 Welcome to this session on stopping poverty from going viral. My name is Negla Riz, I'm Professor of Economics at the American University in Cairo and I would like to welcome our esteemed panelists. His Eminence, Cardinal Peter Turkson, Prefect of the Dicastry for Promoting Integral Human Development of the Vatican City State, Dr. Jane Zahn, Senior Director on Investment and Enterprise at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development on Qatar. Mr. Asif Saleh, Executive Director, Bangladesh. BRAC is a world-leading NGO with an award-winning program, the UltraFool Graduation Initiative that helps the world's poorest escape, extreme poverty and transition to self-sufficiency, autonomy and dignity. Welcome to our panel. Our panel today is titled Stopping Poverty from Going Viral. The world's poor have been most severely hit by the economic repercussions of COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, the pandemic has and will push up to 150 million people in developing countries into extreme poverty this year and forced millions in rich economies below the poverty line. The latest World Bank figures tell us that almost half the world is trying to survive on five and a half dollars or less a day. According to the International Labor Office, more than 500 million jobs have been jeopardized, mostly developing countries and more than 100 million jobs will have been permanently lost by the end of the year. Inequality has and will continue to increase between countries, but also within countries both developed and developing. The threat is real for more hunger and malnutrition for the world's poor, with those at the lower base of the pyramid suffering the most, especially women, children and the marginalized. Without both policy actions for a more inclusive, resilient and sustainable recovery, the COVID-19 crisis made trigger cycles of higher income inequality, lower social mobility among the vulnerable and lower resilience to future shocks. Today, we need to discuss how to rebuild economies post COVID in a way that is more inclusive, resilient and sustainable, how to increase resilience of the economy and at risk communities, what immediate action needs to be taken to prevent more millions of people going into extreme poverty. How can we stop poverty from going viral? My questions to your eminence. I start with your eminence and my question to you is the following. You are leading the second working group of the Vatican's COVID-19 commission that looks into rethinking our world post COVID-19. In two minutes, would you tell us about the group and what it calls for? Thank you. Well, thank you. Thank you and take all of you for inviting us. Two minutes. Essentially, it is this. When the COVID pandemic broke, the holy father who would already be showing interest and showing a lot of concern for the affliction of humanity charged our office to create a commission to take charge of the situation and help a lot of local communities. So, we put together five working groups. Now, the first working group maintains contact with the local groups around the world. And we've done conversation with a lot of them, trying to get to understand how they deal with the situation and how the Vatican can raise some support. The second working group decided to do research, thinking and promoting in our thought and reflection on the issue. And that has identified five task forces. One deals with access to health care, public health care, equitable access to public health care and vaccine, which comes after this. Job security ensuring that people have jobs and if anything should happen to the job, how can the state step in to cushion them from the effects of joblessness and all. Then there is also the problem of security. Security first to talk about food security and security from conflict related in our crisis. And so with food security, for example, we recognize that the southern part of the world, in the north where you go to supermarket to shop and look for food, it's not as bad. But in the south where you have to go to the market before you can have access to food. And when the COVID prevents people from bringing food to the market, then you run a real difficult problem of, you know, people famous farming. And you've seen a lot of places when people try to get out to the market, then they face the police who sometimes shoot and even kill. So the issue of access to food is very real. And the third one is, of course, about access to technology and then communication matters to ensure all of this and make them happen. Thank you, your Eminence. I now turn to James and I would like you to tell us again in two minutes about the global setting. Would you share your views about the impact of the pandemic on global trade investment and what that has meant for developing countries, especially those living at the base of the pyramid? James, you're on mute. You're on mute, James. Yes, thank you. The pandemic caused kind of a triple shock, supply, demand, and policy, and that impact on trade and investment. Regarding trade that, according to the W2 forecast, that it would be decline of 9.2 percent in volume of world merchandise trade, followed by a kind of 7.2 percent rise this year. But having said that, trade recovery is slower in developing countries. In the least developed countries, decline is much larger than the average, so this would cause a major concern. So that's our trade. On investment, the situation is even worse. In a sense, in the sustainable development sectors, for example, we estimated that there's a need of $2.5 billion annually