Under the High Patronage of His Majesty King Mohammed VI

International annual conference on the Wider Atlantic

A More Assertive Atlantic: Its Meaning for the World

Description

14-16

December, 2023

Marrakesh, Morocco

 
Atlantic Dialogues 2023

The Policy Center for the New South will be holding the 12th edition of The Atlantic Dialogues, its annual high-level international conference, from December 14th to 16th in Marrakech, Morocco. The Atlantic Dialogues is an annual high-level gathering of influential public and private sectors leaders from around the Atlantic Basin for open, candid and informal discussions on cross-regional and cross-sectoral issues.

Launched in 2012, The Atlantic Dialogues have reached a milestone since they have been running for over a decade. The initial vision was to underscore the growing importance of Africa and Latin America as actors in the Southern Atlantic space by transforming mindsets, mental maps and narratives. Many editions that ensued have addressed key strategic issues with over 400 participants each year from Africa, Latin America, Europe and North America, former presidents and ministers, representatives of major institutions, CEOs, experts and seasoned African, European and US journalists to anchor the panels.

Following the discussion in 2022 on “Cooperation in a Mutating World: Opportunities of the Wider Atlantic” to explore renewed collaboration in times of crises, the AD community will convene again to reflect on what assertiveness can mean for the Atlantic, and what a more assertive Atlantic can mean for the world. To this end, the 2023 edition of the conference will focus on the following theme, "A More Assertive Atlantic: Its Meaning for the World”.

The idea of a more assertive Atlantic is at the root of a number of economic, political and security trends that have the potential to significantly impact on the world. A deeper understanding of the meaning and potential implications of this new perception of the Atlantic Basin is needed, as it marks a shift in the dynamics of the region. Understanding this phenomenon requires exploring different perspectives from Africa, Europe and the Americas.

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AD2022 has so far...

118
Speakers
176
Participants
53
Nationalities
30
Emerging Leaders

Atlantic Currents

An Annual Report on Wider Atlantic Perspectives and Patterns

The yearly report Atlantic Currents is published on the first day of each Atlantic Dialogues’ edition. In this flagship publication, researchers and experts from the Policy Center for the New South’s network analyze the state of Africa and the world with respect to the conference’s annual theme.

AC2022
ATLANTIC CURRENTS 9th EDITION: Cooperation in a Mutating World: Opportunities of the Wider Atlantic

This ninth edition of “Atlantic Currents” appears in an international context marked predominantly by a ten month-war between Russia and Nato members that began February 2022. The war is affecting not only

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Plenary II
Two-Speed Multilateralism in the Wider Atlantic

After decades of economic integration, the world seems to be fragmenting again, epitomized best, perhaps, by the return of geopolitics, protectionism, unilateral sanctions, treaty withdrawals, and even military and economic coercions. The war in Ukraine seemed to further deepen this impression of a suffering international order especially in the Wider Atlantic, where a difference of views divides the West and the global South. Concomitantly, institutions of multilateralism, such as the United Nations and its manifold agencies, have been criticized for their lack of efficiency and their institutional sclerosis. They have, additionally, been challenged by the global South, notably the African continent, for their unfair governing structures with increasing pressures to add two African seats to the Security Council. Unlike countries of the northern Atlantic, the southern Atlantic still lacks mechanisms of effective collaboration and the willingness to align positions on the international scene.

 

- How can we bridge the gap between positions and posture between the global South and the global North?

- Is the Wider Atlantic a viable space for cooperation and dialogue between states?

- Is multilateralism in need of a global reform? What is the role of the global South in this overhaul?

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Policy as Implementation: Reconsidering the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine

Adoption of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) Doctrine at the United Nations’ 2005 World Summit constituted a watershed moment for international diplomacy and multilateralism. With multiple pillars, R2P was established to ensure that the international community was better placed to act in the face of mass atrocity. Unfortunately, R2P’s poor implementation, and weaponization that has undermined its precepts, have seen it displaced from the holistic framework of state-building and conflict prevention in which it belongs. While it is clear that R2P has benefits as a doctrine, it can be reconsidered to a limited extent to ensure its functioning is optimized, including through United Nations Security Council reform. The UN General Assembly recently adopting a resolution by consensus that calls for a post-veto General Assembly meeting is a positive step on which progress can be built.

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The United Nations at 75

The United Nations (UN) General Assembly meets this week (Sept. 22-29) to celebrate its 75th anniversary and address significant global challenges. There is no shortage of them: a global pandemic, a devastating economic crisis, an unprecedented explosion in the number of refugees, and the beginning of a new normal of growing conflicts between the United States and China in the dispute for global hegemony.

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The Unstable Global Order: About a Missing Voice from the South

During the past few years, the different global ongoing events have left us baffled and astonished. Given the decreasing ability to understand and assimilate the amount of changes, mutations, and crises, one would wonder: what happened to the global order? How has -in this short period of time- the power of its values and institutions that much decreased? What are the causes for these protectionist and massive populist waves? Why are we witnessing an increasing settlement of conflicts out of the international institutions?

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Global governance challenges of the 21st century

With the intensification of globalization dynamics, risks to the stability of the international system have grown to the extent that formerly localized threats are no longer locally containable. Ethnic conflicts, infectious diseases, climate change, food insecurity, and other pressing threats, are increasingly threatening global security and stability, prompting doubts about the ability of the current global governance order to respond to the challenges plaguing the 21st century. In this podcast, Marcus de Freitas, Senior Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, discusses all these pressing issues.

