Follow up to Rio+20 and launch of Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform

NEW YORK (September 26, 2012)– Release from the Division of Sustainable Development at the UN: Rio+20, one of the largest conferences ever convened by the United Nations, ushers in a new era for implementing sustainable development. The Conference was a rare opportunity for the world to focus on sustainability issues – to examine ideas, forge partnerships and solutions.

There were several outcomes to the Rio+20 Conference. The political outcome, The Future We Want, agreed to by all 193 countries, charts the way forward for international cooperation on sustainable development. In addition, governments, businesses and other civil society partners registered more than 700 commitments to concrete actions that will deliver results on the ground to address specific needs, such as sustainable energy and transport.

In the follow-up to Rio+20, a new website has been launched; the Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform (SDKP), available at http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org

The platform contain information pertaining to the past nineteen years of normative and analytical work of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), a wealth of content from the preparatory process of Rio+20, and is the go to place for the Rio+20 follow-up.

If you previously had a username/password to the Rio+20 conference website (www.uncsd2012.org), then hold on to it, as the same is valid for the SD knowledge platform. You can already now sign in, but will in the month of this October be able to interact more extensively with the platform, including sharing relevant news, publications, meetings, take part of consultative processes, signing up for partnerships, and more.

We will communicate more information in the coming months on the follow-up to Rio+20. Stay tuned.

Do not miss the following pages:

• Rio+20 outcome document, The Future We Want: http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/futurewewant.html
• Follow-up to Rio+20: http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/rio20.html 
• How is the UN System following up to Rio+20? See our interactive matrix at: http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/followupbyunsystem.html
• Partnerships for Sustainable Development: http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/partnerships.html 
• Newly launched registry of Voluntary Commitments: http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/commitments.html
• Sustainable Development in action: http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sustainabledevelopmentinaction.html • Read up on a wide range of Sustainable Development related topics/areas: http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/topics.html