Commission on Sustainable Development
The United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development was a body under the UN Economic and Social Council tasked with overseeing the outcomes of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development/Earth Summit. It was replaced in 2013 by the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, which meets both under the General Assembly every four years and the ECOSOC in other years.
The CSD was established in December 1992 by General Assembly Resolution as a functional commission of the UN Economic and Social Council, implementing a recommendation in of Agenda 21, the landmark global agreement reached at the June 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development/Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
CSD 1
CSD 1, the first or "Organizational" session of the CSD, was held in New York in June 1993. The Organizational Session focused on a broad range of organizational and administrative issues, reflected in topics of the commission's documents :- Budget implications of draft decisions
- Establishing a provisional agenda and a multi-year programme of work
- National reporting on implementation of Agenda 21
- Information exchange: UN System and donors
- UNCED follow-up: international organizations and UN coordination
- Coordination of development data
- Progress in environmentally sound technology transfer
- Government information on financial commitments
- Urgent and major emergent issues
- United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and Agenda 21 implementation
- UNEP and Agenda 21 implementation
- Future work
- Guidelines for national reporting
- Integrating sustainable development into the UN system
CSD 5
In its Fifth Session, the principal focus of the CSD was to prepare for the Five-Year Review of the 1992 Earth Summit, which took the form of the of the General Assembly, held at UN Headquarters in New York.CSD 10/[World Summit on Sustainable Development]
For its Tenth Session the CSD served as the for the, held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in December 2002.''See the full article World Summit on Sustainable Development''
CSD 12
The Twelfth Session of the CSD is the first substantive session since the Johannesburg Summit - CSD-11 was an organizational session that focused on establishing priorities and an agenda for the second ten-year cycle of the commission. Text below in "quotes" is from the introductory note from the chair - H.E. Børge Brende, Norwegian Minister of the Environment to a description of the organization of work during CSD-12CSD 16
The chair was H.E. Francis Nhema, Zimbabwe's Minister of Environment and Tourism.CSD 18
The 18th session took place in New York in May 2010, focusing on transport, chemicals, waste management, mining, and the ten-year framework of programmes on sustainable consumption and production patterns.CSD 19
The 19th session took place in May 2011, as part of the policy cycle from the previous year. No agreement was reached in the negotiations and they eventually collapsed.United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development
CSD 20 was suspended from its normal rotation, planned in 2012 because the General Assembly had resolved to hold the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio as the 20th anniversary to the original conference. United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development would focus on two themes:- Green economy within the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication.
- Institutional framework for sustainable development.
- Securing renewed political commitment to sustainable development.
- Assessing the progress and implementation gaps in meeting already agreed commitments.
- Addressing new and emerging challenges.