 I'm Terry Toyoda with the World Economic Forum and I'm very delighted to welcome you all to this inaugural Sustainable Development Impact Summit event convened here in New York alongside the UN General Assembly. We're particularly excited about this new and unique event that will help move progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals as well as the Paris Climate Agreement. We really aim to showcase and expand some of the best examples of innovative solutions and partnerships that harness public-private cooperation and the creative technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. And today I'm honored to be joined by my co-chairs for the summit, which I will introduce briefly in a moment. We'll hear from each one of them regarding their hopes and aspirations for the meeting. Also let me start with, to my left, Afsane Beslach, Founder and CEO of Rock Creek Group. Next to her, Madam President Garib Fakim, President of Mauritius, Marianne Jammet, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Spot 1 Global Solutions, and Stefan Loven, Prime Minister of Sweden. We're delighted to welcome them all to this summit and look forward to hearing from each one of you shortly. After all, each of the co-chairs speak. We'll have some time for questions and answers from the floor. And I will ask that all of you keep to the theme of the Sustainable Development Impact Summit in your questions. There will be time, I'm sure, to catch up with these individuals to speak about their individual organizations or portfolios separately. So Afsane, let me start with you. Financing has been one of the most pressing and hot topics, let me say, since the Sustainable Development Goals were launched. We've heard a price tag of somewhere between $2.5 trillion to $4 trillion. This is a lot of financing. Tell us how this platform might be useful to mobilizing additional capital to support this implementation. Thank you, Theri. And I wanted to thank you. I'm very thrilled to be here with this great group of co-chairs. And I'm looking forward to the next two days, especially the reason I'm very excited about the meetings over the next two days is because we'll be talking not just at a very high level about the debate about SDGs, but actually how do we implement them. And financing, obviously, has been one of the reasons that things have either moved or not moved. If we just sort of put the SDGs, as you said, sort of three, four billion, sorry, three, four trillion, have to use the right number in perspective, if you look at the size of total markets globally, they are around $120 trillion based on our estimates at Rockbeek. So if you think about that sort of situation, and that is increasing around three to four percent, so actually just around the amount that we're talking about for the SDGs, it's a very different number than, let's say, my previous employer, World Bank or Multilaterals. When you add up those numbers, those are in the billions, you know, maybe a hundred billion if you add all the multilaterals, and let's not forget those are gross numbers. So you really need a very, very close partnership and collaboration between private sector and public sector and civic society and individuals and academia. However, you also need to make sure that the financing is at the global level, at the regional level and at the local level and the individual level. Let's not forget there's going to be 30 to 40 trillion of assets of baby boomers that are going to transfer over the next 20 to 30 years to the next generation. They have very different aspirations in terms of the subject of this summit. And in terms of financing, the only other thing I wanted to mention, Terry, is that when you look at sort of the investment world, there are two groups of people. One group thinks that the moment you open your mouth and you use the word sustainability or impact, the eyes glaze over, you lose their interest, they think that means no return. The other group who knows that there will be returns, that group is having a problem because the data is scattered, very difficult to find the data, and that's why one of the initiatives that we are starting is to create a marketplace for sustainable and impact. Great, thank you very much. And the numbers definitely necessitate the need for a public, private cooperation here. Great, thank you very much. So, Madam President, Afzane, laid out the kind of what's needed to invest in countries. How do you invest in people and what have you found most effective in leadership of your country? Thank you very much, Terry. Again, thank you for the invitation. It's great to be here and great to be also at this forum in New York next to the assembly. I think Afzane has touched on two very important issues. First of all, the issue of investment. And the other issue that she has touched on is institution. And I think if we are going to make a dent in attaining the Sustainable Development Goals, we need to invest in both. We need to invest in the people and we, of course, need to create those institutions that will end up giving us credible data. Because if you don't get credible data, you cannot develop the right policies. And the continent I come from, if you look at all the indicators, there is a dearth for real big capacity building in all sectors, especially in the stems. I think this is where we need to empower the women. And I will be cliche here, and I