 Good evening, everyone, and welcome. My name is Bill Burns, and I'm the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. I'm honored to introduce this afternoon my friend and former colleague and extraordinary statesman, Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, Jan Eliason. I can think of very few people who more fully embody the mission and values of the Carnegie Endowment than Jan does. And I can think of even fewer who have done more to realize them. For four decades, Jan has played a crucial role as a diplomat around the world. He's left an important mark as a peacemaker from the Middle East to the Balkans, from the Caucasus to East Africa, and in countless other regions stricken by conflict and humanitarian crises. It is a sure bet that whenever and wherever conflict breaks out, the world turns to Jan for his skill, savvy, and leadership. He has served his native Sweden in many capacities over the years, including as foreign minister, as an ambassador to the United States, here in Washington. And he's played a number of key roles at the United Nations during his remarkable career, including as Deputy Secretary General over the past five years. Jan is cast in the mold of the great line of Swedish diplomats that runs from Ro Wallenberg through Dikommerskold and Olav Palma. He is honored and built on their legacy. As Hamerskold was famous for saying, it is when we all play safe that we create a world of utmost insecurity. No one is ever accused Jan of playing it safe. He's a person of action, someone who's never afraid to be caught trying to do the right thing. And that way, he represents diplomacy and the United Nations at their very best. As all of you know very well, the UN will have to be at its very best if we are to navigate through an increasingly crowded, complicated, and disordered international landscape at a moment of genuine uncertainty about America's role and America's leadership. As Jan completes his tenure as Deputy Secretary General, and as he prepares to pass the baton to the new Secretary General and his team, he generously agreed to share with us his parting thoughts on the future of the United Nations in a changing world and the challenges and opportunities facing the international community. I look forward very much to Jan's thoughts and to our conversation. So I hope you'll all join me in giving him a very warm welcome. Thank you. Thank you very much Bill for this far too generous introduction. It's a very special feeling to come back to Washington. I was a ambassador here for five years and I was once First Secretary here for four years. My daughter Anna is in the room. She grew up here partly and my other daughter was born here in Washington. And to come here is a very special feeling. Although I understand that it's in a slightly different climate than it was a couple of weeks ago. I would perhaps touch upon that if I dare later on. When you gave this very generous introduction, I thought of an occasion where it wasn't so generous. It was meant to be generous but it ended pretty badly because it was after I had served as the emergency relief coordinator in the 90s on Somalia and Sudan, all these crises that took her at the time. Balkans was starting to implode also. But I ended my term to go home to become Deputy Secretary of State. And the farewell reception was very nice. The lady introduced me, went almost overboard in praising me and then she ended by saying, and I remember, I dealt with emergency situations. And now please ask, now I will ask Jan Lee as soon as it comes to floor, he's the man responsible for all disasters in the world. So thank you, Bill. And let me reciprocate on two points. First of all, to you personally, we have been on so many barricades together over the years, Iran, the Middle East situations. A number of issues, very sensitive ones. And rarely have I met a more professional diplomat, a more level-headed person to deal with. Always cool, always there for us in Europe and a person that we trusted fully in all respects. So it's a special pleasure, honor for me to be here where you are president. And also now I also want to say to Jessica Matthews how much, this is my second point on being here on this street, how much you saved me from the routines of being ambassador here because I was every week, twice a week in one of your, I won't say the other institutions but this was one. Jessica, I don't know how many times you and I met in different contexts here. And this whole street was just an oasis for me, a waterhole where I could pick up new ideas and saw the best of Washington. And where I also always was reminded of the great American traditions, the great American values that you stand for and that I have been formed by in a way. I spent so many years, I went to high school in America, I was in American field service exchange student. And I followed almost too passionately American political life interfering in many issues but it's just great to be with you and I thank you for this wonderful invitation. I thought I would, I have a written speech but it's in the hands of Hannah Groninger and my chief of staff is also here. It's been better than it's there. Maybe we could even have it available but I thought I would speak freely in this environment and just think a little bit about both looking back but also looking forward for the United Nations but also for international cooperation and I looked at your mission statement and when I read that mission statement I said to myself, oh my God, do we need Harding endowment? The organization describes itself as being dedicated to advancing cooperation between nations and promoting active international engagement by the United States. So you have your work cut out and we are there as a partner for you. It's almost a banality to say that we live in a world in turmoil and turbulence but also I would say uncertainty. I must say that I feel more of uncertainty that I have felt in the past and I ask myself what are the reasons for this shaky ground on which we stand today? And one of the reasons in my view is that the process of globalization has been so much challenged and questioned without us perhaps having listened to the questions being asked. But what we have seen now is I think basically