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Lord Malloch-Brown, Senior Adviser, Global Redesign Initiative, World Economic
Forum:
Good afternoon, everybody. I think we will start as we have one hour to redesign the
world, so every minute counts. Let me just welcome you all, and as you all know the theme
of the Forum this year is 'rethink, redesign, rebuild.' Well, at the centre of that is the
idea of this afternoon's session – just why is it so many of us feel that we
have such a crisis of national decision-making structures which are no longer fit for the
job, fit for purpose? Why is it that so many of us are talking about the need for strengthened
global cooperation arrangements for renewing or rebooting the United Nations, and the international
financial institutions, in some cases perhaps even adding new ones or replacing some? What
has brought about this mood of fundamental questioning about is our international financial
system, which was primarily of course in 1945, why are we so sure that it is not up to the
job any more?
To lead this discussion we have got a fascinating panel because right beside me we have George
Yeo, the Foreign Minister of Singapore, a country which does not get more global than
that, and yet is a small country which must rely on international rule of law and international
frameworks if it is to achieve its objectives as a global trading nation.
Next to him is Michael Froman. Mike is someone who has served in all the recent Democratic
administrations, and is now G8 and G20 Sherpa to his own old law school classmate, Barack
Obama. Therefore, he has had a huge hand in the way the G20 has come to such prominence
over the last year.
Beside him, and I'm sure he will forgive me for saying this, the new boy on the block.
He was very recently appointed the Prime Minister of Jordan, Samir Al Rifai, and Samir already
inherits, as Prime Minister of Jordan, a whole host of problems which I think he will tell
us that cannot just be solved through national action.
Beside him is Indra Nooyi, known to us for the extraordinary role she plays as a board
member for this Forum but also known to us as an extraordinary business leader at PepsiCo
– whether it is dealing with nutrition for the poor is pushing the concept of what
the modern global company is doing. But are the global cooperative structures, and the
national ones, helping or hindering her in that effort to build a new kind of global
company?
Beside her is Prince Haakon on Norway, who is not here to talk in that role, but is here
to talk as the convener of our Young Global Leaders here at the Forum, a group who have
a huge ethic and interest in public service, both global and national. What do they think
about the state of our international financial institutions?
I am going to start at this end and George, I have in a sense set up the question. Singapore
is a country which needs a stable and peaceful neighbourhood and world to achieve the extraordinary
economic competitive advantages, or the rewards of that, to enjoy them to the full. Do you
think the global system is working effectively from your point of view?
George Yeo Yong-Boon, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Singapore:
Well, we were entering a new phase in human history with the collapse of the Berlin Wall
twenty years ago. The old hierarchies have broken down and there is the intermediation
that we have talked about in the financial industry. It is happening in all fields of
human endeavour: in the family, in the corporation, in churches, in mosques, in schools, in relationships
between parents and children and teachers and students, and indeed governments as monopolies
are being disintermediated which is a big part of relationships. The Cold War, when
you had two big powers in the world, all that has given way to a messier, web-like structure
and Singapore has always prospered by being a node in a web. If you watch the airport
and business community, we survive by synaptic connections, not an aesthetic web, but accepting
that the world is changing all the time, that connections are changing all the time, but
somehow reinventing ourselves and maintaining that position.
I think it is exhilarating, this new phase of globalization, because it has opened up
to us opportunities which we did not have in an earlier phase, like the growth of China
or India or the establishment of links to our ancestral homelands. It is also dangerous
because when the old channels are disintermediated then the old check points are no longer effective.
So, whether it is terrorists, mischievous ideas, or whether it is pandemics –
there are also new dangers and so a need to create new immune systems.
I think on the whole, provided the state of the world is in reasonably good repair, it
can be messy and in the messiness there are opportunities, but we are quite happy that
the world is entering a new phase because it has given us plenty of new freedoms which
we did not have in the last phase.
Malloch-Brown: Thanks, George. Mike, I mean for the years since 1945 the United States
has played more than its fair share in underpinning global stability and cooperation, often in
ways which have ended up being highly controversial; some like it and some hate it. One has got
the impression that under President Obama there is a rethink, a recognition that with
the rise of Asia and other regions, that the US needs to look again at these international
institutions so that there is a better sharing and better participation in both the military
and political effort, but also the financial effort of keeping the world peaceful and prosperous.
So, where is the US going in terms of its vision of international cooperation?
Michael Froman, Deputy Assistant to the US President; Deputy National Security Advisor
for International Economic Affairs, USA:
First of all, I agree with what George said about the increased interconnections and with
both positive and negative outcomes. Global transportation has allowed people and good
to flow but it has also spread pandemics. The internet is a wonderful global library
but it is also an organizing tool for terrorists. The financial markets which have been critical
in accelerating the flow of capitol in foreign investment and aiding development have also
shown that when a crisis arises in one place that it can spread both to other markets and
to the real economy. So, that by way of background is one piece of it.
