 Good evening everybody. Good evening. My name is Nancy Lindborg. I'm the president of the US Institute of Peace and I'm absolutely delighted to welcome everybody here this evening and I'm delighted to do so on behalf as well of our wonderful partners in putting this evening together the Alliance for Peace Building, the United Nations Association of the National Capital Area and the President Woodrow Wilson House. So we've joined forces to be able to have this evening of celebration and commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the United Nations and I hope everybody had a chance to see on the actual birthday that we turned USIP blue. Do you see that? We and here at USIP we just had our 30th anniversary so we're the younger sister to the UN and I think as many of you know we were founded 30 years ago with by Congress but as an independent institution with the mission of looking for very practical ways to prevent, to mitigate and to recover from violent conflict. And I'm very struck that 70 years ago the UN was founded in the aftermath of World War Two at a time when the world really needed to come together as a community to address the terrible conflict that had really torn Europe and Asia and the world apart. 70 years later we are at another point where there is a heightened sense of conflict where we're struggling as a globe with 60 million people who are displaced forced out of their homes by violent conflict and there's climate change issues, other critical issues that are threatening global security and prosperity. And so it's fitting that we gather together tonight not only to celebrate and to remember the many things that we've done together as a community of nations over the last 70 years but to really reflect on how do we strengthen the platform? How do we increase our ability to make change on the critical challenge that face us right now at yet another moment of global tension, of global need? I am also very heartened that we're doing this at a time when we've just come together to put the global goals back on the agenda and I know we'll have a chance to talk about that together as we look at that next 15 years. So I'm looking forward to hearing our very distinguished guests, Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson and European Commission Vice President Kristalina Georgieva. But first I'm delighted to introduce a good friend and a wonderful partner, Melanie Greenberg, who's the President and CEO of the Alliance for Peace Building, which is an association of over 70 peace and conflict resolution organizations from around the world, many of whom we have a wonderful partnership with and are delighted to work with the Association and the Alliance for Peace Building on a lot of key issues. Melanie is a writer, a lecturer and a trainer who has worked on conflict resolution, international law and peace building for a number of years. She's influenced peace processes from in the Middle East, North Africa, the Caucasus. Previously was the President and Founder of the Cyprus Fund where you we had a chance to work together and has been a visiting fellow at Johns Hopkins and the Stanford Center. So please join me in welcoming a very influential peace builder, Melanie Greenberg. Welcome everyone and it is with such deep pleasure and gratitude that we partnered here with USIP. Thank you Nancy, such a joy to to work with you in so many things with the United Nations Association of the National Capital Area and the Woodrow Woodrow Wilson House. With so many difficult things happening in the world and a scale of complexity that's truly baffling, to be able to come together to celebrate 70 years of the United Nations and the passage of the Sustainable Development Goals and specifically for my community in peace building Goal 16, which merges peace building and development so closely together that we can't separate them as we deal with conflicts around the world. And furthermore with Goal 16, it's not only for countries that are poor or conflict affected. It's for all of us. So how do we think about our own cultures of violence and how do we build more inclusive societies? And usually when I talk about Goal 16 in the process, I talk about the victory for the peace building community because we had to pull together in some very extraordinary ways. What I'd actually like to talk about tonight is how to celebrate the United Nations in making this process happen. Unlike the passage of the Millennium Development Goals, which was more of a top-down process, the United Nations realized that to solve the complexity of today's problems, this had to be a fully inclusive process. It wasn't easy. There were consultations on every continent. There was a huge grassroots poll where the world could truly say that everyone who wanted a chance to express themselves could say what was most important for them in the furtherance of the Goals until 2030. And none of this would have been possible without the vision of our esteemed guest tonight, Jan Eliessen. And as a driving force for celebrating this evening, it is a tremendous honor to introduce one of my real peace building heroes. Jan Eliessen has been this deputy secretary general. He's been the foreign minister of Sweden. He was a president at the General Assembly during a time of great change within the United Nations. He was the ambassador to the United States at a time, frankly, when talking about peace and being a champion of peace was not easy. But he was able to make inroads even in a difficult political climate. He was a state secretary for foreign affairs, the first undersecretary of humanitarian affairs. And he was a mediator in the Iran-Iraq war and in the Darfur in that conflict. Jan has been a champion throughout his career in merging development, peace, and human rights. As we celebrate Goal 16, and especially as we do the hard work in moving it forward, we recognize in Jan Eliessen a visionary, both in the concept and the difficult political process that led up to the adoption. And now it's our role to carry this forward. So we are so honored to welcome you here. I'm also delighted to meet you, Vice President Georgieva, and we look forward to your remarks and we celebrate together our collective achievement. Thank you. Very much, Melanie, for this very generous and gentle reminder of my age. I'm very glad to be with three, well, you are many around in this room, but three extraordinary strong women. Nancy, thank you very much for having the blue color on the U.S. history piece. It's no coincidence my choice of color for my tie today. And everything you have done, both out in the field in the energy community and in USAID and now as head of this wonderful organization. So, and then Melanie, a great friend, but also a great colleague in developing ideas of prevention, in particular, and peacebuilding. And over the years, in different roles, we have worked together and I'm sure we will continue to work together and it's great to be with you. And Chris Georgieva, a friend since sometime when the humanitarian crisis were, which still are, enormously difficult to deal with. We had this fantastic ally in the European Union when you were commissioner for humanitarian affairs. And we're glad that you now are in charge of the financial portfolio. The vice president of that portfolio, you know, you better be careful. The finance sector, you better have the friends in that area and we're glad to have you there. So these three women, great leaders, probably are a sign of times, aren't they? We will see in the next few years or so where we will see women leaders take over in different parts of the world. And