By Stanley Yung
Despite widespread disappointment about the outcome of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) held in Johannesburg last September, it could prove to be a key turning point for sustainable development. The WSSD marks a shift to a more dynamic and results-oriented process for sustainable development, and it may render obsolete the big bang summits like Johannesburg and its predecessor, the Rio Earth Summit.
WSSD's quite modest successes – most notably a water and sanitation initiative – suggest that expensive environmental jamborees held every ten years can be replaced by a virtuous cycle of small-scale successes that spin-off further initiatives for tackling discrete, solvable problems.
While Rio raised high expectations with its vision for sustainable development and its ambitious, if unwieldy, Agenda 21 declaration on environment and development, it failed to specify a workable plan for implementing its grand vision. This inevitably led to a sense of "let down" at the WSSD, which was billed as "Rio plus 10 (years)." No longer the star child, sustainable development now faces life as a grown up.
