Saudi Arabia’s UN Ambassador Abdallah Al-Mouallimi

:: Saudi Arabia’s UN Ambassador Abdallah Al-Mouallimi addressed a symposium at the UN’s New York headquarters on Thursday.

The symposium was organized by the King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID), as part of the UN’s celebration of World Interfaith Harmony Week.

Al-Mouallimi expressed the Kingdom’s focus on supporting youth, and of protecting young people from exposure to extremism in any form. He noted how Vision 2030 is geared toward establishing an ambitious country based on its youth, which currently makes up 70 percent of Saudi’s population.

As one of the founder members of the UN, the Kingdom has made concerted efforts to achieve global peace and security, and to enhance understanding and harmony between different religions and cultures, Al-Mouallimi stressed.

The Saudi envoy explained that the remarkable technological development that marks the current era has greatly contributed to cultural exchange and enrichment. “We have become more interactive, with social media creating new global communities,” he said, adding that almost 60 percent of the Kingdom’s population use social media platforms.

Those platforms, he said, enable the exchange of ideas and enhance users’ knowledge of different countries and cultures — something that will help foster acceptance and, Al-Mouallimi claimed, “bolster the spirit of sustainable development.”

He pointed out that Saudi Arabia has launched a series of initiatives and programs aimed at young people to enrich their knowledge, foster dialogue and refute extremist ideology.