Brazil launches online multistakeholder dialogues for Rio+20
25 April 2012
The Government of Brazil, as host of the June 2012 UN
Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20), has opened nine online thematic
"Sustainable Development Dialogues" to generate ideas and set the stage for the civil society
discussions to be held in Rio de Janeiro from 16-19 June 2012, immediately preceding UNCSD. The
Dialogues are grouped under the following themes: oceans; food and nutritional security;
sustainable development for fighting poverty; sustainable development as an answer to the economic
and financial crises; sustainable energy for all; water; the economics of sustainable development;
sustainable cities and innovation; and unemployment, decent work and migration.
The aim of the multistakeholder dialogue process is to encourage NGOs and the academic, civil
society and business communities to discuss and identify practical ideas, in order to then form
various partnerships, coalitions and initiatives that can help governments, especially those of
developing countries, deliver the vision for sustainable development that government leaders will
set out in their official Summit declaration. To help initiate discussions, the World Economic
Forum’s (WEF) Network of Global Agenda Councils have offered their analyses of key issues and
suggested action ideas for each of the nine dialogue themes. The compilation of their responses was
released on 17 April 2012 by WEF in an informal discussion paper titled:
The Rio+20 Multistakeholder Dialogues:
First Reactions from World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council Experts
