One of the defining moments for sustainable development has been the United Nations Conference on

Environment and Development (UNCED) that was held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The Rio conference
came twenty years after its predecessor conference in Stockholm. UNCED gave birth to a number of
international instruments that continue to provide the framework for sustainable development. This
included the groundbreaking Agenda 21, which offered a practical approach to applying sustainable
development policies at the local and national level, and the Rio Declaration on Environment and
Development.

Agenda 21 (and the original Rio Earth Summit more generally) brought the concept of sustainable
development into common parlance if not making it a household phrase. It had a strong influence on
the language of subsequent international agreements and documents (such as WTO preamble, the Cairo
agenda on population (1994), the Social Summit outcome (1995), the Beijing Women’s Conference
(1995), the Habitat agenda (1996), the Rome Food Summit (1996)

one clear and positive impact of Agenda 21 has been to help put the concept of sustainable human
development at the heart of development, as opposed to more technology-oriented “solutions” in the
so-called “development decades” of the 1960s and 1970s (for example, strategies based on rapid
industrialisation and large-scale agricultural projects).

Arguably, Agenda 21’s biggest success has come through driving ambition on what sustainable
outcomes are achievable on a sector by sector basis. For example, our understanding of biodiversity, of
the contribution that agriculture makes to development or of the role of indigenous peoples in society,
has been advanced in no small part through Agenda 21.

Success on Agenda 21 has been highly variable. Despite being a comprehensive plan to deliver
sustainable development, implementation has not always been systemic. However, there are good
examples of where Agenda 21 has achieved positive and lasting outcomes.

This includes promoting a greater granularity in demographics for analysis and decisions. For example,
Agenda 21 helped bring the gender dimension in all development work and beyond, including gender-
differentiated official statistics.

Agenda 21 was the first UN document to identify roles and responsibilities for stakeholders

Another issue is that some sectors were not included in Agenda 21. This broke the all-encompassing
nature of the document. For example, energy and mining are key sectors that were not included as
individual chapters. Moreover, key issues would today be more prominent than their space in Agenda
21, for example transport and waste flows.

For example, globally, consumption and production patterns remain unsustainable. Although resource
use has significantly reduced per unit of global economic output over the last 25 years3 (by around 30
per cent). Globally we are using around 50 per cent more natural resources than we were over the same
time period. Furthermore, this resources consumption is distributed inequitably. North American per
capita consumption is around 90 kg of resources per day, around 45 kg per day for Europeans and
around 10 kg per day for people in Africa

Despite a number of initiatives and increasing levels of awareness and discussion surrounding
sustainable consumption and production (SCP), the world has seen extremely little if any progress, in
regard to reaching the objectives outlined in Chapter 4. The Ecological Footprint of the global population
has increased by over a third since the production of Agenda 21.

Whilst production systems have become more efficient, the patterns of consumption appear to have
become more unsustainable, supported and exacerbated by the globalisation of production, with very
little in terms of national policies and strategies to encourage changes in unsustainable consumption
patterns.

While some progress has been made around Chapter 9 – protection of the atmosphere – on the front of
ozone depletion, greenhouse gas emissions and other atmospheric pollutants remain a huge and
growing problem.

Chapter 7 – human settlement development – lacks progress. While there are some good examples of
progressive urban policy, the socio-economic inequalities and negative environmental issues within
many urban areas remain widespread in both developing and developed countries, and slum
populations are still rising.

Agenda 21 also failed to adequately address the institutional structures. It underestimated the inertia
and resistance of institutional structures at all levels. These issues included siloisation, bias against
developed country representation in rule-making, focus of politicians on “development first” and a
disconnect between different levels of government.

Agenda 21 did not address the interconnectedness of the various goals, because it was not “allowed” to
examine the economic system itself. Nor did it explore the fundamental drivers of sectoral and inter-
country outcomes, which include: • the role of corporations, and multi-national corporations (MNCs) in
particular; • the role and impacts of trade and globalisation; • the role of international economic
governance in helping steer the whole system; • the importance given to future generations in everyday
policy-making.

Conclusions

Twenty years after the Earth Summit, Agenda 21 retains strong relevance, and remains the most
comprehensive undertaking by the UN system to promote sustainable development. While there are
some gaps in coverage, the issues that humanity is struggling with now are more or less similar those
covered by the chapters of Agenda 21. However, while Agenda 21 has acquired considerable coverage
amongst nation states, its implementation remains far from universal or effective. Progress has been
patchy, and despite some elements of good practice most Agenda 21 outcomes have still not been
realised.