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     Volume 7 Issue 47 | November 28, 2008 |


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Event

Challenges beyond Borders at Asia 21

Hana Shams Ahmed

Jamie Metzl, speaking at the conference.

If the last century saw Asians coming out of the clutches of colonialism, this century is seeing Asians increasingly taking over positions of leadership and power. Established in 1956, Asia Society by John D Rockefeller III, a global non-profit organisation with its head office in New York has been working to promote Asian presence in the world. As part of their initiative it has been holding a young leaders conference with delegates from diverse fields from all over Asia and the USA to discuss issues of global interest. With the third instalment of the conference held this year, the Asia 21 Young Leaders Summit brought together 160 delegates from 25 different countries.

A network of young leaders from business, media, arts and culture, healthcare, environment, civil society, and government in both the Pacific Rim region and the United States the three-day conference was held this year in Tokyo from November 14-16. There was a seven-member team representing Bangladesh this year -- two lawyers, two journalists, a technology innovator, a human rights activist and an entrepreneur. Advocate Sara Hossain, who was a participant at last year's conference, was chosen to be a fellow for this year's conference.

“ The Asia 21 initiative is designed to bring together the most dynamic leaders from every sector and from every country in the Asia-Pacific region in order to promote mutual understanding, the development of shared progressive values, and encourage collaborative leadership for addressing shared challenges. “

--Jamie Metzl, Executive Vice President of Asia Society.

The conference kicked off with a debate about whether 'The scarcity of global resources is a myth'. The participants Aaron Maniam (Senior Assistant Director of the Futures Unit at Singapore's Strategic Policy Office) and Mee Moua (the first Hmong American Senator, elected from Minnesota) spoke in agreement of the notion and Sutapa Amornvivat (Executive Vice President and Head of Risk Analytics and Research at TMB Bank in Thailand) and Alamdar Shabbir Hamdani (Assistant US Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky) disputed it.

There were differing views from the participants for the second session -- “What values should guide personal, national and international decision-making in a world of scarcity. How should we think about and address potentially conflicting values in a world of scarcity.”

The breakout sessions were divided into 'Energy and environment', 'Governance, transparency and corruption', 'Migration, employment and human capital mobility', 'Voice and access to the media', 'Cultural resources', 'Education' and 'Health and nutrition'. Although the topics were specified, there was still room for more convergence. So the groups each had to decide on what the most important challenge in their area of interest was. The various ideas developed in the breakouts for addressing the challenges were later shared with the other groups.

Participants at the Asia 21 Young Leaders conference discussing issues of mutual interest at the break-out sessions.

One feature of the Summit was the opportunity for the delegates to engage in a joint public service projects that they could work on as group throughout the following year. The presentation of the projects also turned out to be the most lively part of the conference.
“The Asia 21 initiative is designed to bring together the most dynamic leaders from every sector and from every country in the Asia-Pacific region in order to promote mutual understanding, the development of shared progressive values, and encourage collaborative leadership for addressing shared challenges. The Asia 21 summit is only a first step in this process, and I was extremely pleased with the progress we made. There is still a lot of work to do going forward,” says Jamie Metzl, Executive Vice President of Asia Society. “We selected participants based both on their record of excellence in their own field and on their demonstration of a broader commitment to the betterment of their greater community.”

The magnitude of the issues and the limitation of time made it impossible to discuss any topic in-depth. “That is always the case,” says Metzl, “There is never enough time. The key point for us was to catalyse relationships and collaborations so that new partnerships will emerge that go far beyond the summit. There are specific conferences organised by other groups in each one of the specific areas we discussed. We did not want to replicate that, only to explore ways of bringing a multinational, multi-sectoral values based framework to addressing these issues. The real work must happen beyond the summit.”

Many of Asia's challenges are analogous. The networking of so many Asians from different fields is indeed a unique opportunity to discuss and bring ideas for the best practice home.

This year's conference was marred by the absence of Dr Kamiar Alaei, who was chosen to be a fellow after last year's conference in Singapore and said to be “one of 23 new Fellows identified as being among the most promising trendsetters and emerging leaders in the Asia-Pacific region.” Doctor Arash Alaei and Doctor Kamiar Alaei, two Iranian physicians were arrested in Iran by Iranian authorities. The two brothers played an important role in putting the issues of drug use and HIV/AIDS on Iran's national health care agenda. They have worked closely with the government and religious leaders to ensure support for education campaigns on HIV transmission, including those targeting youth, and for HIV and harm reduction programmes in prisons. The Iranian authorities have arrested them without any charges and there whereabouts were unknown.

 

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