 Okay, we're going to get started. I'm Dan Rundy. I hold the Shrier Chair here at CSIS. It's a real privilege to have Peter Lonsky-Tiffenthal, who's the Undersecretary General for Communications and Public Information at the United Nations. I think we're going to have a very interesting conversation today. You have his biography in front of you. He's a very accomplished diplomat from Austria. He's been with the United Nations two years. A little less than two years. A little less than two years. I thought we might have a conversation that talked both about the United Nations and sort of what it's for and what it's about, and just put that on the table, because I think he's, as a leader in the United Nations system, I think that's an interesting place to start. And then what we'd like to do is have a further part of the conversation around the MDGs and the Millennium Development Goals, because I think it's one of the important things that the United Nations carries out. As many of you know, here at CSIS, we've worked very hard on the issue of the United States in the multilateral system. We work from a bias of that the United States should be a leader in whether it's the multilateral development banks, such as the World Bank or the regional development banks, as well as the United States being actively engaged, and frankly, and this is my opinion, leading many of these organizations in a direction of having a rules-based systems in the United States interest, even if sometimes there are perhaps some areas of disagreement. And so overall, that's our general bias here at CSIS, and so it's really a privilege and pleasure to have you as a result of that. So, Mr. Secretary, could you just, so Peter, thank you. So Peter, you know, when I have conference, I'm going to start first with the broader question. I have many family members who are very bright people, who are very well-educated people who are Americans, who would say to me over Thanksgiving, why is the United States in the United Nations? Why should it be in the United Nations? I see all these negative stories about the United Nations. Why are we doing this? And if you go to various parts of the United States, you will see in the middle of cornfields, and it's easy in Washington among a cosmopolitan group to write these people off, but you know, they vote and they have a voice as well. What's your answer for those folks who are thoughtful people who are maybe UN skeptics about why the United States should be in the United Nations and what good does the United Nations do? Well, first of all, Dan, thank you so much for the invitation. My relationship with CSIS goes back 25 years when I served with the Austrian mission here for the first time in the 1990s, and I still remember your old home, and I think Bob Hunter at that time was the head of CSIS, so it's great coming back. And thank you so much to all of you. Some of you had the chance to greet personally, sorry that I didn't have a chance to do that on the side of the aisle. With regard to your first question, obviously that's a question that keeps coming up very often, and particularly given that the United States is home to the United Nations headquarters in New York, I think that question is even more relevant. And I must tell you, we are asking ourselves that question too in the context of our relationship with the city of New York, because my feeling is that we are not reaching out enough to the city of New York, even though that would be a very natural relationship, given that the multicultural, multilingual kind of setup of our group within UN headquarters in New York corresponds nearly one-to-one to the wider New York area, and I think it should be a natural fit. One explanation why it doesn't happen the way it should probably is that we are organizing a lot of events behind closed doors, and catering again and again to a very similar audience. And so I think we should reach out more to the city of New York, we should organize some of the events that we keep organizing indoors with partners, be it the Metropolitan Museum, be it the Think Tank, be it, I don't know, a film festival, a media outlet and so on, and I think people would feel our presence, not just through parking tickets and traffic jams during the GA, but they would feel it also in the context of a positive contribution to the world. I think that's sort of a more general remark, but that is also true for the relationship between the UN and the United States overall. I think we failed in making a compelling case why the United Nations is relevant to the lives of each and every one of us, and particularly each and every one of the United States citizens, because we recognize that the government, when it comes to helping us financially and with very considerable means, it has to get the support from the public at large. So unless and until we can tell a compelling story and make our case, it is very difficult for your respective governments, whether from the Republican or Democratic side, to provide us with necessary funds. So I think we should be better in telling the story and better in answering the question that you asked in the first place. Now I get that we have to start from an assumption, we have to start from the assumption that many of the challenges that this world is facing are challenges that we can only tackle if we work together in partnership. In partnership with other countries, in partnership with think tanks, with civil society, with the academic world, with the corporate world, and with the world of science, and not the least also with the media, because unless and until our work is being communicated and shared with the wider public at large, we will not get the kind of resonance that we want. So if we start, if that were to be the starting point, I would say I think more people would understand the necessity to work through an institution like the United Nations. In the many conversations I had in this year and a half, and as someone who has come from the outside to the United Nations myself, I had kind of noticed very effective work on