if you look around the world, a tension between liberal internationalism represented by the concept of globalization and a growingly populist nationalism. I think these are the two major trends now and that's why the debate that you have in your country and that you will continue to have is to be seen in my view in this international context where we need to look at the speed of change and the effects of globalization in several aspects which have political ramifications in any country. The open borders of course, the great flow of information and of course, as most importantly, the growing inequalities, not so much inequalities between nations as now within nations. Those trends I think perhaps we did not quite analyze and look at and perhaps some of the election results and feelings among people in the world may reflect the fact that this process was going on and of course all in all it was a positive and still is a very positive phenomenon in terms of economic growth and so forth but we need to think about the qualitative aspects of this very important issue. The second reason why I think we are feeling this uncertainty is that the conflicts that we have around us, to me, become more and more intractable. You and I have been involved in so many negotiations and when I look back even at my Iran-Iraq negotiations, I say this was not that difficult but now when you see the Syria crisis and you see the Yemen, you see South Sudan, you will see that you realize that we live in a bit of a new world where another very disturbing trend is evident and that is the fact that so many of the conflict areas become influenced by ethnic, religious, tribal factors to a degree that I think wasn't the case in the past. Of course, we saw it in the book and no doubt but if you look back longer time in my negotiations, it was rather rational exercise but now you have this very strong emotional element of ethnic, religious, tribal factors involved in conflicts and then it's much more difficult to get the negotiations under control. Furthermore, you have of course the element of terrorism and terrorists which means that you have a party to a conflict which you cannot influence. You're not even allowed to speak to them which is a huge problem. Some cases there is a discussion about whether one should go that road in Afghanistan with the Taliban's but of course if you look at Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabaab and Boko Haram, you can't imagine that you are sitting in a negotiation situation. So you have to look for other means of reaching these groups which is new. And then there is something else which has been caused by terrorism and also now exploited by political forces that fish in pretty murky waters in my view and that is the fear factor. I think their whole business idea from the side of terrorists is to create fear. To create fear, to make sure that people are continued divided and that the beauty of our democracies in particular will disappear because we will take all kinds of measures which might even cross the line sometimes. And by that reduce the attractiveness of our societies. And in a strange way, their interest coincides with those who feed on fear in the domestic political world. And I speak now as European where I've seen parties on that far right line side grow enormously. Mostly, I look at Sylvie here and I don't know what I'm talking about. Mostly because the migration and refugee flows have caused such a problem. And as European I must say, I'm sad to see, I'm disappointed to see that Europe hasn't been able to mobilize a strong and unified migration refugee policy with 500 million people as a base and taking care of one million people refugees. The deepest point and I don't see much progress in that. But anyway, you have, I'm making a little bit of an excursion on this subject but I think the fear factor is a very, very important factor where extremist groups have coincided interests with some extremist parties I would say in today's world. Another very big disappointment to me is the decay in respect of international humanitarian law that we are seeing around the world. The protector of civilians which is very much a very, very much a mission for the United Nations is becoming more and more difficult. We see hospitals being attacked, we see schools being attacked and in some cases we even ask ourselves whether it is intentional. And this in combination with the horrible violations of human rights is to me a huge disappointment. I was always sort of expecting things to get better and becoming more and more optimistic especially after the end of the Cold War but now I can't say that I'm an optimist. I say that I am a worried optimist. Now, this is a pretty gloomy picture. I will come to the hope factor, I promise you. But of course in this situation don't we all feel the need now to really prove that institutions can function, that the beauty of our democracy and our societies can be seen and accepted by all, a majority in our nations. I think we have now a crisis for governance, crisis for institutions. Governments, European Union, UN in some cases rightly so. And then you ask yourself how to restore trust which is now absolutely basic. And therefore I would say that institutions like yours, Corning Endowment, the whole civil society, individual groups, the private sector, the economic world, the scientific world, have I think a great responsibility to restore hope and to show that one can make progress on issue after issue on the basis of values that we all believe in. And I think the United Nations fits in there. I think if we become relevant and become more relevant in the future we can of course perhaps remind the world of these values and principles for which we were created. It's no coincidence that the first three words of the UN Charter, which I always carry in my pocket to prove to my UN friends here, are the same as the first, the words in the American Constitution, although I think you are in singular, aren't you? So we the peoples. And I think we have an obligation now to instill hope and not give up and show that these values are there and that we must stand for them even if they are now under criticism from very serious quarters. The pillars of the UN are