By KUNA
London : British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was meeting leaders of other centre-left governments from around the world Friday at a high-level conference aimed at tackling global issues such as climate change, economic globalisation and poverty in the developing world, Downing Street said.
Brown said Thursday night that he hoped the Progressive Governance Conference and Summit would contribute towards the development of a “new progressive vision of globalisation that is fair and sustainable for all.” In a video for the website “guardian.co.uk,” the prime minister said the international nature of challenges confronting world leaders in the modern age meant that they could not be solved by countries in isolation but needed “concerted action on an international level.” “Achieving an inclusive globalisation, one that can combine economic dynamism with social justice in a sustainable way for all, is the key political challenge facing this generation of leaders and politicians,” he said.
“By sharing information with other international partners around the globe, we aim to advance a new progressive vision of globalisation that is fair and sustainable for all,” Brown added.
The British leader will join the gathering, near London, after flying back to the UK from the NATO summit in Romania.
Among the 15 world leaders he is expected to meet are Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, South African President Thabo Mbeki, the Prime Minister of New Zealand Helen Clark, Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet and Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.
The leaders will be joined by more than 300 international policymakers, academics and experts, including Britains Foreign Secretary David Miliband and European Commissioner Peter Mandelson for wide-ranging discussions, Downing Street said.
Today’s conference is hosted by social democratic think-tank “Policy Network” and will be followed tomorrow by a Progressive Governance Summit at the same venue, hosted by the Prime Minister as leader of the Labour Party, it added.
Former US President Bill Clinton initiated the Progressive Governance Movement in 1999 with a round-table discussion in the White House which included former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the German, Dutch and Italian prime ministers.
Later conferences have been held in Sweden, Budapest and Johannesburg.
In 2003, Blair hosted one in London.