Strong South African delegation attend WSSD assessment session in New York

The 13th session of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD 13) is underway from 11/04/05 to 22/04/05 at the United Nations, New York, United States of America where South Africa's government and civil society are joining hands in an effort to influence the world's sustainable development programme.

Preparing for the second week when the Ministerial segment will be held, a team of government senior officials and leaders from labour, local government, civil society and business have started to participate in discussions that will generate the initial proposal on the implementation of a sustainable development programme. Expected to attend in the second week is included Ministers of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Water Affairs and Forestry, Housing and Finance, Western Cape 's MEC of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning, Tasneem Essop and Johannesburg City 's Executive Mayor, Amos Masondo.

"South Africa 's delegation includes stakeholders from the civil society and business sectors whilst Ministers will be supported by senior managers from their respective departments, making the SA team one that anchors its sustainable development approach on partnership between all sectors of society" said Mike Muller, Director General of Department of Water Affairs and Forestry and leader of the officials' delegation. "As custodians of WSSD outcomes, the SA team intends to focus its energies on encouraging a stronger review, monitoring and reporting systems that will inform improved future implementation efforts and therefore the realisation of sustainable development at a global scale" further added Muller as he emphasised that the country's efforts are more on how targets set are being realised instead of renegotiating future plans.

CSD 13 is an intergovernmental forum intended to review the implementation of the world's progress in implementing WSSD outcomes. The first week of CSD 13 will be an official's meeting, which will culminate in the distribution of the Chairperson's 1 st draft negotiating text. The second week will focus on negotiations on the text and the Ministerial segment that will deal with overarching themes of meeting Millennium Development Goals targets as it relates to water, sanitation and human settlement.