international organizations also perhaps, you know, there is a movement in a certain direction in my own organization. But I will not get into that sensitive subject now. I wonder whether I should begin on the dark side or the light side, the positive side. I say often that in the United Nations, we are working in two perspectives. In fact, we are reflecting, we are a mirror of two things. We are a mirror of the world as it is. And it's not a pretty place. But we are also mirror reflection of the world as it should be. And I think our job is to reduce the gap between the world as it is and the world as it should be. And I expect from my colleagues to not put on rosy glasses when it comes to the world as it is. They should be very tough in their analysis, no illusions. But then they should, we should never forget what the world should be. So, I, even to this second, I have decided whether I would start with the positive or negative. Any vote in favor? OK, I start with the positive. I always carry the UN Charter in the pocket. I've had it here since 1984. This is my 12th version. And I think I will make it easy for myself. Because I will read to you the preamble. To me, this is diplomatic poetry. It is what this is all about. And miraculously, these fantastic founders of this organization knew already that you have to combine peace and security with development, with human rights and the rule of law. In the preamble, they have the model already written. Now, listen. And by the way, there is no coincidence that the first three words are, we, the peoples. We talk about accountability. In my view, the accountability is vis-a-vis people. Can they have peace, development, human rights, rule of law? Anyway, this is how it is. And you probably know it. If not, I can send you copies. Rebecca, are you here? We'll make sure that you get copies. You get we just print up a new, huge edition of George's 70th anniversary. We, the peoples of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind. And to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights is the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small. Three, to establish conditions under which justice of respect for the obligation arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained. Rule of law. And fourth, to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom. You've got all four elements here. The same formula that I, as president of the UN Assembly, had the great honor to gavel. On the 16th of September 2005, when we stated with the full support of all member states and we remind them every day, practically, that there is no peace without development. There is no development without peace. And there is none of the above without respect of human rights and the rule of law. Three pillars on which the work of the United Nations and of work, in my view, of any society rest. If one of these pillars is weak, the other pillars are weak. There is no sequential analysis around this, that first you do peace and then you do development and then you do human rights. There was a theory about that in the 70s, believe it or not. No, you have to do it at the same time. Because if we don't do that, the structure is weak. The three pillars have to be maintained and equally considered equally important. Now, of course, I have to paint that negative picture also. Because to live up to this is not easy. I think we are facing huge problems. I've been around for, in diplomacy, as you understood from Melanie's introduction, for a long time, and I must admit that I have not found more of uncertainty in the world than it is today, the directions we are going. And I think we are faced with a huge challenge to prove that institutions can work, can succeed. Not only international institutions like United Nations and European Union, but also national institutions. Because if there is a lack of belief in institutions, in the democratic institutions in particular, and we don't deliver peace development to human rights, where do people go? In frustration. They go to find identity rather in a religious sect or a national identity or local identity, and then they divide with the help of extremist groups, humanity and us and them. And there is a competition of brutality going on to bring in fear in societies, to divide us even more. So we have a tremendous task now to increase credibility of strength of both national and international institutions. In the three pillars, I can only mention the main challenges, because I think I want to focus at the end on the SEDs, particularly SED 16. But in the first pillar, first area, it is of course the war in Syria, which is like an infected wound. There is another infected wound that Nancy just told about. We've had a conversation before on Israel-Palestine, of course. But the presently most dramatic situation is around Syria, where you ask yourself what else does it take to come to the conclusion that this war has to be ended. Isn't it enough with seeing a quarter of a billion people being killed, countries like Lebanon having every third inhabitant being a refugee? ISIS, Daesh taking over territory in Syria and in Iraq. And refugees fleeing into Europe, destabilizing, and I'm sure Chrisellina has a few words to say about that, at least in discussion later on, countries and dividing countries in Europe to a very dangerous degree. And possibly now having financing for these huge operations taken from the development budget, which would mean a blow to the development system in the United Nations, but also on the life in the ground in the developing countries. What else does it take to come to that conclusion? Unfortunately, last week there was progress. I can't say no more, but at least we have the main actors around the table, including Russia and US, but also as you saw Iran and Saudi Arabia. And I just come back from a trip to those two countries, by the way. On development, I'll say human rights first, because I would want to end on development. Human rights I think is, we have to sort of introduce a culture of human rights in the United Nations, but also in our societies. I feel that there is a need today to have a bit of a renaissance of the knowledge of international law. When in the Security Council there was a negotiation on access, human rights on access in Syria, I as a former humanitarian coordinator in the UN found it extraordinary that they were actually negotiating elements that were part of humanitarian law, the Geneva Conventions. And I find that the Refugee Convention of 1951 is not known to those who now discuss the refugee issues. And this charter, I could go on with the different chapters of this charter, particularly Chapter 6, Peaceful Settlement Disputes, or as it states more poetically, Pacific Settlement Disputes. How much do we do with that? In other words, we should show respect for what our predecessors in politics and diplomacy have achieved and be reminded of this, because we have this neglect and lack of knowledge. And even as I said, competition of brutality, as a sort of systematic way of spreading fear, we better be reminded of what we as a humanity have agreed after this horrible war. So we also have introduced something, and I'm very proud to be leading that on behalf of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. That is the Human Rights Upfront Initiative, which is meant to say that human rights are not only important itself to be that third pillar, but it's also why don't we, instead of waking up to a crisis in the humanitarian crisis stage, or the peacekeeping stage, when houses are burning and people are dying, why don't we instead