A number of meetings and consultations with the various civil society working groups (called 'issue caucuses' at the time) at the CSD in 2001 resulted in the establishment of the SDIN Group. The SDIN Group consisted of three networks: Third World Network (TWN), Environment Liaison Centre International (ELCI), and ANPED, the Northern Alliance for Sustainability, and had the support of the wider NGO community at the CSD at the time.

When the SDIN Group people introduced themselves to the world in 2001, they wrote:

"Over the past ten years, large and substantive networks of non-governmental organisations spanning the Major Groups, have been set up covering all issues relevant to Agenda 21. The amount of information and expertise found in these networks will be a valuable resource for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, but also to those 'grassroots' representatives that are new to these processes. These issue-based networks have committed themselves to take part in capacity building exercises and information dissemination and gathering to ensure a 'state-of-the-art', regionally and gender-balanced coverage of all issues that will be covered by the summit. In this manner we intend to ensure quality issue-based input into the summit.

In the run-up to the WSSD a great deal of information will be spread and produced. The UN DESA is already providing an information service on official documents. The UNED Forum site, www.earthsummit2002.org, provides pointers to official documents, and news stories related to the summit. In cooperation with the Heinrich Boell Foundation, we intend to undertake a similar service for non-governmental documents and statements around specific issues that have emerged from the different regional and sub-regional processes, and from international civil society organisations.

ANPED, ELCI and TWN are collaborating with a group of partners to further develop the SDIN, which will provide for a new system for NGO networks and issue caucuses to exchange information and coordinate strategies in preparation for the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002. It can be expected that there will be a strong development of both content and procedures to feed into the World Summit on Sustainable Development." [1]

After a short period of time in the run-up to the WSSD [2], the three cooperating partners decided to leave behind the intimate cooperation with the so-called CSD caucuses. The reason for this was based on political principles that were important to the three operating organisations. One was explained by the hotchpotch representation of civil society groups within the caucuses. The SDIN Group wanted to work exclusively with NGOs. The CSD caucuses were open to any representative from civil society accredited to CSD. As such the caucuses allowed for both private sector and NGOs to be mixed up in the same decision-making process. Another principle was the absolute lack of legitimacy found in the caucuses. Whoever happened to be at CSD in New York could establish a caucus and demand to be heard by the plenaries and claim that he or she represented a consensus view from within civil society. The SDIN Group therefore discarded its connection to the caucuses, and worked to enhance NGO representation at CSD. With some modifications the SDIN Group agreed on the following vision in 2001:

"The SDIN Group is a collaborative effort between TWN, Third World Network, ELCI, the Environment Liaison Centre International and ANPED, the Northern Alliance for Sustainability. It works for enhancing the representation of NGOs all over the world made up of issue-oriented organisations, and project-based organisations.

It is the intention of SDIN to inspire, urge and utilize the collective and combined capacity of this large group of interested, committed and knowledgeable individuals that make up the human collateral of this global association to make the WSSD and its ensuing results into a worthy and strong statement on behalf of governance and sustainable development that will initiate a new and energized era in the work to promote these issues.

The SDIN will work to use the concept of 'sustainable development' in its original meaning, by emphasising a genuine integration of economic development, social development and environmental protection.

To do this, the SDIN has defined a number of ambitious issues emanating from the work of its large constituency and from the outcome documents produced by the NGOs at the preparatory regional meetings that took place during the fall of 2001 in the five UN economic regions."

This vision would find its expression in many ways. But area of concerns were listed in a grant proposal from 2001. Emphasising the added value of the SDIN work, these concerns were:

• Governance and multi-stakeholder processes;
• Issues development, policy work, capacity building and lobby;
• Information dissemination;
• Implementation and follow up;
• Preparation, participation, travel and related logistical concerns.

• To maximise participation of non-governmental organisations from across the planet in the WSSD and its prepcoms;
• To ensure balanced representation of NGOs on the basis of gender, focus and region;
• To ensure an adequate coverage of the issues that are relevant for the WSSD and its prepcoms;
• To ensure that participating NGOs have access to information and are able to, in an informed manner, participate in the WSSD and its prepcoms, and have free and unfettered access to delegates.
• To bring the goals and ambitions of sustainable development out to the general public's awareness and understanding, and to solicit a wider public participation in the development and adoption of appropriate strategies.

