 Hello everybody and welcome to the World Economic Forum's Davos agenda for 2021. I am Hadley Gavel, CBC's anchor in the Middle East, and I am thrilled to introduce for fantastic panelists and Davos regulars who will be today to talk about implementing stakeholder capitalism in the Middle East and North Africa. Now, of course, this is a topic that we cover on a daily basis at CNBC and all of this against the backdrop of a global pandemic. Lots of worries about the future of growth, the future of economies, and frankly the future of people. And when you think about this with regards to the MENA region in particular, we're talking about a projected contraction at the moment of over 5% of this region's GDP from last year, which could frankly be prolonged into this year and a lot further along from the line. One of the things that we've been talking about, of course, within this idea of stakeholder capitalism is how you make a serious transition from what we've seen in the past in this part of the world, which is, of course, a lack of transparency and a lack of accountability. And we're going to hopefully address those points with our panelists today. I want to introduce them now. Her Excellency, Rania Almashad, of course, the Minister of International Cooperation from Egypt. Rania, it's wonderful to have you with us on today's program. Alan Bajani, he's, of course, the CEO of Majid El-Futame Group right here in the UAE. Mohammad Jaffer, he's the chairman and chief executive officer of Kuwaiti Danish Dairy. Thank you so much for joining us, Mohammad. And of course, Bader Jaffer, he's the CEO of Crescent Enterprises here in the UAE as well. Panelists, welcome. It's fantastic to have you. Now, of course, we have a bit of an interesting program today. Half of this session will be available to the public, and then half of this section will be available for World Economic Forum members and stakeholders. I do want to mention that, of course, this session is associated with WEF's regional action group, and all of the folks that are going to be speaking on these panels today are a part of that group. This is something, of course, that has been very, very dear to WEF's heart in terms of trying to build on what the community can do in terms of the business sector and the public sector to, frankly, make the world a better place and make businesses accountable for not just shareholders, of course, but the stakeholders as well, and really broaden this out within the seven principles of stakeholder capitalism. I want to kick off, though, in terms of talking about this. First, with our panelists for Excellency, Ronnie Almaschot. Your Excellency, I just want you to walk us through how you see this playing out with regards to the government, frankly, because, as we say, transparency, accountability are key avenues and things that in this part of the world, having been out here for the last 12 years, oftentimes, they've been, frankly, something that hasn't been addressed. How do you see this playing out with regards to the government? Thank you very much, Hadley. And I also want to commend the Davos and the regional action group because it's been a fantastic way to put together some of the very important principles that all of us have been calling for. Since the beginning of the regional action group meeting together, these seven principles have been discussed in length. In our case, for the government of Egypt, if we take a look at the work we've been doing during 2020, during the pandemic and before, through our projects that focus on inclusivity, reforming the education system, digitalization, also looking at green recovery, many of these principles are sort of intertwined in our work. So it was a very nice way to put it formally. And of course, what the pandemic has also taught us is that there's not a single entity, whether it's government by itself, private sector by itself, or citizens and civil society by themselves that have the answer. It's a collective effort, and that's why stakeholder capitalism, in its essence, is pushing for more collaboration. Everyone has a seat on the table so that we can find solutions to the global problems that affect us on a local basis. Alon, I'd love you to weigh in at this point, and just talk to us a little bit about the stakeholder capitalism metrics. You were the first person to sign on to this idea. Why did you do that? Why was that important? And frankly, when we talk about that kind of accountability, when we talk about that kind of transparency, how close are we, do you think, in this part of the world, to achieving that? Thank you. Thank you. I think in our case, I mean, yes, we signed up. I'm very happy to be part of this 6061 companies and now 62 with Crescent that signed up to the stakeholder capitalism metrics. It is critical globally, but it's also critical for our region. And I'd like to focus on the situation in our part of the world. The question is not just about metrics, it's also about principle. Moving from shareholder capitalism to stakeholder capitalism, which has been at the very early stage of the World Economic Forum in the very early 70s. And finally, 50 years later, the repercussions of it continue to reverberate. And you've seen the business on table basically endorsing it. And now we are in a different situation post-COVID. We continued in our part of the world, in my view, for too long to think about the fact that the business of business is business. And in reality, we have to change the mindset and really think about the global stakeholder ecosystem in order for us to be able to really drive basically the agenda forward. And be mindful of the threats that we face and that we face globally. And we have a big role to play. And this is where I think what actually just said in terms of the commitment that we see from the public sector, from minds and policies in the public sector that really want to make a difference going forward. We have as private sector a big responsibility to meet them halfway and also to make sure that we together are able to basically bend the steel and shape it in the right direction. Being