"Opportunities and Challenges for the 21st Century - Need for a new Paradigm"

Mr. Ivo Šlaus, President of the World Academy of Art and
Science
Mr. Jacobs, Chairman of the World Academy of Art and
Science
Distinguished Speakers, Moderators and Rapporteurs
Ladies and Gentlemen:

First of all, I would like to thank all of you for taking part today and sharing your views. I know that we may not have had as much time as we would have liked for discussion, but I hope that you have all taken full advantage of the coffee breaks and other opportunities to talk and to network. It is my hope that new connections have been made here that can lead to further collaboration.

I will not attempt to sum up our discussions. Our distinguished moderators have already done that very well. Concluding our discussions today, I wanted to simply highlight a couple of key messages:

One of the recurring themes today has been the importance of translating theory into practice. In many areas, we actually know what the problems are, and we know what to do. The challenge is in implementation, through a systemic approach that allows all interests to be accommodated.

New concepts have been put forward. I am sure that ideas such as the “governance cloud” and “the G-0 world”, as well as the correlation between democracy and stability in the world, will continue to generate discussion.

We had an interesting discussion on what global leadership is, and how it is being practiced. Many speakers identified the current constraints of short-term electoral cycles and the imperative of immediate results as part of the failure to develop adequate long-term strategies.

Another theme that has come up in many is the relationship between politics, science and education. Many speakers highlighted that priorities in these areas have to be based on democracy and human rights.

Another overall conclusion is that the future is a resource-constrained world. The competition for water, land and energy will be fierce, and hence will be creating an inherently unstable world, with more conflicts and inequalities.

Until now, price and value have been given to traditional sectors of the economy. If we want to beat further environmental degradation and destruction, we need to give proper value to sustainable goods. We need to maximize resource productivity. We need a resource-efficient strategy that goes beyond conventional economic policy frameworks.

Employment was another key point. All agreed that the issue of employment is too important to leave to the markets. What we need to figure out, as the international community, is what kind of growth path will create good, decent jobs in the future

So, how do we move forward from here?

I take four key conclusions with me from today’s debate:

First, we need a vision for sustainable energy in an interconnected world. Second, we need a new logic for economic development that gives priority to science and education. Third, we need economic, financial and political reform that deals with the current short political cycles to enable long-term strategy. And finally, we need a change of the value and pricing system to reflect the current sustainability challenges.

As Ambassador Fasel said at the opening this morning, this meeting has increased the quality of the debate at all levels, further enabling us to have an informed dialogue on our interconnected challenges.

I thank again the World Academy of Art and Science, as well as the diplomatic community, the international organizations in Geneva and the Swiss Government, for the excellent collaboration that culminated in today’s conference. I wish to take this forward and I hope that all of you will be ready to continue our in-depth reflections on how to build the world that we all want.

Thank you very much for your active involvement.