Global Leaders Meet in Baku: The World Is Running Out of Time
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A special session convened at the XIII Global Baku Forum in Azerbaijan by international leadership forum Nizami Ganjavi International Center (NGIC) in partnership with global think tank The World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS)

NAPA, Calif. - Californer -- Former presidents and prime ministers joined UN leaders, World Bank veterans and senior policy thinkers for a meeting on a world in meta crisis — multiple civilizational stresses hitting simultaneously.

Former Latvian President Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, said turbulence was a feature of change and called for a more human approach grounded in compassion. The Secretary-General of UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Rebeca Grynspan set the scene with a call for the United Nations to be respected as the world's anchor of peace and the provider of the "off ramp" for the world's conflicts. WAAS President Garry Jacobs anchored the day's intellectual frame as: "Today's turbulence being part of a long process of social change and the product of unfinished business — deferred structural crises that are now arriving all at once."

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A session titled "war and conflict," moderated by former World Bank VP Ismail Serageldin, produced the starkest verdict: the world has reverted to an early 20th-century moment - before multilateral norms held — where conflict and foreign policy once again recognise no boundaries. The widening Middle East war, drawing the US into direct confrontation with Iran, was cited as exhibit one.

Peter Galbraith, former US ambassador to Croatia, pointed to the critical importance of understanding cultures and political systems abroad to avoid miscalculations in wars that claim to foster peace.

In a session on technology and sovereignty, Ketan Patel, WAAS executive director and chair of Force for Good, warned that humanity has entered an age of cognitive empires — the mind itself being colonized as geopolitical power shifts from physical territory to subtly occupying the minds of people across the world.

Hafez Ghanem, Vice President of the World Bank for Eastern and Southern Africa, moderated a human security session arguing for a bottom-up reframing of the turbulence agenda around ordinary people's lived experience. Panellists included economist and Peking University Dean Lin Yifu, former Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer, UNESCO-MOST BRIDGES Programme Executive Director Steven Hartman and WAAS General Manager Grant Schreiber.

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Former UN General Assembly President María Fernanda Espinosa asked what kind of leaders, institutions and modes of thinking are needed in such an age. Patel framed turbulence as not merely a product of political or economic crisis but a feature of civilizational shift.

https://worldacademy.org / https://www.nizamiganjavi-ic.org

Contact
Grant Schreiber
***@worldacademy.org


Source: The World Academy of Art and Science
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