Small And Successful

By: Annabel Fuller on December 15th, 2008

The G77 sets out to have a consensus of key issues among its members, despite not being a voting body. Forging agreements within the group is essential for the progress of any international negotiations and with so many diverse countries within the group, logistically, this poses difficulties, especially as each country has different national agendas.
Just a month before Antigua and Barbuda, the island nation located on the eastern boundary of the Caribbean Sea with the Atlantic Ocean, finishes its term as Chair of the G77 and China, Ambassador Diann Black-Layne cited consensus on the transfer of technology and key financial instruments as her country’s main achievement in the position.

Black-Layne said that Antigua and Barbuda has been Chair of G77 and China for 2008 but would pass on the mantle to Sudan on December 31 at an official handing over ceremony in New York in January.

The Group of 77 and China provides the means for the countries of the South to articulate and promote their collective economic interests and enhance their joint negotiating capacity on all major international economic issues within the United Nations system, and promotes South-South cooperation for development.

At the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland, Black-Layne, speaking to The Daily Observer, said the delegation, “has done really well — it is not something that we can glorify — but I think that as chair we were able to guide the group well.”

Usually, Antigua and Barbuda’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations H.E. Dr. John W. Ashe represents the country as chair of the group, while Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer has the ultimate chair in the hierarchy, of which Ambassador Byron Blake is also a part.

“In general, when you are chairing a body such as this, Antigua and Barbuda cannot express its national position because the group would not trust you to give its [the group’s] position on its behalf,” Black-Layne said, when asked if leading the 137-member group conflicts with the country’s membership in the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). “AOSIS has another say in what happens as well but we just appear neutral so we are not at odds with them at all.”

Black-Layne posited that her country’s greatest success can be measured by the agenda items. “There are several key, heavy, important agenda items and the more consensuses we can get on those items, the better off the group becomes in terms of our negotiating weight,” she said.

“The developed countries, in this forum — it is them against us sort of thing — that is an informal view but they are debating their view and we are ours and we are trying to have a happy medium,” Black-Layne said.

The process of negotiations here in Poznan is intense, as developed and developing countries negotiate the different elements of the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol for developed countries and the Bali Action Plan as laid out in Bali in 2007.

The Bali Action Plan set out a two-year process to finalise an agreement in Denmark in December 2009. This agreement will set out action to be taken by both developed and developing countries to combat climate change based on historical responsibility and in accordance with the countries’ common but differentiated responsibility.

“Many agenda items that we can get a consensus on would mean a success personally for Antigua and Barbuda because for it to control such a large group, Antigua and Barbuda would have to demonstrate that we do have leverage notwithstanding that we are small in every way (physically and financially, for example) compared to China, India and Brazil etc,” Black-Layne said.

Ambassador Black-Layne attributed a lot of Antigua’s influence within G77 to Dr Ashe, who she said, is a “really well known and highly respected” negotiator in New York. “It is because if his reputation that I think we are doing well in terms of where we are now,” she said.

“I can tell you [that] this year we got G77 agreement on some of the biggest issues for this Convention, such as technology transfer,” Black-Layne added, speaking of the United Nations Framework Convention of Climate Change (UNFCCC). “We have a G77 position on a financial mechanism for the Convention, which is a big deal for us, and we have several other issues that are on the table now and that never had a consensus on before, that we hope to have a consensus on by the end of this Conference of Parties (COP).”

The G77 therefore sets out to have a consensus of key issues among its members, despite not being a voting body. For example, its members range from countries such as Saudi Arabia and Syria, to Indonesia, Samoa, Fiji and most Caribbean nations.

Forging agreements within the group is essential for the progress of any international negotiations and with so many diverse countries within the group, logistically, this poses difficulties, especially as each country has different national agendas.