About the Conference Despite the enormous efforts made each year to address the world’s persistent development challenges, the international community can point to only incremental impact on the status quo. As a result, many have called for a paradigm shift, in order to usher in a new era of holistic social change. The Institute of Cultural Affairs International’s 7th Global Conference on Human Development: Unlocking the Potential to Create a New World Together will serve as a launching pad for realizing the paradigm shift needed to overcome our deepest human development challenges. Breakthrough is possible only through a comprehensive, integrated approach, which facilitates the exchange of information and collaboration across disciplines and areas of interest. The 7th Global Conference will take place over five days, from 17-21 November 2008 in Takayama, Japan, and will include more than 1000 participants. It will bring together key stakeholders from civil society, government, and the private sector to explore our most pressing human development challenges and design groundbreaking approaches to resolving them. By bringing together peoples from the various sectors, as well as different fields within each sector, a tremendous opportunity for partnership is achieved. To guarantee the productive engagement of all participants, facilitators will be engaged to guide the conference process.
The conference will take into account that 2008 marks the mid-point in implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Case studies analyzing implementation progress in developed and developing countries will be prepared and presented, in order to share strategies and lessons learned from MDG implementation and identify approaches for achieving targets by 2015. Additionally, presentations will be made on the nine thematic global challenges, which will serve as input to the working groups. Our generation has the potential to change the course of history for the better. While we may not see the change we seek in our lifetimes, we can sow and nurture the seeds, so that they may be brought to fruition by subsequent generations. The 7th Global Conference will generate concrete outputs, which will be implemented over time by the conference partners. You are invited to be a part of the process of creating the world envisioned by all of us. Previous ICAI conferences:
The conference will bring together key stakeholders from civil society, government, and the private sector, including:
The conference preparation process will focus on the following 9 topics:
Pre-Conference Process The conference partners propose an initial list of 9 focus topics, and will facilitate this process of focusing the working groups in three contexts: online; in local workshops; and through experimental projects.
This page is now being expanded to include technologies of electronic facilitation, social networking, and ideas exchange. An online facilitation team working within the framework of the 9 focus topics is going to coordinate workshops, polls, and exchange of information among conference registrants in order to identify the underlying issues and specific focus questions to be addressed in person at the conference. Be sure to register now in order to participate in this dynamic online process.
Local communities, staff teams, and other groups can prepare for the conference through in-person workshops. A Guide to Focusing the Working Groups is being produced by the conference partners, in consultation with the online facilitation team, to provide a framework for these local workshops. Local workshop outputs will be incorporated into the online process.
Conference registrants may also wish to share lessons from ongoing projects and/or have experimental project ideas to implement in advance, in order to incorporate the project’s lessons into the conference processes. These analyses can be shared online and/or in local workshops, as part of the process of focusing the working groups, as well as in the conference documentation.
A leading scholar or development practitioner specializing in each of the 9 focus topics is being commissioned to produce a research paper on the global challenges in this area. One person will also be identified to produce a synthesis report on Our Most Urgent Human Development Challenges. The topical and synthesis papers will be circulated to conference registrants, as further input into the pre-conference process. The synthesis paper will be formally presented as part of the conference proceedings, and the topical and synthesis reports bound and distributed to all participants, and later published as part of conference follow-up. Case studies will be commissioned to evaluate implementation of the MDGs at mid-point, as 2008 marks the halfway point between 2000 and 2015. Case studies will be commissioned on developed and developing countries, and one scholar or practitioner is being identified to produce a synthesis report of the case studies on The MDGs at Mid-Point, which will be presented during the conference proceedings. All of the reports and the synthesis report will be bound and distributed to participants, and later published as part of the conference follow-up.
A tentative schedule is as follows: |
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