Under the patronage of HH Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE, and in collaboration with the Arab League Secretary General, the Arab Thought Foundation (ATF) will hold its annual FIKR15 conference in Abu Dhabi. The event will take place at St Regis Saadiyat on December 12 – 14.

Coinciding with the 35th anniversary of the GCC’s founding and the 45th anniversary of the UAE’s establishment, FIKR15 is titled “Arab Integration: The Gulf Cooperation Council and the United Arab Emirates.”

Henry Awit, Director General of the ATF, stated that Arab integration had been selected as a topic of discussion for its conferences and publications under the initiative of the Foundation’s President, HRH Prince Khalid Al Faisal. He also explained that Arab integration is a strategic cultural goal that ATF seeks to spread and establish in light of the risks and divisions, crucial challenges, and threats to unity and identity facing the Arab region.

Awit added that, this year, the Foundation will continue discussing the issue of Arab integration by studying the two unique and detailed experiences of the GCC and the UAE, complementing the two previous conferences in the series. FIKR13 took place in 2014 in Skhirat, Morocco, under the title of “Arab Integration: The Dream of Unity and the Reality of Division,” and FIKR14 was held in 2015 at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo, concentrating on “Arab Integration: Challenges and Prospects.”

The conference brings together officials and policy-makers from the UAE and GCC states, as well as delegates from governmental and non-governmental sector bodies, cultural and media organizations, research centers and relevant international federations will also be represented at the conference, along with participation from leading intellectuals, experts and media personnel.

Conference Program

The FIKR15 conference starts on Monday, December 12, by an opening ceremony concentrating on the experience of the United Arab Emirates, followed in the afternoon by an interactive session on major challenges facing the Arab world.

Prior to the opening ceremony, ATF will launch the Ninth Annual Arab Report on Cultural Development at a press conference taking place at 11:00am on Sunday, December 11. The annual report is issued on subject matters closely related to FIKR conferences. This year’s report, which focuses on the cultural scene throughout GCC states, is titled “Culture and Cultural Integration in the GCC: Policies, Institutions and Manifestations.”

 

Conference activities continue Tuesday, December 13, with specialized parallel sessions discussing integration in economic, cultural, developmental and security areas. These will be followed by a plenary session on the Gulf Cooperation Council experience.

ATF will also commemorate in the evening the tenth anniversary of its Arab Creativity Award, in a ceremony honoring recipients of eight award categories: scientific creativity, technological creativity, economic creativity, social creativity, media creativity, literary creativity, artistic creativity and the creativity award for the most valuable Arabic book. The ceremony will also honor the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award.

FIK15 concludes on Wednesday, December 14, with the third plenary session, which will provide conclusions and recommendations.

As part of its preparations for FIKR15, the Arab Thought Foundation held two preparatory workshops. The first was held in Cairo in cooperation with the General Secretary of the Arab League, while the second took place in Riyadh alongside the General Secretary of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

The Arab Thought Foundation also published a special issue of its Ofoq newsletter, titled “Arab Culture and Arab Intellectuals: Challenges and Responsibility.” The issue features some 50 essays eloquently written by intellectuals from different Arab countries.

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FIKR15’s latest news and events can be followed via the hashtag #FIKR15, on our official website www.arabthought.org, or through ATF’s page on Facebook.