act on the human rights violations? Because the human rights violation is the first vibrations in the ground that things will go wrong. But that is often by countries considered interference in eternal affairs, even if they know that this might end up in civil war, or even regional wars. But we are pushing this ahead now. We hope we will get the support of member states to move in that direction and give warning about things that can go wrong. This is to me the life of a conflict. It's a very long distance between my two hands. But sometimes we tend to CNN, even Security Council, tend to define the crisis here, forgetting there is a pre-side prevention and there is a post-side. If we start to understand that the life of a conflict is this long and that we have an obligation to act both in the pre and post, then we make quality progress. Finally, to the last point, development. And I think the best news in this dark world that we, after all these realities, we are faced with is Syria, and the wars in Africa, and inequalities, and violations of human rights, and terrorism in combination with organized crime, et cetera, et cetera. I found it personally absolutely wonderful too. After three and a half years of work on this negotiation process, see on the 26th of September, this agreement on sustainable development goals, not in the process, but preceded by a wonderful speech by His Holiness the Pope, Pope Francis. I think I went to bed with a smile that evening. I felt so good that, oh, we did it. We were haunted, we were hounded by the media that these goals are far too many, and they are too complex. But I say the world is complex, and we need to move to a new, transformative stage of development. It's not the donor community vis-a-vis the recipients. It's a new world where development is as universal. It's all of us. It's sustainability. It is a transformative change forward. We bring in elements of these goals that give a much richer, in my view, much more realistic view of what development will be like, namely bring in aspects like technology transfer, the migration issues, the urbanization issues, industrialization, and all these elements that are in there. And they force the UN system in a positive way, which I'm really waiting for, to work together, because these goals belong together, can be seen together. If you see them in the education cluster or the health cluster, or for instance in an area which I'm very interested in, water, you see that if you do water and sanitation right, you get good effects on child mortality, paternal health, education, gender equality, and poverty. In the present member Gs, five other goals are affected. So the new goals will bring about a more holistic integrated approach. And apart from the sustainability dimension that goes through all the goals, STGs, the Goal 16 has exactly that quality. That is on the importance of peaceful societies, which is the peace and security dimension. It is the access to justice and the inclusive transparent institutions in the human rights dimensions. They connect to the model. So Goal 16 will bring in this integrated approach. And it is a very important aspect of getting the goals into reality. I must tell you that unfortunately this was pretty controversial in the negotiations. This was perhaps the most difficult of the goals to come to an agreement on. The word rule of law is not as part of the target. It is only as a, it's not a goal. It's a target lower down. Maybe it could, should have been in reverse. I will end with a personal example why that goal is so important. Sweden was, my country Sweden, was one of Europe's poorest countries in the 1920s. It was, Sweden over in Finland were down on the list and conditions in my country, particularly in winters, were incredible. My aunt died in tuberculosis out of starvation more or less. You couldn't believe that when you look at me perhaps. I grew up in one room. I saw my first bathroom in life at age 10. None in my family had more than seven years of education ever in the history of my family, both of my mother's and father's side. My father was a labor union leader and at age 18, when I graduated from high school as the first one in the family ever, I asked my father, what do you think was the reason why Sweden turned into this prosperous, well functioning society as we were at the time. And he said in his words, which I now paraphrase, he didn't use the words that I use now, but he said approximately following three things my son. First, in the 30s we developed infrastructure. We loaned money to build railroads and roads, hospitals and schools, which later became this well functioning public sector. And it gave jobs. I as a metal worker could get jobs in the 30s after the depression. And then through the political changes in my country, in our country, education was given the absolute highest priority so that every boy and girl could have a free education from grade one to university without paying one krona. And we put a lot of money into that system. And you pointed to me, are the first one in our family to ever profit from that. And then thirdly, to come to the point on STD16, he said we had strong institutions, strong and honest institutions. We put our best people in the city administration. We put our friends in the state administrations and the government, they damn it, they had to be really doing a good job. We were hounding them and they were doing a good job. They did produce what we wanted. And he told me in the 50s two elections were won by the party that promised higher taxes. They promised higher taxes and they won the election. This doesn't exist today. But I just say to my friends in Africa, Asia, Latin America, when I tell my story, listen, if you don't have institutions, you don't have continuity of effort. You need to make sure that it is being built into your system and your legal system and your political system. So this is my introduction for too long perhaps, but it was great to be here with you. It is great to be with you. And I look forward now to, I think it's Nancy who was introducing Kristalina, but great to see a full house discussing this very important subject. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for that wonderful and inspiring recollection of the UN Charter. And for those who are interested, their USIP actually published a book on your mediation style that for those who are interested in the success that characterizes your approach. I am so happy to be able to welcome and introduce a good friend and colleague who is an exceptional leader. Kristalina Georgieva, who is currently the European Commission Vice President of Budget and Human Resources, where you oversee an enormous team, 33,000 staff members, 33,000 staff members, and the budget of the European Union, which is extraordinary. I know Kristalina from her years as the European Union's Commissioner on Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, where I spend a lot of time with Kristalina in official meetings where everybody had placards and was speaking in diplomatic terms until you got to Kristalina, where she shook up the room with passion, with energy, and reminded all of us what were we there to do. And because of that combination of her financial acumen, her leadership qualities, and her humanitarian passion and experience, she was asked by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to serve as the chair of a panel on, high-level panel on humanitarian financing, and she has brought all those strands together with the usual extraordinary competence and vision that we expect of you. So please join me in welcoming