Davos 2014 - The Post 2015 Goals: Inspiring a New Generation to Act

hello I'm Mike arcus and welcome to this Associated Press Davos debate can extreme poverty be eradicated in the world in the next 15 years a United Nations panel says it can be done lifting the lives of a billion people but the proposal suggest a massive reordering of business politics and lifestyles on everything from gender Equity to carbon consumption is this truly possible we will ask two of the authors of that un report and three other distinguished panelists let me introduce them they are the CEO of save the children International Jasmine whitre the prime minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron who is also co-chair of that un panel the lead singer of you and a longtime activist Bono the Finance Minister of Nigeria who was a member of the UN panel in GOI Ajo iala and the chief executive of the British insur Prudential tium tium thank you all for being with us let's get right into the very big Topic in front of of us 14 years ago the world rallied around an idea called the Millennium development goals these were specific targets for reducing poverty hunger and disease by 2015 now many people have been lifted out of poverty but a billion people or more still live on less than a125 a day so let me ask each of our panelists starting with Jasmine wit who are these extremely poor people and what do they need the world to do now for them to lift them out of poverty first of all these people are just like you and I they're moms and dads kids um they want the the best things for their children in life they want an education they want you know decent Health Care um and where their living has changed actually in those 15 years it's interesting um back in 1990 nearly the majority 93% lived in the least uh developed countries the lowincome countries now 23ds of them actually live in middle- inome countries prime minister well I think that the Vision that we set out on the high level panel I think it is achievable we shouldn't have in our world a billion people living on less than a125 a day and I think the absolute key here is to recognize the Millennium development goals were brilliant they inspired a generation they were clear they were measurable uh they got they got politicians countries NOS people inspired and we need something like that when they uh do their time and that's what the high level panel was about let's have an inspiring goal which is the aim to eradicate extreme poverty let's make sure these goals are specific and measurable and clear and also and I think absolutely vital and I say this as prime minister of a country that's fulfilled its Aid obligations this isn't just about money it's about good governance it's about the rule of law it's about tackling corruption it's about giving people access to Justice it's about property rights it's about the rights of women if we do those things because those are so many of the things that keep people and countries trapped in poverty we can achieve the goal but it's got to be specific it's got to be inspiring and it's got to be about government and Corruption as well as money oh um where are they well they're not here uh we know that um and we also have to be a bit careful and and and I have to be uh very careful um about speaking for them and and I think these new goals that we speak of will be way more successful um uh the more the more the poor are consulted because the people these goals seek to serve are often left out of the process and this is a practical thing as well as a sort of uh people pleasing thing because when uh they're signed that moment if it's big enough and the goals are good enough and famous enough you that will inspire a movement to make sure that they are carried through and that movement will largely be s of the Equator not north of the equator and that's what I'm excited about um kind of getting out of the way of the poor will be a theme for me in this discussion K well I I just want to say that I agree with Bonner but we give him some comfort that in this panel the one thing we did which was not done the first time was that we to did extensive consultations and we did it in countries you know with civil society organizations we reached out to the young who had very strong views on on what should be done uh for example their biggest thing was that whatever happens if we're going to eradicate poverty there must be total accountability by those uh you know working on this from government to to private sector and so on um and so we this this is crucial that we not arrogate to ourselves the views of those who are not around the table but that we reach out so we did do that and that was one of the parts of the of the work that we actually enjoyed the most now to me what do these people want what do the poor people in the country want want they certainly from our perspective they don't want handouts they don't want you to cater from them they just want to work they just want a livelihood they just want to be empowered to be able to take care of themselves and for me the post MDG must revolve around this issue of creating jobs decent jobs jobs that will make people give people a life livelihood and give them dignity as human beings jobs that will Empower women and enable them to take care of their children and their families that's what it's about now we need to interrogate ourselves this isn't going to come easily we have to think about how we are going to pay for it t Michael A lot has been said already and I a billion is a strange number it's a billion human beings it's a billion faces and if I wanted to use a formula I'd say they are the faces of our shame we can solve this we've got the technology we've got the means we've got the skills we can do this um so it's about how not whether because I think everybody here would agree that we must do this you know many of us come from Africa certainly my my grandfather was one of them he was a wonderful man what they want is to as Asti said is to have opportunity respect they want to be respected as human beings and um I think we can do this so we'll come back in in a little while to really some detail about how but before we do that prime minister I want to come back to you about the high level panel I hear a lot of ideas here and it seems to me that if you want an inspiring message there needs to be some focus and your panel report was a breathtaking document because it seemed to address almost every problem the world is facing right now uh climate change gender Equity income inequality governance corruption it was all in there can everything actually all be in there or do we need to leave some things out so we can get the work done well we do need to prioritize but I would argue if you want to help the bottom billion then you can't leave out things like climate change you can't leave out gender equality and crucially what we put in for the first time which I think is so exciting is we put in a whole set of goals on on governance on Justice on Democracy on rights and you know the truth is that is what keeps a lot of people trapped in poverty I mean why is North Korea poor and South career Rich it's not the weather it's not the part of the world they're living in it's not to do uh it's to with the institutions under which they live and the governments that they have running those countries so I think I would say we we we did prioritize we said eradicate extreme poverty that's the inspiring goal we're saying the world should aim for and we did something new and exciting which is to say governance corruption Justice democracy these things are vitally important in