Review of the Regional Strategy on SCP and the
Building up of the Action Plan for a 10 year period
48. Four work group2 meetings took place during the assembly. In sessions 1 to 3 they formed six work groups, one for each sub region, with the respective government representatives, and two more groups of other key actors: one for the private sector and another for the NGO’s and the academia.
49. The groups were conformed as following(3):
Group 1: The Caribbean sub region
Group 2: Mesoamerica sub region
Group 3: The Andes sub region
Group 4: The Southern Tip sub region
Group 5: ONG’s representatives
Group 6: The private sector and CNPL representatives
50. Each group agreed on designing a Coordinator, responsible for administering the established time for the discussion and the production of results in each session; organizing the discussion and promoting all group member participation; exposing the group work outcomes in the respective plenary sessions and handing them to the Meeting Organization Committee.
51. The main objectives of these two-work group sessions were: To review, evaluate and strengthen the Regional Strategy on SCP; to identify priorities, expected results and indicators at sub regional and regional levels, and to identify cooperation ways with other agents and institutions.
52. After the three work sessions, the groups presented their specific action plans on SCP, outlining in each of them the priority areas, expected results, activities, responsible units, and cooperation needs.
Group 1. The Caribbean
The group identified priority areas in the economy of tourism services, finance and ecosystems (mangroves, coral reefs, beaches for turtle protection, bird sanctuary); diversification of energy sources, food security; support to SandMEs; just commerce, climate change, water and territorial ordering. They also mentioned institutional aspects, such as financing, enforcement, social participation, regulatory framework, public and private cooperation at bilateral and sub regional levels, and the institutional strengthening, as a starting point.
Group 2. Mesoamerica
This group identified 11 priority areas: national policies, institutional strengthening, strengthening of the Experts Council, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, strengthening of abilities in the finance sector; sensitization campaigns to the community; execution of projects on SCP; application of economic instruments; integrated waste management programmes; post consumption responsibility, and information toolkits.
Group 3. The Andes Region
The Andes sub region based its priority areas on the Environmental Agenda for the region, identifying the following for SCP: to promote the preparation of policies, national strategies and action plans on SCP, integrated to other governmental areas; to promote the strengthening and development of abilities on SCP (public, private, NGOs, academia, finance sector, general community); to promote the strengthening of the regulatory framework on SCP; to strengthen the Government Experts Council on SCP, to foster cooperation to execute pilot projects in order to develop and assess methodologies on SCP; to support the design and implementation of post consumption responsibility strategies.
Group 4. The Southern Tip
This group was formed by the country members of MERCOSUR (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) plus Chile, who is an associate member. They stated 8 priority areas: integration of productive, environmental and social policies; promotion of dialogues and public and private cooperation; promotion of SCP practice in public and private sectors; Innovation oriented to incorporate SCP on goods and services; inclusion of SCP in systems of formal and non-formal education; production and offering of information on SCP; development of capacities and interchange on SCP; and promotion of a preventive attitude social and environmental responsible for the productive sector.
Group 5: Non Governmental Organizations
After pointing out the importance of participating for the first time in decision- making groups as the Experts Council, they identify two priority groups, one to design policies and the other for cooperation and capacity development. As for the first case, the priorities were: to promote along with the citizens’ participation the building up of policies, national strategies and action plans on SCP, integrating all governmental levels; to strengthen with the citizens’ participation the organizing framework, as a supporting axis; and to strengthen the Council of Experts and enlarge it involving other important actors from the society. For the second point, they identified as priorities: To improve capacities and knowledge on SCP; to strengthen the financial sector capacities; to design and execute a training programme of horizontal cooperation and technical assistance on SCP; to promote information mechanisms and educate the consumer to have sustainable life styles.
Group 6: The Industrial Sector
The priorities identified by the group were: to build up integrated policies on SCP, emphasizing the incentive production; to strengthen public and private instances of dialogue, understanding and cooperation and to promote institutional growth and capacity development on SCP; to strengthen the organizing framework for SCP; to identify priority areas for SCP by means of a systemic and scientific foundation; to improve capacities and knowledge on SCP for micro, small and medium enterprises; to develop finance tools to promote SCP by means of training the financial sector; to design and execute training and technical assistance programmes; to organize ethical and informative campaigns; to incorporate SCP in the educational system at all levels; to execute demonstration projects to develop and assess implementation tools on SCP; to develop and put to practice economic tools to promote SCP; to support the design and implementation of working systems in priority sectors; to support the development responsibility strategies extended from the producer to the consumer; and to promote market tools to motivate supply and demand of sustainable goods and services through demonstration projects.
53. Starting from a common political framework defined by ILAC, the Regional Strategy, the 12/ 03 and 12/ 07 decisions by the Fifteenth Meeting of the Forum of Ministers and the background of the Experts Council, each sub region built up its action plan on SCP (see Annex III) according to its priorities, needs, reality and availability of technical, human and economic sources, considering, along with them, the on - going activities at the sub regional level.
54. The set of the four action plans prepared constitutes the Regional Action Plan on SCP, which allows each sub region to direct its efforts to the topics of the most specific interests. In this way, the aim goes toward reaching a bigger connection among the activities developed in each sub region with its respective countries, and using the sources more efficiently. They also identified the following common areas for the four sub regions, and agreed on joining efforts to take advantage of the impact of the activities in the whole region:
a) The National Dialogue Table open and with the participation of all sectors of the society;
b) The Small and Medium Enterprises,
c) The sustainable public purchases.
d) The national policies and strategies on SCP
e) The regional information network on SCP
55. As mentioned before, the general priority framework for the region is set by The Latin American and Caribbean Initiative for Sustainable Development (ILAC, for its Spanish initials) and its Regional Action Plan (PAR, also for its spanish initials), as a mechanism for its implementation. The Action Plan on Sustainable Consumption and Production defined and agreed at the Fourth Meeting of the Experts Council, constitutes in this way, the group of activities on SCP that will be included as part of the PAR ILAC for the period 2008-2009 and the following.
56. This action plan on SCP for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) constitutes a regional government proposal, for they have accepted the responsibility and commitment to go forward with the idea, by means of their highest authorities on the environmental topic. However, it is important to point out the participation of representatives from different NGO’s, universities, companies, and cleaner production centers in the building of the plan. This allowed them to enrich the initial proposal and give and additional value in the Marrakech Process framework, where they have emphasized the need to go deeper in the dialogue forums with the involved parties. Yet, the dialogue and consultation processes do not end there, for each sub region identified as its priority, the need of public-private cooperation and the dialogue to build and put into practice the SCP policies, so that they expect the strengthening of participation mechanisms at a national level in Latin American and the Caribbean region.
57. The action plan is designed as a flexible tool, so that it can allow the immediate application of at least some actions, focusing them in those areas where short-term outcomes can be observed. At the same time, they can identify medium and long-term objectives.
Dostları ilə paylaş: |
