Conference Call Meeting 10 October 2013

Attendance

Gillian Dell, Gabor Bathory, Christine Clough, Ines Selvood, Lydia Medland, Saad Filali, Shaazka Beyerle, Slagjana Taseva, Sokhema Nara (representing Kol Preap) and Daniel Diez

Agenda

1. Coalition advocacy
   • 1.1. Topic teams + other issues – status of advocacy
   • 1.2. Regional Coordinators – status of advocacy
   • 1.3. Country reports – updates.
   • 1.4. Upcoming: OGP & Vienna
   • 1.5. Communications work
2. COSP
   • 2.1. Attendance
   • 2.2. COSP Activities group report back
   • 2.3. Meetings/Panels
3. Fundraising 2014 – 2015
4. AOB

1. Coalition Advocacy

1.1. Topic teams + other issues – status of advocacy

Beneficial ownership

Kristi needs more coalition members who have interest on this issue to help her to contact the countries listed (unrealistic list). The briefing note is almost ready. She is planning to use the prevention letter on access to information and beneficial ownership. She is trying to get a meeting with US government officials and UNODC.

Access to information and asset recovery

Gillian mentioned that Coalition members would be able to use the briefing notes on access to information and beneficial ownership. The paper on asset recovery is almost ready to go out. Guatemala and Costa Rica are interested on asset recovery.

Resolutions before COSP

Gillian explained the current situation:

• Not know which government is going to draft the prevention resolution (Panama, Morocco…). When talking to governments try to find out know if they have plans to prepare something.
• Millennium Development Goals press release and documents were sent to Vienna embassies. Netherlands Gov. is interested in independence and resourcing of prosecutors and anti-corruption agencies (misuse of the corruption issue to prosecute the opposition to the government). They plan to insert that topic in a resolution.
• Nigeria is drafting a resolution on asset recovery. Babatunde is trying to reach out to them. No resolution circulating.
• Switzerland drafted a resolution to include civil society access to the IRG and Working Groups. Circulating it to a small group of selected people.
• No document circulating. Governments prefer to do it at the last moment to avoid long discussions and discrepancies. No transparency.
• Many governments do not know what to do there so they welcome recommendations. Opportunity for Regional Coordinators to influence on governments.

1.2. Regional Coordinators – status of advocacy

Sokhema communicated with Chapters in Asia. Got a list of 60 to 70 names of the Ministers in about 20 countries. Emails sent attaching the statement, the key “asks” and the cover letter. No response received yet. Chapters will follow up.

Gillian informed about:

• The list of Ministers from Europe and the letters that will be sent with the signature of Slagjana and Eric.
• Maureen sent out the letter and statements to some countries in Africa. No feedback or follow up with that.
• Saad circulated the sample letter and statements to the MENA region (French and Arabic). He plans to circulate the documents again and Chapters will follow up.

Saad will be in Jordan and Tunisia soon. Will share the Arabic version of the letter and the statement with the government there. TM is working on Morocco. Algeria is a case that we have to address in our advocacy particularly on the CSO participation.

Lydia could send the materials to European NGOs. Will circulate these materials to FOIAnet and Saad could continue monitoring that after.

Inés commented:

• There is no updated list for the Americas. Chapters will be contacted to update the list.
• There is good engagement with other NGOs (very active. Appreciated the last press release but no news about other tools they received).
• Peru, Guatemala, Colombia, México and Argentina were the most active members with the letters to the governments. They have meeting with their governments.
• Panama needs orientation to avoid confrontation with their government but they are willing to help.

1.3. Country reports – updates

Slagjana:

• Sent the letter and statement. Received a call from the President to be more informed about the COSP and activities of the UNCAC Coalition.
• Meeting postponed to the 16th this month.
• Today German parliamentarians and the ambassador are visiting her office.

1.4. Upcoming: OGP & Vienna

OGP

Gillian mentioned:

• A pre-OGP press release by some NGOs.
• Two releases were sent to all embassies in Vienna.
• OGP is an opportunity to send a message to the Governments and talk to other NGOs to join our advocacy.
• Eric and Gillian are going to the OGP Summit.
• Applied for a workshop and got a space to put displays (during the Festival, which is one day before the summit) to show how governments performed in the UNCAC review process and other topics like transparency and participation.
• Raised a question regarding Alianza (and Latin-American network).

Lydia has two colleagues going, Helen and Andreas. Will talk to them to ask if they could do more on access to information and beneficial ownership and give them some resources. The question is “what do we want to do there?”

Inés is not going. A colleague from her university is going. She talked to Moises, head of Alianza, about access to information and beneficial ownership, they are happy to help. They are going to OGP Summit. She is in contact with Karina (former Executive Director of Alianza) who is going.

Shaazka could be in London for those dates around OGP Summit. She volunteers to work.

Vienna

Gillian phone called embassies in Vienna (mostly European). One government will organize a “meeting of friendly governments” in early November to discuss preparations for the COSP. This is an opportunity to promote our “asks”. There is likely to be a battle again at this COSP over civil society access to IRG and Working Groups. Sudan originally drafted a resolution that joined Norwegian and Swiss resolution. It contains a text that is likely to be unacceptable for China and Russia.

Regional Level Meetings to Do Advocacy Before COSP

Inés is going to the Alianza meeting (with Manfredo from Guatemala). Was invited to moderate a panel on access to information and open government.

Lydia stated we could continue with the briefing notes and press releases asking for government to do more and NGOs to be involved (approach on public call attention)

Sokhema does not have schedules of upcoming events. Will check if Ministerial level meetings are coming up.

1.5. Communication Work

Gillian is planning a series of releases and trying to have a communications specialist focused on Latin America Region. Release on asset recovery, an opening release to spread in Latin America the day before the COSP or the COSP opening day, a call for transparency and participation and the use of social media. She will put all this into a document.

Shaazka volunteered to help with media in November.

2. COSP

2.1. Attendance

Find out a series of places that people is planning to attend and collect them (all the coordination committee and regional coordinators).

There is a funding proposal to the Swiss government. Gillian will chase them tomorrow or next week.

She encouraged all to get a visa. It is possible that we will get some money.

2.2. COSP Activities group report back

Inés and Shaazka expect help from the Chapter in Panama.

Brainstorming according with budget:

• A big cake for the 10th anniversary.
• T-shirts with a say on the UNCAC
• Something out of the building of the Conference Centre about a “Canal of Transparency” (Canal of Panama)
• Animations on a screen: Inspired by the cycle of water, we want to express “The cycle of money” with its effects. We need somebody with technical expertise working pro-bono.

Shaazka thought they can not restrict us to do these things. She asked for humorous and powerful ideas (forward them to Inés, Vincent or her).

2.3. Meetings/Panels

We will have a side event on Thursday about the Review Mechanism. We asked for an earlier time for the panel.

3. Fundraising 2014 – 2015

It was skipped.

4. AOB

Other events at COSP:

• TI jointly with GOPAC, “Corruption as an international crime” with a TI Board Member at the session
• STAR meeting on asset recovery possibly with the participation of the Coalition in a panel.
• Panels on whistleblower protection, on procurement, on private sector (all this information will be in a document)

Gillian said that GOPAC is a potential partner on access to information and asset recovery. They will be very happy to join us for some advocacy in the COSP. Contact GOPAC members in Latin America. They are good in advocacy and mobilize people on the region to support us.