Doha / Information Office / January 28
HE Assistant Foreign Minister, Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Executive Director of the Doha Forum Lolwah Al Khater said that 2020 has been a year that challenged the notion of multilateral cooperation, indicating that multilateral cooperation has achieved effective success in some cases, while in other cases it was closer to failure and isolationism.
This came in a panel discussion examining the findings of the Doha Forum 2020 Report on the theme of COVID-19 recovery, organized by the College of Public Policy (CPP) at Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), in collaboration with the Doha Forum and Stimson Center.
Dr. Leslie A. Pal, founding dean of CPP, moderated the discussion between HE Lolwah Al Khater, Assistant Foreign Minister and Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Dr. Richard Ponzio, Director of the Just Security 2020 Program and a Senior Fellow at the Stimson Center; and Saji Prelis, Co-Chair of the Global Coalition on Youth, Peace and Security.
HE Lolwah Al Khater said: "2020 has been a year that challenged the notion of multilateral cooperation. We saw both instances of solidarity and cooperation as well as cases of failure and isolationism. The timely Doha Forum Report addresses the weaknesses that the pandemic has exposed in the global community. It also lays the road map ahead for how global and regional cooperation can lead to a durable, sustainable, and broad-based recovery from COVID-19."
In discussing the recommendations of the report, the speakers considered its findings that current international efforts toward global challenges are too often fragmented and under-resourced. Charting the way forward, the report recommends a three-year global green recovery effort with four critical dimensions of global-national-local interaction. It also points to the promising role of new public-private partnerships to spur innovation through new technologies and promote job and wealth creation opportunities.
Speaking after the event, Dr. Pal, dean of CPP at HBKU, said: "The pandemic has put into focus the fault lines in multilateral cooperation. At this critical juncture and facing a growing number of serious global challenges, we have new opportunities to address those challenges as an international community -- if we pull together. The focus of this event has therefore been the framework at the heart of the Doha Forum Report 2020 that offers a roadmap for a coordinated global green recovery effort. No doubt this will be the first of many efforts to further amplify the role of civil society and academic institutions like HBKU in elaborating the global governance and public policy implications."