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Multistakeholder
Diplomacy
Presentation
by by Christopher Lamb, Special Adviser, International Representation,
at the International Conference on Multistakeholder Diplomacy, in
Malta
11
February 2005 |
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There is now widespread recognition of the need for new approaches
to diplomacy. The intergovernmental relationships which have
governed diplomatic activity for centuries can no longer meet
the needs of people. This is particularly so in the internet
era, as is recognised by the UN itself in the context of such
events as the World Summit on Information Society.
There have also been a number of events which have forced a
new realisation on governments and intergovernmental organisations
of the fact that to accomplish their own economic and social
goals they need to involve a much wider range of stakeholders.
Alongside this, governments have recognised that international
peace and security can no longer be assured through military
strength alone. Similarly, governments have recognised that
international peace and security can be threatened by situations
of poverty, disease and despair. This is of special significance
in cases where countries have been so destabilised by disease
and poverty that their own capacity for country management is
damaged.
Governments became more willing to discuss cases of internal
difficulty or instability with the reshaping of world alliances
and relationships at the end of the cold war. This must be seen,
however, as an addition to the fundamentally important and earlier
development, for multistakeholder diplomacy, of treaty systems
which saw governments accepting internationally-monitored obligations
towards their own citizens. The best examples of this at the
global level are the human rights and environment treaties system.
But, in the fields of economic and social development, there
are few which contain so many lessons for the future as the
work under was on disaster preparedness and disaster response.
This example is very relevant today, but it also shows how work
at the national level on an issue which is a priority in international
diplomacy can be affected by rooting the multistakeholder approach
at all levels simultaneously.
In 1999, Governments and National Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies, meeting at their 27th International Conference of
the Red Cross and Red Crescent, adopted an international plan
of action for the following four years. That plan included a
commitment by States to establish national disaster preparedness
plans which would include the representation of National Societies
in appropriate national policy and coordination bodies. [See:
Final
Goal 2(1)(a)]
In the same plan of action, Governments supported the need for
the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
to initiate a study of the working relationships between States
and National Societies which would take account of changing
needs in the humanitarian, health and social fields, the auxiliary
role of National Societies and the evolving role of the State,
the private sector and voluntary organisations in service provision
[See: Final
Goal 3(3) paragraph 15].
The IFRC itself became more deeply involved in progressing its
own role in multistakeholder diplomacy about five years earlier.
On 10 October 1994, after active discussion with many different
governments, the United Nations General Assembly adopted its
resolution 49/2 through which it accorded the IFRC observer
status at sessions of the General Assembly.
The resolution includes an important preambular paragraph, in
which the multistakeholder approach is clearly resonant. It
is worth quoting in full, for it shows how one of the foundations
of modern multistakeholder diplomacy is set:
Recalling the special functions of the member societies
of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies which are recognized by their respective Governments
as auxiliaries to the public authorities in the humanitarian
field on the basis of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949.
In other words, National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
are in a position which is many things at the same time. They
are independent, neutral and impartial. They are also recognised
by their governments, and in most cases are formed by parliamentary
action of one kind or another.
Their auxiliary role was once seen as related fairly narrowly
to that of being an auxiliary to their country's armed forces
medical units, but it is now very much wider, although their
work with the ICRC on issues relevant to the dissemination of
International Humanitarian Law has lost none of its urgency
or priority.
The decision in 1999 to study the evolution of this auxiliary
role took place amidst an awareness that National Societies
and their International Federation had come to play a new and
different role in national and global affairs. The study itself
was brought to the 28th International Conference of the Red
Cross and Red Crescent in 2003 , and will continue. The definition
of the role, as this Conference shows, is evolving against the
backdrop of similar changes in thinking elsewhere in the international
community.
Perhaps the best reflection of the way the International Federation's
approaches sit alongside those of the other parts of the international
community is the Federation's main strategy document, Strategy
2010 . It was also adopted in 1999.
Its four core areas - the promotion of fundamental principles
and humanitarian values, disaster response, disaster preparedness
and health and care in the community - are at the base of all
the International Federation's multistakeholder diplomatic activity.
The United Nations response to the same developments came from
member States in many ways and just after the adoption of the
IFRC's Strategy 2010 and the decisions of the 28th International
Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent.
