OUR VISION

The world is spending $1.6 trillion per year on defense while the basic aspects of human security remain sorely unmet. Over 1.2 billion people in the world live on less than $1 per day. Another 2 billion people live on less than $2 per day. That translates into half the world’s 6.2 billion people struggling to survive daily on less than $2 per day. Real and perceived threats fuel the momentum for a continued diversion of resources into arms production and military proliferation. If our goal is to mitigate conflicts and reverse dangerous trends that provoke a global cultural clash, then a realistic response must be rooted in a shift in global discourse. Dialogue is a proper instrument to achieve a new paradigm of global relations. In a rapidly globalizing world where the lines between domestic and foreign policy are increasingly blurred we need strategies that build transnational alliances across cultural boundaries to confront fundamentalism and weaken the justifications for further militarization. One illustrious example of promoting dialogue under adversarial conditions is Ted Turner’s Sky Bridge between the US and Soviet Union during the Cold War. It demonstrates a replicable model that can be expanded exponentially.

According to the UN report on the Year of Dialogue among Civilizations, events during the last decade or more have shown that the number of players on the international scene has dramatically increased. Significant stakeholders are no longer only restricted to nation states. Nongovernmental organizations, multilateral institutions, corporations and even single individuals have a formidable role in shaping the future of international society.

We propose bringing together people who can set in motion a process leading to a paradigm shift for a system of collective security based on a global New Deal that addresses the root causes of global insecurity by promoting creative solutions such as a Marshall plan for the broader Middle East region initially proposed by HM King Abdullah II. These visionaries will devise practical ways to construct an infrastructure for global dialogue to prevent further cultural and religious fragmentation and address the needs for building new innovative regional and global institutions.

The leaders will aim to build strategic alliances among global institutions such as the United Nations, European Union, Arab League, African Union; film and media industries; and private sector organizations particularly in information and communications technologies. Other strategic stakeholders would include civil society groups, such as think tanks, academics, etc. Participants will bring the intellectual and financial resources, a vast global network and a range of diverse global experiences that can be leveraged toward making a historical breakthrough by realignment of global forces around universal progressive principals and the reinventing of global institutions.

We are bringing leaders together who have shaped global trends, even acted as trailblazers at different stages of their life, and are interested in a non-linear thinking process, creative discourse and most importantly in implementing their ideas, so the strategies we develop are practical and have a built-in implementation path. The strategies and tools are directed at building a communications infrastructure to support global collaboration and multilateralism, pluralism and alliances among civilizations.