The "Doha Forum: Youth Edition" held its third edition in November 2023 and will launch its fourth edition on December 5 in cooperation with the QatarDebate Center. This edition is in line with the main theme of the Doha Forum by focusing on five key areas, including geopolitics, emerging technologies, security, and cultural diplomacy. The new edition seeks to provide a space for young people to present new visions and drive positive change.
Due to the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, the Doha Forum held its two editions for these years in virtual sessions that included a group of senior policymakers, experts, and researchers to discuss a number of pressing global issues.
Following the COVID-19 pandemic that struck the world, the Doha Forum held its 20th edition in March 2022 under the title "Transforming for a New Era" and discussed the various geopolitical changes that occurred in the world that year.
In December 2023, HH the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani inaugurated the 21st Doha Forum under the theme "Building Shared Futures," with the attendance of more than 4,000 participants, including more than 270 speakers from 120 countries, who contributed to more than 80 sessions over the course of the two-day event.
HH the Amir also presented the Doha Forum Award to Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) Philippe Lazzarini.
The 21st Doha Forum highlighted four main themes: international relations and security, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, economic development, and sustainability, through 18 main sessions and 35 side sessions.
The Doha Forum is considered one of the most prominent major events in the field of contemporary international affairs, and since its launch about a quarter of a century ago, it has cooperated with many local, regional, and international bodies in organizing discussion sessions, workshops, meetings, round tables and lectures throughout the year to discuss pressing issues and urgent challenges in the region and the world, as it hosts officials and experts in various fields from all over the world, and the forums organizers are keen to discuss pressing issues in the world and enhance dialogue by selecting figures who express all the ideas presented, which facilitates reaching results that help decision-makers deal with solutions to these problems.
Over the past two decades, the Doha Forum has established its position as an interactive global dialogue platform for the localization of development, security and stability in the world, as Qatar has gathered through previous editions the experiences of many opinion and policy leaders, global experts and activists, and came up with perceptions and visions that draw a road map to solve global crises and challenges.
The State of Qatar's hosting and sponsorship of the forum's activities and editions also affirms the wise leadership's keenness to engage the world in raising its crucial issues, strengthening regional and international cooperation, diagnosing the current situation, and proposing solutions to address them, especially with regard to issues related to combating extremism, role of women, fair distribution of wealth, protection of human rights, elimination of violence, containment of terrorism, and examining the best means to confront the growing threats and challenges facing human societies, which cannot be confronted by individual methods or policies.
The Doha Forum is in harmony with the foreign policy of the State of Qatar, which adopts the principle of dialogue in resolving issues, conflicts and crises, and embodies the distinguished international position occupied by the State of Qatar in the network of international relations, and its superior ability to provide open and appropriate arenas for dialogue and exchange of ideas in search of solutions to various global challenges.
The outcomes of the Doha Forum have contributed to drawing lines and indicators and preparing work programs for diplomatic moves capable of addressing contemporary problems and challenges, and paving the way and the ground for finding the best solutions to the issues and crises that trouble the world and threaten the lives of millions to cross humanity to safety based on the belief that the common future of humanity depends on stability, security, and the right of all to exist. (QNA)