The second piece, as you said, is that it is not just state actors any more; it is NGOs,
it is corporations, it is individuals and it is non-state actors. I think, maybe this
is counter to your theme of the panel, but I think this underscores the role of the state
even more so because the state has to figure out both how to deal with, and coordinate,
and manage the multiplicity of actors around the world, and find new ways of dealing multilaterally
with each other to solve the global problems.
The G20, as you cited, was one example. Moving from the G7 or G8 to the G20 was recognition
that you cannot solve global financial problems with seven or eight alone; you needed the
major economies at the table. Now, looking ahead, whether it is the framework –
the countries are submitting their domestic policies, their structure reforms to review,
or their financial regulatory efforts where we will try to set global standards through
the G20 or the Financial Stability Board and then implement them domestically. There is
an important role for the state, both to help coordinate internationally but also to implement
them domestically.
The same can be said about climate change, the Major Economies Forum, the 28 countries
that met in Copenhagen and helped form the Copenhagen Accord and then brought it to the
UN, we need to find new ways of dealing with each other multilaterally. We are a strong
believer in multilateralism broadly defined and pragmatically applied. That means taking
the institutions that exist and strengthening them, giving them greater efficiency, broadening
their participation, giving them greater legitimacy but also finding ways to create new fora or
new mechanisms for dealing with it. I think we see that in the financial area, climate
change and even development policy, where food security, we're beginning to coordinate
donor activities really for the first time in a significant way.
Having said that I think there are a number of open issues, and I will throw it back to
the moderator. One is that it is easy for states to come together when there is a crisis,
but will states continue to work closely together and take concerted action when the crisis
recedes? Secondly, now that more countries have a seat at the table, are they willing
to pick up a piece of the cheque? They want a great role in international governance but
are they willing to take on greater responsibilities as well?
Thirdly, I think that we are taking steps towards modernizing institutions but we need
to modernize mindsets as well. As we saw in many of the ongoing discussions, including
climate change, you still have states operating in blocks that were defined by the Cold War,
not by the reality that every state needs to work together to deal with a collective
action problem.
Finally, and here I underscore the pragmatically applied multilateralism; I think the 80-20
rule very much applies to this. If you have the key states, the critical mass of participants,
willing to take action then is the international system going to allow a small number of states
obstruct progress? I think those are all challenges that the states may have.
Malloch-Brown: Well, Mike, thanks and we will come back to a lot of those points I am sure.
Samir, you live in a difficult neighbourhood but so many of your resources, your trade
depends at the very least on your region, if not more broadly. I mean half the water
supply of the Middle East is not inside countries but is shared across borders, for example.
Have you already come to a conclusion that it is hard to be just Prime Minister of Jordan,
you need also to kind of find ways to engage with the international system, that the solutions
to some of those problems lie as much abroad as they do at home?
Samir Al Rifai, Prime Minister of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan:
Thank you. Just going back to your initial comment about being the new boy here, I could
not agree with you more. Six months ago I was at the Harvard Business School doing a
course on turnaround strategies for my private equity fund; little did I know that I would
be doing it on a larger scale. In the last month when we have sat as a cabinet and discussed
what His Majesty's vision is, not only for Jordan but for the region, it is obvious that
no longer can we function or think as individual states. The decision is not individual any
more. If it is water, energy or food security then these are all issues that need to be
discussed on a regional level and thus there is so much importance on regional cooperation
and on peace.
If, for example, we take the water issue then Jordan is the fourth most arid country per
capita in the world. We do not have any water resources, nor do we have the financial ability
to desalinate. So, what we are looking at today is how do we create a system where we
have a regional desalination project that will service Jordan and perhaps parts of Saudi
Arabia, perhaps part of Iraq on the Jordanian border, and Israel. These are all projects
connected with a railway that will connect Europe to the Gulf, and then connect gas pipelines
from Egypt going to Europe, and from Iraq going up to Syria and then down to Egypt again.
One cannot look at projects as individual projects any more, and one cannot look at
what states have individually and say we are going to create projects. So, regional cooperation
is extremely important.
The discussion in the past about Turkey creating a peace pipeline where some of the water supplies
from Turkey would run through Syria and then down to Israel, part of it would go through
Saudi Arabia through Jordan, is something that unfortunately has not happened because
peace has eluded the region for quite some time.
However, Jordan has started to move forward with the Red-Dead canal, which is a canal
linking the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, which is not only very important for the environmental
aspect because the Dead Sea is losing one metre of water a year, and we will not have
the Dead Sea in sixty or seventy years. This will also create energy because of the pumping
up and then down to 400 metres below sea level, and will also desalinate. This will be important
for Jordan but Jordan cannot finance this alone, so it has to be a regional project
where other key players do the same as us.