in uh helping countries to go from poverty to wealth so I I think we did prioritize I if we can get the goals from 12 to 10 to eight no one would be happier than than me My worry is the opposite My worry is that this uh we could end up with nothing if we keep on discussing it or we could end up with a weak replacement to the Millennium development goals or possibly worst of all we could end up with a sort of Christmas tree that everyone hangs everything on and it isn't it isn't very clear so I I hope that we can from this meeting and other meetings get a real campaign north and south of uh the equator a real campaign to get governments country prime ministers in the United Nations to take on as much of what I think is a very clear report as possible so I've got to come to Jasmine W red but before I do um Madame Finance Minister you are also a member of this panel are and the Prime Minister just said it would be good to focus on having fewer more focused goals the Secretary General actually went the other way and added three more goals in his in his work how do we get to the focus here first of all let me say something about the goals we came out with which are very important to me as a person and to a lot of us in the developing World they are Universal gender rights are not about just people at the bottom end of the scale you know uh corruption and governance you may have more problems in countries of the South but there are also problems in the north uh accountability is for everyone uh because even when there's corruption there's a north end of it and a south end of it so I just want to make that point that what was attractive to all of us in the panel is the universality of these goals the second thing as to the number of goals is what we were saying in this panel we were just done with uh uh the Secretary General we need to stop seeing some of these things as separate you know it's not environment uh versus development uh you know we need to they are integrated the way we feel them on the ground as a policy maker who has to deal with this issue on the ground when we have a climate event as we did in in Nigeria and Benin two years in 2012 we hadn't had one in 35 years like that a million families were affected all the livelihoods the agricultural livelihoods were wiped out the health Investments were wiped out this wasn't much publicized because we dealt with it so what I'm saying is that climate change event resulted in something that was so damaging to development so if we can see some of these goals as integrated we might not have as many and I agree with the prime Minister you know this issue of focus we fought really hard on it you know we could have had 20 goals actually we had as many and it was you know very hard and everybody in the panel was so combative and so passionate but we managed to get it down uh to I think it's 12 now yeah thank so far well just first of all I think it's important to really build on what's been achieved for the first set of goals and what we hope will be achieved by the end of 2015 it's the last 700 days and I think with a with a really redoubled push um we could we could meet about half of those goals so there have been some of them have been met you know the the the goal to reduce by a half the number of people living in extreme poverty um others you know great progress has been made but we need a big push for example you know it's half the number of children who are dying before their fifth birthday from preventable causes you know it's it's dropped by half the number of children who are out of school um in getting a basic Primary School who should be who should be in school so there's been huge progress made on those you know fairly focused set of goals for the for the first 15 years and we need a we need a push for the next 700 days I think it's really important that we build on that and that the next goal is actually to pick up on on I completely agree on the point about universality because these goals what we we talk about is zero goals rather than sort of relative rather than reducing by two-thirds the number of children who die before rather you three4 the number of women who die die in child birth from preventable causes that that should apply everywhere it should apply in every country it should apply for all of those children and mothers who are currently being left behind because it's always easier to do the first half the second half is going to be harder and that's what we're facing but with a redoubled effort we can absolutely do this to just a word maybe for the private sector here because um a lot of people talk about a demographic dividend in Africa and you you really need to think seriously and hard about the demography working age population in Africa by 2040 will be 1.1 billion that is more than China and more than India to put things in perspective so that demographic dividend will either be a dividend or a curse depending on whether we can create jobs and in sufficient quantity in that period okay we we will only get the kind of development we're talking about if we're able to create tens of millions of jobs every year and that is not going to happen by itself and only the private sector is in a position to to do that if I you know there's a big difference between the money from the private sector and prime minister with respect the money from the public sector we have $800 billion of assets credential this is money that we've been entrusted with willingly by people who have given it to us to manage the money from the government comes from people's pocket it has to take it from their pocket so it's of a very different nature in my mind from what we have and our resources are more mobile they're easier to invest we have much more freedom in doing things that you have prime minister because you have to go through Parliament you have to go through all that process but we all know so the answer is in the private sector that's where the resources are so the discussion has to be how do we Channel those resources there's more than enough money even in Africa I mean do you realize there is an excess of savings in Africa okay Africa doesn't need Capital flows from the outside there is enough Savings in Africa to fund what needs to be done what's not happening is the intermediation Turning those savings into productive investment in the economy to create jobs well let me pursue that with you a little bit so you said you had $800 billion how much of that do you have available for investment in Africa I understand you actually recently bought a company in Africa in Ghana the first actual direct when we buy we like to buy cheap so it wasn't trement we didn't spend that much money but we have um and you can think that we could have 10% of our assets $800 billion 10% of our assets ultimately invested in africa8 billion yeah if what what's we're missing is the pipeline of of project of bankable investment opportunities we want to invest so Madame Finance Minister we can give you bankable investment Davos Davos is a place for making deals here you are tell them tell them how you're going to make Nigeria the place for his Investments uh no they're there you know so tjan he just had to persuade his board I hope I'm not talking out of out of context um you know they're just waking up to the fact now that if they're not in Nigeria they're not in Africa so they are coming you know this is the largest country we do have seriously rate of return on investments in our country has been rated by onad and others as the fourth best at over 30% we have a population of 170 million people we're a lower Middle inome Country I think