for developing countries. That's the gap need to be filled. And before the pandemic, six out of 10 SDG sectors groupings experienced progress in the increase in investment in SDGs. But this all has undone by this pandemic. Last year, the investment in SDG sectors declined by one-third. That's tremendous. In a sense, in all the major SDG sectors, like infrastructure industries that include utilities, telecoms, that declined by 62 percent. And investment in food and agriculture, water and sanitation, health, education were all down by either one-third or two-third. So that is really a kind of challenging situation for the international community. And this COVID pandemic has really, has really more than undone the progress made since 2015. Thank you. Thank you very much, James. Now, clearly this has had its toll on the lowest, the base of the pyramid. And I would like to move on to Asif and ask him to tell us about BRAC and the ultra-poor graduation approach, how your activities were impacted by the pandemic, but also how to strengthen existing networks at the grassroots level, how to reinforce effective partnerships with governments to develop and scale innovations. So please go ahead, Asif, and you have asked for an extra minute in this round to begin from the next round. So please, you have three minutes. Go ahead. Thank you. I just wanted to explain our approach to ultra-poor poverty, because that's quite irrelevant to what we were talking about. So when we talk about poor people living in poverty, I mean, we should realize that there are not one big homogeneous group. There are stratas as well. And ultra-poor group is that group which completely is at the bottom. They're almost invisible in the society. And they have no agency. And in many countries, lack any support from the government, because they don't get targeted in any government schemes. So they're earning less than a dollar a day. And they're capable, but need hand-holding. So in 2002, BRAC started working with this group, seeing that the impact of microfinance actually is not reaching them. So in any given village, we first went and asked the villagers to identify the poorest, the ultra-poor. What we did was that we gave them an asset and a training related to the asset. And it may be a cow or a goat or a few chickens or a small piece of land. And the training would be related to the goat-rearing or vegetable farming. So together with the technical training, our workers would go to their home and check up on them and work on their confidence building. And it can connect them to the rural elites, ensure that they didn't actually sell off their assets. Their children are going to school and they're having nutritious food. So poverty is a multi-dimensional problem. It's not just an income of poverty. So we gave them a stipend as well to ensure that they don't sell off their assets. So by end of this two-year intervention, we looked at nine different indicators like their earning, health, education, sanitation, et cetera. And if they had ticked the boxes, we called them graduates. So they have graduated out of ultra-poority. And then they're on a path to self-sustainability. So this was launched in 2002 in Bangladesh. And then every year, we graduated close to 100,000 families. So seeing this, like then we tried with our partners in six different countries whether this works or not. And this was very rigorously evaluated by Professor Abhijit Banerjee and Professor Duffalo, who then basically resulted, the result was published in 2015. And it showed that it actually works in other contexts as well. And then the interest took off. So now it's replicated in 46 countries in different contexts. But now we are saying to the governments that, look, if you are looking to improve your social protection system, this is a great way to do it. You're not spending money perpetually. You're giving them a path to self-sustainability. And from both a cost and efficiency perspective, this is a much better investment. So now we are working with governments across the world to scale through them the impact and the knowledge obtained from this Bangladeshi program. This is also a best example of government and non-government organizations working together where government spending is complemented by the sector's innovation and the community outreach. Now, the pandemic actually, the inequality obviously got much more magnified as it's been sold. And urban poor was the worst affected. And what we are seeing that, I mean, and also from a social perspective, schools are close for 10 months, and this is resulting a huge dropout. It will take some time to recover from this shock. But to make it worse, I mean, I think many wealthy countries are also cutting their overseas aid budget. And we need to build back better, but this will not be easy. Thank you. Thank you, Asif. Yes, we will come back to the children at school and the burden based on women. So thank you for mentioning that. So I'd like to go back to your eminence and ask if you would share with us the key priorities for the Vatican in 2021, as particularly as it pertains to the poor. In three minutes, please. Thank you. For some time, for some time in our engagement with what we call popular movement groups, people on the streets and all that, we've identified what we call the three T's. Okay. And it's funny, they are Tierra, Trabajo, and Techo. So it is the land, it is work, and it is a home. Okay, so the three objectives that we kind of, you know, pursuing now is to ensure people a place to lay their head. And talking about home, we talk