three, peace and security, development and human rights. On peace and security I would say that the most important aspect for me of improvement and we have a very important period ahead of us now. We have a change of the Secretary General and the Security Council's role will be absolutely crucial. But I would say that the most important reform that needs to take place inside the Security Council is that the Council would finally come to the conclusion that they have responsibility for prevention of conflict. Actually prevention is laid down in the first chapter of the UN Charter and article chapter six of Pacific Seldom Disputes is about prevention. But I think the definition of crisis, sometimes by the Council members, unfortunately seen almost the same way as media, namely that the crisis is only in the middle of the crisis when people are dying and human time action is needed desperately while in fact the life of a crisis is much. Prevention stage and the post-conflict stage. Absolutely crucial for us and also to show our comparative advantage and diplomacy to play that role both in the early stages and the later stages of a conflict. I could go through a lot of reforms needed and of course the most serious, I think, trauma for the UN is of course the fact that the Syria war has continued for so long and it has hurt, of course, the standing United Nations tremendously. The second pillar is development. We say there is no peace without development but there is no development without peace and there is none of the above without respect of human rights, the three pillars. On the development side, I think I can lift your gloom and my gloom a little bit because on the development side last year there was really serious problems. We had the acceptance and adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals, the new agenda for 2030. These goals which too many seem too many and they're diverse and they're not very compatible are in fact very compatible and mutually reinforcing and turns out to be a very important tool in our economic and social planning in many countries. They're universal, mainly because our biggest challenge is of course climate change. So sustainability is something that unites all of us. I see Selvyn Hart here who negotiated, helped negotiate the Paris Agreement, great to see you. Since sustainability is there, the combination of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement gives us a great tool in our hands to really move forward to the direction of sustainability if member states of course go along. The third pillar is human rights. I have become growingly convinced that if we don't really live up to we the peoples and look at the dignity of man and accept every human being's equal worst which says in the preamble here. Then I think we will fail. We have to measure our success in how relevant we are for people on the ground when it comes to peace, development and human rights. And therefore, human rights has been enhanced. It's one of the initiatives that Ban Ki-moon took to ask me to lead the work of human rights up front to make sure that the human rights violations are seen as the first early warning. And I say rhetorically, why should we wait for atrocities to occur when we could act at the human rights violation stage? We've done that far too often. We have waited too long. We have waited for things to go into the atrocity direction. So these are a couple of areas where I just think that we could and should move forward. Prevention and the preventions on the peace and security side live up to the SDGs, bring them together on the development side and then really lift the human rights work higher up and see it as an early warning signal. Now here, of course, I come to the United States and United Nations. You were, United States was one of the founder of this organization. You have supported the UN over the years in a wonderful way. I have followed it in so many stages of my career, my life. And we've always found that in public opinion polls, the UN has a much better standing than sometimes you can judge from the political discourse. But now I think we are in a stage where our corporation is facing a very important period. I think we are united. I know we are united by the values that under which this organization was created. But of course there are areas where we now will have to find ways of cooperating well. One area that is obvious after what I've said, of course, is climate change, which is an existential issue. We may have a plan B in our life, but we certainly have no plan B. And we have a responsibility. It sounds perhaps simplification talking those terms, but we have a responsibility for our children and grandchildren. But we now know that three years in a row we have had the hottest year in the measurable history. And you see it. I've been around. I've seen the effects of global sea rise and the Mekong Delta and Vietnam. I've seen the droughts in Africa. I've seen so many obvious relationships between climate change and natural disasters. And it's coming. And it's going to lead to enormous consequences if we don't really stick to the agreement in Paris. I was going even further, the more ambitious 1.5 degree. And it's absolutely crucial that we stick to this agreement. It came into force as you may know last week, of course in November. So nobody can change that agreement, but of course the commitments are building a voluntary action. So it's very important that the individual nations, particularly the big ones, and here of course I speak very much about the United States, will live up to the intentions of that agreement in the interest of simply our own survival. I think that's absolutely crucial. The second issue which is very important for everybody and for the world is the migration and refugee issues. We have a narrative which is going in a very dangerous direction in Europe and perhaps also here to see refugees and migration as a problem and a peril, not as a potential and a possibility. And I think it is obvious that we need to be reminded of certain things like economic growth, dependent on migration. There are 244 million people who work in countries where they were not born. Without the migrants, we would have negative growth in several Western