Geoff Mulgan, Director of the Young Foundation, spoke on Monday 17 November at the opening session of the 2008 Shantou Dialogues. He set the scene for the conference discussing the overarching theme of this year's dialogues, the Green Economy.

The Shantou Dialogues is an annual event that began in 2006. The third Shantou Dialogues take place 17-20 November opening in Beijing, then moving on to Shantou for the main business of the Dialogues. It brings together government officials, policy makers, advisors, think-tanks, and academics from around the world together with their peers in China. More information on that Shantou Dialogues is available at www.shantoudialogues.cn.

In preparation for the Shantou Dialogues, the Young Foundation prepared a background paper, "The Green Economy: background, current position and prospects", written by Geoff Mulgan and Omar Salem. The paper is available here.