about the family, we talk about the security, we talk about this welfare. Then we talk about work, access to work, access to decent salary and income. Then we talk about land, asset and asset, asset where, you know, as Sif talked about starting off by giving people assets. Okay. So we try to ensure that at least they have assets that can sustain everything that they do. So the three things are the objectives that we look, you know, we, we, we rooting for. Thank you, your eminence. So going through the point of work and workers' justice and dignity and fair compensation. Recently, I called the Oxfam, where the governments around the world must act now to build a human economy that is feminist and that values what truly matters to society. Clearly, women have been put at the unfair end of compensation, especially that they have been involved in the care, have been involved in the care economy. And underpaid and unpaid work. And I'm wondering if, like Asif, to share with you your views about that, especially that you have been engaged with households getting out of extreme poverty. So how would, what has the impact of COVID-19 on women specifically? What have you seen through your work and how can feminist economic policies help your work in your area? Thank you. You have two minutes this time. Thank you. Yeah. No, I think essentially Bangladesh is the best testament of women's centric development work. I mean, it showed that if you invested on women's health, education, and economic empowerment, the entire country's social indicators improve. And that impact actually would sustain. I mean, our BRAC's founder used to say that women are the best managers of poverty. And at the same time, if you invest in their education, they become much more aware, mother. And the health indicators also improve in terms of neonatal death, nutrition, et cetera. So the work that we have done with the government over the last 50 years has led to much better social outcomes in Bangladesh and much more inclusive growth compared to the other countries in the region. And we have shown great success in achieving MDG targets. But now the challenge is different. But the solution obviously still lies in investing in women. But by also engaging men in this process as well. I think in the post-COVID world, we can't afford to see that because of economic challenges, women are being marginalized further and their education and empowerment are getting stopped. There are early indications that we are seeing that the pandemic has been extremely harsh on everyone. But women are the worst sufferer. I mean, we are seeing that in terms of economic effects in terms of family, their resulting foods insecurity, increase of domestic violence, child marriage increasing as because the dropouts are increasing. I mean, they are much more expandable because of the school closing. And even small businesses where women were running because of the work that has happened over the last few years, they were getting shunned. And women also are not being able to tap into various government stimulus program because of marginalization. So essentially marginalized are getting even further marginalized because of the pandemic. Equity has, inequity has become magnified this process. And in this process, what has happened in this has the emergence of this new group. But we are calling them the new poor who have fallen through the line of poverty. And that number in Bangladesh has sort of expanded from 18 percent to almost at the height of the pandemic. It was close to 40 percent. So and women are the sort of worst sufferers. So whatever our focus is in the recovery and social and economy, women has to be at the center of it. Thank you. Thank you, Asif. I want to go to James and James, if you could tell us with all the suffering, you know, to the economy and tell us a bit more about supply chain disruptions and what productive capacity and what it could mean to a local productive capacity and the need to look into how we can develop economies, especially in developing countries. So, James, you have three minutes. Please go ahead. Thank you very much. I think that I have only three minutes. So I just wish to focus on one important initiative. I think that was the tension of international community for the partnership, this promoting productive capacity in low and middle income countries. So for the low and middle income countries, there's urgent need for affordable PPE, diagnostics, treatment and vaccines. And the global production capacity is fading to ensure that such a supply to the low income countries. So therefore, there is a possibility and there can be an opportunity in light of the challenges to boost the production in poor countries that to integrate their production network and facility into the kind of productive health ecosystem at the national, regional and global level. And it's something that is good for health, for local economic development and for global public health security. I think at this stage, we see short-term-wise it will alleviate the supply constraint in developing countries. Longer-term-wise, the local productive capacity can nurture expertise and create quality jobs in low-income countries and contribute to structure transformation and economic growth. So that is the important thing, but that requires the kind of industrial alliance parallel manufacturing by multiple companies in multiple locations. And that needs a kind of global partnership among the governments, local producers, development partners and international investors, and also technology holders. So this is