the humanitarian side and lack of transparency on the political side. And my experiences go back to floodings in Bangladesh. They go back to earthquake in Pakistan. They go back to protecting cultural heritage in Nepal or in Bhutan since I served for many years in South Asia. And they go back to the UN's presence in Vienna as another of the UN headquarters, dealing with issues like organized crime, dealing with the issue of human trade, dealing with the issue of drugs. I think the UN does a fairly good job, but again, does not tell the story well enough on those issues. In some cases out of respect to the member state affected by a crisis, and in some cases also due to respect for the individuals that we try to help, an individual that's in dire straits in a war-torn area, for example. When it comes to the political side, I think we fail to explain why decision making processes in institutions like the United Nations takes such a long time and can be so tedious. We have not laid it open. Now I get at the challenges we are facing on that front is the UN is a member states driven organization. The member states pay our my salary. The member states, through their mandates, tell us what they would like us to do and not just what they would like us to do, but in many cases also how they would like us to do it. And we're trying as civil servants in a way, and that's what we are, maybe we're international civil servants, to kind of execute what we've been mandated to do and add the dimension, and that is the leadership role that the Secretary General and the Deputy Secretary General assume, add the kind of taking the lead to bring member states along with regard to new ideas, new approaches, new ways of solving problems. Now having worked for about a year and a half within the organization in New York, I think a lot of these external impressions that I had when I joined, I felt came true also from the impressions that I got while working at the Secretariat in New York. It is true that we are making a hell of a effort when it comes to humanitarian cases. Just as we are sitting here together, 36 million refugees are being taken care of by the United Nations around the world, and that means providing shelter, providing food, providing medical assistance, and providing basic access to education for children in those camps to make their stay as, quote, unquote, worthwhile as possible. While we are sitting here, 90 million people around the world who have no access to sufficient food are being fed in 75 countries and provided with food so that they can survive. More than every second child on this planet go through a vaccination program of the United Nations. And vaccinations against deadly diseases that would otherwise lead to a very high or much higher mortality rate among newborn children. And I could give you quite a large number of additional examples. Now it is true that when we watch the example on the basis of Syria, we realize the limitations of those humanitarian efforts, because after all, we are operating in a war zone. Whether we like it or not, we have to talk to all the parties to get a convoy of chemical weapons inspectors from their hotel to the site where these chemical weapons were being stored, means to negotiate for many, many hours, sometimes days, sometimes weeks, to get this convoy from the headquarters to the site. And while you've kind of come to an agreement with the government held area, opposition A held area, opposition B held area, you have to restart because sometimes the front lines have started changing. So you spend a hell of a lot of time to get these convoys to their goal. Unfortunately the same is true for the humanitarian assistance in this area and we've heard a lot about it. So we realize these limitations, but at the same time I think if it weren't for the UN, I don't think anyone would want to go there to stick their neck out, being shot at on a regular basis, being unfortunately some cases killed or taken hostage. So the choice is not a very pleasant one. And you feel a kind of commitment by colleagues out in the field in very close cooperation with many NGOs. And I think I would like to stress this point, if it weren't for the NGOs, I think a lot of things that we are trying to achieve, we could not be achieving because these NGOs know their way around locally, they know the different decision makers locally and their input is essential to our work. Coming back to the original question, I think our humanitarian involvement when it comes to making a difference in people's lives around the world, that if it won't be done by the UN may have to be done by the United States or others, not just would create the danger of putting U.S. citizens on the line or at risk of being hurt or killed, but it would also increase the costs dramatically for the United States or other countries who may have to do that job. On the political front, given that I admit it is sometimes very tedious and we've seen it also on the basis of Syria repeatedly, if one were to agree with the basic principle that diplomacy should be given a chance before we send in our sons and daughters into a war zone, I think the UN has certain merits for that effort. That effort in the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo quite recently fortunately succeeded. We were able for the first time to protect civilian population because the peacekeepers were given a robust mandate to defend civilian population that was being attacked by rebel fighters. And unfortunately we've seen other areas, Shrebrenica and Rwanda in the more recent past where we've terribly failed, partly also because we were not given the resources and the means to protect the civilian population. So I would say if the United States wanted to share the burden, both of responsibility and resources with the rest of the world in terms of combating crisis spots that if they were not to be resolved could have repercussions all the way back to the U.S., the UN is the only way to proceed. Tell me, you've served in the United States as an Austrian diplomat, you've also