Former President at Berlin peace conference |11 November 2010

Mr Mancham, who is a member of the institute’s advisory board, was warmly welcomed by founder and chief executive Mark Donfried for his sustained support for its work.

The institute hosts two advisory board meetings each year, one during the annual International Symposium on Cultural Diplomacy in May and the second during the World Without Walls conference in November.

Present at this week’s board meeting were Dr Alfredo Palacio, former President of Ecuador; Ali Ahmad Jalali, former Interior Minister of Afghanistan; Ambassador Cynthia Schneider, former US ambassador to the Netherlands; Dr Gerhard Prätorius, head of the coordination and sustainability department of the Volkswagen Group; Ioannis Kasoulides, former Foreign Minister of Cyprus; and Lord Jack McConnell, former First Minister of Scotland.

Next year the ICD will host a series of conferences and events including the Berlin International Economics Conference in March; the Future of US Foreign Policy, in Washington DC in June; the International Peacebuilding Congress in Barcelona in July, under the theme Promoting peace and dtability in the Mediterranean; and the Rise of China Conference in Berlin in April.

In August there will also be the Rise of Africa Conference in Berlin under the patronage of Mr Mancham.

Mr Mancham said yesterday that young leaders continue to be the main group the ICD works with; it now has over 4,500 young leaders alumni from its bilateral and multilateral programmes.

“The primary mission of these programmes is to give young leaders from around the world a chance to interact with each other and provide them with access to partners necessary to empower them to enable change in their civil societies at home,” he said.