the critically important, we need that partnership to do that. And I think a number of countries are ready for that. Not all countries, but some, like Bangladesh, like Egypt, like Morocco or Tunisia, quite a number of countries can be ready for such a kind of production linking to global value chain supply chain. Thank you, James. I'd like to go to the cardinal, your Eminence. I would love to hear your comments about that, access to vaccines, particularly for COVID-19 and the larger issue of access to medicines for people in poorer parts of the world. Your Eminence, please go ahead. I think this has always been a challenge. This has always been a challenge that we try to help deal with. When this pandemic struck, one of the issues we projected and we said could run into difficulty was that when news about the discovery of the vaccine came up, we were rooting for the fact that access to the vaccine would be equitable and would not become nationalistic or be determined by any item. But that's precisely what we see now. Governments are thinking about their people first and then see what else can be left for other people. We've seen this play all over and over again. Right now, as you know, the round is between the European Union and Aztec, Zeneca, Abbas, so far. So this is ongoing. On account of that, we would encourage very much so if the RTO can help to suspend intellectual property rights so that the production of the vaccine can be undertaken on several local levels. Several countries do have the facility. They do have pharmaceutical facilities to be able to produce this. And if that was done locally, I think the impact of the COVID or the virus will be very much tamed or diminished. So access to medicines, especially the vaccines in this case, is very real. We witness the deaths. Everybody is now talking about new strain in South Africa, in Brazil, in the Amazon Desert and all of that. Therefore, we encourage and also want them. Since access to the vaccine is running into difficulty, we're now encouraging the discovery of alternative kills to the COVID. We encourage people to look further afield to other local therapies that they may have. And we begin to discover a few which can help people deal with the COVID and reduce the death rates until equitable access to the vaccine can be fashioned for all. Thank you, Eminence. This probably speaks also to the tension between nationalist policies, economic policies, but also policies with respect to increasing modern vaccines within borders as opposed to the call for collaboration and global solidarity. So perhaps I want to go back to James. And what do you think about this tension, even in economic policies between countries moving inwards and trying to work through national policies, and at the same time the need for global collaboration to deal with the global slowdown due to COVID-19? James, go ahead. Yes. As we observed during the pandemic, governments are moving towards there's a dichotomy, in fact, in policymaking. On the one hand, countries are putting in protectionist measures partly for national security reasons, partly because of that they use these measures to close the border for trade and investment. And on the other hand, we also see quite a number of countries putting in place measures to liberalize their sectors that the needs international investment that can stimulate the investment for jobs and for growth. So there's a dichotomy, in fact. I think at this stage, we see that G20 has been trying to play a role in contain trade and investment protectionism, particularly in the critical areas, like food supply chain and also supply of medical equipment and medicine. So there is a need for a broader kind of efforts in ensuring that global value chains are functioning well and not be disrupted by protectionism. Yes, indeed. Actually, I would like to bring up your eminence. You delivered the Holy Father's Pope Francis' message toward leaders last year at the annual meeting in Davos. And I quote, pleading for high moral responsibility to work for the common good and urging global leaders to seek the integral development of all humanity by placing the human person at the very center of public policy. So would you like to comment on where we are today from your eminence? I think all the discussion we've been holding now has been to uphold this. The human person must be at the center. In several cases on account of engagement, people engage in that about profit, financial gains, economic whatever, tend to push the human person into a background. Now, one thing why the Pope wrote that was that the dignity of the human person is the one thing that you cannot compromise on. And everything that we do is supposed to mean to uphold the dignity of every person. James talked a short while ago about multilateralism or nations needing to come together. When Ban Ki-moon presented the SDGs in 2015, the way he presented was that the SDGs were human dignity narrative that leaves nobody behind. And if we true to this objective, then everything we do in this regard should be to enhance the dignity of everything not leaving anybody behind. And this is done on several levels. Nations can engage in multilateralism to do that. Non-national actors can engage in a sense of solidarity. What the Pope right now is calling these days a sense of fraternity, social bond, social fraternity, social friendship among us to stimulate, living for one another, looking for the common good of the human society, and how to uphold the well-being of all of us. So, as a certain point, we, on the good, okay, we try to create