CONCLUSIONS OF THE EXPERTS:

“In Africa, democracy, human rights, and development must be tied together, insisting more on the causes than on the effects of problems on the continent. We must give priority to the resolution of the causes and not the effects of African problems, with Affirmative Action programs, and projects to end historic, structural, and symbolic aggressions that, alongside poor administration and corruption in government, are responsible for the failure of development in Africa.”

“It is time for Africa to develop its own model for development and growth”.

Rapporteur:
Mbuyi Kabunda, professor and expert in African affairs and member of the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Moderator:
Abuy Nfubea, journalist and president of the Pan African Federation of Black Communities in Spain.

Experts:
Marta Arias Robles, director of the Department of Campaigns and Studies for Intermon Oxfam in Spain. She is licensed in Law and has a Master Degree in International Cooperation. She has been part of the Cooperation for Development for ten years. Currently she coordinates the Annual Report on the Reality of Aid. She directs the Campaign for Objectives of the Millennium for Intermon Oxfam and is member of the managing team of the same campaign in Oxfam International.

Silvia Escobar, ambassador for Human Rights of Spain. She is the first female president of Amnesty International in Madrid and is vice president of the CEAR Foundation, Council for Support of Refugees. She was a member of the city assembly of Madrid and director of Social Services for the Red Cross.

Ryan C. Napoli, lawyer specialized in the defence of civil rights. He currently works at MFY Legal Services in New York, representing people and indigent groups in a great variety of cases spanning from housing, civil rights, poverty and immigration. He defends cases of social justice including representing those accused after the September 11th attacks. He has collaborated as well with the Grameen Foundation, implementing microcredits in the Americas and transcribing law proposals in Washington.

Jesús Rivillo Torres, sociologist, founder and director of INATUR, an organization dedicated, since 1991, to the local and social-communitarian development, cooperation, environmental education and implantation of Integrated Systems of Management.

Julio Maíz Sanz, licensed in Law and Geography and History. He has collaborated in diverse magazines for 14 years, as analyst of defence and military themes in general, especially aeronautics. He has done work for magazines such as Avion Revue, Aeronautica and Defensa, Soldier, Air Fan, etc.

Isabelle Mauro, director of Institutional Relations and Public Issues for the GSM Association, located in London. She is responsible for the advocacy campaigns of GSM, in affairs related to the mobile telephone industry on the global level. She has a Master in European Politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Gerardo Shulman, architect and traveller, he is integrated in the NGO Architects Without Borders, Barcelona. Ex-patriot of Burkina Fasso and Mozambique, he is responsible for the international cooperation and collaboration with the Catalan Agency for Cooperation and Development. He dedicated a great part of the last few years making extensive trips to Africa, Asia and Latin America in which he has focused his work on the rural world and on vernacular architecture.

(THE FOLLOWING IS A SUMMARY OF THE CONCLUSIONS REACHED BY THE WORKING TABLE)

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By George Emile Irani, rapporteur

CONCLUSIONS OF THE EXPERTS:

The debate focused on certain key States in the Middle East: the crisis in Iraq, conflicting visions of Iran, the political climates in Syria and Lebanon, and the best manner to increase human development and build stronger economies.

Rapporteur:
George Emile Irani is the Lebanese-born director of the Africa and Middle East Program of the Toledo International Center for Peace in Madrid. He is the author of “The Papacy and the Middle East: The Role of the Holy See in the Arab-Israeli Conflict“.

Moderator:
Martin Varsavsky is the president of the Safe Democracy Foundation and has founded six successful businesses over the last 15 years. He is currently the CEO of FON.

Experts:
Arshin Adib-Moghaddam is the author of “The International Politics of the Persian Gulf: A Cultural Genealogy” (Routledge). Educated at Hamburg, American and Cambridge Universities, he teaches International Relations at Oxford University.

Carlos Escud

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We present the first part of the conclusions reached at Safe Democracy’s International Conference, Three Years After 11-M: Regional Challenges for a Globalizing World.

The results published here include recommendations from a wide-ranging group of diverse experts on How to restart the peace process between Israel and Palestine, and posed the question whether Spain and Europe are still targets of international terrorism, three years after March 11th.

Also discussed was governance, poverty and growth in Latin America, and geopolitics of Russia.

At Safe Democracy, we understand democracy not just as the right to elect politicians and to be represented by them, but rather in a much broader sense: a political and social system which fosters security, and that values education, health care, job opportunities, freedom of expression, diversity, that fearlessly supports innovation, that respects minorities, their cultures and their rights.

As part of Safe Democracy‘s many activities aimed at guaranteeing the growth of democracy, we have created this opportunity to analyze public issues under the dynamic of work groups in which ideas are exchanged, proposed and reflected on between recognized experts.

Our objective is to fortify this independent yet multi-faceted community of experts on international affairs –promoting pragmatic solutions– and allowing for participation from the public via the Internet.

We invite all of our readers to comment on the scenarios and solutions to the principle regional challenges expounded by our international experts.

Warm regards,
Mart