think if we look at the issue of food security, I would be very blunt to say that women feed Africa. And so this is where we need to bring on board a lot of capacity. Now, how do we tackle this? I come in this space being an academic, being an entrepreneur. So I know the impact of quality research, translating into the space of entrepreneurship, translating the space of development. And how do we engage with philanthropies as well, so as to actually cross the valley of death and create more impact based on academic research? So based on this, from this background, this is where I decided to chair the Coalition for African Research initiative. And this is being led at the global level with big names like the Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, the USNIH. And more importantly, it is not to be driven only by donors. And this is where we're trying to get on board African philanthropists and also government. Because while donors provide us with the seed capital, we still need the sustainability, and this is rightly the word, to maintain, sustain this effort. And this is where we need government. And government need to come on board with the percentage. I'm not going to give any figure, but we know that the desired figure will be the famous 1%. But to go with the Africa strategy of 2063, get government to bring, but of course, bring these African philanthropists who want to invest in that space, but they need to do it through credible people, through credible people who are empowered. And I think this is the kind of narrative that we'd like to see emerge from the continent, but notwithstanding the fact that they also come from an island state. And here, we're talking about the climate change, we're talking about the Paris Agreement. And again, we come back again to the issue of funding because these are global issues, global challenges, requiring national, of course, regional approaches to tackle these. Excellent. Thank you very much. And connected to that, I would say, Marianne, you embody many of the aspects that we've been speaking to about the need for entrepreneurship, the investment in girls and technology. Tell us what this summit means to you. Thank you, Teri. I'm so honoured to be here. So my name is Mariam Jam. I'm from Senegal. I'm a young global leader. I was born in 1974. And the reason why I'm telling you that date is because I'm data. I'm here as a... I stand here as a testimony that being poor, being uneducated, being marginalised, being trafficked, is not a barrier to stop you from feeling your dreams and be successful in life. And learning how to code unlocked that for me. This summit is so important. I've been working on the MDGs and the Sustainable Development Goals for over 20 years. I was a recipient of aid. I'm going to tell you three things. First, a little bit about my story. Second, why I'm committed to the Sustainable Development Goals. And third, why I am the code, is the answer to have girls and women as active participants to the Sustainable Development Goals. I was born in 1974, as I said earlier. I was trafficked to Paris when I was 14 years old. I never had any education. I was in the hands of NGOs, all my childhood, orphanages in Senegal. Today, I'm a successful businesswoman in London. And this is just a very short story of my life. The second, why I'm committed to Sustainable Development Goals. This platform is an amazing platform. It's the first time that the World Economic Forum engaged through Sustainable Development Goals. Because Sustainable Development Goals is for people, is about people, young women like me who was growing up in Senegal with no education. I started reading and writing when I was 16. I learned how to code seven languages in two years in the South East of England, in Starbucks, in my local library. Those Sustainable Development Goals mean so much to me because I know that young girls growing up in Africa today or in Mauritius, wherever they are, they can have an opportunity to learn. This is the book I learned how to code 10 years ago. 10 years ago, I learned my first language of how to code HML. Today, I am the code, it's in 7,000, 7,000 people. I am the code, I've reached 7,000 young women and girls. So that's why I am here today. And in conclusion, what I would like to do is for us to think about partnerships. We are the first organization that I am the code, it's the first organization teaching Chinese girls how to code. The Sustainable Development Code is not just for us, but it's for all of us around the world. How do you make sure goal number four is affecting young girls? Goal number five, gender equality. All these goals are really important. And so I want to thank the World Academy for giving me this platform to chair this. I'm here, I'm talking from my heart because they mean a lot to me. And I hope that the press will take that one. It's really moving and inspirational story, so thank you for sharing that. And I'm sure that there's many personal journeys that you'll inspire and motivate, so thank you. Prime Minister Levin, you've also been a tremendous champion since the beginning of the SGG, particularly on the implementation and on the action orientation. So I know you are an initiator of the informal high level group on implementing the Agenda 2030. You also launched last year at the General Assembly, the Global Deal, this social dialogue for improved working labor markets. So tell us, what does this summit mean for you and what's the opportunity? Thank you. First, let me say I'm also very proud to be here as a co-chair together with these three colleagues, both a political leader, but not least also important non-state actors. I believe we have so many possibilities with the Agenda, but we need to work together. Politicians and civil societies, enterprises, and so on. Of course, we as political leaders, we carry perhaps a particular responsibility for implementing the 2030 Agenda, but we can only succeed if we mobilize jointly together. I'm convinced of that. Some of us political leaders, we came together in 2015 to, we wanted to make a push for the implementation and to do whatever we could do to make it happen fast, as fast as possible. 