The Economist on sustainable development.
The first thing they should do is to tell the truth about poverty, growth and the environment.
...the ten years since the Rio summit (home of that “grand vision”) have seen lots of progress in enhancing human welfare, especially in the most populous countries of the world, China and India, thanks to those countries' decisions to liberalise their economies and to open their borders to more trade and investment. Such globalisation has already narrowed the overall gap between North and South. But some countries, notably in Africa and the Middle East, have chosen not to take part in that process, and misery there has increased. Others, particularly in southern Africa, have been so beset by disease that they have been unable to take part. Much more can, and should, be done to help them do so. And measures can and should be taken to ensure that the future economic growth of the poor world, if that happy outcome occurs, does not unduly exacerbate the problem of global warming.

The second thing that western leaders can do is to state clearly what they can, and cannot, do for their poorer counterparts. They cannot “share assets more equitably”, as some claim; making the rich poorer will not make the poor richer. Virtually everything needed to help countries grow and reduce poverty depends chiefly on domestic policies—ask South Korea, China and even India. Western leaders can still, however, be helpful, in two powerful ways. They can open their country's markets to the goods that many poor countries are best suited to produce, namely food and textiles. And they can focus their overseas aid on the issue that is most difficult for poor countries to deal with themselves: disease.