Strategic Outlook on Geopolitics

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Mirek Dusek, Managing Director, World Economic Forum: Good afternoon to all of you online, watching us on TopLink, the World Economic Forum platform. Good afternoon from Geneva. Good afternoon also to all of you here in the studio, with me in person here in Geneva at the headquarters of the World Economic Forum.

I am Merik Dusek. I am the managing director at the World Economic Forum. My main job is shaping the programme of our upcoming annual meeting in Davos. This is the last session of a series that we're doing, a Strategic Intelligence Outlook series that we've been running over the past two days with leading experts on economic, technological, industrial and societal trends. So, this is the last session and we have arguably left the most complicated issue for this last session, for this wrap-up session, namely on geopolitics.

And, I think it's no surprise that the picture, the geopolitical picture is, if we put it diplomatically, very complex or complicated, if we put it less diplomatically. It's really full of tension, rivalry, conflict. We really haven't seen such a situation, in terms of the geopolitical outlook, for a while. Some would call it a geopolitical recession.

Whatever the name is, whatever we call it, it is top of mind, not only of foreign ministers and national security advisers and analysts, but it's also top of mind for people that are heading civil society organizations. It's top of mind for business. A lot of the people that are watching us, some people may also be here in Geneva at the studio with us, that are leading business organizations. So, it is, across the board, something that is of critical importance. And, so we will have together about 45 minutes and we will look under the hood of the geopolitical outlook.

And, when I look, when I say looking under the hood, what does that mean? Because we obviously are all affected I think, by all these geopolitical shocks. So that's, I think, front and centre now for a lot of us, the latest being the tragic violence in the Middle East. And that's a big part of why I say a lot of people are concerned about the geopolitical landscape. But then there is the other part, which are the structural issues within the international architecture. And, again, those of you who follow this very closely, there is no surprise, we all know that the relationship between China and the United States, again, to put it very diplomatically, is very complicated and complex.

We obviously still have the war in Ukraine and the attendant complicated, again, to put it diplomatically, role of Russia in the international system. We also have the growing schism between what some would term the Global North and the Global South or lack of trust, if you will. That's another structural feature of this complicated geopolitical landscape.

And, then the other thing I would like to achieve today is around how does this actually intersect with some of the other big pieces of international relations, if you will, the big transformations around energy and climate, around technology, and around the economy? On all of these, in all of these areas, we see a lot of dynamism. A lot is happening. Take the economy, we are in an extremely low-growth environment. Those of you who follow economics, you know that to be structurally under 3% global growth is something that we haven't seen in a while. So again, a major, major concern, if you will, in terms of the global economy.

Obviously, we all know that this year is set to be or is already confirmed to be the hottest on record. We are having this broadcast and this session at a time when the COP is happening in Dubai. But obviously, the efforts around addressing climate change could not be more important. But obviously, both the economy, climate and also technology are connecting with geopolitics.

If we look at it a little bit, now you could say that the complicated geopolitical picture is a drag on all those three things. It doesn't have to be. If you look at Asean and if you look at, of course, the European Union, if you look at also what is now being accomplished with the African Continental Free Trade Area, it could be also an enabler. So, if there is a more functioning geopolitical architecture, it could be an enabler. But I think there could be a consensus that right now geopolitics is a drag. But then, it's also about how these trends, technology, climate and economy actually impact geopolitical relations.

I will not go through all three of them, but if you just take climate, I think it's well known that the fact that we actually have not been able to address climate change enough and the resulting extreme weather and other effects are actually uprooting communities and individuals, which could lead then to complicated geopolitical relations and have security implications as well.

So, in a nutshell, a very, very complex picture on geopolitics alone, but why is it important to understand it? It is not only because we are concerned about that field of study, but it is how it intersects with the rest of the international system.

And, as I said we would look under the hood of geopolitics together, I'm honoured to have three presidents of organizations that are very qualified to help us understand it a little better, namely, Comfort Ero, President and CEO of International Crisis Group. A warm welcome to you. We have also Samir Saran, President of Observer Research Foundation in India. A warm welcome to you, Samir. And, last, but not least, Itonde Kakoma, President, Interpeace. Also, a warm welcome to you.

