Dubai: The 1st World Peace Awards Forum 2013, was opened March 17, acting as a platform for dialogue between humanitarian organisations that are working for peace in the awards, as well as to enable international cooperation.
The Forum is held under the patronage of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, and was opened in the presence of Shaikh Majid Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Chairman of Dubai Culture. The two day event will close on April 18.
Mohammad Abdullah Bu Hannad, Secretary General of Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award For World Peace, which will be held in 2014, told Gulf News that “the main aim of this forum is getting the Peace Awards together in one place where we can sit, talk and learn from one another”.
Some of the entities and peace awards participating in the forum are King Faisal International Prize (KFIP), Washington DC based Global Peace Foundation and the University for Peace based in Costa Rica as well as the Seoul Peace Prize.
In April 2011, Bu Hannad said, the first Dubai Peace Convention was held and as an outcome of this convention, Shaikh Mohammad announced the Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for World Peace in October of the same year .
“The award’s first cycle will be in 2014, but this [forum] is a side of the award – we have different initiatives, one of them is getting the Peace Awards together.”
The second benefit of the forum, Bu Hannad explained, is that peace awards can present their criteria and categories and initiatives and organisation based in the UAE that are participating in the forum such as Noor Dubai.
The forum, he added, is also a chance for “those awards to see what we have and what we are doing, not only in Dubai but the whole UAE.” He said that the awards are amazed by the work done by the UAE to support peace around the world.
“The two days are a mix of general speakers, who speak about peace, their organisation, their initiatives and practices. Tomorrow we have a session where representatives from three peace awards will be discussing peace awards in details.” Bu Hannad said.
