The meeting's goals, however, go beyond just reviewing action items and progress reports. It may provide a forum for debating objectives and best practises, according to Norman Eisen, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former senior ethics and government affairs attorney in the Obama White House. Senior officials, according to Eisen, often debate their intended course of action in meetings before supporting them or denouncing them if they are not followed through. According to Mark Malloch-Brown, a former minister and the United Kingdom's ambassador to the UN, meetings provide people the opportunity to interact with their neighbours and coworkers, understand the situation, and come to choices.