 And there you see places that year after year, decade after decade remain mired in enormous difficulties and ways that have dragged down the region as well. And there is this sense that the traditional humanitarian tools that have been brought to bear haven't been adequate. And there's an increasing perception that I think 20 years ago there was this notion that non-profits, good, wonderful, noble, for-profits, greedy. And that thinking, of course, has completely been revised. And there's been much more of a partnership sense in what counts is the impact. And that often for-profit solutions can be scalable and bring about sustainable changes in these countries. But it's been harder in some of these fragile states. And we have some pioneers in bringing those investment resources to those states here with us. David, let me start with you. One of the points that you've made often since you took over the job as head of the IRC is that we have short-term strategies to address what are increasingly long-term disasters. Can you talk a little bit about that as a way to frame the need for investment in these states? Thanks very much. Look, I think your introduction was really good, except with one small coder, which is it's not just a hard nut to crack in the conflict and fragile states. It's a growing nut. I mean, there are now more extreme poor in Nigeria than there are in India. And that's, in a way, an example of the kind of transformation that has happened. Look, the drivers of long-term displacement and long-term humanitarian distress seem to me likely to be compounded over the next few years rather than reduced. States which don't have political systems that can share power to ensure compromise across ethnic, political, and religious lines. An international political system, weaker and more divided than at any time since the end of the Cold War and in some ways more since the end of the Second World War. Roiling change within parts of the Islamic world over theology, over engagement with the outside world. And of course, all of that multiplied by climate change. So what we see as an agency working with people whose lives are shattered by conflict and disaster is long-term displacement of refugees and displaced people where 17 years is much closer to the average length of displacement than 17 months. And what I see is that continuing and that duration of displacement rising, the duration of humanitarian distress rising because those four factors that I've described are all long-term, not short-term, and there's no immediate resolution. The humanitarian sector often frustrates me when I talk to some foundations. They say, oh, yeah, you're in the emergency business, the sort of short-term business. And I say, no, we've been in Somalia since 1992. We've been in Afghanistan since 1981. And the humanitarian enterprise is locked, if you like, by that conflation of humanitarian with emergency with short-term. And that's how you end up in a situation where only 2% of the global humanitarian budget goes on education, which is not just immoral, it's stupid, it's a strategic dereliction of duty. And it's that mismatch, I think, that has to be addressed. Now, the good news is people are talking about the nexus between humanitarian effort, which is seen as short-term and development effort, which is seen as long-term. I find both the terms inadequate. And I prefer to talk about crisis settings where there are political, economic, social, as well as aid issues at stake. And reform of the international aid system is part of that. We need to mold an aid system that's appropriate for crisis settings over the long term. Some of the work that Kristalina has led at the World Bank, to refer to Jim Kim led before you arrived at the World Bank, making sure that fragile states are seen as part of the World Bank's core mission, even though they're not the poorest countries in the world, in the cases of countries like Lebanon or Kenya, seems to me very, very important. It demands change from the donors of a very significant kind. It demands accountability. I won't go on for too long, but just let me make it at this point. Change from the donors, accountability. If you think about some of the problems, some of the most difficult cases we deal with, we're in 190 field sites in 40 countries. The fact that you can still go to a refugee camp and there is no lighting in the evening, no locks on the bathroom doors for women is evidence of a lack of accountability in the system, and that runs right through. And then there's a fundamental issue about how you reform the system, so it's about how people thrive, not just survive. And that's why the focus of this session on how people can have economic independence, whether they're residents or citizens of a country, seems to me at the absolute core of this, but there's also politics. And the politics of this is that there's a fiction among the donor community and donor taxpayers that these are short-term crises, and maybe aid agencies have contributed it by saying, give $100 and you can solve world poverty. But there's a fiction for the refugee and humanitarian hosting states who are also inclined to say to their own populations, look, we've got a short-term emergency. We've got to change the policy, but we've also got to change the politics if we're to get to the bottom of this. So Peter, this is an area that you've done a lot of work in, you've been a pioneer in. And in fact, you're actually just back from some fragile states, from Mali, Niger. I mean, actually, I realize that I'm coming from a country with a government shutdown, maybe a fragile state as well. But... Another type of fragility. Yes. But so tell me a little how the ICRC ended up working in these partnerships to