And, so allow me to start with you, Ms. Ero, if I can. You are heading a very renowned organization. I think all of you here in the studio, I'm sure know International Crisis Group, I would think most of you on the line as well.

And, so you work to alert policymakers to the risk of conflict and also opportunities to advance peace. But you are a very holistic organization, I have come across your work many times in my career, so I know that you really cover quite a lot. You cover the globe. And, so I wanted to start with you to get a little bit of a landscape analysis, a diagnosis of how you see the geopolitical landscape right now. So, diagnosis of where we are, but also because this is about helping us navigate a little bit the upcoming year as well, also a prognosis around 2024. And, if I could ask you also, I would be curious to get your perspective on the US-China relationship, if you can. Over to you, Ms. Zero.

Comfort Ero, President and CEO of International Crisis Group: Thank you. Thank you, Mirek. That's quite an introduction. In a sense, you've answered the question yourself in the way you sort of framed the purpose of today's call. And let me use the opportunity also to congratulate Itonde on his appointment, very recent appointment as President of Interpeace as well.

Look, I thought it was good in the way in which you said that geopolitics has become a drag on everything. And, I think that's precisely right, that the one thing that is casting a shadow on the international landscape and Crisis Group, as you said, is an early warning organization, but the one thing that is casting a shadow more than any other time, more than any other period, is this geopolitical drag that you talked about.

And it's precisely really about the US/China competition and I'll come back to that, because I think it will frame a number of ways in which we think about things next year, but from my own vantage point and from Crisis Group's own vantage point, when I look at the international arena, when I look at global politics, when I look at international affairs, I zoom in. I'm zooming into one specific area of international politics and that is the conflict landscape that we're watching. And, in a sense, the tragedy in and around Gaza is a highlight of the global crisis that we are facing today.

And, on top of that, I think what Gaza illustrates, and if it wasn't illustrated before in relation to Ukraine and if it wasn't illustrated in relation to Sudan or Ethiopia, what I think Gaza highlights is that we are facing a crisis, a very serious crisis in peacemaking.

And, put simply, for an organization whose work is about early warning, for an organization whose work is about conflict resolution and finding pathways to peace, what we are facing today is that diplomatic efforts to head off or to end wars are failing. Now, you might look at what's happening in Israel today and the incremental steps that we've sort of achieved in the last few weeks to get a humanitarian pause or a temporary ceasefire, whatever labelling you want, to get aid into Gaza, but I don't think it hides the fact that today we really do see ourselves facing a serious sort of crisis in peacemaking.

So that's one pillar and I think the other trend on what underpins this crisis, is that in the past few years we've seen a fresh wave of major conflicts, whether it's in Myanmar or Nagorno-Karabakh – and by the way, the reclaiming of Nagorno-Karabakh happened in the week when world leaders were meeting in Ungar and it was a very brazen, very bold reclaiming of Nagorno-Karabakh and we can come back to that. Ethiopia, Sudan, Eastern DRC, plus, of course, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, no region has really been spared in terms of a decline into further conflict.

Not only are there more wars killing people, the wars are lasting longer, by some estimates, twice as long on average than what we've seen in the last few decades. We've also seen a rise in human suffering, the humanitarian toll, the humanitarian catastrophe. The numbers were significantly higher last year than we've ever seen since the end of the Second World War, bar the genocide in Rwanda. And also, Mirek, the other sort of observation that we observe in Crisis Group and I think it's going to be very much there in 2024, because you asked us to think about 2024, I think we're going to see that the efforts just to do the simple deal-making is going to get harder.

We have seen that the lull, in relation to fighting, owes more to one side prevailing militarily on the field, rather than pursuing deal-making. So, for example, we can look at Afghanistan, Ethiopia, I've mentioned already in the form of Tigray, and more recently in Nagorno-Karabakh as well.

