Wednesday 20 June - Julia!!!

Before we left for Rio+20 we asked Girl Guides all over the world to take some action for the environment. In return, we would represent them in Rio. We originally intended to do a march, but the security is extremely strict in Rio Centro and even actions approved by security are somewhat doubtful.
Our Action
All week the WAGGGS delegation had been running the Major Group for Children and Youth display the Tree of Vision. We have been inviting anybody passing by to write their positive message or vision for the future and add it to our tree.




We have seen everybody from cleaning and security staff to the President of Finland add their message and stop to read. I spent today standing at the tree chatting to people and taking photos. I attempted Portuguese, Spanish and French with varying success. The media also loves this tree and I was interviewed by Brazilian prime time news and the Times of India.
So to represent the voices of all the Guides who could not be here, we split our delegation into the five WAGGGS regions: Africa, Arab, Asia-Pacific, Europe and Western Hemisphere and walked in groups towards the tree from all different directions. We said out loud the names of the countries who had taken action and when we reached the tree we posted their messages of hope.




It has been such a lovely day standing by this tree, and it has been great to have a change of pace. People love to chat to us and many told us that they used to be a Guide/Scout. Today's random conversations include the Madagascan Water Minister (we exchanged cards), a group of ministers from Ghana who declared that if Guiding didn't exist in Ghana they themselves would start it (it does exist, it started in 1921 and they have over 7,000 members), and the President of Finland who quietly wrote her message and posted it on the wall while we chatted away unawares. It was only because Maria from Denmark recognised her and silently freaked out that we had any idea of our brush with fame.
Many of the actions taken by civil society groups have been a bit negative. For example, one group has been giving out 'Fossil of the Day' awards to countries taking non-green positions in negotiations. We decided that we wanted to reward those doing a great job. So today we tracked down the negotiators who spoke out for non-formal education and helped us get it included in the final text (where it has stayed!!).
Ally and I found the Australian negotiator at the Australian Side Event and presented him with a Brazilian "world citizenship" Guide badge.








He seemed really proud and wore it on his lapel for the rest of the night!
Australian Side Event
The Australian Side Event was really interesting. It was about the role of indigenous peoples in land and sea custodianship. We heard from Maori and Aboriginal perspectives as well as from Norwegian first peoples and those native to Brazil. Prime Minister Julia Gillard launched a new program that will be a network between indigenous peoples to facilitate knowledge sharing on conservation.
Unfortunately, Julia did not have much time, but when the event finished we found her giving a press conference outside.




We came very close to speaking with her, someone just in front of us managed it - and we thought Ally might crash-tackle her - but sadly she ran away at the last minute.




Still it was a great way to end my time at Rio+20 and it was very exciting to see Australians at all levels speaking out for the issues we care about.

Location:Rio de Janeiro

Tuesday 19 June - UN Women Event

Today UN Women (the United Nations development fund for women) held an all day side event called "The Future Women Want". We were very excited to hear from the President of UN women and former president of Chile Michelle Bachelet. Also on the first panel was Gro Harlem Bruntdland who chaired the committee writing the first UN report on sustainable development back in the early 80s.




After the opening remarks from Ms. Bachelet, Prerana Shakya spoke. Prerana is a member of our WAGGGS delegation. She is a girl scout in Nepal and talked about the need for green jobs and girls' education in her country.




It was also amazing to hear from First Lady of El Salvador Vanda Pignato. She talked about programs to help end gender based violence and gang violence.




Sadly the event flagged a bit when the floor was opened to questions. The panel members had been asked to keep their remarks brutally short to allow for maximum interaction with the audience. Unfortunately, "questions" turned out to be long lines of women waiting to give five minute monologues with no question and no reference to the panel. The esteemed panel members sat and were yelled at in multiple languages like the rest of us. At least when I left, I found the free refreshments, which include the tastiest chocolate brownies I have ever eaten.
Ally and I visited the Australian Government Stakeholder Briefing once again, enjoyed some Minties and quizzed the Australian delegation about their level of acceptance of Brazil's text. They gave us a brief recap of the previous night's events.
11.00pm Plenary due to start
2.35am Brazilian secretary announced that document was complete and would be announced to press
7.30am Document made available to official delegates
Many are criticising this text as unambitious as it mostly reaffirms commitments made in previous texts. However, Australia did identify the seven new commitments that have come out of this conference:
- Agreement to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
- Recognise green economy as important tool for sustainable development
- High level forum for sustainable development
- Strengthen UN Environment Programme (UNEP)
- Measure progress beyond GDP
- 10 year framework for sustainable consumption and production
- Commitment for biodiversity beyond national jurisdictions
Back at the afternoon session of UN women, Ally and I met Penny Williams - the Australian Global Ambassador for Girls and Women.