countries. We would have negative demographic growth by the way in most of Europe and North America, without migrants, with the migrants component. And you may know that the migrant remittances back to their own countries is two and a half times bigger than all official development assistance in the world. So you can imagine the developmental aspects, effects of migrants being called home or forced to leave. And then I would add personally, since I'm now leaving my manuscript completely, that I think we need to be reminded also of the beauty of diversity in our societies, that most of our nation states build on diversity. If we were to go back to dividing our nations in ethnic, religious, tribal lines, we would have the bloodiest century that we have ever seen. There are such tendencies in Europe, in Africa, when Newers and Dinkans are fighting each other. I came back from Central African Republic and saw the enormous tension between Muslims and Christians there, last week I came back. But I also saw the beauty of what Kagama is doing in Rwanda. You may say something about his policies in some areas, but I must say the fact that he brought the Hutus together, the Tutus together, now they're all Rwandans, combined with the 7% growth for the last six, seven years and one of the most prosperous nations in Africa. So the diversity is a source of strength. And then the Secretary-General's comment about the election in this country, he made reference to the fact that the United States stands for unity in diversity, unity with diversity. That is actually more greater strength. My family, back in my mother's grandparents, uncles and aunts left Sweden as enormously poor and moved to this country. And I still have religions in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Because they came here to be, you were the melting pot. That was actually the great source of your strength, this diversity. So I would just like to say that we have this organization. You are very much part of it. You are determining, in fact, the vitality of this organization now. And I hope that these ideas are not only the right thing to stand for, but also perhaps the enlightened self-interest. I think the United States will want to have the United Nations deal with some of these intractable conflicts with peacekeeping operations, mediation on our side, because otherwise nobody would get in there or you would be asked yourself to get in there. I think the American people will require people who are dying in hunger and children who are dying in cholera that we should help. So the humanitarian elements of the UN I hope will be met with consensus, election supervision all over the world, fighting, dealing with terrorism. Because in all its aspects, not only the military and security aspects, but the deeper the root causes is also on our agenda. So I would hope that with this change of government that is now taking place, you would still come to the conclusion that this organization is needed. And it is an organization which is in a way reflecting two things. It's reflects the world as it is. And it's not a pretty place. But it also reflects the world as it should be. And I tell my colleagues as you know every week, forget it, don't put on your rosy glasses. You have to see the realities as they are out there in the world. And start with a very cold, cool, strong analysis of the world as it is. And then you ask yourself, what is it? How should it be? And I think our job is at the UN but I think I would include all of you and not least calling it. I think our job is to reduce the gap. I don't say close because that's unrealistic. Reduce the gap between the world as it is and the world as it should be. And here I think we have a very important job to also to fight hopelessness and despair and people say we can't do much about it. Stop the world, I want to get off, turn off the television. It's very easy. I think we need to just face it that we, it's not dignified to give up but that you all have something to do. We all have something that we can do. Nobody can do everything that everybody can do something. And there's so much to do. So thank you very much for that. Right. Well, Jan, thank you very much. Thank you for coming to Carnegie this evening. Thanks so much, as I said at the outset for your decades of service to Sweden, to the international. Thanks for reminding us with the thoughtfulness of your remarks this evening of everything that you've both contributed and stood for over the years. You talked at the very beginning about the wave of discontent that's we've reached parts of the globe today with elites, with institutions, and certainly Americans demonstrated last week pretty emphatically that we're not immune, that wave of discontent. But just as you suggested, it's gonna raise lots of questions about the durability of institutions, whether it's international criminal court, the United Nations, hardly. What do you see to be the areas? You talked about sort of the broad areas in which the United Nations continues to play an essential role. But as you look across the international landscape and you look to a new secretary general at the beginning of the year, what do you see to be the areas where the UN can best demonstrate its distinctive value added and quiet some of that skepticism? Well, I think picking up what I said earlier, I think the responsibility to act early and to act on warning signals, first vibrations round instead of waiting for the disaster to occur. That comes back to me all the time. But it seems like both in politics and in media, it doesn't pay off to do prevention. Do you ever see a headline in the media the disaster did not occur? And politicians who talk about what comes after the mandate period, I was four minutes, it wasn't easy. There was an empty glance and the colleagues when I spoke about something I was five years old. And then I think also what is needed is to combine the work and peace and security development of human rights. In the past, I remember when I was going to university, a professor suggested first year of peace, then your development, then your human rights, forget it, you have to work with it at the same time, you're mutually reinforcing. Then I think there are new areas where we have