2030 sounds like a long, long time. It is quite a long time, but time flies very quickly and there's so many challenges that we had. And we wanted to give it a flying start and here are some of the experiences that we have now from working with the 2030 Agenda and the implementation. And I hope that could inspire others as well. I hope that everyone during these two days now will explore new partnerships as well as innovative approaches, as well as effective policies so that our efforts can have much more impact. And one such impact, a real impact, is the SDG, especially on SDG 8, is social dialogue. I think, I don't think I'm convinced that social dialogue is crucial to make things happen. So together with the OACD and the ILO and with several countries, enterprises, trade unions, we have launched a global initiative on how to strengthen the social dialogue, the collaboration between employers and employees and the employees organizations and for governments to support because I know that social dialogue, enhanced social dialogue, will benefit decent work, yes, but it will also increase productivity in enterprises and by that it will also strengthen these societies and we know that the labor market will be key to shaping our societies, how we manage the continued globalization which it'll be there, it will happen, but we have to make it happen in such a way that everybody feels, yes, I'm also on board, I also have a good future in the globalized world. So social dialogue is a win for workers, it's a win for enterprises and it's a win for societies, it's a win, win, win and I look forward also to the global deal session here later in the plenary. We did launch also a new research project if you want to take part of that on how social dialogue actually affects business because that is something we need to look into more and I know from my own experience with the good social dialogue, businesses will also win and I look forward to more of businesses to contribute also to that perspective. Thank you so much. Fantastic and I think stressing the urgency is a very critical point. So now we will open up the floor. We'll ask you if you've got a question or something on your mind to raise your hand, I'll be calling on a number of you at the same time and then turning over to our panelists. So please, in the front. Thank you so much. Please also state your name and where you're from. Thank you. My name is, thank you, Excellencies. My name is Irene Hel, I report for Newsbit Middle East and I want to thank you all for your big efforts to get the goals going. My question goes to the Prime Minister and you're an example, so it's possible to work your way up from the bottom to the very top and you've been a union man all your life, fighting for social justice, now you fight for the goals. How do you experience when you go to the UN and meet all the world leaders, the atmosphere? Did it change, is there hope? And now you talk to the business community very much so and this is all a business community thing, like you are working very hard too. So can the business community fix what governments fail? And what is the biggest thing you're doing? What are you most proud of? Thank you so much. Thank you. We'll just take a few questions and then we'll give you. Yes, sir. Thanks, Mark Engelhardt of the German News Agency. Probably my question to you, Ms. Bufloss, is pretty much the same just the other way around. I'd like to know, this morning we heard at the UN General Assembly, Amina Mohammed saying not enough is being done so far. What is the interest of the industry side and why do you think they should come forward with trillions which are needed? And then lastly, why discuss this in this particular forum, the World Economic Forum and not, for instance, in the global compact which is already there? What's the benefit or what's the idea behind that? Thanks. Thank you. Other questions? Yeah? Okay. Mr. Prime Minister, would you like to start? First, is there hope? Yes. When we decide upon this agenda, I could feel yes. I mean, we have a situation in the world that is very dramatic, problematic. The climate change, all the conflicts that we see, refugees, we have widening gaps between rich and poor. That is definitely challenges, huge challenges. At the same time we've seen that the middle class is grown in the world. So more and more people are getting out from the extreme poverty. Nine out of 10 boys and girls go to school today that didn't happen 20 years ago. So we have plus and minus. But there's one thing we know, we need to work together and I'm talking globally now. That's what we must assure in the global economy. We need