Your country has newly won its independence and you have become president. You are being urged to join the World Trade Organisation, and you have been invited to send a negotiator. How should you brief him? What should he push for and how can he get the best deal? And where can you possibly turn for a little quiet advice without losing face?
Even more perplexing is how to handle your prime minister, who opposes your privatisation programme and is stirring up trouble. Your neighbour, a powerful country with close links to your PM, is threatening to intervene. What on earth are you to do?
The answer is that you should contact a small office in London, the headquarters of the Global Leadership Forum (GLF). With consummate discretion, you will be put in touch with a former president or prime minister — Fidel Ramos, from the Philippines, Michel Rocard, of France, or Inder Kumar Gujral, of India, for example. A few weeks later you will fly to Geneva or Oslo. Your mentor will be waiting in the hotel for you and, over a private dinner, far from the eyes of the press, will tell you how to approach the WTO or how he once handled a cabinet split in his own country. You go home, brimming with new political vigour.
Global Leadership Forum, the brainchild of F. W. de Klerk, the former South African President, has been going for three years and has given a whole new meaning to quiet diplomacy. It has established a panel of 22 mentors — retired statesmen from around the world who are determined to use their experience to help today’s struggling leaders and spread good governance. It has proved that a discreet word of advice can prevent a lasting political blunder. And it has shown that in the lonely club of rulers, kings and presidents, few prove to be truer friends than those who have done the job before.
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Until now the focus has been on advising leaders — in Africa, Eastern Europe, Asia or, indeed, anywhere in the developing world where things look menacing — how to fight corruption, what to do about ethnic conflict and how to handle the International Monetary Fund.
“We go in with no publicity, no agenda and no claims. We’re not presenting ourselves as knights on white horses. We’re there to help a leader make the right decision,” Mr de Klerk said.
Now the club of former statesmen is getting more ambitious. It wants to attempt more mediation — between states, between countries and international organisations or even between rulers and opposition leaders. Mostly, they will look at smaller conflicts that often escape the world’s attention but still have the capacity to blow up into wars, civil unrest and ethnic clashes.
Secondly, the forum, already confident that its mentoring formula works, wants to be proactive; identifying areas where policies and presidents are failing, consulting its experts, drawing up action plans and offering to step in with advice.
What if the answer from the floundering president is a sharp “Get lost”? Mr de Klerk smiled: “That response should be part of the action plan.”
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International business has been quick to applaud the formula. No one wants to invest in a country on the brink of conflict. No one wants to see a developing market ruined by poor governance.
The key to success is the impartial, disinterested approach. None of the GLF’s panel of former rulers is now in power; none has an axe to grind or commercial interest to pursue. The fee for each case that is taken on is modest, about the amount paid to a non-executive director to attend a board meeting. Expenses, of course, are also covered.
However, there is no shortage of money. Indeed, business worldwide was extremely quick to underpin the formula. The names are impressive: Barclays, British Airways, BP, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Investec, Morgan Stanley, Nestlé, Pfizer, SAAB, Scania, SKF and UBS, and there are dozens of others. Yet the forum has turned away all big donations. “We cannot be seen as the creation of four or five multinationals,” Mr de Klerk said.
“We don’t want to be seen in their pockets. The biggest single donation we have accepted was $300,000 over three years. The average support from any single company is $100,000. This gives us moral authority.”
Donors do not mind making their names known. Nor do GLF members, who include Prince Hassan of Jordan, the former Crown Prince; Kaspar Villiger, former President of the Swiss Confederation; Lord Hurd of Westwell, the former British Foreign Secretary; Anson Chan, former Chief Secretary of Hong Kong; Mike Moore, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand and Director-General of the World Trade Organisation — and the two latest additions: Joe Clarke, former Prime Minister of Canada; and José-María Aznar, the former Spanish Prime Minister.
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What does remain confidential is the list of clients. No leader wants it to be known that he has sought help. No compromise could be brokered if the terms were published. Sir John Shepherd, a former British Ambassador to Italy and the GLF’s founding Secretary-General, said that it had completed about ten cases, had four others in progress and was discussing new clients.
What if the GLF was approached by a politician wanting to sideline his or her opposition or nationalise that country’s industry? “We wouldn’t take it on,” Mr de Klerk said. “We vet all cases first. Our value system is that of the free market, human rights and good governance. We’re very careful not to get involved with leaders who want to do the wrong things and use us to justify them.
“Our first test must be: ‘Does this leader really want to change? Is there a commitment?’ Often he is trying to do the right thing but it surrounded by corrupt advisers or a weak civil service. If the main problem is changing the civil service, we will tell him that he must get political support for the reforms needed, or seek outside help to bring in good advisers.”
Mentors are matched to the clients. Former leaders in Africa or Asia are more likely to help those from their continents. Ministers who have dealt with ethnic conflicts are best able to sort out tribal tensions. Those who know how to lobby the International Monetary Fund can tell international bodies when to back off from excessive demands.
Sometimes the secrecy slips. “A journalist may spot one of our members at the airport. We never deny that we’re there,” Mr de Klerk said. “If our client wants to say he’s talked to us, that’s his business. But the information won’t come from us”.
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Sir John Shepherd will be succeeded next month by Sir Robin Christopher, a former British Ambassador to Ethiopia, Indonesia and Argentina. Soon he will be quietly tapping more former presidents for new missions. But there will be no announcement. And if the mission works, business around the world will have its investments safer and another civil war may have been averted.