Penny was very friendly and talked to us for quite a while. Her daughter is a Girl Guide and she told us that she has spent the last week trying to sell Guide Biscuits. She very kindly promised to put in a good word for us getting a seat at the Australian Side Event hosted by Julia Gillard tomorrow.

Location:Rio de Janeiro

Monday 18 June - Cristo Redentor and Youth 21

It was nice to have a late start today. Last night after we left Rio Centro quite a large number of young people took part in an action to protest the removal of youth participation and high level commissioner for future generations from the text. Here at Rio+20 all actions must be approved by security, and even then there may be sanctions. Last night the young people put tape over their mouths and stood silently lining the route to IFSD negotiations. Despite this allegedly being an approved action, civil society was barred from all negotiations.
This morning negotiations have all been closed to us, so our involvement within Rio Centro has been limited. A small group of us who worked yesterday took the day off. We caught the funicular railway up to see the spectacular Cristo Redentor.












The view was wonderful, there were monkeys in the trees on the way up and a samba band on the tram on the way down.

In the middle of the day we attended the Youth 21 event - discussing the establishment of a permanent high level forum for youth.





We heard Seven Suzuki speak again and from a panel of speakers from various governments around the world. The messages were fairly generic about the role of youth as leaders of tomorrow, and the involvement of youth in political decision making. We were disappointed by the representative of the presidency of Brazil, whose emphatic statements directly opposed the position taken by the hosts controlling the text.

After eating some of the free food, we walked the length of Ipanema beach and watched the sunset.

Location:Rio de Janeiro

Sunday 17 June -Severn Suzuki and Jesus quotes

For those who have not seen, a few days ago I was interviewed by UN Radio and they published my interview. The link is here.

Today we split into two groups. Everyone was ready for a day off, so most people went to see Jesus (really known as Cristo Redentor) in the morning. A small group of us felt that we could not leave the negotiations at this point, so we headed back to Rio Centro.

We started with negotiations for International Framework for Sustainable Development (IFSD). These were quite exciting, since the revised text presented by the Brazilian government (who are now chairing this conference) has removed the paragraph discussing the establishment of a high level representative for future generations. The new text has also removed all references to public participation, meaning that delegations like ours will not have input in the future. The E.U. pushed very hard for this paragraph to be returned, but we were disappointed that the Brazilian chair was refusing in quite a rude way to allow the subject to be introduced. Although Brazil does not support this proposal, their role at this stage of the conference is to facilitate discussion, not push their own agenda.

The meeting was somewhat abruptly adjourned at around midday to reconvene at 7pm. The youth civil society representatives from the Major Group for Children and Youth immediately had a meeting to work out a strategy for lobbying delegations to push for the inclusion of the high level representative paragraph.

I left this meeting to go to the Australian Government briefing. They apologised profusely for not bringing Minties and Fantales today and assured us that there would be lots tomorrow. We asked what Australia's position on the high level representative was, and they said that while they were not advocating against it, they had a lot of concerns about scope, financing and structure that would require further discussion before they agreed.

In the afternoon we caught the free shuttle across to another venue to see Severn Suzuki speak.




Severn Suzuki was the 12 year old girl who stopped the world at the UN earth summit in Rio 20 years ago (see my first blog post). She was very realistic in her outlook. She said that she used to believe that change could come from the people alone, but that now she recognises that in order for change to be effective, people need partnerships with the public and private sectors.





We had a beautiful dinner of traditional Brazilian food, including Caipirinhas which are delicious lime, salt and sugar cocktails.

Tomorrow I am going to see Cristo Redentor. We have had so many quotes today about going to see Jesus. My favourites have been:

Why is Jesus green? (lights at night)

Why doesn't Jesus have a website?! (as we tried to figure out how to get there)

Where is she? She has gone to Jesus. I hate Jesus!

She is with Jesus. No! Jesus is with her.

Location:Rio de Janeiro

Saturday 16 June - Monkeys!!

