Aware of the diplomatic difficulties in the way of Taiwan's participation in the UN's World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), being held next month in Johannesburg, South Africa, both non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the government are groping for a way into one of its parallel events -- the Civil Society Global Forum.
The upcoming WSSD, from Aug. 26 to Sept. 4, is to be held on the the 10th anniversary of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, when the international community adopted Agenda 21, an unprecedented global plan of action for sustainable development.
Ten years on, the Johannesburg Summit will bring together leaders of nations, industry, NGOs and others to hash out concrete steps and identify quantifiable targets for implementing Agenda 21.
Since Taiwan's government will not be permitted to voice any of its views at the main WSSD conference, activists said, Taiwanese NGOs should try harder to build international connections through unofficial channels.
For this reason, Taiwanese activists regard the Civil Society Global Forum, scheduled to run from Aug. 19 to Sept. 4, as an excellent opportunity to publicize Taiwan. The forum is slated to host approximately 60,000 delegates from around the world
"The UN should pay more attention to Taiwan's NGOs," said Sam Lin (
Since April, dozens of groups, with a diverse variety of missions, have been integrated into a Taiwan NGO delegation named Taiwan Action NGOs (TANGOs), which plans to systematically deliver messages pertaining to Taiwan's efforts in sustainable development at forum.
"Taiwan is a UN outsider," said Lee Chia-lun (
At the forum, according to Lee, TANGOs will establish four stands, where local grassroots activists, ranging from anti-nuclear to forest preservation and endangered species protection, will have multi-media displays with documentation in English.
In addition, Lee said, 25 TANGOs delegates would attend events held by influential foreign NGOS such a the US Earth Island Institute, the Global Greens and Friends of Earth.
Juju Wang (
"However, we have to make our voices heard, informing others that Taiwan is pursuing the same goals as they are," Wang said, adding that aggressive participation would eventually pay off for Taiwan in the international community.
The TANGOs ideas to publicize Taiwan, however, do not include better ways of raising funds.
Encouraged by the Cabinet's committee for promoting sustainable development, which is run by Minister Without Portfolio Yeh Jiunn-rong (
In doing so, the TANGOs were acting in accordance with Agenda 21, which mentions that the UN and governments should initiate a process, in consultation with NGOs, to review formal procedures and mechanisms for the involvement of these organizations at all levels, from policy-making and decision-making to implementation.
Months of communication resulted in a NT$2.3 million allocation to cover expenses of the activists' trip to South Africa, according to the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), the secretariat of the government's task force for the WSSD.
With the TANGOs struggling to raise funds from the private sector, however, some in the local media wonder whether local NGOs have lost their independence, something essential for any NGO.
Tu Wen-ling (
"Our `Ten Years On' series of workshops held by the TANGOs is to condense the views of civil society into a basis for people to monitor the government," Tu said.
The two-month long "Ten Years On" series launched in June uses Agenda 21 as a basis to review Taiwan's handling of a number of issues over the past decade, including controlling chemical toxicants, water resources management, ecological preservation, the relation between women and the environment, energy policies and the establishment of a new partnership with Aboriginal people.
Lai Wei-chieh (
It is a shame that Taiwan's government rarely considers its diplomatic strategies from the environmental angle, Lai said.
"Even now," Lai said, "the government has no strategy for the WSSD."
For NGOs, Lai told the Taipei Times, learning and exchanging experiences with counterparts from other countries is more important.
Government officials, however, said the idea of incorporating the strengths of all sectors of civil society into the government deserves encouragement.
"There are two kinds of NGOs," said Roam Gwo-dong (
Roam stressed that a focus of Agenda 21 is to strengthen the roles of different sectors of the population, including women, children and youth, indigenous people, NGOs, local authorities, workers, business and industry, scientific and technological community, and farmers.
Roam said that governmental officials, including former EPA head Chang Lung-sheng (
"We officials will also enter the main conference of the WSSD [as representatives of NGOs] to gather information about adopting concrete steps for better implementation of Agenda 21 in Taiwan," Roam said.
Eric Liou (劉銘龍), secretary-general of the Environmental Quality Protection Foundation (環境品質文教基金會), which is not a TANGOs member, told the Taipei Times that his group took no money from the government but would work with government officials to raise Taiwan's profile at the main conference of the WSSD.
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read: