Driving transformation forward

This chapter brings attention to the role of international academia in two special dimensions. The first dimension is to project its independent role of initiating collaboration with the citizens of a concerned area through local CSOs, as well as work with international and local media to amplify the actual ground realities of individuals and their communities. Under the second dimension, the focus has dual targets: the promotion of the awareness of universal values and international legal instruments to individuals on the one hand, and the application of academia’s soft diplomacy towards any preventive measures to reduce knowledge poverty, freedom poverty, income poverty and promotive measures to guarantee human security on the other. The chapter assesses the contents, approaches, similarities and differences of each contribution through the applied lens of academic diplomacy - four principal focuses - for grasping salient features in comparison, and lessons for further application in the next volume.