Voices for Change: the Consumer Right to Representation

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World Consumer Rights Day 2002: Voices for Change
How are consumers
represented?
The options for representation listed in this
questionnaire included public committee,
written consultation, public meeting, citizens’
workshops, as a panel member and as a
technical/ consumer advisor.
The overall data shows a similar pattern to
question one: each process is represented more
frequently in the sectors of consumer policy
and protection, justice, food security and
safety, health, technical standards and utilities.
It is logical that the use of the different
methods of representation is more evident in
sectors where there is a greater level of
representation. Public committees, written
consultation and technical/consumer advisors
are the most common methods of consumer
representation across all areas. There are 213
instances of the use of public committees, for
example, compared with 136 of citizens’
workshops.
Responses from Europe follow a pattern
similar to the overall responses. Public
committees and written consultation are most
popular, followed by panel membership and
technical/consumer advisors, and, finally by
public meetings and citizens’ workshops.
The use of methods in the African region is
evenly split among the issues, with peaks at
consumer policy and protection and health.
Representation on public committees is the
method most employed here, followed by
equal recourse to written consultation, public
meetings, panel membership and
technical/consumer advisors.
The Latin American countries mirror the
general pattern. The exception here is
education, which includes a variety of
methods. Public committees, written
consultation, public meetings, citizens’
workshops and technical/consumer advisors
are employed in fairly equal measure, with
panel membership being the least used.
In Asia-Pacific technical/consumer advisors
and panel membership are the most common,
followed by public committees and written
consultation and public meetings. Citizens’
workshops appear to be used infrequently.
Representation methods seem to depend
as much on a country as on the issue.
The survey suggests that a country may use
only certain approaches to representation,
regardless of the issues. This suggests that
processes of representation may be more
dependent on national culture than
on the issues involved. An extreme example
of this is Fiji, where the only method of
representation used is on public committees.
Other countries may employ the full range
of methods cited in the questionnaire: public
committees, written consultations, public
meetings, citizen workshops, panel
membership and through technical input.
How long have consumers
been represented on
this body?
For easier analysis, responses to this question
were broken up into “less than one year,”
“one-to-three years,” “four-to-six years,”
“seven-to-nine years” and “more than nine
years.” These divisions were chosen to allow
for an analysis of how long consumer
representation has been established in specific
areas. After nine years, representation is likely
to be well established.
The overall data show that the areas where
representation is most firmly established
(that is, for over nine years) are consumer
policy and protection, justice/redress, food
safety and technical standards. These are
also four of the areas where consumer
representation was seen to be most evident.
The general pattern shows higher instances
of all lengths of representation in the
categories of consumer policy and
protection, justice/redress, environment,
health, food security, safety, technical
standards and utilities. But while many
of these areas have had representation for
over nine years, the majority have only had
it for six years or less.
Interestingly, the length of representation does
not necessarily reflect the success of impact.
Take the case of Guatemala, for example,