We moved accommodation in the middle of last night, and this morning we discovered that this place has monkeys in the trees!







The morning plenary session was cancelled this morning, so my first meeting was the Australian Government stakeholder briefing.




We were given a brief summary of where the text was agreed to as of the handover last night, and most of Australia's strong issues had been preserved. The head of the Australian delegation mentioned how touching it was that there was a round of applause when non-formal education was included at last night's plenary. She acknowledged the voice of youth, and the negotiator who spoke up at that meeting spotted my uniform and pointed at me. Afterwards, he came to thank me for our input. The Australian Government briefings always have baskets of Minties and Fantales.

We met with a sub-group of the Major Group for Children and Youth, which was working on the International Framework for Sustainable Development (IFSD). We were discussing what our next move should be, given the success on the non-formal education. In the revised text, many delegations are pushing for all public participation in these events (i.e. us, all NGOs,and the official youth delegates) to be stopped. It was a long and technical conversation about whether to lobby for one paragraph or the whole concept. We never really got anywhere with it unfortunately.

It is now after midnight (again!) after we had a mid-way group debrief that went for hours. I am crawling into my uncomfortable bed. I will try to get better monkey photos tomorrow.

Location:Rio de Janeiro

Friday 15 June - The longest day

Today I got up at 5.00am and went down to Copacabana beach with Ally to watch the sunrise.




Today we shared this wonderful quote from Ban Ki Moon:

"Rio+20 should also give voice to those we hear from least often: women and young people. Women hold up half the sky; they deserve equal standing in society. We should empower them, as engines of economic dynamism and social development. And young people — the very face of our future: are we creating opportunities for them, nearly 80 million of whom will be entering the workforce every year?"

Today was the final day of the preparatory conference. That means, that at the end of today, the management of the conference passed over from the United Nations to the Brazilian Government. This will pass back to the UN for the official conference days from 20-22 June.
Because it was the last day, it has been crazy with negotiations trying frantically to agree to the paragraphs of text on various issues in the outcome document.
In the morning, we went to the extremely crowded negotiation on trade, finance and sustainable development goals (SDGs). We had hoped t hear discussion on SDGs, but the part that we heard was on trade. We were a bit taken aback that the G77 proposed that the entire trade section just be deleted, and most countries seems to think it was a good idea. These negotiations are open, but only country delegations are permitted to speak. It is fairly controlled, and visitors are super careful to to be disruptive in any way, and not to approach delegates unless invited.
In the afternoon, the lobbying began in earnest for the inclusion of non-formal education in the text. We worked really really hard with the Major Group for Children and Youth rounding up as many countries as we could to tell them how important this was to our whole group. The Norwegian chairperson agreed to put the paragraph inclusion on the agenda. The meeting started at 5pm and was scheduled to finish at 11pm. We actually arrived early and caught the end of the Oceans negotiation which was chaired by Australia. As the chairperson was leaving, she spotted my uniform and said how great it was that we had come to the Australian government briefing, although she herself had not been there.
The gender, health and education negotiation was very long but so exciting. We knew that if our proposal was opposed by any delegation it would be withdrawn altogether, and if it was not agreed tonight, it would be withdrawn altogether. Switzerland kindly put forward our proposal. The G77 immediately said it was too late to be introducing things, they didn't think it was necessary and that they could not agree until they had met with their 132 member states tomorrow. We knew this was too late. The chair tried to close discussion there and move on, but the E.U. insisted on speaking out in support of the move, and the importance of not rejecting it, since it was the one point that has come unanimously from a major group. As the chair resigned herself to this discussion, Australia joined in promoting the importance of non-formal education, followed by USA who explicitly mentioned the value of Girl Scouts. The G77 was unmoved, so discussion moved on to health.



