Johannesburg, 3^rd September 2002 – CIPSI President Mr Rosario Lembo, says the Johannesburg Summit has been unsuccessful, thus marking the end of sustainable development and of the role of the UN as a tool for the respect of the values of peace, solidarity, ecology and of governance of the process linked to globalisation. Since no other Summit will take place in the next 5 years, development strategies will from now on be left to the WTO, while the World Bank will become the only financial agency for project funding.

Johannesburg has been a failure because no real agreement has been reached for the definition of a new model of sustainable development in terms of the right of the world poor to life, water, food health, education, environmental safeguard. Instead, the partnership between the public and private sectors, that is, between nations and firms, on the possibility to answer the issues and preserve human rights has been strengthened. This has finally relegated NGOs and civil society to the border, delegating everything to the market. The process of discarding of Rules of the major international Conventions, that have been so far the only block against privatisation and market liberalisation, has started. The Italian proposal to de-tax therefore falls into this picture, solidarity comes to be alms, while politics shows all its ineptitude.