bring private resources to bear on these problems and how they would apply in countries like those you were just in. Or maybe just two points in also a continuation of what just has been said. If I look at our 15 largest operation by definition, the 15 most fragile context of the world, the ICRC presence is an average of 33 years. In 33 years average, we have done 33 times a one-year program, which we have thrown at problems, which by definition are longer than one year. It's very rare that part of what we are doing is just falling into the calendar year to accommodate states who give us money to treat for emergencies. While most of the problems are much more systemic and in fact, we have started to work in those hyper fragile contexts much more on systems. We have looked at health systems, at water systems, at sanitation systems, but on the basis of a financial system which is inadequate to deal with the longevity of the crisis, it's what David has said before. Second point, if we look at the needs landscape, we have to recognize that we have seen very bad years over the last six, seven years. And the discrepancy between needs of people in those fragile contexts and our ability to react has been widening. And so the recognition is relatively big that something is wrong here in terms of concept and approach, and we won't possibly manage to cope and to cover the gap and to bridge the gap with the traditional means. The third issue, which I think is worth note, just mentioning here and in particular with what you were asking with regard to my recent trips to Mali and Niger is also the completely wrong image we have created and is created about fragile contexts worldwide in the public recognition. Fragile is considered a place where it's impossible to do anything. But fragile is basically, in most of the time, very lively civil society who are able and engaged to help themselves, which have a potential to do so, but which just lack the necessary support, which lack the necessary cover in order to scale and speed their activity. I have been really impressed, again, visiting the two countries now and with many other contexts to see so many organizations working on income-generating activities, but left alone by the international aid system, which is here to design just prefabricated needs. And I think there is really something to look at. How can we mold ourselves in a much more sophisticated way to the skills and competencies and how can we develop those skills and competencies to build resilience in those hyper-fragile contexts? And you basically arrive at other actors as well in addition to humanitarian actors having an important element to play. With Kristalina, we have worked on how the bank and its long-term development and risk approach can be married to ICRC's frontline experience. How can we combine tools and insights so that we get more intelligent to react to those issues? How can we pool private resources to support private organizations to do business in those contexts and to create revenue generations? I was surprised in the middle of nowhere in the Sahel to find women's organization who tell me, by the way, there are 15-like hours. We have been the lucky ones getting some support from the ICRC, but by the way, we could direct you to 15 others, and I can promise you the village would look different in a year from now. So I think all these elements bring me to look at a much more sophisticated financial structure, cooperative structure, complementary structure between the different actors, between humanitarian development, private and public, in order to generate impact for people in a more meaningful way that we are ready and able to do so at present moment. Kristalina, you've been very active in this area, every place from Guinea-Bissau to Somalia to South Sudan. It's a really difficult and very needy state. So I'm curious what the lessons have been, what has worked, where have been the minefields, what are the lessons learned? I am very grateful you're asking me a question about what works because we should not leave this room depressed and saying it is awful and it would never change. So what is working, and of course, we need to strive to do better. One, we are finally bridging this famous humanitarian development divide. I agree with David that we need to reshape concepts, but first and foremost, we ought to work together. So we change the lives of people and they know they're not left alone. What does that mean in practical terms? It means that we bring different comparative strengths. The humanitarian community has higher tolerance for insecurity. They're in places year after year where fewer of us have access. They have the trust of local people. The development community brings long-term resources and the ability to think long-term and Peter made this point. And we have actually succeeded time and again to make a huge difference for people. I will give you two examples. One, Somalia. So Somalia faced a risk of a famine a year or so ago. And the humanitarian community was desperate for stepping up support. We, the World Bank, came up on an exceptional basis with a very large package of support. We work with ICRC. Children, women, men did not die. Not only they didn't die, but we work with ICRC. To make sustainable investments like what a supply that lasts, like procuring locally products so there is a local market. Women and men can have business on which they rely. And now we are continuing with Somalia to resolve what we believe is catch-22 in the country. They don't have money because they cannot collect taxes. They don't have money. They cannot collect taxes. They don't have money. They don't have money. They don't have services. They don't have services. People don't believe in the government. So the Somalian government said, look, please help us. We need to get out of this vicious circle. And we are working with them to get digital IDs so there is knowledge who is out there to have a tax system and collection to get the country one step forward to be able to take care of its own people. So this is one very, very important example. The second thing we do, and I cannot stress enough how important it is, empowerment of local people, especially of women. You brought an example, I'll tell you a story. So we are providing funding through women in a village in Niger. So we went there, talked to the men and the women. And I asked the men, how did you feel when we gave the money to the women and not to you? And one of them said, you know what? Initially I was very upset, but then I thought you give me the money, I would buy a bicycle. My wife bought tools and seats. Our family is now better off. We are not hungry. So we, and why is this relevant? Why is the World Bank relevant? Because the World Bank actually has been relentlessly pursuing empowerment of women. We have raised money for that purpose massively, not because they shouldn't be empowerment of men, but because especially in crisis environments, in conflict environments, you give a sense of strength to women and you have a better chance for peace. Time and again we see that. So this is one area where I would stress we are making progress, but let me make a point on something significantly important for the future. And it is understanding the drivers of fragility, country by country, community by community. Any place you have a fragile context, there are four things. Conflict, climate, natural disasters, very high population growth, unsustainable, bad governance, combination of those four. Well, we cannot, with cookie cutter, define strategies. We have to understand the context of fragility and we have to have appropriate engagement that would actually address these root causes and give a chance for communities and countries to break out of this fragility cycle. We often talk only about conflicts, but it is not only that. And since I see lots of women in the audience, raise your voices, we have to also think about access to health care, family planning for women in Niger, in Chad, in Mali, in Somalia. Because as long as some of these countries have growth rates, economic growth that is as high or lower than population growth, how on earth are they going to break out of poverty and how on that basis they can have a chance for prosperity in the future. Let me finish by saying that the area that we are still exploring actively is private sector. Now, we are a bank. What does a bank do? A bank puts its money where its mouth is. We created a very important new instrument called Private Sector Window, which is $2.5 billion to be invested so private sector would have a comfort to step in. We recently, just with $9 million invested by our private sector arm, IFC, we unleashed $300 million investment in affordable housing, Mali, Dinibisao, Niger. We ought to pull ourselves up and do more of that. Because in the end, peace and security comes hand in hand with jobs and growth. And we know that without a private sector, local, international, that would be more difficult. So where we are doing better, humanitarian development, security, understanding that, where we are starting to do more private sector engagement, much more has to be done in this area and my institution is committed, determined to do it. Well, Jan, you represent precisely that private sector and you've worked with the bank and others. Tell us a little bit about your project and what you've learned along the way about what advice you might give to other potential investors in this run. Yes, and obviously the private sector is very, very wide and broad and I'm just one representative. And for those who don't know about 15 years, just 15 years ago, we were endowed effectively with $5 billion of capital from the success of eBay by Jeff Skoll and Skoll Foundation. And that money was gonna get spent in media and philanthropy as a way to fix the world and we thought it would be fun to set up a friendly competition and to say, well, what could we achieve by investing this money, making money in the process, fueling those other activities, but also creating our own large impacts? And so if you look at the private sector, we're not representative because we have at the core at that genesis this aspiration to make a big difference through this investment tool and that's still quite rare. Luckily a growing movement, but quite rare. And so we've had about 15 years now and some amount of money and I think you know and I think you said early on, we're primarily technologists. So we've had great, great success in the San Francisco Bay Area, fueling electrification and transportation, the renewable energy sector with new technologies, measurement technologies like satellite constellation, things like that that we've been able to do the very early stages and see them grow. And that's given us the opportunity also to go out into some much more challenging areas and kind of to hide that in our balance sheet. And so everyone's definitions changes but we probably have only somewhere between one and $200 million in areas that you would really consider very challenging and they're not post-conflict, they're just very poor. So but with this aspiration gave us was the ability to say once in a while, why not? Let's try this. This looks like a reasonable investment. No one else would do it, but it looks like it has good legs, let's try it. And that's what led us to doing many years ago starting with a deeply distributed solar in Bihar, adopting kind of a valley agriculturally in Tanzania, the Quilombaro Valley, or doing payment systems in Nigeria. So I don't mean to say this is the core of what we do because in a way it's all possible because we have a very successful thing that keeps us out of trouble that we understand and works better close to home. And you said examples, look this has been so far certainly a very mixed experience. Throughout the process we've ended up co-investing with IFC I would say more than World Bank but also with OPEC, with DFID, with DG, with Norfund. So we've certainly had some interfaces and those are challenging interfaces for sure. It's very difficult to mix even our different kind of money with the kind of programs and initiatives that occur in these very large, very successful organizations but that are so different, not an easy interface. So I'm a great believer in what we've talked about but let me play devil's advocate for a moment and ask them skeptical questions as journalists want to do. And maybe one emerges from really how much private capital is out there that really is interested in going to some of these states. And President Museveni from Uganda was originally gonna be on this panel. I was going to ask him frankly about the reputational risks that companies would face if they invested in a country with a leader who seems to want to stay on to power where there have been serious human rights violations. And you look around and there are plenty of countries that want to invest in South Africa, maybe even Rwanda, not a lot that want to invest in Burundi or Eastern Congo. And so is there really a pool of capital out there that can do all these things and invest in these women as we aspire for the future we aspire to? This is a heavy lift. It is a heavy lift but something being difficult is not a good excuse not to strive to do it. And at the bank what we have decided is first step up our own activities. So we got from $7 billion in fragile states to $14 billion just in the last two years doubled our investment. Why? Because when we are there, we know better, we create more confidence. The World Bank Group, not just the World Bank, the World Bank Group's presence on its own creates a better chance. But then what we do relentlessly is to work not only on private investors from outside but on creating markets domestically, creating the opportunities for local businesses to prosper. And there what you hit is very simple. Investment climate applies to foreign investors but also to local investors. So what we have decided is to be extremely focused with our doing business. We have a report quite famous. We rank countries. We looked at the fragile countries, they're at the bottom, right? Most of them. And we said, we're gonna work with fragile countries and demonstrate that reforms are possible even in fragile environments. So guess what? This last year, the top 10 performers, four of those were fragile countries. Togo was there, Cote d'Ivoire was there, Djibouti was there, so you. And I think that that relentless pursuit absolutely necessary. And then a very simple recognition that development in fragile context is not instant coffee. Doesn't happen overnight. You have to stay the course, accept ups and downs but persevere. And I can tell you our commitment and Peter knows that, David knows that. Jan knows that. Our commitment is that we would be there, comes, what was it, high water. There was a good saying, we are there. We stay there. We don't abandon fragile countries. And we accept that we would have failures. We would be beaten up occasionally. You will come after our neck and say you made a mistake for a bigger purpose, which is change the trajectory for as many people as we can. Can I interject here as well? And I fully agree with what Chris Alina said, but we didn't line up credible de-risking instruments either for those contexts. I mean, why did the export sector of industrialized country succeed in some of the fragile export market because there were insurance schemes for decades which de-risked export into fragile markets? Why shouldn't that be the same with promoting social investment in fragile context? You have to conceive a role of industrialized developed countries which is deliberately de-risking some of those activities. If you don't have a philanthropist which makes money otherwise and can afford to invest for free and take the risk, then you have to be able to take over the risk. And at the present moment, no development agency in a OACD country can with development money de-risk private investment. These instruments do not exist for humanitarian fragile, except for the bank, but I think it's one thing which I really feel quite strongly. It's of course about the investment climate and about micro and macro, and you can tweak the numbers and put the screwdriver where there are screws. But a credible de-risking strategy and the shift also in what you do with development and humanitarian money. Is it the best to do yet the next project in that or that country or is it better to back up and de-risk some of the private investment which would probably flow in bigger numbers if some assurances would be given by states? Can I follow that? Because I think it's important to think about de-risking financially, but also de-risking politically. And the greatest danger for an investor is obviously impunity and we're living in an age of impunity where governments as well as rebel groups can not just commit human rights abuses, but commit a whole range of other offenses without fear. And that's a growing danger, not just to individual citizens, but also to the corporate investment climate. My perspective is that you're right to be skeptical of the idea that private investment is a silver bullet and when the private sector presents itself as a silver bullet for the problems, it's gonna fail. From my perspective, the private sector needs to learn to be a partner with civil society in the way that Peter Mara and Christina have talked to. But they've also got to hold governments to account. We're in a lot of the mess that we're in because of a crisis of diplomacy in places like Yemen and elsewhere. And it's right that the private sector sees itself as part of the solution, not least through its supply chains, which run through a lot of these countries, but private sector, the CEOs of the private sector need to be ready to use their voice as well as their investment decisions in a far more proactive way. At this age of government retreat from international responsibility is a deep threat to the blessings of globalization as well as the danger that the problems become augmented. And I think we need to see a much more vibrant private voice as well as a set of private decisions. One, the positive thing I would bring to this party, to this discussion, is that the employees of many, a growing number of certainly Western-based private businesses want to see their CEOs, want to see their companies living out the values that they say they believe in. If you look at the, we were at an event earlier today where a representative of MasterCard was absolutely right to mention the Edelman Trust barometer. 85% of employees of the company surveyed want their CEOs to be a voice as well as a decision maker in changing some of the terms of trade around the world for humanitarian needs. And I think that's a positive signal. But if the private sector doesn't use its voice, then we're going to remain in this situation where you need three legs of the stool, the government, the civil society, and the private sector. And too often, we've only got two of them. So let me, again, play devil's advocate on that front. One reason, I guess, for some skepticism on that part is that when I look around the developing world and I see countries where there has been a lot of foreign investment, I don't see that investment going to women-owned enterprises that are enriching local communities. I see Angola where that investment has gone so that if you were an oil executive, you pick up your phone in Cabinda and you get a local dial tone in the U.S. And you see so many villages where people have had zero encounter with a health system or an education system. In Congo, there's been DRC, there's been plenty of investment by companies and it has benefited the leaders and their bank accounts, but not the people. And so the World Bank did a fantastic job with the Doing Business series and holding governments accountable for a better business environment. But maybe I do wonder if part of what we need to do isn't just to attract new kinds of investors for solar projects, but also to hold accountable the existing investors in places like Angola, Congo, Niger to try to actually get greater public benefit from these existing large flows of investment. Well, I mean, of course, it is very important to raise standards up. And in that regard, there have been a number of very impactful initiatives. I'm thinking of the efforts that have been made in terms of transparency and accountability, the efforts to concentrate on high standards for extractive industries and all the work done in this area. Is it solving the problems entirely? No. I actually would argue that we should not try to get the communitarians, the World Bank, the development to do all that is there. We do have a responsibility on data. Yes. And actually at the World Bank, just a couple of days ago, I was telling my colleagues, we have to lift the power game on data for fragile contexts. So on that basis, you can draw conclusions and do what you're talking about. But there are actors that are doing what you're talking about and they're doing it much better than Peter would be able, well, Peter cannot do it in neutrality, impartiality, independence. He's out of that game altogether. But even the World Bank, we should stick to mandates and within mandates strive to work with others. At the bank, we take this data that is produced by Transparency International or the extractive industries we take it very seriously, we contribute, we engage. And you're right, that has to be part and parcel with that drive for solution. But in the end, we also have to recognize the responsibilities on the political side, the responsibilities of the Security Council. There has to be, everybody has to step up. And as long as we have you to ask the tough questions, I think we will be moving forward. And in the end, why? Because if we do not eradicate extreme poverty, there would be no security for all of us. We are connected. We are like fishing a fishbowl. And I have that sentiment that we are recognizing our interdependence even if it looks like we are a bit stepping back. You talk to young people, I talk to my daughter, she's my best... One woman focus group. Yeah, actually, she is. And she basically tells me, very straightforwardly, she says, look, that politics, it is going up, it is going down. But ultimately, we want to live in a world that is fair and where actually, there are no women somewhere else that are dying a childbirth. For her own sake and for the sake of her daughter, she wants a peaceful world and we cannot have a peaceful world unless we eradicate conflicts, violence, extreme poverty. You would say, Kristalina, this is a myth, it would never happen. Well, Mandela, impossible until it is done. You talked about the importance of us asking tough questions, but frankly, I wonder if sometimes the media and advocacy organizations... I'm sorry. He wanted to. Oh, right. No, please, please, please, go on. No, no, no, I