ECO Singapore Delegation to UNCSD

Today I’m going to talk about the processes we undergo in the UN. For the Major Groups, there are two ways to influence the text.

Firstly, we can intervene during negotiation sessions to propose actual amendments or urge countries to adopt these changes, but this we can only do with permission from the Chair, which are usually few and far between. Secondly, and arguably more importantly, another way of letting our voices and opinions be heard, is lobbying. For this, we approach government delegates and representatives outside of the negotiation sessions, preferably after or before the session when they are settling in. We then introduce our points to them and try to convince them of their merits and to include them in their amendmends.

Hopefully this short post gave you all a better understanding of the lobbying processes in the Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD). Thus far, we have tried our hand at lobbying to several country delegates, and some responded very positively (Norway supported one of the youth caucus’ points in Waste theme, and G77 too in Sustainable Consumption and Production), while others were quick to brush us off. We have and will still be attending several workshops on lobbying, so hopefully all our future efforts will be more successful!

More updates on our lobbying in the coming week, and a week summary of the CSD coming up next!

-Mika