The 16th session of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD 16) (review year) took place in New York from May 5th -16th.

This two year cycle will focus on the following themes:

• Agriculture
• Rural Development
• Land
• Drought
• Desertification
• Africa

Due to the relevancy of these themes, a member of the DCG secretariat attended part of the meeting. DCG also organized with eniD a side-event on how to enhance the value of drylands for the benefit of its inhabitants. The side-event featured 4 presentations followed by a discussion moderated by the Global Mechanism of the UNCCD.

DCG was also be part of the official Norwegian delegation and gave input to statements made by the delegation as well as by the NGO major group.

The discussions at CSD 16 were influenced by the current food crisis and focused mostly on biofuels, sustainable agriculture, the need for more synergy between the Rio conventions, climate change, and issues of land tenure.

For more information on CSD 16, please visit this website. For updated information from an NGO perspective, please visit FORUM's website. You can also visit the iisd's website. A DCG report will also be distributed to all the DCG members.

The next session of this CSD cycle, CSD 17, will take place from May 4th-19th 2009 in New York. This will be a policy session which will develop policy guidelines based on the chairman’s report which came out of CSD 16. An intergovernmental preparatory meeting will also take place from February 23-27th in New York.  

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