To Tackle the Big Issues, the Conversations Must Continue

Richard Attias | CEO, FII Institute

17 September 2023

Summary:

• With economic power shifting eastwards, the?new economic corridor?announced at the G20 between India and Europe places the Middle East right at the center
• This is but one example of how?nations working together?can make a big difference
• The?big global challenges?such as climate change, economic growth, equitable prosperity and technology also require international collaboration
• Following the G20 and UN General Assembly we look forward to?continuing the conversations?about big issues at FII7 next month

Power dynamics between and within nations are changing under our very feet. We saw at the recent G20 leaders’ summit how quickly new orientations can emerge, turning previous assumptions on their head.

It has been the received wisdom for some time that economic power is titling inexorably towards the east, with China, India and the big trading nations of Southeast Asia displacing business and commerce from Europe and North America.? The Middle East was seen as the fulcrum of this pivot.

However, the most notable achievement of the leaders gathered in Delhi was not the eventual signing of a communiqué that reconciled conflicting interests on contentious issues like Ukraine and fossil fuels, or plans to reform the World Bank – but the launch of a project that, on the face of it, reverses the eastward drift.?

IMEC – the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor - is a hugely ambitious plan to construct a 7,000 kilometre transport, energy and digital highway running from India to the Arabian Gulf states, across the Arabian Peninsula to the shores of the Levant and on towards Italy, France and Germany.

The Middle East, it should be noted, remains at the hub even as the wheel turns full circle.

Endorsed by the USA and the EU as well as the countries that lay along its route, IMEC is the perfect example of what can happen when strategic thinkers convene and find new impetus for action. Great ideas do not arise out of a vacuum, but from intellectual interaction and cross-fertilisation.

When humanity faces issues that are bigger than any single nation state – climate and global economy most obviously, but also technology, and human flourishing through education and health – the need for intellectual inspiration is at its most acute?

It is issues such as these that the G20 was set up to tackle, and once again it has risen to the challenge. It is rightly credited as having coordinated an effective global response to the financial crises of 1999 and 2008, as well as having played a big role in the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic.????

If there was ever a time for global institutions to ‘step up’ and work together it is now.? And thankfully institutions and nations are recognising this.??

These discussions won’t stop because the India G20 has wrapped up. Hot on the heels of the India meetings, world leaders will gather later this month in New York for the UN General Assembly.

After that we will be welcoming 5,000 leaders from the four compass points of the globe to Riyadh for three days where we will continue the conversation at the Future Investment Initiative, the Saudi capital’s global forum for thought leadership.

This will be followed by regional climate weeks in the region ahead of what could be a decisive event in the battle against climate change – the COP 28 summit in the UAE.

The conversation has been continuing around the world. Africa leaders met in Kenya, discussing climate change and specifically the need to blast away barriers to climate finance to poorer countries.? Before that the Danes and then the Saudi governments hosted peace talks in efforts to build consensus around a lasting and just peace in Ukraine.

We are now in an era of ongoing and epoch-defining conversations where, unless nations work together to tackle issues that face the whole of humankind, we will leave the world in a more parlous state.

In the absence of a ‘world government’ or an ordered unipolar world, we have to rely on nations acting as good global citizens, global gatherings of leaders, and the international institutions that we have inherited.

Which is why bringing people together in a common effort to find solutions to seemingly-intractable challenges is more important now than ever.

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The Future Investment Initiative’s flagship conference, FII7, takes place 24-26 October 2023 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - six weeks after the G20 summit in New Delhi.?

It will address global governance arrangements, with an emphasis on equitable and positive outcomes for all corners of the globe; the macroeconomic headwinds faced by all societies; climate finance and government action in the weeks before COP28; and it will address what policy makers must do to harness technology, education and health to make the planet fairer, safer and more prosperous, ensuring all humanity can flourish.