 So I think we can really contribute to that multilateralism. It's an honor for me to introduce the UN Deputy Secretary General, a dear friend, and a wonderful leader of this effort. Nobody is more responsible for the fact that we have a shared global agenda than Amina Muhammad. She was the special advisor to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to help negotiate a common path forward, which is the agenda 2030 and the sustainable development goals. I don't know how she did it. I watched that process over three years and it was absolutely remarkable to find 193 governments with different agendas. Different agendas, quite often we could say, come to a shared agreement about the future we want. Amina plays the role every day in the UN of leading the UN Sustainable Development Group, the UN institutions and coordination bodies to make this sustainable development agenda real and live. With the COVID-19, she has unique responsibilities in helping to coordinate the response to the pandemic. Amina, thank you for all your leadership. We are here for you and we're very eager to hear your guidance. Thank you very much, Jeff. Well, friends and colleagues, it's absolutely wonderful to be with you and I'm really, really happy to see both Lee Bollinger and Raj. It's wonderful to see Raj. Thank you for helping us to host this. And I'd like to begin first by, and it doesn't happen often that we get this opportunity to deeply appreciate Jeff's work together with Guido and his team from creating, nurturing and growing UNSDSN. It's quite an incredible achievement and to keep that momentum going from the time that we spent four years in shaping this agenda. And just to remind everyone, you were very much a part of shaping that agenda. This was enormous teamwork and collaboration across the world, which is why I think today that people do see themselves in the 17 goals. They do see themselves in the conceptual paradigm shift we had from where we had the MDGs to sustainable development. So thank you, Jeff. Thank you for bringing all of us together again to try to push the ambition. The Secretary-General's just flagged some of the challenges we face in our world today, starting but not ending with the COVID-19 pandemic. And I'd like to build on some of his thoughts and identify some of the ways in which universities can help the world to overcome these challenges. The 2030 agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals still remain our roadmap and our touchstone. And what this crisis has shown is that the failure to implement the goals comes at a heavy cost and leaves our world incredibly fragile and vulnerable. So as we grapple with the crisis and we look to recovery, not only do we need to stay the course with the SDGs, we really do need to pick up the pace and make more ambitious and decisive actions. The COVID crisis may have put a pause on us, but it did not put a pause on climate change. It did not put a pause on the rising inequalities. It did not put a pause on gender-based violence. These have all spiked and increased. And so therefore, I would say our job is to find the crisis out of the opportunity. Sadly, what we took in terms of trying to suppress the COVID pandemic had a side effect. And those side effects were felt in developing countries long before COVID made landfall. And that's the socioeconomic impact on the lives of people. And we are going to need even more policies that are evidence-based to tackle this. And I want to thank, again, Guido and his team for producing an exceptional report, the Sustainable Development Report 2020, which is going to be discussed at the Hilo-Political Forum, is a great reference point for us to use to strengthen our work on the SDGs. At the UN, we had launched the decade of action to focus minds on the job at hand, ending poverty, reducing inequalities, tackling climate change and environmental degradation, but also writing the century-old wrong of gender equality. By pressing these three levers, we can drive change across all the 17 goals. And we're working to mobilize everyone everywhere for this endeavor. And our everyone includes the universities and the institutions of higher learning. As the home of so many of the world's brightest and best, as a space that really shapes future leaders, global citizens, and a global workforce, and as a source of many of humanity's great breakthroughs, we do need you to join the Sustainable Development Revolution, a movement that we'd like to see creating that momentum as we go through this 10 years to succeed on delivering the goals. What we are asking is that you take the SDGs as your North Star. Allow me to illustrate some of the areas where I think you can have significant impact. First, the SDGs are comprehensive, they're interconnected, and they demand transdisciplinary approaches. This is a major challenge for governments, and indeed for many business leaders and workers who are trained to think and work in silos. Over the past five years, I've seen government after government express a genuine commitment to the SDGs, but very often they lack the know-how and the capacity to govern and implement policies that deliver inclusive and sustainable economies. And this is precisely where universities can play a key role. Complexity and interdisciplinary analysis is your bread and butter, so we need you to step it up and to land such analysis in decision-making of governments and companies in the thinking of public servants and the next generation. The second is that the SDGs are incredibly ambitious, and with 30% of the race run, we are far from where we need to be. So to get back on track, we will need innovation, we will need ambition, and we will need to help countries leapfrog to a better future. This is particularly the case for developing countries who are often still lacking some of the basic infrastructure that most industrialized countries have built upon over the past century. But as COVID-19 has shown, it applies to all countries and to a wide range of sectors. Right now we have a small window of opportunity to shift to development pathways that leave fossil fuels in the ground to rethink the relationship between consumption and natural resource use, to rapidly expand access to public services like education and healthcare by leveraging new technologies. Here too we want to draw on your expertise. The private sector is often cited as the beating heart of innovation, and it often drives innovation, but mostly those are likely to be financially profitable. University research innovates more broadly and more in the interest of humanity. We've seen universities deliver incredible breakthroughs in the past, and we see it again with COVID-19 as you step up support and the discovery of vaccines, treatments, and therapeutics. We need to see that spirit of the possible expanded right across the SDGs. Third and finally, we will only be able to make the great changes needed to deliver the SDGs if we have the public trust and social cohesion. And that in turn requires an informed citizenry, a commitment to tolerance and a space for dialogue and dissent. In many contexts today, societies are at breaking point. In some instances, this is due to the frustrations with lack of opportunity, with unfair globalization, with the abuse of power by elites, and with COVID, the fear of uncertainty. But in other instances, it's a reaction to social change, pushback against racial inequality, against the rights of migrants and refugees, against the freedoms of people of other faiths, and also against the rise of women and girls. Our education systems in particular universities have an incredibly important role to play in teaching values of tolerance, respect of human rights, and civic responsibility, in providing space for different views and allowing public attitudes to change and to mature. The SDG's success depends on the reigniting of such values and the rediscovery of our common humanity. So in short, my message to you today is to make your leadership count and your voice resonate in the global village that will make the decade of action for delivery for people and for planet. Help us to step up the pace, to deal with the complexity, to advance innovative solutions and to rekindle our faith in each other and in our common humanity. Surviving COVID, we will, we absolutely will. I have no doubt that we will. But thriving to deliver the decade is going to require us to invest in young minds as we embark upon what will be a truly intergenerational transition. This is the largest cohort that we've ever had. This is the biggest opportunity we have to create and to expand the ingenuity of cities and the exponential opportunity of technology in our digital age. So I look forward to welcoming you to the General Assembly this year. Virtual it may be. The UN will be 75, but we'll also be celebrating Beijing plus 25 for women. We will be looking at the Biodiversity Summit that this year should have been one of nature, but we will not forget it. We will not put a pause on the actions we need to take for climate action. And last but not least, we will have an SDG moment that kicks off the decade of action to deliver on the SDGs. And I really look forward to seeing you as we plot that path forward and succeed in delivering our promise in 2030. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you, Raj. And thank you, Lee. Amina, thank you very much. Thank you for.