The New World Dialogue: Promoting Sustainable Development in the Western Hemisphere

Abstract

During 1991, the New World Dialogue, a group of private crtizens from 12 countries, came to terms on a Compact for a New World—a set of complementary initiatives that address two of the world's most pressing needs: how to protect the environment and how to spur sustamable develop ment in developing countries. The New World Dialogue demonstrates that citizens engaged in a nongovernmental negotiating effort can transcend their regional differences and arrive at a version of the long-sought but elusive North/South bargain. If adopted by governments, this package of mutual commitments and trade-offs on forests, energy, pollution, poverty, popula tion, technology, trade, and financing would spur the transition to sustainable development throughout the Western Hemisphere. The Compact's carefully crafted initiatives simultaneously address environmental protec tion and underdevelopment, while calling for the reciprocal actions and commitments needed to win broad-based political support in nations North and South. In the conviction that environmental degradation and underde velopment can only be solved together-and cannot be solved at all without sustained international cooperation-Dialogue members are urging their governments to reach agreements like those recommended in the Compact during the UNCED negotiating process and beyond.