SafariLands.org: Books & Articles: Conferences: expensive talking shops?

Do not brush this aside as so much pillow talk. In fact, it speaks volumes about why so many people like to attend international conferences: the travel comforts, the subsistence allowances, luxury hotel accommodations, sight-seeing opportunities, new acquaintanceships, and for the accompanying spouses the attractive shopping windows!

Regrettably, for some participants, the subject of the conference itself, let alone their contribution to it, is the last thing they think about.

International conferences assemblies, meetings, seminars, workshops, symposia, give them any label you like come in all shapes and sizes.

Some conferences, like those which bring together research scientists, are absolutely vital: major scientific and technological breakthroughs of Nobel prize fame have often emanated from contributions at such conferences.

Other conferences, including some high-level political gatherings, degenerate into mere talking shops. It is impossible to figure out what their accomplishments are.

The 'pillow talk' in the opening paragraph provides a hint of one fatal weakness of high-level intergovernmental conferences.

The spouses of some 'big shots', if not the participants themselves, seem to have developed a tourism mentality, which regards these conferences as merely an opportunity for sightseeing, excitement, pleasure and relaxation sometimes at public expense!

From the whole array of conferences, I have chosen intergovernmental gatherings as the focus of this presentation.

An intergovernmental conference is a public event financed, directly or indirectly, by taxpayers' money.

To represent one's own country at such a conference is an honour and a privilege.

A participant should never take the opportunity to pursue his or her own private interests at the expense of the conference's objectives.

Decisions as to who to include in the national delegation, and who should lead it, are vitally important. Equally important is adequate preparation regarding the position to be taken on various matters.

In the case of a ministerial conference, the minister leading the delegation needs expert advice, based on relevant information and factual analysis, prepared by senior public officials conversant with the subject.

Most ministerial sessions are normally preceded by technical preparatory meetings of officials who thrash out the agenda, and submit their report to the ministers.

The report becomes a useful point of departure, if not the main document, for the ministers' deliberations.

If the conference is at Heads of State level, preparations proceed along similar lines, but go a step farther: the ministers themselves submit their report to the Heads of State, who use it at their discretion.

There has been growing concern that many of these conferences, for what they are worth, are costing the taxpayer too much money.

Regular conferences convened annually or bi-annually tend to generate smaller mid-period conferences, as a follow-up to the implementation of "plans of action" adopted at previous conferences.

Too many of these conferences have become institutionalized, with permanent secretariats, which prepare the reports of each conference, as well as the agenda and documentation for the next one.

Thus, the number of conferences and mini-conferences has multiplied tremendously.

There is also a tendency to create committees, sub-committees, or working parties, to follow up on this or that specific item.

The career professionals who staff the conference secretariats are never short of good reasons for convening yet another meeting as long as funds permit, or for making a good case for extra funding if necessary.

Conference secretariats have a vested interest in the continuation of the conferences they serve.

They know that if the conference stops, and the secretariat is abolished, so too are their professional careers.

This writer can vouch for that fact, having personally lost his job when the United Nations World Food Council, which used to organize ministerial conferences every two years, was abolished.

It should be made incumbent upon each conference secretariat to come up with proposals to cut down conference costs, or to ensure that they are kept strictly within prescribed limits.

Relevant cost-cutting considerations would include the venue of the conferences, their duration, the status of participants, and the size of delegations. Each of these should have a ceiling.

For example, it is believed that many conferences would accomplish just as much if certain countries reduced their delegations to half their present size.

The staff of the conference secretariats should also avoid the temptation of multiplying meetings through the unnecessary creation of committees, sub-committees and working groups.

This writer further believes that greater advantage should be taken of the relatively new, but much underutilized, facility known as 'teleconferencing', a technique which could eliminate the need for and the expense associated with the extremely large number of mini-conferences.

Source: http://www.ippmedia.com

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SOURCE: Guardian