Special Session for the Purpose of an Overall Review and Appraisal of the Implementation of Agenda 21

Encourages participants at the high-level meeting of the Commission on Sustainable Development to be held during its fourth session, in 1996, to address, inter alia, matters related to the special session of the General Assembly decided on above;

Invites the Commission to devote its Ad Hoc Open-ended Inter-Sessional Working Group meeting, to be held in February 1997, to assisting the Commission in undertaking the review for the special session;

Invites the Commission to make available to the General Assembly at the special session all relevant reports prepared under the aegis of the Commission, along with the recommendations of the Commission thereon;

Invites Governments as well as relevant regional and subregional organizations to consider undertaking reviews of progress achieved since the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development at the national, subregional, regional and interregional levels with a view to contributing to the preparations for the special session;

Also invites all other relevant organizations and bodies of the United Nations system, including the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the specialized agencies and other multilateral organizations, including the multilateral financial institutions and the World Trade Organization, to contribute to the special session, and requests the Inter-Agency Committee on Sustainable Development, in close coordination with the Commission on Sustainable Development, to ensure an effective and coordinated system-wide response to the preparation of the special session;

Further invites the conferences of parties or other regulatory bodies of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, particularly in Africa, as well as the regulatory bodies of other relevant instruments, as appropriate, and the Global Environment Facility, to provide their inputs to the special session;

Invites Governments to assist the developing countries, in particular the least developed among them, in participating fully and effectively in the special session and its preparatory process, and in that regard invites them to make appropriate contributions to the Trust Fund to Support the Work of the Commission on Sustainable Development;

Requests the Secretary-General to prepare, for the consideration of the Commission on Sustainable Development at its fifth session, a comprehensive report containing an overall assessment of the progress achieved since the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in the implementation of Agenda 21 at all levels, 1/ and in the implementation of related outcomes, as well as recommendations for future actions and priorities, and requests that the report include:

Requests the Secretary-General to mount a public information programme to raise global awareness of both the special session to review the implementation of Agenda 21 and the work undertaken by the United Nations in the follow-up to the Conference;