International Dialogue Values for Development

Towards a Life-Sustaining Civilization
Tang Paradise, Xi'an, China
10 and 11 October 2007

Rationale
Humanity consumed 120% of the Earth's renewable resources in 2000, the equivalent of 1.2 Earths, according to the Global Footprint Network. The Humanity or Global Ecological Footprint will grow to 1.7 Earths by 2030. This global assessment shows the size of human activity compared to the biosphere and the rate at which humanity is moving towards an ecological overshoot.

Humans are fundamentally, and to a significant extent irreversibly, changing the diversity of life on Earth, and most of these changes represent a loss of biodiversity. Over the past 50 years, humans have changed the world's ecosystems more rapidly and intensively (approximately 60%) than in any comparable period in human history. This change was largely brought about to meet the rapidly growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber and fuel, according to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.

The world population in 2030 could reach up to 8.2 billion, of which 5.0 billion (approximately 60%) will live in urban areas, according to the World Population Prospect of the United Nations. The three most populous countries will be China (1.5 billion), India (1.5 billion), and USA (361 million). Almost 40% of the worldĄŻs population will be concentrated in China and India in 2030. The world economy will shift from a uni-polar world influenced by the USA to a multi-polar world by 2030, when first China and then India will have firmly established themselves as drivers of world economic growth.

By 2020 the China's GDP of 2000 will quadruple to approximately 4 trillion US Dollars. The coming years will thus play a crucial role in shaping the China's development:

Will China be able to build a Harmonious Society and achieve a more balanced, equitable development, and serve as an inspiration to societies in Europe and other part of the World?

What kind of support or collaboration is needed to increase our readiness to deal with the unprecedented challenges and opportunities that will be generated by these developments?

Fundamentals
With the initiation of the International Dialogue on Values for Development "Towards a Life-Sustaining Civilization", a platform is provided to explore and find a (new) universal set of values for development by applying creative thinking and communication methods in dialogues among participants with a wide area of influence in societies. This set of values will contribute to the reduction of conflicts between cultures and worldviews and between human beings and their living environments. The purpose of the dialogue approach of this event is to re-establish harmony, both internal and external, and achieve wholeness in life.

"Dialogue is about sharing and learning. Sharing personal and professional experiences with actual aspects of sustainability; sharing the fears we have and the dreams we cherish and sharing the stories that have moved us deeply. By sharing our personal involvement, we can make sustainability more than a strategic and technical issue, more than a problem that we try to solve in our heads and with our hands; we make it a personal issue, part of our life."
Quote by Henk Manschot during the International Dialogue Diving into Harmony, "Providing Leadership for Sustainable Development" in Beijing, April 2005

Towards the realization of a harmonious society the creation of a consciousness, based on the principle of universal harmony from within ourselves, is crucial. Harmony is the concept of combining the physical and non-physical aspects, combining diversity and unity, combining Heaven and Earth, combining the opposites (by Swami Veda Bharati during one of the pre-events of this upcoming International Dialogue at the Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology in Xi'an, China, 2006). The platform of the International Dialogue on Values for Development, Towards a Life-Sustaining Civilization, aims to contribute to the implementation of building a Harmonious World.

Objectives
The objectives defined for this International Dialogue are:

• 1. To exchange views on changes observed in core values of a global and local nature that may be harmful and/or obstruct sustainable development.
• 2. To explore what (new) values are (re-) emerging to provide guidance to civilization (to humans) in practicing a sustainable life-style.
• 3. To inspire participants in this International Dialogue to put ideas and thoughts into informal and formal collaborative actions based on mutual benefits and friendships.

Developing Dialogues
The outcomes, spin-offs and follow-up actions of the International Dialogue are a set of actions as inspiration for implementation, aiming to contribute to the process of innovating dialogues, encounters, exchanges and transformations in meeting the social and cultural challenges and demands of our increasingly global interdependence. These outcomes are:

• 1. Full Dialogue Proceedings to be documented, disseminated and made available worldwide, including the Pre-Dialogue Events.
• 2. Inventory of Good Practice and achievements in effective Dialogue.
• 3. Formulation of a Common Set of Values for Development. The Set of Values for Development aims to contribute to the core of the Chinese Eleventh Five-year Program in the building of a Harmonious Society.
• 4. Establishment of a Framework for Collaboration, the pragmatic means by which Global Dialogue and Mutual Trust Building on this theme can be brought into practice; includes the creation of active Dialogue Groups using video-conferencing, web-based tools and face-to-face encounters.
• 5. Dialogue and Outcomes Evaluation, potential spin-offs and follow-up actions geared towards the next International Dialogues.
• 6. Conduct Applied Research: Results of the International Dialogue will provide knowledge to be included in applied research currently being carried out in close collaboration with universities and other academic institutions, private sector and international consulting institutions.
• 7. From September 2006 onwards and after the Dialogue, continuous updates on the progress of the preparations of the International Dialogue and e-Events will be on the web site www.ce-desd.org.

