On October 1, 2026 the annual Global Forum from the Global Democracy Coalition (GDC) took place during the Athens Democracy Forum (ADF). It was one day where the member organisations from the GDC discussed latest topics, developed insights, and worked out concrete concepts to better understand the state of democracy and promote its development globally.
The venue location – the Athens Conservatoire – was packed with a plural, most international, and highly experienced people, all of them ambitious and eager to stand up for democracy. The event, even to my very high demands in terms of event organisation, was excellent prepared, very well orchestrated, and highly interactive, creative, and productive.
While Pita Limjaroenrat was delivering an impressive and inspiring opening speech1 – during which he introduced the G2 and M7 concept of global power concentration and reminded us that the current economic model even allows violence to be profitable – the day was organised around four core topics, with at its heart the question of an improved relationship between trust and democracy:
- Trust and Participation
- Trust and Algocracy
- Trust and Delivery
- Trust and Resilience
While I was part of the Trust and Participation group, we explored several ways to build trust through participation. This is exactly what we aim for with our first official global direct democratic vote on ‘climate action’ with potentially 5.5 billion people easily participating2.
Suddenly, our global referendum on ‘climate action’ found itself in the context of several other movements – such as Black Lives Matter, MeToo, Fridays for Future, the current protests in Serbia or India, et al. That was the moment when I realised our initiative has successfully arrived within the epicentre of democracy.
While the ongoing discussion was mainly focused on national politics, the demand to discuss all of these topics from a (radically) different perspective – from the global perspective – was difficult for some to grasp, yet striking.
After my experience from the GDC Global Forum 2026 it is clear to me:
- We are building most important bridges and connections between global and regional democracy, between international and national organisations and institutions.
- There is still intensive work ahead of us to actually see a healthy and thus sustainable society based on global democracy – one institutionalised within an new United Nations (UN), grounded in our concept of a Global Democratic Republic3.
- The (high) demand and the (fantastic) potential for such a development were unquestioned in all the bilateral talks I had during the forum. Some of the talks were even enthusiastically in favour of our concept and development approach.
further readings
- cf. my corresponding post here: https://lnkd.in/p/dpZKCTz9 ↩︎
- cf. “A first official global direct democratic vote on ‘climate action’ with 5.5 billion people now!” ↩︎
- cf. “Let us make historic change and develop a healthy and thus sustainable society based on global democracy” ↩︎
picture shows photo from three Caryatids from the Erechtheion at the Acropolis of Athens, Greece;
(c) 2026 Karl Baumann – shot with Samsung NX 20 and Samsung 50-200 OIS telephoto lens.