to work together so much more. You have to do the right thing at home domestically but you have to be present outside of the world and work together with colleagues and friends all over the world. That's how we meet this climate change and the refugees issues. And so that's what we know. Can the business community do what governments have failed to do? Well for me it's like, it's not this part or this is working together. Once again, you need to work together because business community can achieve a lot. But governments have to be the political side have to be there as well. As well as the civil society, the trade unions. So we have to do this together and that's why I'm talking about the win-win-win. It's a social dialogue. Employers and employees need to meet. You need to find a way to adapt to change not only to adapt but to make the future, a better future. You need to be able to look forward to the future. Not being afraid of tomorrow, you need to look forward. And one way of doing that is to be involved in the dialogue. How do we do this? How do we handle changes in technology and changes in the labor market? But also give the government an important role. How do you support that social dialogue? How do you support a change where people need training, for example? You need constant training and retraining. We know that that's the future of the labor market. Well that is something for the enterprises, yes. But it's something for the governments as well. So I think the crucial thing here is to make this social dialogue work together with all these three actors. Very good. What I'll add, I completely agree with the Prime Minister in the sense that it is the private and the public sector collaboration. Sort of taking it from the other perspective, if you like. In my case, I've worked at a bank. I've worked at the World Bank for 20 years, multilateral. I've worked, I've been on the board of multiple foundations. I have run an entrepreneurial investment firm. I've worked on private equity, oil company, et cetera. But sort of in the last 20, 30 years, there's been sort of a sustainable threat through all of this. And in my observation, through all the places where I have worked, private sector and public sector, there has been a huge interest in doing the right thing so long as you can measure it. There's always, I remember, first day at the World Bank. I think Bob McNamara asked somebody who then passed on to me, could you come up with the poverty indicators for this oil pipeline? It was impossible. And they asked me to make up a number. So I think we have to be very careful because the issue of impact and sustainability does need hard data, does need hard numbers. Whether you're in the public sector or the private sector, but we need to all come up with a better set of data and information going back to your point. At the same time, you yourself, if you draw a line and you look at many markets, you'll find that many of the social sectors, in fact, have very high returns. And we'll talk about some of the specific examples in the next session and the following ones. But people who are interested are not seeing those. So why would private industry be interested? They're looking at bottom line, absolutely. They're not going to invest in something that does not have bottom line unless it's their community affairs or their PR parts. However, they're now seeing that if millennials are interested in buying goods from companies that are taking this source of things seriously, they're going to sell more of their goods. The other thing I think to just be aware is, for those of you who've been in the States for a few days, the cover of the New York Times, yesterday was kind of sad because it had sort of various multinational companies who cannot sell food that makes people obese in the developed countries. So now they are selling it in developing countries, in fact through networks of women. And the question is first, do no harm. And I think some of the things we need to discuss are practical things. You said why should WF be involved in this? There's a lot of people talking about this. I think the reason I'm very excited about today and tomorrow is we need to start implementing. It's nice to have the high level debates. It's nice to discuss the broader topics. The question is take examples and actually do them. Exactly. And so it looks like how do we make this mainstream and how do we build those market systems, whether it's the metrics, the instruments, the dashboard that makes it look like something that we all currently recognize and want to mobilize. Great. The second part of it, why does it need the world to come out like a part of it too? I think because I think all the other platforms, as I was just saying, and as Terry just mentioned, are still at the level of debate. And I'm exaggerating slightly. I think a lot of people are looking at, there are some groups in the US and globally who are looking at data and measurement of impact. Academics are doing that. But I think the role of the forum is very much to look at how do you take something that people really want to get done and get it done. I was also a long time ago a young leader. And I think what I've been impressed by the forum is making things a little bit more practical, not just debate them. I think, sorry, to finish up, Terry. That's why in my day job at Rock Creek, we're very excited about this sort of