On 17 December 2018 in Doha, Qatar, the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies of the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, the Stimson Center, and the Doha Forum convened the Global Policy Dialogue on Preventive Action, Sustaining Peace, and Global Governance, which coincided with the 18th edition of the Doha Forum from 15 to 16 December 2018.
The dialogue’s forty participants—representing diverse global and regional policy-making, scholarly, activist, and practitioners’ perspectives—gathered to respond collectively to major global policy challenges associated with the theme of preventive action, sustaining peace, and global governance; to better understand current global and regional responses (including those championed by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres); and to consider and refine major global and regional governance innovation initiatives.
Special attention was given to initiatives that are most relevant to current crises within the Greater Middle East today. The dialogue concluded with discussions about new global efforts, such as Together First: A Global System that Works for All, the UN 2020 Initiative, and the knowledge-based Platform on Global Security, Justice & Governance Innovation, to advance a peacebuilding innovation agenda between now and 2020, the 75th anniversary of the United Nations.
To view the Global Policy Dialogue’s “Action Plan” detailing broad areas of consensus on priority global governance reform innovations, please click here. For the dialogue’s Background Brief that informed discussions n Doha, please click here. Subsequent Policy Dialogues on “Global Security, Justice & Economic Institutions” and the “Climate Governance: Innovating the Paris Agreement & Beyond” will follow in June 2019 at the Stimson Center in Washington, D.C. and in October 2019 in Seoul, respectively.
Together, the three-part series aims to advance a global consensus around several of the best recommendations for improving international responses to deadly conflict and weak states, challenges inherent in the hyperconnected global economy, and runaway climate change.
JS2020 at the Paris Peace Forum
At the inaugural Paris Peace Forum, from 11-13 November 2018, Stimson’s Just Security 2020 Program delivered two public presentations on the findings and recommendations found in Just Security in an Undergoverned World and related follow-through actions, as well as unveiled its new Platform on Global Security, Justice & Governance Innovation on Armistice Day (11 November). Moreover, the JS2020 Program collaborated at the Forum with the Global Challenges Foundation, UNA-UK, and other partners to launch the Together First: A Global System that Works for All campaign, including a new website and first campaign action, which served as a great way to engage the gathering’s diverse participants. We were delighted that over 160 people took part in the action, including three Nobel Peace laureates: José Ramos-Horta, Beatrice Fihn and Nadia Murad.
In addition, the JS2020 program discussed and requested representatives of organizations attending the Paris Peace Forum to consider co-signing this letter to the President of the General Assembly. We drafted the letter with our UN 2020 Initiative colleagues to urge the PGA to initiate a General Assembly resolution that mandates a process for a major UN renewal, innovation, and reform summit in 2020 – the UN’s 75th anniversary (as called for by the Albright-Gambari Commission on Global Security, Justice & Governance).
For some other major take-aways from this unique annual forum—which gathered policy-makers, religious leaders, activists, scholars, practitioners, journalists, and business leaders from around the world to forge new strategies and coalitions for peace and better global governance—please see this newly commissioned PassBlue article entitled, “The Paris Peace Forum: A Davos for the People?”