served all over the world, you're a European, is the reaction towards let's call it perceived threats of sovereignty that the UN sometimes represents, is that, is the reaction that you get here in the United States, is that a unique reaction or do you see that in other parts of the world, just talk a little bit about that. On the questions of sovereignty, I think there are two angles to look at it. I think the major focus of criticism by the United States and other member states, mostly of the Northern Hemisphere, and rightly so, are in the direction of not effective enough, not reacting fast enough, not being successful enough on our operations to really make a difference quickly. And that, unfortunately, is true when you have to take into account the decision-making process that involves a lot of partners and participants. I mean, imagine a family of four, in our case five, if we were to try to take a decision on the holiday destination sometimes, it takes a hell of a lot of time not to talk about a war and peace-like situation of 15 member states in the Security Council or five, sorry, 15 and five permanent members of the Security Council. So the processes that, and the rules that we as member states have given ourselves sometimes prevent us from acting quicker and be more effective than we would like to be. On the political side, it's a debate that I've also been following in the context of the European Union. By becoming members of a club, you submit yourself to the rules of the club. Those who are in favor of joining say, well, I'd rather sit around the table and be actively part of the shaping of the rules and hopefully improve the rules rather than being an outsider who's being imposed, on whom others impose the way forward. And I think in that sense, sovereignty can be regained through active participation in the process. And in that sense, it comes to a link to the first question that you ask if you choose to be part of the club and if you choose to actively sort of shape the organization, I get that the price of slight reduction in sovereignty becomes more acceptable. So that's how I do it. I think about a number of, I think, successes of the United Nations. When I was in the Bush administration, I helped fund something called Growing Inclusive Markets, which is an initiative that's at the UNDP. My view was, if you could get the French at the time in 2003 when we weren't, France is our favorite shooting buddy now, I think is the term of art, I think, here in Washington. But basically, we were not getting along with the French at the time. You had the French, you had various parts of the UN system funding, an initiative that said the private sector is an important actor in development. My view at the time when I was in the Bush administration is having the UN say it was a lot more important than if the Americans said it or if the World Bank said it. I think about things like the Arab Human Development Report, which I think the first one in 2002 I think changed the world. I think it was a very powerful document. Or I think about the great success in many ways of making it acceptable to think about the UN Global Compact, the initiative that Kofi Annan started of getting companies to sign on to a set of rules and trying to bring in the private sector. I think he went to MIT's business school and so had a, so those are three examples I'm aware of. Could you just talk about, and this I think will lead into the conversation around the MDGs in a second, but talk about you've been there for 18 months, what's been, has the power of the brand or the power of the imprimatur been surprising to you and give an example of how that's surprised you, I would suspect that's probably come up in your current role. We talked about the importance of partnerships and my own department, for example, works increasingly with the creative community, with Hollywood, with Bollywood, with Nollywood, and with television programs around the world, in such a way that script writers, for example, of an NBC program called Revolution based on the world without power, without electricity, the script writers would sit down with UN experts on sustainable energy and talk about messages without referencing the UN directly, could be included in different episodes of the program. And to answer sort of your last part of the question, I was very surprised how open the creative community was or is vis-a-vis a cooperation with the UN. Somehow, and it would probably be best asking them directly yourself, but my impression was the UN's affiliation to a project that is meant to be meaningful is being perceived as imprimatur or is in a way as adding moral value to the product of a commercial product like a film. Other forms of cooperation are sort of more trivial, like the episode of Amazing Race, the last one was being shot at UN headquarters, and the questions asked to the participants were related to the flags of the member states or the languages spoken in those states or the kind of population, how many people live in that country, and other trivial questions. So we are trying to reach out to that particular sector to team up. We are reaching out to the academic community. There's an initiative that was launched by the Secretary-General, by this Secretary-General called UN Academic Impact, whereby 1,200 universities so far have committed themselves to lending some of their programs to UN priority teams, through conferences, through seminars, through speaking engagements, or other forms of activities. Third group is civil society. DPI alone has 1,600 NGOs that we are working with on the daily basis worldwide. We are briefing them weekly on topical developments both live in New York and via webcast around the world. And we are gearing up for a conference of these NGOs in late August, helping us to work on the preparation, both of the transition between MDGs and the goals thereafter, as well as in preparation of the Secretary-General's climate summit on the 23rd of September. And the fourth group, last but not least on the country, is the group of the global compact