| dc.description.abstract | The UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 has often been seen as a watershed in the work of placing environmental and developmental issues on the international agenda. In order to follow up the commitments from Rio, as well as to enhance the integration of environmental, economic and social dimensions of sustainable development at the national, regional and international levels, UNCED decided to establish the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD).
My main purpose for the study has been to determine and explain the degree of the CSD s accomplishments during the CSD s first ten year, in order to indicate its potential for effectiveness. Two theoretical perspectives, character of the problem and problem-solving capacity were introduced to study the performances of the CSD. As a point of departure, I considered the problem of sustainable development to be political and intellectual malign, and thus, the CSD had a difficult starting point for goal attainment. The first part of my analysis concerned answering the first question of my thesis, 'to what degree has CSD achieved its goals?' In order to determine the score of my dependent variable, I evaluated the decision-making process of the CSD during the period 1993-2001. The Commission's achievements were examined in regards to the three major goals of its mission, as set out by Resolution 47/191. Overall, the degree of the CSD s accomplishments was considered to be medium. The question of 'which mechanisms explain the CSD s accomplishments?' was to be evaluated and answered in the second part of my analysis. Based on the problem-solving capacity perspective, three sets of explanatory variables were evaluated; institutional design , distribution of capabilities ; and entrepreneurial leadership .
I concluded that all of the independent variables provided significant explanations of the medium degree of the CSD s accomplishments to a certain extent. However, determining which of the variables had the most explanatory power was difficult, due to assumed interaction between the variables. I assumed that these variables complemented each other in regards to the explanation of the CSD. Thus, I concluded that the independent variables together provided a more significant explanation of the medium degree of the CSD s accomplishments than the variables provided separately.
Finally, even though the achievements seem modest if the CSD is evaluated against its mandate, in my opinion the CSD has been significant for advancing the sustainable development agenda. | nor |