On July 6 and 7, two Chevening Scholars attended the Global Scholars Symposium held in Oxford. The event brought together more than 150 postgraduate scholars studying in the UK on a variety of scholarships (including Rhodes, Marshall, Churchill, Clarendon, Gates, Fulbright) to discuss world challenges. The two days were intense, with whole group and small group sessions, stimulated by speakers and then questions/discussion.
Dominic Barton, the global managing director of McKinsey spoke about the five megatrends occurring in the world. These included the rebalancing (rather than the rise) of Asia and a focus of world power, rapid urbanisation, as well as climate change. He perceived the large growth in the world’s middle classes (960 million) as both hopeful and challenging, particularly with respect to carbon production.
Mo Ibrahim, a mobile telecommunications engineer/businessman was particularly well received. He spoke of his donation of a prize of $7million for the leader who displayed good governance in an African country. The composite Ibrahim index includes measures from human rights, rule of law, economic opportunity and human development (http://www.moibrahimfoundation.org/en/section/the-ibrahim-index). It is published in the major newspaper in more than 50 African countries, to enable citizens to make judgements about the political leaders in their country.
Paul Martin, former Canadian Prime Minister, explained the rationale and role of the G20 as part of a talk about economic governance. A deep conceptual and practical challenge lies in the ability of States to share sovereignty on transnational issues as demonstrated by the recent world banking/financial crisis.
Joseph Nye, one of the world’s most prominent international relations scholars, mirrored this concern, noting the slow transition of States in the tools they used for influence. Rather than hard power (eg military force/threat) or “soft power” (eg diplomacy), Nye spoke about smart power – selecting the right composite mix of tools to achieve the task needed with “contextual intelligence”. Nye pointed out that governments were not sole actors in this space but a broad range of entities from universities to film industries could influence outcomes; indeed power was being decentralised because of growth and use of technologies.
Other speakers included Jeffrey Sachs (economist , Columbia University) on sustainable development, Diana Mangalagia (natural and social scientist, Oxford University) on climate change, and John Hardman (physician and CEO, Carter Foundation) on public health challenges.
Small group sessions were based around participants choices of interest. A variety of academics and students gave brief presentations before discussion in groups of 20 scholars in the following domains:
• Health and Medicine
• Environment and Energy
• Poverty and Development
• Technology and Communications
• Governance and Security
A consistent theme in discussing solutions to challenges was the need for people to work across disciplinary and across national boundaries with passion and commitment. No doubt Chevening scholars and alumni around the world will be part of that effort.
The 2011 Global Scholars Symposium was extremely well organised, and will be occurring next year. Chevening scholars should keep an eye out for information and strongly consider making an application to attend. Further details about this year’s conference are available from Dev Kevat and Soushiant Zanganehpour via the Ning network.