Can the SCO take root locally and culturally?

In Beijing this month, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) put a human face on regional cooperation. Launched on August 14, the Kind-Hearted Journey project aims to provide free medical treatment to 500 children with congenital heart disease from SCO member states over the next five years. Mobile medical units will also travel to remote areas to screen and treat patients. For an organization better known for summits and trade, it poses a simple question: how does cooperation reach those far from the negotiating table?

The mobile medical units show what this can mean in practice. To reach people far from political centers, cooperation has to travel too. Much of that work happens at the regional and municipal level, where international ties can become part of everyday life. In May, the fifth Forum of Heads of Regions and Sister Cities of SCO Member States brought local leaders together in Cholpon-Ata, Kyrgyzstan, to strengthen inter-regional and inter-municipal cooperation. The forum gives cities and regions more room to build connections of their own. But a city-to-city relationship cannot live on agreements alone – it needs places and occasions for people to encounter one another.

That is where cultural exchange comes in. At the SCO Countries Civilizations Dialogue held in Bishkek in July, more than 200 cultural figures, media professionals and academics from member states gathered around exhibitions, performances and discussions. A digital exhibition on the origins of Chinese civilization stood alongside a stage performance inspired by the Kyrgyz epic Manas, while an art exhibition presented works from across the SCO. These encounters give institutional partnerships a human dimension: people encounter not simply another country, but its stories, symbols and ways of seeing the world.

Film, too, is one of the most direct forms of cultural exchange. At the SCO Film Festival in Chongqing last year, audiences watched 48 films from member states, while filmmakers and industry professionals met to exchange ideas and explore cooperation. The festival was followed by the SCO Television Festival in Xi'an, where around 300 representatives from 19 countries gathered, including broadcasters, producers, scholars and young journalists. These events matter for a reason that goes beyond the number of films screened or delegates assembled. A film allows one society to present itself through its own stories and images, rather than through the descriptions of another.

For the SCO, this may be one of the most important forms of multilateralism: not simply bringing governments together, but creating more ways for their people to encounter one another. Its strength lies in giving these connections a framework – between regions, cities, peoples – while allowing them to grow through actual contact. Political agreements may define an organization, but it is these everyday connections that give it roots.