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SIR RONALD COHEN: The fulfillment comes from reaching a balance between what you do for
yourself and what you do for others and I firmly believe that.
[Music]
I mean you may think that social investment is a big enough mountain to try to move—an
even bigger mountain for me and one with which I have a very strong sense of mission—is
bringing peace to the middle east. I was kicked out of Egypt, but prior to being kicked out,
I lived very happily as a member of a Jewish family in an Arab family and there were Jewish
ministers and there was no anti-Semitism until the creation of the state of Israel in 1948
and then the arrival of Nassar. There was no real anti-Semitism, no real discrimination
against any minority in Egypt and when I left Egypt and got to know Israel and of course
as life will have it, I married an Israeli and her father was one of the pioneers of
the country and the commander of the exodus, Yosi Harrel. I began understand both sides
of this issue. I discussed it with Sahari Solomon who is a very close friend and we
came to the conclusion that relying just on politics to provide the solution was not gonna
work. If you want to resolve a conflict, you need a triple helix. You certainly need political
negotiation, you need security, and you need economics. And you may need media support
on top of it. But at least a triple helix and so we created in 2003 the Portland Trust
to work on the economic drivers of peace and we stay out of the political arena except
to the extent that we need political approvals for the projects that we try to encourage
and we work on the Palestinian side through an office in Ramala, which has been there
for more than 5 years now on developing the Palestinian private sector. Private sector
employment on the Palestinean side is two thirds of the population, of the working population,
on the West Bank. It's less than a third in Gaza. When you can begin to plan your future
and the future of your children and you have something to protect, you're in a much better
frame of mind for emotional compromises and on the Israeli side we've worked to relieve
poverty. Initially through big micro finance programs and now through social impact bonds,
social investment banks and so. We're 8 years into the job. You can see the result on the
ground and I believe that many other conflict arenas need to take this economic dimension
into consideration. It's amazing how much the private sector can do if it's connected
to the capital markets outside if it has access expertise outside. We would encourage you
all to go to look on Google Earth at Rawabi, which is a new city of 5,000 homes, many of
them affordable homes. It's the first city in Palestine for thousands of years and we
backed the entrepreneur—an outstanding entrepreneur called Basham Masri who was the landowner—Palestinean
entrepreneur raised the capital. We've helped him along the way. We helped fund the initial
urban plan for the city. We helped obtain approval from the Palestinean government as
well as the Israeli government and I think economics can really play an important part
when political negotiations aren't making progress. They give momentum for optimism
and they give momentum for moderation and then at some stage when the kaleidoscope for
the middle east turns again and then pattern is rearranged, the opportunity will arise
to move forward on the political track.
I'm Ronald Cohen, and you're watching EPIPHANY.