WITH negotiations at the fourth preparatory meeting in Bali ongoing, the United Nations Secretary General for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), Nitin Desai expects delegates to produce a strong action plan and political declaration for implementing sustainable development principles. He calls it the Bali Commitment.

In an exclusive interview at his office room at Bali International Convention Centre, the charismatic UN top boss for sustainable development shared with these correspondents his ideas on the Bali Commitment. During the interview, Nitin as usual was very optimistic about the success of the on-going fourth preparatory committee meeting (PrepCom IV) and the forthcoming WSSD at Johannesburg from August 26-September 7, 2002.

Nitin sees no problem in the implementation of the Bali Commitment, if agreed upon during this PrepCom IV and ultimately the Johannesburg Implementation Plan to help achieve sustainable development across the world.

He foresees at least US $ 12

billion additional funding commitment from EU and USA made at Monterrey in March this year for implementation of WSSD follow-up programmes.

The following are excerpts:

Ques: The whole world is now on the road to Johannesburg Summit on Sustainable Development. As the WSSD secretary general, you are a key player. How do you assess the preparatory process so far and what are the key issues now the delegates negotiating? Ans : Fourth PrepCom has a major commitment on water and sanitation. Sanitation is a very important issue on the earth. Many areas are densely populated. Even villages are densely settled, so we are working to give major thrust to the global sanitation and global water.

Lot of discussion has been going on in Fourth PrepCom on drinking water and sanitation. People use water in agriculture, to drink and cook in various types of production activities and for day-to-day life. So this is a major area of work. I hope a consensus will come through the summit.

Of course the summit has a broader agenda. Not only the energy, not only the health, not only the agriculture, not only the biodiversity and ecosystem management, the negotiators are working on various subjects, including those. If you see the process of negotiation, how 190 countries' negotiators are working through long arguments on what to do and how.

Ques: Are the discussions really focusing on all three dimensions of sustainable development?

Ans. It is also clear. The focus is

more on sustainable development, those situation that are more directly involved, the economical, the environmental and social aspects. The local governance is also an important element. The local government is a big issue, as it covers many different areas. But the focus is more on economic and environmental issues.

Ques: How do you describe the progress thus far?

Ans: I will use the phrase many here are using, slowly but steady. It means the pace in terms of the numbers of paragraphs etc., which have been agreed upon is slow. But what has been done is

very definite: Things are being finalized and decided.

Ques: What are the main issues being negotiated?

Ans: The whole issue is the form in which the commitment will be stated. How firm will the targets be? How firm is the language on the programmes? These are very important things which are being negotiated. But once they come to an agreement, then a lot of things fall in place. Like the language of finance, once you fix it in one place, a lot of other things get cleared up.

I would say at this stage some basic issues are being hammered

out, then we will be at a stage to ensure consistency.

People are negotiating in different working groups and contacts groups. Then when everybody comes together, you'll have to

decide on what is the formulation that should be used throughout. That's the sort of thing we start doing on Friday.

Ques: What are the chances for a strong document?

Ans: I don't know about that. A lot of countries support the idea of time definite goals, the NGOs are clearly in favour.

Ques: The negotiations should conclude by Friday. What do you expect the delegations do?

Ans: What I expect from them is to clear up as many things as possible, so that when we start on Friday we have some well-defined areas of the differences, which we shall resolve. So certainly the text, which will come out on Friday will have fewer alternatives than the text, which is being looked at now.

We are working on the assumption that we complete our work. But there is a lot to do, on the political declaration, on the preparation for Johannesburg and what is it that we need to do, to put some credible programme of implementation between Bali and Johannesburg.

My hope is that we really do complete our work by the weekend on the programme of action.

The Bali commitment as I call it.

Ques: Will there be any change from here to Johannesburg?

Ans: The programme of action will be decided here. What will be done now is on the political declaration. Bali will give the outlines, the elements, but the actual drafting and discussion on that will take place in Johannesburg.

But the main product of the Summit is what we think will be, what I call the Bali Commitment. If it is strong enough, we'll call it the Bali Commitment.

