UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service - International Deliberations on Global Economic Governance Reform
Team: Asch Harwood, Mariluz Lopez, William Post, Bradley Seelig, Christian Sempere, Jon Wallach
Semester: Spring 2009
NGO Input Into the Reform of Global Economic Governance
The policy context: In response to the globally spreading economic and financial crisis, there are now three tracks of official international deliberations on globalization reforms. One is the "Group of 20", which meets at heads of state level on April 2 in London. Civil society has no input into its deliberations, and so various European NGOs are organizing "welcoming" events in London. A second forum was created by Fr. Miguel d'Escoto of Nicaragua, currently President of the UN General Assembly; this is to be an intergovernmental conference, probably to be held in June, which will consider a report of a Commission he appointed, chaired by Joseph Stiglitz. The Commission is open to receiving the views of NGOs, but wants them in the form of a consolidated NGO paper. The UN's Non-Governmental Liaison Service (NGLS) has been asked to coordinate that activity.
Thirdly, the Doha review conference on Financing for Development (FfD) late last year agreed to create a stronger follow-up process at the UN for bringing foreign affairs, finance and trade ministries and their international institutions together under the FfD flag for discussions of how to strengthen coherence and effectiveness of international policy making to better advance development. The Doha conference mandated the April 27 meeting of the UN Economic and Social Council with the Bretton Woods institutions, World Trade Organization and UNCTAD to consider a proposal for how to organize the new forum, which is meant to overcome the political failings of previous arrangements.
The Practicum: The team of New School students worked with the UN NGLS in New York on the latter two initiatives. While details and final commitments still need to be worked out next week, there would likely be two primary activities.
1. Assist NGLS in identifying, soliciting, receiving and synthesizing NGO views from around the world on financial architecture reforms (the NGO report to the Stiglitz Commission should be delivered in late February, certainly by March 8 when the Commission next meets). This will involve collecting views already posted on organization web sites and communicating with NGOs about specific contributions (it is suggested that students work with an experienced NGO person sensitive to NGO sensitivities, especially on the final text). NGLS will make a special effort to get views from Southern NGOs.
2. Second, NGOs have the right to participate in the ECOSOC/BWI/WTO meeting (e.g., they are allowed to speak) and NGLS will help facilitate their preparation. In this regard, the New School team might provide a service to the NGOs by sorting through the various proposals and ideas that perhaps ought to be considered for reform of the FfD intergovernmental process (e.g., Mexico's former president, Ernesto Zedillo, once headed a commission that proposed an Economic Security Council in this context). They could prepare a report for NGLS in late March/early April that could be an input (and/or a draft) for an NGLS briefing paper for NGOs on desirable directions for reform. Finally, they could assist NGLS during the ECOSOC meeting on April 27.
Faculty Supervisor: Barry Herman supported the New School students in the Practicum, as he did in the Fall 2007 and Spring 2008 Practicae on FfD.
Core Documents
Terms of Reference
Timeline
Final Presentation
Additional Documents
UN NGLS Report.pdf
Navigate: All Spring 2009 practicums