Basically, what I am trying to say is that each country individually has significant
problems and significant challenges, and individually these challenges cannot be solved. Thus we
need to look at how we solve them regionally, how we solve them with international support,
because if we do not in the future create the food, energy and water security for countries
then they will start, whether we like to admit it or not, looking outside of their borders
for that. That would be even more of a disaster.
Malloch-Brown: Well, thank you. I mean I do not think you could get a better description
of the entanglement of all of these issues – security, energy, water, infrastructure
– in a way that evidently cannot be managed anymore at just a national level.
Indra, you run and are building an extraordinary global company. Do nation states get in the
way? I am sure that you quickly say they are vital and I do not think anybody is disputing
that point, but are there things you would much prefer to see handled and regulated and
managed at a more global level, and are the global arrangements which might allow that
anywhere near in sight?
Indra Nooyi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, PepsiCo, USA; Member of the Foundation
Board of the World Economic Forum; Global Agenda Council on the Role of Business:
So, let me speak from the perspective of large, global companies. I think that large multinational,
global companies and critical to drive job creation, spur innovation and transfer technology.
They are actually very essential for lifting many countries out of an emerging market or
a developing market status, and really are the backbone for a lot of job creation.
Today, many multinational companies are bigger than little countries and they really are
a force to be reckoned with in the world. I think that mostly today multinational companies
operate under very difficult conditions because there are no global bodies that coordinate
the principles and rules under which global companies should be operating, whether it
be food safety, quality, flow of products, emissions, taxation, labelling standards,
marketing standards, building standards, or engineering standards. There are no global
laws which help these companies operate.
So, when that does not exist companies typically fall back on local standards because you want
to stay competitive with local companies, but when there is an issue, there is an activist
NGO or an activist government, they turn to the global company and refer back to the highest
standard that the company operates under and says, 'Why can you not have those standard
in this country?' That starts a vicious circle of which standard you operate under.
It is not a very good situation; so, what is needed? I think the first thing is that
we have to accept that big multinational companies are good for many economies, in fact every
economy in the world. They are good for countries as they create jobs, they spur innovation,
and they transfer technology that is so vital to improving the standards of living. You
talked about water problems, Samir, and big companies like us can help. Agronomy can help
bring the best practices from around the world to your country to help solve the problems.
But for global businesses to continue to operate and do what they do best, we need some kind
of global coordination or national standards that are very clear and which serve as business
operating principles. They are standards that are clear and then do not go back and forth
and are altered based on the situation at hand. The only way we can develop these standards
is if we have oversight and enforcement body that serves as the watchdog: someone that
updates the rules, educates the companies and the nations on how to enforce them and
how to live by them.
Now, it is very important that nation states cooperate to create these global bodies because
they do not exist in many cases. Once you create these bodies you have got to participate
in keeping them refreshed and then abide by whatever comes out of these bodies. This is
hard, nobody is saying this is easy, because a lot of the nation states do not have common
shared interests, they do not have similar legal standards, and they do not have the
same religious standards. We have to be cognizant of all of that but if we want global business
to be a force for job creation, a force for transfer of technology then it is critically
important that we start creating these bodies to remove these barriers that stand in the
way of economic development.
Malloch-Brown: Thank you very much. Haakon, as I introduced you, you have got your finger
on the pulse of your fellow young leaders here. They have been busy working here and
before Davos on all sorts of proposals for strengthening international cooperation. So,
are they ready to throw themselves into this? How do they see these institutions changing?
To what extent are they frustrated and feel that these institutions do not understand
the needs and demands of the next generation?
H.R.H. Haakon of Norway, Crown Prince of Norway; Chair of the YGL Global Redesign Task Force;
Young Global Leader; Global Agenda Council on Values:
Thank you and let me just say that I am very happy and privileged to be on a panel with
such admirable leaders as yourselves. I think what I am doing is chairing the steering group
of Young Global Leaders – the Global Redesign Initiative Taskforce, which is a
mouthful. So, basically I think for what we are doing there are two words or two things
which I think characterize what we are doing.
One is that the Young Global Leaders are focused on involvement: involvement of youth and letting
the voice of the youth be heard, involvement of both genders, involvement of the poor,
and involvement of all regions of the world. So, involvement and letting people's voices
be heard is really core to solving the world's biggest challenges. I would actually go as
far as to say that if we are not able to involve more voices and to involve more people in
becoming problem solvers and innovators, we will not be able to rise to the challenges
and solve all the problems that the world is facing. So, involvement is an important
issue.
The other thing is that the YGLs are hands on and focused on doing something action orientated.
So, we do not actually like to look at this system and use a lot of time by whining and
complaining, but we want to see possibilities and move forward – find ways of actually
solving the problems we are seeing. So, right now I think we have around thirty initiatives
and they range from very bottom-up initiatives such as Young Voices from the youth taskforce.
This is a report that the youth taskforce made and in twenty countries they had city-hall
meetings with young people. They asked them what is needed in the world and through this
report and through the presentations that Jennifer Corriero and Nancy Lublin are doing
here at the World Economic Forum and other places, these voices are heard. So, that is
one example.
We also have other examples, such as within health, where Deworm the World is something
that has been going on for a few years already. Last year they reached 10 million kids. Now,
if you have parasitic worms that means that you probably do not get the nutrition that
you need and it is really cheap and easy to give drugs to young people which will actually
solve that problem. They reached 12 million kids last year and this year they are hoping
to reach 20 million and so that is something that is already up and working.
We have new ideas also, such as an intellectual global responsibility licence, which is on
intellectual property. James Moody of Australia is doing that and it is basically about how
we can create a system which gives the poor access to intellectual property so that it
is cheap or free and readily available to them and that could really be a big thing.
So, there are many things that I could mention here but if you are interested then I have
some materials and you can come over afterwards, and I will give you some materials about that.
I think that involvement and hands-on doing something is what the Young Global Leaders
are about.
Malloch-Brown: Well, I think it is a really interesting point that many of my generation
spent years trying to renew these institutions through legislative international action.
They are much more about just jumping in and making things work through individual initiative,
using the structures that are there and just injecting volunteerism, organization and their
contribution in ways which, despite the weaknesses of the existing organizations, just gets on
and produces these results. I think it is fantastic to see that.
Before opening it to the floor, let me just ask all of the panellists just one simple
question. It comes from what Mike said about whether we can only get international reform
when there is a crisis. And both having been involved in the G20 and seeing more reform
in a few short months than we had seen in decades, it is easy to draw that conclusion.
There are other crises which may not be so obvious, whether it be drinking water or poverty
or migration, they are pushing peoples states and structures to the limits and demand action
sooner rather than later. So, I am just going to ask each of you a sort of yes or no plus
a sentence illumination: do you think it is realistic that we could have ambitious reform
of the international organizations over the three to five years? George?
Yeo Yong-Boon: I think we should be specific and what we need to do is bring emerging powers
like China and India into the power equation. So, the G8 cannot do this so it has to be
enlarged; you can enlarge by just one or two so that it becomes 20 and that has to become
the agent of change for the reform of global institutions. The key here is to strengthen
existing global institutions, not to weaken them. If the G20 seeks to weaken or bypass
existing institutions there will be a revolt by the other countries.
So, using the G20 to instigate change in existing institutions is critical because if we do
not succeed in doing this then the crisis which will come in the future will be even
bigger than the one which created the G20 in the first place.
Malloch-Brown: Thanks. Mike?
Froman: Yes, I think we can reform and strengthen international institutions. I suppose, and
it may be a non-answer to your question, in part because there are always crises. I think
Haiti will force us, for example, to find ways to work together as a donor community
and not just the traditional donors of the G8 but Brazil, China, India and many other
countries who are active there to be more effective in rebuilding Haiti. I think, whether
it is the water crisis or other crises, we will have to work within structures and invent
new structures around the idea of effectiveness. I would just underscore pragmatism; if the
existing institutions can work and be made to work then terrific. If they cannot then
we should not wait while serious issues are not being dealt with.
Al Rifai: I totally agree. I think it is essential, not optional, whether we do it or not. As
you mentioned the world is going into all sorts of challenges. There are going to be
crises but the important thing is to say that these are the existing institutions and this
is what they are supposed to be doing, and this is how we can make them work. If they
are not enough then let us create new ones with a clear mandate of what they are supposed
to be doing and how they are going to do it, and back them up in terms of the political
and financial resources.
Nooyi: I agree with what has been said so far. I think we have no choice; we have to
reform and we have to strengthen but we have to create institutions where they do not exist
today. The most important thing is that we have to prevent the next crisis because if
we keep talking and we do not do what is needed to avert the next crisis, then we will be
in Davos in ten years from now and say 'remember that panel is 2010; I wish we had created
those organizations.' I do not want to be on that panel.
H.R.H. Haakon: I think new areas that we now think of as global commons, which maybe we
did not ten or twenty years ago – the atmosphere for instance is not something that
was thought of as an important global common to address and now climate change is very
much on the agenda. So, I think it is important to keep our eye on the ball. Poverty, climate
change, equitable globalization – how do we do that in the best positive way? So,
the answers of how we reform will also have to be linked to what we are trying to achieve.
Malloch-Brown: Great, thanks. Now if we just open it up to take a few questions if we can.
Yes, the gentleman at the back – just identify yourself if you would.
