The 7^th Global Baku Forum (7GBF) came at a particularly critical moment and a difficult crossroads in governance of the globe. Multilateralism is in retreat. The authority of international institutions is in decline. Big Power politics is regaining legitimacy. Democracies are struggling with profound existential questions. Cherished foundational values are being challenges. Xenophobia and intolerance are threatening open borders and the status of religious and ethnic minorities. The authority of Science and integrity of the media are under siege. New technologies are emerging faster than society and culture can adapt. Keynote speakers will include Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev and addresses by current and former heads of state, foreign ministers, international diplomats and thinkers, including Ashraf Ghani (Afghanistan), Kerry Kennedy (USA), Fareed Zakaria (USA), Jeffrey Sachs (USA), Helen Clark (New Zealand), Vaira Vike-Freiberga (Latvia), Aleksander Kwasniewski (Poland), Tarja Halonen (Finland), Ilir Meta (Albania) and Wu Hailong (China).

Global Leadership in the 21^st Century
Leadership in ideas that can lead to action
Special event organized by the World Academy of Art & Science

On March 17^th a special event was organized for WAAS Fellows, special invitees and select 7GBF participants to discuss in open roundtable format the future of global leadership in the 21^st century. Global leadership appears to be virtually absent at this critical juncture in human affairs when it is most needed to prevent the loss or reversal of the most important gains since the End of the Cold War. This meeting sought ways to revive and develop different types of leadership at the global level. It explored strategies designed to generate awareness of unutilized global potentials, mobilize and direct global social energies and resources for practical application, strengthen the effectiveness and functioning of existing institutions of governance, and release a broad-based social movement to transform the compelling challenges confronting humanity today into catalysts for rapid global social evolution.

The format of the special event was a moderated open roundtable for discussion of critical issues and constructive approaches for change.

Critical Global Leadership Questions for Discussion

1. What type and forms of global leadership are needed to effectively address these global challenges?
2. How can the global leadership gap be filled and where is the leadership to come from?
3. How can we reconcile continued economic development with ecological security and the rights of future generations?
4. What role can nation states and international institutions play individually and collectively to fill the leadership void?
5. What role can civil society, universities, academies and business play?
6. How will the multiple lines of social evolution that have led up to the 21st century develop and interact with one another in the future and what will be the consequences?
7. By what means can the continued distribution and democratization of political and social power at the national and global level be achieved?
8. How can our educational system be transformed into an effective instrument for meeting the challenges of human development in the 21st century?
9. What organizing principles are capable of addressing all the pressing challenges confronting humanity today and reconciling the contradictions inherent in the unilateral and unidimensional strategies pursued by different nations to address them separately from each other and from the efforts of other nations?
10. How can we reconcile the apparently contradictory objectives of economy and ecology; technology, employment and social welfare; social power and democratization; multiculturalism and national identity; national sovereignty and global governance; national security and global cooperative security?
11. What steps can be taken to garner the direct support of the silent voiceless majority?
12. What opportunities exist for concerted action and what gains can it achieve?
13. How can we combine, coordinate and harmonize leadership initiatives at the global, multilateral, bilateral and national level?
14. How can we ensure that rapid technological advances are made to serve rather than threaten and undermine rising levels of human welfare and security?
15. How will nationalities respond and accommodate to increasing levels of multicultural contact and diversity?
16. How will nation-states be motivated to cede greater authority to empower effective, democratic international institutions?
17. How can human rights and dignity gain primacy over the exercise of power by the privileged and wealthy?

Leadership in ideas that can lead to action
Special event organized by World Academy of Art & Science

Click here to view/download discussion paper