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BARBADOS DECLARATION

The contact group to elaborate a Barbados Declaration met all day Monday. Over the weekend, the Chair, Amb. Besley Maycock, took it upon himself to prepare a revised draft. Other delegations had also been busy making their own revisions. After a discussion on whether NGOs may observe the proceedings, the group worked laboriously paragraph-by-paragraph. At times, the debate bordered on the farcical as points scored in the Preamble, and lost, were replayed in the Declaration. In the afternoon, the group averaged one paragraph an hour. At the conclusion of the days work at 7:30 pm, one delegation introduced a new non-paper as a possible structure of the Declaration.