In gathering leaders and representatives of the global science and science policy communities, Prof. Rana Dajani participated in the 11th World Science Forum held in November 2024 in Budapest, Hungary.
The theme of the Forum was “The Science and Policy Interface at a Time of Global Transformations”, which responded to the 2024 UN Pact for the Future and Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development.
Alongside other speakers, Dajani participated in two sessions: “Utilizing the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development (IDSSD) Effectively for Accelerated Sustainable Development in Developing Countries.”
The participants of the roundtable included internationally renowned experts representing different perspectives of science cooperation and covering a broad range of geographic regions, scientific disciplines, and relevant stakeholders.
The other session Dajani contributed to was a thematic session titled “Education for Sustainable Development”, where Dajani illustrated the challenges and transformative potential of promoting reading in conflict-ridden and socially disrupted environments, demonstrated how early education can build resilience.
She Focuses on the basic pillars for education for sustainable development: fostering curiosity, promoting social innovation, and enhancing human communication. highlighted the many challenges facing education today, including accelerating advances in every sector, the rise in displacement due to wars, conflicts, and climate change, and increasing inequalities that hinder access to quality education. She emphasized that the best way to prepare children for the future is by fostering an intrinsic motivation to learn, encouraging curiosity and critical thinking, and instilling a sense of responsibility and agency.
Prof. Dajani underscored the importance of designing educational programs and initiatives based on these principles and pointed to We Love Reading as a grassroots movement that transforms mindsets through reading, empowering individuals to address local challenges and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and beyond.
Dajani concluded her talk by echoing the words of Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados, who, at the UN Summit of the Future, said: “It is impossible until it is done. This world can change, but it needs our energy, ordinary citizens who don’t want to be pawns, not two worlds but one world. It requires a change in attitude, asking difficult, uncomfortable questions. Ubuntu: I am because we are.”
WSF2024 attracted 1,200 delegates from 122 countries, who joined sessions and roundtable discussions, including 100 lectures in 19 plenary and thematic sessions over four days, with the aim of overcoming the present limits of the wide-scale implementation of science-based policy measures on a global level.
The forum, conducted every two years, focused this year on how the world is undergoing rapid transformation and facing an uncertain future. Extraordinary scientific and technological advances are at odds with inadequate progress in addressing the challenges of climate change and most of the Sustainable Development Goals, a growing number of conflicts, rising inequalities, and the emergence of rapidly evolving and disruptive technologies.