Advocacy During the G8
Akiko Mera, MA 05

Greetings from Oxfam Japan. I often come across puzzled faces when I say that I work for an aid agency based in Tokyo. People's expressions seem to say, "yea, sure you do." However, there are efforts that can complement work done in field offices, namely advocacy and media. As a first year communications officer out of the Sustainable International Development Program, I had an opportunity to work with media officers from around the world to bring media attention to the issues that concerned Oxfam during the G8 Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia in July 2006.

First, let me say that it was very tough to get coverage on our issues during this summit. Much of the "freedom of expression" that often gets highlighted and produces very photogenic scenes was controlled. As a matter of fact, the entire city was contained during the summit: the airport was shut down and the railway stations were under tight security. I took the underground everyday to the media center, where journalists from around the world fished for something new, something different (which was almost impossible to obtain in a very contained situation like this). My organization's priorities going into the summit were more and better international funding for education and health in poor countries, tracking the promises made at the last summit in Gleneagles, and influencing the German agenda (Germany will host the G8 in 2007), which would then encourage our government to put our issues on the agenda of the summit they will be hosting in 2008. Our team worked to get feedback about these issues to the media.

It is two in the morning and still light outside. St. Petersburg enjoys white nights at this time of the year, which sounds really exotic and nice until fatigue starts to plague you in a city that never seems to sleep. Well, maybe no one has time for sleep, because we sure did not. Everyday after the G8 leaders met, we were briefed on the outcomes of the sessions, and only then did the media officers caucus to come up with a statement or a "reactive line" in response to what had been officially said. We had to pump the information out quickly, and on time to meet newspaper deadlines. However, for those of us who were not releasing information in English, there was another extra hurdle to overcome an urgent need to translate our message and then send it out as a press release to reporters at the media centers. My time in St. Petersburg lasted only a few days, but it seemed like an eternity and I gained an appreciation for the extremely long route it takes for poverty to appear as an issue on the front pages of the Japanese morning newspapers.

Once I was in Russia, all of our advocacy efforts started to click together (the lobbying that started back in May, the briefing paper released before the Summit, and all the media contacts I made in Tokyo) to make the issues we work for appear in the headlines. After the summit, I felt that all of our talks with the bureaucrats from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Finance, during which time we offered our "expertise" as well as made suggestions on what should be prioritized, made sense. In retrospect, it is easy to see the importance of Oxfam Japan's advocacy and media work leading up to the G8. It is also quite apparent that there can never be enough work done in this area, because while NGOs provide expertise and suggestions, these leaders focus on what they think are their national interests, and do not always consider the 11 million children under five who die of poverty every year.

Questions or comments? Feel free to contact Akiko Mera at (merarin88@yahoo.co.jp).