World Science Forum 2017, Jordan - Science for Peace

Under the heading “Science for Peace”, the World Science Forum (WSF) 2017 on the Dead Sea in Jordan (7-11 November 2017) attracted over 3.000 participants from 140 countries representing the scientific community, policy makers, international organizations, and youth. Hosted by the Royal Scientific Society of Jordan, together with UNESCO, the Hungarian Academy of Science, the International Council for Science, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Forum provided an opportunity to engage the world of science and redefine the global potential of scientific communities and policymakers to bring real change to our interlinked societies.
As we meet at the lowest point on our Earth, we must set ourselves the highest goals for our future, to achieve a global peace that is built on science, innovation and inclusiveness.

CTBTO actively participated in the Forum with representatives from the CTBTO Youth Group, exhibits and the participation of Executive Secretary Lassina Zerbo in a panel discussion on Science Diplomacy.
The work of the CTBTO epitomizes the importance of the role of science in policy decisions and provides tools for a safer and more secure world; our world is bad, but science is great.

The CTBTO “OmniGlobe”, an interactive 3-D display of the International Monitoring System (IMS) was seen by many visitors and VIPs to be one of the highlight exhibits of the WSF. Members of Jordan’s royal family, including Queen Noor Al-Hussein and Prince El Hassan bin Talal, as well as Janós Ader, President of Hungary, and EU Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, Carlos Moedas, visited the Globe and expressed their appreciation for CTBTO’s work. CTBTO’s final hydroacoustic station HA04 featured in a second exhibit.

Both exhibits were supported by members of the CTBTO Youth Group who also used the opportunity to interview WSF participants and record their own thoughts and experiences of the event. Youth Group members also issued a statement endorsing the World Science Forum’s final declaration. Read full text here ( PDF ). The CTBTO was perceived by many visitors as a very concrete realization of a “tool for peace” which is built on science and which provides valuable scientific data to the research communities to further support studies in areas such as disaster prevention, ecology and geophysics.

During his visit to Jordan, Zerbo also spoke at the Jordan Media Institute where he briefed journalists from across the Middle East on the role of the CTBT in the larger non-proliferation architecture and engaged in an interactive discussion on related topics, including the situation in the Korean peninsula and the future of the JCPOA with Iran.