Re-envisioning the future through ethical leadership

Under the theme “Ethical leadership for a re-envisioned future” the Global Ethics Forum (GEF) 2024 convened over 500 participants, half of them onsite in Geneva, Switzerland, 78 Speakers from 34 countries and 6 continents, including policymakers, senior experts, and practitioners from governments, multilateral, nongovernmental, private and civil society sectors.

Launched in 2009, the GEF is a global, multisectoral and multistakeholder, intergenerational, intercultural, solution-focused platform for dialogue, networking, and engagement.

The Forum is an open framework for values-driven inspiration, exchange, reflection, networking, actions, and solutions, coping with the current global agenda and related ethical challenges, namely: inclusive peace and development, responsible governance, and trustworthy AI.

Days before the Summit of the Future, the GEF has generated innovative ideas, groundbreaking initiatives, and impactful coalitions to put ethical leadership at the heart of multistakeholder dialogue and global and sectoral governance, with the launch of many reports and key publications, such as The Global Survey on Business Ethics, and Navigating the Future of Higher Education with AI.

Peace appeared to be central to achieving meaningful progress on all these levels across panels and discussions on development, international relations, sustainability, innovation, technology, and education. As one of the winners of the Youth Leadership Award put it: “Without peace, everything can be destroyed and our efforts for development become useless.”

The need for multistakeholder dialogue and engagement has also been strongly confirmed, including all political and societal actors, with meaningful youth representation. The role of the private sector in sustainable and inclusive development was strongly highlighted, with the need for a post-ESG paradigm, bringing ethics and ethical leadership to the forefront beyond the mere compliance approaches. Finally, experts called to consider artificial intelligence as part of, rather than external to, society and to ensure that it is a tool to foster unity, not division, through investing in closing the capacity gap, especially between the North and the South. The policy recommendations from the Forum, with evidence-based documentation, will soon be made available in a public Policy Report.

GEF 2024 has federated the contribution from international organizations, including the Inter-parliamentary Union (IPU) whose Secretary-General Martin Chungong delivered the keynote address.

Chungong emphasised that the moral values articulated by GEF 2024 are very much aligned with those promoted by the IPU: inclusivity, equality, respect, integrity, accountability, solidarity. Reminding that ethical leadership goes to the very mandate of Parliamentarians, with the moral weight to represent the people, the Secretary-General invited participants to use the Forum’s unique expertise and reach to “reframe multilateralism so that it can be more effective, legitimate and therefore more relevant to the needs of the people”.

The Canton of Geneva was represented by the President of the State Council Nathalie Fontanet. The Swiss Confederation was represented by its Deputy Permanent Representative Ambassador Julien Thöni, and the city of Grand-Saconnex with Mayor Laurent Jimaja. 32 organisations, universities and associations joined GEF as knowledge partners, including UNESCO, the Graduate Institute, Kofi Anan Foundation, ICAN, Initiatives of Change, and The Club of Rome, among others.

Recognising and empowering young ethical leaders

Globethics Youth Leadership Award 2024 Winners

A landmark of GEF 2024 was the launching of the Globethics Youth Leadership Award. Engaging youth grass-roots leaders and entrepreneurs from Asia, Africa and Latin America, the award creates a global community of change agents with deep transformative impact in their society. The winner of the Award this year is Aishworya Shrestha, leading the project “Heart of Nepal”, engaged with vulnerable women and girls and mental health as well as education with children and families in the Dalit community in Nepal. The second prize went to Stanley Anigbogu (Nigeria), and the third prize to Maluyane Titus Abongdoh (Cameroon).

Ethical leadership for a better future for all

20 years after the foundation of Globethics, and on the occasion of the seventh Global Ethics Forum, we are witnessing a new turning point in humankind's history. We may be at the beginning of a new civilisational era that is fundamentally changing the way we live, work, and relate to one another.

As Globethics’ Executive Director, Prof. Fadi Daou, put it in his opening remarks, “Unfortunately (…) there are zero mentions in the whole Pact for the Future to ethics or values. We only read about ethical usage of technology, and the word value is used in its economic meaning. We tried and we are still trying to change this, if not in the text, at least in the mindset of decisionmakers.” This is the ambition of the Global Ethics Forum this year and the years ahead.

The Forum this year was also the framework for the celebration of the 20^th Anniversary of Globethics and the presidency handover from Christoph Stueckelberger to Dietrich Werner.

In their respective speeches, Stueckelberger called Globethics to remain “a hopeful and joyful global community of people, who do not give up!”, while, in a world out of balance, Werner emphasised the “need for leadership for common ethical values.”