The two-day Margalla Dialogue 2026 opens in Islamabad today, Tuesday 10 November, bringing policymakers, diplomats, scholars and international experts to the federal capital for two days of discussion on a shifting global order.

The dialogue is organised annually by the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI) and runs on 10 and 11 November at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad. It will be inaugurated by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Senator Ishaq Dar.

Dar stayed back in Islamabad to open the dialogue instead of accompanying Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who departs today for Türkiye to attend the COP31 climate conference in Antalya. That summit starts on Wednesday and will be inaugurated by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with Foreign Secretary Asim Iftikhar Ahmad expected to accompany the prime minister.

The theme: a global order in transition

The theme for this year's dialogue is "Global Order in Transition — Navigating Strategic Uncertainty", covering shifting global power dynamics, evolving alliances and major power competition.

Sessions will look at the changing dynamics of global power and their implications for international peace and security. Another strand will examine global security, algorithmic war, artificial intelligence redefining influence, sovereign AI, data regulations and technology risks.

The programme will also cover regional geopolitics, national resilience, international law and economic security, including trade and tariff wars.

This is the seventh edition of the dialogue. The opening day’s programme features an inaugural session addressed by Dar, followed by a keynote address by Professor John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago. The first major forum, titled “Geopolitics and the Realignment of Global Power”, brings together speakers including Professor Vali Reza Nasr of Johns Hopkins University, Dr Victor Zhikai Gao of the Centre for China and Globalisation, and Ambassador Robin Raphel of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. A separate forum on “Pakistan’s Economic Bottlenecks: Diagnosis and Prescription” will hear a keynote address from Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb.

A busy week of forums in Islamabad

The Margalla Dialogue is the first of two significant gatherings in the capital this week. The Pakistan Minerals Investment Forum opens on Thursday, 12 November, at the Jinnah Convention Centre, with Dar set to inaugurate it and the prime minister chairing its concluding session on Friday, 13 November.

That forum is billed as a showcase of Pakistan's mineral landscape and mining technology, covering exploration and projects such as Reko Diq. Energy Minister Ali Pervaiz Malik, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb, Ivanhoe Mines founder Robert Friedland, Barrick Mining chairman John L. Thornton and Asian Development Bank representative Isabel Chatterton are among the speakers named for it.

For the Margalla Dialogue, the focus stays on strategy and diplomacy: how states navigate a world in which established alliances are shifting, technology is reshaping security, and economic competition is increasingly fought through trade measures. The discussions over the next two days will set out where Pakistani and international participants see the risks — and the openings for cooperation — in that changing order.