the opportunities are coming however that's not what excites us we are here to talk about you know post mdgs we have to admit that our growth has come with a lot of inequality that we are not creating enough jobs that it's not just good enough to grow we have to focus on the quality of that growth and if these Investments can come to help us Finance the uh investments in agriculture to help us in housing these are areas where you can make a material difference in creating jobs for poor people as well as creating a social safety net that's what will excite us and we have to really work with him on that prime minister well I just pick up on two points first of all I think that the report that GOI and I worked on is a very Pro private sector very pro-enterprise Pro bus report because we recognize that it's I would say it's the two things people want most of all is a job and a voice and we're very focused on the job side and those jobs are coming from private sector development on the the what Ang GOI says about uh the universality I think is really important this is not a set of goals being sort of handed down from rich countries to poor countries or poor people these are Universal goals and to take up the point about corruption you know we'll never tackle corruption in poor countries unless we're more transparent in rich countries and that's what the G8 work that we're doing over the last year about registers of beneficial ownership about transparency about tax transparency that is an absolutely vital part of this development agenda and that you know if anything applies more to better off countries than to less off on and that's where the rubber hits the road in Davos um because you know we all understand that there's a sort of avalanche of cynicism about us just by being here and um you know capitalism is is in the dark Davos is is you know there's a jury that you know the jury is is going to decide on US based on how we deal with these issues not in the abstract but in the concrete and it's you know it's interesting that the Prime Minister has been banging on about this and he's absolutely right um is that the the the the business Community north of the equator has to be reformed and we have a we have just an issue that's running right now um I think it's this week it went to the European Parliament there's an anti-money laundering directive which is live and the Prime Minister has been leading on it was really good The Beneficial ownership of companies is a really hot topic because the evil twins you know which is you know opacity in the extrac Industries for example and these companies where they hide their assets um this is something that this community can really look at and really solve I think you need Aid of course the Prime Minister stood by his commitments I think it is a remarkable thing that the people of Great Britain going through the worst recession since the war have actually stood by U their aid commitments I think it's a blessing to them on them and I think it'll do well for their economy but it showed real commit but but he and the the Great Britain knows that you know the real the these are the real stars of the show and and business is going to you know Commerce is going to be the thing that takes most people out of extreme poverty just got to make Commerce better make it more open more transparent that's what I would say ber can I just follow up on on one point here um extractive Industries we're in Davos there's a lot of talk here about the commitment of Industry uh to develop M has the oil and gas and other mining Industries embraced your proposals for more trans oh yeah some of the criminals uh uh around here are not wearing ski masks they're on skis and and and it is deeply disturbing that a just a simple piece of legislation which was approved led by this prime minister but also the Germans were there and French were there which was to make it legal if you're registered on European or indeed Stock Exchange in New York if you're registered on the New York Stock Exchange or a European Stock Exchange you have to publish what you pay for Mining rights sounds simple not so simple that's where corruption lives because the declared payment and the real payment are often different as and gozi can tell you and and so you would think well this is an easy piece of legislation well the American petroleum Institute have sued the SEC to stop stop it this is live this is you know this not abstract this is real so when we're walking around the mountains and I'm really enjoying it up here um just just remember that these are real and this community it capitalism can be a great creative Force but it can also be a very destructive force it is not um immoral but it is aoral we need to give it some instructions ENT Tim is our business Community represent absolutely I want to say a word here I say I I share everything buono has said but uh the the the private sector is a very broad Community uh if you take a company like like credential Prim one of the top 10 taxpayers in the UK I'm very proud of that very proud of that and also we have the top taxpayer in Indonesia you can run a good business I always say doing well by doing good what we do as high social utility it's a good purpose we ensure lives we make a lot of money doing that and we pay taxes and that's fine but the the the the point I want to make is actually we believe we make more money with without corruption than with corruption okay I was with the prime minister of indones sorry the minister of finance of Indonesia this morning our fight across our markets is against corruption okay we have a zero tolerance policy supported by the UK government and we we believe that in the end the long-term interest of a business Community is to operate without corruption and in the countries where we operate I actually believe we get better people because the locals who come to work for us no that we don't pay bribes I've got two or three countries where I've been fined I've had of issues because we will not pay a bribe but that's our St and if we have to fight them 10 years we fight them 10 years we're in the country for the long term and that's I'm also I'm a lot more optimistic I mean if you think about this issue of transparency about taxes about declaring The Beneficial ownership of companies this was you know a very very lowgrade issue for many years at Gatherings like this partly because we put it at the top of the G8 there are some real Chang over the last year you've seen many more countries sign up to the extractive industries transparency initiative you got the o CD doing amazing work on uh tax transparency and a proper way of examining whether companies are paying the tax they should in different countries you've got um I would say this Britain leading the world with a register of beneficial ownership that will be open and transparent and every G8 country agreeing to an action plan on beneficial ownership so these issues which I think are fantastically important in tackling poverty that were slightly second order issues they're now at the front of the international debate I was talking to Tony Abbott the Australian prime minister about his G 20 he's going to be pushing forward the work on transparency so I I agree with Bono this is still a lot to do but we should be optimistic that actually this is now moving in a in a pretty good direction but they'll pay for the goals the people will pay for their these goals and I like the specificity um by the way just just put that on record um but they will pay for it I think the figure is a 400 billion in domestic ruls in Africa versus the 40 billion in Aid I mean