World Sustainability Hearing at the Rio+10 Summit
Johannesburg, South Africa, August 26 - September 2, 2002

 

Daily Schedule: Day of Energy and Climate Justice Mon., August 26, 2002 » Summary of Findings Day of Forests, Indigenous, and Forest-Dependent Peoples Tue., August 27, 2002 » Summary of Findings Day of Oceans, Lakes, Waterways, and Fisher People Wed., August 28, 2002 » Summary of Findings Day of Poverty, Human Rights, Women, and Youth Thu., August 29, 2002 » Summary of Findings Day of Hunger, Agriculture, Water, and Food Security Fri., August 30, 2002 » Summary of Findings Day of Democratic Governance and Corporate Accountability Sat., August 31, 2002 » Summary of Findings Presentation of Hearing Findings to the World Summit at NGO Press Conference Sun., September 1, 2002 » Press Release Click here for details...

hanks to the hard work, funding and enthusiastic participation by so many great individuals, foundations and partnering organizations around the globe, the World Sustainability Hearing in Johannesburg was a resounding success!

As documented in the detailed program and summary Findings linked to at the right, over 110 people from over 40 countries participated as eminent panelists and grassroots witnesses, providing six full days of testimony on the real state of our world at the beginning of the 21st century.  They told stories of what they see happening in their communities around the globe.  They described their research and analysis of the critical issues of our time.  They revealed their hopes and fears for the future.  They discussed what we need to do now and assessed the obstacles that stand in our way.   

Hearing participants included 16 Goldman Environmental Prize winners and Ashoka Fellows, Dr. Jane Goodall, Dr. Robert Watson, former Chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,  the Presidents of Worldwatch Institute, World Resources Institute, the Chair of Friends of the Earth International, Dr. Vandana Shiva and many, many others. 

The Hearing proceedings received substantial press, radio and television coverage by local and international news organizations  including Reuters, BBC television and BBC Worldwide Service, Taiwan Television, the South African Broadcast Corporation radio and TV, and CNN. 

The Hearing Findings were presented to the World Summit and world press at a press conference in the Sandton Convention Center, the UN World Summit site, on Sunday, September 1, 2002.

Why Was the Hearing Organized?

The World Sustainability Hearing was  organized as a parallel event at the Johannesburg summit in August, 2002 because we are now at a crisis point in world governance.

In the view of many people around the world, powerful special interests have blocked forward progress toward the sustainable, socially just world envisioned at the Rio conference ten years ago.

The Hearing was a forum for people from around the world whose interests were otherwise unrepresented at the Summit in any meaningful way. They testified about what their world is like, what has and has not been done locally, and by governments and corporations in the past decade. They asked that world governments represent all the people rather than favoring powerful, short-sighted interests which are said to benefit the public but really don't. They asked that world governments at last take real action to confront problems now growing more critical each day, rather than generate empty rhetoric and unenforceable agreements in lieu of governance.

The Hearing had four major goals:

• To inject a sense of reality and urgency to the Summit by bringing delegates face to face with the people enmeshed in the critical problems that need to be addressed.
  
• To provide an independent, civil society accounting of what has and has not been done by governments and corporations over the last decade.
  
• To present authentic views, from the ground level, of the state of the world, and hear how critical global trends are affecting people's lives and communities.
  
• To learn about the international and local approaches that have worked — and those that have not — and to clearly identify lingering problems and highlight promising solutions.

In addition to organizing and coordinating the Hearings at the Johannesburg meeting, the World Sustainability Hearings Project is acting as a clearinghouse for follow-up activities, materials and events that tools and media products for people and communities to share, network, and leverage their experiences with a variety of sustainability issues. These form the basis for the Project's ongoing programmatic work in providing marginalized people and communities with technical capacity and logistical support for engaging in sustainability-related policy processes at local, national, regional, and international levels.