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The Global Issues
Network has as its mission: to help students realise they can make a
difference by empowering them to work internationally with their peers
to develop solutions for global issues. Begun by teachers and students
from six international schools in Europe, the programme is based upon
High
Noon: Twenty Global Problems, Twenty Years to Solve Them
by
Jean-François Rischard, former World Bank Vice-President for
Europe. Rischard describes imminent issues that can only be solved
through global cooperation. Among these are water shortages, global
warming, environmental degradation, infectious diseases, poverty,
illiteracy, depletion of fisheries, peacekeeping, and the loss of
ecosystems. Rischard notes that the existing institutions charged with
addressing such issues, namely nation-states, government departments
and international organisations, are self-serving, cumbersome and
inadequate for the task. He calls for an alternative model of global
governance based upon independent global networks that are flexible and
super-responsive.
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already represent a network of independent organisations that
co-ordinate their worldwide efforts toward a common purpose, and are
therefore an excellent platform to apply Mr Rischard’s
concepts. Students can be encouraged to think systemically about real
issues while also taking action to improve the human condition. This
approach involves collaboration rather than competition, where students
assume leadership of their own programme. Their network should promote
both face-to-face conferences and on-going communication via the latest
technologies. |
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We must develop new instincts
and politics across the planet, whereby each of us is first a global
citizen, second a national citizen, and third a local citizen. Right
now, we have it the other way around.
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It’s
for these two reasons – the need for new, out-of-the-box
methodologies and for a new mindset – that I am excited about
the experiment started by some distinguished international schools. I
can think of few educational projects as worthy of support.
J.-F.
Rischard, former Vice-President of the World Bank and author
of High
Noon: Twenty Global Issues, Twenty Years to Solve Them. |
For more information on
the Global Issues Network programme, please contact the Global Issues
Network coordinator:
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Valerie Isbecque |
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International
School of Luxembourg |
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36,
bvd. Pierre Dupong |
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L-1430
Luxembourg |
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Tel:
(+352) 26 04 40 |
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