Kristalina Georgieva. Thank you very much, Nancy. It is a huge honor to speak after the Deputy Secretary General here who has done in his life so much for the world and for us in Europe, not only in his own country. And I would pick it up from him by looking at the world that we live in first with the positive eye. Hey, it's a wonderful world. It has very wealthy, for most people, $75 trillion economy of this planet. It has achieved, especially in the last decades, enormous advancements in technology, innovation, quality of life. Medicine today makes it already possible for us to live until we are 120 years of age, which sounds wonderful until we realize that you have to work until you're 100 years old for your pension, but that's on the side. I had a very wonderful experience with my granddaughter telling her how life used to be. I said to her, when I was your age, we didn't have television and we didn't have computers. So she looks at me and says, so you only had iPads. And it makes you realize that comment made me realize that the world has changed for so many things for the better. But it is also a more fragile world. Because of climate change, because of violent extremism, because of population growth in areas of this world that can least afford to take care of people, what we face is also exponential increase of children, women and men who depend on others, on our goodwill, on the United Nations capabilities for their very survival. And these are the people who have least access to the high corridors of power. If they were a country with a population of 120 million, they would have been the 11th largest country in the world, just between Japan and Mexico. And in this country, half of the population, as Nancy said in the beginning, would be homeless. They would be displaced for no thought of their own. Most of the adults in this country would have no jobs to sustain their families. They would depend on handouts. And majority of the children, and especially girls, would be out of school, no hope for the future. People living in fear. And I would like to talk about what is our obligation to the population of this country. Our first obligation is in a world so rich to spare the money for lives to be saved. No one, no one should die or have their dignity destroyed just because of lack of money. Last year, the world was generous, more than ever, to the people in this country. We have spent collectively registered in the UN tracking system $25 billion. Just by comparison, in year 2000, we spent $2 billion, 12 times jump of funds. But also never before has our generosity been so insufficient. The gap between needs and funding has never been so great. If you take a very simple measure of survival, which is $1 per person per day, we are about $15 billion short. And of course we can say, oh, $15 billion is a lot of money. Is it really? So our panel is charged with the task to come with very concrete suggestions of how we can close the gap. And we are leaving no stone unturned for that purpose. We look at what private sector can do it is the least tapped resource today, mostly because we think of private sector as charity. And we don't think of how to capture the skills and capabilities, the innovation, the problem solving, the logistics that private sector can deliver on a larger scale. We look at the Islamic financing. Almost 90% of people who suffer because of conflicts live in Muslim societies. And yet we have not been able, and yet 75% of money that is raised comes from the so-called traditional donors from the European Union, from the United States, Australia, Japan, Canada. So the question is how to make Islamic financing a more systematic source. How many of you are Muslims in the audience? I'm not actually, I shouldn't raise my hand. I'm a Nord-Toddaks Christian. Okay, so you know Zakat. This is charity that Muslim people give. It is an obligation. Zakat last year, according to the Islamic Development Bank, raised 600 billion dollars. If we take 1% of Zakat to channel it to the people in that country, it would bring the gap almost by half down. And it is possible. We also want to see more responsibility from countries that are getting richer, more wealth, more responsibility. We are proposing as a panel to develop an index, we call it the Responsibility Index, that traces increase in income per capita and giving for development and humanitarian aid for the whole world to see. And I would say that there are many wealthy old economies that might find themselves a little embarrassed by the curves on this graph. We also want to see more financial innovation. If we can create financial instruments to make this economy be 75 trillion, we should be able to tap into that innovation. For example, by looking at large volume, high transaction, large volume activities like sports and entertainment, by bringing in this field the Google and the Facebook of this world with a tiny, teeny percentage of what goes through their pipelines, we can feed and educate and house and treat and protect the people in that country. And we also want to see how we can get individual giving to be more predictable because we as people we actually are very often very generous, but we have one little problem to solve. Our generosity is usually driven by what we see in the six o'clock news or on the front pages of newspapers. Well, wonderful, but 90% of people who need help are in silent tragedies. They're not on the six o'clock news. These are the Central African republics of this world forgotten. And for this forgotten crisis we have to find a way to channel your empathy, your goodness to that cause. So we have a lot of work to do in this panel. We are hoping to complete our report in the beginning of December and we hope to then take it on the road and make it bite, make it work. And we think this is so very important because it is morally right, but also because it is in our self-interest. Trouble travels. As we can see it in Europe now every day, in the month of October alone there were 288,000 refugees, migrants coming to Europe seeking protection and better life opportunities. We also need it because in the world we live in, we just don't know what the future would bring Some decades ago we were the refugees. In 51 the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugee office was established for us, for the Europeans displaced by the Second World War. Who is to tell that it wouldn't be us someday in the future? Building solidarity among us in our family of nations is the only way we can brace for and face a more fragile world that inevitably lies ahead of us. So how many of you believe that solidarity is absolutely paramount? Raise your hand. All the power to you! Thank you. Thank you both for setting the stage for us for reminding us both about the the absolute essentialness of the UN and the challenges as we move ahead. And you've both invoked the refugee crisis. And we'll we'll I'll ask you a couple of questions and then we'll open it up to the audience. So everybody be thinking if you want to come in on the conversation and ask some questions. But you know there's there's a wonderful saying that says never waste a crisis. And as I think we've both all discussed, the 60 million who are displaced right now only a teeny fraction is actually reaching the shores of Europe and unsettling Europe to such a great degree. But it is bringing it to our attention. How do we use this moment to help to refocus energy and attention on where the roots are? And how do we use this moment to address that arc of conflict and fragility that is you know through the Middle East and Africa? Well you're