The alliances needed to rebuild the developing world Achim Steiner

Brazil it’s my honor to welcome a

Finnish diner are you on of them

hi good to be with you hello nice to be

with you as well there’s obviously so

much going on in this moment so many

things we could talk about I really want

to ask first focusing on Kovan 19

coronavirus this moment obviously has

mapped on to and exposed so many

inequalities that already existed in our

world that I know you focus on on a

daily basis and your work has though has

this moment has this crisis this global

health and economic crisis change the

way you think about development

I think it has Sally and I think it has

for billions of people I think more than

four billion people across the planet

have been in lockdown mode this has not

happened in living memory and in fact I

cannot think of an episode in history

where literally across the planet in a

synchronized fashion we had to deal with

the pandemic and we were able to address

a pandemic to some extent in unison

despite of all the divisions and I think

in that sense yes everything has changed

right now the question is what happens

next and the pandemic in that sense has

been a great equalizer because you had

to respond in the same way whether you

lived in a rich country in a poor

country alone or with others but it was

also great an equalizer because the

ability to respond in terms of access to

health care in terms of the resources a

country or a family may have available

to cope with this obviously reveal

something that for some new words and

development already existed before the

underlying conditions of inequality

certainly have become very pronounced

and very visible and in the response to

cope with nineteen I I guess let me ask

it this way you know it’s from knowing

you from knowing you NDP’s work there’s

a way in which the inequalities the

injustice is the great disparities both

within countries and then across

countries north to south developed

developing already existed and you you

already knew them intimately

do you think though that the precise or

or I mean really epic I mean just

unprecedented way in which those

inequalities and inequities have been

laid bare and exploited in a lot of ways

by this pandemic and the fallout has

that in any way shifted your thinking or

or changed your thinking in the way you

or is it just sort of more of the same

in a deepened commitment you know what

I’m getting at not at all I mean it

starts with the fact that over a hundred

days ago I was suddenly essentially

asked to stay at home and as the head of

a United Nations Organization has 17,000

people across 170 countries just that

experience of trying to run an

organization including the duty of care

for our staff who you know are not only

in locations where there is a health

care system where you’re able to go to a

place and receive support many of my

colleagues are working in the middle of

crisis countries in civil wars in very

important Act so that was the first

thing how do you run an organization

like this in the midst of a global

lockdown when you have all these people

who in turn all these countries also

looking to to help and I think that

experience that almost shocked certainly

focused our minds immediately on what it

needs to try and respond to something

that yes in theory we all had discussed

could happen but as the world has shown

across the globe we are ill-prepared red

secondly as we respond what was

disturbing was to see that in so many

respects we were unable to help some of

the most vulnerable because we were not

prepared and those countries they don’t

have money access to medical equipment

but as the crisis continues clearly

there is a lot of thinking about what is

it that we can do to never end up in

this kind of situation again how can we

think forward and I think that is just

beginning to both permeate our work as

development professionals but you know

development is a metaphor in a sense for

choices that you and I our governments

on our behalf have to make and I think

in that sense we’re just beginning to

think about what is life beyond the

crisis of coverage 19

going to do in the way that we think

about the future of our societies of the

relationship between the state and its

citizens the role of the private sector

what is a public good that we all invest

in collectively in order to be better

protected and I think these are the

kinds of questions that are going to

drive our thinking and let’s be honest

right now many of our society is

actually responding under stress we see

criticism we see polarization we see a

lack of trust also and I think that’s

the first priority will be to

re-establish trust in one another but

also in the way that in our societies we

can manage these issues and that is

quite a challenge so I want to hear

absolutely questions I want to ask I

want to hear more about some of the

examples of how this looks on the ground

and actually how what your what und

piece work looked like before the crisis

and now and if you could give us a sense

of how communities are responding but

before I do that there’s something

embedded in your and your what you just

said which is it’s easy - it’s not easy

it’s not easy to solve it but we can

push a lot of the responsibility for the

failure to prepare on nation states

themselves their lack of prioritization

we could talk about market failures we

can talk about a lot of things but some

people would in this moment say well

where were our global institutions there

are global some would even go far enough

to say they seem missing in this moment

from this debate from the solutions

certainly they didn’t prepare us

adequately enough and that allow these

crises to lame out of control is that

true well in one sense it is true

because global institutions are also a

reflection of our individual

preparedness I mean whether it is the

United Nations the International

Monetary Fund the World Health

Organization clearly there are many

things that we are learning we perhaps

should have done earlier but it is not

for lack of actually drawing the

attention of world leaders to these

issues pandemics have been only scenario

crisis platform and radar for many years

in fact

I attended a g7 summit in Germany at the

time with secretary bunky Luna there was

actually scenario planning exercise with

