‘Dialling in Peace
The Australian Intercultural Society (AIS) hosted an online discussion ‘Dialling in Peace” on 31 August 2022. The panel of experts included Professor John Langmore who leads the Melbourne School of Government, Katja Theodorakis the Head of The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) Counterterrorism program and Dr David Hammond Director of Research at the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP). The panel was moderated by AIS’s executive director Ahmet Keskin.
The discussion opened with Dr Hammond giving a summary of the keys findings of the 2022 Global Peace Index. The report found that the average global peacefulness deteriorated by 0.3% over the past year, this is the 11th year of deterioration in the last 14 years. “At Economics & Peace the reason we’re doing what we’re doing is not to be utopian and not to promote that we could ever abolish violence altogether but making small inroads to reducing it can have some inroads to reducing it can have some massive impact” Dr David Hammond
Katja shared her expert knowledge on Afghanistan which has featured strongly in the peace index in the last 2 decades. Professor Langmore shared his thoughts on the role of the United Nations and importance of news coverage to ensure people have a broad and clear understanding of what is occurring around the world.
Overall was a fantastic discussion which ended with the thought provoking question to the panellist “If you were giving infinite recourses, power and will what one thing would you like to change, invest into towards peace”