A basic proposition of the Shared Societies Approach of the Club de Madrid is that all these aspects are interdependent so that progress on one can lead to progress on the others, creating a benign cycle of development.The President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, opened the forum stressing the relevance of the concept of Shared Societies. World leaders including Vaira Vike-Freiberga (former President of Latvia, Club de Madrid President and NGIC Co-Chair); Jorge Quiroga (former President of Bolivia and Club de Madrid vice-president); Abdul Kareem Al-Eryani (former Prime Minister of Yemen and Club de Madrid Member) and Tarja Halonen (former President of Finland, Club de Madrid and NGIC Member) among others lead the discussions in the “Second Global Shared Societies Forum” held from 28th to 29th of April in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Click to read the read Main Themes and Conclusions
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The Club de Madrid has been promoting Shared Societies since 2007; however, after these two days of debate, we will do it more forcefully, recognizing the support of the participants in the forum, with more than 30 world leaders and many international experts. The Forum has reaffirmed throughout the meeting two key recommendations of the Post 2015 Position Paper of the Club de Madrid to encourage governments to implement social inclusion policies:
- It has stressed the importance of data and particularly disaggregated data, and also, it recommends to move beyond traditional hard data and to collect information on measures of the quality of life.
- The Forum has reinforced the importance of participation and active citizens, not just as valuable in itself but as a protection of good governance and democracy. People will support governments that listen to them and respond to their needs and expectations.
When speaking about social inclusion, education was a common area of concern. At present the discussion of education in the Sustainable Development Goals focuses on basic numeracy and literacy skills and education for work. However, after the deliberations, we have been reminded that it is equally important, if not more, that education prepares people for life. Meaning that it must assist the development of citizenship and responsibility, flexibility to respond to new situations, resilience to respond to setbacks, empathy to understand the circumstances, needs and concerns of other sections of society different from themselves, in sum humanity.
The Forum was organized by the Nizami Ganjavi International Center with Club de Madrid as knowledge partner. Click here for more information about the Forum.