7th Annual meeting of the World Future Council in Bonn

Hamburg, 28 June -“We need a rapid global shift towards a politics of responsibility and sustainability that is aligned to the needs of present and future generations.” This is the core message of the seventh Annual General Meeting of the World Future Council in Bonn. Council members from five continents met for four days to discuss the status quo and define the strategy for the year ahead.

Jakob von Uexkull, Founder of the World Future Council and the Right Livelihood Award, announced that Wanjira Maathai was elected as a new member of the World Future Council. Fourty-two year-old Wanjira Maathai is Vice Chair of the Green Belt Movement and the Wangari Maathai Institute for Peace & Environmental Studies. Her mother Wangari Maathai, winner of the Alternative Nobel Prize and the Nobel Peace Prize, belonged to the Honorary Council of the World Future Council until her death in 2011.

Councillors also voted for the theme of the Future Policy Award 2014. Next year, the only international Award for best policies will celebrate political programmes which most effectively help to reduce domestic and non-domestic violence against women. WFC Director Alexandra Wandel: “The protection of women and girls against violence is an essential prerequisite for a sustainable and peaceful world. Therefore, it must be a primary goal of our work.”

The World Future Council, founded in 2007 in Hamburg, is actively working in the fields of Climate and Energy, Regenerative Cities, Sustainable Ecosystems, Future Justice, Peace and Disarmament and Sustainable Economies. It identifies the most successful regional, national and international policies in these fields and promotes them in order to solve the most pressing problems of our time. As an example, the work of the Council has greatly contributed to the adoption of Renewable Energy Feed-in Tariff policies in many countries and regions.

During the AGM in the former German capital the World Future Council and the City of Bonn co-organised a public panel discussion on “Pathways Toward Regenerative Cities” in the historic town hall. Speakers included the Minister of the Environment for North Rhine-Westphalia, Johannes Remmel, the Lord Mayor of Bonn, Juergen Nimptsch, WFC Founder Jakob von Uexkull, Honorary Councillor Herbert Girardet and Councillor Frances Moore Lappé.

Jakob von Uexkull expressed his sincere gratitude to the City of Bonn and the Foundation for International Dialogue of the Savings Bank in Bonn for supporting the AGM.