it dwarfs it it's just unlocking this is incredible wealthy continent is just it's just extraordinary in its resources it's resources of course of its people but what's in the ground is just getting what's in the ground into the hands of the people has been made Difficult by certain let's call it bureaucracies it's not just it's not just I mean it's the bureaucracies and the laws that need to be passed but also you do need action from the accountants and the lawyers um they need to act in a way that does not encourage the use of uh blind shell companies and all the rest of it I that you know because you can pass all the laws you like and make all the rules you like in the end you you need people um to act in a in in a proper way and I think that's going to be part of it too let me let me um to do a slightly Framing and come to the to to you Madame Finance Minister uh Jasmine mentioned very briefly at the beginning a fact that seems extremely important to this whole discussion uh the the worst poverty the grinding poverty this extreme poverty actually exists in very different places uh a third of it I think from the World Bank numbers is in India and almost another third of it is in countries that are you know on the precipice themselves very poor countries failed States in some cases or at least deeply troubled conflict regions doesn't that suggest there actually are two different strategies for approaching this problem um not not really um I I think that if you look at the story of what those countries that have lifted people out of poverty massively and allowed for the meeting of the Millennium development goals on poverty like China uh has done a lot if you look at what China has done what India has begun to do what Malaysia what other countries some of the East Asian countries uh what did they do we come back to the basics I think that one clear thing is that they created jobs they Diversified the economies they gave people the the Dignity of work and they lifted them out at the same time other countries we also need to look at are those who also created social safety nets we have the Latin American countries that have done well Mexico Brazil by putting in place a safety net at the bottom so that people can have some basic human needs met and also access to education by using creative means like conditional cash transfers to get children into school which is very important to get maternal health for people so a combination of these strategies across whether you're a middle-income country or a poor country you need to look at some of these strategies but I believe that the biggest thing is the Dignity of work and looking at sectors that is why extractive Industries we have to be very careful because many of these industries are very Capital intensive and they don't create jobs the issue is how does a country use the resources from the extractives to diversify investing and diversify by the other aspects of its economy that's certainly what we're doing in my country we have that experience we've had years of oil Rich resources and that has not created jobs for us we we've done marginally uh you know we've got 40 40 from 48 to 46% of people who are now in poverty we have a long way to go and we're looking at why is that apart from governance issues capacity issues did we really push in the right direction to use the resources we had to develop and diversify and that's what this uh Administration we're in now is doing so that would be my my support but just one quick point the reason why these issues on on on on beneficial ownership and transparency both in North and South matter is because they're actually going to provide resources as Bono was saying to help us solve some of these poverty problems and we're very grateful to be honest from perspective we had been shouting on these issues and they need to have these Registries the need for clarity the need uh to help the developing countries but it's only when it was lifted up to the G8 that it became prominent and we urg the G20 to do this because these are resources belonging to us that can be invested in our development but just to follow up prime minister and then I want to hear from Jasmine aren't the expectations of India different from the expectations from mly yeah I I would I would dis I disagree a little bit about saying that you it's it's all one strategy that applies to every country in this way when we come to think about how you use Aid budgets for instance I think we do need to recognize that conflict states countries affected by by Wars or famines or conflicts you know they don't have any chance of development until they solve those problems and so one of the things um Justine Greening my development secretary and I've been doing is that actually now we 30% of our budget goes to conflict States because I think that you know some of the poorest people in the world are in those States and they don't have a chance of development until you settle some of those basic problems um and also and that's why we've taken our Aid budget away from India and away from China yes there are you know lots of very poor people in India and China but India and China have the resources and ability themselves if they take the right steps to to tackle that problem so the the focus of Aid budgets I think should be increasingly on those uh the broken states where where we can make a make the big I think what I'd say is that the goals I think we're in agreement the goals are should be Universal and apply equally everywhere but in terms of how you go about achieving those goals in different countries is going to be different so the strategies is going to be different I think what we're also talking about is the financing strategy and you know it was actually I think a a board member of the world food program who was heard to say that um a strategy without a fi without financing is nothing but a hallucination and I think what we're really getting into here is is what are the different elements and in fact we need all of them for a financing strategy for these goals and we need an overarching financing strategy and then each country will have its own and each you know each each part of it is important I think we're all saying that the majority of it is going to come from these countries themselves there are going to be some countries that are going to need a boost of international Aid and I think we the international Aid is incredibly is a relatively small amount but it's incredibly important and we shouldn't take it for granted we have got an example of of of Britain that has met its commitments but too many countries are not and we can't let countries off their off the hook my My worry is that you know as we are rightly looking for other sources of of of financing that we sort of forget about the the overall mix and the aid is an important part of that and and and on companies I think we've talked a bit about sort of plugging the gaps where bad behavior in companies is is you know actually being a sort of a hole in the bucket if you like and is is taking the the resources away um but we were we we talked a little bit earlier about creating jobs and about you know the role that companies can play by using the core of their business to apply that against these goals and we're seeing that more and more I mean we as save children we've got a a great deal with Glo Smith Klein where you know they've repurposed some of their intellectual property mouthwash uh product that can now uh be used will be able to be used to save newborn lives because it will be used to treat umbilical CS where infections a big cause of children dying you