the heads of government on a pandemic

and yet the magnitude of this particular

covert 90 in this situation exceeds

anything that we had anticipated so I

think yes but let me also say what is

the politics of international

cooperation the other is what the

institutions of the United Nations for

example also the Bretton Woods

institutions that call the International

Monetary Fund the World Bank are doing

and here I would challenge those because

in fact it is these institutions that

while every country is turning inwards

and looking at his own priorities and

crises at the moment are in fact out

there across the globe helping to keep

countries going

the IMF with over a trillion dollars in

terms of access to countries to have

what they call fiscal space just the

money to be able to pay unemployment

benefit to help all these people have

lost their livelihoods in the informal

sector the World Health Organization

trying to corral over 190 nations into a

common response because this virus

simply cannot be contained by countries

acting individually and in the United

Nations system and whether it is UNDP

the World Food Program UNICEF we are

working on the ground at the moment

delivering food to literally a hundred

million people trying to keep services

there in trying to import with an air

bridge medical equipment is urgent

neither because in many countries there

are not even enough ventilators just for

the hospitals that already exist

nevermind the onslaught of patients that

are coming and perhaps most importantly

there is also an economic fallout that

is happening simultaneously to the

medical systems crisis and on the

continent of Africa in some ways the

socio-economic follow has almost arrived

earlier than the virus because camp is

about to lock down and literally

hundreds of millions of people overnight

have lost their life because many people

don’t realize that on a continent such

as Africa 7080 percent of people who

earn a living this on the informal

sector you stop trading you shut down

your corner shop or your workshop

tomorrow there is no income there is no

social safety net your life is literally

economic freefall so give us a sense I

pick a place pick a couple places of I

mean I think it is really hard for those

of us who may think our lockdown is you

know difficult enough in a New York City

or a London to and who have resources

and privilege and although they to

imagine both the crisis of lockdown as

well as the ripple effect the dominoes

of all of these different crises on the

health well-being sanctity mental health

of a community what does it look like in

those places and can you also give a

sense of what development in the sense

of resilience could actually look like

if we if we use this not just as a

crisis to respond to but as a wake-up

call let me start with the immediate

response for example how do you provide

temporary basic income in a country

where most people don’t have a bank

account in many developing countries the

poor simply are not players in a

financial system they have no assets

they have no firm address or land title

so they don’t even own an accounts of

digital platforms have obviously emerged

as an enormous opportunity to leapfrog

so when there’s a country like togo that

literally in a matter of weeks set up a

cash transfer scheme for close to three

million people whether you go to

Pakistan were 12 million households

that’s 18 million people are receiving

cash transfers right now these are

things that are being put in place which

in a matter of weeks and speak also to

the extraordinary opportunity of the

digital revolution it is literally fast

forwarded into many economies and

societies overnight and UNDP is very

much trying to help with its digital

finance offer how to set up these

systems within telecom communication

companies national government

international financing but we’re also

providing tracking system support in

order to allow countries to identify how

as the buyer is spreading we’re also

looking at ways in which the continuity

of government itself can be assured for

instance providing Xoom licenses to

Parliament’s who can approve the budgets

the emergency butters because they could

not convene how did the set up situation

groans in government to allow them to

communicate with their provincial and

local government authorities because

communications essentially were

impossible and these are the kinds of

immediate measures we are taking but

then when you look forward what we’re

also trying to look at is for instance

opportunities take Africa 600 million

people today do not have access to

electricity what an extraordinary

opportunity taken renewable energy solar

wind geothermal off-grid as they call it

an on grid and put in place a massive

investment program to establish access

to electricity electricity it’s one of

the main drivers in terms of technology

and power for development if he could

come out of this crisis and connect back

three four hundred million citizens on

the African continent to access to

electricity with clean power we would

stimulate the economy create jobs in the

rural economy where the poorest are help

Africa move on to low-carbon energy and

development path and at the same time

have shovel-ready projects because this

is in every crisis what people look for

what can we do immediately to get the

economy going again and I could give you

many other examples like this but this

is just an illustration in one

particular area that combines immediate

need it combines economic stimulus but

also a longer-term view of a transition

towards a greener economy which is

really where we need to head after this

crisis so first of all preview everyone

out there we’re going to go to your

questions in a second there’ll be

another chance later on to ask questions

so be sending your questions to Bruno

that came a little later I want to ask

about and obviously the moment we’re in

with coronavirus is now cast against a

moment where we are having a

conversation the United States and

globally about racial injustice and

inequality and that obviously maps on to

the global conversation about

development and and the roots of under

development if you will but before we go

to that little little later I want to

ask before coronavirus happened you and

I were having conversations about

capitalism and markets and whether part

