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Developing
Countries’ Participation in International Negotiations
Working Papers
Bolivia's
Participation in the UN Framework on Climate Change
Alan Bojanic H, Riberalta University, Riberalta, Bolivia
Bolivia's
Participation in International Trade Negotiations.
Alan Bojanic H, Riberalta University, Riberalta, Bolivia
Guyana's
Participation in Multilateral and Regional Trade Negotiations and
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
Nigel Durrant, Georgetown, Guyana
Zimbabwe
and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
Peter G.H. Frost, Institute of Environmental Studies, University
of Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Case Study on Trade Negotiations
Richard Hess, Imani Development (International), Harare, Zimbabwe
Poverty
and Climate Change: Assessing Impacts in Developing Countries and
the Initiatives of the International Community
Report prepared by Claire McGregor, Rebecca Reynolds and
Daniel Weidner as part of a London School of Economics Consultancy
Project for the Overseas Development Institute
Developing
Countries in GATT/WTO Negotiations
Sheila Page, Overseas Development Institute, London
A
Review of the Effectiveness of Developing Country Participation
in the Climate Change Convention Negotiations (revised
10/12/01)
Michael Richards, Forest Policy and Environment Group, Overseas
Development Institute
Effectiveness
of Developing Country Participation in ACP-EU Negotiations
Henri-Bernard Solignac Lecomte
In
the last 20 years, the role of developing countries in the international
system has been transformed. This goes beyond the impact of their
greater economic and political strength. They are now active in
the international institutions. From being either excluded or treated
as exceptions, some have become participants: pursuing their own
policies and a target for the policies of others. Others, however,
remain outside, either because they believe they have little to
gain or because they are powerless to achieve significant gains.
In a three-year
research programme, three researchers at ODI, working with four associates
in individual countries, have tried to understand how this participation
has evolved, by which countries, when, in which negotiations, with
what strategies. We want to examine:
- how
and when can participation by economically and politically weak
countries influence the results?
- what
are the conditions which influence how countries participate,
and how they succeed?
- are
there lessons, for other countries, for the international institutions
themselves, or for donors deciding how to target assistance, from
the success of some countries, and the failures of others?
In
the first stage, we analysed three negotiating processes and the
experience of three countries.
The
three negotiations are an environmental example, those on climate
change (for the UN Framework Convention), multilateral trade negotiations
under the World Trade Organization (and GATT) and an example of
bilateral, preferential negotiations, those between the EU and its
associated countries under the Lomé and Cotonou negotiations.
The three countries are Bolivia: with strong interests in the climate
change negotiations, Guyana, with special interests in its relations
with Europe, and Zimbabwe, increasingly prominent in the WTO.
For
the negotiations, we were interested in when developing countries
started to intervene actively: which countries were active, for
what purposes, and what led to success or failure. In these, therefore,
we were identifying the most important issues and participants in
each negotiation.
But
from the point of view of an individual country, the negotiations
must be seen in the context of all their development (and other)
national policies, and more particularly among all the other international
relationships which they must join or which they may choose. Here,
we were interested in when and how a country decided to become active;
which negotiations were most important to it; how the government
and private decision-makers formed their positions, and responded
to those of others.
The
working papers available here represent the first results of this
project. The second stage will be to analyse and compare the results
to find general results, and then go back to the countries to discuss
these with the researchers and with policy-makers, before finally
drawing conclusions.
The
study forms part of the Globalisation
and Poverty programme, financed by the Department for International
Development, which now includes fourteen projects on the relationship
between the global economy, and global institutions, and poverty,
and on how the developing countries can influence this. For further
information on this project, please contact Sheila
Page, at ODI. For further information on the Globalisation and
Poverty Programme, see or email globpov@ids.ac.uk.
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