The UN World Summit for Sustainable Development was a wasted opportunity to help the poor

What are some of the consequences of the Johannesburg Summit failing to deliver?

Most immediately it means that the thirteen million people in Southern Africa, who are enduring a food crisis caused in part by poor policies of governments and international financial institutions, face neither respite nor real examination of the causes of their plight.

It means a severe tempering of hopes that the World Trade Organisation’s new Development Round will genuinely face up to the changes needed to make international trade a force for poverty reduction.

And expectations for the realisation of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals, which specified targets for improvements in such areas as access to clean water and education, must now come under even greater doubt.

This last week’s deliberations give an added urgency to attempts to renew the way the international community faces up to critical issues such as mass poverty and environmental degradation. It’s clear that these issues need to be tackled at a multilateral level through inter-governmental agreements.

But it’s also clear that the race to the bottom demonstrated by the Summit needs to be reversed. Those governments, which are truly committed to sustainable development, need to work with non-government groups, business, trade unions and others in a genuinely inclusive process to lift expectations.

The sad reality is that the WSSD process offered this sort of approach. But the views of the people were not listened to. A lesson to be drawn from Johannesburg is that the voices of the people need to become even louder. Creating a fairer and sustainable future should indeed be a priority for all.