know tan and I were talking earlier about you know H how how you're you're looking at taking the core purpose of your company and applying that how how can you know micro uh lending facilities and and financial services be rolled out and I think you know there are encouraging conversations and increasingly actions um with companies you know sort of putting their strategy where their mouth is um and some of those are going on here at Davos just three quick points one on investors um because we are an investor as a life company we we have 3% of London Stock Exchange I standing Bono we need to talk when when companies misbehave and go behind Congress and block your initiatives we as investors have a very active dialogue with them behind closed doors and I can guarantee you it's quite robust and we can dissuade them from doing certain things Greatful because that new that new African proverb pray that we don't discover oil um so there is that there is that the the second one and to to make the link between corruption and the mobilization of domestic savings and you've said B there's a lot of domestic Savings in in um in Africa and the arec because the main reason why we privatized the railroad was that it was actually very profitable but the employees that privatizes to their own benefits they even had a printing Factory to print fake tickets so the state would get 10% of the revenue and they had 90% of the revenue okay so anyway to get rid of that it's just a small example but it shows you how corruption comes in the way of mobilizing the domestic resources we ask money from the outside when we have domestic resources and if our tax administrations are not corrupt we can then raise those domestic resources and use them to build roads etc etc etc I have to take one minute to tell a story because really it made a strong impression on me I was invited once in the northeast of the aast to go and um I was always talking a lot about women education and School enrollment for young girls and that was the part of the country that had the lowest School enrollment rate and this guy tells me I'm going to put 5,000 girls in school um said okay great I'll come and I'll do the ceremony Etc it's fantastic and they I go there 800 km from Ab they took me for a terrible Road it took me four hours a terrible Road no Tower to to get to the village and the village Chief when I come he says look Minister we took you for that road because we want you to Tar this road you know it's a terrible Road okay fine and we sit down ceremony the singing the dancing and I tell I said my friend can you tell what do you do in AB he says I'm a cust Customs leftenant I'm a customs leftenant I said uhhuh so that's how you got the money to pay for 2,000 girls Ah that's really interesting then I told the viers ship and really they didn't like me very much but I said you know why you don't have a road because of him right okay no it was really we got into a fascinating discussion and they got it I said you know he is taking away the money at the Customs he's a corrupt custom officer that's why you don't have a road but there's an AR Army of facists out there now we call them faist but a whole new generation abut that's just right across the continent as you know the smartest the brightest the diaspora returning and they're using technology to sort of turbocharge um this transparency Revolution and they they just want open government government and Sol problem you know that's that's the really key here Davos it's not are we open for business it's just are we open and and and I think that open government we get I think there there's somebody here from from Usha ad I think it's Julia there's another uh Dan from IUS I mean these are the real stars they're the ones that are the corruption cups this this is this is we her nickname in Nigeria is the corruption C this is a hero of of uh of the continent and I'm I'm in all of her she's very brave one last point on fail States because my country exploded the aost on that issue um and I was promoting investment in v aost in the '90s and I went to Switzerland in and all those Bankers all Swiss Banker he really was not listening to me okay and so said um you know does what I said not make sense why didn't you list oh no no no um we don't invest in countries that have a border with a country in Conflict wow so young man you can say everything you you know because is great all the statistics we love it but we don't do that so the contagion between so the the two-prong strategy of helping the middle inome countries the countries that are doing well but also fixing the bad places is key we say in my country a community should never aspire to be on Oasis in the desert because generally it's the desert that wins so you need to fix both I just want to weighing a little bit on the the aid uh discussion and again commend Norway we mustn't forget that Norway for instance reached its goal a long time ago and the UK I think what is interesting about the UK is that it did at a time of extreme stress when it might have been politically expedient not to do that but what I want to say about it I totally agree with the Prime Minister that on that issue of conflict I mean when you're looking at how you deploy your resources of course uh you know you don't you take the aid where it will have the most impact in helping to settle those issues but the but beyond that you have to think about how to leverage even that Aid uh very successfully within the conflict affected countries and that's why you need very careful and strategies that can also pull in the private sector to help provide services why are these countries in Conflict yes because they may be you know uh you know cultural whatever issues uh but they also economic issues often at the bottom of these conflicts and you know you need to really get to the heart of these and use the aid to leverage solutions to these economic issues solve the absence of services the ABS of jobs in most of these economies that leding to conflict so I think how do we use Aid to leverage this private sector resources that are there I think that is the key I think it's such an important point because we actually have to do that if we've got any chance of even meeting the current goals leaving the next leave alone the next lot because actually a fifth of the world's population lives in countries affected by conflict and and and violence and and of that a half of all people in extreme poverty and a half of all of those children who are still out of school who need to get a basic education so you know we we're going to have to focus on those countries and I think you know we we need to just be a bit more nuanced we we write off it's a great example we write off whole countries when there is you know a bit of sectarian conflict in in a particular area and you know and even bordering countries are now hearing as well um and even within conflict situations we know from experience on the ground we can still get children into school we can still make some of those basic Investments That means as the piece is being brokered the next generation will be able to contribute to their country let me quickly try to touch on a couple of other issues the the global economy of course doesn't just sit there waiting for all these good things to be done uh and uh the Argentine peso took a stomach churning plunge yesterday which perhaps was a little bit of a reminder and the um the analysts explained it in a great phrase a negative Emerging Market sentiment which was a lot bigger than just Argentina so there still seems to be a fair amount of resistance among the uh people with the