 Will you please join me in welcoming His Excellency Dr. Boydiano, the Vice President of the Republic of Indonesia. Thank you very much. One more picture to go. Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, thanks so much for joining us here this morning. A fascinating topic. I'm sure you'll agree. Inclusive Asia reinvigorating the Millennium Development Goals. Obviously an enormous issue, an enormous task for not just the Asian community but for the global community. I'll briefly outline those goals so you will know which ones we're going to be talking about. They were begun, as you know, the Millennium Development Goals back in 2000 with a target data deadline of 2015. There are eight goals. There are 21 targets and there are some 60 criteria for measuring those targets. Just let me very quickly run through the eight key goals. Harving the number of people living on less than $1.25 a day. Achieving universal primary school education. Promoting gender quality and empowerment of women. Reducing child mortality by two-thirds for children under the age of five years. Improving maternal health. Combating AIDS, malaria and other diseases. Ensuring environmental sustainability. And number eight is developing a global partnership for development. So we've just got four and a half years to go now before that 2015 deadline. I'm not, I'm afraid, in 75 minutes going to comprehensively cover all eight of those targets, but we are going to cover the ones that matter to Asia, what's being done well, what's not being done well, and why and what we need to do now. These will be the issues that are relevant. And we have a very, very distinguished panel with us this morning to discuss these. And I would like to particularly make a warm welcome to the Republic of Indonesian Vice President, Lord Iono. Sir, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Now on my immediate left, we are joined by Thomas Stelza. He is with the United Nations. And Thomas Rol is really as a lead coordinator in the UN in reaching the Millennium Development Goal targets. On the Vice President's left is Rajat Nag, who is the head of the Asian Development Bank. Sitting next to him is Tony Maloto. And for those who don't know Tony, Tony is the executive director of a group called Gawad Kalinga, which as he points out is now responsible since it began in 2003 of putting something like one million Filipinos into their own homes or access to health since 2003. It's quite an extraordinary effort by that group. Tony described himself as a radical optimist and you'll find out why in the course of this morning. And sitting next to Tony is Jeffrey Sacks, who I'm sure most people you're all familiar with here. Jeffrey is director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and also special advisor to the UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon on the Millennium Development Goals. So certainly gentlemen, thank you all for coming today. I will be taking questions from the floor and I'd just like to underline here. It's an unusual event for us to be able to ask some questions from the floor to such a senior minister. So I welcome your questions. We will get to them during the course of the morning. But I'd like to kick things off now with Jeffrey Sacks. And Jeffrey, perhaps you can just start by giving us the broad outline. We've got four and a half years to go now for the MDGs. How are we performing and how within that is Asia performing? Thanks very much. And what an honor it is to be together with this wonderful panel and ladies and gentlemen. I think the Millennium Development Goals have been a remarkable undertaking. The fact that the world got together 11 years ago and agreed on a holistic approach to attacking and eventually ending extreme poverty is something very unusual. Perhaps even more unusual is the fact that 11 years after these were announced, they are still very much at the center of national and international policymaking. This usually doesn't happen with global goals. Global goals are typically stated, photo-op and forgotten, but not with the Millennium Development Goals. I think they've really been able to find a major political foothold all over the world. Wherever I travel, and that's to dozens and dozens of countries every year, they're playing a guiding and powerful public and policy role in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and it's very heartening. There's been lots of progress. The greatest progress is definitely in Asia. The greatest progress among the eight goals is the progress in reducing income poverty. And again, Asia is really at the center of that because of double-digit economic growth, the dramatic progress in all parts of Asia, South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia. We're seeing great breakthroughs in the speed of economic growth unprecedented. Other parts of the world have lagged somewhat behind, but even Sub-Saharan Africa, which has long been the most problematic part of the world, is now picking up economic growth and is, I would say, a reliable 6% per year economic growth. That doesn't sound like much to Asian ears necessarily, but that's a big improvement in the past, the best since Africa's independence, and I think the rate is likely to grow. Asia is picking up Africa's growth. Let's be clear. This is an Indian Ocean dynamism that we're experiencing, and it's a very exciting and historic breakthrough. Now, where the goals are not being met, unfortunately, is in two other areas. One is when you need targeted public investments, for instance, to save mother's lives in childbirth or to save children from chronic undernourishment where market forces alone won't do it. Market forces will leave too many people behind or whole regions excluded. Then we're seeing progress not being what it needs to be, even in Asia, even in the most dynamic part of the world economy. The second area where I would say the whole world is falling down right now is in MDG 7 on environmental sustainability. Let's be clear and frank. We need to invent a new global growth model, nothing short of that, that combines rapid economic growth with environmental sustainability. The world will be getting together next year at the Rio Plus 20 summit around that challenge. This is not, unfortunately, a challenge that's going to be solved at a summit or at a meeting. It's very deep. It really means reorienting the whole growth model towards renewable energy, towards more efficient water use, towards spending more on clean water supplies, and so on. We see, even in the richest countries in the world, how the modern food systems can't necessarily cope often with an E. coli outbreak in Germany, for example, which was quite frightening. But the deeper problems of environmental change at human hands, especially climate change, is a sign that we haven't yet anywhere achieved MDG 7. And no country alone can do it. But we've seen more droughts, floods, powerful typhoons, rising