Sustainable Consumption and Production/What is the Marrakech Process?

In the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation signed at the UN World Summit on Sustainable Develop-ment (WSSD) in 2002, all governments were called upon to “change unsustainable patterns of con-sumption and production” (Chapter 3). To accelerate the shift towards sustainable consumption and production (SCP), the Plan called them to promote the development of a 10-year framework of programmes on SCP (10YFP).

The “Marrakech Process” is an international collective effort to develop the 10-year Framework of Programmes on SCP. An international collective effort to develop the 10YFP is named the “Marrakech Process” after the place where the First International Expert Meeting on the 10YFP on SCP took place in Morocco in 2003. The 10YFP will be proposed and reviewed at the 2010-2011 cycle of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD). The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA) are coordinators for the development of this framework.

The implementation of the Marrakech Process towards formulating the 10YFP involve the following four phases : The current activities of the Marrakech Process mainly consist of the following events and development of SCP strategies at different levels, and expert groups developing develop concrete projects on differ-ent SCP issues:
 * Phase 1:	Organising regional consultations in all regions to promote awareness and identify priori-ties and needs for SCP
 * Phase 2:	Building regional strategies and implementation mechanisms with regional and national ownership
 * Phase 3:	Implementing concrete projects and programmes on the regional, national and local lev-els
 * Phase 4:	Monitoring and evaluating progress and exchanging information and experience at the in-ternational level
 * Expert meetings and roundtables held at the international, regional and national levels
 * Development of SCP frameworks, strategies and action plans at the international, regional and national levels
 * “Marrakech Task Forces” led by governments with focus on specific SCP issues
 * “Cooperation Dialogue” that engages development agencies into SCP activities

The next sections explain the achievement of the development of the Marrakech Process at the interna-tional and regional levels as well as that of Marrakech Task Forces and Cooperation Dialogue in detail.