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Civil society voice grant legitimacy to WTO talks
MS partners in Hong Kong; We make a positive difference
By Line Wolf Nielsen
 A WTO Ministerial level meeting is not reserved for government
officials only. In Hong Kong many of the official delegations
have reserved seats to members of civil society organisations.
MS partners from Nepal, Uganda and Zambia all have seats in
their respective countries’ official delegations. They serve as
advisors as the trade negotiations gets underway, but have also
provided input on WTO issues prior to the meeting.
Mr. Elly Twineyo from MS Uganda partner organisation DENIVA
tells that his government have had very good relations with
civil society in matters of trade and WTO issues.
”Three months before the Hong Kong Ministerial meeting, the
Ugandan government invited stakeholders for a two-day retreat in
order to get input and find a national position on the Doha
Development round – a position which the government wanted to be
more that of the people than just that of the Government. Like
the officials, we also want the duty free, quota free access to
be written into the WTO framework” Mr. Elly Twineyo says.
Reminding the government
In the case of MS Zambia, the partner organisation CUTS have a
seat in the national advisory committe on trade and WTO. Sajeev
Nair explains how he takes part in the nitty-gritty calgulations
and gets a say on issues and time frames.
As the Zambian Trade Minister Mr. Dipak Patel is also the
spokesperson for the entire group of Least Developed Countries –
or LDCs as they are called in WTO-speak, the Zambian delegation
are particularly close to the action in Hong Kong.
”The LDC agenda is put forward by us, but we are not all the
same. The LDC group counts 49 members. It is the role of the
Zambian civil society to keep the government at its toes, so
that it does not forget its obligations towards Zambia too,”
Sajeev Nair says. MS chairman Mr. Soren Hougaard believes that
the NGO presence is important and that it also reflects an
age-old Danish political tradition of including various
stakeholders within the political decision making process.
”We might not be able to directly effect the talks here, as the
Danish delegation only takes its position together with the EU
Commission. But we can display our disapproval and
disappointment with the fact that the Danes seems to be hiding
behind the EU negotiators, not promoting development issues as
it otherwise have been approved in the Danish parliament, prior
to the meeting, ” the MS chairman says.
The official Danish delegation counts four offical NGO
delegates, but the entire delegation also consist of different
other stakeholders, representing the agricultural secor,
textile industries, labour unions and the likes. MS does not
hold an official seat, but remains close to the negotiations via
network ties. National ownership In the case of Nepal, the
Permanent Representative of Nepal to the United Nations and WTO,
ambassador Gyan Chandra Acharya is pleased about the
collaboration with different stakeholders.
”We try to have a national ownership to WTO rather than just
taking the Government position. We need the input from the
private sector as well as the civil society,” the Ambassador
says.
LDCs lack ressources Another reason for the many NGO seats in
the delegations of the LDCs is a bit more pragmatic. Not all
LDCs have the governmental ressources to analyze and deal with
the complicated WTO calculations and implications.
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