that you mentioned. This group by now contains 8,000 corporations worldwide that have, as you mentioned rightly, committed themselves to certain standards in their operations. And they've become a very essential partner of UN's work, and some of you may have seen a piece in the Financial Times yesterday on the business pages talking about the economic impact of climate change and how important it is through investments in climate change to become and be a successful businessman or businesswoman. And I think one way is to kind of link in the corporate world even more in our process, because I think by the corporate community speaking up in favor of such investments, we can get climate change from the business pages to the front pages of the newspapers and other reports. So, okay, in the year 2000, there was a series of processes that led to 150-plus heads of state signing on to eight big goals called the Millennium Development Goals that had, in essence, reducing extreme poverty, among others, around there were goals on health, there's goals on water, goals on education. The goals are up, are coming due, if you will, in 2015 next year. There's been a review process called the high-level panel process of eminent persons. I don't know who comes up with these long names. I'm sure it's not your department that does, I hope. I can tell you when I joined the job, many people advised me the first thing you have to do is to abolish your own title, because I'm the secretary general for public. Who comes up with this stuff, right? So, there was the high-level panel of eminent persons that put out a paper that said the goals are eight. Actually, it's quite a good paper. A colleague at Brookings wrote much of it, Homie Carras, and if you haven't read it, I recommend you do read it. It's actually quite well done, and I think reflects sort of the changed world from 15 years ago when the first set of goals were done. But, and then I understand the secretary general, and you probably had something to do with this, wrote there, so there was a paper that was put together, very well done, with this high-level panel, David Cameron, the head of the Ellen Johnson Surleaf, SBY from Indonesia, were the three co-chairs, and then sort of John Podesta, who was here two days ago, was on it from the United States. I think it's John Michelle Severino from France, who was the former head of AFD, very capable person, among many others, were on this. They said, keep the original eight more or less, and here's several things to think about. One is livelihoods, which I guess is UN speak for jobs in the private sector. One was good governance, I hope you'll come back to explain to me what livelihoods means in plain English. Governance was another, something about how do we reconcile the environment and development, and then some cross-cutting things, like do something about big data, and think about youth. Was sort of the bumper sticker, as far as I could tell from the paper, it's been a while since I last read it, but those were the ones I took away. So then the Secretary General responded and said, I see this paper, thanks for sending me this paper. I like governance, or that was my read-up, and I'm putting my bias on it, and I'm very much in favor of trying to get a governance goal out of the, and I know the UK government would like to see that too. I was in Ottawa yesterday, and asked the foreign ministry people there, I said, so what do you guys want out of the MDGs? And they said, we want mother to child health, that's our main thing, and that's what we're known for, and we might do something on child marriage, that was the other thing, there's something big on child marriage for them. So we've talked about some of these soft power initiatives, there's this thing called the MDGs, they're up for review, they're up for a refresh, talk about that process of the refresh which you're looking at right now, talk about how the SG and his team are thinking about this, certainly I know there's this paper, but also talk about the response from the SG and his team and talk about what the process looks like over the next year, and if you would also, if you would care to comment on either livelihoods or governance, I'm particularly interested in that, and also knowing where my bias is, meaning I'd like to see a governance goal at the end of this, talk a little bit about what you think the chances are of that. Sure, I will try. Big talk. All in three minutes or less, right? Okay. I think there seems to be general agreement that these so-called millennium development goals, those eight goals, and I think one of them that you didn't mention is poverty, reduction of poverty or elimination ideally. Those goals and the international efforts around those goals in the course of 2000 till 2014 have made a big difference in the lives of hundreds of millions of people. So I think as much as we are still far away in many of the goals from reaching them by the end of 2015, I think at least from our point of view and the point of view of scientists around the world, tremendous progress has been made that may not, or for sure may not have been made if there hadn't been a concerted effort by governments, by civil society, by business community, and by other partners in the media also to get to this progress. Now, I think the millennium development goals also managed to create a brand name for themselves. I think they were quite simple, they were quite easy to understand, people could relate to them, and they were communicable. I mean, you could pass them on, you could share them, you could depict them in an icon. And they were compelling. And they were compelling. So from our point of view, it is a success story that still needs a lot of effort, but there's a success out there. And now the question that has come up is how do we build on that success, on that momentum, and identify additional goals that are based on existing needs around the world, and not just in the South, but across the planet. And as you rightly mentioned, there's a certain process that is going on right now. You