Making Consultations Happen

Making Consultations Happen

A delegate can initiate consultations simply by going up to other delegates and starting to talk with them.

Delegation leaders make it their business to arrange meetings with their counterparts at chosen times whether it be at a lunch or a meeting or anywhere else or with a facilitator that has been appointed to help achieve consensus. They also see it as part of their business to ensure that the delegation as a whole undertakes all the necessary consultations. Planning consultations, including assigning responsibilities for doing so amongst delegation members, is one of the essential first tasks of a delegation. Making sure that consultation takes place and ensuring that the results are disseminated throughout the delegation is an ongoing aspect of effective delegation management.

When UN conferences are held, the conference organizers will sometimes invite delegates to a preconference get-together to enable them to initiate informal consultations before the conference begins. Once the conference has started, the organizers often arrange social events, including tours and excursions, which provide excellent opportunities for delegates to meet and to engage in consultations in a clearly informal setting.

Conference managers are very conscious of the importance of informal consultations and consequently see that allowing enough time for consultations to take place as part of their job. In particular, they understand that delegations need a certain amount of time to meet and get to know each other, to fully absorb a proposal and then to take action on it.

Preparation

Priorities

Each delegation will have many objectives they will want to achieve. Therefore, an important part of preparing for a conference is to be clear what your objectives are and to rank them in order of importance.

Making a list of priorities can help guide one’s negotiations. At the top of the list should be those objectives that are imperative, and beneath them a list (in order of importance) of objectives to pursue that do not have the same compelling force as top objectives. Priority rankings are an aid to deciding which of your objectives are worth more effort and which ones can be sacrificed for others if needed.

Here is a checklist of questions to consider to help clarify your objectives:

1. What are the questions to be decided at the conference?
2. What are the views and aims of other delegations?
3. What are my basic objectives?
4. How could these be achieved?
5. How much flexibility do I have?

Background Information

Another important component of preparation is to be well informed both about the issues to be negotiated and the positions of countries that will be represented at the conference.

In UN meetings, delegates carry credentials to represent the views of their respective governments. As such, they typically have a range of instructions from their capitals on what their priorities and objectives are. In Model UN conferences, delegates are role-playing these positions and the only information they have available are statements and speeches given by official representatives at meetings to help them to figure out what their priorities and objectives might be.

In addition, it is equally important to be aware of the views of other delegations attending the conference. This knowledge will enable delegates to identify possible obstacles in the path of reaching a mutually acceptable outcome that will advance one’s own objectives. Delegates can then think of possible ways to overcome or get around these obstacles. The final step is to test one’s own assessments by consulting widely to make sure others understand the solution one has identified and can be persuaded to agree with it.