The most important response, perhaps because of its relevance
to the growth of respect for multistakeholder diplomacy, was
the Millennium Declaration adopted by the UN General Assembly
in September 2000. Through this, Heads of State and Government
provided the United Nations and its family organisations with
a clear responsibility to address the vulnerability of people
at the same time as they sought to address their traditional
agendas.
The point formed the basis of new but erratic approaches to
the best ways of bringing civil society into international negotiations.
It was unevenly accepted at the national level, and the experience
of the IFRC shows that for it to be well accepted there must
be a combination of both government willingness and civil society
capacity. This is why capacity-building programs are such an
important part of the IFRC's agenda.
The UN itself recognised that it had a responsibility from the
Millennium Declaration to provide inspiration and perhaps a
lead to governments and other parts of the international community.
The key decision, taken in 2002, was the Secretary-General establishment
of a Panel of Eminent Persons on UN-Civil Society relations
to be chaired by former President Fernando Enrique Cardoso of
Brazil.
The Cardoso Report was launched in June 2004 and will have its
first full airing in the UN General Assembly later this year.
It reaches many conclusions of vital importance to any discussion
on multistakeholder diplomacy.
One is that the multilateral agenda has changed, and will more
and more often respond to global issues brought forward by civil
society and what it describes as "a crescendo of public opinion".
So, as the report says, multilateralism already includes ongoing
processes of public debate, policy dialogue and pioneering action
to tackle emerging challenges.
These points are also picked up in the report of the UN's High-level
Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change. This report picks up
well on the Cardoso Report, and endorses its recommendations
on the establishment of a better mechanism to enable systematic
engagement with civil society organisations.
But the recommendations are not directed with sufficient precision
to make a real difference to the way the UN will work.
It is not the purpose of this paper to review the recommendations,
but the IFRC's position as an organisation with a worldwide
grass-roots base does give us an opportunity to comment.
I remember well the time when the IFRC obtained its observer
status with the UN General Assembly. There was considerable
debate at the time as to whether adopting the draft resolution
proposed by Australia would introduce a plethora of unrepresentative
and unaccountable NGOs to the heights of international diplomacy
and rule-making.
In the end, the proposal was adopted after member States were
satisfied that the auxiliary status of National Societies effectively
distinguished them from NGOs. States also felt that the quadrennial
International Conference of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent
gave them a part in the evolution of the National Societies'
priorities and programs.
The answer to this so-called dilemma was provided by a number
of governments deciding to embark on domestic processes of consultation
with non-governmental organisations and coalitions. This led,
quickly, to some of them making it a regular practice to include
representatives of those coalitions in their governmental delegations
to international conferences.
The idea has matured since to the point that the first provisional
list of participants showed that no fewer than 11 governments
included people from outside government itself in their official
delegations to the World Conference on Disaster Reduction in
Kobe, Hyogo, Japan in January 2005. Of these, 6 included people
from their national Red Cross or Red Crescent Societies.
The final numbers will be larger still, and the point to emphasise
is that governments are becoming more and more ready to be inclusive
of stakeholders when they move into international diplomatic
negotiation.
This point is all the clearer from the simple statistic that
this Conference was attended by over 4000 delegates from 168
governments, 78 observer organisations and 161 NGOs, not to
mention 562 accredited journalists.
With the same objective of inclusivity, some governments and
international organisations facilitated the presence in the
IFRC Delegation at the Kobe Conference of expertise from different
parts of the world. They did so partly because they knew that
the IFRC's status provided the persons with a platform from
which their expert knowledge could be easily integrated into
the Conference processes.
They were perceptive. Although they could not have known it
when they composed their delegations, the handling this year
by the United Nations of the Tsunami disaster has underlined
the importance of the IFRC role. Our status has enabled the
United Nations to bring our expertise to centre stage in debates
and negotiations in Geneva, New York and other centres.
Our status also made it possible for ASEAN to include the Secretary-General
of the IFRC in its Ministerial Meeting on the Tsunami disaster
in Jakarta in January. It has made it easy, despite the restrictions
imposed on wider civil society by outdated rules of procedure,
to bring the voice of communities to the centre of discussions
about how to meet their needs.
There are many other stages from which the IFRC will take its
multistakeholder constituency into international diplomacy in
the next years.
One of the most important is in debate surrounding the implementation
of the United Nations Millennium Declaration and its Development
Goals. The purpose of referring to this again is to observe
the multistakeholder dimension of the IFRC's consistent presentation
to UN discussions.
