Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy, Baiba Braže joins a webinar on Resilience and Foresight
Today (29 May 2020), ASG Baiba Braže joined a webinar on ‘Resilience and Foresight – the World after the Pandemic’ organised by the Aspen Institute Romania in partnership with the German Marshall Fund office in Bucharest. She discussed the issue of resilience together with the Vice President for Inter-Institutional Relations and Foresight at the European Commission, Ambassador Maroš Šefčovič.
In her remarks, the ASG stressed that NATO has been working for many years to strengthen the resilience of Allies and make them more resistant to armed attacks, hybrid threats and even health pandemics. Now, with the COVID-19 crisis, “it’s clear that more work needs to be done”, said ASG Braže. She recalled the decisions NATO Defence Ministers took last April to bolster civil preparedness, based on the lessons from the crisis, and to work even closer with international partners – countries and organisations, including the European Union and the United Nations. To ensure that our nations and populations can better resist and recover from shocks, the ASG emphasized that “we all have to work together: people, countries, and institutions. Public and private sector. Military and civilian personnel.”
ASG Braže referred specifically to countering disinformation and propaganda as one of the areas where closer cooperation is needed. “NATO works with Allies and partners to identify, expose, and counter disinformation. We are in close contact with the EU on this issue”, she said.