capital to uh emerging markets and Argentina is not exactly a poor country either prime minister what's how do we factor that kind of volatility into the next 15 years well I think one of the things we got to do is talk more confidently about Africa's future right now some of the fastest growing countries anywhere in the world are in Africa and we need to get the business and economic Focus onto the excitement that is the Africa uh development story and going to in Go's point that um some of the things we ought to be using our aid for are helping the drive those engines of development I mean for instance a lot of African infrastructure was built to take things out of Africa rather than trade between African countries and so you know there's a huge role for private sector capital and some public sector Capital to fix that infrastructure problem if you look how long it takes to drive a lorry between different African countries transporting goods uh there's far too much time at the border far too much paperwork you know there's there's investment being made by Britain and other countries into trying to help create more free trade within Africa now those sorts of things I think then can open uh the world's investment Community into the the the eyes of the world's investment Community the excitement of this story but there is a sort of Truth in this though which I suppose the Argentine uh Story Goes to which is that you know people don't have to invest in a particular country and that's why these issues of governance corruption uh trans transparency are so important because it's those countries that do those things that will find uh find success let me touch on a couple of other issues gender Equity um your high level panel and everyone else agrees that giving women and CH and and girls a stronger position in society leads to economic growth and development and yet in your country of Nigeria and many other African countries uh women and girls are still far behind the men there are still issues of tribal custom um genital cut in education levels even in countries with women leaders Heroes as Bano said these problems remain a huge element of the society how can the rest of the world make progress when you're still struggling even in your own countries on these issues well let me say that gender equality is not something limited to developing countries even here in Davos there's a problem of gender equality yeah you know they've done a survey only 15% of the participants are women you know companies are the world there's a gender problem that's why it's a universal goal but the issue for us is yes we have that particularly in the north of my country what I say is it may be elsewhere but because we are poorer we can least afford it and that is why we have to take the bll by the hor and because we are not as Rich we have to pay attention to that issue of girls literacy because if you educate girls you've solved half the problems getting women you know empowerment and you know we have in my country you find maybe in the South a lot of women entrepreneurs even in the north but they are issues that we have to deal with girls out of school so what have we done we've started we've just piloted with the help of dfid a very successful program on conditional cash transfers to get girls into school we piloted in Cano state to see if it will work attendance is up by 40% so now that we've seen that it's it works um we are going to spread it around the country maternal mortality these are the things that keep women back we have one of the worst numbers in the in the world and it's not acceptable to us that women should die in child birth it's not acceptable as a finance minister it's not acceptable to my president who comes from a poor family his mother had nine children and only two of them survived so he's very passionate so the issue is to get going so we launch he launched a program himself called saving 1 million lives where we took the money from the subsidies you know we had this 12 subsidies that we withdrew and it cost a lot of worldwide I mean uh demonstrations but he's stuck with it we've taken that money and we're investing it in maternal mortality you know training midwives the Commonwealth just gave our midwe free program an award last year you know because we've trained so many midwives and health workers to try and help us solve this problem we are now in eight states in the country we're going to spread it in 2014 so these are the kinds of things you're absolutely right we must work on that and we we are determined to do it no one will do it for us just to to to build on that at the end of the day it's about women's education half of the decrease in child deaths in Africa in the last 10 years is attributable to women's education not to building hospitals or investing in in hard infrastructure it's for soft skills it's knowing what to do it's knowing to give water to the baby with a diarrhea it's things like that that make a difference and if you look also at um um fertility an uneducated woman in the countryside will have 8.2 children an educated woman in the city has 2.1 so a lot of the noise about cultural specificity Etc disappears with education what you realize is that women across cultures behave the same way have the same aspirations which to have children who survive look after them properly so at the heart again about education education and continuing to invest in that so let me let me turn to the Future let's let's talk about how we're going to go forward Bill Gates was on a panel here at Davos just earlier today um and he said that the Millennium development goals even though the world was going to fall short on some of them had been a huge success they really had changed the conversation about poverty uh and that the straightforward thing to do was just update them and move on why not prime minister well I think that they were great but they missed some things out and in particular I don't want to sound like a broken record but they missed out the issues of governance and Corruption and you know if you look at our goals you know if you look at goal number 10 free and Universal legal identity like birth registration ensure people enjoy freedom of speech Association peaceful protests access to Independent Media and information increase public participation in political process and Civic engagement guarantee the Public's right to information and access to government data reduce bribery and Corruption and ensure officials can be held accountable none of that is covered by the mdgs all of that is in our report so I think we've taken the best of the mdgs put them into this new framework and I think the key now is to make sure that these don't get dropped I mean just on the last conversation we're having you know on gender equality which is our goal number two it's in there you know to end child and forced marriage and I think that would be a great thing to a goal to set for the world and that applies to uh you know countries like mine which have still got girls disappearing from school and suddenly you find they've been forced into a marriage against their their will on the other side of the world and it's going to be a test I think for the Nos and for the UN and for the International Community are we going to keep the specific that are in here because I think it would be a real tragedy if we were to lose them there a specificity that I I'm attracted to that you just read out in the you know I we our manager uh Paul mcginness used to always say to me oh what's this b rock against bad things and and he you know I've just have it sort of drilled into me since I was a