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UN Sustainable Tourism Task Force Meets in Paris
Wednesday, 07 Feb, 2010
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10 year Marrakesh process establishes two sustainable tourism partnerships.
Last week the final meeting of the UN Task force on Sustainable Tourism was held in the royal setting of Chantilly forest near Paris. Hosted by the French government and led by UNEP and the UNWTO. Writes Gordon Sillence
This was a follow-up of the10 year Marrakesh process on sustainable consumption and production, and has resulted in the establishment of a UN Type II Partnership under the name of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Tourism.
Type II Partnerships were set up to be the implementing mechanism of the World Summit on Sustainable Developments’ (WSSD) plan of implementation (www.un.org/esa/dsd/dsd_aofw_par/par_index.shtml).
At the time of the WSSD over 220 partnerships were in formation. This number has now risen to 348, but back then, thousands of partnerships were envisaged in order to further Agenda 21 and the WSSD plan. This begs the question of what has been achieved at the governmental level in the 8 years since the WSSD in the field SCP, and particularly in the tourism sector.
At that time France’s Jacques Chirac gave the concluding Johannesburg statement that stressed we needed to act on the WSSD plan of implementation as if “the house was on fire” (and, at that time global warming wasn’t the hot topic it is now …).
This partnership draws together 18 countries that have been involved in the process to this point, plus a range of NGOs and some business organisations.
It aspires to become the leading global force to bring governments and other stakeholders together to develop the much-needed framework of programmes for action on sustainable consumption and production in the tourism sector.
At the two day meeting it was recognised that this is an excellent initiative with a global vision and powerful players on board, but it was also seen as a government oriented, top-down process that still needs to secure both core funding and project funding as France starts to take a back seat, and is doing a job that governments and administrations have already been charged to do during the WSSD.
The Paris talks showed that this partnership is in danger of starting from scratch and reinventing the wheel unless it builds on initiatives that already exist. For example, a Google search on global partnership for sustainable tourism will pull up another Type II partnership called the Tourism Sustainability Council (TSC), which is already linked to this initiative, as is the DestiNet Type II partnership that has established the Sustainable Tourism Portal and Communications system (www.destinet.eu).
All three partnerships are looking for core funding, and naturally deal with common themes, although emphasis may vary – this partnership claims to be targeting government stakeholders, which is what the TSC actually needs to add to its long list of existing partners. Although there is room for all these and many more partnership formations, stakeholders need to be aware that much more can be done on this subject if we can find true collaboration processes that really do make the best use of scarce resources for the common good, rather than competing for the same resources to enhance organisational influence or personal initiatives.
For more information on history of the Task Force and its transition to a Type II Partnership please see www.unep.fr/scp/marrakech/taskforces/tourism.htm
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