Saleh Fareed Saudi Gazette JEDDAH — Three Saudi women students from Dar Al-Hekma College in Jeddah participated in the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), known as Rio+20, which was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, last month. The students were Mona Othman, Munira Abdelkader and Muna Al-Amer, members of Nagaa Environmental Enterprise. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had described the conference as one of the most important conferences in 2012. Among the key issues reviewed were hunger, poverty, depletion of oceans, pollution, forest destruction and the threat of extinction of thousands of species. Speaking on their participation, Mona Othman said, “The conference focused on two themes; a green economy in the context of sustainable development poverty eradication; and the institutional framework for sustainable development. The concept of green economy focuses primarily on the intersection between environment and economy. While the institutional framework for sustainable development focuses on institutional reform to address the challenges of sustainable development and to create new international institutions among them the Commission on Sustainable Development, tasked with the follow-up to the Rio conference, and led to the reform of the Global Environment Facility." Munira Abdelkader added, “During the conference days, we managed to attend some of the morning and afternoon plenary meetings where the heads of the state or their official representatives read their statements. Along with that four high-level roundtable sessions convened in parallel with the plenary meetings. Environment ministers from the 57 Islamic countries and the Saudi Presidency of Meteorology and Environment organized a side event to present the Islamic Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction and Management and its implementation plan with the goal of reducing risk from natural disasters. “We had a good learning experience about the global issues and challenges involved in sustainable development worldwide. In addition to that, we participated actively and networked with other major groups' delegations representing youth from all around the world. During the historic event, we managed to interact with so many inspiring individuals and the official Saudi delegation showed appreciation for our participation considering the fact that we were the only non-officials attending Rio +20. It was such an honor for us to represent Saudi women in such an event," said Muna Al-Amer.
