The Doha Conference Begins

Dec 1st, 2008 9:41 AM UTC
By Sergius Seebohm

The UN Doha Conference kicked off Saturday. As expected, there were many world leaders present, including UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, Emir Sheikh Hamad of Qatar, President Sarkozy of France (also the president of EU), President of the EU Commission Manuel Barroso, and many African leaders, including President Kikwete of Tanzania (also the president of AU) and President Kibaki of Kenya. President Sarkozy called for the Bretton Woods Institutions (World Bank and the IMF) to be more inclusive and for better African representation within the UN Security Council.

In a very frank statement Emir Sheikh Hamad al-Thani said that oil-producing states, like Qatar, often “have the feeling that there are some attempts to put the whole burden of development” on them, and cautioned against excess of expectations, above and beyond their capabilities. Alongside the plenary sessions we often listen to a long line of leaders and heads of delegations who read out their speeches … a-always very, um, interesting..!

The contents of the Conference outcome document is negotiated in a different room at the working level. Most of these meetings are not open to the civil society, so we weren’t able to listen to the actual negotiations, but we hear that tough negotiations are going on between the member states, and we, the NGOs are working hard to make sure that the aid commitments that were reiterated in G8 Toyako Communique are not toned down. One thing really stirred the participants up: At noon there was the news that EU and the G7 already agreed on a final text for the outcome. The excitement was soon over as it turned out that Japan, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and particularly the US still had a number of reservations on the text. So negotiations will go on for a while. There are still some issues in the areas of reforming trading systems, timetables on ODA, debt, the consequences of climate change and of course about the consequences of the current financial crisis.

There are lots of side events going on here too, and we’ve attended several very interesting ones. Yesterday, an event that looked at innovative sources of development finance was opened by Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, and the French government introduced some of their initiatives such as the airline levy. Fellow activist David Hillman from Stamp Out Poverty also made a strong case for taxing currency transactions and using it to finance development. Our picture shows you Andreas and Sergius at that event. We also try to express our views to the media – so for example on Sunday Olly Buston gave a brief interview to Reuters and the Arabic channel of Al Jazeera.

On Monday, there is a couple of Africa-specific side events scheduled, so we look forward to attending those events – and of course we are keen to follow the further negotiation process.

-Sergius Seebohm

TAGS: Doha, Doha 2008 Series, Doha Financing for Development Summit, Policy News