{"id":9942,"date":"2023-03-30T12:05:19","date_gmt":"2023-03-30T10:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/escp.eu\/thechoice\/?p=9942"},"modified":"2023-03-30T14:14:57","modified_gmt":"2023-03-30T12:14:57","slug":"ai-shows-why-it-is-imperative-to-have-more-women-in-negotiations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/escp.eu\/thechoice\/tomorrow-choices\/ai-shows-why-it-is-imperative-to-have-more-women-in-negotiations\/","title":{"rendered":"AI shows why it is imperative to have more women in negotiations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Two pieces of news caught my attention in the past month.<\/strong> The first one relates to the low representation<\/a> of women at the COP27 climate negotiations\u2014hardly news, though, for researchers and representatives of civic society who have long advocated for gender balance in international affairs. The second one is about Cicero<\/a>, an artificial intelligence (AI) agent created by Meta that has become the first AI to achieve human-like performance in an online game involving strategic negotiation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taken together, these two readings, unconnected as they might seem, help us make a strong argument that we need balanced gender representation in international negotiations.<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gender representation in international climate conventions<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Gender representation in international bodies and conventions has improved over time, but progress remains slow. <\/strong>A detailed report<\/a> prepared by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) ahead of COP27 describes in detail the state of gender representation in previous climate events. For the first time, the report presents figures related to voice diversity, including the length of interventions by women and men. It shows that women remained severely under-represented in some of the most important groups established under the Convention and its Kyoto Protocol. For instance, women represented only 10 per cent of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Executive Board, the body connected with the highly debated carbon offset scheme. The report also shows a dramatic decrease in female representation in the Consultative Group of Experts (CGE), from 52 to 33 per cent. CGE is the body assisting developing countries to fulfil their reporting requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An important figure that captures the under-representation of women in decision-making aspects of the UNFCCC processes relates to the composition of party delegates, who come from all the participating states, with multiple delegates per state. The report shows that only a third of party delegates are women<\/strong>, a stable number across years, but with a slight downward trend. The same trend is present among heads and deputy heads of delegation. Moreover, the percentage varies across age groups in ways that suggest that gender and age need to be viewed from an intersection perspective: while about a third of delegation leaders are women in the age 35-55 category, the percentage falls to an average of about 15% for women aged over 55.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recognising that influence in negotiations does not depend only on being present in the decision space, but also on being heard, the report includes information about speaking time for men and women. It is the first time that speaking time is measured and reported. The numbers show that while 37 per cent of party delegates were women, they accounted for only 29 per cent of total speaking time.<\/strong> Surprisingly, the number is even lower when considering the speaking time of chairs and facilitators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What happens when women\u2019s voices are not heard<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Some of the existing research suggests that women policymakers tend to voice more gender-equality claims and that the presence of more women in decision-making bodies is associated with more transnational aid<\/a> for women. Instead, when in minority, women seem compelled to conform and support issues and positions favoured by male decision-makers<\/a>. These and other similar studies suggest what might be the hidden mechanism through which under-representation and reduced voice affect the norms of the negotiation game and its outcomes. But none of them is able to follow in detail how a negotiation party learns the rules of the game, and what they learn in games in which some stakeholders are under-represented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The news on Meta\u2019s AI agent sheds light on negotiations<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The announcement by Meta that an AI agent has achieved human-like performance in a negotiation game is certainly impressive.<\/strong> The game, called Diplomacy<\/a>, is set in a pre-World War I Europe and encourages players \u2013 who represent the seven major powers at the time \u2013 to negotiate as a group or in smaller coalitions to gain control over a total of 18 supply centres. Diplomacy appeared to have been a favourite of President John F. Kennedy and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and is currently played as a board game and online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two breakthroughs that elevate Cicero to human-like negotiation performance are worth highlighting:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n