Sustainable Development & Environment

Rio+20 in 2012 will be a defining point in the international dialogue on environment and sustainable development. Taking into account various processes that will lead to ensuring the relevance of the outcomes of this conference the Asia Europe Environment Forum (ENVforum) designed a programme that will feed into the process.

As the Rio+20 conference will address two themes: green economy and institutional framework and arrangements for sustainable development, the ENVforum will be well placed to make a substantive contribution to the second theme, centered on an inter-regional approach.

Following the results of the Second Preparatory Committee Meeting of United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development that took place from 7 to 8 March 2011 in New York, strengthening the institutional framework for sustainable development is the issue that should be addressed at all levels of governments. Taking into account the current state of play with regard to sustainable development governance, the response to the governance challenges should be designed in the interdisciplinary and cross-cutting way. Any proposal of reform should strengthen the three pillars (economic, social and environment) of sustainable development in a balanced way to ensure convergence.

The ENVforum programme will therefore contribute to the international debate by:

• gathering approximately 15-20 experts from different fields representing various institutions at 3 scenario building workshops over 18 months;
• undertaking of research on environmental policies in ASEM countries in order to identify vulnerable areas;
• having a solution-oriented focus to contribute to the dialogue process on the way towards the Earth Summit Rio+20.

The programme will result in an analysis of Institutional Framework for Sustainable Developments (IFSD) options for Rio+20. The implementation arrangements of this programme will be shared among selected ENVforum partners with the Steering Committee Members. In order to ensure the successful implementation of the scenario building process the following activities have been implemented so far:

• first scenario planning workshop (in July 2011 in Indonesia);
• second scenario planning workshop (in October 2011 in Sweden).

More information about 2 workshops held in 2011 as well as the outcomes is available here.

Currently, the preparations for the 3rd strategy building workshop are ongoing. It will take place in Bangkok on 17-19 April 2012.