aware of the importance of people, the environment, making sure that governance is at the center of what we do. And we are able to run our business in a sustainable way as well as being mindful of the overall environment that in this part of the world, we are so blessed to have so many endowments in it that have been at the source of so much wealth and so many so much development is something that puts on us an even greater responsibility. And this is why I'm very excited to see that actually we are joining this global effort but also hopefully we will make we will play kind of a role model there and we will make others feel that this is this is possible. It is about transparency in our part of the world primarily. I would say there is one thing that we all have to try to do more of and encourage others to do more of and I know everyone is I'm preaching to converters on this panel and most of the people that are listening to us is actually transparency across the board. I want to bring in Mohammed on this as well. Obviously talking about the private sector and the role of the private sector and making all of these things come to be. I mean when you think about this with regards to the bigger picture obviously we're talking about this against the backdrop of a global pandemic lots of concerns not just in this part of the world but globally about security about food security and the future of that. Walk us through how you see this playing out with regards to the principles mitigating global health risks. I think when you're looking at it from the context of food security we don't have a problem of shortage of food. I think the problem is the quality the nutritional values of the food and the pandemic has come and walking us up because there are a lot of issues. I mean if you look at diabetes or associated problems with the diabetes metabolic syndrome diseases there are some of the number one killers worldwide and they have been so not only in our part of the world in America and China and India and they have gone unchecked for a very long period of time. What the pandemic has done is focused its attention on these failures that we've had because all of these are preventable. So when we talk about the cooperation between government and private sector you can ban sugar as they have done now in Saudi Arabia by increasing the taxes on it so foods that are contributing to ill health long-term become more expensive to buy but the government will not be able to replace sugar. It's up to the private sector then to find out how do you ensure that the nutritional value of what you're offering to your consumers actually doesn't cause their livers to be damaged that it feeds their guts that it is actually not contributing to their insulin deficiencies. So when we're looking at the definition of what stakeholder capitalism is you want to make sure first of all that the stakeholder themselves are not affected by what it is that you're doing so if you're producing a food or providing a service you want to make sure that this food that this service doesn't harm the stakeholder and I'm afraid that a lot of the processed foods that we have in our supermarkets today worldwide cause a burden on the public purse because they cause problems long-term for all of the citizens of this planet and this is not sustainable going forward so that's one element. The other element of course is for it to be sustainable so that whatever good or service you're producing that it is good for the planet not only for the humans and this can create some tensions sometimes between what if something is good for the planet but not good for the consumers or what's good for the consumer not good for the planet. It's a complex matter but it's a very good start I'm very pleased that the light has been focused on this matter through the forum because this this is something that is long long due and we look forward to continued relationship with other stakeholders and all stakeholders on this platform. Absolutely and I think it's interesting that you mentioned that when we talk to folks like Larry Fink all the time about the idea that you know at this point his shareholders are expecting and demanding that a large portion of the things that they invest in and get involved in at the end of the day has to be user-friendly if you will. I mean sustainable investing is something that we talk about on CNBC on an ongoing basis. I want to bring in Bartter on this one as well in terms of the role that he feels that private sector leaders are going to need to play in shaping this more resilient and sustainable future and Bartter I know this is something you and I have been talking about for about a decade so there's no one better place really to talk about this even though I have just stated myself. Thanks Hadley always good speaking with you and great to be with friends on this panel. Taking a step back all these buzzwords stakeholder capitalism ESG triple bottom line they're all fundamentally expressions of sustainability and to me sustainability is not a detonation or a finish line it's a way of thinking and being a compass point if you will for businesses and individuals towards balancing social environmental and economic factors in harmony with one another because you need all three to make it work so if we break these three things down in the context of the MENA region specifically social sustainability could only be achieved if we create enough opportunities for our youth it's estimated that more than 10% of working hours in the region were wiped out in 2020 due to COVID that's the equivalent of 24 million full-time jobs lost but we also must be careful because a single-minded focus on job creation prevents us from seeing the true challenge and opportunity that lies ahead of us which is instilling a strong sense of purpose and a feeling of belonging within our youth you know the the wefts global risk survey clearly highlights the youth disillusionment and erosion of social cohesion as critical threats to the world therefore we urgently need to deploy all the tools at our disposal to strengthen the fabric