referred to the Secretary General's report, you referred to the high level panel, you didn't refer to the working group. I didn't wanna, I was gonna mess up that they knew there were these open working groups. I couldn't really pronounce them, so I was hoping you were gonna say what they were gonna do. Basically, representatives of member states are sitting together to try and come up with a list of additional goals. And not just identify those goals, but give them a name that can be communicated and that could be understood, and that would be compelling enough so that the public and the governments and the private sector and civil society would feel committed to work on those goals. And that's where we are really stuck right now. Many, many goals have been put forward. You mentioned some of those. It is not absolutely clear at this stage which goals will eventually make it all the way through. What seems to be clear is that these goals should be applicable really to the world at large. That's why issues like energy came up, the issue of urban development, cities. The other day I sat in a talk from an expert on global cities who said currently cities are occupying 2% of the land mass. And within only 20, 25 years, that may go up to 7%. And what that means in terms of pollution, what it means in terms of energy consumption, what it means in terms of urban poverty, and so on and so forth. So stress on the environment, stress on many other fronts. So that's why the issue of cities is also included. Then as you rightly put it, the issue of governance, governance comes in. Now the term governance, and maybe you can help us to find a better term that explains what government, how can we make governance relevant and understandable to the public at large? We have to explain, because governance, at least from my understanding, applies across the board. It is a cross-cutting issue. It does not apply only on how to run a government, how to run a corporation, how to run an NGO. It applies, it's an approach, an ethic approach to problem solving. And it also, as much as the term sustainable development goes, needs another way of explaining it. I think the term sustainable development goal is off-putting. It's very difficult. Nobody really understands what it means, the term development, yes, but everything is not. So I think a lot of hard work will still have to go into not just identifying the goals, trimming them down to a number that's acceptable. Exactly, and then pick the right language for it. And currently, the member states, the 193 countries and their experts are trying to kind of distill those goals. They will present them, hopefully, around the time of the General Assembly, the Secretary in September. The Secretary General will respond to them and then a year-long process sets in to eventually determine which ones of these goals will make it to a new group of goals based on the original eight millennium development. Now, I know you're Austrian, but it makes me recall Bismarck, who was German, talking about if you wanted to see legislation, it's like watching sausage being made. This sounds like the mother of all sausage-making machines trying to get the 10 or 12 goals and I'm trying to get my brain around what that process will look like. And I understand it's supposed to be a massive, just getting through the high-level panel process, there was something like, they reached out to a million different people, there was a, the consultation was sort of, it was almost hyper, Uber consultation. How in your mind do you imagine the UN system distilling or boiling down a million comments or 190? I mean, maybe this is what you guys do on a daily basis, but how do you distill, how are you gonna distill, how's that process gonna work to distill? Everybody's pet rock if to use an American expression about it. Well, so I talked to the Canadians, they said, we want child, we're gonna fight for child marriage and we're gonna fight for mother to child health. The Brits have said we want governance. Everybody, I'm not sure where the United States is at, I haven't asked yet, but the point is, everyone's gonna show up with a pet rock, so how are you gonna manage that? That's a long way of me asking, how are you gonna manage that process? Just talk a little bit more about that. I had a closer look at the Millennium Development Goals and how they came along and how they came about in the first place. And the processes were much longer than the ones now. And now in hindsight, we've seen, we may have, and we should have probably started much earlier in terms of approaching those goals in a concerted effort, and we did eventually in the year 2000. And the same will definitely be true also for the next group of goals. We should have probably started long time ago in pursuing them. This is not going to happen, it will go through the motions. You made the right reference to the effort of bringing in the public and bringing in those people who are interested in those goals and let them participate in the conversation, not just through the so-called My World campaign, which was an opportunity online to express your support for any new additional goal, but also in other forms. For example, we did a project jointly at Central Park with an Australian group of organizers called the Global Citizen Project. They organized the concert at Central Park, but all those 75,000 in the audience had to prove online that they themselves had gotten engaged actively in the promotion of one of those goals. And they had to gain certain points, and then they got a ticket free of charge and act, singers like Bono, like Alicia Keys lent their name and their voice to the cause. And eventually not just the 75,000 people on the ground listened to them and Stevie Wonder, but there were 18 million following this concert via webcast. And the idea was to lend support to some of the goals in the process of identifying those new goals. So I fear we may have to go through the motions. That is as would be a parliamentary process up on Capitol Hill. There is a committee, there is a subcommittee, there's