So Mirek, there is nothing new in that warring factions always look for ways in which to triumph on the battlefield. But, the years since the end of the Cold War, Mirek, were marked by efforts of peacemaking, where we saw some serious peace settlements, but we haven't, in the last few years, observed any serious peace deal.

I think the last one, and Itonde it would be good to get your perspective, the last serious peacemaking effort that we saw, and I would not put Ethiopia into this because that was a victor's peace in Pretoria, the last serious peacemaking we saw was in 2016 with the Farc. So, I think it's worth bearing in mind that we don't see, you know, diplomacy itself has been hijacked in the midst of the geopolitical trends as well. And I think what makes that difficult, what makes contemporary peacemaking more difficult, owes precisely to what you talked about, Mirek, which is the geopolitical drag and also the geopolitical shifts that we've seen in power.

So, it's very clear to us that the tools to restrain various actors are becoming brittle, are increasingly fragile, so sanctions themselves are no longer strong enough. We've seen how Putin has been able to transform the Russian economy into a war economy, for example.

We've seen also that the constraining use of force no longer yields or changes the dynamics on the ground. I also think Mirek, to point to one issue that you raised, is that nobody or a number of actors no longer call into question or are increasingly frustrated or see a crisis of legitimacy and the normal tools, multilateral tools that we will turn to help address a number of these crises as well.

And overshadowing this, Mirek, is what you pointed to the US-China relationship and it was great that we saw Xi Jinping and Biden have the side talks in San Francisco on the sidelines of APEC. Both sides, quite rightly since last year, I think were very nervous that both leaders did not talk since last year and we all saw what happened with the balloon incident. And I think it was a testimony to how brittle the relationship was between both sides. But, both sides clearly want to put a floor in the relationship, particularly before Taiwan's elections in January and before the US elections in November.

It was vital that both sides were able to talk. I think for us, it was vital also to get a number of pronouncements that suggest some kind of de-escalation in Taiwan. And, also I think it was critical that we saw a resumption in military communications between both sides. But as we go into 2024, I mean, as you know, Crisis Group at the start of every single year announces what it sees as its top ten conflicts to watch. And I think overcasting a lot of the top ten conflicts will be the geopolitical drag, will be this crisis of peace, will be an increase in the humanitarian toll and humanitarian catastrophe and will be, I think, this distrust in the international system, especially as we go into the Summit of the Future that the SG, the Secretary General of the United Nations, is calling for next year. So the picture is pretty bleak. Diplomacy, I think, is under significant strain and I think that the ability to get international actors to sue for peace, in a number of places, is getting increasingly hard. I'll stop there, Mirek, and I can come back and address some of these issues again, but thank you for giving me the floor.

Mirek Dusek, Managing Director, World Economic Forum: So, thank you so much for this holistic analysis and again, you and your colleagues are at the forefront of many of those efforts, so it's really good to have your assessment. I wonder when you said we could discuss that later, you said there is a crisis of peacemaking. Obviously, there is the bigger piece of the power rivalry and how it's impacting the tools we have at our disposal, but it would be good to also say, do we need new tools in terms of some of the institutions that could help with that? Please, if you want to come in briefly on that, it was really because what comes to mind is you see a lot of commotion also now with regard to MDB's, so there is some effort around potentially tweaking, if not reforming some institutions. And obviously, people are quite frustrated right now, for example, with the situation in the U.N. Security Council and how much inaction there is. And, so just maybe a quick reaction from you on do we need new tools?

Comfort Ero, President and CEO of International Crisis Group: Yeah, this is really an excellent question. And, you know, paradoxically, the Secretary-General, as I mentioned, has, you know, called everybody to the Summit of the Future next September in New York and one of the big areas that he's been focusing on is this idea of a new agenda for peace.

Now, it's interesting that of all the various chapters that will form the pact that leads to the new Summit of the Future, the most difficult one is the peace and security chapter. And largely, as you said Mirek, because of this geopolitical drag, but also, I think it's interesting to note that although President Biden himself put the issue of the reform of the Security Council on the table, largely because Zelenskyy himself challenged the Security Council because one of its members had violated the charter, so it was Zelenskyy himself who put the reform on the table.

