The Global Challenges Foundation, set up by Swedish billionaire Laszlo Szombatfalvy, has announced a $5 million prize competition, ‘A New Shape’, for the best new ideas on global governance to deal with the enormous global challenges and risks facing our global community. This should be a great shot in the arm for the world federalist movement generally. Apparently some 2700 entries were submitted by the time the competition closed on September 30, and the prizewinners were announced in May 2018.
Laszlo Szombatfalvy
We submitted two entries. One was entitled ‘Towards a Global Parliament: Principles and Pathways’, and gives a general discussion on the idea of a World Community of Democratic Nations, as a first step on the way towards an eventual global parliament capable of dealing with these daunting global challenges, such as nuclear weapons, and climate change. The other was entitled ‘A World Security Community of Democratic Nations’, and gives a more detailed discussion of a specific starting point. It is proposed that NATO and the OECD should be reconstituted as two arms of the new community.
Our entries were knocked out in the first round. But afterwards, the Foundation offered to support five working groups, including ours, to prepare submissions for the Paris Peace Forum in November 2018.