creating a marketplace and working with governments. We've talked to a lot of companies who are very interested. We work with a number of foundations, but you really also need governments to be interested so that there's one place you can go to have open data on impact. And that really does not exist because either it's scattered or people want to be very proprietary about their data. Marianne, you're nodding. Did you want to come in there about the role of technology? That's true. I mean, that's what I said earlier. I'm data. If you think about it, I'm now 43 years old. And when I was growing up as a young girl in Senegal, I was actually part of the inaccurate data you saw around the world. And now the reason why it's important, I think your question is very valid, why we're doing this other world economic forum is because this is a platform, it's an amazing platform. And for the first time, the world economic forum is putting his eye on the sustainable development goals. And the indicators are there. The targets are there. So we can put governments, when we mobilize government, private sector investors, we can actually put them into account and say, hey, what's happening in the next 10, 20 years? For example, how do you make sure young women and girls across the world are learning basic digital skills that they will need to be part of the digital world tomorrow? So I think the data is really crucial. And I think that being here this week, we can measure what goal four is doing, what goal five is doing. And now nobody can hide anymore. And I think what I've just said is that the data is really crucial. And because like I said, we are the data. We, the people who are growing up in orphanages, in a hand of government NGOs, now our data is actually out there. And on top of that, you have the refugee's data. You have all these people data, AI is coming, machine learning is coming, but the people who are on the ground, they actually don't even have access to the technology. So it's really crucial that we focus on tech and innovation. And I think the World Economic Forum is the right platform for it. Madam President. Yes, thank you. And this, again, links up to the initiative of the World Economic Forum for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Because if we are going to talk about sustainability, if we are going to talk about, I'll just take a very good example of the ocean economy. If you want to look at sustainable fisheries, I can see how blockchain, for example, can help the customer gets access to all the information. And we talk about refugees. I mean, how can you get all the data together so that they can actually come on board faster? So I think we are talking about inclusiveness and we've talked about communication. But communication, the tools are there. But I think increasingly, we need to see how we have this dialogue. And this is what we're trying to build on this forum to promote the dialogue and to promote understanding with the technology, notwithstanding the fact that there are challenges associated with AI, associated with all these. But I think we need to have this dialogue to see how these challenges can be translated into opportunities. Excellent. Final word from anyone? All right, we'll have to... Yeah, final question. My name is Jean-Côme de Alley. I'm from Trimine de Genève. Two questions. So you mentioned the need for government and business to work together. This morning at the UN the two big words were sovereignty and accountability. So the movement is going the other way, basically. And second, what is the WEMEF gonna make different? Because the talk about girls' access to technology has been going on forever. And there's a lot of discussions and a lot of goodwill coming out of these summits. And then it feels evolved. So what's this summit is gonna make different to make sure really that these girls, for instance, are gonna have access to technology? Definitely, Jennifer. That's a very good question. I think I'm just gonna answer very quickly. That's a very good question. We had girls' education. Everybody talks about girls' education. But no one has ever talked about STEM education in the STEM field. And so at the World Economic Forum, we have an initiative called I am the Code, which is a young global leaders who are committed actually to making a difference. And so now the I am the Code is actually mobilizing government, private sector and the philanthropic foundation to actually invest into STEM education, the skill development of those girls. So really crucial. And it's a really hard topic that they're looking into. It never happened before. And so we are actually going on the ground and finding girls, getting girls into coding. Girls can code now if you go to China or go to Argentina, which is very clear when we had the World Economic Forum in Buenos Aires. You can go now and see young girls in Argentina coding in Spanish in five minutes. So we have really real data and real hard facts. And I think that you're gonna see the next five, 10 years do what the economy from actually showing you this data. Excellent. Thank you for energizing your very rich conversation. You're energizing in your leadership. Look forward to having you participate over the next day and a half in some very interesting sessions. I think you've given a wonderful preview of what's to come. So thank you very much. Thank you to all. Thank you. Thank you.