of the inherent nature of under

development

in or lack of opportunity and inequality

in various parts the world was a product

not only of history but also of the

current market system and its failures

has has the coronavirus moment changed

your thinking on that or visa vie

obviously climate change in these other

dynamics of where the systems and

assumptions were operating under seem to

be kind of systemically failing

communities in this way Sal Chile in

different countries different political

choices systems ideologies have shaped

the development choices that countries

have made now we have lived through the

last 30 to 40 years in any kind of

debate between is the state the solution

to under development to inequality to

poverty or is it the market is it

dynamic entrepreneurs is it investments

coming from the financial system I think

whether you believe in Milton Friedman

or you breathe in John Maynard Keynes

two key economies to stand for this kind

of economic theory of what is the role

of the state frankly speaking I think at

this moment in time there is a deeper

debate first of all how much do we

believe in the state institutions as a

vehicle to serve the public good and I

think we see in countries rich and poor

a great deal of disenchantment remember

the period leading up to Corbett ninth

in the last two to three years so

massive protests were politic

essentially set into the street Hong

Kong Paris Santiago de Chile just to

mention a few examples the confidence in

our political system and leadership to

deliver the kinds of outcomes economic

societal clearly was being contested and

I think the debate right now is not so

much about estate going to fix

everything is the market going to fix

everything clearly neither in its

extreme has been the answer and I think

it brings us to a core subject which is

governance you know our state

institutions essentially are

institutions that we as individuals as

voters as taxpayers empower to do things

on our behalf and I think where are we

going to see a significant shift is

first of all in recognizing but actually

our state institutions matter

notion that you know the less state the

more market the better the outcome

simply is not going to work in a crisis

such as carbon 19 in fact we have this

interesting phenomena right now where

everybody says can they get more

private-sector investment to deliver

public goods the reality right now is

that taxpayers money has to be used to

stabilize many companies from going

bankrupt so the stake the public stake

in the private economy is actually

growing ironically but that’s not really

the solution I think we need to find

ways in which through our economic

policies first of all the things that

matter to us in society are given the

priority that they deserve and this is

what people are looking for we believe

in our future we believe in our

societies our community because we see

something that is worth living for worth

working for worth striving for and I

think inequality and sustainability have

emerged as the two litmus tests right

now that governments first we’ll have to

perform against and secondly I think the

market where there’s the financial

system of 300 trillion dollars of wealth

around the world whether it is the

corporations or whether it is a small

medium scale enterprises how can they be

part of delivering that better future as

opposed to being a separate economic

system which is sometimes how it is

debated and that’s why I think in the

United Nations we have a great deal of

debate right now how do we mobilize the

kinds of first wall response measures

that can help to protect people the most

vulnerable from being essentially

bankrupted or left with nothing to eat

which is literally the scenario at the

centum how do we invest in an economy

that has to restart but has to restart

on a different trajectory and I think

here

fiscal policy subsidies sectoral

policies will in part determine whether

we go back to where we were before which

clearly already had problems or whether

we leapfrog ahead and digital technology

is just one example clean energy

opportunities as another and for

instance the idea that we could in a

matter of three to four years and

connect all schools on the African

continent to the Internet and therefore

avoid what has happened right now

the vast majority of schoolchildren

Africa have literally deprived of their

entire access to education which is one

reason why the Human Development Index

is literally in freefall right now for

the first time in 30 years I’m going to

turn it over to Bruno for some questions

from the tech community yes yes and we

do have a few questions I’m going to ask

maybe two or three the first one is from

so now Lutheran this really relates back

to what we just said about inequality

but another side in health education the

question is over half the world

population lacks access to water

sanitation which includes for example

the end washing facility needed to

contain the spread of kovat beyond

public health are there any new efforts

underway underscore new to address the

needs for essential hygiene they are

urgently needed and quite rightly there

is a realization right now that for

instance the pandemic says you know wash

your hands for hundreds of millions of

people as our listener is also saying

there is actually no access to water

that you can simply wash your hands and

it’s fascinating a young Kenyan boy just

got an award from the president of Kenya

because he devised a simple contraption

that would allow you to use very

precious water without having the touch

you know the watering can developing a

little foot device that you could use

people are improvised you know I think

we need to learn more from how poor

people actually find solutions to their

problems it’s one reason why in UNDP we

established a year and a half ago 60

so-called accelerator labs which are

very much focused and trying to

understand how are people within a

country trying to solve those problems

how do we then bring scalable

opportunities technology into that as

well and hopefully the issue of access

to clean water which is really an

indictment on our economic development

part I mean we in the year 2020 should

not be living in a world where seven to

eight hundred million people actually

still go hungry where one third of the

