The 5th International Conference For World Balance “With all and for the good of all”, Dialogue of Civilizations, will open its doors Tuesday in Havana, to round off the commemorations in tribute to the 170th anniversary of José Martí’s birth on January 28.
More than 1,000 delegates from 82 countries will attend this event, although the number may still increase given the interest in its topics and the lofty figure of Martí, the most important Spanish-American political thinker of the 19th century, according to Héctor Hernández Pardo, deputy director of the Marti Program Office, main sponsor of the Conference.
“This will be the biggest of its kind since UNESCO created in 2003 the José Martí Project for World Solidarity, upon approval by its General Conference, with the support of other international institutions such as the Organization of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture (OEI),” he said.
Featuring lectures, breakout groups, symposiums, meetings, forums, panels, colloquiums and workshops on humanity’s most pressing problems, the event will be attended by academics, intellectuals, artists, social and religious activists, representatives of political parties and governments who share the view that dialogue is necessary.
The 1st International Conference “For World Balance”, held in Havana on January 27 to 29, 2003, gathered 470 delegates from 36 countries and was closed by Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz. A cycle of world events followed, namely the 1st José Martí International Colloquium “For a Culture of Nature” in 2004 and the 1st International Conference “With All and for the Good of All” in 2005.
Then came the 2nd, 3rd and 4th conferences between 2008 and 2019, the latter with more than 1,000 participants from 63 nations. This 5th edition intends to pick up the global Dialogue of Civilizations and the debates of the World Congress of Humanities, held in Liege, Belgium, under the auspices of UNESCO and its NGO International Council for Philosophy and Humanistic Studies.