BuaNews (Tshwane)
Michelle Hugo
22 January 2002
Pretoria — In preparation for the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), South African Development Community (SADC) health ministers are meeting in Sandton, north of Johannesburg to discuss the link between health and sustainable development.
The two-day meeting that ends today is aimed at ensuring that health is placed high on the agenda of the Summit, set to take place in Sandton from 26 August to 4 September.
Addressing the delegates yesterday, health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said sustainable development touched every sector and could not be overlooked.
'Sustainable development is a matter that profoundly informs the engagement between the world's richest and poorest countries and reaches to the core of achieving healthy nations,' she said.
The WSSD is expected to build on the momentum of its predecessor, the Earth Summit, which was held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
The Rio Summit highlighted the link between the environment and development, but was unable to emphasise the relationship between health and development.
According to health department spokesperson Jo-Anne Collinge, the WSSD provides an opportunity to clearly demonstrate the link between health on issues and the environment and sustainable development on the other.
'The aim is to ensure that the centrality of health to sustainable development is put beyond any doubt,' she said.
Delegates and representatives from the E9 countries, the 14 SADC countries and six international organisations such as the World Health Organisation (WHO), are attending the meeting.
South Africa was recently designated as one of the E9 countries that had been specifically designated because of their disproportionate impact on global environmental wellbeing as a result of the size of population and economic power.
These countries include Brazil, China, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Russia and the US.
This group accounts for 57 percent of the world's population and 80 percent of its total economic output.
Delegates are expected to sign a declaration this afternoon.
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