Bridging the Gap between South and North
 
The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) is drawing ever closer - starting August 24th 2002 - yet international environmental policy momentum has slowed to the extent that the summit agenda may be reduced to a review of limited progress on a narrow set of environmental conventions.

The troubled progress of the Kyoto Protocol (on climate change) has further impaired international achievements, illustrating the need for a re-energising of the debate.

The paradigm of environment and sustainable peace is of growing concern for the European Union, several national governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).  Under the umbrella of this term are a number of salient issues and debates such as environmental stress, resource scarcity, poverty, population change, development crises and violent conflict.

To date, the environment and sustainable peace debate has focused heavily on conflict and traditional (and particularly Northern) security concerns arising from population growth and environmental stress.  This focus has not translated easily into a positive practical policy framework for cooperation and environmental peace-making.  It has failed to engage a broad community of stakeholders, particularly in the global South.

Now, arising from a proposal mooted at the Forum's annual meeting in 2000,  the Woodrow Wilson Center,  Adelphi Research, and the Fundación del Servicio Exterior para la Paz y la Democracia (FUNPADEM), San José have launched The Environment, Development and sustainable Peace Initiative (EDSP).  It enjoys financial support from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Co-operation and Development (BMZ) via the German Technical Co-operation Corporation (GTZ) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Co-operation (SDC).
 
Project goals
 
The key goal is to foster new efforts to begin bridging both the knowledge and the policy gap between South and North.
To achieve this, the project has five main areas of activity:

• convening a core group of distinguished practitioners and scholars to develop jointly an environment, development and sustainable peace agenda
• producing a series of policy briefs and case studies
• facilitating a stakeholder-specific media program
• engaging key policymakers and practitioners in a series of policy briefings and dialogues in captials around the world before, during and after WSSD
• initiating an exchange program for policy-makers, civil society groups and scholars to promote better understanding of conflict dynamics and prevention measures and to encourage long-term stable networks between South and North.
   
   

Update:  Latest details are on the new EDSP website: www.sustainable-peace.org