Summaries: Food sessions (3a, 5 and 6a)

Summaries by Anna Glayzer

Sub-plenary session 3a: National campaigning on junk food marketing included presentations from Anna Glayzer of Consumers International on two new CI resources for campaigning against food marketing aimed at children. The session also heard presentations from Bart Combée about the national work on food marketing of Consumentenbond, Netherlands and Dr Vokyung Song of Consumers Korea, South Korea.

Plenary session 5: Safe and nutritious food for all was chaired by food policy expert Jean Halloran from Consumers Union, USA. The session heard presentations from Jørgen Schlundt, Deputy Director of the National Food Institute in Denmark; Alan Jope, Head of the Chinese division of Unilever; and Alejandro Calvillo, Director of CI member El Poder del Consumidor  (Consumer Power), Mexico. The speakers looked at how major global issues in food safety and nutrition will affect 21st century consumers. A lively Q&A session followed, including discussion on the issue of genetically modified food.

Immediately following the food plenary session, Sub-plenary session 6a was an Interactive workshop on food safety with input from Jean Halloran, Indrani Thuraisingham and Jørgen Schlundt. The session provided a chance for members to have a say in how and where we focus our energies. Discussions touched on CI’s international campaigning work with Codex Alimentarius, and how project work can be used to strengthen national food safety systems.

Summary: Session 12 - Consumer rights: past, present, and future

A summary by Anna Glayzer of:

Session 12 (Plenary) Consumer rights: past, present, and future
 
Thursday 5 May 2011 - 4pm - 5.30pm
Anwar Fazal, civil society leader and former CI President
Gerd Leonhard, CEO, The Futures Agency



In the final plenary session former CI president Anwar Fazal gave an inspiring 45 minute speech charting the history of the consumer movement and setting out his vision for an ideal consumer movement based on an "Intergalactic Commission."  He stressed the importance of strengthening the movement by developing new leaders and building extensive networks.  Futurist Gerd Leonhard picked up the theme of networks in his speech on how new communication technologies and social media will transform the way markets and consumers operate.  He urged consumer groups to stay ahead by making the most of social media, viral concepts, and sharing information.

Summary: Session 9c - Empowering advocacy: Communicating consumer rights

A summary by Pat Onoapoi of:

Session 9c - Empowering advocacy: Communicating consumer rights 

Thursday 3 May 2011, 11.30am-12.30pm
Luke Upchurch, Head of Communications and External Affairs, Consumers International
Rehan Saiyed, Director, Storm Design, New Zealand

Communication is a key part of the work of consumer organisations. The session was on how powerful communications tools can be. There is now a blurring of the boundaries between grassroots action and global advocacy as well as between consumers and producers and this is due to communication tools which are pamphlets, campaign films, publications, social media etc. The power of social media lies in the number of people using it so we need to be using it as consumer organisations. See www.carrotmob.org  for examples of how consumer activists are using social media tools to effect change and to make a real impact. By joining them consumer organisations will get a profile and can then start a campaign. Carrotmob are giving over their technology to effect change.

Storm Design (New Zeeland) also gave a presentation on the design of the Congress logo. According to them, the criteria for good graphic identity are: the form and concept should work very well with product/service it’s designed for, should be pragmatic, simple, bold and distinctive.

The design brief and elements for the Congress logo included Yin Yan (represents consumer rights), dragon dance( reflects energy of the congress) Hong Kong, future consumers, circle.

Questions and comments from members:

·         Has a cost/benefit analysis been carried out on using social media?

·         The whole concept of Carrotmob is offensive and promotes corruption

·         People who want to subvert the system also use social media so consumer organisations should use it carefully

·         One of the best communicators is Chaz Davies of creative defiance.  Consumer organisations can learn from this model. Chaz could provide mentoring in communication graphics

·         ‘The story of stuff’ puts consumer issues into graphics. Consumer organisations should map out creative people and work with them

Summary: session 11c - Empowering legislation: a guide to consumer protection law

A summary by Robin Simpson of:

Session 11c: Empowering legislation: a guide to developing consumer protection law 

Thursday, 5 May, 2011, 2.30pm - 3.30pm
Indrani Thuraisingham, Antonino Serra Cambaceres and Robert Michel, Consumers International 
Chaired by Robin Brown (Australia)

The presentation of CI’s work on CP legislation showed three contrasting methods of work on what the chair Robin Brown described as the daily reality, the hard grind, of CP as opposed to the more high flown notions in circulation during the Congress. A common theme was how CI’s thinking had evolved from the ‘model law’ approach that was prevalent during the 1990s, towards a more targeted and varied approach.

Antonino Sera Cambacerres from the CI Latin America/Caribbean office described a five country study on over-indebtedness Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina and Peru which culminated in  proposals for personal bankruptcy legislation to develop four year plans for  realistic management of household’s debts, with scope for Alternative Dispute Resolution. Such legislation is under active consideration in several countries including some outside the project area such as the Dominican Republic, and already exists in countries as varied as France and Colombia. The research was funded by the Avina Foundation.

Indrani Thuraisingham from the CI office for Asia/Pacific explained how proposals for CP legislation  in her region had developed a checklist approach explicitly drawing upon the UN guidelines for benchmarking draft legislation rather than upon using model legislation as a template. This approach had been used in the ten ASEAN countries and under a project funded by UNIDO in Bangladesh and was currently being used in training for preparation of legislation in Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia that were only now  replacing their ‘antiquated’ legislation based on weights and    measures and price controls. 

Robert Michel from the CI Africa office described the new “Guide to developing CP law” , released for the Congress emerging from a project funded by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, in Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia. As in Latin America, CI in Africa had evolved a model law during the ‘90s but the ‘template’ approach was being replaced by a checklist drawn up by the author Jami Solli in the light of conditions in Africa. An all embracing single model law for CP needed to be replaced by one which took into account the development of sectoral legislation and regulatory institutions in recent years. The important thing was not whether a single CP law included all aspects of consumer needs but whether all consumer needs were taken into account in the general body or legislation.