The third Global Baku Forum titled “Building Trust in the Emerging World Order”, organized by the Azerbaijan State Committee for Work with Diaspora, the Nizami Ganjavi International Center (NGIC) and the Club de Madrid, brought together current and former presidents, prime ministers, and statesmen, as well as global scholars and experts. This major gathering of world leaders and representatives from 75 countries, provided a space to assess the current state of the world and the most pressing threats to international security and peace and to discuss concrete steps for today's leadership to overcome these divisions.
The forum discussed the key challenges for the emerging world order and tackled a range of global issues, including ethnic and religious conflicts, terror threats, development of democracy, energy security, inter-religious dialogue, the role of women in peace leadership, future scenarios for Ukraine, and future of the Russia-West Relations.
The meeting was opened by Hillam Alliev, President of Azerbaijan following which special messages were read from Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany; from David Cameron, Prime Minister of the UK; from Boutros Boutros Ghali, former Secretary General of the United Nations, and Henry Kissinger, Former US Secretary of State. The opening session heard the welcoming address by Vaira Vika-Freiberga Former President of Latvia, and current President of Le Club de Madrid and Co-chair of NGIC, and the opening remarks of Ismail Serageldin, Co-chair of NGIC.The event heard also heard and address by Irina Bokova, UNESCO Director-General.
In his opening address Serageldin said, “These are perilous times. The Old World Order is collapsing before our eyes. A New World Order remains tantalizingly beyond our reach. Regions are undergoing complex upheavals and slow transformations, and we can expect changes in practically every part of the world… The complexity of the situations and the rampant globalization all demand that we rethink the prevailing and failing World Order. ”
Summing up the debates of the two day forum in his closing remarks, Serageldin said, “We discussed extremism… and remain convinced that beyond necessary military and police actions, there is still the question of the spread of these extreme ideas that beget violence and terrorism. That is a subject where the Library of Alexandria has led the way with a bold exploration on how to fight ideas with ideas…The emerging new world order has to take into account the enormous differences that exist between people and cultures. We must build a system that rejects the “one-size-fits-all” approach and that adapts to the enormous and enriching variety of the human experience and its invaluable cultural diversity. We must remain open to all the cultures of the world.”
The event also featured a ceremony where the President of Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, Akif Alizade presented the Gold Medal of the Republic of Azerbaijan, named after Nizami Ganjavi, to Vaira Vike-Freiberga, and Ismail Serageldin .