sea levels, storm surges, and other ultimately human aggravated disasters taking place. And this is where I would put a huge part of the challenge. So long answer to your question, but to summarize, great progress, strong political commitment, the ability to do a lot more, the need for focused public investments alongside the private growth, and the need, unfortunately, and this is a mouthful and a big concept, the need for a new growth paradigm that combines environmental sustainability fundamentally with how we are scaling up production. Thank you. If I could turn to Pak Bodiyano to ask, as the host of the WEF meeting here, how is Indonesia specifically coming along with its targets? And perhaps that point that Geoffrey talks about, the new growth model. Indonesia is now growing strongly and will grow more strongly. But is there a payoff or trade-off that has to be made with the environment? Yeah. Thank you, Mrs. First, I would like to welcome all of you to Jakarta. I think it's our greatest pleasure to host the World Economic Forum here this time. First, let me connect to what Professor Sacks mentioned that some international goals normally are forgotten after a few years passed, but MDGs have never been forgotten here in this country. It is, in fact, part of our medium-term program of development, and all these 60-plus targets are actually part of our integrated into our medium-term plans here. So we are quite serious about that. With regard to the achievements so far, four and a half years before the final year, I think I would say that we have been able to be on track in general. And I must say that most of the targets are within our reach by 2015. Some of them are already actually achieved by now, like the extreme poverty target. I think we have passed the target by now by more than halving the rate. Gender equality, I think we should be proud that we could announce that gender equality in schooling and so on has been achieved. In fact, one of the marks of index for gender equality is achieved in many areas. In areas of health also, I think we are on the right track, but I have to make some notes here. There are some areas that I think we are now focusing to give more attention to. That is in the area of maternal mortality rates. I think a lot more need to be done in the next four to five years to put it on track to achieve our target. We have been doing a lot. The issue here is actually to reach out to these mothers who are mainly in the isolated areas. This is our main occupation in the next four to five years to get access to them. Many of the causes of the death of mothers is because of the childbearing period. I think what we need to do is to get more access to them, but hopefully we can achieve our target by 2015. Another area is the HIV age stabilizing. In fact, the number of new cases that we found is increasing in the past few years. This may be partly because of better recording and so on, but I think this is an area that we should put more attention to. We acknowledge the cooperation from the international community. I think we have benefited a lot from this cooperation. We are now offering a free treatment for everyone who registered to our clinics and hospitals throughout the country. I think that is the thing that we should try to continue. Another area is in the area of environment. Professor Sacks mentioned about environment. I think we will do our part to achieve the global reduction in emission, CO2 emission. That is 26% reduction by 2020. I think we will stick to that. Hopefully we can succeed. Recently, you know that the government has announced the kind of moratorium for conversion of forest land. Also, we are working on a big replanting program for our forests. With regard to the model, if I may, Mr. Sivans, yes, we have been discussing this issue within Indonesia among the experts and also within the government. 7% to 8% is our benchmark target for the medium term. If you look at the potential, it is below our potential. We could actually grow by 9% also. Some people question us that you should not aim at that high because it may have the environmental cost on your economy. Therefore, also the cost on your development in the medium term eventually. So, we are looking into that issue, what we could do in the area of compromising growth, vis-à-vis environment. Clean growth model, environmentally friendly model. I think we are working now in the area of energy, water and in such a way that hopefully we can achieve the good balance between the two. So, environmental sustainability is obviously something which is very high on this government's agenda. Mr. Nag, you've done plenty of research. The bank has done plenty of research on the MDGs. What have you found? Does your research bear out what Geoffrey has just been saying? It certainly does. But before that, Andrew, if I may, thank you again for the honor of colleagues to have me on the panel with them. And Andrew, one minor but important correction, I don't head ADB. President Corona does. I am very proud to be a member of his team. But thanks for that appointment for a few minutes. Very much in line with what Professor Saxes said in terms of the overall assessment. But you see, in Asia Pacific, the numbers are so huge that even when we are meeting the MDG targets, say on income poverty, as Geoffrey said, I think it's important to recognize that more than 900 million people in Asia live below a dollar 25 a day. On basic water, access to water, again, where Asia will meet the target, but still 450 million people are without access to clean water. And on targets which we are not on track on at the moment, at least, say sanitation, it's about 1.9 billion. And echoing what the vice president said, about quarter of a million mothers die at childbirth annually in Asia. And 100 million children are malnourished. So yes, very much agree with Professor Saxes overall assessment. Asia is on track on several MDGs, particularly on income, basic sanitation, gender parity, not on track on universal primary education, health in particular. So the challenge for Asia is we've got four and a half years to go. And what Babu, do you want to mention about Indonesia? We certainly feel about Asia as a whole that we can meet the targets in the next four and a half years, but it will need a huge amount of investments, both from the public and the private sector, both in infrastructure and the social sector. And one critical element of this whole fight to achieve MDGs will be good governance, which you had alluded to. And I'll come back later. So we are cautiously optimistic. It is plausible, but as I keep saying, not preordained. Thank you and apologies for that. Thomas, sitting in New York with the United Nations, you were responsible, you had a lot to do with pulling together the New York summit 10 years after the launch of the MDGs. That was partly to assess and partly to reinvigorate. How successful has it been and is the world back on target again? Has it renewed its commitments and the world as well as Asia? Last year's MDG summit was an amazing event for several aspects. First, it was the first stakeholders summit, bringing together not only representatives of government, but the stakeholder community, which is quite well represented in this panel here. We have government, we have financial institutions, we have the civil society, we have academia. We've learned that to implement the land development goals, you really have to bring all the stakeholders together. Now, the summit is such a stock. What have we done in the last 10 years? What have we learned? What can be applied to the last phase, the last five years? And the heads of governments and states in New York have agreed upon a very ambitious action plan, a clear strategy that could bring us ahead towards the fulfillment of the goals. Now, whether we implement that, whether this summit becomes dead wood as so many of the UN decisions and achievements, or whether we really move forward, that will really depend on us. We know exactly what it needs. It needs political commitment, which is obviously there in many countries. It needs clear strategies, which are all summarized in the outcome document, and it needs financial contributions. Now, with this package, we can achieve it. And this region here, East Asia and Southeast Asia, have proved that it's possible to really have poverty within the 15-year deadline. The numbers here are quite impressive. You know, a reduction in East Asia from 60% to 16% foreseeable. In Southeast Asia, from 39% to 9% to 19%. Of course, China will reduce it to 5%. But the region as a whole has been doing very well. Also, in having hungry people, that's one of the biggest issues in the world of abundance. We have a billion people who go to bed hungry, who do not enjoy food security. Children who do not enjoy food security. This region has done very well because they were targeted interventions, a clear focus on what needs to be done. And in fact, with the leadership of Indonesia and also the Philippines, the numbers are quite good in child nutrition in this region, which is very important because when children are born with less than 2,500 grams, they can never catch up. And their riches in the world were quite a high number of children is malnourished in the first years. So they are stunted. They can never catch up in their life. So no matter whether we provide them with inclusive development, with equitable growth, they will just not be able to take advantage of their opportunities because they were disadvantaged at the beginning. And what is Asia's, specifically Asia's biggest challenge, do you think, from the summit in 2010 to meet its targets? Specifically Asia. As Professor Schwab said yesterday at the opening session of this World Economic Forum in Asia, there is sustainability. How do we grow sustainably, predictably? How do we really realign our resources? And especially in the light of preparations for Rio Plus next year, where we are facing the biggest of all the challenges, the 50, 50, 50 challenge. That means in 2050, 50% more people than 10 years ago will live on this planet. At the same time, we need to reduce greenhouse gases by 50%. To stay within the grid target of two degrees warming. That's a huge challenge. What about the political will in Asia, the way we're all for financing? Those problems you spoke about, is that surmountable here? Is that a problem here? Well, the political will is clearly there in many of the countries. In Asia. Where it's not there. The UN has this great convening power. Political leaders come to New York and very often they commit to big targets and then when they leave New York, you know, there's sort of, with all their local and national problems, they sometimes do not really follow up to what they've promised in New York. So our problem of compliance with commitments is a big one. And this is where civil society comes in here. To make us aware, civil society has goals which are more sustainable than the few-year electoral cycle sometimes. Can you name a name? That's a very important role. Sorry. Could you name, could you point to a country in Asia and say, you are lagging behind on political will? Well, as the United Nations, we never sink out countries. Check one, two, check. In a bureaucratic society, it's up to civil society to choose their own leaders. And I think this is very important. You know, we need to tell our leaders what is important for us. The Millennium Development Goals have become really a cultural heritage. We know about that. In many, in big parts of the world, people live with the MDGs. And this is the summit, you know, galvanized political will and brought the world together to really channel all the energy towards the last five years. It's a huge opportunity and we will have to take advantage of it. Tony Malotto, we're obviously going to be talking quite a lot about financing and about developing a public-private partnership. You in the Philippines seem to be writing the book on that at the moment about how to alleviate poverty, lifting people out of poverty, giving them dignity, giving them hope. Just what are the key lessons you've learned about attracting private equity into this and convincing governments they need to be a part of it? Check. Your Excellency, Mr. Vice President and my honoured colleagues here. And to answer that, Andrew, I would like to speak as a person from the ground because we're really doing massive ground-up development because in many instances it takes a long time for development to trickle down. But they speak also for the millions of good people in this world who are working with NGOs and the old social entrepreneurs and also the big business and government leaders, good government leaders. Who want to help them because we realize that we need to build philosophy that you just connect with the good in people and there are enough critics and cynics in this world. So it's important for us also to really pursue a positive vision and when the MDGs articulated their vision to have poverty by 2015 in the year 2000, that was a clear signal for us. We also started to think of a vision for our own country that we can end poverty in our country. So by cooperating with government in achieving the MDGs but going beyond that. So in 2003 we launched a global campaign to end poverty in the Philippines in 21 years, 2024. And this is through public-private partnership but also by showing proof of concept. So since the time we have been working on 2,000 communities impacting the lives of about a million people. And as a result, we now have a new government that has trust and with very competent and visionary leaders. And yesterday I was very affirmed and inspired listening to the president of Indonesia after 7 years. They have achieved so much in terms of gaining global trust and also providing opportunities for investors to come in. But our