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Special PCNS - UN75: The UN, A Stronghold of International Peace and Security

To commemorate the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, the Policy Center for the New South is pleased to organize a series of webinars to discuss key themes related to the role of the UN on the international scene. Moderator: Mohammed Loulichki, Senior Fellow, Policy Center for the New South Speakers: - Yonas Adeto, Director, Institute for Peace and Security Studies - Rida Lyammouri, Senior Fellow, Policy Center for the New South - Salma Daoudi, Research Assistant in International Relations, Policy Center for the New South - Leonardo Parraga, Executive Director, The Bogotart Foundation (ADEL Alumnus).

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AD Talks 2020: Global Cooperation to Address Global Crises

The interconnectedness and interdependence between countries around the world resulting from the rise of globalization has become a double-edged sword. On the positive side it has influenced socio-economic development, but it has also led to uncertainties that disrupt societies in terms of their social, political, and economic structures. How COVID-19 has disrupted the geopolitical landscape? Are existing institutions well equipped to steer the international response? How can global flows and value chains be protected from collapsing? Moderator : Ian Lesser, Vice President & Executive Director, Brussels, German Marshal Fund of the United States Speakers : - Bronwyn Bruton, Director of Programs & Studies, Atlantic Council - Paolo Magri, Executive Vice President and Director, Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) - Zhou Yuyuan, Senior Fellow, Shanghai Institutes for International Studies.

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Plenary I
Compounded Crises: The Wider Atlantic Taking Stock

Since 2020, the international community has been witnessing seismic changes in several spheres. COVID-19 has disrupted global production and its supply chains. The war in Ukraine has sparked an energy crisis, induced food insecurity, resulting in acute effects for the most vulnerable. The multilateral system has been profoundly challenged, and climate change and nuclear war threats are on the table. In the context of these compounded crises, the Wider Atlantic has emerged as a crucial element of geopolitical and geoeconomic analysis in world affairs. The session will discuss the prospects of cooperation in the Wider Atlantic that would make it possible for states to collectively tackle common issues. It will also investigate the extent to which such cooperation might shift the gaze from Asia and the Pacific into a Wider Atlantic.

 

- What are some of the features characterizing the impacts of these compounded crises?

- What are the security, political and economic drivers of the Wider Atlantic—being at the intersection between the Americas, Europe and Africa—in the current global context?

- Would a Wider Atlantic unified strategy be useful as an attempt to quell the crisis?

- What is the role of Africa and Latin America in (re)shaping the Wider Atlantic dynamics?

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A Wider Atlantic, Revival of a Regional Power

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Morocco’s New Geopolitics: A Wider Atlantic Perspective

This study argues that Morocco should encourage policymakers in the United States and Europe to think more imaginatively about its role in the Atlantic and elsewhere.

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Atlantic Dialogues Emerging Leaders Vision 2025: Building an Atlantic Community

The concept of a “Wider Atlantic” has been finding its way into mainstream discourse, as it is progressively molding into an alternative to the present-day understanding of transatlantic relations. The attention is being refocused to a wider geographic area around the Atlantic basin, which includes Southern Atlantic states in the policy and opinion-shaping conversation (s). With 23 states now comprising the Western Atlantic Coast of Africa, this continent has an ever-growing role to play in the new geopolitical discussions pertaining to a “Wider Atlantic” region. Enlarging the exchange to include states that were previously perceived as the strategic backwater is therefore a reality aimed at engaging a wider range of Atlantic partners, who could potentially contribute to reshape and redefine the existing standards. Hence, the wider Atlantic encourages new forms of multilateralism, as well as a discursive and practical reconfiguration, that account for the change in underlying power dynamics and consequent modern global challenges.

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Atlantic vision 2025: building an atlantic community - 2nd edition

The Atlantic basin faces considerable challenges on multiple fronts. Financial and economic struggles, coupled with political shifts and social turmoil, are reshaping the region’s geopolitical landscape. Unemployment, poverty, violence, migration, extremism, climate change and other problems are on the rise and the need to tackle them effectively is pressing.

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Atlantic Future Project Outcomes – What next for the Atlantic Space?

This podcast is performed by Danielle Piatkiewicz. The aim of the Atlantic Future Project was to study the rationales of cooperation in the Atlantic area and to suggest strategies to the EU on how to engage with the wider transatlantic relationship in the context of the ongoing redistribution of power and the overall rebalancing of relations around and within the Atlantic space. As the project concluded in December 2016, the results and findings analysed the fundamental trends in the Atlantic basin and to show how changing economic, energy, security, human, institutional and environmental links are transforming the wider Atlantic space. What does this mean in the scope of a joint Atlantic policy?

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Launch of the 9th Edition of the Atlantic Currents
An Annual Report on Wider Atlantic Perspectives and Patterns

This session will present and discuss the 9th edition of Atlantic Currents report, one of the flagship annual publications of the Policy Center for the New South. This report comes along with the high-level Atlantic Dialogues conference and explores key global issues facing the Atlantic from a Southern viewpoint.

In line with the theme of the Atlantic Dialogues Conference, this 9th edition will be devoted to “Collaboration in a Mutating World: Opportunities of the Wider Atlantic”. It will analyze the political, economic, social and security developments reshaping societies and relationships in the Atlantic Basin as well as the opportunities they present for further cooperation and common strategies.

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Editions of Atlantic Currents

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on the global economy and has challenged the best minds to rethink how to design and implement an effective recovery. Countries in the wider Atlantic region have followed different paths to cope with the pandemic. A number of countries in Europe succeeded in vaccinating most of their eligible populations, enabling life to return somewhat to normal.

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