to be relevant. I think we start to become relevant on migration of peace for the conference in September in New York. But migration of peace there, we are now having international migration entering as a related organization, as it's called in the U.S. Then there are areas where we need to be ahead of the curve. Cyber security, for instance, is not really dealt with on international scene. I think we are very poor in fighting international organized crime. So I think we should look at all the, apropos my first remark about the crisis between liberal internationalism and populist nationalism, that we have to prove that the liberal nationalist is the right thing to do. And then we have to be relevant and act on the areas where globalization has led to the problems that they have, because these problems are transported to our domestic scenes. I think the most important thing to achieve in my view is with the problems like climate and migration, for instance, which is by definition impossible to solve on the national level. You can't solve these problems. Isn't then a logical conclusion, and here I'm testing with you, isn't then a logical conclusion that the good international formula, let's say the Paris Agreement of Climate or the New York Declaration of Migration Refuse, the good international formula is in today's world in the national interest of member states. Can you imagine, Bill, when that day comes, that yes, this issue cannot be solved nationally. Logically, we do it internationally. We compromise, we do something. What comes out is the national interest. We are so far to go to reach that conclusion. To me, it's absolutely logical. Maybe it's easier for someone coming from a country like Sweden than it is for some of the United States, because you have so many other tools like Russia and China also to promote your national interest. But I think basically we have to come to that conclusion at the good international solutions. I think that's, I absolutely agree with the logic of that, Jan, I think the challenge is going to be given people's lack of confidence in institutions, whether or not, you know, institutions with the support of member states can demonstrate their relevance, whether it's in conflict resolution in areas of prevention on big cross-cutting issues like water security, which you've invested so much in. Do you see any early opportunities on any of those issues when you can bring that logic in very concrete terms home to people? No, but your point is absolutely clear, because all these things are logical to say, but if we don't have trust in institutions supposed to do the job, we are in deep trouble. So we have to work on the trust issues. I remember my father, when I was, I was the first one to graduate in my family in high school even. I asked him, because his and my wife, my mother's background was very simple. My aunt died into tuberculosis, actually starvation, and you wouldn't believe that Sweden was one of the poorest countries in the world back in the 1920s and 30s. So I asked him when I graduated, what is the reason why we are so prosperous now? What happened? There's three things, my son. We invested in the financial structure. We built the good roads, railroads, public sector schools, hospitals, gave us jobs, he was a metal worker. And secondly, we instituted an education system which was the best in the Northern Europe, we thought. It gave the chance to everybody, and he pointed to me, to study without paying one Krona from grade one to university, without paying anything. Now we have, you're the first one to reach the benefits of that, and thirdly, appropriate question. We trusted the people who ran the cities and ran the states and ran the government. We put our best people there. And damn it, if they did anything in the area of corruption, they were out, and then he said the most unbelievable thing, you wouldn't believe it today. He said the party that promised higher taxes in the 50s won the election twice in a row. In other words, they knew that the kids were going to school. They knew that their parents and grandparents would be taken care of in hospital. So I think the biggest thing for us now, it is to restore faith in institutions and demand for institutions to deliver it. And work so hard, whether it is a government or whether it is a European Union or whether it is United Nations. And if we fail, I think we are in for this fishing and murky waters, which is going on. But there's much we can do, concretely, I could go on forever, but the water, for instance, it's absolutely crucial that we gotta focus on water, not only for health, but also for peace. I am involved indirectly and directly in so many situations now where water could be a reason for conflict, not war. Why, in fact, water, as a scarce resource, should be seen as a reason for cooperation? What is, who helps, if you're in Darfur, where I was, they threw a dead dog in a well. Well, who gained from that? They chased away half the population of the village, but who could go back to that village? So it's so self-destructive. I think if we could move, for instance, to make water a cause of cooperation rather than conflict, that's one step. But there are so many, that's what I meant in the end by also appealing to you and your programs, the fact that you are located in six places, aren't you, around the world, that you should be used, you have the fact that you are one of the, you are a global think tank, and that you could sort of see those areas where we can do work, ideas that can lighten us up. Because the hopelessness that we are failing and that we are, the discourse is that we don't work. And that pays off to show that we don't work, we don't deliver. We have to deliver. And I think, I think that, for instance, we need to really analyze globalization in such a way that we can explain it in such a way that becomes meaningful for people on the ground, because domestic and international come together. And I think you have to, I mean, to speaking as an American, you have to be more honest, I think, sometimes about the consequences of globalization, you know, that the truth is, it hasn't lifted all boats in our society. You know, while you're gonna face a situation where technology is gonna advance, honestly