government is barely one year old and so it gives me a lot of hope that it can be done. So now our role is to be a bridge between the poor and the rich between the government and the private sector that we have to show that the private sector must embrace MDGs and go beyond it. Because it's not just the job of government alone but if we can without seeking power and without seeking wealth ourselves that we can actually create wealth for those at the bottom of the pyramid. So now we are working with corporations to go beyond CSR but to go for CSI, corporate social investment. But when you work with these corporations how do you get them on board? This is not altruism, is it? By showing them that investing in reducing poverty makes good business sense because it will enhance buying power and expand the market base. And by also working in the countryside together with government we will reduce insurgency that is rooted in poverty. And so in our framework of development we focus on the first 7 years on achieving social justice through peaceful means and that is just creating shared value between the poor that we want to help and the corporations and government that wants to help them. But if we demand our government to be honest we as private citizens must be honest ourselves because we need to really help regain the trust of our people and government but we ourselves who are working to help end poverty in our country must be trusted by government ourselves. You have something like 500 corporations who are now partnering. I'm just curious Jeffrey Sachs, does the Philippines represent a standout success or are we seeing more and more public-private partnership now in this area? I think and especially at a world economic forum this concept of public-private partnership is vital. And I think Tony's success is exemplary and a lot more can be done. We've had great public-private partnership on some of the disease control initiatives. Malaria, AIDS, TB are cases where the public sector stepped up with the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB, and malaria. The private sector stepped up with providing new technologies, low-cost solutions and sometimes producing at cost with zero profit and it's been a wonderful partnership in this way. There are many companies in this room that are stepping forward with lots of very important initiatives on sustainability and the public sector needs to come in and help support those initiatives and scale them up. Another sector that I think has played an exemplary role is the ICT, the Information and Communications Technology sector. The mobile phone has been perhaps the greatest driver of development that I've seen in the last 20 years because one of the essences of poverty is isolation. And being outside of market information, outside of the knowledge flows and the mobile phones change that even for the most remote places in the world. Everybody's connected. And so the private sector role is essential and proving itself. There is business at the bottom of the pyramid and a lot of it but the public sector role is vital as complementary to that and it differs case by case but I think putting the two together is really at the core of success. Park Poriano, on the public role, how active now is your government in putting these programs forward? Are you doing it? Are you actively looking for private partnership as you go along? Yes. I think the role of the private sector and the community themselves in solving these social problems, poverty and so on is indispensable. The government alone cannot reach those who are needing the support and help. Government here, Mr. Sievens, we have a central program that focuses on what the government could do as government in terms of eliminating poverty and providing basic services for the people. But beyond that, I think the community itself, themselves, the private sector should be embraced so that this effort will become movement. This is exactly our strategy. We are trying to embrace them, become a national movement to eradicate poverty, to supply the basic services, education and health and so on and it is working now. We have been quite successful in a sense and having a public-private partnership in building infrastructure but now I think in social programs too, we are thinking and we see that there are the interests there that the business people are joining the government. I am in charge of directing the whole national poverty eradication program in this country and my office has received a lot of inquiries and interest among our business community here to participate and they asked the question, what could we do in the bigger framework of the government program? How can we fit into this? And it is happening now. How does the ADB fit into the financing needs and into building? I think Andrew, creating your question to a point that you also asked, Thomas, we think there is a lot of political commitment in Asia to meeting the MDGs and it is almost sort of universal. All governments feel it is very important and are committed. What I think is lacking to varying degrees is a sense of urgency. We've got only four and a half years to go and we have a long way to go and the numbers that I quoted are quite staggering. So I think there has to be a huge amount of public sector investments and public-private partnerships, no doubt. And in terms of the finances, ADB, the World Bank, other institutions certainly are providing more resources. We, for example, have almost tripled our lending over the last six, seven years and yet it is a drop in the ocean. Our estimates show, for example, that the 14 least developed countries in Asia Pacific need about $8 billion a year just to meet the MDGs. So the needs are huge and we certainly will keep ramping up to the extent we can within our capital limitations. But I should make a point that in Asia, the average taxes collected as a percentage of GDP is slightly under 10%. In the developed world, it's easily 20%. So there's a huge amount of public resource mobilization which needs to happen, not just by raising tax rates but by increasing the tax base, improving the tax collection, going back to governance. And I keep going back to it because I think without good governance, you will not have good development and you will not be able to reach the MDGs. So it has to be tied in in a very comprehensive manner with public investment, public-private partnerships and good governance, including fighting corruption. Tony Milita, I mean, good governance. How do you maintain graft-free or as much as you can development? You're dealing now with millions and millions of dollars, lots of development. How do you do governance at that level, at that grassroots level? Well, as most often we emphasize on good governance, but seldom do we emphasize good citizenship. So we realize that we have to really build sustainable communities that is a good platform for good citizenship, productivity and