seed initiative - seed initiative events

Private Meeting Launching “the seed awards” initiative

January 24th, 2004, 9:45am – 10:30am

World Economic Forum Website

Agenda

Chair: Jose Maria Figueres, Co-CEO, World Economic Forum

Presentation of the seed initiative
Achim Steiner, Director General, IUCN – The World Conservation Union

Comments by invited participants

Frits Schlingemann , European Regional Director, UNEP
Mary Robinson, President, Ethical Globalization Initiative
Ashok Khosla , President, Development Alternatives
Stephan Contius , Head of Division, Federal Ministry of Environment, Germany

Discussion

Round-up by Jose Maria Figueres

Report

The third and final launch event for the seed award initiative took place on Saturday, January 24 as a private meeting during the Annual Meetings of the World Economic Forum. Jose-Maria Figueres , the Co-CEO of the World Economic Forum, kindly agreed to host the event at the Hotel Seehof, adjacent to the Congress Centre of Davos. The meeting was conceptualized as a small gathering of leaders from the private sector and civil society in order to present and discuss the seed awards initiative, and also to explore further partnerships and alliances with other key people and organizations.

Achim Steiner and Jose Maria Figures

Jose Maria Figueres opened the discussion by emphasizing the strong interest the World Economic Forum has in sustainable development issues in general, and the seed awards initiative in particular. “We have decided to support the initiative by hosting these launch events because we feel the seed awards can make a critical contribution towards implementing sustainable development. We like the entrepreneurial spirit of the initiative, and its emphasis on action on the ground.” Figueres also emphasized the commitment of the World Economic Forum to multistakeholder partnerships, and referred to the manifold initiative the Forum has launched in recent years.

Achim Steiner , the Director-General of IUCN-The World Conservation Union, then presented the main outlines of the seed awards initiative. He explained why IUCN has decided to partner with UNEP and Stakeholder Forum: “We were looking for strong and experienced partners to push this important initiative forward. We want to promote real partnerships, partnerships that make a difference on the ground. That takes experience and knowledge – both of which are available in abundance in both partner organizations.” Achim Steiner also announced that the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has expressed strong interest to join the initiative. (Note: Achim Steiner used a powerpoint presentation. The slides are attached to this report.)

Following Achim Steiner's report, Jose Maria Figueres opened the floor to the invited speakers to provide their perspective on the seed awards initiative.

Mary Robinson, President of the Ethical Globalization Initiative and Honorary President of Oxfam, congratulated the founding partners to this timely and important initiative.

Mary Robinson

She argued that it is crucial to start building bridges between the World Economic Forum and the World Social Forum – and that the seed awards initiative can make an important contribution towards achieving this goal. She urged the founding partners to also include human rights as a core issue in the selection of the awardees and the provision of the award services: “Sustainable development means development and environment. Human rights are a core element that we must not forget. It is crucial for development, and for environmental protection.”

Frits Schlingemann, the European Regional Director for UNEP, opened by submitting Klaus Töpfer 's best wishes for the meeting and for the initiative. Klaus Töpfer himself was unfortunately unable to attend the launch events in Davos because of other commitments. However, Frits Schlingemann read a message from Klaus Töpfer.

Ashok Khosla, the President of Development Alternatives, was the third commentator. He also welcome the initiative, but he also urged the founding partners of the seed awards initiative to keep in mind that “partnerships are not a panacea for all the problems we have. Partnerships are strange animals, difficult to put in place, and even more difficult to maintain. Of course, the seed awards initiative will hopefully make a contribution to building successful partnerships. But you should not fall into the trap of thinking that partnerships can do everything.” Ashok Khosla also argued that partnerships are often used as excuses by governments not to take action. The seed awards initiative should be careful to make sure that understand that partnerships can only be complementary to government action. Khosla also emphasized that we need more hard thinking about partnerships. He maintained that there is too much fuzzy thinking in the debate. “We have to be careful to see when partnerships are viable – i.e. when the interests of business, civil society, and governments actually match – and when they are not.”

Stephan Contius, Head of Division at the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, was the fourth and final commentator. Stephan Contius emphasized the strong interest of the German government in the initiative, and explained: “Our goal in supporting the seed awards initiative is to generate social investment in environment and development. We don't think the Johannesburg talk about partnerships alone will help us moving things forward. We need action on the ground.”