beneficial to human society, you're not gonna stop that, but you have to be able to adapt and help people who are gonna be, I think that's a fair self-cultivism. Can I, I forgot to give you my hope factors, because it was so grimy, wasn't it? I knew you were gonna get to that. I said I was gonna go to the hope factors, and I forgot them, because no, the hope factors are four hope factors for me. The first one is women. Women, it's gonna be the first time in history in the next couple of decades that women have their full empowerment in my thoughts. I feel it's really finally, and it's the first time ever in human history, it's about time, and we haven't quite understood what an enormous positive strength that could be. That's my biggest hope. Women and girls. And then I also think youth, we need to take youth much more seriously. We have this sort of almost charity look, what can we do for young people? I think we should switch thinking, we should say what can we do with young people? With young people. My granddaughter, 10 years old, Agnes teaches me more about how I use my iPhone than anyone else. Just to give you an example, but you talk to people when you're in university, and you get these ideas, oh my God, they're ahead of the curve. There is so much, and we have to bring them in. We had a resolution, Sylvie, were you there on the youth? There was a youth, there is a resolution of women called 1325, women in peace, building peace, yeah, peace-making. Now we have one for youth, 22, 50 is there. So exactly this that I hope the United Nations will stand for more modern reaching out and mobilize young people. And then another thing which we need absolutely, we have to be much better with the social media. We need to, our narrative doesn't come out. I think we and I talked, you and I talked about that before we got in here. How much we, less people watch television, read papers, and instead they are living out there. And you must, you are in this country, are you giving that some thought yourself? I mean, there's not something that you notice that it goes so fast. That's led to a situation of instant gratification almost hysterical pace. How do you then have time for the discourse, the seeing the aspects of classic democratic discourse? Is that being lost now in today's world? I mean, I mean, I think one of the ironies is that advances in information, technology, and social media can provide kind of echo chambers for people. So it reinforces a sense of almost closed-mindedness in certain societies rather than opening people up to attitudes in other parts of the world. And I agree with you, that's one of the challenges for not just governments of international organizations, but institutions like Carnegie as well. By the way, the second hope factor was youth. The third is science, technology, knowledge. Knowledge, if we do it right. And I really think the academic and scientific world should be in much more... York Academy of Sciences is having a seminar in the end of November on what they can do to implement the Sustainable Development Code. And I think on health and climate, there's so much science can do. And of course my last element of hope is still the Internationalist Corporation. So I think there is hope, although it's more difficult than I can record for a long time. But now that I've provoked you to lay out the four hopeful factors on that uplifting note, let me just open it up to questions from the audience as well. We have another 15 minutes or so. All I would ask, if you'd raise your hand, if you have a question, wait for the microphone to come to you. Please identify yourself and remember to end with a question. That would be great. Yes ma'am. Yep, it's coming. Hi, I'm Jade Wu. And this question is for our distinguished guest. In a more positive note, I'm wondering for your entire time at the United Nations, when you look back, what is the single biggest achievement the UN has achieved during your time? And why? I think if I look back historically, I think decolonization is perhaps the most important one, that the Scourge of War, which is the preamble, the Third World War didn't occur, that we had some progress on the government or the unlimited. But above all, I think the most important thing for the United Nations is that we are the organization that symbolize the sovereign equality of member states and that we must solve problems together. I think the most important word in today's world is together. And I think this organization, this charter, reminds us of the fact that no one can solve today's problem together. And we see as a sign of our relevance, although I'm the first time to be critical, but sorrow relevance that we have every fall, we have 120 to 150 heads of state and government coming together. We have 6,000 meetings taking place around. They meet in different combinations. The fact that we are there to sort of remind them of the fact that we need to solve problems together is perhaps the most important achievement. But I also want to say, Syria is a huge disappointment. I'm actually frustrated about it. What damage is done? That peacekeeping operations have been connected to sexual exploitation and abuse. Absolutely unacceptable. That Haiti, Haiti. We have seen almost 10,000 people die in cholera and that we haven't mobilized a full program for eradicating cholera and that we also haven't reached back to those who were immediately affected by the beginning of this crisis. It's something that we need to take to our hearts and we need to reach out and say that to the Haitian people. We are working on that right now. The Secretary will give a speech on the 1st of December which we are preparing carefully. Just to say that there are so many failures also and so many disappointments. But very often it's also a reflection of the state of affairs in the world today. If it's not a pretty place, it translates into here. UN is a reflection of the world as it is. But that's why I always say you've got to remember the world as it should be. Yes, please. Way in the back. Thank you. Will Davis with George Washington University. Mr. Deputy Secretary General, very good to see you. As you've said, unfortunately the United Nations is going to lose your considerable talents when your