John Duncan

MARCH IS CONFERENCE MONTH

The G20 summit notwithstanding this month has been fulltime “Power-Point and Lights” on my side. The range of subjects and perspectives on what we do has been fascinating.

Today I am London for the Foreign Office Leadership Conference, a chance to catch up with colleagues across the world and see how we can better work together. The event started with an awards ceremony, a celebration of the creativity and enthusiasm of our teams (rather than simply the ambassadors) in finding new ways to meet the challenges of modern diplomacy.

David Miliband talked to us about the strategic turning point that the financial crisis will mean for foreign policy. Bernard Kouchner  talked to us about the “Entente Formidable” but made some quite pointed comments about how Britain sees the world compared to our continental neighbours. This morning we held a meeting of FCO bloggers and the wider blogging community. Time was really too short, but I see that our fellow bloggers are already out onto the net with comment. You can aslo watch the clips from the meeting at this link.

I fly to Washington tomorrow to take part in  a panel on the Arms Trade Treaty at the American Society of International Law annual meeting. A complete shift of focus and that has been the theme for the month, which began with a speech to the Peoples Development Summit where I was talking to Business Schools and trainers about the crossover between modern Human Resources and diplomatic negotiations. All too often we tend think that our own work requires a special expertise and skills and yet when we start talking to people in other disciplines we realize how much we can learn from each other.

Even the weekends have not been free as The Monterrey Institute from California every March brings together a number of the ambassadors who represent their countries in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty meetings, for a discussion in private  with NGO’s and Think Tanks. A very frank behind the scenes exchange.  Sometimes uncomfortable but never dull these gloves off meetings often lead to new ideas of how we might find a way through to an agreement.

Some  might well ask what is the point of  such “talk shops”. Well of course no great decisions get taken, but Diplomacy is still fundamentally about people. By bringing them together to talk through their differences, to exchange ideas, and have their assumptions challenged we begin to prepare the way for some of the very difficult public debates and decisions that need to be taken in the months ahead.

Posted at 00:04 26 March 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[2]