the House, there's the Senate, and there is some way of reconciling the two pieces and then there's a president who needs to sign it. So in the end, this institution may have a slightly different name at the UN, but they are there. Just let me just say one last thing and we'll open it up. My sense is that the MDGs, the Millennium Goals, I think were an excellent shorthand, and an excellent organizing shorthand as well for thinking about some of the global problems that we face. So I do think it's a worthwhile process. I also think to the extent that certain goals are put out there, it does lend additional force to how some donors and how host country governments will think about where they put their people time and money because of the conversation we were having earlier about the power of the brand and the power of the imprimatur that the UN has. So it's in the US interest to lead and be proactive on them, going back to some of the comments you were making earlier about sovereignty. My view is we ought to be shaping those rules as much as possible because we're gonna live with them for 20 years after the fact. So it's in the US interest to be engaging on them. So this is great. I'm gonna, we could go on for hours, but I wanna open up the conversation to, so we're gonna do this as I'll describe this as World Bank style, not UN style. So I'm gonna collect three or four comments or questions from the audience so that Peter can respond to them. And if we have time, we'll do a couple more. But if you can say your name, your organization and make your comment or question in the form of a brief comment or question, then I think we'll have time for various folks. So, oh, right. Oh, yep. So who wants to ask a question? If not, okay, yep. And then go ahead and just. Carol, can you hear me? Yeah, Carol Grigsby, Grigsby Global Consulting. One thing that you didn't mention in respect to the high level panel was their injunction right up front to leave no one behind. And that is sort of an overarching concern that they've put out there, referring to groups with disabilities, other marginalized groups, ethnic groups, so what have you? I just wondered whether you have any observations about how the working group is going about trying to incorporate that, which can be a very difficult, but necessary goal to achieve. Thanks. Let me get a couple more. Yes. Thanks very much, Dan, and thank you for the terrific discussion. My name's Lisa Cardi. I'm the director of the UN AIDS office here in Washington and just a very brief comment and then a question. I think the comment just goes back to the convergence of kind of US and UN interests, and I would just reinforce the point that I think the technical agencies that do so much of the humanitarian work, there is really, I think, a very strong synergy there between a lot of US international strategic goals and the work of the United Nations system, and we don't, I think, often talk about that in a clear enough kind of way. You started to sort of tick off where some of those synergies are, but I think actually there's quite a comprehensive list of them that we shouldn't really be shy about speaking about. The second point I would just make is just to reinforce, I think, the point Dania made around plain English and the need for whatever this next iteration of goals is to be understandable and compelling. I think that just needs to sort of frame everything else that's out there. And the third thing is actually really, it's just a question. My own recollection of the MDG process is that there was a lot of process, but at the end of the day, it was a political process that sort of got us over the finish line. And if you're able to comment a little bit on what you think the political risks are as we get to the end game of this, like a year from now, eight months from now, and where you think US interests might lie and where the UN might need the US's help in navigating some of those political challenges. Thanks. There was somebody else over here. Steve, if you just push the microphone. Use your finger on the challenges we have. On a lot of the challenges we have in doing this, there's been a lot of consultation here in the Washington area and across the country. And two of the key issues I'd like to have you comment on, you touched on universality or the opportunity to have this set of goals or whatever they become, apply to everyone and have the opportunity for everyone to participate. That's a big challenge and one which is going to have a big uphill political battle here, but one which I personally hope that there'll be a good dialogue. And I'm interested to hear what you're finding is the opportunity. You have dialogue with the emerging economies and with the established economies to see these applied to them, which gets back to, I think, the heart, just like leave no one behind. The other key issue is the issues of inequity that results from significant growth, economic growth, but it hasn't been much equity. And I think the underlying challenge for any of these goals to succeed together will be harnessing that, maybe with the business sector, maybe with this new mandate of interest. Talk about that and how you see that as a key goal to focus on and what you've experienced so far in talking to people is to bring that about. Nicole Golden. Talked a lot about the engagement process and I want to commend you and the Secretary General for the outreach that has been done as part of the process to young people in particular. It's a group that hasn't come up, but it was really, I think, a demonstration of a commitment to young people. That being said, I've often made the point about the process being different than the ultimate product. So sort of the question slash comment and relates to the leave no one left behind, the universality, the equity question is, to what extent is the reliance on the goals themselves and or the thought being put into the targets that will be sort of under those goals and where is the disaggregation and how is that playing into it? And do you think to Dan's comment