Conference Overview

The World Forum on Democracy & Peace (2022-7) is a 5-year project that will take place starting from July 2022 and is conducted by the Academy for Cultural Diplomacy in cooperation with global governance organisations, national governments, international corporations and leading academic institutions.

The World Forum on Democracy & Peace 2023 will take place in Berlin from February 15-18th, 2023 and will focus on the growing threats to democracy and global peace. The World Forum will also explore the potential for the arts to provide a neutral platform for democracy promotion and peace building.

The event brings together renowned figures from international politics, business, art and academia to speak to an interdisciplinary audience including diplomatic and political representatives, scholars and academics, students and young professionals, and other interested stakeholders.
Through a program of lectures, discussions, debates, and cultural activities the Forum will focus on the “Growing Threats for Democracy & Peace Around the World”.

For decades, all forms of the arts have served as powerful, effective vehicles to inspire and enable people to build diplomatic, cultural and economic bridges and come together towards prosperous peaceful relations. Over the course of many years, people have discovered the unique potential of the arts and in particular cinema, music, painting, sculpture and performing arts to transcend cultures, serving as common languages to bring together different groups and communities in order to promote democracy, justice and human rights. These unique qualities have the unparalleled strength to continuously effect people and over time sculpt human society closer to the ultimate goal of global peace.

The power of film & arts to build peace will be discussed during the conference and the immense transformative value that the arts hold as vehicles of Cultural Diplomacy to promote democracy and human rights will be examined.

Locations

Based in Berlin, the conference will be hosted at ICD House of Arts & Culture and in a number of important political, historic, and cultural locations across the city.

Speakers & Delegates

Speakers during the forum will include leading politicians, senior diplomats, governmental officials, senior academics, journalists, and celebrated artists. These speakers will include a large number of individuals from the ICD Advisory Board. To learn more about the ICD Advisory Board, please click here.

Forum Participants »

Participation in the conference is open to governmental & diplomatic officials, academics, economists, representatives of the Business sector, artists, journalists, civil society practitioners, representatives of the Business sector, young professionals as well as other interested individuals from across the world.

The World Forum on Democracy & Peace (2022-7) is a 5-year project that will take place starting from July 2022 and is conducted by the Academy for Cultural Diplomacy in cooperation with global governance organisations, national governments, international corporations and leading academic institutions.

The second decade of the 21st century brought with it new challenges for the international community. In the first decade of the 21st century, the century of the millennium, societies were distracted by high hopes, when globalisation was the trendy currency word and the historic closeness of East and West starting in 1989 was celebrated and embraced.

During the second decade of the 21st century, however, the global community has been challenged with major events such as the Arab Spring, the creation of ISIS, the beginning of the growing distance of the relations between the West and the East including China, and the continuation of failing States in Africa and other parts of the World.

The withdrawal of America from many of its traditional international partners such as in the Middle East and Europe, and the increase in the doctrine of the previous American President of “America First,” has brought also the West-West relations into a new challenge and even a crisis.
At the same time, environmental issues were promoted only in a limited way and other social issues such as poverty and immigration have created crucial crisis in both the US and Europe. These escalating social challenges even brought a senior EU member country, the UK, to exit from the European Union. Already from the start of the third decade of the 21st century, the world has faced a global pandemic, which is hurting citizens globally to this day. The effects of this pandemic, in addition to a series of political crisis in Myanmar, Afghanistan, Ukraine and other countries, serve as a warning that those diplomatic efforts are starting to fail and major conflicts are starting to take over the international policy priorities.

Under these precarious global circumstances, the Academy for Cultural Diplomacy has launched the World Forum on Democracy & Peace (2002-7), with the main aim to use the application of cultural diplomacy in order to improve international relations and by doing so, uniting the great powers of the contemporary world to better face today's global concerns. The vision of the project is to create through its networks & participants, innovative follow-up initiatives and programs in order to further the dialogue and to create a sustainable impact in strengthening international cooperation. The project will lead to increased research and the creation of academic programs in the field of international relation, economics and law.

Delegates & Speakers during the project events include leading politicians, chief diplomats, governmental officials, senior academics, renowned authors, journalists, and celebrated artists and will be conducted through multiple events taking place on 5 continents over the course of the 5-year period. Participation in the project events is open to applicants coming from the governmental and diplomatic fields, academia & scholars, representatives from the civil society and private sector, journalists, artists, young professionals and students.