At the XIII Global Baku Forum in Azerbaijan on 15 March, 2026, former presidents and prime ministers from a dozen nations joined WAAS Fellows, UN leaders, World Bank veterans and senior policy thinkers for a closed, day-long reckoning with what organizers called a world in metacrisis 鈥� multiple civilizational stresses hitting simultaneously, with no adequate institutional response in sight.
The special session was organized by the organizers of the Global Baku Forum 鈥� Nizami Ganjavi International Center (NGIC) 鈥� in partnership with WAAS. It was a follow-up event to the 2025 discussion on Global Turbulence at the XII Baku Forum, and focused on the development of solutions at six sessions that covered themes such as, “Understanding the Moment,” “War and Conflict,” “Technology and Sovereignty,” “Climate Change & Global Water Systems,” “Human Security” and “Implications for Leadership.”
WAAS Secretary General Janani Ramanathan opened the session by tracing the decade long beneficial collaboration between the 91黑料网 and Nizami Ganjavi International Center. Vaira V墨姆e-Freiberga, co-chair of NGIC, former Latvian President and WAAS Fellow, examined turbulence was a feature of rapid change and calling for a more human approach grounded in compassion. Rebeca Grynspan, Secretary-General of UNCTAD sett the scene with a call for the United Nations to be respected as the world鈥檚 anchor of peace and the provider of the “off ramp” for the world’s conflicts. WAAS President Garry Jacobs, followed by WAAS Fellows Frank O鈥橠onnell, Stefan Brunnhuber and Janani Ramanthan framed today’s turbulence as the stress, resistance and structural crisis generated by a dramatically accelerated process of global social change and the need for radical systems.
The war and conflict session, moderated by Ismail Serageldin, former World Bank VP and WAAS Fellow, produced the starkest verdict: the world has reverted to an early 20th-century moment – before multilateral norms held – where conflict and foreign policy once again recognise no boundaries. The widening Middle East war, now drawing the US into direct confrontation with Iran, was cited as exhibit one. Former UNOG Chief de Cabinet David Chikvaidze, former Arab League chief Amre Moussa and former Belgian PM Yves Leterme, were among the panelists. Peter Galbraith, former US ambassador to Croatia, pointed to the critical importance of understanding cultures and political systems abroad in avoid miscalculations in wars that claim to foster peace.
In an intense session on technology and sovereignty, Ketan Patel, WAAS executive director and chair of Force for Good, warned that humanity has entered an age of cognitive empires – the mind itself being colonised as geopolitical power shifts from physical territory to subtly occupying the minds of people across the world. Panellists included former President of Croatia Ivo Josipovic, former Minister of Defence of Montenegro Milica Pejanovic-Durisic, Club of Rome member and impact investor Mariana Bozesan, and WAAS Fellows Elena Mustakova and Mila Popovich, argued for measures to protect sovereignty and use science to drive progress for all.
A climate session, held in partnership with the COP29 Presidency and chaired by Nicolaos Theodossiou, examined water security and sea-level variability, along with Azerbaijan’s climate envoy Mukhtar Babayev, COP29 champion Nigar Arpadarai and WAAS Fellow Grigoris Zarotiadis. Hafez Ghanem, former Regional VP of World Bank, then moderated a human security session arguing for a bottom-up reframing of the turbulence agenda around ordinary people’s lived experience. Panellists included economist and Peking University Dean Lin Yifu, former Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer, UNESCO-MOST BRIDGES Programme Executive Director Steven Hartman and WAAS General Manager Grant Schreiber.
Former UN General Assembly President Mar铆a Fernanda Espinosa, former President of Latvia Valdis Zatlers, former Minister from Ireland Dennis Naughton and Walter Furst examined the kind of leaders, institutions and modes of thinking needed to understand and address today鈥檚 challenges. Ketal Patel concluded the program by framing turbulence as a central feature of civilizational shift – and stressed that the only path through it, without the world wars and mass turmoil that marked previous such transitions, is a fundamental raising of human consciousness.