Mousa Musa, Global Changemaker, British Council Global Changemakers, Iraq:
I am Mousa; I am a Global Changemaker from Iraq. I am 17 years old. I was wondering with
large corporations and individuals, how are you contributing to youth involvement? And
how could youth hold you accountable to that? Thank you.
Malloch-Brown: Okay, we will take a few more.
Participant: Thank you, Mark. I am with the Red Cross. I have just come back from one
week in Haiti where we were deploying different field hospitals, and of course it was frustrating
to see that it took one week to double the capacity at the airports so the humanitarian
relief could have access. Which body in the UN has authority to get in on the first day
and say that we are running this airport and we get all the humanitarian relief in there?
Secondly, I think the bodies that were created – Bretton Woods, NATO, etc. –
were created after the Second World War. A lot of the issues that we are facing are issues
inside countries and not between countries: Sudan, north and south; Somalia is almost
a failed nation-state; Yemen is inside; Afghanistan, it is Pashtun and also internal conflicts;
it is the same in Pakistan. What kind of institutions can we create so that they can also face the
new issues that we are facing? This is an important part of the Global Redesign Initiative.
Yasar Jarrar, Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers, United Arab Emirates:
My name is Yasar Jarrar; I am from PricewaterhouseCoopers and one of the Young Global Leaders. My question
is about networks. Both Minister Yeo and Prime Minister Al Rifai mentioned that regionally
they have issues that can only be solved by working with regional countries. Now if we
leave the large sweeping supra-national organizations like the UN who are dealing with climate change
and we go back to the regions, how are they going to work out these governance networks?
What is the mechanism for these regions to come together? Are we going to see more regional
institutions? Smaller ASEANs and people coming together from a larger group of nations, like
five or ten countries who share these issues from security to water issues? So are we going
to see more proliferation of regional networks, some of them probably ad hoc? If not, then
how are we going to be at the table discussing this with countries around us because just
getting around the table is going to take several years and I feel that we are running
out of time with some of these issues?
Malloch-Brown: Any more in this first round before we come back? Yes, at the front here.
Annie Sparrow, Coordinator, UNICEF Somalia, Kenya:
Annie Sparrow; I work for UNICEF Somalia. It is really an echo of the Red Cross question
about that interface of international institutions and sovereignty. I work on Somalia, which
as we all know is probably the worst failed state ever. I live in Kenya and interestingly
enough PricewaterhouseCoopers described the government of Kenya as being very easy to
work with, a very low corruption index, fully transparent. Yet, Transparency International
describes Kenya as the most corrupt country in East Africa and I would fully endorse that
after living there for four years. So, it is really that practical interface of sovereignty
and international institutions and how you think you can actually use those practically
to leverage those national problems.
Malloch-Brown: Okay, instead of having everybody answer each question what I am going to do,
and anyone of you can jump in if you want to add a comment, is to try and direct them
a bit. Haakon, if you would not mind picking up that first question from our Iraqi friend
at the back about youth.
H.R.H Haakon: Okay, but I think he was asking what the corporations were doing. Is that
right?
Malloch-Brown: You are right, Indra maybe you could – I tried Indra.
Nooyi: I mean, the lifeblood of all business is the young people. They come in with fresh
ideas; they challenge the status quo and they shake up everything in the company. I think
that a company that does not constantly renew itself by hiring young people is a company
that is doomed for extinction.
So, in our own company we are on campuses, in business schools and undergraduate colleges
and we are bringing in a fresh crop all the time. We accelerate some people so that they
can challenge senior management; others we allow to take a regular path. Thank God for
the youth; they are irreverent and operate by different rules but by Jove they keep us
on our toes and make sure that we remain a company that is building itself for you, the
youth. I think that responsibility is forever in our minds.
Malloch-Brown: Okay, let me take the two questions which dealt with weak states. There are a
couple of points here. One is a very practical one: why doesn't the UN seize command on the
first day of an airport and direct flights? Mike, in a moment I am going to ask you because
actually the US took control of the airport. Frankly, having watched what happened at the
tsunami where US control was an extremely effective thing, but it does seem to have
had some controversy in the case of Haiti.
So I am going to ask you to address that, but I think there is broader point which is
how do we intervene in weak states, and how do we call a spade a spade when there are
issues of corruption. George, you were very, very involved in the response to Cyclone Nargis
in Myanmar; you had to organize an ASEAN effort to get assistance in at a time when the government
there was very reluctant to let it happen. So you might want to pick up this issue of
how do we build the laws and norms that allow what is often called the responsibility to
protect. But, in many ways, it's broader than that. How do we intervene when there is a
crisis and the people's own government are not properly addressing it?
Then, Samir, if you would pick up this point about regions that was made here. As I say,
if we could just start with Mike, this Haiti point and anything that you might want to
say on that.