Biden himself said America would support a reform agenda, but I think most of us who look at the Security Council, most of us who look at multilateralism, will have a little bit of scepticism, or a large degree of scepticism, as to how far the reform of the Security Council will go. T

This is why increasingly, I think we are looking more and more in terms of concrete, practical reforms at the MDBs. And it's interesting that both the G7 and the G20, also recognized that if there's going to be any serious effort at reforms and also to deal with the economic shocks, to deal with inequality and to deal with question marks about this postwar table, that it still seems to be very much locked into the P5 and the IMF and the World Bank, that any real reform has to take place with the MDBs. This is partly why Macron, with Prime Minister Mottley had this important meeting in June in Paris this year to start thinking concretely about how to deal with the reforms in the IFIs, particularly in the World Bank.

Which is also why, and I think it was important, but the proof will be in the pudding, as to why the G20 was opened, the membership was opened to the African Union. The question really does still hang as to how much these institutions or the member states, the powerful member states of these institutions, are willing to open the doors to ensure more inclusion and also to ensure real reforms in the nature and the kind that the likes of me and Mottley have been pushing for since she raised the issues through the context of the Bridgetown Initiative and also with Macron in the June summit. I think there's a lot of willingness, a lot of commitments, a lot of jaw jaw jaw, but I think the real thing is, are we going to see any serious effort at reforms as well? I'll stop there.

Mirek Dusek, Managing Director, World Economic Forum: You know, thank you so much. This brings me if I could go to you, Samir. I mentioned at the beginning, again, some people call it the Global North-South schism or divide, whatever you call it, but obviously, this is also a big piece of what we just talked about in terms of some of the discussions on MDB reform. It also was part of the Loss and Damage fund that seems to be now concluded or coming to a successful conclusion in terms of being established, but I go to you with that question because you chaired, during the G20 presidency of India, you chaired the Think 20, which is a group of research institutions that are associated with the G20. And, of course, the G20 priority this year for India was really to bring the Global South more to the table. We saw, as Ms Ero said, the African Union being admitted as a permanent member of the G20. You also just concluded, I understand, the Capetown Conversation, which was devoted to the priorities of the Global South.

So, because it's such an important relationship and you know, I think we all would say there isn't enough trust, it's not a schism, there isn't enough trust, we need to work on it. How do you see it with the efforts that you made around the G20? And, what are the other things we could be doing to start fixing that?

Samir Saran, President, Observer Research Foundation: Thank you, Mirek. Let me first congratulate you on organizing this conversation and, more importantly, bringing such a fantastic panel together. I really enjoyed your framing after Comfort reports on some of the key issues that are going to implicate this decade and beyond.

So, let me just very quickly, Mirek, take something out of what you said and kind of agree with you and maybe exaggerate it a little bit. I think geopolitics is an ascension. Actually, we are more political and more aware of questions of security, of nationalism, of self-serving policies today than we ever were in the last few decades. So geopolitics is an ascension.

It is multilateralism, which is in recession. So that's the challenge in that we are political beasts. Without having agreed to the framework of engaging with each other, the frameworks that allowed us to talk to each other have failed.

Peace and security is clearly the biggest victim, the peace and security pillar and to put it bluntly, the UN SE is today a joke. And its existence is a blot on 70 years of efforts to move towards a more progressive and developed future. So reform is not the word. I think re, with a hyphen, is the right word. Re-form is the way to go forward. I don't think that just mere Band-Aids are going to fix this. If we want peace, we have to think about a different institution with a different star cast. And here I think the G20 kind of gives us a clue.

The problem is not necessarily the institutions themselves. The problem is who sits on the chairs in these institutions. And we have seen that in Indonesia and in India and I can bet my bottom dollar or rupee, because I'm in India, that the Brazilian presidency will also be fairly successful and the South Africans will do a splendid job.

Why? Because I think the star cast in this case, the leadership of these countries and those who partner with these countries rallied together to ensure consensus. I don't think the developed world is looking for consensus anymore. They are looking for their way or the highway. And, it is countries who require multilateralism, who require trading systems that work, who require peace because they need to cater to the individual needs of their geography; these are the ones who will invest in consensus, who will invest in cooperation, who will invest in building solutions that matter most.

