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Death and Rise of Global Action Networks

Posted by Steve Waddell in Net Dev on December 15, 2011

The Kimberley Process (KP) is falling apart.   And at the same time, new efforts are rising to create global multi-stakeholder change networks to end the trade of blood diamonds. A clear lesson of the demise is that “trust” is the core asset of a Global Action Network (GAN) and without it, the game’s over. 

In 2003 KP officially launched in response to the funding of armed conflict in Africa through the sale of diamonds.  KP is a global system to prohibit the importation of rough diamonds, unless accompanied by a ‘forgery-proof’ certificate of legitimacy.  Andrew Bone of De Beers told me in 2010 that “it’s turned into an institution seeking to ensure that should conflict arise, diamonds won’t be able to be part of the process.” 

 Among GANs, it’s unusual because it’s endorsed by the United Nations, which gives it standing with national governments.  KP’s founding was with “ministerial meetings”;  although they included NGOs and the industry, they were “official” government meetings.  This produced an innovative strategy, where each national government integrates the KP’s role into its own laws.  This results in stronger strictures than those associated with international conventions.  And of course it is quite different from voluntary certification schemes.

Ian Smillie, a co-founder while working with Partnership Africa Canada, left KP two years ago because he “…could no longer tolerate the hypocrisy and inaction on its most glaring problems.”  Last Monday, another founding NGO, Global Witness, announced its departure because “despite intensive efforts over many years by a coalition of NGOs, the scheme’s main flaws and loopholes have not been fixed and most of the governments that run the scheme continue to show no interest in reform.”

The key problem Smillie points to is the decision-making process.  Somehow – he is at a loss to explain how – KP developed “decision-making by consensus” which is interpreted to mean that everyone must agree, before any changes can be made.  Of course this is the ultimate “status quo” rule.  Many of the 55 KP government members – representing virtually all the diamond-producing, processing and trading states – have their own fiefdoms to protect:  Zimbabwe and Venezuela themselves, South Africa places higher priority on relations with Zimbabwe than with the KP, Russia wants good relationships with Angola, and on it goes. 

This leads to toothless action.  For example, KP has adopted a mechanism to review participating governments’ adherence to the KP standards.  However, the review panels tend to be stuffed with status-quo government representatives, and the consensus rule makes action impossible. 

Another problem is one of organization.  There is no legal entity or permanent secretariat or staff;  rather, it’s resourced on a rotating basis by governments.  This means that it naturally tends to reflect governmental views, procedures and organization.  This places KP at the mercy of bureaucratic traditions and maneuvers, rather than take advantage of the agile “collaboration” space that other GANs develop. 

In a recent paper, observer of the KP, Franziska Bieri summarized that "Without a central secretariat, no budget, and a stifling consensus principle, whereby all participants must agree unanimously before any actions is taken, the KP has been unable to effectively detect or track compliance and, perhaps most troubling, to deal with obvious cases of non-compliance or diamond fueled violence."

Trust in Networks

In Trust and Power, Luhman identifies three forms of trust:  in shared values and goals, in shared understanding of meaning, and in the ability to fulfill commitments.  It appears all three of these forms are consequently lacking. 

One of the seven defining qualities of GANs is “diversity-embracing”.  A sub-group of participant stakeholders in GANs may succeed in maneuvering to gain control, but there is nothing that requires GAN participants to stay.  If a GAN does not successfully integrate the diverse perspectives into a successful transcendent vision and supportive actions, participants will simply leave and the GAN will die. 

Another defining quality of GANs is “voluntary leadership”.  They are congregations of the willing – those who want to make progress vis-à-vis an issue like blood diamonds.  The goal is not to simply include everyone in membership (such as “all diamond-producing states”);  the goal is to assert an ever-increasing standard for the better of all participants that becomes a standard that non-participants also have to adopt:  to do otherwise would produce systemic punishments, such as denied markets.  Once a GAN becomes a “trade organization” aiming to represent everyone, the dynamics lead it to a lowest common denominator standard. 

Smillie continues to be active in the diamond arena.  He has founded another GAN – without the consensus rule and with voluntary leaders – called the Diamond Development Initiative (DDI).  It has a classic GAN mission:

“To gather all interested parties into a process that will address, in a comprehensive way, the political, social and economic challenges facing the artisanal diamond mining sector in order to optimize the beneficial development impact of artisanal diamond mining to miners and their communities within the countries in which the diamonds are mined.”

It is a sub-set of the diamond industry, that NGOs always hoped KP would expand to include:  very small individual producers.  Rather than a regulatory strategy like KP, DDI has a geographic project strategy to work in specific locations.

In addition, there is talk about a “Cleaner Diamond Initiative” that could eventually replace KP.  Although the regressive actors in KP may have won the battle, it’s doubtful they’ve won the war.