As Co-Chair of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center (NGIC), Serageldin presided, together with co-chair Vaira Vike-Freiberga, over the third NGIC Board Meeting held in Baku. The meeting was followed by the opening ceremony of NGIC & Club de Madrid’s High Level Preparatory Meeting: Framing the debate for the “Shared Societies Forum 2014”, where Serageldin was one of the main speakers, together with Nazim Ibrahimov, Minister of the State Committee of Diaspora, Republic of Azerbaijan, Member of the Board of the NGIC; Vaira Vike-Freiberga, President Republic of Latvia (1999-2007), Co-Chair of the Board of NGIC and Member of the Club de Madrid; Tarja Halonen, President of Finland (2000-2012), Board Member of the NGIC and Member of the Club de Madrid: and Wim Kok, Prime Minister of the Netherlands (1994-2002), President of the Club de Madrid. Serageldin also spoke and moderated at other sessions that discussed the potential for a new focus on faith and shared societies, based on openness and respect between faiths and between the faith community and the secular world. A press conference was held after the meeting.
The NGIC is a cultural, non-profit, non-political organization dedicated to the memory of Azerbaijani poet, Nizami Ganjavi, and to the study and dissemination of his works. The Club de Madrid is an independent non-profit organization composed of more than 90 democratic former Presidents and Prime Ministers from 62 different countries. The cooperation between the NGIC and the Club de Madrid started with the First South Caucasus Forum, where a Memorandum of Understanding was signed by the two organizations to join forces and work together to strengthen the Club de Madrid’s mission of “democracy that delivers”, as well as the NGIC’s mission to build a dialogue and understanding between cultures and peoples for building functional and inclusive societies.