analyses were only possible given 1) a focused topic and 2) ample time.

Time constraints

The advantage of focused dialogues was highlighted by the elevated quality of input that occurred during the second of last week’s dialogue sessions, which took place Friday afternoon. The theme was “Partnerships,” and each Major Group was asked ahead of time to come prepared to share their perspectives on characteristics and challenges of successful partnerships.

In spite of this important improvement in the quality of exchange during Friday’s dialogues, still no synergistic outcomes emerged. There were few concrete suggestions regarding how the challenges to sustainable development partnerships could be overcome; and absolutely no one mentioned the role that might be played by the CSD to further facilitate such partnerships. Clearly, CSD and its Member Nations value the Major Groups and the importance of partnerships, as was illustrated by several comments by Governments during the dialogue and the side event sponsored by the United States. Focused discussion increased the quality of dialogue, but without sufficient time little collaboration was possible.

Symbolic communication

CSD is by far the most open and inclusive UN agency. The Commission should be commended for the efforts made to facilitate Major Groups input in nearly every segment of the CSD meetings. Nonetheless, one of the most successful models for hybrid governance and exchange between the Major Group representatives and Governments – The Interactive Major Groups Dialogues – has lost its ability to create concrete and synergistic outcomes that link the work of the CSD to people on the ground. Increasing the focus and length of future dialogues would increase collaboration and result in synergistic outcomes, like SARD and the Multistakeholder Review of Voluntary Initiatives. Such outcomes build trust between Governments and the Major Groups, and they serve to make the CSD directly relevant through the joint implementation and review of best practices. The changes post-Johannesburg have unfortunately replaced rigorous discussion with symbolic communication.