teenager be specific take on you know things that you can achieve and for those of us in in if you like part of the movement we have to be very careful that we don't like the grand old Juke of York you know just lead everybody up theal you know down again it's like we have to we have to we have to this has to be real and we have to have the ownership of it as I say because with the ownership of it you'll have this movement that will develop around it that will ensure it's actually um that it is enacted that's what I'm really most excited by this specificity I it's strange because you know I'm the singer here I'm the sort of you know I write lyrics but I go off poetry when it comes to these these kinds of agreements I like I like hard logic lines let me ask one poetic question then we'll come to Jasmine whitre what should we call these oh there a shite name sustainable development goals doesn't I mean it's already the Millennium development goals was a shite name sustainable development goals is another shite sounds like a transmittable disease I it does it sounds like a bad heavy metal band from um but it's like and that's that that is part of the problem in people owning them is is this I don't a better name but I I'll tell you I have a picture in my mind of kids born in 2000 when the first Millennium D was launch they'll be 15 and now is the first ones and they'll be 30 and they're the Millennials and they that I'm just a picture of them I wonder what what would happen if we asked them what it called how about a global contest to name the goals yeah I mean I I think it could be fun as well to uh to involve more more conversation the high level panel really did a job of con con consultation but if you walk down any Street in any City in any country and you mention the Millennium development goals or they will just look at you and you know in my band people and they're really supportive of red and one but they're just you can see the eyes rolling so we want ownership by the larger population jine well I just think again it it's not either all we've got to be addressing this at many different levels we've got to have a great name and a great campaign and engage and that's one thing that has got to be different um you know so for Bill Gates you know the G the goals were perfect as they were for you know the kind of driving for results that he was looking for but in terms of and he had the resources you know to be able to focus on some things that he wanted to but in terms of of building much wider constituency we do need to to build on not throw out the last set of goals definitely keep that but build build on them so we do need an overarching kind of marketing campaign a great name then I think we need a a limited number of goals I'm in the Camp of of of having a limited number of goals focused on people it's about people not process and I think that's what's going to be uh inspiring and then yes we do need some enabling goals sort of a second order but equally important but probably not what you go out there communicating around in order to make sure that all children get an education and children don't die and people don't go hungry then there's some enabling goals that people need to be held accountable for because I think that's what we're going for accountability and then we need strategies you know it we need we need plans and if we're honest the last set of goals we kind of made those we you know the countes what the strategies for taking them forward were kind of made up as as we went along and in some cases they were good in some cases they were not so good that if you ask everyone uh uh the ones that you know we consult in in the development they do that corruption is right off the top of their list so it is a I think that is a very specific that would be responding I think that's important when in the work we we did in terms of Consulting people I mean it was obviously jobs and livelihoods and poverty but corruption and Justice came through over and over again and I think if you you take Bono's picture of these kids age 30 um that would be something the right to a voice as well as a job is can I jump in there and say what was fascinating to me in this issue of corruption governance is that they wanted to be involved in holding uh government's accountabil accountability um for this and they wanted to be part of it so what we need to figure out also in these strategies is how can we they want to use new technology as Bono said they want to use various means to be part of what monitoring unlike what we had in the past when we had institutions such as the one I was in the World Bank you know we used to do the monitoring report to see where we are people don't seem to want only that anymore they want to be be part of that monitoring so we also have to think about it if these goals are going to be owned this big thing that the prime minister is talking about of uh when we listen to people of accountability how will we get them involved in monitoring and we haven't quite I mean but they're already doing it aren't they we just helped them by by kind of getting out of their way and making the business open and government so it's a pain in the ass as a finance minister when you've got you know you publish with your books and you have you know rent a crank on the phone going I wouldn't have done that I mean in Ireland we I'm very by the way proud of the Irish Aid um sticking by it too but you know in Ireland it's murder you know we everyone in the pub is is our t- but we must have responsible Civil Society organizations also monitoring in countries and you know indigenous we don't want non-governmental individuals ngis we want true Nos and csos who will also take responsibility and be themselves open transparent and accountable themselves themselves I'd like to be optimistic here really because um if you look at the average age in the EU is 41.5 years old in in Southeast Asia it's 27 in Africa it's 18.6 so 19 so the young African we're all we're all kind of old I'm B on this they're way ahead of us okay in terms of Education in terms of what they want and their demand for accountability I think I think I think is huge so I I think we should focus I'll go like the private sector if I take our company we had we had six targets from 09 to 13 uh and then I launch a new program in December with a targets from 13 to 17 and there only three so it of course credential has more than three objectives but this is a communication exercise so you need a catchy name you need a small number of very clear simple to communicate objectives and then you can have a whole battery of things you want to achieve below but and if I if I me just through in one more thing I would say something on education I'd go with absolute numbers also because the thing with reducing the poverty by half is that the people in extreme poverty have increased in Africa from 200 to 400 million so we're saying we achieved the goal and we've doubled the number of people in extreme property so let's go with absolute numbers so Dare I ask the Prime Minister how do we get a simple clear message and a limited number of goals through a United Nations process well I think first of all we need the Nos and the campaigners I Bono to to to give us the campaign you know the dropped the debt campaign was a great campaign it's quite a debt relief a very complicated thing a lot of different things that have to be done but there was one headline that make poverty history campaign was have lots of complicated things but so we need that campaign from the NOS from people from Charities exactly right fantastic that would be great