food we produce is actually lost its

waste between farm and market and is

wasted in the way we consume food and

these are the kinds of irrationalities

that

I think the economic pathway that we

have chosen has her too long overlooked

that too many people are being left

behind and left out of our economy and I

think that is one thing that will change

the conversation about the future and

access to water clean water is one very

stark illustration but there are many

others in our current economic reality

so another question comes from an

article and it’s about who is supposed

to be working on that she asked has copy

change the way UNDP or UN institutions

in general are looking at public-private

partnerships for the recovery in the

shorter term and also over the long term

well first will operationally let me

tell you that as UNDP / also the United

Nations we are at the moment

collaborating with a number of companies

whether it is for assembly maintaining

averages to transport protective

equipment medicines and supplies to many

countries that essentially have nothing

to turn to in terms of the existing

infrastructure airports are closed

airlines are basically stopped flying so

that is a critical part of working roles

with the private sector secondly

telecommunications companies in many

countries first of all getting

information out to citizens involved us

reaching partnerships with

telecommunication companies the

communication sector as such and then we

are looking particularly at the digital

solutions also because for instance

tracking and tracing entirely new apps

and systems are being mobilized right

now the technology the intellectual

property if you want rests in the hands

of private companies but the license to

operate something else in a transparent

and also that’s a respectful of privacy

and human rights aspects is in the hand

of government so bringing them together

is very much part of it but then also

reaching out of the financial sector

debt we need to address together with

the banks and financial system an

extraordinary challenge of the coming

months which is a mounting debt in many

developing countries that unless we

manage this together and a lot of this

debt is actually held by the private

sector it is not public debt as they

called it traditionally and therefore we

need to work with the private sector but

let me give you one more fascinating

example the

sector in Africa we could literally over

the next three to four years working

with the insurance sector which is an

you know a sector in our economy that

has optimized the use of artificial

intelligence delivering you know

insurance products that are able to

manage risks and assess risks health

insurance to four hundred million people

because in many parts of the development

of people have no national health

service they have no health insurance as

a poor person you will spend your last

money that you have on the sickness of

your child or of your parent can be

bring micro health insurance into these

economies where governments and the

insurance sector work together and they

could literally we estimate bring 400

million people into a minimum health

insurance system that would reduce the

extraordinary inequality that we have

just seen manifests itself in this code

nineteen crisis so yes there is an

enormous opportunity but it requires two

things one for the state the government

institutions to recognize what is the

economic policy that will attract the

private sector into delivering also

public good outcomes and secondly I

think leaders in the private sector CEOs

in particular I think need to step

forward and we have seen more and more

about in recent years to embrace their

responsibility to shape outcomes that

define the future of our economies and

societies it is not the state regulates

all the problems and the private sector

is essentially best off if it can just

focus on its own shareholders or

entrepreneurial success we need both and

that is why this is I think another

critical change that we will see over

the next few weeks and months that

public and private sector will forge

alliances we need generational projects

that require both and I think that may

be one of the transformative advances

we’ll see

let me ask one one last question which

would require a full interview maybe we

can just give the headline the headline

answer and it comes from from Frank

Hennessy it is do the thing that the

collective response to climate change is

more achievable now as a result of the

global experience of the pandemic that’s

a tough question to answer right now I

think in many respects the obvious

answer is probably not because with all

the economic fallout with all the crises

and let’s also you know acknowledge the

kind of geopolitical tensions the

prospect for addressing climate change

collectively has probably run into a

momentary challenge which is first of

all the ability to focus on it and

secondly also the willingness of the

international community to work together

despite different interests I think

however what we may see is that it is

the public who through covert 19 may

have discovered what it means to not

listen to science the ability to learn

that in action on climate change right

now it will not create just temporary

problems of a pass once you pass a

certain level of warming in our

atmosphere you are locked in for

hundreds of years with all the

consequences so I do believe in fact

that over the next year or two we will

see an accelerated commitment to

addressing climate change challenges and

the first test will really be in the

year 2021 when the conference of the

parties the climate change convention

comes together again and countries have

to submit their revised national climate

strategies this is an obligation they

signed up to and they’re supposed to

come with a higher level of ambition

this will be the moment of truth and I

think it will be the litmus test on

whether out of this crisis we may

actually see an accelerated transition

towards a low-carbon economy it’s also a

wing undp have therefore made one of the

four main areas in which to work with

governments and with the public and the

private sector right now accelerating

the transition towards a greener economy

is one way to recover out of this crisis

okay thank you really back later for