about, is there going to be a governance goal? I'd be curious your thoughts on, is there going to be a youth goal and or how do you think young people and youth will be included as sort of, subjects of the actual new goals? Okay, those are quite a wide ranging and interesting set of questions for you. Thanks very much. I'm trying to tie it together and leave no one behind comments of Carol if I may say so and Steve universality. In such a way that we are facing and maybe that is felt stronger in the context of United Nations than beyond and increasing North-South divide, which means that the level of cooperation between the North and the South is diminishing while at the same time the challenges that we are facing become even more ever more global. And I think the process that we are going through right now should be seen as an opportunity to overcome this divide and by making those goals universally relevant and not leave anyone behind in an ideal scenario could make a contribution to overcoming this divide. If I wished I knew that it would be a success would be happy to share it with you. I don't know, but I'm aware that the Secretary General and other senior colleagues at the UN strongly believe that that is also one of the opportunities arising out of this debate and while we believe it is worthwhile going through the motions and even allowing it more time to be able to make that contribution. So I think that is least is the view that is currently prevailing. Whether leaving no one behind will be included as a specific goal, quite honestly, I don't know. It is true that in terms of sheer quantity of member states that there's a very strong feeling that it should be, but whether it will be at this stage I cannot unfortunately not say. Lisa, if I may say so, made a reference to the kind of synergies between US and United Nations. I think that is something in the way we present ourselves in the United States with the help of UNAs and other partners like the Foundation and through our UN Information Center, Rodney and his team. I think we would have to put even more emphasis than we may have done in the past. Yes, you I think rightly made the point that we should make an effort to make those new goals understandable and compelling. With regard to the political process and the risks involved at the end of the game is I think the US could play an essential role in taking the lead on bridging the divide that I started to talk about between North and South. And I think it, I mean, I'm aware that this is maybe not something that is extremely popular here in the US, but I think it would help not just to generate those goals. Those goals are just one element in the process, but I think it would help the international community to rally around those goals in a different and more active way than without that US leadership. Steve, you talked about inequity resulting from uneven economic growth and how that may play out in this conversation about. Is that the economic growth aspect? Yeah, but uneven, yeah, yeah. I mean, quite honestly, that too is a reflection on the divide of the international community on this North-South divide that I touched upon. And I mean, unless we will not be able to overcome the uneven growth if we don't take the attitude of wanting to overcome the divide in the first place. And there again, the US leadership would be very essential in that context. Now, Nicole, you spoke about the outreach to young people as many of you may know. The Secretary General has recently appointed the first ever envoy on youth. The idea of having someone on his side who is 29 years old, he's a 29-year-old Jordanian who I think has the skills, and some of you might have met him, hopefully would agree the skills of being young while at the same time serious enough on the issues is meant to try and bring together initiatives around the world that already exist without reinventing new initiatives that would really benefit young people. That means what can we do jointly to overcome youth unemployment? And what can we do jointly in order to improve access to education for young people? And not just the initiative by the Secretary General Education First, putting those 57 million children today, boys and girls that haven't had a chance to spend a single day in school, but providing access to better education to many others. So I think youth will remain from the UN's point of view an absolute priority, whether youth would eventually come out as an individual goal or as something that should be kept in mind with any of the goals that will come out of the process is an open question. Let me just comment on a couple of things. Lisa, I agree with you. I actually think we are net beneficiaries. United States is a net beneficiary. I do think though that I do think that the case has to be made on and there has to be some education. So I think you put your finger on something very important. My view is that most of the support for the United Nations often, how do I put this in a subtle and nuanced way, doesn't look like the Republican National Committee, I think is how I'd put it. And so I think there needs to be some more sophisticated outreach to Republicans, frankly on this. So I think that's something else I think that continues to need some work. Because I do think if you make the case, my argument would be is 95% of what the UN does is in our benefit or harmless. There's 5% of the stuff I've got an issue with. I won't list them all here, what maybe some of my complaints are. But I think 95% of a loaf is pretty good in my book. And if that's where I'm at, I'm sure there are other people that may have other complaints. But I think that's a very high percentage of value that we're getting. And I think many of the points that Peter, that you were making about, if we didn't invent, and this is something Ed Fox who's here who was saying earlier in the pre-game meeting that we were having, if we didn't, so we'd have to invent the UN if it didn't exist. The United States and other powers would have to invent it because it's a very useful platform for many