a platform for economic policies, financial policies, with a little bit of virtue, the virtue of common good, the virtue of caring for one another, the virtue of the human family being a single family united or one interconnected with the other, and to try to kind of hold up every system and induce us and make us encourage us to care for one another. Thank you, your Eminence. Can we then, in the minutes that are remaining, I will ask each of you, and I will start with Asif, to please provide us with the, you know, in one minute, the top advice, message to the world on how to stop poverty from going by. Asif, please go ahead. One minute, please. Asif, can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear, you know, I just lost you for a minute over there. Sorry. Yes, would you provide your, in one minute, your top advice and message to the world on how to stop poverty from going by, from your area of work and from your perspective? No, I think in the post-COVID reality, I mean, we are not even talking about SDG targets anymore. If we are talking about eradicating extreme poverty from the world by 2030, I mean, we have to get our act together. And going back to what the Cardinal was saying that essentially is the moral responsibility of everyone, particularly the richer country. And when you hear about the billionaires who have made even a few more billions, they have doubled their assets last year while you see the ultra poor suffering everywhere and women who are suffering, that you really start to think that what's wrong with the world. And there are serious inequities that if, for all our interest, I mean, essentially in just like COVID, like if not everyone, if everyone is safe, if everyone is safe in a sense that we need to get the virus out of everyone before everyone can feel safe, poverty is something like that as well, that we all need to work together. Because at some point, this kind of disparity will lead to serious social consequences across the world. Thank you. Thank you. James, in one minute, please go ahead. Yes, I just want to get back to this building productive capacity in producing essential medicine and medical equipment in low income countries and integrate them into the global value chain and supply chain. I think there's a need for global action, a global partnership that I would like to advocate. There can be 10 actions to take. One is that investment in skill development to ensure that standards compliance in production. There's a sharing COVID-19 related technical technologies to ensure affordable mass production, target impact investors to access necessary capital, to build partnerships to initiate lighthouse projects in low hunting fruit, and to improve investment incentives to increase local firm's sustainability, to use streamlined regulations to facilitate investment and investing infrastructure, emphasize on the regional approach to reduce the cost and to increase the scope, a scale, and seek funding from official development systems, and lastly to ensure sustainability of the efforts despite the kind of unpredictable markets. With these actions that we can form a global partnership to build productive capacity in low income countries and to integrate into global supply chain in producing essential medicine, not only for the short term, but also for longer term. Thank you, James. Your eminence, last message to the world. I think with all the infrastructure details supplied by James and Asif, what I'll add is to come back to the question you put is the human person. The human person being central to all of this is not simply as the beneficiary of all of these initiatives, but it's also the crucial actor, the crucial actor in making all of this happen. The infrastructure, principles and basis and elements that James talked about, all of those do exist and they can be activated certain motion by a change of heart of the human person feeling for one another kind of. So the human person is the center of all of this, not because it's a beneficiary, but it's also the crucial actor. He must change lifestyle, he must change thought partners, he must change way of thinking and develop a heart for the other person to be able to feel for the world being of the other. If that does not happen, we may have all the structures we want, but if the center, if the one of the wheels or the helm of turns does not change, attitude, morality, ethical considerations, all of that, not much will change. So the human person, yes, not only by way of protecting his dignity, but also by making him, the crucial actor responsible for the well-being of everybody by change or feeling of a certain brotherliness towards each other. Thank you, your Eminence. We have listened to our speakers and we are reminded of how COVID-19 has connected us in illness and in its aftermath. We're reminded of our interconnectedness on all levels, social, economic, political, environmental, and psychological. More than any other time, the need is for collective action, working together for solidarity for the human person, for the human family, quoting his Eminence, collaboration is a moral responsibility in shaping a new normal that's sustainable and inclusive with one clear objective being stopping poverty from going viral. I am grateful to my distinguished speakers. Thank you all so very much. Turn to the audience. Have a wonderful rest of day. Please share your reflections on social media channels and thank you again to World Economic Forum and to everybody. Have a wonderful rest of your day. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.