`Partnerships are instruments of change'

Interview with Nitin Desai, Secretary-General, World Summit for Sustainable Development.

``If at Rio the attention was on the way people thought about development, at Johannesburg, 10 years later, it is on how they are going to act on development. There is a greater recognition that you cannot isolate environmental problems from development policy,'' said Nitin Desai, Secretary-General, World Summit for Sustainable Development. Saying that much more needs to be done to strengthen national regimes, he thinks much has been achieved since Rio to strengthen global regimes.

``What we are trying to do here is to shift from a very broad notion of sustainable development and focus on areas such as sustainable energy, sustainable agriculture and sustainable tourism. We are looking for strategic interventions, and the key lies in having more local autonomy and local initiatives,'' says Desai.

Desai spoke to Asha Krishnakumar and a small group of South Asian journalists in Johannesburg on the issues thrown up at the WSSD, and his assessment of the progress made at Johannesburg. Excerpts:

What is your assessment of the WSSD?

The focus is on substance and commitments to action... less on lofty concepts and follows a down-to-earth approach. The U.S. has made ODA (Overseas Development Assistance) commitments to the tune of $5 billion, apart from its earlier commitment. The over 300 Type-II partnerships announced between governments, NGOs and business is considerable. There is a lot of movement forward in reaching basic resources such as water, sanitation and modern energy to the poor.

But there is a general worry that these partnerships would undermine the multilateral process and allow governments to abdicate their responsibilities?

Those who are worried need not be part of these partnerships. It should be clear that these are only a substitute to government action and would be linked to the latter. They are instruments of change. What is done officially touches only a small proportion of those who need it. Governments can give the broad policy framework. But beyond that industry should come in. You do not lose anything. Public commitments are there, on funding, technology and the policy framework. This is only an additional step of co-opting industry that would make commitments for resources.

This is also a way of bringing corporates into the system and trying to change how they behave. Also, it must be remembered that the concept of partnership originated not from corporates, but from NGOs. What good they have done at the local level are to be replicated broadly. The capacity for innovation at the local level is to be tapped. There are lots happening at the experimental level. These need to be done to a scale. This does not mean that public resources are stopping. At Monterrey (the venue of the International Conference on Financing for Development in March 2002), the donor governments have committed $13 billion more to the U.N.

Why do you think these partnerships are good? What commitments do you expect from the corporates in Type-II partnerships?

First, commitment to resources, which are fairly large. The second important thing is that they are not-for-profit partnerships. Concessional resources, in the form of grant assistance, are being pledged. We are trying to bring the corporates into a framework where it is not only profits that matter. Millions of people from outside the corporate sector are to be involved in this. Several inter-governmental bodies are to be part of this. The biggest positive outcome of partnerships is that there will now be a lot of interaction between local level organisations and global best practices. The state and local governments would be significantly involved in this process.

Most important, the mechanism of ODA delivery is such that you have very little say on the policy of the people delivering it. Partnerships would provide the space for all the stakeholders to be involved. This, we hope, would increase the influence and leverage of people using the money.

Type-II partnerships, as they are understood now, are going to be self-regulatory and self-monitoring. It is unclear, vague and free-for-all. This may not augur well for the very principle of sustainable development. Will a monitoring mechanism be put in place?

The best thing about these partnerships is that they will be more specific than general. This makes monitoring easy. There may be a multilateral review of partnerships. It is too early and all these things need to be worked out. There may be a review of international monitoring in place. Most important, there will be public scrutiny. And, hence, the pressure to act.

But will this not lead to governments abdicating their responsibility? The U.S. is keen on partnerships. It has gone back on its 0.7 per cent ODA commitments. All the Rio principles are being rolled back here. Can you call the Summit a success?

To judge the success of the Summit just on the ODA commitment of the U.S. is not right. We now have commitments and we should see to it that they are delivered.

What is the progress made in this Summit?

The big-ticket items of this conference are water and sanitation. Headway has been made in these areas commitments, targets and so on. This is because these are high on the priority list of every country and less controversial, and a lot of legwork has been done in these areas.

Big breakthroughs have been made in the area of energy (renewable energy) as well. Policies and programmes are being discussed at political levels in these areas; the goal of getting the over two billion people out of the modern energy net is important and that is where partnerships come in. Most important is the challenge to follow this up and to see how to inject these policy frameworks into the working of other multilateral institutions such as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and so on.

What would you consider as the major success of the Summit?

If the basic resources such as water, sanitation and modern energy are reached to the poor, I think the Summit would have succeeded. No summit can be tested in isolation. Each one is a step forward. It is a process.

What is the role of the U.N. after the Summit?

This gives a legislative basis for expanding our activities. Broad policy framework would be provided by the U.N. There will also be pressure on developmental lending agencies to follow the framework.