was going to be skeptical with you and resonate with what you're saying, but I'll say that out. Then dive in on this. I'm afraid that journalists and advocacy groups that there is kind of a gotcha risk for investors in some of these places, and that, I mean, I'm originally from Oregon, so I know Nike quite well and Nike Foundation does great work in Liberia. But I've always told Nike what would really help Liberia is not Nike Foundation spending, but a Nike corporation factory to actually hire people. And, you know, they... I think one reason that they are allowed to do that is that then I might come along and write some article about how they're exploiting Liberians, and I worry... Don't exploit Liberians, then. If you don't want to have an article saying you're exploiting Liberians, don't exploit them. Surely, that's the point. Actually, I'm going to disagree with that one, too. I don't know, I'll disagree with everyone. So we have invested in agriculture, as I mentioned, in a few places, and I really feel that one of the reasons that nobody does that is because you end up in these completely no-win situations. There is simply no way, even with the best intentions, the best thinking, to not be criticized and not in a nice way, in a very destructive, very destructive through the business kind of way, pretty much anything you do. And so I'm not sure that's the fair answer because there may be no way to operate a sneaker... I don't know that the sneaker business, but there may be no way to reasonably operate a sneaker factory and be reasonably competitive and still not end up facing very, very soon and very quickly severe criticism in what you're doing. There are things that are just not rewarding from a brand effort perspective, right? That is, by the way, look, most of many, many of these investments suffer even just from a scale issue, which is you simply can't do things at a sufficient scale early on to justify the headache. That's one of the biggest issues, right? So that's why the numbers are dominated by an aluminum smelter or the realm of government or pseudo-government such as a dam or a major toll road. Nobody goes and puts, like we have tried a few times, 50 or 100 million or 20 million into a country like that because the scale doesn't allow you to fix all of these inefficiencies and problems in a way that's worth it, right? So I do want to push back a little bit on that. Maybe just to follow that and to pick up something that came into my head when I was listening to both of you. It's one thing to say you can't expect individual companies to make their own move because they're operating in competitive environments, but then I think we have to say, well, how are sectors going to set sector standards, not just generic standards? And I think one of the things that we see is that when a sector sets standards in an effective way, it then, that's a form of de-risking for the individual companies that are members of it. And especially at a time, this came up in a very difficult context with an armaments company which was being let down, it felt, by its own government's failure to impose an American company, live up to its own commitments in respect of arm exports. And my reply to them, and I was saying to them, you shouldn't be selling arms to this government, and they were coming back with precisely the parallel argument. And what I said to them was, well, go to each of the other arms manufacturers and say that together you're not going to sell the arms. If you don't want to lose competitive advantage, do it together because it's a reputational risk for all of you, and it should be a reputational risk, because you shouldn't be exporting arms to this government. I mean, from our side, just to interject briefly, I think your question well taken. I think whenever you intervene, either as a humanitarian actor or as a private investor, you always come to a situation of power relations in a society. And when you intervene, you risk to change this power relation in the society, and it will bring you into difficulties. The question is a little bit how you manage, whether you are able and willing to tweak the numbers, to create the spaces which are less than just to bring your investment, your activity on a trajectory which gives better opportunity or whether you just accept what is there. And this is a big dilemma today for humanitarian actors. Of course, we are married to neutral, impartial, and independent humanitarianism, but this is also encountering increasingly power relations which are difficult to accept, and we can then not necessarily report back that we have a transformative effect on the respective situation in which we intervene. So you can't take these situations as static. And I think for us as a humanitarian actor, it's more of a demand on us to try to enlarge the scope and the space and to rebalance certain injustices while at the end of the day, you have to accept when you come to an end of your mandate. That's what Kristalina has said. We can't fix country ABC or context ABC, but you can at least try to negotiate a better deal. And I think that's what it is all about. Could I just say that there is a role for the private sector not only in commercial terms and making profit. There is a big role for the private sector to offer deliver solutions that would make lives of people better. For example, weather forecast and ability by using phones to spread information or predicting droughts and floods and then sending signals so fewer people are impacted. We need the private sector for many things, not just for investing in that direct term. And that is why it is so important we bring these conversations and we focus on solutions that are no regret solutions for people that