Sustainable development and security – the global agenda and its reflections in the OSCE

By Esra Buttanri

“The first step in creating a more satisfactory basis for managing the interrelationships between security and sustainable development is to broaden our vision.” These words were published 30 years ago, in the report Our Common Future, also known as the Brundtland Report. Many of the findings of that report – in which the term “sustainable development” was coined – remain valid today.

The Brundtland Report showed how conflicts may arise not only from political and military threats but also from environmental degradation and pre-emption of development options. And it argued that threats to environmental security require multilateral responses.

Since then, there have been three decades of global engagement on sustainable development. Two important milestones were the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals in 2000. They led to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that were adopted by 193 countries at the three- day Sustainable Development Summit held in New York in September 2015.

The OSCE’s affirmation of the link between security and the environment goes back even farther than the Brundtland report – to the Helsinki Final Act of 1975. Parallel to the global debate, the OSCE has developed its work in fields as diverse as water management, disaster risk reduction, climate change, waste management, and energy security. The 2030 Agenda provides the OSCE with an opportunity to assess and reinforce its role in promoting the global sustainable development agenda.

For a sustainable planet

The SDGs are 17 in number, centred around five major themes: people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnerships. All five of these themes define areas where the OSCE, as the world’s largest security organization, is making a difference. If we focus on the planet alone, we can single out seven SDGs towards which the OSCE is contributing.

Goal 6 – “Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all”: The OSCE promotes good water governance by its participating States and supports them in jointly managing water resources. The signing of the Dniester Treaty between Moldova and Ukraine, the establishment of the Chu-Talas River Basin Commission that brings together Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the facilitation of negotiations for a bilateral agreement between Azerbaijan and Georgia on the Kura River Basin and the promotion of water co-operation between Tajikistan and Afghanistan are some of its achievements.

Goal 7 – “Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all”: The OSCE brings together major energy producing, transit and consuming countries for energy security dialogue and co-operation. They exchange information and share best practices on sustainable and renewable energy and energy efficiency – for example, in the recently published Handbook on Protecting Electricity Networks from Natural Disasters

Goal 11 – “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”: The OSCE helps its participating States to increase their disaster resilience, raising communities’ awareness of risks and building their capacity to reduce them, including in partnership with neighboring municipalities across borders – between Albania and Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, and Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. It assists with the restoration of eco-systems to mitigate floods in the Dniester River Basin and management of wildfires in the South Caucasus region, the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and Mongolia. 

Goal 12 – “Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns”: One of the targets under this goal is the environmentally sound management of chemicals and waste. The OSCE addresses the legacies of Soviet-era uranium mining in Central Asia and old industrial waste storage sites in Armenia and Georgia. It strengthens national capacities to prevent illegal trafficking in hazardous wastes and mitigate the emerging risks of illegal pesticides.

Goal 13 – “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”: The OSCE analyses and raises political awareness of security implications of climate change. It identifies geographical locations that will be affected most by its impacts and pilots the development of trans-boundary adaptation strategies.

Goal 16 – “Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels”: These objectives have been the driving force behind the OSCE’s support to the implementation of the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters. Since 2002, the OSCE has facilitated the establishment and functioning of Aarhus Centres – there are now 60 in 14 OSCE participating States. The network of Aarhus Centres offers an opportunity to raise awareness of SDGs and ensure local ownership in their implementation.

Goal 17- “Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development”: The OSCE partners with the UN and many other organizations to forge effective responses to traditional and emerging challenges in the environmental field. Its partnership since 2003 with the UN Development Programme, the UN Environment Programme, the UN Economic Commission for Europe and the Regional Environmental Centre for Central and Eastern Europe within the framework of the Environment and Security Initiative (ENVSEC) enables co-ordinated environmental action.

Next steps

All of these activities link security and the environment and they all serve to help reach the SDGs. But the OSCE can do even more. With its political interlocutors and civil society counterparts in the 57 participating States and 11 Mediterranean and Asian Partners for Co-operation and with its network of field operations in four different regions, South-Eastern Europe, Eastern Europe the South Caucasus and Central Asia, the OSCE can keep the SDGs high on the political agenda and showcase their security benefits.

One practical next step could be to use an SDG lens or marker in planning, implementing, monitoring and reporting OSCE activities, flagging their contribution to specific SDGs.

A thorough analysis of the status and prospects of the OSCE’s support to the 2030 Agenda in all areas of its work, perhaps in a cross-dimensional workshop, could generate strategic and operational ideas for furthering sustainable development and peace.

Finally, the OSCE could contribute to the follow-up and review of the implementation of SDGs, at the national level with the help of field operations (at participating States’ request), at the regional level by contributing to the review process led by the UN Economic Commission for Europe and at the global level in connection with the annual review meetings of the UN High Level Political Forum.  All of this would further enhance and demonstrate the OSCE’s role as a forerunner in strengthening the link between sustainable development and security.

Esra Buttanri is Senior Environmental Affairs Adviser in the Office of the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities.