The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), which took place in Rio de Janeiro on June 20-22, has been given the moniker “Rio+20” in reference to the amount of time that has passed since the UN historic Rio Earth Summit in 1992. Today, the imperative to come up with sustainable solutions to the world’s development challenges has never been more urgent.
The World Economic Forum’s response has been to convene an extraordinary coalition of government, business, scientific and civil society leaders from diverse issue areas to deliver a message to governments to develop sustainable development policies and invite multistakeholder coalitions to achieve their policy objectives.
The Friends of Rio+20
The Friends of Rio+20 is a high-level group of international business, scientific and civil society leaders from diverse issue areas, convened and supported by the World Economic Forum.
On the occasion of the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), the Friends of Rio+20 developed a message for government leaders, asking them to take two specific actions.
First, to commit to designing economies that put the world on a path to sustainable development, and to developing a clear set of ambitious, universal and equitable global goals for sustainable development fit for the post-2015 development landscape, while also creating the national and regional policies and frameworks needed to accelerate their delivery.
Second, to enable multi-country and multistakeholder coalitions of willing and able actors (including interested national and sub-national governments) to undertake explicit sets of actions now and in the near term to help achieve these goals.
The Friends of Rio have asked government leaders gathered in Rio to engage them and others of like mind. By harnessing their diverse networks, capabilities and insight, multistakeholder coalitions can be mobilized to deliver practical, time-bound actions to help governments achieve key sustainable development goals.
To learn more about the Friends of Rio+20, please contact friendsofrio@weforum.org.