wealth creation. And government will become honest if our citizens will also be honest. Just like technology is doing a lot in our country, it's a fast election because of automation. We have the most honest, the fastest and the most peaceful election. What measures do you put in place to make sure that money goes where it needs to go? Well, the thing here is we've worked with over 400 mayors, governors, we worked with the national government and I have not met a corrupt official yet. Simply because of course the terms of engagement must be honest, must be transparent and you must show proof of results and you must be accountable. So we tried to leverage the limited resources of government with also contribution from the private sector and that's what we facilitate. And so it's important also for NGO leaders to really show accountability, show transparency and they should not have any personal agenda for profit themselves. But this is the thing, we're now really promoting social businesses to raise a new generation of our countrymen who should not just be job seekers abroad but wealth creators at home because we keep losing the brightest and the best of our people and abandoning us and leaving us with people that are on welfare and people we need to care for. And so while the government now will do its best, it's important for us now also our educational system not just to give up our education to supply the global job market but to really create good citizens and because from our universities will come also our future politicians and businessmen. So create, yes, create the whole cycle. Jeffrey Sachs, I mean governance as Roger Nag points out is a major issue. Tony doesn't see too much of it at his level. What do you see and what's the most effective way? I mean it is a blight, it is worldwide. I wanted to pick up on what Roger said which I think is extremely important and that is about public finance. You know if you look around the whole world at which countries have really achieved the triple bottom line of high economic levels, social equality, and environmental sustainability. I think if you do a worldwide scan of, to my view it is the Scandinavian countries in northern Europe that have come closest to that triple bottom line, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany. How do they do that? They pay for it. They tax themselves. They use the government proceeds to fight poverty, to fight under nutrition of young people, early childhood development programs. They don't fight the market. These are very open economies. They're very competitive economies. They have government revenue to invest heavily in R&D so that they're at the world-cutting edge of knowledge. And to my mind that is a wonderful combination. It shows that the market goes so far. They're all totally market economies, but they also say, well wait a minute, the market plus the social plus the environmental is the combination that's needed. You can't get that for free. My own country, the United States wants it for free. We're on a constant tax-cutting binge. The rich want no taxes. They say, let the market do it. But we end up without the social policy. We have lots of poverty. We end up without the environmental policy. You'll notice the United States won't sign critical protocols for the globe right now because the rich want it all for free. And if they do that, they're going to pull the whole world down. I think what's really true, like it or not for Asia by the way, is Asia's going to have to lead right now. The U.S. isn't leading right now because it's got its own internal political bottlenecks. 10% of GNP budget deficit because the rich fight taxes and we can't pay for government. Europe is struggling between north and south. The north is working the south under taxes itself and has a fiscal crisis. That leaves Asia to lead, frankly. Maybe Asia doesn't want to lead that way, but it's going to have to lead. And I think what Rajat said is completely on the mark. Leadership requires resources in government, not only in the market. Asia's dynamic in the marketplace and it needs to be dynamic in the government sector as well. Let's put that to Thomas. At the meeting last year, the summit, did you detect more of a leadership role coming from Asia? Are they stepping up? The summit has only been back a few months. So our numbers are lagging behind a little bit so we don't have hard evidence. The MDG report 2011 which just went into print last week, which I still cannot share with you because the Secretary General is going to introduce it on the 7th of July in Geneva. But some of the findings are quite positive from this report. The report shows us the targeted intervention works and we can do it if we really concentrate on it. But may I return just a minute to this public-private partnerships because it's such a privilege. It's my first time participating in the World Economic Forum and during the last two days I've met so many business leaders who were ready and ambitious to contribute to the motto improving the state of the world. And there are a lot of good examples where cooperation with the business sector works like our fight against malaria. One of our most important achievements are the bed nets, distributing 230 million bed nets in Africa to protect children and people from malaria. That would not have been possible without cooperation with the private sector. One of the big challenges also in Asia is the lack of sanitation. We have made great progress in providing people with fresh water. You know, here Asia is really exemplary in the head. But we have not been able to provide people with sanitation. There's still 2.6 billion people in the world who do not have access to flush toilets or to any advanced sanitation. There are more than a billion people who practice open defecation. The consequence is the sanitation to have problems. How can you build 2.2 billion toilets to benefit these people? Only with partnerships with industry. And of course there are business opportunities in there. So I think this is very important to work together to define strategies where we can really come together to implement the male development course. And it's happening. It is happening. It is happening, but it has to be accelerated. It is happening slowly at United Nations. We are slowly recognizing... Do governments realize they need to step this up to do the private partnership as well and are not? Or is it just a slow process to get to wrap it up? It's slow processes. Recognizing what is in our interest. This is the business of the United Nations. Moderating between interests. Helping people to understand that cooperation is in their own interest. Because otherwise we do not achieve cooperative, comprehensive solutions to the huge global challenges. Okay. I'd just like to go to... Surya, something that Jeffrey Sachs said, Bodhiana, do you think that Asia... Asians pay too little tax or is it a fact that tax collection