World Leadership Conference was an event held from 11-15 July 2011. It was an event organised by ECO Singapore, a youth organisation and not-for-profit social enterprise. The theme for this year's Conference was Asia-Pacific: Towards Rio +20. Rio +20 is because it will be 20 years since the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 10 years ago, there was also Rio +10 held in Johannesburg. Next year in 2012, there will be United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Back to the WLC 2011. It was made happened by youth, from youth and to the world. In those 5 days, there were many things happening. There were 2 main programmes and a Trade Fair. The first programme was Knowledge Track. This track focused on building capacities for participants who were either new or experienced in the area of sustainable development and climate change. There were themes discussed in this Track, namely Energy for A Low Carbon Future, Environmental Law and Governance, Green Economy to Eradicate Poverty. This track was only held for 3 days, (13-15 July 2011). Each day for each theme, it ended at around 6pm daily.
The second programme was Policy Track. The Policy Track caters primarily to youth delegates from the Asia-Pacific region, who will critically discuss existing climate policies and strategies towards sustainable development over the 5 days of the conference. Working with country offices (or sister organizations), national representatives will be selected to represent their country to do a national consolidation to bring to the WLC. During the first two days of the conference, the country representative/s would be first sub divided into the following groups for their regional consultation for more relevant discussions. During the last three days of the conference, everyone will come together to craft the single document to be submitted to Rio +20. This track was held from 11-15 July 2011. It ended at around 7pm daily.
Last but not least, we had Trade Fair, which sought to provide a networking and business opportunity for our partner organizations and local NGOs to showcase best practices in the field of environmental and corporate sustainability. The Fair was open from 12pm-9pm on 13, 14 and 15 July 2011.
For the whole conference, there were a lot of speakers invited. The keynote speaker was Dr Stefanos Fotiou, Regional Coordinator, UNEP Resource Efficiency Programme, Asia-Pacific. Mainly the speakers were from different expertise, such as CEO and Chairman from different environment-related companies or organisations, scientists, youth leaders, university professors and lecturers.
Below is a link to a recap video of WLC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fROzjuUbqvo
And below is the link to the WLC Position Paper Draft.
http://worldleadershipconference.org/
http://www.uncsd2012.org/rio20/
WLC 2011