Froman: I think we have to start with the recognition that the tragedy in Haiti is of
mammoth proportions and one will also want things to work faster, better and more effectively
than they do. Having said that I think it is important to recognize how well, in many
respects, the effort has gone. The fact that the airport was rebuilt and opened as quickly
as it was, that the ports were rebuilt, that you now have a capacity for the distribution
of containers in the amounts that you do. That more people have been saved from the
rubble than any other operation in history and that medical care both onshore and offshore
has been provided.
This is due, not to the US, I think this is due to the fact that the UN, the US, the major
donors from Latin America, the major countries involved from Latin America, the Canadians,
the French and others, the Chinese sending rescue workers, the Indians sending resources,
that it has been a truly global effort organized on the fly but really quite effectively –
by no means perfect, but I hope we will all draw lessons from this and learn from it,
and the fact that there has already been one donors' conference in the first two weeks
in Montreal, that there are already plans for another in a couple of months. I think
the workout between, not just the US military and civilian efforts, but other forces that
are involved there, and the UN, has been working very well and improving day by day.
This is an effort, as I think George alluded to, where it is important for us to build
up international institutions; we want the UN to be successful in Haiti, we want MINUSTAH
to be successful in Haiti and at the same time we want to get to people and to give
them supplies and medical care as quickly as possible in as un-bureaucratic a way as
possible. So, I am hopeful that in retrospect, when history looks at this incident, that
they will say it was actually a pretty good response through the UN and from working with
other parties.
Yeo Yong-Boon: I must say I am very touched by Mike's humility in the way he presented
the efforts that the US made in leading the rescue effort in Haiti. Yesterday, while waiting,
I bumped into President Clinton and asked him about Haiti. The passion and the humanity
which he has brought into that effort was very touching. It is good that the UN has
a cover to save ammo from, so that others who are helping feel that it is not the US
that is taking charge of everything. The US, though, took the primary role and it shall
continue to take the primary role and God bless you for that.
I really say this change of presentation, this humility which Mike expressed today,
is very much emblematic of the Obama administration and the new style of leadership that he has
brought into the world, which I feel is absolutely necessary. In a web world with weakened hierarchies
you cannot exercise leadership in the old way; it has to be more subtle, it needs more
charm, it requires more softness, it requires telling others that they are involved and
a part of it.
I think it is absolutely necessary for the new style of leadership that is needed today
for global governance. The G20 is part of it and other processes are part of it; involving
others and giving others credit while those that are able put in more effort. We should
not lightly say to let the UN build up some capability; it would take years for the UN
to come to agreement and one reason the G20 has been called into historical service is
because the UN is incapable of responding quickly to urgent needs.
In the case of Myanmar, similar to Haiti, it was a disaster of biblical proportions
and for two or three weeks there was a stand off between international agencies. In the
Myanmar government there was paranoia when French and American warships brought supplies;
instead of sending their soldiers to facilitate the landing of the supplies, they put their
soldiers in defensive positions, fearing an invasion. In fact, the airport was kept for
the air force instead of being opened up for the rescue effort.
So, we decided in ASEAN that they are a member of the family – yes, a strange member
of the family – but we have got to rally around it and so we called a meeting.
Singapore was in the chair at the time and I remember the Indonesian foreign minister
looking into the eyes of the Myanmar foreign minister and asking him, 'What do you mean
to us and what do we mean to you? And why do you reject all offers of help?' He said
that he had to make a phone call back home and I told him to take all the time he needed;
he came back at three o'clock and we agreed. We became a clutching mechanism between the
Myanmar government and international agencies. We formed a tripartite working group and,
despite initial complaints, eventually aid flowed through to the last corners of the
Irrawaddy delta and they were spared a second wave of death from starvation or disease.
So, because we knew the idiosyncrasies we played a bridging role but at the same time
we did not try to enlarge our role and say that we would try to rebuild their society
and solve their internal problems, because we knew that if we tried to push in that direction
then the paranoia would become extreme, and whatever help we offered would be rejected
and people would die.
I think in this new dispensation there has got to be respect for national differences.
We cannot solve problems in families; we cannot solve problems in many institutions. How can
we presume to solve problems in other people's countries? Yes, when those problems spill
over like in Somalia, or Yemen or Afghanistan, but then they say we have to deal with them
but only to a point; we have to say look these are your problems and if you want us to help
then we will help you, but if you would prefer for us not to help you then good luck to you.
This way we shoulder a lesser burden, we will be less exhausted and we will make more progress.
Malloch-Brown: Thanks, George. I think this point that ASEAN and Singapore was the vital
intermediary between the global and the suspicious national Myanmar is the key point. I think
it goes to this issue that you need all three levels and hence, Samir, the question to you
about making regional networks, I suspect, may need the legitimacy of being linked to
global superstructures. Let us hear your view.
