Enabling diplomats to concentrate on their 'real' work

information technology has had an impact on everyone's life, directly or indirectly. Just how much it can have an effect on the life of the diplomat was outlined to me during a recent interview with Professor Dietrich Kappeler.

The retired professor's business card identifies him as a consultant of the DiploFoundation, yet he actually set up the foundation a decade ago after he had been the founding director of the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies for three years and during his five-year term as chairman of the academy's board.

Speed was of the essence with the DiploFoundation. This is why it was set up as a separate entity to the MADS. "We needed to be able to act fast and for that you have to have your own legal personality," he said. "The foundation is exactly like the academy, a joint venture of the governments of Malta and Switzerland. It worked so well for the academy, there was no reason to do it differently."

The foundation is legally established in Malta and has its headquarters here. Its director and technical director are based in Geneva and it has also some locational business in Belgrade.

Professor Kappeler explained that Geneva is "the world capital of the Internet and the headquarters of nearly 80 per cent of international organisations that count, mainly non-political" while Belgrade has "a lot of people there who are extremely well trained.

"They are extremely articulate and they are looking for something to do that is worthwhile at a cost that in Malta is not competitive. And they have excellent publishing facilities."

Another distinction between Diplo and the MADS is that while the academy is Mediterranean, emphasises Mediterranean subjects and deals with Mediterranean countries, Mediterranean students or students interested in the Mediterranean, Diplo is worldwide.

"Our objective is substance-oriented: the use of ICT (information and communications technology) in diplomacy as a tool," Professor Kappeler pointed out. "It cannot replace diplomacy but you can use a Website as a tool for public diplomacy.

"You can set up what we call a virtual consulate because consulate work is a lot of routine and so you can train people to use the consular Website of a country without having to set up a consulate or have just a small honorary consulate which is the kind of interface for those clients who cannot use computers."

He sees great scope in the technology alleviating the repetitive, mechanical workload of diplomatic missions, consulates and foreign ministries. Once this is done, diplomats can concentrate on what he defined as their "real task - human interaction, creation of personal relations, personal rapport, creating confidence and thereby providing the means of getting the kind of interaction to get information, hand out information (and) negotiate in a different atmosphere, which is more conducive to producing results."

Diplo's activities began by teaching diplomats to use computers and using computers in teaching. It researched material for MADS and developed various programmes, including an annual conference, held in Malta earlier this year. This year's theme was Intercultural Communication.

Professor Kappeler considered the conference a great success because not only were there interesting discussions but the papers presented were of a high quality. Of course the conference is prepared through ICT, with participants submitting not just the summary of their papers but also the paper itself, which was posted on the DiploFoundation's Website.

"Everyone was very impressed (and) we hope to continue along these lines," he added.

A major teaching programme of the DiploFoundation is the one-year postgraduate diploma in IT and Diplomacy, which was the inspiration of the Rector of the University of Malta, Professor Roger Ellul Micallef, which has been held for the past three years. This consists of ten days' presence in Malta, including attendance at the annual conference, and the rest takes place by distance learning.

A second major area of the foundation is the simulation of negotiations, with the innovative approaches it has devised being adopted elsewhere, like at the Council of Europe. "Delegates can be virtually present at ambassadors' meetings and you can also conduct cybermeetings with everyone being at home and interacting through the Internet."

The main benefit of this is to do away with a number of preparatory or secondary meetings for which physical displacement is not essential and enabling the diplomats to be present only for the main events. Those who cannot even attend the main events can also still be virtually present and participate in the proceedings.

Looking to the future, the DiploFoundation aims to become self-supporting and not have to rely on its sponsors, who currently include the governments of Malta and Switzerland and the Commonwealth Secretariat, among others. It will continue to give scholarships to people from countries which cannot afford to pay for these programmes.

The foundation's work in its various annual conferences and study programmes in the past five years has been oriented to the World Summit of Information Society, which is taking place in Geneva in December and in whose organisation it is closely involved.

Professor Kappeler sees great potential for diplomats to get closer to the citizen through the creation of Websites and Diplo has just organised the first conference on Website management by international organisations in Geneva.

"Websites that are well constructed allow governments to derive direct benefit without having to go through their permanent missions," he said. "Permanent missions, like ordinary diplomatic missions, will shrink in size because they will be able to concentrate only on the real task, which is not collecting documents but human interaction.

"Diplomats in future will not go through a career from very low to very high. They would step in at a relatively advanced (high) level, and more or less stay there," because from the beginning they must be able to have this kind of capacity for rapport, which is the essence of a diplomat.