is too inefficient here? Do you think realistically if we are going to pay to have a sustainable world that tax rates in Asia generally have to go up? Well, I can speak for Indonesia. Actually, I think we are still under tax. I agree. Under tax in the sense that the business, the tax business is still narrow and I think there are still areas that we can improve our tax performance and that is the key. I agree with Professor Sachs that in areas like this, development, social development, environment and so on, and even in general, of the economic development in general, I think the role of government is vital. I belong to the school that the government should play the appropriate role and even especially in the social program should intervene proactively and this requires financing and that, I think, has to come from our own resources. And we have plenty. We have natural resources exporting untaxed or very lightly taxed. This kind of thing, I think we can still actually collect the revenues and to finance the social programs. But of course, as you touched on before, Mr. Sifuens, to be an effective lead in this kind of effort, government should be a good government. You have to be an effective government, a clean government and this is the key. I think money is part, it's important, but I think also the way to collect and to use the money is very, very important. Absolutely. Coming back to governance, in your opinion, how much of an improvement across Asia are we seeing in governance? I think on that point, we can say that is very encouraging progress. First, because I think the recognition of the problem is quite universal. I think the political leadership across the entire spectrum of governance is key for good development and also I think it's a recognition that good governance is not just about corruption. I think for a while we all got very caught up in a very small element of it. Good governance is accountability. I think Tony made a very important point about good citizenship. So I must say that on all scores, Asia is improving, but not enough. I think we certainly have a long way to go and that I think is the challenge and I'm very, very encouraged to hear from the President of Asia and I think it's very important that the President of Asia himself assert and reassert that point. I just would like to open this up to the floor as well. We've had a good time up here and bitten off a good chunk of the issues here. Is there any questions from the floor? I would remind you that again, it's not often we can get the Vice President to come out here and be prepared to take questions. Sir, just at the front here, third row. And your group. Andrew, I'm Steve Graw from the OECD in Paris. A quick question about traditional donors, which our group works with. In 2005, traditional donors committed to increase official development assistance by $50 billion by 2010 and we now know that they've missed that target by $19 billion creating a fairly significant credibility gap. I think that in even so, most of that this target is under performance in a parallel commitment to double aid to sub-Saharan Africa that credibility gap still exists in this region. So given that credibility gap, given the rise of non-traditional donors in the region, given the increased role of programs like Tony's that are not dependent on traditional donors for financing, given the role of private sector, given the fact that this type of funds represents an increasingly tiny share of financial flows in the region. I'd be interested in what the panel thinks about the role of traditional OECD donors in financing and helping Asia achieve the MDGs in the next few years. Okay, could I start perhaps with Thomas, would you like to or Jeffrey? The traditional official development assistance is in crisis for the reasons you said. I wouldn't want to just pardon that crisis, I think there's a supreme moral hazard involved when Wall Street takes home much more in bonuses than the United States gives in development assistance to the poorest countries of the world. So simply condoning this would be to condone very, very bad mistakes geopolitically in my opinion and I don't think there's any condoning. At the same time, one has to be agile in response. There are a lot of new donors coming in. China, of course, is perhaps the major financier of infrastructure in Africa right now. This is a wonderful development in my opinion, very, very positive. The Gulf countries are stepping up tremendously in the world. Korea is becoming a significant donor. Brazil is becoming a significant donor. This, after all, is the way of the world. The leading role of the west is being now matched by rising powers all over the world. And in my view, that makes sense. It's part of the overall rebalancing of the world economy as catching up occurs with the United States. That means responsibility as well. But I don't want to let my own country, the United States, off the hook because we make a profound mistake when we invest 25 times more in military than we do in development assistance. We're not going to get the kind of outcomes that we need for a safer world. When we invest more in bonuses on Wall Street even after the resistance for poor countries, this is just mistakes that don't do anybody any good. And we shouldn't, therefore, just slough it off as an inevitable development. It is a mistake that needs to be corrected. Tony? Well, that was a good question, Steve. Because we have been able to really help support the MDG from traditional donors from foreign aid, but just depending on the greatness of the human spirit. And also now because we have, if there is hope, then people will be transcendent. And that's the reason why I said about even our politicians, if you connect with the good in them, they can also win elections by doing good. But it's important for us to be in our country. And so, but they're looking for people they can trust as a bridge and even investments in social entrepreneurship. So, I do believe that this is the age of Asians coming together as family, as friends, as partners in development. And the East and the West looking at one another as one global family, building just a kinder and a safer world. If now in our country, our government is working with us in developing social entrepreneurship, helping us in working with us through agriculture in countryside development and even using us as a bridge for science and technology to those at the bottom of the pyramid. And so if we can tweak even our educational system that we can have what we can raise the SQ, the social quotient of our people because we have people who are very smart. But then, so that's how we can build a better world. We're using money from big business, philanthropy, CSR to build templates for the next phase which is empowerment of communities. And so more and more corporations are also investing in us in really sustainable development in building empowered citizenship because