In the ensuing discussion, various participants expressed their strong interest in and support of the seed awards initiative. Richard Bellhouse from the Disaster Resource Network noted that he sees great value in such an initiative, and that he sees scope for fruitful collaboration. Claude Martin from the World Wildlife Federation cautioned that there already are many award schemes, and that he would hope the seed awards initiative would make a contribution above and beyond “just giving away another prize.” However, Maritta Koch-Weser , President of Earth 3000, argued that she sees no particular problem with adding another award scheme:” There are more than six billion people on this planet. I don't think there is a problem with having another mechanism to award best practice.” At the same time she noted that certainly the entrepreneurial aspect and the emphasis on action are the two most important and most interesting feature of the new scheme, and that the founding partners should make sure they are properly developed and implemented. Peter Eigen from Transparency International noted his strong interest in the initiative, and referred to TI's long experience in working in cross-sectoral partnerships in their national chapters. He urged the partners also to include transparency and anti-corruption work as one element in their program strategy. Shamil Idriss from Search for the Common Ground equally expressed his interest in and support of the initiative, and emphasized the need to gain more experience and best practice in working in partnerships. Patricia Lewis from UNIDIR commented that she sees great scope for collaboration with the seed awards initiative.

In closing the meeting, Achim Steiner emphasized the hope of the founding partners to stay in touch with all participants to explore the scope for collaboration in the future.

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Remarks by Frits Schlingemann, on behalf of Dr Klaus Töpfer

UNEP welcomes the opportunity to join the IUCN and Stakeholder Forum in launching this partnership initiative, which was submitted as a Type II partnership proposal at WSSD. We are looking forward to working with Partnerships Central and the Global Public Policy Institute as collaborating partners in providing services to award winners. We thank the German Government for its support in helping us to plant the seed for starting this partnership initiative. We are looking forward to the support of other governments in helping us to plant more seeds for partnership development.

In addition, we also welcome the support of the Secretary-General's Global Compact and its core agencies, notably the United Nations Development Programme. Our co-operation is critical if we wish to pool our resources in making the goals of the Millennium Declaration and the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation happen.

UNDESA reports that about 250 partnerships have been registered with the CSD secretariat to date. We of course know that there are many other partnerships out there in the world, from the global to the local level, to advance different aspects of sustainable development. Yet so much remains to be done. Key goals have been defined in the Millennium Declaration and the Johannesburg Summit documents. Consider the area of water and sanitation , which will be the subject of discussion at UNEP's Global Ministerial Environment Forum in Korea this March and at CSD in April.

The WSSD Plan of Implementation includes the target of reducing by half, by the year 2015, the proportion of people who are unable to reach or to afford safe drinking water and the proportion of people who do not have access to basic sanitation. The combination of irresponsible management of water and population growth has contributed to a health crisis. 1.3 billion people do not have access to drinking water, 2 billion do not have water treatment, and 4 billion are not connected to a water treatment system. Water contaminated with malaria, diarrhoea, dengue fever and other diseases is responsible for the deaths of 5 million people per year, far more than AIDS.

How much more can be accomplished through the partnership approach in addressing these challenges? And when we say “partnership”, what does that mean. It means a voluntary commitment made by a group of different stakeholders, which include a variety of social and business entrepreneurs . Important is the relationship of trust between these partners, partners that are often of very different sizes and background. This may involve a multinational company working with a local women's organisation, and local business entrepreneur working with an international NGO, a local hospital working with a labour union and international organisation. It involves bottom-up co-operation where we build “the business case” for sustainable development the local level. UNEP has seen many fruitful experiences of this kind in its Rural Energy Enterprise Development (REED) Programme.

WSSD in Johannesburg 2002 showed the willingness of business to become involved in the partnership approach. The Summit confirmed that business needs to be part of the solution, as opposed to ten years earlier where business was seen as part of the problem. Of the partnership initiatives registered at CSD over a third of these have governments as leading partners. Many are also led by stakeholder organisations and UN agencies. Most important is that leadership is a shared one that involves all key partners in an open and transparent manner. Added to this, it is crucially important that we ensure active involvement of the private sector.

I again wish to thank our partner organisations, supporting governments and fellow UN bodies for their involvement in The Seed Initiative, with its award, partnership services, research and learning. I am convinced that it can make a significant contribution in helping many entrepreneurs out there to plant their seeds and nurture their seedlings, to turn their innovative proposals into real partnerships in support of the Millennium Development Goals and the goals of the World Summit.

Thank you.