Alexandra is a poor suburb of Johannesburg, but it's within sight of the prestigious Sandton Convention Centre. The venue was the home for what was billed as the most important international conference of this century: the World Summit on Sustainable Development, which opened on 26 August 2002.
In THE ROAD FROM RIO, life in Johannesburg is seen through the eyes of Nankie, a DJ on the community radio station Alex FM. She's excited by the prospect of delegations from around the world flying in to her hometown to debate the world's environmental problems and new ways to create a global society without the class divisions that have continued to widen, leaving the power and wealth in the hands of a covetous few.
The "Jo'burg Summit" took place 10 years after the Rio Earth Summit, and a full 30 years after the first international conference on the human environment, which convened in Stockholm in 1972. But as world leaders prepared for the meeting, hard questions were being raised. What could the conference really hope to achieve? And why - when governments have failed to deliver on so many of the promises they made at Rio - should the world believe they'd be any more sincere this time around?
With the support of the European Commission Directorate General for Development to promote better understanding of development issues; the Directorate General for the Environment; and the Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The other titles in this series are:
2. Danger: Children at Work - Guatemalan agencies try to discourage child labor and fireworks production by poor families.
3. The Trade Trap - Ghanaian farmers struggle to get a foothold in the international market.
4. Kosovo: Rebuilding the Dream - Assesses the success of UN efforts in rebuilding Kosovo.
5. The Perfect Famine - Examines the causes of, and solutions to, severe famine conditions in Malawi.
6. It Takes a Village - A cyclone in Bangladesh results in the construction of an experimental community health center.
7. Seeing is Believing - Zambia begins a nationwide program to deliver Vitamin A to its population.
8. Cheated of Childhood - The International Labor Organization tries to rescue and rehabilitate the street children of St. Petersburg.
9. Patents and Patients - India battles HIV/AIDS using generic drugs.
10. The Doctor's Story - The US debate over abortion has severe consequences for health care in rural Nepal.
11. Sowing Seeds of Hunger - The AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa has crippled the agricultural community while forcing children to undertake the responsibilities of farming.
12. Up in Smoke - Dependence on tobacco crops and manipulation by the tobacco industry has stunted the economy of Malawi.