Thematic Focus
In the human quest for reaching a globally sustainable lifestyle we have to realize that sustainability is within us. This realization will inspire us to honor the wisdom of life itself and guide us to live together peacefully. While we have the knowledge and awareness to live peacefully and ecologically, we still remain far behind in inspiring other human beings, organizations and societies to apply these concepts in practice.

The three dialogue themes which have been chosen for this dialogue are the same in essence. The essence within the framework of this International Dialogue is the concept that sustainability is based on a consciousness of the principle of universal harmony. Through dialogue we will explore the different principles provided to us through these themes, such as the oneness-principle, the nature-principle and the creation-principle, towards a Harmonious Society.

Learning from Cultural Traditions
Most of the cultural traditions around the world offer methods to (re-)connect with the universal knowledge, already present within humans all over the world. This universal knowledge enables us to think holistically and to see the oneness of the principles in life. All these traditions can be characterized as highly developed in cultivating self-consciousness, which is the center of the creation of cycles in the form of thoughts. Our self-consciousness affects all other cycles of life.

"Human beings should learn from the Earth, the Earth should learn from the Sky, the Sky should learn from Tao, Tao should learn from Nature."
Quote by Lao Tse (604-531 BC)

Learning from Nature
The Earth is an ecosystem which includes nature and humans. An ecosystem contains flows which become cycles when the ecosystem reaches a balance.
The major components of an ecosystem are: air, solar energy, soil or earth, water. By observing and fully experiencing nature we are provided with precious insights of life; the cycle of nature revolves constantly. Nature provides systems or processes: solar cells copied from leaves, steely fibers woven spider-style, shatterproof ceramics drawn from mother-of-pearl and a closed-loop economy that takes its lessons from redwoods, coral reefs, and oak-hickory forests.

"The harmony of natural law reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection."
Quote by Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Learning from Circular Systems (or Processes) The core of reaching the wholeness in life, observed and experienced in various cultural traditions, nature, ancient civilizations and indigenous cultures, lies in the knowledge of circular systems or circular processes or cycles. A cycle is a circle. The core knowledge of the circle will lead us to the knowledge of sustaining life on Earth in all imaginary aspects. During this International Dialogue the concept of the Circular Economy, which aims to generate economy based on the scarcity of natural capital, will be one of the examples of implementation of the core knowledge of the circle.

This International Dialogue aims to contribute, by exchanging views and exploring values, in inspiring the emerging collective recognition of the need of holistic or comprehensive approaches in today's world.

Will application of these approaches, learned from spiritual traditions, learned from nature and learned from circular systems, take us towards a global life-sustaining civilization in various fields and aspects of life, such as science, economy, technology, leadership, management, industrialization, urbanization and architecture?

Approaches for connectivity
The participation is by invitation. We aim to welcome around 70 persons with a relatively high area of influence from all over the world. These invitees are from a wide range of entities i.e. from governmental institutions, private sector organizations, non-governmental organizations, academics and representatives of worldviews or charitable organizations. The International Dialogue will address key questions in small groups of 5-7 persons in parallel innovative and interactive workshop sessions. Within the International Dialogue a flow of the sessions will be guided through creative and constructive methods, fostering the exchange of ideas among participants and enabling the creation of synergies.

A cultural tour in and around Xi'an, showing the vast richness of cultural exchange, is part of the pre- and post-Dialogue Events for the participants and their spouses.

More information about the pre-events of this International Dialogue can be found on the web site www.ce-desd.org. The e-Dialogues, which are open to everyone, will further explore the dialogue themes related to different questions and in various aspects.

Carrying the Energy from Beijing to Xi'an
The International Dialogue on Values for Development, "Towards a Life-Sustaining Civilization" in Xi'an is a follow-up of the International Dialogue titled Diving into Harmony, "Providing Leadership for Sustainable Development", which took place in April 2005 at the Diao Yu Tai State Guesthouse in Beijing.

In search of an inspirational venue, Xi'an was chosen to set the stage for this International Dialogue. Xi'an is the source of many contemplations and explorations on its role as a city, a city in a vast natural context, in the midst of rivers and mountains and as the former Chinese capital city throughout many dynasties. Xi'an is known as a meeting place of monks and merchants from China, India and other parts of the world, with the exchange of traditions and trade, and as the starting point of one of the three Silk Routes, symbolizing dialogue and exchange between civilizations, cultures and cities.

Xi'an played an important role as the starting point of the Northern Silk Route, connecting the ancient cities, cultures and civilizations from China, India, Persia, Egypt and Arabia with those of from Greece and Rome, and thus promoting the interchange between East and West, by sending and receiving the ambassadors of culture. The continuous change in culture in Xi'an throughout the various dynasties and as the result of different (cultural) influences from abroad is in itself a source of infinite inspiration.

For more information please contact: the Organizing Committee Xi'an Dialogue Email: xiandialogue@ce-desd.org.