tenure comes to a close in the not-too-distant future. And since cloning technology is insufficiently advanced. I know what you're saying. Find another one of you to bring on board. What advice might you have for the incoming Secretary General on what to look for in the role of DSG and what issues and role that DSG should play? Thank you. Thank you, Will. This is the former head of UNIC here in Washington. A very well-informed UN affairs. By the way, he has a very good successor. You should stand up Rob Skinner, who is the head of UNIC now. Please note him. He's our man in here in Washington. I don't think Antoni Guterres needs much advice. He's a great friend of mine. He's been on the barricades on the refugee side for ten years doing the refugee work extremely well. He was Prime Minister of Portugal. Seven years. I met him when I was a former minister in Portugal. Very dynamic young Prime Minister. He has a great way of communicating. He has great values. He's a humanitarian. I think we all should be very grateful. Grateful he's there. And he will continue to work on prevention, he has assured me, particularly wants to use the good offices of UN Secretary-General and act early on, maybe also using quiet diplomacy. I should have said that now, by the way. It's quiet diplomacy. And then he, as of course, also wants to take away the sharp line between development and humanitarian assistance. We need to see that as a continuum and bring together humanitarian and development work. That's extremely important. That's very much in his view. And he also wants to continue the Human Rights Subfront Program, Patti and Anna. I don't know. I think it will be a continuity but also with his own mark. I also want to also say to you that without Ban Ki-Boom, I want to say that his time is also up but I'm leaving with him. But I can tell you, and I think you would agree, wouldn't you, the new ambassador of Barbados, that without the Secretary-General, we wouldn't have reached that agreement. He stuck his neck out, brought out the mobilization of political will. And you worked very hard to decide that I still think he hasn't got sufficient credit for the enormous work he did on that. Plus, he encouraged me and others to work with the sustainability and development goals. So these are, I think, historic achievements. And I also want to thank some of you from the United Nations Foundation, UNF. UNF has really done a great job in running with the ball on that. And I know UNIC is in contact with them on the implementation goals. Please. My name is Beth Gutab and I'm wondering if you could say a bit about the Security Council and so much time and effort and thought has been put in to reform of the Security Council over the years. What would it take for it to be really effective in the role of prevention of conflict? Well, first of all, to accept to bring up preventive situations to the Council table. It was often seen as interference in internal affairs to warn about something that could go wrong. I think they should read Article 1 and Chapter 1 of the UN Charter and also Article 33. All the things they... 34 also, which they should do. But I think now, since I don't have to worry about a career anymore, I think they should they should see the veto as a failure. At least that taste. Seriously, the facility, the ease with which the threat of the veto comes out and putting a wet blanket over the debates is very dangerous. I think, Bill, Security Council should be more like a negotiation body. During the Cold War, we got used to the veto notoriously from different sides. But now, well, I don't know, I hope we're not back in the Cold War. I hope to God we don't. But still, Syria was a horrible example of this, how we got stuck and never could get anything. Can you imagine, we had negotiators like Kofi Arman, Lakhtar Brahimi, Stafforda Misdora, up until last December not having a resolution that guided their work. But if the Council could come to the conclusion that they have the privilege to be on their Council and Sylvia, you were on the Council, but they have this gift in their hand, the veto, but to use it is a sign that they haven't succeeded in negotiation. And as a diplomat, I feel very bad about that, that if the Security Council could become much more of a negotiation body, give and take, and you come out with a result which might not be ideal, but still, at least, an attempt to bring out negotiate resolution, which would then be mind binding. Every resolution in the General Assembly is just a recommendation. But the Security Council resolutions are binding. It's serious stuff. I say sometimes that the Security Council should work like the Catholic Church when they select popes. They should lock them up. And then when the whites smoke over those, they're negotiated to send that other job. Kind of think about how... And that can be done without change of the charter. I hope you can stretch that metaphor very far, but... Just one... I'm sorry, one last... I can take two, if you like. All right, two quick questions. Jessica, please. I'd be interested, Bill, in your thoughts as well. You hear so much, especially in the last week, about people's loss of faith and institutions. It's hard for me to believe that anybody thinks in terms of institutions. It's such a dead, kind of vague word. And nobody interacts with, quote, institutions. They interact with something or rather in their own lives. And so I wonder whether... You buy that, or can you really... Can you give life or meaning or something that's real to this phrase, people, and you said also worldwide, have lost faith in institutions? It's hard for me to believe that that can be a global phenomenon that stretches across everything from, well, institutions covers almost everything. Do we just want to start first? Go ahead, I'll join you. No, you're right. I mean, who would love institutions? You're right. I mean, this is a good challenge for us. I think we simply have to deliver. You know, we have to connect. It's actually... I said you could say governments. Our leaders, our leaders. We haven't been able to communicate. We haven't been able to show what the goal was with standing up for these principles. We didn't live up to the need for equality. We didn't look at the