The central theme of the conference is "Solidarity, Peace and Social Justice". Together, these three concepts represent our aspirations for approaches to global development that address inequality, poverty and political marginalisation, also in connection with climate change and other environmental threats. Solidarity is essential for any process of social change. Based on mutually shared interests and human values, solidarity can be extremely powerful yet can also be easily undermined in an era of fake news and (electronically) manipulated elections. Peace and social justice are similarly important values in (as well as aspired outcomes of) struggles or transformation processes in which solidarity is key.