Our Common Humanity in the Information Age. Principles and Values for Development

partnership with the Division for ECOSOC Support and Coordination of the United 
Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA), the United Nations 
Office for Partnerships, the United Nations Global Compact Office, United Nations 
Development Programme (UNDP),United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural 
Organization (UNESCO), the Millennium Project, World Federation of United Nations 
Associations (WFUNA), The World Bank, Pace University, Alliance of Civilizations, 
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), Friends of the UN, Institute for a Culture of Peace, 
International Council for Caring Communities (ICCC), UN-NGO Informal Regional 
Network (IRENE) and World Peace Prayer Society.
The event was special in many ways. It was a gathering of a truly unique set of diverse, 
high-level participants and an audience comp osed of members of all walks of life. In 
many ways it was a manifestation of our Common Humanity. The event provided a rare 
opportunity to step back and take a macro view, highlighting the foundations that 
constitute the core values of our common humanity that underlie much of the work of the 
entire United Nations system. It also presented an opportunity to portray the link between 
those values and the concrete Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which, in 
essence, form the roadmap for achieving our common humanity. It was our intent to 
make this meeting a force for mobilizing all stakeholders to organize our world in a new 
way for a better future.
The theme of the meeting appealed to a large number of civil society and private sector 
representatives. There was, therefore, a large base of partners and contributors. The 
theme reflected sentiments deeply rooted in today’s globalized world and stressed the 
importance of an understanding of the progress and strides that the global community has 
accomplished as well as the continuous biases and inequality that are still present and that 
must be overcome.
The work of the United Nations in the economic and social fields is an incarnation of this 
“common humanity” in areas such as social development, gender equit y, poverty 
eradication, sustainable development and other major issues that are all the expression of 

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Afterword | 149 
a search for increased freedom, solidarity, equity and shared responsibility at the global 
level. However, in order to move our agenda ahead and to achieve better results in our 
common objectives, we need to imbue world public opinion with these values and use 
them as guiding principles towards a better world.
The event featured many distinguished guest speakers and panelists, prominent leaders 
and individuals in governments, private sector, entertainment, sports, science and 
technology and media, as well as Nobel Laureates and other prestigious awards winners 
from the five regions. Some were not physically present, but tapped the power of modern 
communications technologies to participate from far-off locales such as remote 
Antarctica, Europe and other locations in the United States.