The paper aims to identify best practices and lessons learned in multi-stakeholder partnership (MSP) practices at the global policy level through a participatory methodology based on interviews and an online electronic survey.
The following is a list of reflections derived from the International Conference on Multistakeholder Diplomacy, held in Malta ,11-13 February, 2005. The Salina Bay Conclusions were an official statement delivered by Ambassador Saviour F. Borg, Permanent Representative of Malta to the United Nations in Geneva, during the PrepCom 2 Plenary of the World Summit on the Information Society (Geneva, 24 February 2005).
Victor Shale's paper refers to a specific time period: the post-Cold War period which brought about new forms of conflicts, and high levels of terrorism. In the light of the change in traditional diplomacy, his paper examines multistakeholder diplomatic training and its importance as an approach in penetrating different cultures, and examines whether this approach could be used to minimise intractable conflicts.
In this paper, Anush Begoyan presents a summary of multistakeholder processes in conflict resolution, conducted for DiploFoundation; it provides a brief theoretical introduction to current developments within the international system, to changes in the reality and the conceptualisation of the nation-state, and to resultant changes in the security system and the notion of national (state) interests. The paper also examines the changing character of contemporary intra-state conflicts and their driving forces, and analyses the main actors and stakeholders involved in contemporary conflicts, offering a preliminary classification of these actors based on the magnitude of their activities, the nature of their involvement, and their potential for conflict resolution and transformation.
In his paper, Chris Lamb reflects on the role of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Multistakeholder Diplomacy. He traces the IFRC's main developments since 1994, including its strategy document, and its obtaining of the status of observer with the UN General Assembly. The paper also looks at the future of IFRC in the light of its main objectives.
William Assanvo writes about one aspect of the Multistakeholder Diplomacy Research undertaken under the auspices of the DiploFoundation with the support of the Global Knowledge Partnership. This research program encompassed various topics, of which multistakeholder practices within national diplomatic systems worldwide was one. The author conducted the research reported here during a three-month internship at the DiploFoundation from October 1 to December 31, 2004. Assanvo's reasearch permitted the identification of stakeholders involved and has analysed the most frequently encountered forms of practice and arrangement within some diplomatic systems. It also has permitted the mapping of and analysis of the benefits that diplomatic services, and particularly national foreign policies, could gain using a multistakeholder approach.
Through analysis of the procedural and institutional arrangements in the functioning of international bodies, Valentin Katrandjiev, seeks to measure the extent to which diplomats accept nonofficial networks and entities as equal partners in the diplomatic negotiation process. Katrandjiev analyses the trend that on the domestic front, societies demand greater public accountability of governments in the process of national foreign policy making. He attempts to do so through the organisational units in MFAs responsible for relationships with domestic stakeholders.
Lichia Yiu and Raymond Sanner describe in detail the application of development diplomacy in the context of international co-operation for poverty reduction in Highly Indebted Poor Countries. In particular, the authors describe the goal of the International Labour Organisation – a non-state actor – in advocating the inclusion of employment and Decent Work Agenda policies in Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, an instrument developed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Raymond Saner addresses the growing influence non state actors are having on policy dialogue and policy negotiations in international development. Saner highlights how non state actors have become increasingly involved in the development policy field usually occupied by ambassadors and envoys representing Ministries of Foreign Affairs. Relevant requirements and competencies necessary for NSAs are also outlined by the author as well as the need for state actors to adapt their traditional roles and functions from inward looking, exclusive, and secretive activity into a more reachable, outgoing, and inclusive diplomacy.
Raquel Aguirre Valencia gives a detailed study on the role non state actors (NSAs) play in the international arena. In her paper the author identifies many instances where NSAs have played major roles in the decision making process of many organisations such as the UN, WTO and the EU and where these organisations have welcomed and acknowledged the importance of such partnerships.
In the fourth chapter of the book, Britta Sadou, focuses on non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Sadou introduces this particular group as civil society actors and continues by discussing possibilities provided to NGOs by various UN summits. The author highlights some of the main world conferences during the 1990s and early 2000s and poses two important questions - Has the time of those huge events come to an end? What could be the alternatives? Sadou also discusses proposals of the “Panel of Eminent Persons on United Nations-Civil Society Relations" and finally reflects on the question of how the presence of so many NGO representatives at the 1990s world conferences influenced the UN’s attitude toward inclusion of the “new” actors. What was heard from so many voices?
In this paper, Derrick Cogburn outlines a vision for multistakeholder democratic participation in global information and communication policy processes. Drawing on international regime theory, Cogburn suggests that the UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) is an explicit attempt to formulate the principles, norms, and values of an emergent international regime to govern the information society in general, and the Internet specifically.
Written just before WSIS 2005, Petru Dumitriu takes us through an accounted journey of the WSIS process from 2003 in Geneva to the preparatory stages of the Tunis Summit in 2005. In this chapter Dumitriu also put forward suggestions for a post-multistakeholder summit where all stakeholders could use their creativity and resources to consolidate what has been established and to develop new forms of dialogue and partnership among themselves.
In the first part of the book, Brian Hocking, suggests the importance of seeing diplomacy in a context broader than that of the state system with which it is often associated. Hocking also explains how problems of interpretation and understanding, applicable to MSD as it is to other models, result from evolving patterns of diplomacy. Hocking also suggests that it is possible to recognise the intersection of two diplomatic cultures overlaying and informing one another, whose coexistence generates, simultaneously, creative and negative tensions.
