According to an official press statement by Katara, the event will be attended by hosts Qatar, 14 member countries and seven others awaiting the membership.
Prof Khalid bin Ibrahim al-Sulaiti, Katara general manager and GPDNet president, expressed happiness for Katara to host the event, noting the foundation's successes during its presidency of the current session of the network.
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Darwish Ahmed al-Shaibani
“There have been successive achievements within the framework of building bridges of communication and spreading a culture of coexistence, understanding and mutual respect through its success in attracting many countries from different continents of the world as new members of the network or through its adoption of a distinct strategy and launch of an electronic platform,” he said.
The official pointed out that the electronic platform has become an essential factor for cultural communication between member states while providing them with many common cultural services that fall within what is known as global public diplomacy.
“After being able to establish an innovative approach based on the knowledge economy and the development and building of self-capacity, Katara intensifies its activities to create new spaces in culture, art and tourism sectors and strengthens its presence as a cultural forum that brings together cultures of the world. Also, it transfers bilateral relations to higher levels and pushes them towards broader horizons while consolidating brotherhood and friendship and opening more doors of co-operation. These are in addition to signing many agreements and memoranda of understanding that are in the interest of states and societies, and enhance the values of dialogue, understanding and communication between people,” Prof al-Sulaiti added.
Darwish Ahmed al-Shaibani, secretary-general of GPDNet, said many ambitious programmes have been launched by Katara during its leadership of the diplomatic network.
He expressed happiness at the remarkable achievements made during the current session of the network despite all the difficulties it faced and the repercussions resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic at the international level. He pointed out that Katara's tireless efforts contributed to the implementation of bilateral projects and joint programmes, which would strengthen co-operation, enhance international relations and contribute to deepening rapprochement and communication between peoples and societies.
“The seventh session will witness the presentation of new initiatives, most notably the transformation of the network into an international organisation after Katara puts the final touches on the studies required to achieve this matter,” he said, pointing out that the meeting will discuss radical changes in the development of the network's structure.
He explained that the network’s seventh general assembly will discuss activating the digital diplomacy project by focusing on areas such as building human capacities and promoting sustainable development programmes. “This will, in turn, contribute to increasing the exchange of experiences between member states, in addition to the knowledge and awareness exchange programme between these countries,” he said, adding that lectures, seminars, training courses and digital conferences will be held while focusing on enhancing communication between members in the field of exchanging experiences and information related to culture, arts and public diplomacy, through the network's website.
On the other hand, the meeting is scheduled to witness seven new countries join the network. These are Bulgaria, Albania, Romania, Tajikistan, Ghana, Rwanda and Palestine.
A series of important lectures and courses in the field of global public diplomacy will be held during the meeting. These will be delivered by a group of international academics, the most important of which are 'The Peace Museum Project' - Bosnia and Herzegovina, 'Creative Incubator' - Georgia, 'Diplomatic Culture' - Malaysia, 'Heritage and Music' - Hungary, 'Public Diplomacy' - Mexico, 'Mobile Education' - Mozambique, 'The Power of Language' - Nigeria, 'A March of Public Diplomacy' - Turkey, and 'The Impact of Public Diplomacy' - Ukraine.
Represented by Katara, Qatar obtained its GPDNet membership in 2017 and received the presidency from Turkey on May 4, 2019, while becoming the first Arab country to head this international network since its establishment in 2014.
GPDNet was established by public and cultural institutions in nine countries: the Philippines, Sweden, Korea, Taiwan, Nigeria, Poland, Portugal, Singapore and Turkey.