Coming in yesterday evening after my flight was delayed by nearly one-and-a-half hours wasn’t the best start to this project in New York. I’d planned to call a few people about possible loan of video equipment as soon as possible following the scheduled arrival of 15.30. Sadly it was not to be. When I’d finally collected my suitcase and gone through the entry procedures it was nearly 5pm, the close of play. To top that off, I discovered the American SIM card I had for my phone was out of money!

The reason I’d wanted to try and get a camera so soon was because today a very important preparation meeting for the CSD took place at Columbia University. Entitled “Youth Energy Blast”, the event was organised by popular NGO SustainUS and the youth caucus co-ordinators. It would have been great to get some footage of the 30+ young people who attended a day of presentations, workshops, activities and discussions all designed to get us ready for what is to come over the next two weeks.

We learnt how the CSD was established in 1992 as an outcome of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and its Agenda 21, which was supported by other various declarations. The Commission works in thematic cycles of two years: “review” and “implementation”. The vast subject matter of sustainable development is broken down into component topics, grouped together as clusters which are dealt with one at a time over two annual sessions of the CSD. The next two years’ thematic cluster is “energy for sustainable development, industrial development, air pollution/atmosphere and climate change” and this year is the review session.

At the Earth Summit, when this whole process was formulated, a key part of the CSD mechanism was creation of nine “Major Groups”, which are all officially involved in the Commission. They are:

- Women
- Children and Youth
- Indigenous People
- NGOs
- Local Authorities
- Workers and Trade Unions
- Business and Industry
- Scientific and Technological Communities
- Farmers

Each of these is responsible for organising itself and has a seat at the table in CSD formal sessions. Although the event does not produce any binding documents or declarations, it is widely regarded as an important device in policy formulation, particularly in terms of materials produced to lobby governments with. Personally I think it seems great for an institution such as the UN to be making such visible efforts at engaging civil society and receiving input on these issues crucial to our future world.

It should be fascinating to observe how the Major Groups interact with each other. Could we see conflicts emerging, for example, between Business and Farmers or Trade Unions? How will NGOs and Local Authorities get along? It’s a potentially volcanic equation. Contrary to these ideas of disagreement, however, in the past they have apparently agreed on joint statements for the Plenary session – certainly not a bad idea, since the allocation of two minutes each can be far better used as a combined total of 18. One united voice from all nine groups can definitely send a much louder, stronger message than nine small individual statements.

In any case, the Major groups have two main methods of input into the CSD process. The first are the formal opportunities, including our aforementioned statement to the Plenary session. However, judging from my experience at the General Assembly last year, this occasion is likely to be a mere formality; the real dialogue takes place in the Thematic Discussion sessions, which further break down the key issues into very specific topics. These will take place during May 1-9, with parallel discussions going on in separate meeting rooms.

Due to this hectic agenda, being well-organised will be very important for the youth caucus. Daily meetings will take place from 10-11 and we’ll have to be a disciplined, co-ordinated, cohesive group in order to be effective and to have maximum impact. For example, one point brought up a lot at the Blast was the need to have a young face in every meeting. Speaking again from the experience of the GA, having a visible presence is highly important at the UN. I know it sounds obvious, but if people don’t see you, you don’t get noticed. A simple point, but one which can so often be overlooked when things get complicated in an un-co-ordinated group.

SustainUS are expecting around 100 young people to show up over the fortnight; it could be the case that many come only for the second week. That’s an amazing number. However, as many advantages as pure quantity brings, we will have to be organised in order to take this potential as far as possible. Another main point to emerge was the importance of being sustainable in our strategies and thinking ahead to next year’s CSD, when implementation will be under discussion. We need to think in the long-term or we risk being defeated by the process itself.

Well, I think that pretty much sums up Saturday’s meeting (don’t want to go on for too long). One thing I didn’t mention yet was the most “active” activity of the day: a game which had us hunting all over the building for slips of paper. It was part of a workshop on environmental justice, the idea of the game being a primitive simulation of the aggravating routes victims of Hurricane Katrina had to follow after the disaster to try and get their lives back to normal. We were split into groups, each having a character with its own story. By the end of the feedback session after the hunt, we had a good understanding of the varying circumstances facing different people when trying to restart their lives after such an event. The Native American fisherman had nothing to fall back on and faced an uncertain future, while the doctor and middle income family managed to eventually get back on track one way or another.

This was a fun, educational and constructive day for me. I feel well-prepared for the next two weeks and am looking forward to learning more about the CSD processes. It’s already very different to how things worked at the General Assembly, as is my personal role: from a youth “advisor” and representative in the UK delegation to an independent young person thrown into an intriguing mix of people in a very open process. I’m looking forward to filming the documentary.