Ques: And if the programme is not strong enough?

Ans: We'll still call it Bali something, perhaps the Bali Programme.

Ques: Many people say the implementation (of the 1992 Rio Declaration) was too weak and they fear this could happen again.

Ans: Yes, so I think a lot of focus here is on what we need to do to keep up the pressure. This sort of thing falls under the name of accountability and responsibility. Much of the discussion on the institutional issue here is on that. And I expect this will remain an important dimension between now and Johannesburg. People will correctly ask: Okay, how do we ensure that this gets implemented? What do we

need to do beyond Johannesburg? So this is very correct and we will see a lot of discussion here also on the follow up mechanism which focuses on this.

This will be a major item. We call it the accountability and responsibility monitoring discussion.

Ques: And after Johannesburg?

Ans: I think the main thing is we really have to make sure that we implement what will be decided in Johannesburg. The real thing beyond Johannesburg, is to make sure that we actually meet the promise. Because the whole point of Johannesburg is implementation. This means we have to really make sure that we get to the sources, we get the programme in place, that we assist the countries in need of assistance, that we help the countries in formulating their own plans. All of these things you will have to take up. So there is a lot of work beyond Johannesburg to do.

The work is with the countries, the UN is not a negotiator. It is there to facilitate.

Ques: How do you foresee the journey of humankind along the road of sustainable development? Do you think that the Johannesburg summit will really be successful?

Ans: Let's see what they decide. There are various issues. But we just need a hook. Then what are the key areas? Water, energy, health, agriculture and biodiversity. The hooks are there. What has been discussed there? Just that strong the hook is. Suppose, I just have a general statement: We shall increase the proportion of renewable energy. It's a very big hook and there are many stronger hooks. In addition to that if they give timetable that we want to produce that by 2003. That's a new stronger hook. On top of that, they also talk about resources. That's a far stronger hook. So it's the question of degree, but the hooks are there.

So programmes and their implementation depend on how much the hook is strong, on which we all the core global partners, on water and sanitation, on energy, on health and environment, on agriculture and biodiversity can rely. And that has been really discussed and debated here. So let us see that, in terms of outcome.

I think the PrepCom has succeeded in identifying the ideas. It has succeeded in placing the clear

focus on anti-poverty agenda, on the environment agenda. The PrepCom has succeeded in identifying the key issues, water, sanitation, energy for people, access to energy, help increase agricultural productivity, land and water management. That's are prime issues have been identified.

Ques: Nitin, as a seasoned UN executive, you know whatever be the political declaration, whatever be the Bali Commitment, ultimately at the end of the day all depends on the quality of implementation. Do you think this time, you are also addressing the whole question of implementation?

Ans. The quality of implementation depends on how stronger the hook is. Think of the hook, on which the implementation programmes will be designed. The programmes will be designed at the country level, regional level and international level. And the stronger the hook is the clearer is the guidance for the programme design.

The second issue is fund, the resources. This time, all has been changed. We have received commitment. We have got commitment in Monterrey in March. The EU has committed and increases its overseas development assistances. They will raise their assistance, in additional seven to eight billion dollars by 2006. The US has committed to increase their assistance by five billion dollars extra by 2006. In total 12 to 13 billion dollars extra.

So the money has been committed in Monterrey. Now we are looking at programme design, which has a clear goal. We are looking for programmes which would be implemented by utilizing the committed resources. The programmes should be connected with the overall goals of poverty reduction. Even we have to consider the child mortality issue. You see, the mortality of children is there because of poor water, poor sanitation. That's a good strong hook. If you provide water, sanitation it will address child mortality.

Ques: So, you are more or less satisfied with the progress of work in this PrepCom?

Ans: I think we already have enough progress. Let us see, what comes in the process of few days.

***'So the money has been committed in Monterrey. Now we are looking at programme design, which has a clear goal. We are looking for programmes which would be implemented by utilizing the committed resources. The programmes should be connected with the overall goals of poverty reduction. Even we have to consider the child mortality issue.'***