right. This is an opportunity but we are in a hurry. We have to do it very very soon. From the UN perspective because we want to remind of the Refugee Convention 51. We want to remind of human rights instruments. We want to remind of the Charter and the University Declaration of Human Rights. We also want to remind of an analysis needing to focus both on the situation of countries of destination, the debate in Europe, countries of transit, Libya, Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, and countries of origin. I think we are in quite a bit of a hurry to deal with the origin because this will continue to flow to a tremendous dangerous degree if we have these conflicts continuing. And I think this is probably one of the reasons why there is a little glimmer of hope of a political process starting hopefully in Syria. I'm not sure but at least the driving forces as I said in my speech is very very strongly there. And also I can give you an example of how important it is to get the funding that Giorgieva, Christina was talking about for the operations. I think if we are lucky we get 40% of the appeals now. That's if we are lucky. But I can give you an example of what it means that we don't have those resources to help for instance Lebanon to thrive or to take care of this. You know every third person in Lebanon is a Syrian today. There was a family leaving Aleppo. It was a Norwegian Foreign Minister who told me two weeks ago. He was in Balbek Lebanon. He interviewed a family there and the family had left Aleppo not only because of the bombings in Aleppo but because of the fact that the five children, none of the five children was going to school since a year and a half back. And they felt so desperate about not the next generation would have an education. So they fled to Balbek where they ended up in Lebanon thinking that their five children would go to school in Balbek. Not a chance. The schools were absolutely overcrowded like the health clinics and not to talk about jobs. So the possibility was that two of the five children might in a year's time get into school in Balbek. So what did they do? They took a boat or whatever you call those vehicles spring in the moment to Greece and then they were on the road to Macedonia up to Serbia, whatever. This is the reality. In other words, the two reasons for the Syria flow is the war in Syria and the fact that we cannot provide decent life and not help the Lebanese with the infrastructure need to do the job. But I think we should, we definitely now have to organize this in a more structured way and I think we will have a meeting on financing for Syria in February I am in contact with the key people in the refugee community and our different organizations, including IUM, International Brazilian Migration, to see whether there is a need also for an international approach because this is a problem not only for Syria and the Eastern European that the route is there now. In next week, I'm going there by the way to Malta. There's a meeting about the African flow from Sahel, Eritrea up to Libya and then up to via Italy mainly and Spain and Malta to Europe. But then there is the situation around Myanmar with the Rohingyas and we have also in Central America of course the flow from Mexico from Central Africa through Mexico-U.S. So we need to take this as an opportunity to really mobilize on finding a way to have institutions upper poor institutions in portals called 16 work in this new area in this new important area of the new global landscape. Oh dear. And Kristin, you have a really unique vantage point as both a European commissioner back and your role as the high level panel chair. I will start with the following. Coming from the humanitarian field being a humanitarian commissioner I put forward my first draft budget for 2016 and I'm a very big believer in focusing on limited number of top priorities. So the three priorities of our budget where there were significant increases were competitiveness jobs and growth especially for young people in Europe. Secondly, migration being prepared for what I knew from my previous job was going to come. The slow tsunami of refugees pushed by the Syrian crisis for external action and there we proposed 28.5% increase the biggest ever proposed. What happened in March when the refugees were still not such a visible threat? We got fairly good reception of the first more money for jobs and growth. Look warm but still acceptance for migration and not much of acceptance for external action. I'm going back next week for our final budget negotiations and we increase this significantly. We actually got from 4.5 billion euros in 2015 in the beginning of 2015 for dealing with the refugee crisis to almost 10 billion now. Big chunk of that goes for external action. It goes for the neighboring countries. It goes for dealing with the stabilizing these countries. And I believe that the acceptance in Europe is much higher because now it affects us. I'm you know I regret to say that is how awareness is being built but it is now being built. And the question is what we make out of this as an opportunity? First it is the moment to engage our people in Europe to understand that dealing with the root causes is not humanely much better but it is also much cheaper. 10 euros spent in helping people to go kids to go to school it is actually around 150 to 200 euros per kid to go to school the refugee children Spending this money serves as an anchor for the family whereas when they come to Europe the cost is five, ten, twenty times more depending on which country in Europe you go to. If you go to the country I come from, Bulgaria the money that is made available is 150 euros per family you go to Germany it is 400 euros plus free lodging it's a much wealthier country. So that getting people to recognize the value of problem or the trouble or the I mean the visibility of what we are talking about in front of you but that is not good enough because helping people where they are is good not having them to flee their homes is even better. Best way to deal with our humanitarian gap is not to have humanitarian crisis in the first place and that takes us to the tough tough job of conflict prevention what you talked about on one side and here is my my I mean I have been beating my head on this question if I decide to start a conflict in my home country in Bulgaria I get people to hate each other and then they shoot each other and then you come mediate a peace I probably would get a noble price for peace for stopping the bloodshed the question is how to have a noble price for peace for not starting it to begin with how to make prevention visible and that's not an easy that's not an easy task and I think we have to find more creativity more imagination maybe have a noble price for just being good as I think people want to applaud that so let's go ahead I can tell you I can tell you that all my colleagues here at USIP just gave that an applause as well because that that's that's a key part of our mandate and a part of something we struggle with and you know let me just pick up on that because um yeah and you mentioned the very difficult uh effort to negotiate the security council resolution that uh was really about some basic provisions uh to provide humanitarian assistance during the the Syrian war and and to stop the barrel bombing and this was a long and difficult negotiation that essentially did nothing to stop the barrel bombing this is something that that the UN has struggled with there was an effort to have the responsibility to protect several years back and I guess the question is as we look ahead and uh certainly