Israel’s Minister of Intelligence Elazar Stern called for increased cooperation, including the creation of a Horizon Scanning network, across the region as the Ministry of Intelligence opened its exhibition on Wednesday at the Dubai Expo.
“We would like to suggest the building of national Horizon Scanning mechanisms, like the ones that already exist in several countries in the world, and connect them to each other to form a regional Horizon Scanning network,” said Stern, introducing the new intelligence exhibition at the Israeli pavilion in the Expo. “Building a regional network will make Horizon Scanning more effective, widen cooperation and improve relations between participating countries. This is our aim.”
Israel’s Intelligence Ministry is at the forefront of identifying emerging global trends—from technologies, and value and supply chains, to pandemics, medicine, climate change, and water and food security—to provide for a strategic early-warning system, buying time for decision-making and preparation.
A delegation from the ministry explained what Israel is doing in the field of Horizon Scanning, and how it can assist the UAE and potentially other nations in the region to prepare for unexpected future events.
“I would like to discuss with my colleagues and counterparts how together we can face the future—to safeguard the future of our world in general and our region in particular,” said Stern. “Many of these threats know no boundaries and don’t care about a person or a community’s nationality, religion, ethnicity or gender. The coronavirus pandemic shows us that such threats can be sometimes more dangerous and costly in lives and in socio-economic terms than conventional military threats.”
“In addition, the climate crisis is already demonstrating that an action in one part of the world can have a devastating reaction on the other side of the planet,” he noted. “These crises, which are devastating the way we live, work and interact, are demanding regional and global approaches.”
