Closed Door Sessions Vex NGOs - Negotiations Shift to Backdoor Deals

By Thalif Deen

With negotiations on the WSSD plan of action heading towards a possible dead-end, delegates are feverishly trying to resolve some of the disputed issues in informal consultations and contact groups.

Of the two Contact Groups, one will deal with finance, trade and globalisation -- three of the four issues at the heart of the North-South dispute in current negotiations. The second Contact Group will deal with good governance -- a politically sensitive issue for some developing nations who stand accused either of human rights abuses or abandoning the Western concept of multi-party democracy.

An Asian diplomat put it bluntly: “What the donors want is good governance in exchange for money.” If the trade-off is not honoured in the long run, he said, “we may end up pledging good governance in return for little or no financial support”.

Speaking on behalf of Greenpeace International, Marcelo Furtado yesterday voiced strong criticism of the negotiating process from which nearly 4,500 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) attending at the summit have been shut out.

“We want more transparency. We want more participation,” he said. “If negotiations remain closed, we cannot have access to information -- and we cannot do our job.”

Furtado told Terra Viva that the creation of Contact Groups has marginalised civil society and also by-passed Working Groups involved in the negotiating process. When governments cannot reach agreements, he said, NGOs can make their own contributions facilitating the process -- provided they remain part of that process.

He admitted that NGOs were originally permitted to participate in the so-called Vienna Process where all major groups in the U.N. system were represented. But they were not permitted to venture beyond.

During two days of pre-summit negotiations, he pointed out, the emphasis had shifted to trade and commerce. “This is a summit on sustainable development, not a summit on trade and commerce,” he added.

Malini Mehra of the Bombay-based Centre for Social Markets said the perception that negotiations are deadlocked should come as no surprise.

But not all delegations are “comatose”. Some are frenetically active behind the scenes to ensure national interests are secured.

But the outstanding issues remain ignored by governments unwilling or unable to make necessary policy changes and face electoral consequences. They will not do this, she said, until there is domestic political support for change.

“The key issue is: how many governments have taken the WSSD to the electorate? How many have a mandate for their negotiating positions?”

“If they don’t have the people behind them,” Mehra said, “change will be impossible to achieve.”