• Establishing a truly 'North-South' secretariat for Major Group support for the WSSD;
• Reaching out to the global NGO community, with an emphasis on the South and Central and Eastern Europe / the Newly Independent States, but also not forgetting those grassroots NGOs from the 'North' who will not have the means to travel down to Johannesburg;
• Providing finance and facilitation to those groups who will travel to the prepcoms and Johannesburg;
• Providing general information and training on the WSSD process;
• Generating broad media-interest, as well as ongoing educational programmes around the world.

"The three networks, and the SDIN as a whole, form a historic coalition transcending North-South and East-West boundaries. The services they intend to provide will greatly enhance the chances of the WSSD to be a success."

During the first ten years of the CSD process, efforts among the nine Major Groups had been made to coordinate and cooperate all their interests in a body called the 'CSD Steering Committee'. Whereas the Steering Committee had brought with it a cluster of stakeholders, issue caucuses, regional representatives, even most of the nine Major Groups, the SDIN Group was only catering to NGOs. SDIN would seek cooperation with all Major Groups, and keep their meetings totally open for everybody to sit in on. But when decisions were to be made on statements and such policy decisions demanded unity, those decisions would only be taken among representative NGO groupings. Whereas the Steering Committee every year had to labour to develop the semblance of a 'legal' constituency, the SDIN Group actually brought with them a large constituency - in 2005 the three collaborating organisations had close to 4000 national NGO members in over 170 countries. As widespread geographical representation as possible would be key in the development of policy. This very philosophy was also developed in the first official grant proposal. The SDIN Group stated:

"Of equal importance is the presentation of and working for the regional concerns of all the network members. Each network has its special strength within its own specific region. This experience is essential to respect and to develop. Rather than making an all-out effort to construct a steering committee speaking for all, each network will retain its identity and closely work with its many national and sub-regional members to ensure a bottom-up approach. Rather than making efforts to produce statements catering to all needs, often resulting in generalized and watered down language, efforts will be made to present each region's concerns with equal strength and respect. This must be in conjunction with what has been the nature and idea behind the organization of the five regional prepcoms under the auspices of the five economic commissions of the UN carried out during the autumn of 2001. To make sustainable development issues viable future options for overall development goals to further the improvement of mankind's living conditions, the regional concerns are important to heed as well as to integrate into the final outcome documents of the WSSD."

And to ensure global participation, the SDIN Group boldly stated that:

"People from all walks of life are expected to participate in the international process, representing diverse, yet committed views on sustainable development. Their voice may easily be drowned in the clamour to be heard and seen. Participation, transparency, accountability are all part and parcel of the UN's value basis. They are also the mainstay of Good Governance, perhaps the most challenging overarching issue the world faces as democratic principles and human rights have been challenged in an unprecedented and terrifying way at the dawn of this century." [3]

After being established as a network, the UN began to recognise SDIN as a competent entity working for a large and representative NGO group. And where the UN failed to grasp the importance of this new global network of NGOs, other national and international NGO networks saw how significant the SDIN network would be. A point-in-case was how CSD set about to develop logistics and modalities for the WSSD dialogue sessions. The dialogue sessions had been used with success to integrate and develop civil society views on the CSD issues with those of the official delegations in the period from 1997 to 2001. The UN and national delegations as well as civil society now wanted the dialogue sessions to take place during the WSSD in Johannesburg in 2002.

The United Nations requested that Environment Liaison Centre International (ELCI), the Third World Network (TWN) and the Danish 92 Group [4] undertake a role as organising partners of NGO participation in the official Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue process related to the WSSD in September 2002. ANPED was subsequently asked by the Danish 92 Group to work with them in carrying out the dialogues. The three SDIN partners then decided to bring into this world of global NGO cooperation the German Heinrich Boell Foundation. Together these large international networks proved that a global partnership would function and produce results within a large global UN conference. SDIN was given the coordinating role in this process, as the SDIN also did for the entire NGO facilitation process at the WSSD.