So, I think the G20 is a very illustrative example of what getting some of the folks from the OECD out of the room and getting some others into the room can do to multilateralism. So, my plea for 2024 is that bring these new actors into the room if you want something to emerge.

In fact, let me make a plug here. You had entrusted some of us with looking at what could be some arenas of new cooperation and new ideas and the Global Future Council on Geopolitics engaged with this matter over the last few months and I and my colleagues who are on the screen and, you know, we put our heads together, we have come up with a document that we are really excited to release in Davos in January. So, I'm not going to reveal the contents. But let me just tell you, the change of the star cast is an important element of what we are proposing.

It's trying to bring the new powers, the MID powers and the emerging economies into the centre stage. They are better at navigating the China/America binary, the North/South binary, the East/West binary. Bring the new voices on the table and you will have a reason and a stake in finding peace for the future.

The rich countries are now defending what they have already earned, the emerging and new economies want their aspirations and are committed to finding solutions to get there. So I think that's my first response.

The second, of course, I would like to suggest as an idea to take forward and again, something that we have discussed in the Global Future Council (GFC). I'm sorry, I'm going to keep plugging the report! I was the chair of the GFC, so that's one of my duties, but the second idea is that we don't necessarily have to scorn plurilateralism. I think small clubs are important. Multilateralism, where all of us agree on things, is obviously the goal and is the solution we all want, but sometimes nifty small clubs of purpose, of conviction, of impact if they work together they can then infect the others with the ideas that they have, which can lead to multilateralism that works.

So, it is now time to embrace some of these smaller groups working in niche areas and then using the powers of the individual members to bring others around them is going to be one of the ways we can actually start to fix the depolarization that you and Comfort both mentioned in your opening remarks.

So, I think the small is beautiful and it's time to embrace some of the smaller clubs that are doing credible work. And they don't only have to be nation states, they can be outside the nation states. So I think it is time, in a digital world where borders are meaningless in some areas, it is time to embrace non-state actors with good ideas and with influence and with credibility to join the states in carving solutions for the future.

And, the third and final idea that I wanted to share that again flows from the report and is again something that the G20, the Indian presidency, epitomized in many ways, is that there are areas where cooperation is going to be through means that are inadvertent.

No one would want to partner with each other or cooperate with each other, but inadvertently they would collaborate. And this is an idea that one of my colleagues, Danny, who heads the Lee Kuan Yew Institute in Singapore, came up with that inadvertent cooperation is going to be some of the largest gains we are going to make in the days ahead; climate cooperation; a loss and damage fund; MDB reforms; putting more money on the table for nature-based solutions; strengthening community-based responses to agriculture and famine and hunger; investing in the localities, rather than the nation-states could be one of the ways that we go forward.

Inadvertent cooperation is likely to be the gains we are going to make in the multilateral framework. But you asked me to look under the hood, so let me just look under the hood and tell you what the four problems are. You mentioned four areas. Geopolitics, the biggest challenge for me, when you open the hood and you look at the defence and security and peace below, you see that order is now again an acceptable grammar of negotiations. I think the reluctance nations had over many decades to use conflict as a means of dialogue is over. It is increasingly becoming more apparent that countries with the power to impose themselves are using that power to do so. So I think there needs to be a serious meeting on how do we make, how do we create costs for those who want to use force. And I don't think the UN Security Council is the answer as it exists today.

The second area you mentioned also was the economy and trade. And let me tell you, this is shocking. You cannot have a world so unequal. You cannot have such surpluses in the West and such deficiencies in the East. This inequality is going to lead to unrest. People don't get it. The unrest on the streets is the result of this deep inequality that exists among nations and between nations. And it is true that unless you can work towards a world, a world where at least lifeline existence is assured to all and luxury has to be fought for, you are not going to find peace. Today, people are fighting to survive and the vocabulary of war becomes easier when you are in that particular mode of existence. So I think that is something that we need to think about.