It is that vulnerability is best assessed, and best addressed,
in concert with the people who experience that vulnerability.
From that, we say that the Millennium Declaration Goals are
a realistic set of objectives, but that their achievement will
in most cases depend on the willingness of governments to design
and implement programs in consultation with the people directly
affected.
This means that governments at all levels - including the range
from local government to intergovernmental negotiation at the
UN - must work with community representatives at each of those
levels if development programs are to be successful in an MDG
context.
The MDGs present, hence, the greatest challenge to traditional
ways of doing multilateral business.
Their arrival on the scene in 2000 was followed by several other
important and similar signs that new ways of doing business
must be found. Some have already been mentioned, like the Cardoso
Panel of Eminent Persons and the UN Secretary-General's High
Level Panel (the reform panel). But there are others, and one
of the important tasks ahead is to bring their conclusions together
and foster a coherent debate on them.
Those of greatest interest to the IFRC include, apart from those
already mentioned,
- the work being done on Good Humanitarian Donorship, which
places substantial emphasis on accountability and hence on programming
which takes account of the needs of the beneficiaries of assistance
. As it develops, it will more and more bring other stakeholders
and their interests to the centre of the international development
debate. It will also permeate national level programming for
the vulnerable, in both developing and developed countries.
- a review commissioned by the United Nations Emergency Relief
Coordinator of global response capacity. Although this is aimed
at addressing needs in a disaster situation, it is clear that
it will need to include the work done at the national level
to build community resilience and prepare for potential disasters.
Any such work has implications for the stakeholder base to which
governments and other institutions need to accountable as they
work towards their objectives.
The Non-Aligned Movement addressed some similar themes at a
Ministerial Meeting held in Durban in August 2004. The call
put to the ministers in the opening address by the President
of South Africa was for the Movement to rise to three challenges
in 2005, the 50th anniversary of the Bandung Conference which
created the Movement.
The third of those challenges is the most relevant in the context
of multistakeholder diplomacy. President Mbeki saw it as the
restructuring of the global exercise of power, and suggested
that the Movement needed find a way to build a "democratic inclusive"
answer for the affected people themselves [See
the text of the address].
Some important steps have already been taken in that direction
by the bodies most responsible for the global exercise of power.
One good example is the way the United Nations Security Council
has agreed that HIV/AIDS presents a threat to international
peace and security. There is still a long way to go before the
Security Council's own procedures will permit the inclusivity
debates on this subject require, but it is some comfort that
the agenda item is alive.
It is also a comfort to us that the UN General Assembly has
followed its own Special Session on HIV/AIDS (in 2001) with
specialised high-level debates on the issues. The IFRC will
utilise its Observer status and take part, and when we do so
we will say, as we did in the first such high level debate (in
2003) that the debate would have been much more useful if the
voices of civil society organisations, representing other stakeholders,
could also be heard .
We feel, as our President said to the special high level UN
General Assembly debate on HIV/AIDS in 2003, a special sense
of responsibility when we take part in debates which are closed
to wider civil society because of old rules of procedure. We
want to see much more inclusivity in future, in the United Nations
and in all bodies which share objectives relating to peace,
development and the protection of human dignity.
The UN family's work on its procedures coincides with similar
but essentially unrelated work in other institutions, including
the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. Although
we are known as one of the foremost examples of multistakeholder
diplomacy at work, we too recognise the need to tune ourselves
better to the needs of the most vulnerable.
We have taken some important steps of our own. One, already
mentioned, is the study of the auxiliary status of National
Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Another, just as far-reaching,
is the Strategy for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent
Movement , adopted in 2001.
This Strategy concerns the work of all components of the Movement
- the ICRC, the IFRC and each of the National Societies. One
of its strategic objectives relates to international diplomacy
and relations with governments and other external actors, and
makes it clear that there should be consistency in the humanitarian
approach as well as a thorough commitment to the Fundamental
Principles of the Movement itself, and to the integrity which
must be present in our work at all times.
It is now being reviewed, and one of the issues which will be
prominent is the way the Movement as a whole and in its individual
parts relates to the outside world - in other words, the way
its own multiconstituency nature is reflected in multistakeholder
action. Similarly, the IFRC is examining the way it should be
fitted to a future which is already very different from the
period when it was built. The IFRC's next General Assembly Session
will be held in Seoul in late 2005, and one its main agenda
items will be a discussion of what kind of Federation the IFRC
will need to be if it is to continue effectively to represent
the interests of its members in a changing external environment.