in the absence of the noble price that you just recommend to Christina what are what do you see what are the ways that the the international community can find additional tools or levers to get in front of the terrible atrocities and the terrible ways that that states abuse their own people well I'm on the same same idea of prevention here my my line of prevention is uh did you ever see a headline in the press first page or first news the disaster did not occur or you go to a politician and I was one myself and you talk about something beyond your own mandate period you have to do something now it's because glassy eye glassy eye is coming we when I asked about UN reform I say there are two things we need one is to introduce a an absolutely concrete culture of prevention and the second one is to learn that in today's world we have to go horizontal we have to get away from the curse of the silos and see how we go across uh in order to reach results so I think these are the two most important things to do to to to do prevention and I gave you one example that I rushed it in the end of because I talked too long over there but I I have this we are pushing this idea of human rights violations why don't we act on the human rights violation stage instead of waiting for the atrocities yeah and if we get an acceptance of member states for that so that they can understand that it is in order it is their only life's and self-interest to to go along with it that's fine we did a few things we opened the gates in South Sudan when Newers and Dinkas were about to massacre each other in tens of thousands we opened all our gates to bring them in I was a late to action prevention but I'm not too proud of that because it was just a crisis situation Central Africa Republic I'm more satisfied with because I had Ronda in my eyes and said listen never never never again so instead of leaving at that dangerous stage we had there was you know the African Union troops we were on the phone Secretary and I to 25 governments to ask them to come there the French were there in good force and the Europeans came you were in another discussion and at the end we had a big increase of presence it was bad enough in Central Africa Republic it's still bad by the way but we did the contrary to Ronda but what I'm most proud of is that even the Nigerians now accept that we did a pretty good job on in the Nigeria worst-case scenario after the elections you could have seen Nigeria go into a huge crisis and we had we did a lot of things in the spirit to immerse up front including dialogue with the president who resigned in the end other political leaders discussions in the spirit and I'm allowed now to say this in front of you a reason I think this is important to Lin Pasco is there you know what I talk about for them to to to send the message that they find it legitimate for the UN to interfere as some would say in their internal affairs is if quality to step forward but the Nigerians now say we are grateful we listened and look they Nigeria is on its way to to another reality so we if you could help us and let's look at particularly younger people try to translate a prevention to a concrete action plan and I know Melanie and her colleagues are doing great job on this and I think your alliance of peace building is also should also have a subtitle alliance of prevention which you still have in your mind I know you know I have two points to make here one is responsibility to protect one of the big achievements of the united nations is to get everybody to agree that we as community have responsibility to protect people including from their own governments it is well thought through but in the last years we see less discussion on responsibility to protect and of course there is a reason for that because in the minds of many responsibility to protect is only associated with military action protect via military means but it need not be just by military means and I have a very strong sense that we ought to use discussions to bring that back and think of the variety of ways in which we can act to protect people from undue harm my second comment is we have to actually work with the media on prevention it would be wonderful and maybe you can launch something in that direction through the US Institute of peace to get media partners and bring creativity on making the disaster did not happen interesting enough to be on a first page how do how we do it I think there is actually value of bringing making it a competitive process I'll tell you my my my story you probably know it because we probably have been traveling together at that time we had a very serious drought coming in the Sahel and we can see we can see that it will be devastating it was 2011 and then early we all united to provide assistance to people before the drought is to hit so we prevent tragedies and I'm there in February and a journalist I said BBC journalist interviews me has the cover up that's commissioner how are you going to guarantee I will not be here in June to film starving children and I said because I'm here in February this is my guarantee and then I asked him and how would you guarantee that if there are no starving children in June you will come he was not there and I and I am I am struggling with that because we all understand that we have to make prevention including to you know prevention to nature to to that from natural natural disasters or conflict we have to make it sexier but how to do that and may you know again I'm thinking of of creating some kind of incentive to to make the best prevention story on television or something I mean to get that moving we've noted the challenge my USIP colleagues and I a final question before we open it up and that is you know how wonderful it is that we're all talking about goal 16 and that that actually got included through some very tough negotiations and that so many people know what goal 16 is how do we make it real how do we what do you see as the as the opportunities to to really push that forward because that's the heartbeat that's the heartbeat of how to make progress on a whole constellation of issues and it won't be easy what are the first steps I'm encouraged that there has never been more discussion about so called implementation than on these STD's I'm asked what a well how is the UN system ready now what do we do first of January is Ecosoc Highland political forum going to be the member states body watching over this I say we have now set the direction here but we now have to make sure that this moves to the national level above all the nation state need to take this over make it part of the national planning including number number 16 of course but it goes beyond governments it requires for instance that parliaments now see that these goals are not affecting only development of foreign ministries work side is energy is transportation is agriculture environment is finance so parliamentary committees have to see that there is no longer any line sharp line between international national you need to involve the the private sector the enormous capacity to come from technology from creating jobs from innovations to deal with the situations in the health sector and then of course the civil society and organizations like your own nobody can do everything but everybody could could do something if this these goals also could serve as a mobilization of good forces then I think then they are doing their job so it's just that UN yes we have done this and I really commend the member states I'm impressed by the member states coming to this country but I think it has to be permeating and nobody