Geopolitics has hit geo-economics, economics is leading us to bad politics now. Earlier, politics usually leads to bad economics. I think it's now inverse, bad economics is leading us to bad politics. We need to start looking at globalization as we know it. It has failed us. It has led to it. It led to where we are today.

The third pillar you mentioned was technology. Technology exaggerates everything that is bad with this world, right? We thought it would be this great homogenizer, it would make us all part of the same planet. Guess what, we are more tribal in some sense, we are more caught up in our own limited identities than we ever were.

Technology allows us to dive deep into the small comfort zone that we came from and amplify biases with greater vigour. And I think technology as this great evangelizing tool for lifting mankind, we have to get over that. That age is over.

Technology needs to be looked at in the same manner as we do with vaccines. If vaccines are put through three stages of testing, before we are allowed to use it in our arms, why is it that any kind of innovation becomes easily available to everyone at the same time? I think one of the areas our report looks at, is how do we create stages of technology regulation before they are let out into the mass market, because everything that technology does is not good.

And finally, you mentioned trade and you mentioned climate change. Now, here I think we have an excellent opportunity to not weaponize it. Right now, the conversation on climate change are zero sum. Incumbents are trying to defend the gains by creating trading rules, economic barriers and non-tariff barriers that are going to prevent others from climbing the ladder. Climate, if treated as zero sum, is going to lead us to a situation where, all will burn. Climate is seen as a great leveller that allows us a framework that will move the trillions of dollars of savings that exist in rich countries to the trillions of dollars that are needed to create green development and green transitions in the developing world. I think we really need to change that. Thank you so much for having me.

Mirek Dusek, Managing Director, World Economic Forum: Samir thank you so much for the crisp analysis. And I also always appreciate some of the keywords and phrases that you use to greatly kind of encapsulate complex problems. So thank you for that.

If I could go to Itonde Kakoma and congratulations also from my side to you. So Ms Ero mentioned a crisis of peacemaking and peacekeeping. Your organization is doing that. You are in many geographies, you are on the ground. So, I would like to get a reaction from you, how do you see your work and the work of your colleagues being impacted by this very complex geopolitical picture?

But I'm also interested, in terms of what you're doing within society, as we right now at the World Economic Forum are looking at how we are shaping the annual meeting in Davos. It's about rebuilding trust. And I think you, Samir, you just mentioned that in terms of inequalities. But there is also this whole huge deficit of trust multilaterally among generations within societies. And, so I'd love to get both reactions from you in terms of peacemaking, peacekeeping, mediating within communities among communities, but also when you are actually there and your colleagues are there, how do you see kind of the social cohesion, or lack thereof, being impacted by the current geopolitical picture? Over to Mr. Kakoma.

Itonde Kakoma, President, Interpeace: Firstly, thank you so much for the opportunity. Two months into the job to join such distinguished colleagues who I respect with great admiration and whose analysis has really painted the picture for us and in the midst of that, I want to hearken back to the question you raised and which Comfort described so well in terms of a crisis of peacemaking coming out of the Cold War.

And, this matters for a number of reasons, we've heard about the inability for multilateral systems to function, linked to ways in which states interact with those very systems to make them function. But I would also, and this is why the World Economic Forum is so important in this regard, hearken back to some very basic points, not least of which being that of leadership.

When we look at those agreements that have been reached and that have had a sense of longevity and durability that speak to the concerns of the lived experience of communities enduring various forms of conflict, leadership matters there. And, the absence of leadership at this moment of monumental change taking place in a Jacob fashion really gets to the heart of why the United Nations system and other multilateral bodies are taking so much heat at the moment.

Our first chair, Martti Ahtisaari, of Interpeace, who passed away recently, in many ways defines that era that Comfort was describing. I know he served for a number of years on the Crisis Group board and he used to speak about a couple of things that I believe are pertinent to this discussion, that namely, that the U.N. system and for that matter, multilateral systems are only as good as their member states enable them to be. Now, what does it mean in light of what we are hearing today with regard to the overt increased relevance of geopolitics in the absence of effective multilateral assistance for the work of peacemaking? I come back to some basics again.

