An informal meeting of Chairs and Co-Chairs of Working Groups, together with the Council members particularly associated with the Groups was held during the luncheon intervals on 3 and 4 May. The purpose was to exchange information and allow questions or concerns about the operation of the Groups to be raised.
Three particular issues were addressed:
a. the need for a convenient reference document or "handbook" summarizing information about the Group;
b. the period to be allowed to the Groups to complete their work;
c. the handling of "cross-cutting themes".
All present emphasized that the Working Groups derived their mandate from the Council, which was in turn advisory to the Government of China. It was for the Chinese members to indicate what they wanted the Working Groups to do, what questions they should address, and what products they produce, by what deadlines.
a. Reference "Handbook"
The meeting agreed that it would be valuable to have such a reference document, which should include:
i. the terms of reference of all Working Groups;
ii. membership und contact addresses;
iii. the associated members of the Council and their roles.
The Secretariat has agreed to produce such a document, for the guidance of all members of the Council.
b. Timetables and Work Plans
All participants agreed on the need for a defined timetable for the Groups. Some believed that the mandate for the Groups should extend only from one Council meeting to the next (although extension would obviously be possible), but the general view was that to mobilize be required. Each Group should however have a clear Work Plan, indicating priorities and "milestones" to be reached by each meeting of the Council, as well as longer-term goals. Each Working Group should continue to report to each session of the Council, with an indication of progress and outputs. The Council should consider the need to continue a Group at the end of each two or three-year Work Plan.
The meeting agreed that the Groups should concentrate on activities that would help in the development of policies and strategies for sustainable development, and on methodologies for application in this context: they were not expected to do basic research. It was noted that the work of the Groups overlapped and that there was need for coordination. The Chinese Chairs were the best people to ensure this since they are all based in Beijing. They should meet from time to time. I t was also noted that several Groups were undertaking case studies and it was urged that as far as possible these should use the same localities so as to facilitate cross-comparison. Finally, it was agreed that it would be valuable for a full day to be provided at the time of the next Council for a meeting of the Chair s, Co-Chairs and associated Council members. In addition, when Groups completed their programmes it might be useful for their results to be presented at special one-day Symposia with invited experts in addition to Council members.
c. Cross-Cutting Themes
The informal meeting agreed that certain themes did cut across all the Working Groups and should be considered by all of them in their analysis and reports. The themes identified fell under five main headings noted below. These themes fitted closely to the matrix proposed by Dr.
Salim and Dr. Zoeteman (and have been adjusted to fit even more exactly in this report). The themes are as follows:
1. The harnessing of human resources to achieve sustainable development. Education, training, public information (including information on population issues), awareness building, data gathering and enhancement of the quality of the database, and the promotion of new technology all fall under this broad heading.
2. Development of better methodology, including those for the economic valuation of resources, pricing of damage due to pollution, environmental impact assessment, modelling of environmental systems, scenario analysis, and others. Our Working Group is developing a system for resource pricing which will need to be taken up by most of the other groups.
3. Application of tools for environmental management including the methodologies for planning, environmental assessment, application of economic instruments, enforcement, etc. to sustainable resource use.
4. Practical methods to ensure sustainable resource use and the optimal use of land and water. This theme embraces food security, the conservation and sustainable use of agricultural land and forests, and the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, and merges with the fifth of Dr. Zoeteman's units: regional economic development and environment (which includes action to achieve sound policies for energy use, industrial development and pollution control).
5. Development of infrastructure (Dr. Zoeteman's sixth element). A key to the future will clearly be the creation or strengthening of institutions, and socio-economic systems that facilitate sustainable development. Organizational machinery for the planning of development and management of transportation, waste disposal and water supply come under this heading.
All these activities need linkage to two kinds of initiative:
1. The Chinese 10-point plan and Agenda 21 which clearly provide the context for application of the products of the Working Groups. There must be two-way communication to ensure that the contributions from the Groups are useful and applied in this context.
2. International studies and action programmes. Studies similar to those in China are going on in many countries and in some international or global programmes. Ways need to be found to communicate the results of work in China to these forums and to ensure that the knowledge gained internationally is made available to the Council's Working Groups.
The first three of these themes are "columns" and themes 4 and 5 are the "rows" in Dr. Zoeteman's matrix.
In conclusion, it was reported that the Working Groups are all now active, and developing considerable momentum. Some are promoting projects for which funding h as been secured. The informal meeting welcomed this action, and felt that so long as this action remained within the terms of reference laid down by the Council, such initiatives on the part of the Chairmen, Co-Chairmen, members and Secretariat were to be welcomed.
A further meeting was held on 5th May. It examined a revised matrix (appended). The conclusion here was that while the areas of concentration of the six groups could be plotted upon it, it was not the most useful framework for orientating or classifying the work of the Groups. They preferred to use the five main theme s above, plus the two elements of linkage, as cross-cutting "rows" across all the Working Group themes.
Other conclusions were:
1. The Working Group must be policy orientated, and it was for the Chinese authorities to indicate the policies for which they needed inputs.
2. The 10-point Action Plan and China's Agenda 21 provided a check list of said policies. Each Group should, through its Chinese Chairmen and members orientate its work to contribute in this way.
3. Likewise, the World Bank and UNDP had provided clear guidance on their own financial policy, and the Chinese Chairmen should ensure that their Working Groups contributed useful technical input to the preparation of project proposals in key areas.
4. Each Working Group could and should define the needs it had for help from other groups (a meeting of Chinese Chairmen was the best way of refining a very rough round-table statement of such needs during the meeting).
5. Groups should indicate clearly what they were and were not covering so as to avoid misunderstanding.
6. The Working Groups could only do as much as resources allowed (only one or two meetings a year, lasting two to four days, was possible). False expectations of more detailed output should not be raised; more resources would be needed for in -depth analysis.