Al Rifai: Absolutely, they definitely do. Not to get into too much political hot water
but in our part of the world most of the blocks are political, and what is really required
are economic blocks that will wither away from the very micro decision-making process
into the more regional. The more economic decision making we do on a regional level
then the more we can channel some of that into the political realm where political decisions
would follow the economic, rather than the other way around.
This does need an international body to support it; obviously it has to be an independent
international body without any agenda, it has to be neutral and it has to be doing it
for the right reasons. It has to happen and the more we push internationally to the region,
the more we support economics in terms of the feasibility of regional projects –
financing, the World Bank, the IFC as these are the things. I do not think there is a
need to create more local blocks but what is needed is to support what is existing in
the economic decision making by having international organizations support the creation of a closer
network. Obviously, that will not happen if those countries do not want it to happen but
I think that today countries are realizing more than ever that there is a real need for
cooperation across borders. Hopefully, when the Palestinian issue gets resolved this will
be another added incentive.
Unfortunately, we as a region sat down and said that everything is going to freeze because
there is war; things should not happen that way but we should cooperate and link the region,
and when Israel decides to get out of its fortress mentality it has a plug and play
where it can automatically connect to the Arab world. We have to do it ourselves today
as we are not going to be able to expect help from others if we do not help ourselves.
So, I think going back to the issue of youth there is a genuine need to create millions
and millions of jobs and these can only be created if we do it on a regional level; Jordan
cannot create 100,000 jobs a year that are sustainable for the long term if we think
only about the Jordanian economy. There is the rebuilding of Iraq, Syria coming into
the region, and the Gulf countries are looking at projects other than real estate today,
so there are a lot of projects that are extremely inviting and the international bodies should
be looking to support the region doing the right thing as well.
Malloch-Brown: Thank you. Some more questions from the floor quickly – yes.
Mina Al-Oraibi, Current Affairs Journalist, Asharq Alawsat, United Kingdom:
Thank you so much. My name is Mina Al-Oraibi. I am from Asharq Alawsat newspaper, but also
I am a Young Global Leader and I have had amazing leadership from Haakon; he is too
humble. I have two questions and the first is about international institutional reform.
We have heard it said so many times before and everybody agrees that it is necessary.
With all due respect, you guys all made great presentations but it is not new in terms of
agreements that it is necessary, but what will it take? Is it about changing the Security
Council formation or sidestepping the UN, as people think any reform there will take
too long? What is the solution?
My second question is really regarding leadership because we have done quite a bit of work on
leadership with the Young Global Leaders. In today's world what does it really take
a leader, like for example President Obama who captured so many people's imaginations,
to get people to become individual innovators and have the leap of faith to make a difference
and not be cynics, which I think most of us usually are? Thank you.
Malloch-Brown: Great questions. Hold your answers, panel, because I am going to make
all of you answer that one.
Participant: Doug Horswill with Teck [Resources]. One of the great accomplishments of the last
century was the expansion of world trade as a result of institutions, including an international
framework of law and practice. Now we have the Doha Round stagnating, is that an indication
that the apparatus – and in particular the institutions around trade – are
in fact failing and have to be revised?
Malloch-Brown: Any other last ones?
Jamie Drummond, Co-Founder and Executive Director, ONE, United Kingdom:
Thank you. Jamie Drummond, Executive Director of ONE, a global advocacy organization. Last
September President Obama put forward an inspiring vision and new plan for the Millennium Development
Goals, a new plan for some old ideas that we had all been working on. We have heard
three leaders in the last 36 hours reassert their support for the Millennium Goals and
many more in the next few days will probably do so – the G20, the G8 and Nicolas
Sarkozy yesterday.
So the support at a state level in many ways is still there as most epitomized by President
Obama's words, but the element of a new plan will be those non-state actors being brought
behind a new strategy in new and exciting ways, and you have got Young Global Leaders,
you have corporate leaders, and you have got the state actors. We desperately need that
new strategy for the Millennium Goals and I would suggest that one of the ways that
all of these players could work together could be in reviving and revitalizing the campaign
for the Millennium Goals to which everybody asserts support, but everybody knows that
we will not achieve the Millennium Goals as we stand right now, especially in Africa,
by 2015. And in this year and in 2010 and at this Davos, it would be a great thing to
galvanize all these new partners but still recognizing the key leadership role of the
state.
Malloch-Brown: Okay, we are going to start at the end and in a way these were very similar
questions so let me phrase it less politely than our two questioners did, which is, 'Come
off it, guys. You can go on protesting and saying wouldn't it be a great thing to have
stronger international organizations. How are we going to get it done? When are we going
to get it done?'
