From 25 to 28 September, MGG conference „Global Partnerships: Knowledge, Dialogue, and Action“ brought together around 120 members of the MGG network, including representatives of BMZ as well as IDOS colleagues in Bonn.
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Six years after the last MGG Global Network Conference (GNC), members of the MGG network from all MGG Academy cohorts and all current MGG partner countries (Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico and South Africa + Germany and the EU) came together again for the first time.
“Global Partnerships: Knowledge, Dialogue, and Action” is about reconnecting, exchanging and moving from knowledge to action in cooperating for sustainability transformations at various levels. Participants shared and co-created knowledge and exchanged views on pressing questions of global governance. They also ideated pathways that lead from knowledge to action for the complex transformations required for the implementation of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Before the official start of the conference on Tuesday, representatives of the city of Bonn welcomed all GNC participants at Bonn’s old town hall. On Tuesday morning, Mr Jochen Steinhilber (Director General “Policy Issues”, Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, BMZ) and IDOS director Prof. Anna-Katharina Hornidge, officially opened the MGG Global Network Conference by giving their welcome remarks. The following high-level panel on “The Future of Global Partnerships” set the scene for the conference by delving into core fields of inter- and transnational cooperation, including reforms of the multilateral system, the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, emerging technologies and their governance, as well as combating climate change. For this, Mr Steinhilber and Prof. Hornidge were joined by Ms Serusha Govender (Science Journalist, South Africa), Ms Camila Oliveira (Project Coordinator, National Secretary of Climate Change, Brazil) and Prof. Archna Negi (Associate Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India). The panellists shared insights on core challenges in these fields and the role of global partnerships to address them.
The second conference day was structured along seven thematic clusters on gender, digitalisation and sustainable development, sustainable global value chains, global governance and the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, climate governance and network development. The clusters emerged out of suggestions of network members, who in total developed and hosted about 20 sessions in all clusters. Three sessions on “Feminist Foreign and Development Policy”, “Feminist Democratic Futures” and “South-South and Triangular Cooperation in a Changing Geopolitical Order” took place in cooperation with and in the premises of BMZ.
The conference closed with working groups to develop priorities and roadmaps for further initiatives in subgroups and the network as a whole on the third conference day.
Throughout the conference, presentations of MGG change stories and workshops shed light on the achievements of MGG since 2007, energized the ‘we identity’ of network members and looked into pathways to further develop a “community of change makers” for sustainability transformations.
Please find more information on the conference webpage: https://mgg.network/page/global-network-conference-2023
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