A case can be made that the Middle East is going through a realignment as significant as any since statesmen drew lines on maps after World War I or since the state of Israel was created in 1948.

New realities are emerging: peace instead of war among key Arab countries and Israel; reduced United States political and military engagement; reversal of militant Islamic fundamentalism; most importantly, growing confidence that local leaders—not those in Washington, London, Moscow, or elsewhere—can best produce peace, prosperity and security for the people in the region.

In this week’s New Thinking for a New World podcast episode, Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba, the United Arab Emirates long serving ambassador to the United States and also a key player in the process of creating this new Middle East, discusses the future of the Middle East.

By any measure, Latin American democracy is in trouble. From Mexico to Argentina—and most of the countries in between—there has been an accelerating erosion of both the forms and realities of representative democracy. Is the witches’ brew of the pandemic, underperforming economies, weak rule of law, and structural inequalities more than democracy can bear? Will things get worse before they get better?

Eduardo Amadeo, Argentine economist and politician; Sergio Guzman, Colombian political risk analyst and commentator; Patricio Navia, Chilean political scientist and academic have some answers. They think (and certainly hope) that democracy will survive in their countries and in their region.

Agriculture as it is practiced today—industrial scale ranching and farming—is already a huge contributor to the accelerating pace of climate change. Feeding a growing global population implies even greater greenhouse gas emissions, as well as energy, water and land usage. Moreover, the pandemic demonstrated the fragility and vulnerability of the global food supply chain, as worldwide economic, social, and trade dislocations led to food shortages, distribution problems, hunger, and malnutrition.

Is there a better alternative? Can we produce enough food to meet humanity's growing needs and wants, without further environmental damage? Is it possible to move the center point of the production process from the farm or the sea into the laboratory?

Our guest on this week's New Thinking for a New World podcast has positive answers to those questions. Didier Toubia is co-founder and CEO of Aleph Farms, a company based in Israel that grows steaks from cow cells. Real, honest-to-god, good tasting steaks—without the downsides of factory farming.

Africa is growing or, to be precise, Africa is growing more Africans. Projections show that by 2050 Africa's population is likely to double. By 2100 one in three people on Earth will be African, including almost half of global youth. But can Africa produce the food, energy, economic activity, education, and social and political stability that all those people, especially all those young people, need and deserve? And is democracy the best means to that end?

How is Africa doing? In one sense, that's a nonsensical question to ask about 55 countries and almost 1.4 billion people, but even dumb questions can sometimes have smart answers.

In this week's New Thinking for a New World podcast episode, Michela Wrong who has spent nearly three decades writing about Africa, as a journalist, and as an author, talks about the people, the politics, and the day-to-day realities. Her latest book, Do Not Disturb, takes a deep dive into President Paul Kagame’s Rwanda which can be read as a window into Africa’s present and its possible future.

Today’s world is short of a lot of things—sustainable environment, peace, prosperity, equality—but what we lack most is innovative, global, values-based leadership. If we can find and nurture that kind of leadership, the rest will follow.

Listen as two Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership prize winners and friends, scientist, inventor, and entrepreneur Fio Omenetto and social innovator and entrepreneur Bright Simons, discuss how great leaders can change everything.

What can you do? Take Fio and Bright’s call to action seriously and, then, nominate someone who deserves to win the leadership prize this year. Nominate your candidate here: https://tallberg-snf-eliasson-prize.org/nominate/

Filippino national hero Jose Rizal allegedly said that “Youth is the hope of our future.” When it comes to governance, is that a good thing in a world where there is a growing body of evidence that youth's satisfaction with democracy is declining in many countries? This decline—in absolute terms, as well as relative to how older generations felt at the same stages in their lives—may reflect understandable frustration with outcomes, rather than with the concept of representative democracy. But that makes it no less worrying.

If not democracy, then what? Government by technocrats? By “strong” leaders? By the wisdom of crowds?

This New Thinking for a New World podcast episode is part of Tällberg Foundation's exploration of the future of democracy. Is Churchill still right that democracy is the worst form of government, except for everything else? Listen as Cristóbal Marín Rojas, who comes from Bogota, Colombia, and Julien Richard, who is French, American and Austrian discuss the challenges of making democracy work. Both are students at the Paris School for International Affairs at Sciences Po.

Today's world is short of a lot of things—sustainable environment, peace, prosperity, equality—but what we lack most is innovative, global, values-based leadership. If we can find and nurture that kind of leadership, the rest will follow.

The Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize named in honor of Jan Eliasson, one of the most accomplished global diplomats of our era. In this special episode, Jan and Alan Stoga, chairman of the Tällberg Foundation discuss how great leaders can change everything.

What can you do? Take Jan’s call to action seriously and, then, nominate someone who deserves to win the leadership prize this year. Nominate your candidate here: https://tallberg-snf-eliasson-prize.org/nominate/

Music: "Without You" by Oxime © 2021. Permissions granted courtesy of Oxime Audio https://www.oxime-audio.com/

It wasn't that long ago that globalization was almost universally perceived as a good thing, when policymakers celebrated free trade agreements, and when countries competed to lower barriers to the free flow of goods, technology, and money. But something in the global zeitgeist seems to have shifted from free trade and open markets to decoupling, national champions, re-shoring, industrial policy.

We seem to be moving from a world where markets ruled to one where politics rules: the politics of nationalism and confrontation, of East versus West instead of East and West.

In this week’s New Thinking for a New World podcast, Weijian Shan, economist, businessman, investor, and author based in Hong Kong, shares his unique perspective, not just on global markets, but on how the world really works. He is chairman and CEO of PAG, one of Asia's leading investment firms, and author of two books, Money Games: The Inside Story of How American Deal makers Saved Korea's Most Iconic Bank, and Out of the Gobi: My Story of China and America.

A shape-shifting event like the global pandemic affects almost everyone on the planet— but it especially affects children. They have seen their education, social, mental, and physical health development, and nutrition badly— perhaps permanently— damaged. And what’s bad for kids is worse for girls because in too many countries, especially in low- and middle-income countries, girls don’t have anywhere near adequate access to schools, health care, or even food.

The Malala Fund, launched by Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, is dedicated to a simple proposition: all girls, everywhere should have free, safe, quality education. In this episode of the New Thinking for a New World Podcast, Dr. Maliha Khan, one of the leaders of the Malala Fund, talks about how the pandemic has made that goal even more difficult to achieve.

Today’s world is short of a lot of things—sustainable environment, peace, prosperity, equality—but what we lack most is innovative, global, values-based leadership. If we can find and nurture that kind of leadership, the rest will follow.

In this special episode you will meet Nithya Ramanathan, one of the three 2020 Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership prize winners. Nithya is an engineer and social entrepreneur, saving lives through the innovative application of technology, creating and applying data-driven solutions to global challenges. Listen, as she is interviewed by Cecilia Weckstrom, Sr Director, Diversity, Inclusion & People Innovation at Lego in the UK and a member of the 2020 prize jury.

What can you do? Take Nithya’s call to action seriously and, then, nominate someone who deserves to win the leadership prize this year.

Music: “Without You” by Oxime © 2021. Permissions granted courtesy of Oxime Audio https://www.oxime-audio.com/