escapes responsibility that that is I think the the main message you know I I think the most important thing about goal 16 is that it brings front and center the importance of rule of law and institutions and you talked about it that Sweden is rich because it has roads and schools and rule of law I remember going to Haiti after the earthquake and so we traveled around and I said to myself the I mean the earthquake was horrible but as horrible it was it wasn't Haiti's biggest problem Haiti's biggest problem then and now is what Papa dog baby dog all the terrible governance of the country that actually deprives people from from opportunities I remember being in the car with our our office driver and I asked him what advice would you would you give me how we can help best he says don't give any money to the government and then three years later we went for the for the third anniversary with David Sharok he's here in the room David Sharok is in taxi going to the airport in New York the taxi driver happens to be Haitian so he asked him you know we are going to Haiti what is your advice taxi driver says don't give any money to the government unless we unless we actually recognize that goal 16 is about peace and security but they ain't gonna happen unless we build institutions the respect for the rule of law across the board as tough as this is and I think what we need is really looking at very seriously at the indicators the the capacity for us to to measure progress and then to have the bravery to speak truth to power when you don't have it we say it amen to that I want to go to my partners in hosting this event for the right of first refusal on any questions it's on no so if you do think of it there there others in the audience who would like to comment let's start over here and then why don't you give the no go ahead I'm gonna take three questions comments so we're here to celebrate the 17th birthday of the UN and you've talked a lot about this generational change and what it means for for youth people to be more involved but also what it means to recognize the mistakes of the past and and to look at the legacy but also to look forward I wonder in that how do you see that same philosophy applying to a to a more profound change of the UN as an institution of the UN as the way that things work inside and also I can avoid but to think of the security council and the way it works right now okay and then the ambassador to Somalia thank you very much uh my name is Ahmed Awit I'm the ambassador of Somalia I thank USIP for inviting me to this wonderful evening the two presentations remarks by Christina and by Yan were we're spying but I was uh I was moved also by their passion thank you very much I have uh Mr Yan I I second your prescription for development uh what made uh Sweden get to where it is uh if I remember very well and it didn't take note uh infrastructure education and strong institutions and uh and I will ask you a question about what the what the UN could do uh about Somalia in that regard I mean Somalis may not be able to do for themselves what the Swedish did but the question is what can the UN do in those three areas and I also uh subscribed to the uh what was the uh the headline of the papers uh no disaster uh happened and Somalia is an example Somalia is characterizing in the minds of many people by three images uh black black uh hock down piracy and and and terrorism or shabbab but Somalis and thanks to the UN play Somalia has been without a state for 24 years more than 24 years but the Somali people with their resilience have survived these 25 years of course with the help of many people including the the UN the European Union and all of that I worked for the UN by the way in peace building in Sweden for uh yeah and after you left I've been there so in 10 years I work in peace building so I can relate to these institutions but the the point I'm making is that the the the good stories that could be written about Somalia are of a well the bad things that happen in Somalia many parts of Somalia Somalis are resilient people uh very entrepreneurial we lead in in the in many parts of the region in in uh in you know ventures in it and and all of that so perhaps we should start here for people to get Nobel prizes by reporting on the the good things the positive things that are happening in in Somalia that could be reinforced thank you great thank you ambassador and we'll take one more from the young woman who we took the microphone from oh okay go ahead and then we'll go we'll take four go ahead excellent um my name is Rabin Pasha I'm an Iraqi Kurdish refugee and I wanted to thank you or I was an Iraqi Kurdish refugee and I ended up working in development want to thank all three of you for bringing us to where we are today with a seven year anniversary and especially ambassador Elias and I remember your work because I grew up in the Iran-Iraq war and in 1988 and finally bringing that to a closure a decade later unfortunately I was an refugee coming to the U.S. but a decade after that I worked in the United Nations and I was a part of right in the end of I want us to maybe actually bring the other two questions together and the youth and the entrepreneurship I want to pick up on that because I think that's really critical and USIP has also done some great work in in this regard but as I look forward to 30 years from now and hopefully most of us being able to celebrate the hundred year of the United Nations I am deeply and gravely concerned by the generation right now that is growing up in these states and especially the young people who have been failed by their states by their public system engaging them in governance and by what they grow up to which is a public system of employment which is really deeply driving the financial issues and burning a lot of despair to people who are driving people to extremism driving people to migration all of those things how can we build upon the hope and and creative areas and I'd love to hear from you in the business sectors and making the case and with youth and entrepreneurship as a way of driving hope because I deeply believe that hope is contagious despair is not contagious but the problem is the messages that fill the void and build on despair are very much like gasoline and that's what's happening and as you Nancy are very eloquently have talked about this arc you know this arc has almost 70 percent of its population is under 30 these are the people who'll be celebrating a hundred years how can we address them now concretely thank you and then final comment thank you on this one my name is Lou Jane and I am a biomedical engineering student at the George Washington University so very close um thank you so much for coming and my question is uh so when the beginning of demand for Syrian refugees came many of us were happy that countries like Germany and Turkey were accepting large numbers but we were disappointed and very surprised when many of the neighboring Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia Kuwait Qatar and the United Arab Emirates who are very wealthy were not even willing to take one Syrian refugee so my question is what were your expect um you know uh hopes basically for these wealthy Gulf countries to accept Syrian refugees and most important question is what can the international community do to put these countries and have them do their responsible part and actually take charge thank you great thank you so who wants to start Christina okay well I'll start um on the UN system we I have to be demanding from the system because the world demands from it in other words it's not a capricious demand