Phase two

Article by Tony Best

If the world’s developing countries get their way, the United Nations will convene a second global conference in Barbados in 2014 to address the key environmental, social and economic issues facing small island states.
A proposal for the Bridgetown meeting will be on the agenda of next month’s second Earth Summit in Brazil and should the 132 leaders of UN member-states who are due to attend the Rio+ 20 UN Conference endorse the call, thousands of government officials, experts, representatives of national, regional and international environmental organizations and academic institutions interested in the sustainable development of the world’s small states in the Caribbean, Africa, Asia and elsewhere will flock to Barbados.
Elizabeth Thompson, a former Barbados Minister of Energy who is now an executive coordinator for the Rio +20 Conference and holds the rank of a UN assistant secretary general, told the DAILY NATION that the request for a second Small Island Developing States (SIDS) session is to be included in the draft “outcome document” for Brazil that is now being negotiated at the world body’s headquarters in New York.
Read the full story in today’s DAILY NATION.