"High-tech lessons and the G20 Summits"

My article below is based on my experiences at the G20 Youth Summit and was published today in the Windsor Star. Enjoy. - R.O.

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"High-tech lessons and the G20 Summits"

BY ROBERT D. ONLEY, SPECIAL TO THE WINDSOR STAR - JUNE 26, 2010

This weekend, world leaders will gather in the fortress that is now downtown Toronto to create and co-ordinate policies on the most pressing issues facing the globe today. Given the controversy over the incredible costs of hosting the G20 Summit, the least that Canadians can hope for is a fruitful round of negotiations.

But these extravagant international events often wind up becoming nothing more than a pricey photo-op. Despite months of prep-work heading into their meetings, consensus tends to evaporate during negotiations when communication between rival leaders breaks down over issues of national self-interest. Is the world thus forever doomed to wasteful G20 Summits?

Not if the 2010 G8/G20 Youth Summit is any indication. From May 9-14, over 100 undergraduate and graduate students from the G20 nations met in Vancouver to participate as delegates in the 5th annual meeting of 20- to 30 year-old aspiring leaders.

This year's Youth Summit offered a look at the high-tech future of international dialogue, one dominated by social networking, instant messaging and online interaction.

As a Canadian, I had the unique privilege of representing Mexico as the Minister of Finance, due to the absence of national Mexican delegates and to an abundance of qualified Canadian applicants. The Finance Ministers' goal for the week was to reach consensus on two items: Creating a global financial regulatory model, and implementing comprehensive reforms for international financial institutions.

Prior to even meeting in Vancouver, delegates used Google Groups to debate potential agenda topics through a month-long process of daily e-mail discourse, which also allowed the Finance delegates get to know each other individually. By the time we met in Vancouver we had agreed on our agenda, facilitating what we hoped would be a focused round of negotiations.

Nonetheless, once the actual debates began in the beautiful Centre for International Dialogue at Simon Fraser University, the opening salvos from the delegates were generally nationalist, hard-line positions on financial policy. Most of our stated proposals offered little hope for consensus and set the table for a week-long session of teeth-pulling.

However soon after lunch on that first day, the selfish one-upmanship rapidly changed. Delegates recognized the potential for online conversation on our laptops and began exchanging Skype usernames. (Skype is an online chat program.) We then began engaging in the modern-day equivalent of trading private notes through sherpas. Except these 21st century 'notes' were silent, discrete, and imperceptible - they were digital.

With one group conversation for all of the youth Finance Ministers, our discourse shifted from unproductive verbal tit-for-tat, to hushed typing on our keyboards. While delegates spoke, real-time colour commentary poured onto our screens as arguments were picked apart and constructively criticized. The quiet, digital transfer of our thoughts through Skype was facilitating a parallel stream of constructive dialogue alongside our verbal exchanges.

But chatting through Skype was just the beginning, as delegates soon became Facebook friends and swapped Blackberry Messenger contact PINs. Now we were able to peer into the lives of our international "rivals", learning political views, group affiliations, and read their statements and publications. Together these provided further diplomatic back channels through which we could stealthily converse, scheme and debate, resulting in two very productive days of negotiations.

When it came time to draft our "Final Communiqué" -- which will be presented to the Finance Ministers at the actual G20 Summit in Toronto -- we utilized Google Documents. This browser-based application allows simultaneous online editing and conveniently eliminated the drawn-out haggling over wording and phrasing that often plagues drafting.

Use of these modern communication programs was not a method actively promoted by the Youth Summit organizers. Instead, after just a few hours of unproductive negotiations, we, the Finance Ministers at G8/G20 Youth Summit, turned to the forms of modern communication that we are already comfortable with in order to break diplomatic deadlock.

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev recently joked that perhaps he and President Obama should conduct diplomacy via text messages. Indeed, some will say it is naive to suggest that our world leaders use Skype, Facebook, Google and Blackberrys to debate policy proposals during actual international negotiations. But is this really that farfetched?

The fact that the Internet and digital communication pervades nearly every aspect of life for the 20-something crowd suggests that tomorrow's leaders will not be content using only pen and paper at the 2030 G20 Summit. Perhaps then it is time today's national leaders caught up to the world youth's grasp of global communication technologies: We are ready to lead, are they ready to learn?

Robert D. Onley is a law student at the University of Windsor and can be followed on his website at robertonley.com
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