Working with the Delegations

I come from the Dominican Republic, where it seems that the way of managing the relations between the Third sector and the First sector (NGO´s and Government) is very similar to the other Latin American countries and most of the Less-Develop Countries (LDC) Thus, having the experience of participating in this WTO Conference confirmed that to me.

For the other half of the coin, there are the relations between the Civil Society institutions and the State´s entities in the High-Income Countries tending to be in an opposite direction than to the LDC experiences and with similarities among them.

The specific case I lived was the confrontation of the relations between the Official Norwegian Delegation (OND) and the Official Dominican Delegation (ODD) with the NGO´s.

There are 3 main things to highlight.

From the very beginning I got surprised by the first item of the Norwegian NGO´s agenda: To meet with the OND at their offices in Geneva.

On top of that, there were some people from the NGO´s working closely with the OND in almost all meetings.

And on the second day all the Norwegian NGO´s had a meeting (quick but 1) with the OND to talk directly to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

These 3 issues didn’t seem to surprise the Norwegian NGO´s too much (at least not that obvious, or as it was for me)

In the other hand, for the Dominican side, things were a bit different.

The names and institutions of the representatives to come to Geneva were never clear, not to the Dominican NGO´s network or in the State Press and Communications Office. I tried to contact the only NGO that was listed to participate, but didn´t got any answer and at the end they did not came (anyway it was a Sindical Union which is known to be too much on the government side and not on the workers side)

Wandering a bit in the hallways I could distinguish a familiar Spanish accent and immediately I approached them. Indeed they were part of the ODD. We talked for a little while and with some friendly efforts they agreed on having their breakfast together with me on the next day.

The meeting had a few interesting or surprising points to highlight, at the end I realized they didn´t expected me to be interested in the matters of the country with the WTO, in fact they confessed to be expecting from the meeting some tips and ideas on moving around Geneva and Europe. I shared some smiles and cheap talk to get along that flow and then get space to my questions.

I meet 4 people, although they told me in the Delegation they were 5, a mysterious fifth that I never meet, heard about or got any answer when inquired.

Of course they didn´t knew of any NGO coming from Dominican and assure that the entire Delegation was just 5 persons.

Finally they said that the Delegation did not to have any Plan, Mission, Goal or Strategy towards this WTO Conference Meeting, they just came, and I quote: “to see what was happening in the World and to get updated on the international flows and ideas”

Later I got the information from the Conference Registration that from Dominican 18 persons were in the list to come. How many did come or any names, was not a public information -I was told.

So, for me to see the way that the Norwegian NGO´s work with the OND was very satisfactory, perhaps even this level of work this is not enough. Influence, pressure and more access is still needed to achieve better goals. But, for other countries/NGO´s Networks this level of cooperation is a dream.

Is now interesting to know how this was achieved and how it is maintained. Via Media? Newspapers and TV? Public campaigns, lobbying?

Anyway is nice to see it here in Norway, it will be nicer to know how to implement this or something similar in other countries/societies and also how to improve it here to reach greater levels of cooperation.

WTO Geneva: Diary entry for Wednesday 2nd December

Third and final day of the Conference. Last efforts and usage of the last reserves of energies! Everyone was looking forward to all things the day could offer!

The morning briefing meeting with the OWINFS network is the by-now usual way of starting the day, we prepared the strategy for the day, the stunt actions ideas to focus on and meetings to follow.

Then we went to the Seminars happening in the different buildings, like the Symposium on [NAME] where the seminar on “Market improvement for LDC from the Doha round” was held. This symposium was interesting for all the organizations present thete, it became a great space to meet people, gather information and get interesting details about negotiations that happen or o-the-way.

After we came back to the NGO Center where conferences about the NAMA and “Decent work in the South” were taking place.

Right after we moved back to the Symposium to participate in the seminar “Latin America and the WTO: current and future scenarios”, the main arguments presented there were the role of Latin American countries should be assigning to their bargaining strategy at the Doha Round in the WTO. Which so far, has being somewhat a residual role in the economic and trade policymaking; in this multilateral arena, Latin America has shown relative lack of interest for WTO liberalization proposal. It was argued that this is mostly due to a concrete interest for preferential trade agreements and unordinary commodity prices which sums a much larger list of benefits than the WTO negotiations proposals.

This was an interesting perspective to contrast with the “common” arguments about LDC (Latin American countries included) were the arguments are that WTO proposal are taken like uncontested recipes.

Mari had to leave early In the afternoon, I manage to meet again with the Dominican delegation in the hallways and then the actions for the Closing Ceremony took place.

The day ended with the last OWINFS briefing, very interesting as well, this time especially because a strategy for the work from now on was drafted.

This is also published on:

http://inspirerende.wordpress.com/2009/12/05/wto-geneva-diary-entry-for-wednesday-2nd-december/