Photo taken on Dec. 12, 2019 shows the opening session of the eighth edition of the Atlantic Dialogues in Marrakech, Morocco. The eighth edition of the Atlantic Dialogues opened on Thursday in the central Moroccan city of Marrakech and launched the annual Atlantic Currents report. (Photo by Chadi/Xinhua)
RABAT, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- The eighth edition of the Atlantic Dialogues opened on Thursday in the central Moroccan city of Marrakech and launched the annual Atlantic Currents report.
The report provides analysis on the Atlantic space's current challenges as well as their implications for the developing countries.
It also explores issues such as the World Trade Organization reform, Brexit and the future of the EU, the expansion of militancy in the Sahel and Coastal Africa, the role of cultural diplomacy and the deepening of Sino-African relations within a shifting and tumultuous global order.
Organized by the Policy Center for the New South, a Moroccan think tank, and themed "The South in the Time of Turmoil," the three-day conference was attended by 400 people from 66 countries including former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and former Senegalese Prime Minister Aminata Toure.
According to the organizers, the conference aims to deconstruct the multiple crises confronting policymakers in the developing countries and help them rethink the orientation they envision.
The conference is expected to discuss the rise of populists, nativists and nationalists as well as trade wars, resurgent protectionism, climate change denial, and a backlash against migrants.
Africa, which has to cope with a surge in its young population, is exceptionally vulnerable to the instability and great-power competition caused by these epochal shifts, said the organizers in a conference presentation.