this will expand the market base and create more peace. You're nodding your head there. Is this a blueprint that you see here? Of course. This is very important. I think we also have to be agile and tap into every part of the human spirit that we can just as Tony said. Some of it can be corporate social investment. Some of it needs to be development assistance. Some of it needs to be domestic resource mobilization. This is a huge human effort and global effort. No part can, no part alone is going to solve it. And nobody, I believe, can be allowed to escape the responsibility. I also think it's a matter of smart investment. If you spend $700 billion on the military per year and $30 billion on development aid, you're not going to have an effective foreign policy. That's another practical implication. And so it's a matter of being smart in this world as well. Right at next. I couldn't agree more with both Jeffrey and Tony, but just like to emphasize a point, and I suppose I can say this since I'm from Asia, and that is, I think Asian economies which have been doing well now need to step up to the plate and be more charitable or more importantly more generous in their support for the region. I think the traditional donors will come to the plate, maybe with some pulling and pushing, if they see that the region is also taking care of itself. I think gone are the days when we can look to the West to help us out and say look, you need to do it. I think China, India, many other economies in the region which are doing well have to become more generous, have to become more involved and then expect the traditional donors to continue their support. Vice President Boriano, do you think the Indonesian government is generous enough or do you think it is going to require still more spending to meet the sort of targets that you want to hit on the MDGs? Yeah, I think the government cannot get away from the responsibility to achieve these social goals. I think there's responsibility that is attached to any government. And I think for the next decade also the role of the government to intervene, to do or whatever it could to achieve the social goals for the nation is imperative. And especially in the case of Indonesia Mr. Steven Indonesia is a big country. I think the area spends beyond Europe I guess and the disparities are still there between the regions and therefore I think the role of the central government is imperative in this case. So whatever we do I think we will be still in the center of the action, the central government and if I would like to also relate to the comment from the floor that in my view the role of traditional aid should not be overestimated in my view. The more the more promising area is actually in the area of giving us better trade deals better investment deals. What I mean is that the more developed countries should give us rooms where we can develop ourselves within here in terms of better trade arrangement, in terms of better investment arrangement. I don't think this is still the time for everyone to get cheap raw materials and transport back to the home country and process there. Now investors should try to understand that I think it is for the best interest in the long term that they should put the operations more in the area where the resources are there and share the value added with the countries. In that way I think we should be freed from the idea that well we have to rely on traditional aids and traditional donors and so on. I think the best way is to come to understand where trade and investment we can have a better share in cooperation in this area. Thank you Vice President. I want to return to the sustainability issue and number 7 on the target environmental sustainability making sure that we have the growth and we reach the goals without destroying the environment on the way. First of all, Rajat Nag as a lender, how stringent have you become on environmental issues? Increasingly so but not in the sense of a dictates not because we don't. I think there has been a very strong acceptance of the need for the highest internationally best practice environmental standards. So in all our lending all our projects have to comply with them and we insist that the best practices are followed. Not just environment but also on the social safeguards with respect to say resettlement rights of the indigenous people. These have now become part of the standard package of environmental sustainability. Thomas, do you with sustainability now how deeply entrenched is it? Well, the environment and especially climate change is the defining challenge as Secretary General has mentioned several times. So if you look at what is happening, if you look at East Asia, of course with the rapid development greenhouse gas emissions are not that. On the other hand, we also have good developments. We have a gain of 2.2 million hectares of forests every year in the region here with the rapid afforestation programs in some of the countries here. So we have to balance that. And it's pretty much we are not telling governments what to do with United Nations. We advise governments and it's up to governments to set the parameters but it's up to governments to for example direct investment flows. So we have to decide whether we subsidize or keep subsidizing fossil fuels, nuclear energy, or whether we try to subsidize renewables. This is going to be very important. And as Secretary General in Davos at the last World Economic Forum said we are on a suicidal track right now. We need nothing less than a revolution. And as Jeff said, we need a total rethinking of our production and consumption patterns to really meet the 50-50 challenge in Rio and in the year leading up to Rio, these are huge challenges. I would like to just mention two more challenges which are specific to the region but not only and which are sometimes a little bit undervalued. When we look at the MDGs, which are all interconnected, which are the drivers, how can we increase the rate of return. And there are two issues which are at my heart. One is gender, MDG-3. And this region has made a lot of progress in access of women of girls to primary education and to education as such. But when you look at the job markets, when you look at parliamentary representation, we have a long way to go, not only in this region but all over the world. So gender is something which we know really drives development and facilitates implementation of the MDGs. Another issue which I want to raise is how do you work? You need to provide income to people. Predictable income with a certain rights-based income. Otherwise, people cannot decide about their future. How can you invest in a house? How can you build a family? How can you take your life into your own hands if you're excluded, if you don't have decent work, if you're dependent on arbitrary decisions? So this is very important to me. I want to talk about the issues which worries me very much is job less