General Assembly - UN Documents
General Assembly - UN Documents
General Assembly - UN Documents
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A/CONF.216/PC/2<br />
security, climate change, the global economic crisis, and poverty and the<br />
Millennium Development Goals. These crises are interlinked and call for a<br />
sustainable development perspective.<br />
5. In practical terms, the consensus on sustainable development calls for<br />
international cooperation and national leadership to achieve a convergence between<br />
the three pillars of sustainable development — economic development, social<br />
development and environmental protection — in particular by accelerating the<br />
upward convergence in living standards around the globe and bringing about a swift<br />
downward convergence of environmental impacts.<br />
6. The assessment presented in this report is situated firmly within this vision. It<br />
focuses not simply on the three individual pillars, but on the convergence between<br />
them. It examines not only outcomes, but also coherence among national and<br />
international policies and institutional structures. This focus on integration,<br />
coherence and convergence is consistent with the views of Member States in their<br />
submissions on the desirability of holding the United Nations Conference on<br />
Sustainable Development; many States used the terms “coherence” or “integration”<br />
to refer to the value added by sustainable development.<br />
7. The report uses this assessment to review the state of the art on the issues<br />
outlined in the <strong>General</strong> <strong>Assembly</strong> resolution: the impact of emerging challenges; the<br />
potential role of the green economy for sustainable development and poverty<br />
eradication; and institutions for sustainable development.<br />
III. State of implementation and remaining gaps<br />
8. The assessment contained in the present report offers four yardsticks to<br />
measure progress on sustainable development since 1992: “separate”, i.e., changes<br />
in indicators of each of the three dimensions of sustainable development; “joint”,<br />
i.e., movement towards convergence between these dimensions; “commitments”,<br />
i.e., fulfilment of international and national commitments; and “contextual”,<br />
i.e., progress in comparison with the longer term challenge.<br />
9. Traditionally, assessment of progress towards sustainable development has<br />
followed the structure of the chapters of Agenda 21, 3 which corresponds broadly<br />
with the three pillars of sustainable development. The website of the Division for<br />
Sustainable Development (www.un.org/esa/dsd) of the Department of Economic and<br />
Social Affairs of the Secretariat maintains a continuously updated matrix that charts<br />
global progress in terms of key indicators under each chapter of Agenda 21. On<br />
poverty and the social pillar in particular, information on Millennium Development<br />
Goals indicators has been tracked since 1990 and is described in detail in the report<br />
of the Secretary-<strong>General</strong> for the high-level plenary meeting of the <strong>General</strong> <strong>Assembly</strong><br />
on the Millennium Development Goals in September 2010 (A/64/665).<br />
A. Progress on the three pillars<br />
10. Overall, the trends are mixed. While progress has been made on the economic<br />
front and in the amelioration of poverty in some regions, the dividends have been<br />
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3 Ibid., annex II.<br />
10-30256<br />
5