Fourth Session of the Preparatory Committee for the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development, May 27-June 7, 2002

Thank you very much Mr. Chairman.

This multi-stakeholder dialogue is a perfect forum to highlight the United States vision for the Summit and the critical role that governments at all levels, non-governmental organizations, the private sector, labor unions, and all other stakeholders must play in making Johannesburg a success.

The United States is committed to the success of the World Summit on Sustainable Development. We believe it provides an important opportunity to build a new, results-oriented vision -- shared by developed and developing countries -- for reducing poverty and fostering sustainable development to improve the lives of millions around the world.

For the Johannesburg Summit to carve a place in history, we must focus our efforts on implementing the sustainable development blueprint that we have established at Rio and in the 10 years since. For Johannesburg to be a success, it should produce concrete results visible to people around the world, not merely high-sounding rhetoric.

The U.S. will work tirelessly to achieve a consensus outcome at the Johannesburg Summit. The Johannesburg Plan of Action should carry forward the Monterrey Consensus and should reflect the internationally agreed development goals, including those in the Millennium Declaration. It should emphasize the importance of good governance -- which includes elements such as transparency, access to information, and the rule of law -- as an essential foundation of sustainable development.

No declaration or plan of action, however, will give people access to drinking water, halt the spread of HIV/AIDS, or ensure access to primary education. That is why this multi-stakeholder dialogue is particularly important. The UN has provided us with a new and potentially extremely useful mechanism to help us achieve our goals for implementing sustainable development. We believe that effective partnerships among governments at all levels, businesses, NGOs, and other stakeholders are the means to deliver concrete results. All of the stakeholders assembled here have a special role in our collective pursuit of sustainable development.

The quality and breadth of the partnerships are a key yardstick for success of the Summit. Johannesburg will be deemed a success if it catalyzes partnerships to implement concrete solutions to sustainable development problems in such key areas as energy, water, health, education, oceans, forests, food security, sustainable agriculture, and rural development. Partnerships, better than any declaration, will demonstrate our commitment to sustainable development and to achieving measurable results.

This type of work is not easy. It requires all of us -- governments, major stakeholder groups, and the UN system -- to modify the way we are accustomed to doing our business in fora like this meeting in Bali . For example, governments need to add new types of experts to our delegations, people who can talk about substantive projects, in addition to those who negotiate texts. We need to create new types of processes in our capitals to build and develop these partnerships. It also requires that we sufficiently develop a blueprint for the partnerships approach that allows us to demonstrate our commitments but is not so prescriptive that it precludes others from joining our efforts.

The U.S. would like to see these partnerships continue well beyond the World Summit. We would hope and expect that partnerships will provide information on their progress and lessons learned. We believe the Commission on Sustainable Development could play a useful role in providing the forum where reports from partnerships could be shared and discussed.