In Bahrain Contemplating Conferences...

I'm in Manama, Bahrain - a place I knew nothing of until a few weeks back, for an international conference, hosted by UNESCO and entitled 'Youth at the Crossroads - a Future Without Violent Radicalisation'. Manama is hot and dusty, but otherwise could be anywhere as the delegates are from all over the world, the courteous and friendly hotel staff are mostly from the Philippines and the hotel is a fairly standard 4 star with rooms much like hotel rooms anywhere else I've been to (thought better than Kiev!)..

I'm not ungrateful for the opportunity - UNESCO are picking up the tab, and have asked me to present for 10 minutes (which just got cut back to 8!) on our work at a session with 4 other groups (more on this tomorrow).

Still, I have been doing a lot of thinking recently - about the amount of time people like me spend traveling around the world (HUGE carbon BOOTPRINT - I know!) attending these events. I can't help thinking it is an enormous waste. The most useful things that come out of them in my experience are (in order of impact) - meeting other people with whom you want to work (somewhat random in terms of who you actually meet), the occasional speech or workshop that give you new ideas or perspectives, and the chance to understand other cultures and perspectives better.

I suppose the experience of our 'Contested Spaces' events over the past few years have left me impatient. There are better ways to achieve the outcomes that most people value these events for. A lot of the time you are waiting, bored or listening to poor translation (or good translation of poor stuff!). Why not focus on the meeting of people, the development of ideas and maybe even putting some of the huge resource expended on flights and hotels into collaborative projects and work on the ground?

Anyway, got to get dolled up to meet His Excellency Sheikh Khalid Bin Ahmed Bin Mohamed Al Khalifa - the Minister of Foreign Affairs! I'll continue the rant tomorrow...