The 17th session of the Commission on Sustainable Development, CSD17, opened on Monday at the UN Headquarters in New York. It is expected this time around that Africa will be in the spotlight throughout the negotiations at this policy session of CSD-17.

This is to be expected because the continent has been set as a subtheme besides others like agriculture, rural development, land, desertification, drought, water and sanitation. When the sum of all these parts is taken together, all fingers point to Africa as a continent that has been left behind in the global scheme of things.

Chair, Friends of the Earth International and ERA director, Nnimmo Bassey has been in attendance and there will be a side event on "Overturning False Solutions to the Food Crisis" today.

Daily proceedings from stakeholder perspectives can be followed up at the Stakeholder Forum