eventually make it history because so we need that to happen we need the UN to go through its processes but I think it needs to feel I hope a lot of pressure from people and from governments and prime ministers Civil Society organizations to say don't drop the good stuff that's here the specifics that are really important and the ones that are new particularly on the governance and Corruption side don't drop that uh don't don't give into pressure from some countries that won't like it uh try and stick with that and above all keep the inspiring overall goal of eradicating extreme poverty so I would look we authored this report and we're very proud of it so we want the end result to be as close to it as possible uh and we hope that if they do move away from it then they'll they'll give some pretty good reasons because uh think we had a good crack at it Jasmine woodprint well I just wanted to endorse the fact that um just because I said there should be people focused goals and I still think there are I I I absolutely hear exactly the same thing you know Sav children works with 40 45 million children every year and the younger CH you know the young people within that bracket that we talked to as part of our consult they were saying exactly not surprisingly they're probably the same children um they were saying exactly the same thing they want accountability they want a mechanism for holding those who put you know held up their hands whether it's business businesses or their own governments or you know foreign governments they want to be able to hold people to account and I think technology can help but they also told us that they want um they want to be able to contribute so you know this is not being done for them it's being done with them and they want ways to be able to contribute and and I kind of hear what you're saying Bono about just get out of their way but that's what I mean by get out of the way but I I think we you know I think there's more that could be done and I know that there are some Southern civil Society you know civicus and others are looking about you know could there be a big Global dashboard where you know young people all around the world can kind of post there you know I went to the clinic and for my for my sister and you know they weren't able to help because I would you know wasn't able to pay or or you know um they've just introduced you know Nigeria's Got the health Bill through um and and now I am actually able to get the health services that I need so some way of amalgamating and and I think that you know I just kind of brain power in this room I just meant the obstacles and they're sometimes not obvious and you know we're so proud of dropped the debt it's like $110 billion dollar cancelled and the the you know U and GOI dropped her own debt paid for it in Nigerian budget with the oil um um benefits there but and was mostly invested in education by smart African leaders but you know the thing about uh um this is this this this is this is broader this is not aid-based and I think of Mo Ibraham coming up to me and saying you know this this transparency stuff is way more important than debt cancellation because this empowers us these are the obstacles that you collude with that are in our way and and you ask what it is and it's and it's and it's business and that's why we're here in Davos we have just three minutes left let me just ask each of you uh this final question where do we need to be a year from now as we come back to Davos and we head into the final stage of this new process that we don't have a name for yet uh what do we need to be do and very briefly Jasmine so we need to have picked up the pace on the current the current goals um we need all everybody in the room here everybody watching to to you think about how they can help contribute and um we we need to have made a lot more progress in the next two in the next year to get us much more closely On Target these goals because nothing breeds success like success and where we've had big breakthroughs that will mean and that's what gives I think the confidence for us to say that we should be going for zero uh absolute poverty and we should be you know really going for these Universal goals Prim Minister I agree with we should use the time to to complete as many of the mdgs as we can but what we need between now and next year we need uh Bono and the creative people to come up with the name in The Campaign but what we need the UN to do is to agree a set of goals I think close to what we had that are specific that are measur able that are inspiring and that apply to everyone I want to go back to what en GOI said it's that was one of the big conclusions we came to you can't have a set of goals handed from rich countries to poor ones this is for everybody because the corruption Justice and transparency stuff a lot of that is for us to do um so this is they've got to be they got to be Global I'm going to skip over Bano and come back to you at the end akano iala I think a year from now uh we must have a clear set of goals uh agreed by the UN that marage issues of development with issues of climate change um eradication of poverty we want to see them we want the specificity we want I want to Echo what prime minister Cameron said we want these very specific I uh suggestions and results put into these goals so that's what I'm aiming for and a year from now um we we hope to see that and the strategies underpinning it I think it's not countries who changes for people people in the countries everybody's marveling at the way Africa has changed it's not Africa that has changed it's Africans who have changed okay the sky is the same the land is the same rain is the same people behaviors that change so that's what we want we want them to own as buo I said many times those goals whatever they are to feel a sense of ownership which will give us confidence in a private sector but this is really driven by people in country they are the only ones who can change their country and I can go in there and do things confident that this will stay so we want a small number goals endorsed by the UN with the support of the British government all the other governments so that we can get on with it and um and reduce poverty in those countries Bano the Prime Minister gave you an assignment as I understand it we have a year do you want to give us a first draft of the inspiring message look extra that would be good uh extraordinary things happen in Davos um none more extraordinary than an Irish Rockstar um complimenting a conservative British prime min Minister for his leadership in the fight against extreme poverty anything can happen first album so thanks dude and and I'm a Topline Melody guy and uh I'll try and and help um with this assignment but I have a feeling um it's people not in this room are going to execute it and uh what I'll say as for in a year's time it'll be 30 years from live a and something will happen in honor of that and I hope that myself and Bob gal are nothing to do with the organization of just guests thank you amen well that does uh wrap up in an excellent way our AP Davos debate I want to thank our panelist and our audience uh you've clearly laid out a job of work for the uh for the whole world uh big task ahead both for the next year and coming up with the course of action and then executing over the 15 years after I'm Mike arcus and this is been the AP Davos debate thank you

Channel: World Economic Forum

Views: 13,553

Keywords: WEF, Davos, Davos 2014, Annual Meeting, World Economic Forum

Id: UkcgQPWSg7M

Length: 60min 0sec (3600 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 24 2014