General Assembly - UN Documents

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