for change in our humanitarian financing panel we will be making some recommendations for the humanitarian side of the system but you are of course right that there is a lot to be expected from the Security Council because of the enormously important role it has in anticipating trouble preventing conflicts being decisive when conflicts take place uniting the membership and let's see how how things would go but I there is there is a bit of a hopeful indication now with the sober realization that lack of decisive action has made the Syria crisis a huge danger for all of us it is a security problem not just for the neighbors certainly not just for Syria whether or not a specific crisis would unleash the potential for more profound change we will see but that change is a necessity and it's a very healthy thing that it's a scary thing too but it is a healthy thing and that we need the system to to lean forward and that is necessary also for the respect of the citizens of the world towards this system on the question of how you what we do about the young people and how we how we create a more hopeful future for them mean obviously number one priority has to be figuring out how to generate more jobs because no jobs plenty of time on your hands no hope not very good things happen but I also think that there is a a very serious dilemma in messaging why because goodness is very quiet hate is very loud how to make the voices of goodness to be amplified and basically that is so no all of us speak up speak up unless we do unless we we have no shame to say good bravo and encourage the positive things to be to be to be spoken about then we are in trouble and unfortunately we are wired as human beings to respond to trouble from the days when we were hiding in our caves from big animals you know that we are supposedly hunting but they hunt us that is a problem but but we have to we are smart we can generate more positive and I would finish with Somalia my one and only trip to Somalia we are landing on it's not a strip but piece of a sort of field landing there and I would admit that you're right we are all full of this prejudices I see from the it's tiny little plane and I see from the window big Toyota tracks with machine guns on top running towards us and I'm and my reaction is can we turn this plane and fly out we walk out of the plane people are welcoming us they have very little but they are there to she to share it with us and then we went with them to a place where there was a EU funded activities and we can see how proud people are of themselves in a fair way distributing what we have provided in a fair way to their communities so I came back with the story I tried to tell this story to the media they were not from the moment up to the moment with the machine guns they were interested from that moment on much more difficult to sell so here we are so well quickly on reform you and I think internally the most important thing is to work horizontally that we see that we will be much more effective in the UN if we also bring in the other parts of the organization that can help achieve our goals then the STDs will serve this purpose a part of the prevention reform I think that's the most important thing security council enlargement of the council extremely difficult because it requires a veto a charter change which they can veto the permanent members but I think can be done is a reduction of the use of the veto there is already a proposal that veto should not be used in mass atrocity situations I think why should consider to put this security council under pressure to deliver the resolutions Kofi Annan like the Brahimi Staffan de Brestur and some of us are paying the price for not having a strong security transfer resolution if they are feeling if they now at the end of the Cold War and hope it is really an end could come to the conclusion that they should negotiate and come up with a solution this is what they are required to do according to the charter piece maintenance piece of security but they haven't negotiated because they were used during the Cold War to have these notorious vetoes I say jokingly that the security council should work like the Catholic Church when they select popes they should be locked up and only when the white smoke comes up they've done the resolution it's my reform excellent excellent and then I it's a very serious question about young people by the way when I was in Somalia my what has made the deepest impression my whole life professional life was being in Somalia 1992 1993 it was the worst I've ever seen it was close that you can get to hell it was worse than Darfur wasn't anything I've seen later I'm still I still have these images in front of me I was back year last year or two years ago it's an improvement yes but you have to still work with basic challenges of peace and security development and human rights and institutions in a society which doesn't have a tradition of a strong central government that's one of your main challenges but also to relate to the very good questions about young people seven as I heard you may you may confirm this is right I heard 70 percent of the population is under the age of 30 but 70 percent is also the estimated young youth unemployment rate in Mogadishu if you add up those figures even if it's 50 or 60 then you understand what a dynamite we have into our societies or not least on the unemployment side we have to give meaningful lives for people we have to have a positive narrative because this negative narrative has so much color and when people are desperate they go for these extremist variations we have to understand that life is a journey where we take steps toward a better future dog how much I'll my mentor not mentor but my my great the the person who means most for Swedish diplomats but also you and diplomats second the Secretary General he had a great way of describing the future he said the future is two things the future is the horizon the vision if you don't have a horizon and vision you can think about Middle East Francis if you don't have a horizon if you don't have a vision for the future you don't know where to go but the future is also the step you take tomorrow the step to take you take tomorrow has to be going in the direction of that vision so you need to understand that yes we have a vision but it's a hell of a job to get there thousands of small steps and we have to do this journey together to build good societies and that's where goal 16 come in goal 16 simply tells us you've got to have some institutions you've got access to justice you have to understand you have to create people society we must expect from our leaders that they deliver on peace development human rights that's the power of s16 and I'm glad you detected sort of element of passion in our presentation I always say that without passion nothing happens in life on any level I was about to say but without compassion without compassion the wrong things happen passion and compassion keep that I am deeply sorry that we need to draw to a close but I want to thank our partners this evening the Alliance for Peace Building the UN Association of the National Capital Association and the President Woodrow Wilson House it's wonderful working with you I want to thank all of you who for coming I can tell looking out at the audience that a number of you are deeply engaged with these issues thank you for all that you do to keep us moving ahead step by step into the future and join me in once again thanking our guests tonight who are bringing extraordinary passion and vision and leadership to these difficult challenges thank you for joining us