19 Oct. 2006

Conference tackles NATO and global challenges Event Audio, speeches and photos from the event Background The road to Riga NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer called for the international community to take advantage of opportunities created by NATO’s military action in Afghanistan at a NATO conference in London, 19 October. The Secretary General was speaking at the end of a major conference, which brought together decision-makers, opinion and business leaders as well as students to discuss NATO’s agenda and global security challenges. Student audiences also participated via video link from universities around the world. Call for action “Military success alone in Afghanistan will not be enough,” stressed the Secretary General, “That is why the wider international community – the UN, the EU, the G8, the World Bank and the NGOs – must now step up their game in order to exploit the window of opportunity our military action has created.” The one-day event, entitled Meeting Global Security Challenges, was the fourth annual Secretary General's conference on current security topics.  It came a little over a month before NATO Heads of State and Government meet in Riga, Latvia. As the nature of security challenges changes, it is increasingly important for NATO to reach out beyond its traditional constituencies and communicate with a wider cross-section of society, including the business community and the ‘successor generation’. The Secretary General also said that energy security is an issue that NATO member countries should discuss in the framework of the Alliance. NATO co-organised the event with the London School of Economics and Political Science and the City of London Corporation.