Preparation > Invitation process > Dialogue with Participants

The Assembly was not a classic international conference. It lasted eight days and participants were asked to commit to its full duration. It was part of the overall Alliance process, which most participants were not familiar with previous to their invitation to attend.

To overcome all these challenges, aggravated by the multiple-language problem, considerable effort was put into providing future participants with all the information they needed in three different languages. Above all, each future participant had a reference person within the organizing team, with whom he or she was able to develop a personal contact. This dialogue would have been impossible without the progressive extension of the Internet and access to our Web site as an interactive information medium. A complex data base was designed to manage relations with participants. This dialogue generated great interest, which in turn made it possible to have, at the Assembly, excellent participants prepared to engage in an open dialogue with others.