As a delegation, we were challenged by the arguments on this section from some delegations. Most notably, Holy See would not agree to the language "population dynamics", because they would not condone any kind of population control or reduction. Russia refused to agree to "population dynamics" and "women's sexual and reproductive rights" because he could not see what they had to do with 'Health and Population'. The Holy See continued to block any reference to gender equality and sexual and reproductive rights, despite the proposed wording coming from a previously agreed ECOSOC document. Because of the Holy See, the paragraph was not permitted to be put through as agreed ad ref.
The meeting closed unexpectedly at around 8pm as most of the delegations had another meeting to attend about cities and transport. Then the real work began. It was such a thrill for me to talk directly to the head negotiator for the G77. We told him how important this was to the Major Group for Children and Youth, and said that we were representing 10 million girl guides in 145 countries. He continued to say that he would meet tomorrow with the g77 (too late!!) To try and come to an agreement tonight we, along with other young people from the major group tried to find as many G77 delegates as possible, to get them to tell this guy that this was non-controversial and worth including. The negotiations were supposed to re-commence at 11pm after the "closing" plenary, but the plenary was pushed back an hour.
Having exhausted ourselves and our contact list, we found nine couches and tried to nap.



One of our fellow major group friends, along with some friendly youth delegates from Switzerland and the Netherlands came to tell us that the chairperson was meeting with the G77 negotiator. As midnight approached, we entered the closing plenary session, to hear the reports from all major groups on how much of the text they had agreed.
Our chair made her report. She said that through an unorthodox agreement process, our paragraph had been added to the text!!!

Education 2bis We encourage Member States to promote Sustainable Development awareness among youth, inter alia, by promoting programmes for non-formal education in accordance with the goals of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development.

Despite the serious (and frankly exhausted) tone of the meeting (which had around 500 people) there was an outbreak of applause from the back of the room. What an achievement!




We got back home and into bed at about 2.00am. Very hard work but such a great reward!

Location:Rio de Janeiro

Thursday 14 June - we found our government!

First thing this morning I went to the morning briefing for the NGO Major Group. I should explain a bit more about the structure of the negotiations here in Rio. There are nine 'Major Groups' that draft the text of the outcome document. The groups are:
- Business and Industry
- Children and Youth
- Farmers
- Indigenous Peoples
- Local Authorities
- Non-government Organisations (NGOs)
- Scientific and Technological Community
- Women
- Workers and Trade Unions

These groups are working to write the outcome document on the seven focus issues of the conference. The issues are:
- decent jobs
- energy
- sustainable cities
- food security and sustainable agriculture
- water
- oceans
- disaster readiness

As the document is prepared, it must be agreed upon by the UN Member Countries. Countries tend to form alliances on certain issues. The largest alliance is the G77 - all the green countries below...




Unfortunately this alliance can act as a barrier to consensus. Today we are struggling with the fact that they don't recognise gender equality as a concept and are blocking calls for universal health care and women's reproductive rights.

So, back to my day. This morning I went to the NGO Major Group briefing. They gave an update of where the negotiations are up to and called for questions to be submitted for the evening session. I submitted a question about the inclusion of violence against women.

In the middle of the day Ally and I finally found the Australian Government briefing. Australia's priorities at this conference are oceans (in a big way), mining, desertification and land degradation and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Not so much for Guides, but I asked a question. I said that Australia has been quite strong on elimination of violence against women and girls and asked if this topic had been discussed much in the gender negotiations. The answer was that it had not exactly been discussed in those terms, but many relevant topics had been previously discussed in New York. Not really satisfactory, but at least the topic was raised.

I was asked to speak at a press conference on behalf of civil society. However the colleague of the person who asked me had found another speaker unbeknownst to her. Still, she has my email and these press conferences are every day, so it is likely I will be asked again.

In the evening we went to the Major Groups Dialogues which was hosted by the Director of the Conference. Unfortunately the chairperson spoke for about half an hour on "11 reasons why this text is ambitious". This left time for only two questions and we did not get to mine. However, yesterday the Girl Guide question about non-formal education was the first to be read out.

We are working very very hard to have the words "formal and non-formal" included in the paragraph on education. We have the support of many NGOs and the Major Group for Children and Youth. The paragraph has been agreed ad ref, so there is almost no chance that it can be edited. But we have talked to various governments, including the one who deleted the words in the first place and convinced them to include them again. The agreed paragraph probably can't be edited, but a small group of our WAGGGS delegation has written a new passage to be inserted. It is possible that we will get it entered. This is our main point that we are pushing so this progress has been very exciting.

When we first arrived, they had not finished building our accommodation. As a result, we have been staying at another branch of the same group at Copacabana Beach. I am going down to the beach in the morning to see the sunrise since we will be moving up into the hills and away from the beach, restaurants and supermarket. We are all a bit sad about this, but then again, it will be nice to have doorknobs.

Location:Rio de Janeiro