Voices for Change: the Consumer Right to Representation

38
World Consumer Rights Day 2002: Voices for Change
organised a meeting between an NGO and
WTO members, allowing CI to share the
results of its Consumers and Global Market
programme. The WTO facilitated a two-hour
seminar in its offices and invited WTO
members and staff to attend. Some 22
governments and many WTO officials were
present at the meeting. “The WTO was
impressed by the interest taken by its staff
and members,” Durai notes, “and is now
keen to repeat the exercise as a step to
improve external transparency.”
With the November 2001 WTO Ministerial
meeting in Doha behind it, CI is now shifting
its focus in trade work toward better
consumer representation in trade policy –
making at the national level, while
maintaining pressure at the global level.
Utilities: Tough
Learning Curve
Representation in the regulation of utilities
(energy, water and telecommunications) is a
deeply felt need of consumer groups in the
developing world. CI has strong programmes
to foster representation. The most consolidated
of these is CONSUPAL (the Spanish acronym
by which the project is known), launched in
1996 in five South American countries and now
extended to Central America. A major advocacy
project has also been conducted in Central
Europe. In Africa, smaller projects focusing
primarily on water have opened taps and
generated research.
In Latin America, efforts to increase
representation focus on consumer
participation in the regulatory processes and
boards that oversee tariffs, access and quality.
Until the 1990s, utilities there were largely
state-owned, as was the case in most of the
developing world. With the State as both
provider and regulator, there was little room
for outsiders. Many services were highly
deficient but, being highly subsidised, they
tended to be cheap.
The privatising trends of the past decade
transformed this panorama, as transnational
corporations bought up local services, often
replacing state monopolies with private ones.
The application of more commercial criteria to
service provision brought skyrocketing tariffs,
an explosion of consumer options (especially
in telecommunications) and an outcry from
users for a greater say.
While consumer representation is a main
goal of the CONSUPAL programme, this
takes places primarily through national
consumer groups in the form of advocacy
training, development of national action
plans, technical assistance, networking and
provision of funds and materials. Nonetheless,
the CONSUPAL coordinator is a well-known
figure in seminars, courses and forums
conducted at national, regional and
international levels.
Despite the lack of international regulatory
bodies, CI sought and obtained representation
in public utilities before the Latin American
Parliament (Parlatino), a permanent
consultative body to regional governments.
A cooperation agreement names CI as an
“advisor” to Parlatino committees on
Consumer Defence and on Public Utilities.
Representation on the former resulted in the
adoption, in 1997, of Parlatino’s Model Code
for Consumer Protection.
Consumer representation in utilities in Latin
America is still “minuscule,” says Collado.
The few concessions made are more windowdressing
than transformative, despite the fact
that many mechanisms for participation are
now available, including public hearings and
the possibility, in some places, of appointing
consumer delegates to regulatory oversight
boards, as in Argentina (water), Rio Grade de
Sul, Brazil (all utilities) and, shortly, Peru
(telecommunications). In Central America,
consumer representation is being generated
within much broader alliances for civil
society participation among NGOs
and unions.
The biggest obstacle to greater consumer
representation is the lack of political will by
governments, Collado believes. Governments
regulate and control and “so they think that
they can represent consumers, too, but this
isn’t true.” Resistance to consumer
representation also comes from the utility