The reluctance of financial institutions to be made answerable will stymie progress on implementing the Earth Summit agreentents.
THE DREAM of environmentalists to mpnitor the world's natural resources was boosted with
the establishment of the UN
Commission for Sustainable
Development (CSD), which will
analyse the progress of agreements reached at the Earth
Summit. CSD was meant to
increase the accountability of
governments concerning environmental policy. Some developing
countries view the GSD with concern, believing that in practice its
authority would be limited to relatively defenceless governments
of the developing world.
To rope in rich countries,
developing countries included
review of transfer of -financial
resources and technology as a
major objective of CSD. In return,
the Northern countries ensured
CSD is open to NGO reports so
that decisions are not made solely
on the basis of reports filed by
developing countries.
The NGO Task Force on
Institutions, which met recently
in The Hague, asserted that
unless the World Bank, IMF and
GATT are made accountable to
the CSD, promoting sustainable
development will be incomplete.
However, OECD countries are
reluctant to bring these major
economic players under CSD
purview as they have only been
"invited" to report reaularly on
their follow-up of Rio.
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