actually are very creative, very smart. Every time I travel to one of these conflict affected areas, I come back full of optimism for the future of societies because of the smarts of people. If we make sure that boys and girls are in school and learn all other things equal, this is a great investment. If the private sector helps them to have these devices that link them to the rest of the world, it's a great, great service to humanity. So I find myself on this panel doing what women are exactly supposed to do, bring a sense of optimism. All right. If I may, yeah. Look, being a technologist, I'm usually in the unviable position of being able to talk about stories that do some of what you just said, right? We seed funded this wonderful business called Planet, many, I don't know, six, seven years ago. It's been highlighted here at WEF. It operates a constellation of satellites, about 300 today that measure whether it can see refugees being displaced, can look at fields grow and they can do it on a smallholder farm in the middle of Tanzania, like they can do it in a wheat farm in Nebraska. But stories like that, let's face it, are a bit easy. They're fantastic, they're our bread and butter, but I think what we're trying to talk about here is the things that are harder to do, right? Where you have to put real money and it's not an aluminum smelter that frankly doesn't care in what country it is. It's just looking at the inputs and outputs that are really global in nature, right? And don't connect with the country. Nor are we looking for the emergence of the cell phone which helps everyone everywhere connect and you get that for free. We're looking for the things that are tougher. And if I may echo something you said, I feel that in the last decade or so, there haven't been the kind of effective risk mitigation, standardization type efforts, information sharing efforts that would make it easy for people like me to do things. And this is why you have us on this panel because that needs to move. Yes, so let's take the renewable energy case, which is, as you know, 300 billion and hopefully soon trillion kind of dollar business every year, much of which has to go in some of these difficult poor areas. The World Bank sees, and I've told you this a number of times, so she knows what's coming. The World Bank sees almost every project like that that's gonna occur in a difficult geography. And yet, for political reasons, you'll decide we're gonna help this one or that one. The project gets formed. A lot of great people and great thinking comes around. And sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. And the next day, you reinvent it all for some other project. There is simply no standard way for us to think about even something as narrowly defined as doing solar PV across different geographies and places. But the risks are all understood. Now, the risks in each place are a bit different. You know, some are very high in currency, some are very low on violence. Some have great sums, some have terrible weather. I mean, each one is different. But the core elements in learnings are common. And I don't think, we've seen in the last decade, the best kind of tools for simple-minded investors like us who all we do is either write a check or don't to be able to kind of leverage to reduce those frictions and be more comfortable going to a place like South Sudan. I would be starting completely from scratch if I got interested in a project in South Sudan. Very well put, very true, work has to be done. We are moving exactly in that direction by creating mechanisms to de-risk fragile environments. A long way to go, a long way to go. But I am confident that we are building the triangle that is necessary to get there. We've rattled on. I've rattled on along. But I want to bring in some questions from you folks. Are there some folks who have questions? Why don't we have, if three people can ask three quick questions and we're over, then we'll do kind of a lightning round of responses. So here, here, and I guess there's somebody behind me. Yes. I'm interested in the panel's response to the phenomenon of the last 50 years of the private sector responding to instability, which is private security. Which half century later means private security forces are four or five, seven times larger than public security forces. And you have a sector that can carry on economic activity because they can pay for it to be safe. We have vast populations that are in utter lawlessness. The bank does a road project in Uganda sends construction people in, and there's massive sexual violence against women and girls. How are we going to start to invest in public justice that can render whole communities safe? And Gary literally wrote the book on that. And thank you. My question is a follow up of the fragile context. Since the World Bank is working mainly with the states, but in those contexts, sometimes they are half failed states. They might be opponent. They might be guerrilla. How to do what are the instruments which you have to have a real inclusive approach, including the government with which you deal and the non-government, which you can't deal by mandate, but you want to reach. And OK. I'm Alexander Betts from Oxford University. At the start of the panel, David mentioned the link between protracted refugee situations and fragile states. One of the challenges, though, is we tend to institutionally silo those areas, the country of origin and the neighboring host countries. But if we're going to think about de-risking investment, de-risking political engagement, one of the safe spaces of opportunity is often investment in the regional border economies that neighbor fragile states. To give you an example, for instance, in the Somali