Facilitation for the NGO community was to be the major task that SDIN would carry out. And to make sure there would be a strong sense of neutrality in this facilitation, the SDIN Group chose to work closely with UN NGLS - the UN Non-Governmental Liaison Office - and continue its close work with the CSD Major Group facilitator.

"The secretariats of the three regional networks constituting the facilitatory body of the SDIN, as well as the UN NGLS, are well equipped to play a substantive role in general facilitation on the overall general concerns as well as on sustainable development issues. This facilitation may include, inter alia:

• The organisation and or participation in regional workshops related to the WSSD.
• The organisation and facilitation of NGO pre-meetings to the prepcoms, as well as NGO strategy meetings during the prepcoms.
• The production and dissemination of general information brochures on the summit.
• The dissemination of issue-based information from the issue groups to others not directly involved in those issue-networks.
• The maintenance of a web-based information hub.
• The maintenance of issue-based list-serves, as well as general informational ones." [5]

When the WSSD was over, SDIN had been able to put together funds that allowed close to 50 NGOs to participate directly in the negotiations in Johannesburg, and over 100 NGOs to participate in the four regional meetings the UN held in the run-up to the WSSD in Johannesburg.

In addition SDIN produced 20 daily reports, each an average of six pages from the WSSD process. These daily reports and analyses were all posted on the Internet accessible to all those who wanted to read all about the UN Summit. In addition, a CD-Rom was produced in cooperation with IIED in London, containing a search engine, and all documents produced by civil society during the Summit and its preparations. The content of this CDRom, Civil Society and the World Summit on Sustainable Development, was also posted on the Internet.

In many ways, the new CSD decided on at WSSD presented the players of the sustainability world a new reality and with this, new challenges on how to understand and use this CSD reality. The UN Secretary General, Mr. Kofi Annan, expressed the hope that the new CSD could indeed be a watchdog over sustainability issues.

Working with the new reality of CSD while at the same time safeguarding the role of Major Groups and in particular the NGOs became an important task for SDIN. As was to have been expected few really paid attention to the outcome of CSD 11 and the modalities of the new CSD that was decided upon at this venue. And even fewer, among the NGOs at least, seemed to remember what these modalities entailed, had bothered to read and study them and tried to harmonize their activities with these new modalities in mind.

SDIN also had obviously a long way to go to bring the procedural context to their constituencies and make use of it to maximise NGOs' opportunities interacting with CSD in a constructive and meaningful way. Obtaining as many entry points during the official negotiations and discussions as possible, has been a goal civil society always has been striving for.

According to the Johannesburg Plan of Action, decided on at the WSSD, the CSD was thoroughly revised during CSD 11. A two-year cycle was adopted as were a number of new modalities. Concern had been raised during both WSSD and CSD 11 as to the future participation of Major Groups. During CSD 11, representatives of SDIN followed this discussion closely, and lobbied governments actively to arrive at as open and participatory approach as possible. Rolling back systems and process of accreditation and participation as well as opportunities for engagement with delegates to what they had been prior to 1992 was not seen as acceptable, yet some delegates were openly talking about this as an option. Whereas most delegations welcomed the presence of civil society, a number of countries, particularly from the G-77 group wanted a stricter system of participation observed. The issue of enhancing the contribution made by Major Groups was taken up by Working Group II at CSD 11. Following protracted negotiations, the group finally came up with what they thought was agreed language on Major Groups. The debate, however, would go on for quite a while during CSD 11.

SDIN has since been lobbying for maximum space for NGOs at CSD as a major object for their work as a facilitating and organising partner for the NGO community at CSD. What was started at CSD 11 on process and modalities with new rules of engagements for the Major Group community would by no means end by the conclusion of that CSD. As the keen and alert observer has seen, and will continue to see, the issue of civil society participation was to re-emerge time and again, often in the guise of a contentious issue. The issue warrants vigilant supervision if the present transparent and participative process at CSD is to be kept alive.

[1] From the first SDIN grant proposal 2001, page 11.
[2] WSSD - the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the UN Summit in 2002 in Johannesburg, South Africa.
[3] From the first SDIN grant proposal 2001.
[4] The 92 Group, a large Danish network of NGOs working on sustainable development, tracing its origin back to the UN Conference on Environment and Development, the UNCED, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992.
[5] ibid p.6