The Elasticity of WIDE Women's Time:

Reading the newspapers and watching television, it would be easy to have the impression that all that happens at the WTO is that governments hold negotiations inside and NGOs protest outside and that the two are kept apart by police in riot gear, deploying pepper spray and water cannons. In fact, it's all a lot more complex, multi-layered and interconnected than that. There are around 2,000 NGO representatives here, and we engage and interact with the WTO negotiation process, and the negotiators with the NGOs, in a wide range of different ways and most of us in a number of ways at different times.

In the WTO context, NGOs include all those who are not government representatives, so not only Banulacht, Comhlamh and the Third World Network, for example, but also representatives of farmers, industry, agribusiness, employers, Transnational Corporations (e.g. Microsoft, Monsanto, Novartis), banks, etc. many government delegations include NGOs (the Irish delegation, for example includes IBEC, the IFA, ICMSA as well as Oxfam, Trocaire, Comhlamh and ICTU). At the Hong Kong Exhibition and Convention Centre, NGOs and delegates enter the same door, but beyond that, we have separate escalators to take us through our separate security checks and into our separate spaces. NGOs cannot pass over to the delegate side, but delegates can come to the NGO side. During each day, while the negotiations take place, there are parallel briefings, seminars and press conferences on the NGO side, where delegates come to report back to civil society on the state of the negotiations, update us on the positionings of the different country blocs and sometimes seek information from the NGOs. A number of NGOs produce daily briefings which are circulated in the NGO centre (and also on web sites, see earlier report dated Friday 16th).

And while all of that is going on inside the Exhibition and Convention Centre, in different venues, such as the Association of Boys and Girls Clubs (10 minutes walk away) and Victoria Park (25 minutes walk) every kind of strategy meeting, workshop, seminar and book launch is taking place. In the marquees set up in Victoria Park there have been tapestry making workshops, tribunals, political theatre, and by contrast with the formal surroundings of the Exhibition and Convention Centre, there are placards, T-shirts and posters everywhere with the message ‘Junk the WTO’.

One of the frustrations of participating in an event like this is trying to prioritise the use of your time and decide which events to attend. Do you stay in the convention centre and go to all the press briefings so as not to miss any developments, or do you go a strategy meeting of alternative NGOs who are planning an action like the water action (rattling coins in empty water bttles and chanting against the privatisation of water), or the creation of a huge empty box wrapped as a Christmas present, representing the empty Development Package being offered to the South? Do you participate in the women's march or go the workshop on women and services? Do you spend an hour reading briefings so as to be up to date on the state of negotations, or do you write your report for the web-site? Do you spend a day at the Women's Forum on the WTO or do you join your NGO colleagues to meet the Minister for Agriculture at her hotel? Do you stay for dinner with your delegation or go back to your hotel for an interview with community radio?

You can try to do everything, and spend your day running around from hotel to the Convention Centre, over to Hong Kong Boys' and Girls' Club, where some event happen, across to the Victoria Park where the activist tents are and the marches converge, back to the Convention Centre again. And you arrive late for everything and have to leave early to get to something else. Since I am not part of the government delegation on this occasion (because I am representing WIDE-Women in Development Europe) I don't have access to the Head of Delegation meetings where the negotiations happen (except the all-important negotiations that take place in the private select 'Green Rooms'). This give me a bit freedom, and what I have tried to do is to spend at least part of each day in Victoria Park and part in the Convention Centre.

Here's a flavour of the kinds of parallel events that are happening in all sorts of venues in Hong Kong in parallel to the WTO negotiations (women's events in bold):


Speak-out on Human Rights & Trade (Asia Pacifc Research Network (APRN), International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Rights and Democracy)

Global Ecumenical Women's Forum on Life-Promoting Trade (Ecumenical Organizations in HK, World Council of Churches (WCC), Christian Conference of Asia (CCA), HK Women Christian Council (HKWCC), ACISCA, HK Christian Institute (HKCI))

Asian Women's Village Exhibits

Asia Pacific Forum for Women, Law and Development (APWLD)

One Txt, One Msg, One World--TXT Power, Mobileactive Forum on Trade and War

International League of People's Struggle (ILPS), Resist!, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN, New Patriotic Alliance), United Filipinos in HK (UNIFIL-HK)

Cultural Jamming, Poetry Reading, etc

International League of People's Struggle (ILPS), Resist!, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN, New Patriotic Alliance)

Rice Festival Activities during the People's Camp for Food Sovereignty

Pesticide Action Network Asia Pacific Save Our Rice Campaign

People's Workshop on Agreement on Agriculture (AoA)

Asia Pacific Forum for Women, law and Development (APWLD), Asian Peasants Coalition (APC), APWN, AMIHAN (Philippine Peasant Women Federation)
Sharing: Women & Peace; Peace Negotiations, ILPS Peace Commission, GABRIELA

People's Camp on Food Sovereignty: Rural People's Tribunal on Agreement on Agriculture (AoA)

International Rural Peoples’ Tribunal: Intensify Resistance against Imperialist Globalization! Junk WTO!

International Caucus on Mining and WTO

WTO/Globalization: Endangering the World for Children

Women's Tribunal on the Impact of WTO on the World's Women
APWLD, AMIHAN, GABRIELA, APWN

Meeting "Building a Global Campaign to take Water out of FTAs (Water-Warriors)

Women's March (HKCTU Women, GABRIELA, APWLD)

Asian Workshop on TRIPS: Defending Farmer's Rights against Corporate Control in Food and Agriculture (NPOL, APC, PANAP)

Game Over WTO Children's Picnic

Asian Women's Press Briefing

Forum/Speak-out on Globalization, WTO and Forced Migration

"Onward With People's Struggles, No to WTO!" Closing March/Rally