of the collective action problems that we face. Could you just talk, Peter, about this issue of universality? When I was in Canada yesterday, this wasn't an official Canadian position, but I talked to some of the, I mean, it's a center-right government and there were some grousing among some of the advisors to the Foreign Minister. What is this universality crap? I don't think that was the term they used, but it was something about what does this mean? Are you gonna tell us, is the UN gonna tell us what to do? And so could you talk a little bit about what this universality thing means? Because I think we're maybe, I think there's some, I suspect it comes back to the sovereignty conversation we're having earlier. Second, could you talk about the role, I've heard some grumpiness from some foundations, not the biggest ones, but some medium-sized ones, and maybe it's because they weren't, their person wasn't included in the high-level panel on eminent persons, or about the philanthropy world wasn't included enough, I get whatever that means, in some kind of process. You talk about where you see philanthropy playing a role, and then finally, I've seen several op-eds from business leaders and we just did this big event on the role of the private sector and the MDGs. Can you talk about, from your perspective, from sort of the Secretary-General's leadership perspective, can you talk about how you see the role of the private sector in sort of solving these goals, so if you could touch on some of those issues if you would please. As we got to the last point, the private sector, not just through the global compact, but far beyond, I think there's a realization that all these goals cannot be pursued successfully without the private sector, and I think in that case, to the United States, given the importance it attaches to the private sector and to solving problems through the private sector, I think it's a very essential partner to support the Secretary-General. I don't think if we'd had this conversation 25 years ago, that I'd have asked you that question, or you'd have said that answer. So I think we're in a very different world than 25 years ago. I think some of it is because of the global compact, it's some of it's because of the change in globalization. I agree with you, but I think it's very interesting if we'd had this discussion even 15 years ago, I bet if you go back and looking at the formulation of the MDGs, that would not have been part of sort of the talking points, if you will. There were probably two reasons for that. The one reason is that member states are very suspicious or often suspicious of us as UN as an institution reaching out behind their government. For a rougative of interacting directly with NGOs, with the private sector, with the academic community, without consultation, without prior consultation. And I think that is something that keeps coming up as a sensitive issue in some of the cases and in some of the forms of cooperation. The second element is, and just to confirm what you just said, is the close cooperation that exists now between the World Bank and the United Nations or the United Nations and the World Bank. It may be partly rooted in the fact that there's two gentlemen of Korean origin getting along very well, but it may also have to do that while the bank may want to lend itself a more human face, UN would like to lend itself a more business-like face and a more competent, in terms of business-competent appearance. And I think the Secretary General and the President of the World Bank have undertaken two trips recently, jointly to the Great Lakes region and to the Sahel region and will probably go on a third trip shortly back to Africa. And I think that joint commitment has helped to create synergies that hadn't existed and the same synergies apply to the cooperation with the private sector. On philanthropy, the Secretary General recently held the first ever summit meeting of a philanthropist worldwide. He hosted the Worldwide Gathering of Philanthropists to basically present them with our case and challenge them to work more closely and more directly with the United Nations. I mean, there are a couple of names, all of you, know them who are already doing that. Whether it's the Gates Foundation, whether it's others. But that was a real pitch by the Secretary General to the philanthropic community to get behind the UN's efforts and maybe also to harmonize the efforts and to complement the efforts better than that may have been the case rather than go out there and everyone does it on his or her own. On the first point regarding universality and the experience that you had in Canada recently, I get at the approach to achieve universality with the new goals is partly driven by the fact that these new goals will also have root causes in the Northern Hemisphere. I mean, look at an issue like urban poverty. Urban poverty in the Northern Hemisphere is a real big issue by now. We may not want to see it, we may not want to recognize it, but if you look at the sheer numbers of people that are perceived as being poor in the Northern Hemisphere is growing rapidly and has grown over the last many, many years. And that applies in a similar way to the other goals that unless the North takes its responsibility, nothing will change in the South and that eventually will affect the North. So bottom line is it's less the issue of universality, it's more the issue of interdependence that is at the root cause of this universality approach. And I think that takes us back to your very first question, how why should UN be relevant in a country like the United States? It is relevant because what is happening in another part of the world becomes and will be relevant to what's happening in the United States. Well, you've been very generous with your time and I appreciate everybody sticking around and went a little bit into overtime, but I think the fact that you all stayed, I think speaks to the interest that you all have and in the topic. Please joining me in thanking Peter for spending so much time with us today. Thank you.