region of Ethiopia, you have a huge cross border economy. Many Somalis go backwards and forwards across the economy. They may leave the elderly and the young in refugee camps, but those able to work may cross the border regularly into Somalia. Investment in, for instance, that Somali region of Ethiopia can be a way of linking to the long-term future of the country of origin. If people are going backwards and forwards or if people go back in the long term, the investment in people in exile can be part of the future. How can we break down that silo between how we engage the country of origin and the neighboring host country? Thanks. We're just about out of time, but please, very quickly, if you can address whichever question seems most engaging to you. David, you want to start? No, but very quickly, I think you have to think about populations, not about borders. And that's certainly the way we try and run our programs across the border of Thailand and Myanmar, across the border of Somalia and Ethiopia. But frankly, now, across the border of Venezuela and Colombia, it's very, very difficult on the Venezuelan side of the border. I would also say to you that the obvious next step is sub-regional or regional partnerships. In the most diplomatic way, I could say, sometimes regional partners are part of the problem, not part of the solution. And that poses a real roadblock to the kind of engagement that you might like. We can talk about some of the places. Kristalina. So how to work with failed states? Sometimes we can't. Right now, we have a project with ICRC. We got the agreement of the South Sudanese government that we have to provide services with ICRC and not with the government. This is rare, but when we have to do it, we have to do it. We are very keen to do exactly what you said. We actually have a $300 million project with Ethiopia to create 100,000 jobs for refugees. We strongly believe that has to be a motivation to help countries, help their neighbors. We do it in Jordan. We do it with Lebanon. And that you're absolutely right on that. And finally, private security. We recognize that much more needs to be done for governments to be built to have the capacity to actually protect their people and the businesses there. Again, a very long road, not a straight, whiny road, ups and downs. My conviction, stay engaged. Stay engaged. If we don't do it, then of course, there would be never a state. The state would be failed forever. We have to accept difficulties, stay engaged. Peter. Maybe for the first and second question. The beauty about the Geneva Conventions and its language is that it offers concept which allow us to treat private military and security companies in the same way as we treat armies and other armed forces. It's weapons bearers who have to respect minimal norms. And we engage with them the same way. We train private military and security companies. We engage with host countries of private military and security company. We look at contracts. And I think it's one of the most important areas of activities for an organization like mine. With regard also to areas under control, not of the government at the present moment, it's obvious as a humanitarian organization we have to accept in order to have access to populations in need that we talk to everybody who is in control of a junk of territory and populations. There is no alternative. And from there on, we have to build humanitarian operations. John. And maybe someone connecting those two. Look, I'll state again that if you're going to build a billion dollar, and I don't mean to pick on aluminum smelters, but whatever it is, that is fundamentally very large and has global inputs and outputs, operating in a failed state can be almost a good thing because they leave you alone. And you're big enough that you build your own road, your own port, your own security system. And look, we all know those things ultimately have no good impact on the country. And so they just shouldn't happen. And what we need is instead to reduce the frictions around investing in companies and assets that are appropriately sized and have an appropriate focus for whatever state of development is. If you drop a billion dollar smelter into a place where people are living on six rupees a day, it's just not going to work, right? There's just not going to be that interface. And this is much tougher work. And that's why we need, even if they're very modest at first, very standard, very simple ways to increase information flow and learnings from the decades of experience of organizations like the World Bank and be able to tap into whatever ability you do have to mitigate some of these risks, often the long-term risks, political risks, and others. Even having a common platform that doesn't do everything but does something that we could tap into more frequently would be a fantastic start. I think that's a perfect kind of wrap up. This is a, we're talking about something that doesn't do everything but that does something. David talked about how it's not a silver bullet, but in everything of silver buckshot, this is one of those silver buckshot. And I would just leave us with the thought that we not only have to hold the governments in developing countries accountable to improve their investment climate, not only need to hold investors and companies accountable, but the countries from which the investment flows come, programs like AGOA in the US or EBA in Europe, they make an enormous difference in promoting trade and things and they're both crafted in ways that very much limit their impact and get very little attention and scrutiny. And I think we can, every facet of this can do a better job to make that silver buckshot more effective. Please join me in thanking our,