growth. And we have seen what it leads to, the science at the wall. We have seen in the last month in regions where we have 30% youth unemployment, where people have lost their faith in the institutions, where the social contract is evaporating, is weakened to an extent, that people stand up to change the world. And this is science we see everywhere in the world, social unrest, not only in North Africa. We have seen this in Europe, in many countries, people go on the street, they take their life into their hands and they protest. So inclusive growth, equitable growth, sharing, equitable taxation to finance the global goods, that's at the root of the development we want to see. So I want to talk a little bit more on that point. Is there a sense that there is a problem with what's going on as far as equitable development goes in Asia? Let me, if I could, take up the sustainability issue just for one moment. Just to say how hard it is, not that that's news. The International Energy Foundation, the first recent data for 2010, they showed that the greenhouse gases continue to increase year by year. So we're not yet, even on a path of stabilizing the greenhouse gas emissions, which are at a level annually, which will wreck the planet within a few decades, and we're already in the midst of the turmoil. It's no longer about the future, we're already in the midst of the climate instability. I left New York City yesterday 100 degrees Fahrenheit. We've already become a tropical city. That may not be so shocking here, but we're in the mid latitudes, which means that we're already in the midst of, I believe, a great deal of turmoil ahead. Agricultural crisis, food crisis, water scarcity, no one is facing up to this adequately yet, starting with my own country because our Congress is in the hands of the oil lobby. This is the basic point, so we've had 20 years of immobility in the U.S. Congress because oil and big coal hold the Congress in their midst, but then when the U.S. is an act of China says, well, we can't lead if the United States isn't even leading, then the U.S. Congress doesn't have the largest of the largest emitters in the world don't act adequately, and then all the rest of the country say, hey, what about us? We're just in the passenger seat here. So I want to emphasize this is so central, but let's not be thinking that because there are some wind turbines and there are some other things like coal oil or mining interests, whether it's Australia, whether it's the United States, whether it's Canada, these lobbies are holding the whole world in their grip right now. Do you think this is a place where Asia can lead, then? Where what? Well, I think Asia is by being the most crowded place on the planet and by having tremendous water stress in Asia's long-term, the Asia century. It's not going to be governance because that will be solved. It's actually going to be the environment. This is the biggest threat to Asia's long-term success of making this the Asian century. You have dryness in the North China Plains. You have the Indo-Gangetic Valley with hundreds of millions of people depending on water and the drama in the Himalayan origins of the great river systems of Asia. Asia is so crowded with 4 billion people and rising and huge environmental risks. This is the central challenge for Asia, so Asia has to lead. I'm sorry to say the United States is going to be a broken yet. They are mainly polluting not only in greenhouse gases but also in anti-scientific misinformation every day. Therefore, Asia is going to have to step up and say, look, we're doing it and the United States, you better follow us. One country specifically here would be Indonesia, Vice President, an incredibly environmentally significant country in forest, enormous biodiversity. How does the environment and environmental protection rate? This is a question we talked about a little bit earlier. How does that, how do you balance that against a need for economic growth to bring people out of poverty, to bring people into the middle class? How difficult is it? Is it doable? I think it is doable. But looking in within our context in Indonesia I think the resources are still there to improve the living standard of our people for many, many years to come. I think human being should be put first, of course environment also but I think the goals to improve the living standard of human being should come here. I think you cannot compromise with that. But of course environment is very key. I agree with the emphasis what Professor Sacks mentioned that there is here in Asia the trade off between growth improvement in standard of living and environment is very sharp here. But I think that should be done by everybody. But within Indonesia itself I think what we should do is really to aim at some reasonable practical rate of economic growth. I mentioned earlier 7 to 8% growth with good quality good distribution side and so on. But that would of course have to come from the technology and so on. I think that this kind of thing can be worked out. Excuse me, if I just interrupt. Does an emerging economy like Indonesia need support? Do you need help to protect your environment for the betterment of mankind, of humankind? So therefore do you need support from beyond Indonesia's borders? Yes, I think Mr. Stephen, I think that is a key area that we should work together. How to preserve this environmental asset of the world together. And I think we are open to that. And we have announced ourselves that we would do part, including now as I mentioned, the government has already announced the moratorium of the conference of forest land. And we have embarked on rather ambitious replanting program. And all these needs of course have some support from everywhere. And we are welcome. Can you specifically say what sort of support you would like your country to have? Yeah. As I mentioned earlier, actually the support doesn't have to be direct support. But it should be a kind of overall support for our economy to develop in the appropriate path. And that I include of course as I mentioned investment and trade deals I think we should not work at that. But of course directly the international community could help us in the area of managing all forests and so on. That's fairly useful. All right. Gentlemen, I'm afraid we are going to have to wrap this up. I'd just like to say that my takeaway from this is we talk about the Asian century now and the Asian century in terms of its economic growth and its economic story. But it is also becoming increasingly where it is Asia's century in leadership and in leadership with reaching things like MDCs with protecting the environment. It's a big challenge. We have governments who are listening and we have activists, but I think forum like this does help to push the agenda forward. I'd just like to thank our panel for coming, particularly the Vice President of Indonesia, and to everybody, thanks for coming this morning. Thank you.