WORLD LEADERS IN FRANCE FOR SECOND PARIS PEACE FORUM
▶ UAE’s delegation to summit includes Minister of Culture and Knowledge Development Noura Al Kaabi
President Emmanuel Macron launched the second Paris Peace Forum at La Grande Halle de La Villette in the French capital yesterday, inviting national leaders, senior officials and heads of international organisations to discuss solutions to global challenges.
The event, which ends tomorrow evening, will welcome 27 heads of state, businesses and charity chief executives as well as various civil society leaders.
“We are facing a governance challenge between the global scale of the problems we face and the capacity of the international system as it is structured today to deal with them properly,” said Pascal Lamy, the head of the forum and former leader of the World Trade Organisation. The forum wants “to encourage international co-operation and collective action for a world at peace”.
High-level discussions and debates hope to advance “innovative and concrete solutions” to global challenges.
Subjects to be discussed include the future of global trade, how to counter climate change and save the world’s oceans, prevent extremism and work with new technologies such as artificial intelligence. There will also be panels on the role of sport and art in conflict resolution, reflection on the fall of the Berlin Wall 30 years ago, data sharing and fake news.
Yesterday, there was a soft opening where, after an official welcome by Mr Lamy, Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, was scheduled to speak.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is expected to make an address on the first day of the event. The official opening ceremony this morning will feature speeches by Mr Macron, Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan, Ursula von der Leyen, president-elect of the European Commission and Felix Tshisekedi, President of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Other notable European leaders joining Mr Macron at the event include Belgian Prime Minister Sophie Wilmes, Austrian
Chancellor Brigitte Bierlein, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid.
Foreign ministers from Germany, Finland, India, the Netherlands and Russia will also attend. Given France’s close ties to Africa, there is a strong presence of political leaders from the continent, including officials from Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Madagascar, Morocco, Senegal and Tunisia. The UAE’s delegation includes Noura Al Kaabi, Minister of Culture and Knowledge Development.
Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, President of the UN General Assembly and Angel Gurria, Secretary General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, will also be attending.
The delegates will be hosted by 19 French officials, including Mr Macron and Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.
As well as more than 80 debate sessions, 114 global government projects will pitch their initiatives.
“We want to give priority not to discussions, to symposia, but to the search for solutions, so we will show, expose, submit to debate 100 projects,” Mr Lamy said.
Ten projects will be chosen to receive support and the results will be assessed at the next forum in 2020.