The theme of this year's World Values Day on October 15 is "Values In Action", and it could not be more relevant to the aims of Values 20 (V20) which launched this September.
It has always been important for values to inform and improve the policies and decisions that affect us all, and the Covid-19 pandemic epitomises this. Yet there’s a relatively small evidence base proving how values can best take effect.
It’s in this context that a global community of values experts and practitioners has come together to form V20. The aim is to support policymakers around the world by finding people-centred public policy solutions based on values, which help improve societal outcomes and overcome global challenges. By demonstrating the “value of values” we also hope, in the long run, to become an official G20 engagement group.
The V20 group has already set to work through three taskforces relevant to the G20's strategic goals, developing useful insights to inform policy recommendations under the themes of “Global Values”, “Leadership Values” and “Quality of Life Values”.
At its core, V20’s mission is to facilitate an open-minded exploration of practical values – not embark on a scholarly classification of philosophical concepts. That’s why, in addition to the important work of our taskforces, V20 is configured to listen rather than lecture. It’s why we offer a platform instead of a prescription. It’s why we’re putting “people” into the phrase “people-centred policymaking”.
We believe that the essence of values exists not on paper, but in the individual actions of billions, and that by reaching out to the rich tapestry of human diversity, with its array of divergent lived experience, we will inform policymaking with values most likely to be useful in the real world.
It is to harvest these practical “Values in Action” that we are welcoming people from around the world, of all ages and backgrounds, to join a special V20-hosted Tweetup on the “Value of Values” between 1-2pm GMT during World Values Day this year. Those joining can tell the world, via the Tweetup, how their values impact their lives and their communities.
There's a relatively small evidence base proving how values can best take effect
At V20, we've already launched our own crowdsourcing campaign that will conclude in early November, through which people are sending us "what works" videos about successful and practical values from their lives, communities and countries.
Our approach is designed to be bottom-up. We believe it’s important to take people’s ideas and insights about values upwards, into the purview of world leaders at the G20 and beyond. With that in mind, all of V20's activities will contribute to a V20 Communique for presentation to the G20 leaders, to demonstrate the transformational benefits that evidence-based, value-oriented public policy can deliver.
We fully appreciate the immense scale of this task, and that it cannot be achieved overnight. Ensuring a prominent role for values in policymaking is perhaps a perpetual undertaking and will require much international collaboration, consultation and creativity.
It’s one that we’re optimistic about and so we’ve configured V20 for the long term. A network hub will leverage the huge potential of this growing community; a knowledge platform will share insights and best practice and inspire engagement; and the crowd-sourcing campaign will be annual. This will ensure continuity for the V20 organising bodies in future years, each drawn from the country holding the G20 presidency and coordinating the work of a wide range of individuals and organisations from all over the world.
In tune with the other admirable values organisations participating in World Values Day, as well as the excellent work of the official G20 engagement groups, at V20 we’re playing our part in helping as wide an audience as possible to discover, debate, publicise and be inspired by the practical values that can lead to positive action in our world.
The V20’s Unique Selling Point goes one step further by ensuring that these outputs have the best chance possible to influence global, national, regional and local decision-makers, in governmental, business or other organisations. Values have always had value, but they can have much more value when they inform policy and action, and that’s what we’re dedicated to at V20.
Dimah Al Sheikh is chair of Values 20, and previously worked to promote values and cultural transformation in Saudi Arabia
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Our legal consultant
Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Ferrari 12Cilindri specs
Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12
Power: 819hp
Torque: 678Nm at 7,250rpm
Price: From Dh1,700,000
Available: Now
if you go
The flights Fly Dubai, Air Arabia, Emirates, Etihad, and Royal Jordanian all offer direct, three-and-a-half-hour flights from the UAE to the Jordanian capital Amman. Alternatively, from June Fly Dubai will offer a new direct service from Dubai to Aqaba in the south of the country. See the airlines’ respective sites for varying prices or search on reliable price-comparison site Skyscanner.
The trip
Jamie Lafferty was a guest of the Jordan Tourist Board. For more information on adventure tourism in Jordan see Visit Jordan. A number of new and established tour companies offer the chance to go caving, rock-climbing, canyoning, and mountaineering in Jordan. Prices vary depending on how many activities you want to do and how many days you plan to stay in the country. Among the leaders are Terhaal, who offer a two-day canyoning trip from Dh845 per person. If you really want to push your limits, contact the Stronger Team. For a more trek-focused trip, KE Adventure offers an eight-day trip from Dh5,300 per person.
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
TOURNAMENT INFO
Women’s World Twenty20 Qualifier
Jul 3- 14, in the Netherlands
The top two teams will qualify to play at the World T20 in the West Indies in November
UAE squad
Humaira Tasneem (captain), Chamani Seneviratne, Subha Srinivasan, Neha Sharma, Kavisha Kumari, Judit Cleetus, Chaya Mughal, Roopa Nagraj, Heena Hotchandani, Namita D’Souza, Ishani Senevirathne, Esha Oza, Nisha Ali, Udeni Kuruppuarachchi
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
