An initial public presentation of the Conceptualising Global Democracy project took place at Cairo University on 9 December 2009 at 18.00-20.00. A panel of CGD authors addressed the question: "Can There Be Global Democracy?"

The principal speakers included Heba Raouf Ezzat (Cairo University), Sitiveni Halapua (East-West Center, Honolulu), Patricia Mohammed (University of the West Indies, Trinidad), and Moema de Miranda (Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analysis, Rio de Janeiro).

Heba introduced the Egyptian audience to the CGD project and BGD programme. Sitiveni laid out Melanisian practices of talanoa as a possible frame of intercultural listening and learning for the construction of global democracy. Pat highlighted the opportunities that building global democracy provided for resistance to colonisation and the forging of new identities. Moema urged that global democracy required resistance to capitalist domination with new perspectives and new solidarities.

The audience of around 50 academics, activists, officials and students from Cairo were much taken with the unique opportunity to engage simultaneously with thinkers from the Caribbean, Latin America and the Pacific, as well as other CGD project participants from China, India, Venezuela, the UK and the USA. The discussion returned repeatedly to the promises and challenges of developing solidarities for global democracy between the Arab region and other parts of the global south. Other topics raised included the place of faith in global democracy and the role of education in building connections among a would-be global citizenry.