H.R.H Haakon: Okay, if I start with the Millennium Development Goals first. First of all the
Young Global Leaders have an initiative on the Millennium Development Goals led by John
McArthur and they are advising on how to revitalize the MDGs and maybe redesign them, but also
they are looking to get commitments from individuals instead of nation states so that every one
of us can make a commitment to the goals, and what we want to do concretely in the years
to come. They are going to collect many of those.
That can be a more bottom-up movement of the Millennium Development Goals. Now, I think
that the Millennium Development Goals are fantastic but they are not ambitious enough.
They are ambitious, but then again they are not ambitious enough. For instance, we are
going to half extreme poverty; we need to end extreme poverty. If we accept that there
were 1 billion people in extreme poverty in 1990 then there should be 500 million by 2015;
this is obviously not good enough and we need to move beyond that. Then again, we have made
tremendous progress on many of the MDGs. We have, for instance, malaria that is now getting
very good results where we will overshoot the target. And even on poverty we have made
tremendous steps forward.
So I think it is also important to count our victories and not only look at the negative
side of what is going on because we have made tremendous achievements and the millions of
people who have been working very hard every day to lift other people. We have to recognize
that what they have been doing has been successful. I think that is very important because it
is something that inspires us. So, we need both: we need constructive criticism and we
also need to acknowledge that a lot of things have been successful. Our moderator has also
done a lot, through the UNDP for instance, on the Millennium Development Goals.
Malloch-Brown: Thank you, Haakon. Just because of time I will say that you can summarize
what you said, Haakon, is that individual effort and initiative and group initiatives
are a huge extra way that we can improve the system and move towards our goals.
Now, I am going to ask each of you to just, in the couple of minutes we have left, to
distil it to something similar. What is your wish list of one to move forward international
cooperation in an effective way? Indra?
Nooyi: My observation is that the young people today are willing to cooperate and willing
to rewrite the rules. As you get older you become more rigid in your thinking and stand
in the way of cooperation and progress, so the question is how do you get more young
people into decision making and allow them to reshape the world order because I think
if we leave to us old people, and I include myself, we will be stuck in the old ways because
that is all we know.
Al Rifai: I want to agree; it is all about youth, it is about how we as states help the
youth to think out of the box, teach them how to think, not what to think, and have
them take charge of the future. Communication has shown that it is cross boundary. With
what happened in Haiti, it is very clear that the youth do not wait for governments any
more and I think that more of that is required.
Froman: It is hard to come up with one phrase but I would just say that we need to be creative
about how we solve global problems. I do not think it happens at a Bretton Woods II convention;
I think it happens because we experiment with fora, we change people's mindsets about how
to cooperate and we bridge differences in how sectors – the private sector, the
state and non-state actors – approach problems. The states need to do a lot more
to figure out how to leverage the private-state foundations and non-state actors to achieve
these global goals.
Yeo Yong-Boon: When we blame others we will never improve, and leaders who are always
finding reasons to be angry with others can never lead. Do not blame other countries,
do not blame international institutions, and do not blame a lack of aid because in the
end what matters the most is yourself. I am inspired by Kagame's repeated speeches that,
look, what Africa needs most is not aid. Yes, aid is good, but what Africa needs is capacity
building but in the end the main efforts must come from the people themselves. So, whatever
the international institutions, those that are strong will find a way to survive. Even
if Doha makes no progress, those who are creative will be able to make a living. In a messy
world, the important thing is to build a better world from the bottom up; it is not possible
to build a better world from the top down. In the end it comes back down to education,
human resources, to the right values, to establishing trust, decency, and respect for one another.
Malloch-Brown: Well, I think that we have had an extraordinary range of things. The
words that come through to me are pragmatism, creativity, opportunism in the sense that
pragmatism does not wait for some perfect fine design which will fix the world in one
go, no Bretton Woods moment here, no San Francisco, but taking the opportunities of crises and
of where there is a political will to steadily improve these institutions.
Secondly, the creativity that the old ways of sitting back and rewriting formal structures
will not get you there. Whether it is youth, or youth as an example to the rest of us,
to just pile in and take the opportunity that is there and try to make these things work
better, I think is key. Beyond that, less explicitly said but implied at different points,
the fact that these institutions are going through a change of ownership. The world of
2010 is a different one with the rise of Asia and the rise of many other parts of the world
too; emerging markets coming into this, a huge expansion in the number of nation states
in the world, 192 members of the UN versus 48 at the beginning, and a huge expansion
of the non-state actors.
Rather than waiting with a centrally planned answer, what I think our panel was telling
us this afternoon is allow those creative forces and frictions between them to play
out, to find solutions. What we must not compromise on is our level of ambition; we need this
stronger system of global cooperation but it is going to come through the collective
efforts of many of us working in many fields rather than through some perfect design written
by statesmen around a small conference room table. That world has gone, so thank you all
very much.