In the run-up to the Rio+20 Summit, civil society organizations arranged activities and events to ensure that people across the world would have a voice at the Summit. Read about the June 2012 Rio+20 People’s Summit on their website here.
IfE coordinated several “Equity & Sustainability” activities as part of the Rio+20 People’s Summit process:
* In collaboration with 18 partner organizations, IfE coordinated Equity & Sustainability Field Hearings to ensure that diverse individuals and communities around the world were able to have their voices heard in the Rio+20 process. Cooperating academic programs and civil society groups in many countries conducted interviews, focus groups and public meetings to learn what people are thinking about their future. The responses were then compiled and presented to both the formal Rio+20 Summit in side events, and also at the People’s Summit in an IfE event on 16 June. Click here to learn more about the Field Hearings, and to volunteer to organize meetings in your country.
* IfE coordinated the negotiation of a global Equity Treaty by civil society groups around the world, to both the formal Rio+20 Summit in side events, and also at the People’s Summit in an IfE event on 16 June. Click here to see and sign the Equity Treaty; click here to read about and get involved in the ongoing Equity Action Collaborative to follow through on implementation of the goals spelled out in the Equity Treaty.
* IfE organized an event at the People Summit, with speakers including Tariq Banuri (Tellus Institute; Prof, Univ. of Utah; former head of UNCSD), Olive Shisana (President, International Social Science Council; CEO, Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa), Uchita de Zoysa (Executive Director, Centre for Environment & Development, Sri Lanka), Gaston Meskens (Centre for Ethics and Value Inquiry, Univ. of Ghent, Belgium), and Priscilla Achakpa (Director, Women Environmental Programme, Nigeria). Click here to see a flyer for the 16 June 2012 event: Rio+20 Flyer June 16 2012 Final