Today marks 22 years since world leaders gathered in Johannesburg and adopted the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI) and the Johannesburg Declaration. That momentous occasion on September 4, 2002, was the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD).
It was the Johannesburg Summit which put sustainable development at the centre of the international agenda and at the outset called for global partnership to achieve the objectives of sustainable development and reinvigorate the global commitment to a North-South partnership.
Johannesburg called for a higher level of international solidarity and co-operation and correctly reaffirmed sustainable development as a central element of the global action against poverty and the protection of the environment with linkages between poverty, the environment, and economic prosperity.
Embracing the theme of People, Planet and Prosperity, world leaders were urged to act together to foster poverty eradication, human development, and environmental protection.
We recall the declaration of the WSSD, which stated that from the African continent, the cradle of humankind, we solemnly pledge to the peoples of the world and the generations that will surely inherit this Earth that we are determined to ensure that our collective hope for sustainable development is realised.
