The Club of Rome and the World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS) renew their full commitment to active collaboration in initiatives towards the achievement of peace worldwide.
The two organisations initiated in 2024 different activities focused on war and peace, and have now agreed to exchange and develop synergies. The collaboration is starting with joint work on the implementation of the Global Peace Offensive, a dialogue-driven peace-building approach initiated by WAAS and spearheaded by the academic community across civil society. Its timeliness is compelling given the heightened political polarization and violence, the failure of global leadership to address such challenges, and the ongoing surge of social movements, youth groups and individuals that seek alternative solutions to a political discourse dominated by armed conflicts, fear and hegemonic threats.
The Global Peace Offensive, through citizens´ diplomacy and peace building initiatives, intends to support peace efforts worldwide. Its approach has already been embraced by the European Academy for Sciences and Arts and it’s now gaining traction across a large range of stakeholder groups.
The Club of Rome and WAAS have decided to activate a joint working group that will focus on studying solutions based on: 1) Localised initiatives leading to de-escalation, and issue-specific solutions; 2) Partnership development and trust-building: 3) Iterative processes of systemic analysis and dialogue facilitation.
The two organisations will build and maintain a roster of interdisciplinary scientific and cultural advisers that will be able to provide on-call expertise in all crisis situations. The nucleus of this team includes senior specialists available to support peace processes, when need be.
It is anticipated that a repository of solutions in different contexts will be made available to inspire adaptation and replication, forming basis for real-time learning and problem-solving.
The initiative seeks to mobilise an intergenerational and cross-cultural ‘coming together’ which few other peace-building initiatives currently manage to actualise.
