DUSHANBE, 22.05.2023 (NIAT Khovar) – The 18th meeting of the SCO Forum started in Dushanbe today. The event is chaired by the Centre for Strategic Studies under the President of the Republic of Tajikistan. 

The heads of and delegations from national research centres of the SCO member states, experts from analytical institutions of SCO observer states and dialogue partners, and representatives of the SCO Secretariat were attended at the 18th meeting of the SCO Forum. SCO Secretary General addressed the session via videoconference.

The forum participants also include Assistant to the President of the Republic of Tajikistan for Foreign policy issues Azamsho Sharifi, former Secretary General of the SCO Rashid Olimov, Acting National Coordinator of the Republic of Tajikistan for SCO Affairs Ahmad Saidmuradzoda.

The participants will exchange views at length on the following agenda in two day forum:

The SCO in the new global realities: the SCO Family’s current state and potential, and prospects for the SCO’s development;

-The SCO’s strategic guidelines in a multipolar world environment;

-The SCO security policy against the background of the changing forms, character, geography and scale of conventional and unconventional challenges and threats;

-Information and network challenges: gauging the threats, national counteraction practices and experience-sharing mechanisms within the SCO;

-New trends in interaction between SCO states in the face of an oncoming new international order: prospects for inclusive economic, innovation and technological development;

-Migration processes in the SCO responsibility zone: the state of regulation, its main vectors, and problems;  

-Humanitarian cooperation within the SCO: achievements, place, and role of science, education, and culture in efforts to intensify the integration processes;

-Prospects for and achievements of economic unity within the SCO: an interbank union, a unified financial system, a common transport network, and a single freight monitoring system; -Organising new areas for cooperation within the SCO: green economy, green energy, environmental protection, and measures to prevent climate change.