Professor Federico Mayor Zaragoza

Dear Federico!

As you may recall, your engagement among other factors led to my address to the participants of the 38th Session of UNESCO General Conference on 17 November 2015. In that address, an idea was brought forward to establish an international non-commercial organization World Forum. This initiative enjoyed welcome and support of the current UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova.

The reason behind this initiative was the alarming situation we are currently witnessing. States, various unions of states, United Nations, and other international organizations are struggling to maintain peace and to prevent humanitarian tragedies that have now swallowed multiple countries.

My belief is that only moral and intellectual solidarity of humanity is capable of curbing this descent into a new cold – and possibly even ‘hot’ – war. This is why a mechanism needs to be developed for the global civil society to influence global politics. Only then can new architecture of politics and global governability emerge.

This was behind my proposal to establish an international non-commercial non-governmental organization World Forum, which is to become a platform for the dialogue between authorities and civil society on the way towards finding solutions to global issues.

Modern information and communication technologies enable organizing this dialogue on the planetary scale. Further this may lead to evolution of a social network of global civil society, which would facilitate its development and consolidation.

I consider myself to be your long-standing friend and like-minded individual sharing similar stance on a very broad range of humanitarian issues. This is why I would like to invite you to join the process of creating and to participate in the activities of the international non-commercial non-governmental organization World Forum.

I would appreciate it if you could extend the invitation to take part in the work of this organization to state and public figures, representatives of large businesses and financial circles, of science and art, all the people of good will who share our values and feel concerned about the future of humanity at this critical stage in our history.

USSR President, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

Gorbachev M. S.

Moscow
2016 January 17