Development and Co-operation Programme - [03/12/2008]

The organisation headed by nobel peace prize winner Wangari Muta Maathai participates in a seminar in Barcelona on sustainable development

On 3 March, Enric Royo, Coordinator of the CIDOB Foundation's Development Programme, took part in the seminar “Sustainable Development and Climate Change in a Global World”. The event, which was organised by the Advisory Council for Sustainable Development , took place as a complementary activity to the signing of an agreement between the Department of the Vice-Presidency and the organisation the Green Belt Movement . This body was chosen - through the SOSxCO2 Programme - to receive the funds calculated to compensate for the greenhouse gas emissions produced by the aforementioned Department. In his address, Royo stressed the fact that although international organisations have, to a greater or lesser extent, introduced the environment onto their agendas as a priority issue, it continues to be viewed as antagonistic and counterproductive to economic development and growth. It is particularly necessary to organise and simplify the institutional architecture and international funding in the sphere of the environment, at the same time as strengthening the role played by organised civil society. Royo declared that in order to guarantee true transversal political commitment in this area, priority should be given to work done in the field of education rather than to awareness-raising, in order that the resulting change in mentality will be internalised, producing the necessary behavioural changes. Furthermore, the area of the environment should be de-technified by promoting the work of the community, so as to encourage citizens to appropriate the areas of environmental media and decisions. He also stressed the need for coherence in policies such as the route that should to be followed to take us beyond occasional, limited development corporation actions, and championed the idea of increasing the demand for introducing departmental sustainability as a transversal axis that will permeate all development actions.

The seminar also included participation by representatives of the Catalan government, as well as non-governmental organisations from the environmental sphere, United Nations, and the prize-winning organisation the Green Belt Movement, headed by the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Wangari Muta Maathai.

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