Governance Dialogue
In an increasingly interconnected world, global coordination founded on an appreciation of humanity’s interdependence is becoming even more of a pragmatic necessity.
Individuals and communities around the world are recognizing that models based on unity and cooperation serve the international community better than division and competition.
Here, in response to these and other themes raised in the Baha'i International Community's statement on the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, contributors from a variety of sectors explore what is needed to construct more just and fitting global arrangements.
Strengthening International Efforts to Protect Women from Violence
By Brian D. Lepard
Violence against women afflicts women of all nationalities, races, and social strata. While the global community has made some efforts to protect victims, now is the time for the United Nations, Member States, and organs of civil society to take bold steps to aid women who are abused, to punish perpetrators, and to prevent violence in the first place.
Our collective moment of reckoning
By Arash Fazli
Over the past few years, humanity has been forced to adapt to an unprecedented state of global uncertainty, arising from multiple, interlocking crises.
Reorganizing the Women’s Movement for the Next Steps Forward
By Saphira Rameshfar
Governance at the international level will require new systems and structures that are more suited to the challenges facing humanity today. But advances in the operation of those systems—the way we human beings function within them—will be equally important.
Educational Purpose and Governance in an Interconnected World
By Elena Toukan
Over the past 75 years, the international community has made remarkable efforts to extend access to education around the world through a spirit of shared commitment and cooperation. The accelerating challenges facing humanity and the planet, however, provoke urgent questions. What kind of education is needed to establish just, peaceful, and prosperous societies for all?
Toward Gender-Equal Global Governance: The Role of Culture
By Suzan Karaman
The equality of men and women is a fundamental truth of human existence. A more effective and principled global order depends on translating this truth into reality. Yet doing so has been a formidable challenge. … Transforming attitudes at the level of culture will be critical in bringing the full expression of women’s capacities to the collective affairs of humankind.
Unpacking Interconnectedness: The Experience of ‘Creating an Inclusive Narrative’
By Ida Walker
The COVID-19 pandemic has impelled people around the globe to reflect on the character of the societies in which they live and the world we share. It has raised fundamental questions about individual and national identity that will remain relevant long after the most acute effects of the pandemic have receded. As the Governance Befitting statement noted, “rapidly shifting global realities” are prompting “a deeper appreciation of humanity’s interconnection and interdependence.”
Towards a Culture of Encounter Inclusive of the World’s Religious Traditions
By Philip McDonagh, Kishan Manocha, Lucia Vázquez Mendoza, and John Neary
In our globalised 21st century, we have reached a point of inflection in the human story. One way or another, our policy responses will depend on the lens through which we see reality. How do we see the relationship between the citizen and the state? How do we measure the economy? Is building community compatible with individuals advancing their own self-interests? Should we protect the vulnerable? Are we global citizens? What position do we take on questions concerning human origins, human destiny, and our place within nature? In thinking about politics, how do we answer the basic questions: who, where, how, why, and when?
A Governance Befitting: Catalysed by Youth Committing
By Shidan Javaheri
Increasingly turbulent conditions in the world have intensified the urgency to establish a truly united global order. A Governance Befitting aptly recognizes that periods of turmoil present opportunities for “marked social change.”
The Power of Imagination: One People in a Shared Homeland
By Temily Tavangar
A Governance Befitting is a sobering yet hopeful wake-up call to the real and urgent challenges that face humanity in its current state of global interdependence. How, it asks, do we redefine our collective values in the face of present turbulence?
‘Giving’ as a Foundation for Global Governance
By Siew-Huat Kong
The statement A Governance Befitting reminds us that “periods of turbulence have presented opportunities to redefine collective values and the assumptions that underlie them.” The global pandemic has done just that…
Institutional Processes Toward Effective Global Governance
By Andy Tamas
The Baha’i International Community’s statement on the 75th anniversary of the United Nations begins by noting how evolving global realities are prompting a deeper appreciation of humanity’s interconnection and interdependence…
Time for the Vision and Commitment Necessary for Deeper Global Cooperation
By Daniel Perell
The Governance Befitting statement notes that global realities require expanded integration and coordination among the nations—that “The only viable way forward lies in a system of deepening global cooperation.”
Economic Governance in a Post-Covid World
By Augusto Lopez-Claros
The COVID-19 crisis is the largest shock to the global economy since the Great Depression of the early 1930s. The impact has been highly destabilising and global in scope. Perhaps no statistic captures more eloquently its welfare costs than that for the first time in three decades in 2020 we saw a sharp increase in the number of people classified by the World Bank as “extremely poor.” About 120 million people joined the ranks of the very poor, a reversal likely to continue in 2021, the incipient economic recovery notwithstanding…
Rethinking Inclusivity for a Maturing World
By Liliane Nkunzimana
Today, integrative processes are bringing diverse peoples across the world into closer contact with one another, creating opportunities—previously inconceivable—to collaborate, exchange information, and share knowledge…
A Governance Befitting - Implications for Europe
By Maximillian Afnan
The 75th anniversary of the establishment of the United Nations, a milestone reached against the background of a devastating global health crisis, is spurring conversations about the purpose and design of arrangements for international cooperation…
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