The first World Conference on Remedies to Racial and Ethnic Economic Inequality met in Minneapolis in 1996.
Since then, it has been hosted in Adelaide, Australia; Durban and Cape Town, South Africa; Vitória, Brazil; and Minneapolis again in 2012 for its fourth convening, bringing its questions and research about racial and ethnic economic inequality across the globe. This August, for its seventh convening, the conference returned to Minneapolis once more.
“This conference creates space for meaningful collaboration across sectors and disciplines while elevating strategies that contribute to more equitable economic outcomes," said Professor Samuel L. Myers, Jr., professor and director of the Roy Wilkins Center for Human Relations and Social Justice, who founded the conference three decades ago, at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs.
The 7th World Conference brought scholars, policymakers and community leaders to the Humphrey School, drawing participants from the Twin Cities and the United States, as well as Brazil, South Africa, Namibia, Madagascar and India. The conference opened with a performance by Minneapolis-based Indigenous performing arts group Danza Ketzal and a session on caste and gender discrimination from United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur Ashwini K.P. Keynotes followed from University of Minnesota Charles Babbage Institute Director Jeffrey Yost, who spoke on AI and racial inequality, Duke University Emeritus Professor William A. Darity Jr. on reparations, and Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and CEO and Executive Director of the UN Global Compact Sanda Ojiambo (MA '97).
A separate conversation on economic democracy in north Minneapolis brought together R.T. Rybak, former Minneapolis mayor and president of the Minneapolis Foundation, and Melvin Carter (MPP '11), former St. Paul mayor and interim senior advisor at GroundBreak Coalition. Panels and workshops explored this year's four themes: global collaboration, emerging leadership, new economic models and human rights.
Global frameworks, local truths
Sanda Ojiambo, assistant secretary-general of the United Nations and CEO and executive director of the UN Global Compact, opened the 7th World Conference's closing day with a fireside chat with Dean Nisha Botchwey on August 5. "Our work is based on the belief that there's much more that unites us than divides us," Ojiambo said.
Joining them on stage was Caleb Masi, one of eight student representatives to the University of Minnesota Board of Regents, who already has research underway at the Law School's Human Rights Center. Ojiambo's path from the Humphrey School to global leadership began with many of the same questions Masi is asking now, about law, human rights and international development.
Asked what advice she'd offer today's graduates, Ojiambo didn't hesitate: the job they'll be doing ten years from now likely doesn't exist yet. She talked about how dramatically the world of work has changed since she graduated 28 years ago, and urged students not to think in a linear way, pointing to the UN's and many other institutions' hiring shift towards some non-traditional profiles as well.
From familiar ground on the UN's work aligning global business with sustainable development, Ojiambo turned to something more personal: Minneapolis itself, and how it has become a flashpoint in national conversations about racial disparity, a reminder that the conference's global questions are also deeply local ones. As Dean Botchwey reflected that evening at the conference’s closing awards ceremony, the conversation kept returning to a more local question, captured in a line she carried into her own remarks: listen to the whispers so we do not have to hear the screams.
"Global frameworks are only as strong as our commitment to local engagement," Botchwey said. "While we look to the horizon, we must remain deeply grounded in the soil beneath our feet. Those who are proximal to the issues are the ones who hold the knowledge to solve the problems we face."
It was Ojiambo's second visit to the school in recent years; she returned to campus in 2024 to speak about corporate responsibility and sustainability.
Beyond presentations: What we set into motion
The Seventh World Conference closed at McNamara Alumni Center, where former Minneapolis Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton delivered the closing keynote.
"World Conferences demonstrate the power of information sharing to accelerate remedies, build coalitions and empower stakeholders," she said.
In her own closing remarks, Botchwey returned to Ubuntu, a Nguni Bantu concept from southern Africa that means "I am because we are." She emphasized that Ubuntu is not only about connection. It's about our responsibility to each other.
"Our well-being is bound to one another. Our freedom is incomplete if our neighbor’s freedom is constrained," Botchwey said.
"The true measure of the 7th World Conference will not be the elegance of our presentations or the warmth of these rooms," she said. "It will be the partnerships we have forged, the pathways we have clarified and the pipelines of opportunity we set into motion when we return home."
