Zukunftszeugen IV - Wolfgang Reinicke Index Interview Transcript 1 Transcript 2 Transcript 3 Transcript 4

				4. Conferences, Ideas & Networks Do you think, conference like the Aventis Triangle Forum can contribute to the process of dialogue that you defined as an integral part of global governance? Oh, absolutely. I think it is precisely those kind of conferences, although they are very very difficult to manage - because when you bring people together with different perspectives, not just different political perspectives but also from different disciplines, the arts, the sports, the media, social sciences, natural sciences - you are setting yourself a very difficult task. And initially it may appear that the process goes very slow because you are not delivering very quick results. But once you deliver results you do have the backing of a much broader intellectual community. And the problem and the solution that you deliver is likely to satisfy a much broader constituency because you come with such varied perspectives into it. Important here is that you focus on action. And you focus on very specific issues. The danger of such conferences and of Global Public Policy Networks is that they deteriorate into debating societies with no specific outputs and results. And in our project and in our report for the Secretary General of the United Nations we have outlined very specific management tools through which you cannot ensure but at least make certain and drive a network or any type of multilateral meeting towards the direction of outputs and very concrete results. So, if a conference wants to implement its results could it draw upon your managing tools? Can they be generalized? I would think so. I mean, we only survey twenty existing networks. That is the important thing to understand: This is not something abstract. This is happening right now, as you and I are sitting here and conducting this interview. These networks are active and they are generating results. And these managing principles are very broad and very common sense managing principles. Could you name some? Narrow focus, set yourself a time limit, when you deliver results. Leadership is critically important, but leadership cannot be tied too closely to the network. So especially in the early phase you want to have a champion either as an individual or an institution. But the champion in the second phase of discussion and deliberation and implementation should not hang on too close to the network. There is a whole range of issues that one can look through. And the report lays that out in detail. There is the website of course, that people can look at. The important point here is, yes, it is applicable to this conference. The specific next steps in my perspective would be to go out and pick some cases. After the broad discussion, let's go and pick two particular cases, that you then really want to hunker down and try to implement. Identify the most critically important actors, invite them in an early stage. Make sure that it's all very transparent. These are all very basic principles that take time and required resources. But from the experience that we had with such networks as the World Commission on Dams, for example, time and resources invested in advance pay off heavily in the end. Do you have some concrete examples in mind that could serve to further establish a dialogue beyond a conference - for example the Aventis Triangle Forum? Well I would hope and if not this time, at some future time, that, indeed as I said, that people in the CAP hopefully in corporation with other institution either become concrete and say, okay, we want to support an either existing network or we launch a new network in a particular issue area. Those for me would be the two concrete steps that you would want to do, and than do your homework. This is not very fancy, this may in the end require yet another conference, but this requires really hard work by extremely dedicated individuals. TOP
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