effects of certain measures on the situation out on the ground. Sweden was receiving more refugees per capita than any other country in Europe two years ago during the big crisis. But the Prime Minister told me that he had such a big problem of achieving this because the people out in the villages and towns who received 400 refugees and maybe they had 2,000 people in that village, they said we cannot deliver. The schools don't function. We don't have no place for them to sit and now we have a place to live. Now we have a cold winter. What do we do? So there was not a bit of anti-immigration. It was just we want to take care of them right. So that's why he said to me that we have to get this under control. We can't receive so many as we do now. And I think you have to be very practical and really try to show in practice that you live up to the values and principles that you stand for. And I think that requires a more compassionate relationship to what is in fact in the UN. What is the effect on the people and we the peoples? What is the effect on the voters? Not only in the big cities and in our environments with the friends you meet but also out there. I called my friends in Indiana and got pretty good indication of where they were at in your election. So I think we have to be very much hands-on and ask what is how do we make life better? How can we prove that our model of our values are really meaningful to people and to be very concrete. So I think it's a crisis of leadership. Anyone. But it goes beyond government. Right now I think you have an anti-politician trend also as you notice. But anyone who is associated with these processes is toxic practically. There's a bit of exaggeration but it's very dangerous. I think you have to be very hands-on. Very hands-on. Really ask yourself what are the effects? And you're right. I think we should avoid talking about institutions. The last question please. We're in the back sir. My name is Eric. How effective are international free trade agreements and what does your organization do to foster or inhibit? We only indirectly engage. We have of course World Trade Organization and we have ANGTAD which is also dealing with World Trade. But I must say during my four and a half years in my job I haven't really dealt with trade issues. But it is of course absolutely crucial for international cooperation. And I think we need again a couple of simplifications. We need to really analyze what free trade means that if one country institutes new taxes or new tariffs you have automatically countermeasures which would then translate into higher consumer prices in Walmart in your case. And that also in today's economy even the cars Volvo in my home town Gothenburg I think 70% of the parts from Volvo are coming from other countries. If you look at any industry you will see that you have an import factor which is enormously large. So your import exports come out independent. So I think in today's world we really need to see learn more about that. I think the trade issues have been again out in that been out among the specialists. It hasn't been translated to simple debate what it means to restore production back to the industrial age and to rebuild those factors that you see when you ride the Acela between Washington and New York is probably not a realistic alternative. There we have I think and now I speak as European as a Swedish minister that we have it. We didn't make that as alive as we should have. What it would mean. I was high school in Indiana they went they got the box for lunch and they went off to work and the guy in the drug store the guy who worked in the factory that made cigar boxes indicator in Indiana they came back they were a member of the same rotary club and they went to basketball games on Friday we went to the picnics on Saturday and was danced in the high school everybody had a job where are we today how do we explain that life and that is I can explain to any city in Europe. Then you have the migration factor I was honored to be asked to give the speech for the Swedish National Day two years ago in Sweden and my theme was Sweden in the world everybody loved it and some of us work there now but then I said it's not only Sweden in the world it is also in today's world the world in Sweden you also have we are in a historic stage but it's not only Sweden in the world it's the world in Sweden and I would claim that the strongest societies in 10-15 years time are those who can integrate that right to be both a part of the world but also accept that in today's world the world is also inside our own countries the beauty of diversity as I spoke about as a strength I must say the applause were much more widespread on the first part Sweden in the world the world in Sweden was more confusing because 15% of the Swedish people are now born abroad completely different thing homogeneous Scandinavian style in the past but I think this is the biggest challenge for all of us to realize that the world has changed to such a degree that my grandparents in Sweden you moved from the city to the rural areas of the city now Anna is an American citizen and a Swedish citizen lives here Johan worked in London our second son and Emily is married to a Dane so we are now part of the global community and I think the vitality of our societies will be decided by how well we take this to our hearts but it's not easy, you can't sit on a high horse as we say and think don't you live up to our liberal values no, you have to sort of understand that this is a painful situation and especially if there are cultural values involved you need to come under the skin and speak that language and then move it from there I think that's a very important task we all have now I think this is time for soul searching but also for I think a bit of innovative hopeful action that we can do that there is always a niche where we now have to push the positions forward on the basis of those values and perhaps with a little bit more of realism closer to the ground I think that's what I am now Johan on behalf of all of us here this evening you've provided us with a wonderful reminder of why the international community, why the professional diplomacy has been so fortunate for so many years so please join me and thank you