Financing for Sustainable Development

The goal of sustainable development is a difficult one to begin with. Without the availability of adequate sources of financing it will remain an elusive one as well. At the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio, financing and technology transfer were the two ‘cross-cutting issues’ pressed by the South. A decade later, in 2002, they continue to provide central themes for the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) process. A UN Conference on Financing for Development (FfD) ws convened in Monterrey - again, reputedly at the behest of developing countries - to focus directly on financing. This highlighted the absence of creative thinking on the issue of financing, and on the challenges of globalisation. It argues that there is a crisis of legitimacy confronting the agencies and actors involved in development processes and presents some ideas and approaches which could usefully be acted upon in preparation for WSSD.