The U.N. Alliance of Civilizations was created in 2005 by then U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, a representative in his own life, education, and work within U.N. agencies of the bridge among cultures. The 10th Global Forum of the Alliance met 25-27 November 2024 in Cascais, Portugal with the motto "Uniting in Peace: Restoring Trust, Reshaping the Future." The conference was co-sponsored by the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration (IMO) created just after World War II to help refugees from the war to find new homes, especially in Latin America. As migration has become a crucial world issue, the IOM was recently integrated into the U.N. system of Agencies.
Currently in many parts of the world, there are anti-refugee and anti-migrant currents; one need not look far beyond the USA. Thus the need to have migration as a central part of the Global Forum agenda.
The Alliance of Civilizations has brought into contact many already existing efforts of building bridges among cultures through dialogue, painting and music. One such effort of music was the creation in 1999 of the West-Eastern Divan Ensemble by the musician Daniel Barenboim and the Palestinian intellectual (and my Princeton University classmate) Edward Said. At this time, when many avenues of communication have been broken among Jewish Israelis and Palestinians, this earlier musical cooperation is worth recalling.
The U.N. Alliance of Civilizations has also stressed the role of women as peacemakers. There is wide agreement on the principle of an active role of women in bridgebuilding and tension reduction. However there is often less action in practice. This conference made an effort to increase youth participation, a hope that youth is more open to efforts of gender equality and cooperation.
The Alliance has also encouraged inter-faith dialogue - a rich tradition but also a vital need as discrimination and fear based on religion and faith is wide spread.
These are rays of hope in these turbulent times. Obviously, efforts can not be limited to the occasional Global Forum. We need to find ways of developing programs at the local as well as at the national and international levels. Such efforts are fundamental to peace and cooperative action to meet the challenges facing the world society.
René Wadlow, Association of World Citizens
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