Being here today brings back some memories. Almost ten years ago, I had the opportunity to become part of this journey at the very first SIRONET conference. I was much younger then and, if my memory serves me correctly, much more handsome too. Some things change with time. But one question we were discussing even then has stayed with me: How do we connect people? 

 

I had the privilege of speaking at the First SIRONET Forum about building this network, and of moderating a discussion on people-to-people connectivity. So, a decade later, I think I have earned the right to ask: Did it work? Looking at SIRONET today, I think the answer is clearly yes. SIRONET has grown to 394 NGOs from 77 countries, and together its members have carried out nearly 500 livelihood projects. Those numbers are impressive. But what impresses me more is what sits behind those numbers. SIRONET members have supported schools and scholarships, provided meals for children, supported eye examinations and cataract surgeries, and organised volunteer programmes in education, disability support and skills training. 

 

Because international cooperation is very good at producing meetings. We produce conferences. We produce speeches. We produce declarations. And, let's be honest, we are exceptionally good at producing group photographs. But eventually, somebody has to go home and actually do something. And that is where SIRONET has been different. A school built, a child educated, a person able to see again, these things may not always make international headlines. But to that person, that is what international cooperation actually means. And there is something about my own journey with SIRONET that I think is worth mentioning. 

 

I come from the Maldives, a small island country with a population of less than half a million people. When you are sitting at a table with organisations and representatives from countries of hundreds of millions or even more than a billion people, it would be very easy for someone from a country like mine to become just another name at the bottom of the list. But that was never my experience with SIRONET. 

 

Almost a decade ago, as a much younger representative from this tiny country, I was given the opportunity to speak, to moderate discussions and to contribute ideas while this network was still taking shape. And almost ten years later, and I have always been part of this ten year journey and today once again I am here to speak and contribute to the discussion That, to me, is what inclusiveness actually looks like. 

 

We hear words like openness, inclusiveness and equality at almost every international gathering. They are beautiful words. They are also very easy words to put into a declaration. But inclusion is not what you write in a document. Inclusion is who you give a seat at the table and whether you listen when they speak. So when SIRONET says it believes in openness, inclusiveness and equality, I don't have to judge those words from a document. 

 

For almost ten years, I have experienced them. SIRONET has given the tiny Maldives equal opportunities which any other much larger nation gets. And I hope that remains at the heart of SIRONET as this network grows. 

 

When people hear Belt and Road, naturally we think about infrastructure. Roads. Ports. Airports. Bridges. In the Maldives, we have a very visible example in the China–Maldives Friendship Bridge. It changed the physical connection between our islands. But I believe the next chapter of Belt and Road cooperation has to go beyond connecting places. We have to connect people. Because a bridge can connect two pieces of land without necessarily connecting two societies. 

 

President Xi Jinping once said: “Friendship, which derives from close contact between the people, holds the key to sound state-to-state relations.” I think that sentence explains very well why SIRONET matters. Governments can sign agreements. Governments can build airports, roads and bridges. But governments cannot order two people to understand each other. People have to do that themselves. And NGOs have a special ability to make that happen because we work much closer to ordinary communities. 

 

So where does SIRONET go from here? I think the simple answer is: there is still so much more we can do. We can create stronger connections between our members, more opportunities for young people, more cultural and educational exchanges, and more practical projects that improve people's lives. And they don't always have to be big projects with big budgets. Sometimes small projects create the strongest and longest-lasting human connections. 

 

We have built the network. Now we need to make every connection within it count. And for small countries like the Maldives, that opportunity is especially valuable. We may be small, but small does not mean we have nothing to contribute. We have our own knowledge and experiences to share, just as we have much to learn from others. That, to me, is the real potential of SIRONET. 

 

Almost ten years ago, when I became part of this journey, SIRONET was still largely an idea. Today it is 394 organisations from 77 countries and hundreds of projects. So perhaps we no longer need to ask whether this network can work. We already know it can. The question for the next decade is: How much further can we take it? 

 

Let us turn 394 members into 394 possible partners. Let us put young people at the centre of those connections. Let us continue giving small countries and small organisations a seat at the table. And let us remember that the Belt and Road is ultimately not only about roads. A road matters because of the people who travel on it. A bridge matters because of the people it brings together. And a network matters because of the relationships it creates. 

 

I would like to end with two lines written more than a thousand years ago by the Tang Dynasty poet Wang Bo: 海内存知己，天涯若比邻. “If we have true friends within the four seas, even at the ends of the earth, we are as close as neighbours.” More than a thousand years later, I think those words describe exactly what we are trying to build here. 

 

We come from different countries, different cultures and different parts of the world. But distance matters much less when people know each other, understand each other and work together. Perhaps that is ultimately what SIRONET should achieve: Not simply 394 organisations in 77 countries, but friends and partners who no longer feel so far apart.

 

海内存知己，天涯若比邻。