SIDE EVENT ON ACCOUNTABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION

Implementation and accountability are fundamental challenges confronting improved global environmental governance (GEG). Although there is much debate on GEG ‘reform’, there is a clear need to move beyond organizational tinkering and shift the focus to GEG performance, including the issues of implementation and accountability. Specifically, the idea is to focus on the question: “What are some practical ways in which global environmental governance can be made more accountable and implementation more effective?” This effort will seek to develop a small number of concrete suggestions for incremental improvements that can feed into the Rio+20 agenda.

Senior diplomats, nongovernmental experts and scholars attended the event structured as a brainstorming session intended to raise new and innovative ideas on how to make accountability and implementation a more prominent focus within global environmental governance, particularly in the discussions leading up to the Rio+20 conference. The panel included:

Amb. Carsten Staur (Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Denmark)

Sen. Elizabeth Thompson of Barbados (former Minister of Environment and one of the two Executive Coordinators for Rio+20 appointed by the UN Secretary General)
André Aranha Corrêa do Lago (Ministry of External Relations, Brazil)

Amb. Irene Freudenschuss-Reichi (Director General for Development Cooperation, Austria)

Dr. Asad Khan (Vice Chair of Rio+20 Bureau and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pakistan)

Dr. Bradnee Chambers (Chief of Policy, Division of Environmental Law and Conventions, UNEP)

Prof. Adil Najam (Director, Pardee Center, Boston University)
The Pardee center will draw up a report based on the brainstorming session to be published before the end of April 2011. 


Follow-up the panel debat on March 8, 2011, Prof. Adil Najam and his colleagues have published a brief web report of the event.



Above on the left: The Danish UN ambassador Carsten Staur gives an introduction, on the right an intervention by Sen. Elizabeth Thompson of Barbados (former Minister of Environment and Executive Coordinator in the UNCSD process)



On the left an intervention by Dr. Asad Khan (Vice Chair RIO+20 Bureau, Pakistan), Member of the UNCSD Bureau, and on the right prof. Adil Najam of the Pardee Center is giving a presentation.