Number one, we know that an elite-based deal-making peacemaking will not endure. That is not to take a naive approach. Elite politics matter, but not in the absence of in-depth, substantive consultation and where we have seen peace agreements fail, is oftentimes associated with a lack of inclusivity and a lack of consultation and, instead, a focus on the immediate short-term gains of a small group of unfortunately only men who carry weapons and have access to the purse of a state.

That model reflects the crisis of peacemaking that my distinguished colleagues so clearly describe. It's a model that can no longer be supported. And, I say that with humility, because it's also reflecting how power has been injected in the way in which peacemaking is conducted.

Now, that being said, I think it also requires us who have been entrusted to lead institutions like those present with you today, to take seriously with a high dose of humility the politics of history and the lessons, the hard lessons, both successes and failures in peacemaking. And I believe we are staring plainly in the face of horrific peacemaking, which are leading to disastrous results in Sudan, in Gaza, in Israel, for that matter, in many parts of the world. And until we take those failures seriously, tied to an overt concentration on an elite-based politics, in the absence of taking more seriously the lived experience of communities, we will not see an enduring peace. And, to that end, I believe social cohesion is coming up in a much more profound way today than I have heard in other phases in my career in advancing peace.

And by that I mean the concentration on the efforts of those individuals who are living through working in complex environments and saying they cannot rely solely anymore upon external intervention to quote unquote, save the day. And so our role, in a sense, the institution that I'm leading, is to evolve with those changing dynamics.

I'm just stepping out of, as they called it, the inaugural first United Nations Civil Society Organization dialogue, which I find very hard to stomach would be called the first one in advancement of peacebuilding. Hard to stomach because we know where that work gets done on a daily basis, but also a reflection of an increased recognition by the U.N., its leadership, that you cannot do it alone and that you have to forge those partnerships, but partnerships that are rooted in a new way of respecting a less hierarchical form of those in the Global North versus those elsewhere and really taking seriously again, I repeat the phrase that lived experience, a new way of trying to understand possibilities for the future.

Let me finalize with this. I find it both intriguing and compelling that hard security analysts looking at the situation in the Middle East today are talking about other types of issues that are blocking the ability of leaders to think about alternatives for the future. And they're talking about the way in which intergenerational trauma is blinding the abilities of leaders to really inject the longer view of what makes for durable peace.

Beyond the short timeline of political gains and thinking again in an intergenerational matter, I think this aspect of how the human psyche is impacted in situations of compounding forms of conflict and crises needs to be taken much more seriously, because it's directly impacting the quality of peace being put forward. But I really want to thank you again for the opportunity. I look forward to further exchange with you.

Mirek Dusek, Managing Director, World Economic Forum: Thank you so much. And I really appreciate you are with us. I know also that you are on the road somewhere, so that's particularly appreciated.

I have to now be introspective, because I see the clock and time flies. So, we are at the time. We have exhausted the time allocated. I think it's been because it was so interesting. So I wanted to thank all of you for your analysis. I have to say that at least my feeling is based on your comments, but also overall, I think the atmosphere, at least it's more honest. I think people are now more honest about the gravity of the situation.

Some of the issues that, let's face it, have been under the surface for some time, but are now right in front of us. And what I also liked in the conversation that we had today is that as grave as these things are, each of you have presented ideas that can help us in the future.

Some people would say we're in a transition. Some people would say we're in a completely different world already. But I think it is important that we start thinking very quickly about solutions that can help us along those multiple axis that we elaborated on together.

So again, thank you so much to the main protagonists to be with us. Comfort Ero, Samir Saran, Itonde Kakoma. I really wanted to thank you. I also wanted to thank all of you on the line, on TopLink, who watched this session and also wanted to thank all of you here in the studio.

This is, as I said at the beginning, this is the final session of the Strategic Intelligence Outlook series that we've held here over the past two days. We held it also last year at this point in time and it's a great tradition for the World Economic Forum to wrap up the year and look also to the year ahead. Thank you so much. Be well.