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/

WTO Geneva: Diary entry for Monday 30th November

This is another official diary entry:

First day, first little getting-lost trip in the city, we pass by the famous broken chair monument, took the picture, saw the huge installations of the United Nations (Big enough to be the global headquarters of the UN) and keep moving towards the WTO Offices to do the registration process and pick up the badges.

Right after headed to the Norwegian delegation office, to meet with the Official Delegation (OD) and all the Norwegian NGO´s and Civil Society Institutions (CSI).

In this informational meeting the OD shared some of the ideas of their agenda and opened the table for questions from the people present.

It was a nice and interesting expression of transparency and cooperation. With people of deep knowledge in different issues, making the right and perhaps controversial inquiries, it all became a full exercise where the official and “normal” answers of the OD were demanded.

With that spirit we walk to the Centre International de Conferences Genève (CICG) where the Conference is being held. Strict badge checks, airport-style security procedures and then you are in the main building. But this infrastructure is just for the “real” Conference, the one were only the Official delegations can be inside the auditoriums doors, properly identified press and civil society representatives can get close and be in the halls, but not inside the auditoriums. For us there was a building right in front, where Seminars and Conferences were about to take place. These, and other venues around, are the places to exposes the ideas, policies, messages and debates that keep our institutions running on the pursue of Justice, Fairness, Development and Improvements goals in the Trade issues. I guess the main strategy is not to have seminars and conferences to justify our work and present our ideas among the same group of people, but to also and specially involve the official institutions, politicians and main actors in this play, in order to influence, create conscience, commitment, awareness and overall action.

This is one of the greatest challenges, and with the presence of the NGO´s and Civil Society Institutions, we are putting up a concrete fight for it: achieve a transparent and democratic functioning of the WTO.

In the meeting with the Norwegian delegation Aksel, the leader of The Development Fond, ask their opinion about NGO´s and CSI´s participation in the plenary sessions, it was pleasant to know that they did not see any reason for us not to be in any of the plenary sessions, but more than comforting, this confirmation from the Norwegian delegation became useful, it was during the first press conference between the WTO venue organizers and the NGO´s representatives, Aksel himself raised the comment and demand of participate in the plenary sessions supported by the Norwegian delegation. It was the only round of applause during the meeting. But it can also make us think of a proposal where each official delegation can agree on letting NGO´s and CSI´s participate, therefore the will of the plenary will allow an open, transparent and more democratic flow of the meetings.

From the program of activities we choose to attend to the Conference called “The Rights approach to trade rules”, in short there were presented different aspects on how to incorporate the Human Rights approach or perspective to Trade, with special attention to the right to food, which is an item ratified (made law) by more than 160 countries.

A briefing of the day from the O.D. to all the NGO´s and Civil Society Institutions was schedule for the end of the evening, but it was cancelled. We don´t know the reasons (yet), but as soon as we know it, we´ll let you know.

Also published on the Spire blog:

http://inspirerende.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/271/

Professional Profile

I made this profile of myself for apply to an internship, it was interesting because it had to be in third person and include aspects of my professional background.

Here it is:

He is a young adventurer, willing to experience the cultures of the world. Passionate Social Worker, who has now a Master in Social Welfare and Health Policy, with 4 years of experience on the Social/NGO sector he wants to devote himself to the Development work. With experience in community and projects evaluation, provision of social services, social programs manager and research.

To find and understand the reasoning behind every human action (and no-action) really fascinates him. He believes in the capacity to build your own future based on the present moment actions, the social empowerment of people and communities is visible in all his work. He has great commitment to his work, to manage projects and social programs, conduct research, be fund raiser, lead capacity building processes, make effective and human distribution of social services and get involve with people are the sparks that sets up his fire. He is social sensible professional that beliefs in the people and on collective changes for good.

to Geneve

Official diary entry:

Sunday 29th

The Spire-WTO journey began. A rush to get to the Central Station, take the Flytoget and depart in a nice and cheap flight to Geneva.

From the arrival Geneva is a city that welcomes you, first everyone receives from the airport a free all-public transport ticket valid for 80 minutes (enough to get anywhere), right there we find out that when you reserve in a hotel normally there is a transport card included in the price, those are great first steps to get around the city. I was lucky to find from the Swiss Christian solidarity roots a nice and cozy shared-room and my partner Mari tempted her luck by hunting a reasonable-price hotel in that very same night in the city center, and did it!

It is always a fabulous thing to live the concrete feeling of realizing the fact that I have a global family called: Focolare.

I try to find hotels, to get hosted by Couch Surfers, but I was almost forgetting the focolare. Since I tough there were no focolare in this city, just in the last minute I decided to find out if at least any Gen or volunteer family was present. For my luck there is a nice focolare and on top my dear friend Rainer is living here and Rafi as well. Martin, the leader was very welcoming from the beginning. That phrase of "it was like we knew each other since for ever" is again more true than the floor I am stepping.

Many things happening

I guess this is just an non-structured diary entry.

Very, very busy days!!

Today (afternoon) I plan to finally have a time to re-start working on my thesis and on the end of next week as well.

This Saturday is going to be busy in the afternoon, I still don´t know exactly what I´ll do, options are too many.

On Sunday, after work I´ll travel to Geneva for the WTO Conference and I´ll be there until Thursday when I´ll come straight to work.

I just got my residence permit! So I can stay until February. Do I want to do it? I guess yes! Do I want to stay longer? First it does not depend on me. I need a full-time job. There is a nice offer presented through my friend Sebi, but the clients should decide if they want to do this job and more important if they want me to do it! Let´s see! If that becomes truth then, and only then I should get to ask myself how long more do I want to stay around here. A Lithuanian friend told me that once you pass the winter everything is much better and she is right. So, let´s see!

I´ll be receiving a Polish couple for 2 days soon. Some fun might be coming.

Right after we´ll go to Paris. That for sure will be fun!

Christmas will be very close after that! the plan is to go to Barcelona again to visit my cousin, probably for the last time in many years. This time a new nephew will be at home: Aaron, who should come in these days.

At some point I plan to take a cruise boat to Copenhagen and travel a bit inside Norway. (As, Stavanger, Trondheim, Volda and/or Tromso) Let´s see what can become possible and not remain a dream.

Speaking of dreams, in these weeks I´ll like to confirm the real possibility of being Consul.

I´ll present my formal resignation in Aftenposten to get the at least January free from that job.

Finish the Vivencia course.

Have job offers when coming back to Dominican.