On June 23-25, FSVC and the Carnegie Corporation of New York hosted the 18th annual symposium in Dubai, U.A.E, convening over 30 top experts from the United States, Russia, China, India and the European Union.  Since 2000, FSVC and Carnegie Corporation of New York have conducted annual symposia around the globe to discuss current political, economic, security and environmental issues, and the respective roles of the world’s major powers.

The theme of this year’s symposium was the same as the year previous, and was “Building Cooperation in an Era of Growing Tensions.”  In the wake of the tumultuous political and economic events of 2016, participants discussed the increasing global trends toward nationalism and the consequences for multilateral institutions and agreements.  Participants also addressed the health of the global financial system, the effect of domestic populist movements on foreign policy, and the implications for climate change and energy security now that the U.S. has announced its withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement.

Two themes that surfaced repeatedly throughout the panel discussions were the lack of political leadership and growing youth unemployment.  The former is needed to overcome the growing polarization of domestic political movements and increasingly isolationist policies occurring throughout the U.S., EU, Russia, China and India.  The latter will have profound destabilizing effects across virtually all sectors if solutions to create jobs for young people are not deployed.

On June 10-12, FSVC and the Carnegie Corporation of New York hosted the 17th annual symposium in Beijing, China, gathering together over 25 top experts from the United States, Russia, China, India and the European Union.

The theme of the Symposium was “Building Cooperation in an Era of Growing Tension.” Participants of the FSVC/Carnegie Symposium in Beijing observed that the world continues to change rapidly, and the decisive and forceful rise of populism is a key major development of 2016.  To address some of the root causes of this rise in populism, participants stressed that structural reforms are needed more than ever, in particular for the current financial and economic systems.  With regard to climate change, the Paris Agreement in December 2015 was a critical breakthrough, which demonstrated new awareness and commitment by key policy-makers to address climate change.  Majority of those present at the Symposium believe that the Agreement is not sufficient, however, and more new policies will be needed.