Look to the helpers
Wilton Park
We bring people together for genuine dialogue with diverse voices to address the most pressing challenges of our time.
Exerting real global influence for good is hard, and instances of success or, more often failure, are not easy to learn from. This is especially true right now as institutions of global governance are weak and conflict is growing. In the context of low growth and tight budgets, as well as the onward rush of technological developments, the world for many feels increasingly out of control.
Yet a sound piece of advice in any time of crisis is to look to the helpers, and at Wilton Park we are fortunate to host and support thousands of people from diverse backgrounds who work tirelessly to prevent, reduce, and end conflict, and to build the peace and prosperity the world so desperately deserves.
They represent a small fraction of the many millions of officials, activists, and ordinary women and men globally who are at the coalface of global change. Every day we hear powerful stories of success – conflicts prevented and international agreements made. Many examples never get the coverage they deserve.
We are constantly striving to reach out and engage with more diverse perspectives, expertise and experience. We need ever bigger networks of good will and expertise if we are to make faster headway achieving positive change globally.
If you would like to know more about us, or how you can work with Wilton Park please do get in touch.
Tom Cargill
Chief Executive
Securing technology: sustaining a high quality cyber security workforce
The growing global threat of cyber-attacks requires international collaboration.
This Wilton Park dialogue brought together cyber skills expertise from across the UK and its international partners to consider how we can sustainably raise the bar for cyber practitioners globally, from agreeing ways to boost cyber skills to developing new professional standards.
Wilton Park Chief Executive, Tom Cargill said: “Cyber security is becoming harder, but also ever more essential. That’s why it’s vital that we have a strong international framework of standards for cyber professionals.
Finding ‘normal’: China, Britain, and the search for dialogue
BLOG: Wilton Park’s Senior Programme Director, Sam Godsland, explores the history of UK-China relations.
Going further, faster, together: towards a global, multi faith, women led climate action network
A women-led, faith inspired network on climate action was a key recommendation of an event held last year at Wilton Park on Women, Faith and Climate Change.
This event next month will bring together women leaders from the major faiths pioneering action to combat climate change to share best practice, discuss radical collaboration and the launch of a mass mobilisation campaign for climate action targeting the 80% of the world’s population who belong to faith groups.
With support from Project Dandelion and UNEP’s Faith for Earth Coalition.
Upcoming events
British-Spanish Tertulias
We’re pleased to be supporting the British-Spanish Tertulias 2024;? the most important event in the bilateral calendar. Tertulias? is hosted alternately in the UK and Spain and meets annually.
Tertulias convenes British and Spanish leaders and experts from government, industry, academia and civil society to share perspectives and consider collaborative ways forward on topical issues of interest to both countries, and of particular relevance to the bilateral relationship. It is independently run, with most of the funding coming from private sponsorship, but with close support from the British and Spanish governments.
Welcome to ?ubica Polláková
We’re delighted to welcome ?ubica Polláková to the Wilton Park team. ?ubica will bring expertise to our dialogues on human rights and organised crime. Her interests also include the South Caucasus, Central Asia, Turkey, Eastern Europe and Russia.
Recent events
Scaling up Early Action beyond 2025
The understanding and use of early warning and early action to reduce the impacts of climate-related hazards has progressed significantly. However, there is still a long way to go to embed them as normative approaches.
The Risk-informed Early Action Partnership (‘REAP’) was launched at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in 2019 to help address the lack of coherence and complementarity across early warning and early action efforts, and to enable impact at scale through a multi-stakeholder approach that connects the humanitarian, development, and climate communities.
Next month Wilton Park will convene a dialogue where participants will reflect on the future trajectory of early warning and early action, balancing the progress of recent years with the urgent need to do more to reduce the impacts of climate-related disasters.
Thought leaders from governments, INGOs, UN agencies, the private sector, and related initiatives, networks and partnerships will come together to lay the groundwork for a shared long-term vision for collaboration and cooperation on early warning and early action, and establish a roadmap to success.
Through the KALEIDOSCOPE: new facets of biosecurity
Biosecurity has changed, requiring governments and society to tackle complex intersectional issues.
A new initiative, KALEIDOSCOPE, will build an interdisciplinary community to meet the challenge. This August workshop looked at developing UK expertise and explored capability gaps, opening the door for collaborative research under the new US-UK Strategic Dialogue on biosecurity.
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Transformative change for global biodiversity: the role of gender equality and social inclusion
How to ensure that that women, girls, and marginalised groups are at the heart of efforts to tackle the global biodiversity crisis was the theme of this event in early September.
Held in partnership with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, it gathered participants from 14 countries ahead of the UN Biodiversity conference, COP 16, next month in Colombia.
It heard how there’s strong evidence that biodiversity conservation initiatives are more likely to produce positive, sustainable outcome for the environment and for society if they are planned, designed and implemented with the participation of people from all segments of society who may be affected or involved.
A set of principles to promote inclusion was agreed – look out for these in the conference report, due in October.
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Wilton Park@LSE: The future of UK soft power
A new government presents an important opportunity for the UK to assess its standing in the international soft power arena and plan strategically to achieve foreign policy aims within an increasingly volatile global context.
This Wilton Park panel discussion at LSE brought together key soft power actors and experts to examine the current state of play, visions of future UK soft power and key enablers for the UK to maintain and strengthen its position as a significant player in this space.
Listen to Evie Aspinall, Director, British Foreign Policy Group discussing the importance of UK soft power in a turbulent geopolitical landscape.
Latest ideas
Read our latest reports, on addressing the rise of global hatred on the basis of religion or belief, and the risks and opportunities of AI in humanitarian action.
Listen and watch
Hear from leading experts as they discuss critical issues at Wilton Park, including our event on conflict trauma and youth: exploring approaches for recovery and conflict prevention in the Middle East and North Africa, and our 15th annual dialogue on extended nuclear assurance and deterrence.
Partner with us
We are currently inviting proposals to partner with Wilton Park on conferences from November 2024 to the end of 2025.
If your organisation has a policy goal that falls within the categories of diplomacy and geopolitics; development and climate change; economy and trade, or security, we can help you facilitate an international event that will lead to a clearer understanding of shared challenges, potential solutions, new supportive relationships, a strategic plan for implementation and, ultimately, policy change.
Emeritus Professor of Physics and Fellow of Keble College, Oxford
1 个月Sounds good. Much to do and many who do not understand the world they live in.