Discussions like that organised by the DiploFoundation and the
University of Malta can bring a great deal to our review, and
perhaps even more the UN processes. To be fully effective, though,
the work now being done needs to reach the people themselves
in whose name so much multistakeholder work - in particular
- is done.
This is why we are impressed by the link made by the organisers
of this Conference to the World Summit on Information Society.
It is the IFRC's hope that the Summit, when it concludes in
Tunis at the end of 2005, will have identified the needs of
the vulnerable as one of their priority areas for future work.
For us, as we have said at several international conferences
in recent years and emphasised recently, vulnerability exacerbated
by remoteness is a particularly important challenge. It is,
however, a challenge which can be addressed through effective
communication and the use of the internet and its panorama of
opportunities.
The Summit, we believe, presents a considerable challenge for
proponents of multistakeholder diplomacy. Many governments are
still reluctant to accept that the internet has changed forever
the way they need to communicate with and listen to their constituents.
The Summit itself is largely built around standard UN conference
rules of procedure, and although there is a wide and inclusive
process in many preparatory stages, the meeting itself is unlikely
to bring many of the beneficial concepts unveiled during those
stages into its outcomes.
But the preparatory stages have opened a new window into the
way conference processes might usefully be managed in the future.
What a few governments were doing in terms of public consultation
20 years ago is now more and more demanded of them by their
own public and its constituencies.
Our view of this, from the vantage point of our community-based
organisation, is that at the top level of government it is becoming
easier to gain acceptance of the importance of this multistakeholder
consultation. It is still, however, difficult in many countries
to reach into bureaucracy with fresh ideas and fresh ways of
working. This is a significant challenge for us all.
Nevertheless, what the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement sought
20 years ago in terms of respect for the views and needs of
communities is now at the centre of the international development
agenda. Where it will stay.
What is still missing is an international community which knows
how to respond to the challenges this multistakeholder world
presents. There are some serious political constraints which
limit the freedom of movement of international organisations,
starting with the fact that almost all are membership organisations
composed by governments.
This is one of the reasons why the last 15 years has seen such
a growth of alternative forums for the discussion of major world
issues. One of those which deserves mention is the World Economic
Forum, which meets every year in Davos (Switzerland) and has
spawned related events on particular issues in other places.
The IFRC is very grateful for the opportunity it has had to
provide its experience and insights to the WEF. We have found
it an invaluable meeting place for ideas, and a very useful
forum for reachout to another range of stakeholders which are
often difficult to contact through regular channels.
We place a high priority in reaching the private sector with
our issues, and have been consistently pleased with the reception
our ideas have produced. Partnerships with the private sector
are an essential part of the partnership agenda we must all
develop in the future.
The Cardoso Report tackles the broad question of the place of
partnerships and the multistakeholder approach by observing
that the multilateral world for which the United Nations was
designed was one in which governments came together to agree
on and then implement policy. Omnigovernmentalism, the report
called the process.
But now, the report says, the world is much more truly multilateral
and embraces many constituencies from many sides of debate in
the process of decision-making. The Cardoso Report says the
United Nations should respond to this challenge by fostering
multistakeholder partnerships, reaching to constituencies beyond
Member States. This, we say, is also a demand posed by the Millennium
Development Goals, and in particular Goal 8 which is built around
the need for new partnerships for development.
IFRC multistakeholder diplomacy has evolved in exactly this
direction. Without these partnerships, and especially partnerships
linking the communities to governments, the Millennium Development
Goals will not be achieved. Without progress on those economic
and social fronts against poverty, deprivation and despair the
United Nations will not maintain the respect of the people of
the world.
Multistakeholder approaches, involving as they must the people
affected by the decisions of diplomacy, are the key to the next
generation of governance for the world.
Debate on the Cardoso Report and the other important documents
in the reform agenda will show us whether the world is ready
to accept the changes to diplomatic patterns which are already
in progress.
The challenge for the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement, as for
all others committed to development, the eradication of poverty
and peace is to partner the same change process, and to help
build the capacity of communities so they can play their part
in the new stakeholder equations of the future.
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