of our local communities including through things like community service and volunteerism now on environmental sustainability the Middle East is especially vulnerable to climate shocks and faces a host of environmental risks such as water scarcity high levels of pollution and biodiversity loss and as I said to someone a few days ago who argued that in a crisis economic considerations trump everything else if you really think the economy is more important than the environment or even health for that matter just try holding your breath while you count your money and then of course there's economic sustainability and for the MENA region this depends on our ability to continue diversifying our economies and to properly embrace the seismic shifts taking place as a result of the fourth industrial revolution the UAE for example has set clear national goals for a more sustainable future through numerous initiatives including a focus of course on the digital economy boosting SME participation which is critical and of course the UAE energy strategy 2050 which sets a target of 50 clean energy by 2050 our own crescent groups evolution through crescent enterprises has mirrored this broader regional drive for diversification and today over 70% of our group revenue comes from outside the energy sector in fact the crescent enterprises is in the process of releasing our 10th annual sustainability report integrating economic social environmental and governance metrics across our four platforms and we're glad to announce today that we're one of the first companies in the region to adopt and implement the wefts stakeholder capitalism metrics and of course are proud to do so a final point I'll make is that each of these imperatives will differ in nature across the region with different countries having different strengths and weaknesses that will impact how they get the job done the question is whose job is it to get us there well as far as I'm concerned the greatest multiplier to our problems is the belief that someone else will solve them every sector has an important role to play in this agenda and we will fail if any one of us chooses to sit it out governments businesses the academic sector a media can all do more together than any one of us can do on our own and we mustn't also make the mistake of forgetting people in this partnership model we need feedback loops with the ultimate beneficiaries our youth so that the solutions that we're working towards are relevant and necessary for our societies I want to pick up on a point that barter just made obviously about each country is different each society is different I mean at the end of the day when you've got 100 million people that you have to figure out how to feed and frankly how how to employ Ron you come in on this one because we're talking about against the backdrop of this global pandemic governments across the west printing more and more money and basically paying people to stay home but that just doesn't work for every country and in terms of what Egypt is doing you've made so many strides with regards to solar and regards to renewables but at the same time there's a heck of a long way to go well thank you Hadley you mentioned in your opening remarks that there's a contraction of five percent in the region Egypt grew this year above two percent and expectations for 2021 is around five percent and that comes against the backdrop of governments starting on reforms very early on so when 2020 hits with an unexpected shock of this magnitude we were ready we were ready by fiscal buffers monetary and foreign exchange buffers but even more importantly with infrastructure on education on social protection on universal health insurance all of this helped the country tremendously in weathering the impact you mentioned the solar projects and let me put here our mandate as ministry of international cooperation we are Egypt's window to international the international community when it comes to development partners whether bilaterals or multilaterals such as EBRD, IFC, the African Development Bank and many of the projects that are related to infrastructure on transportation on sustainable cities on housing water desalination all of those have been done with our international partners and they have proven to be extremely important during the pandemic you mentioned also transparency in your opening remarks we just issued our annual reports and in that for the first time you find a very detailed accounting of all the projects that Egypt has engaged with with our with the international community even in 2020 a very tough year a challenging year with respect to liquidity we were able to secure development financing of 10 billion dollars which which you know speaks for the commitment of the government to push forward the various SDGs that the dimensions people at the core our global partnership narrative now has three P's people and projects and purpose people at the core projects in action and purpose as the driver when we talk about the seven principles of stakeholder capitalism in our work we have been able to also map them each one of them to the various SDGs and this is very very important because citizens civil society private sector and government all have to work together towards achieving the 2030 agenda which is only nine years away and I find that through the cooperation that we have with our partners in the region and with the WEF we will be able to push this message even stronger going forward whether it's messages of digitalization gender equality green recovery and environmental sustainability pushing the private sector towards ESG as well the government providing the regulatory environment for that I think the silver lining in 2020 and around COVID has been a realization that all these principles are tangible they're real and they can be implemented and executed absolutely and we just had a significant milestone frankly for each of 10 years after Tahrir but I want to ask Alon to come in on this one because we talk so much about the government across the region and transparency lack thereof the need to do more the need to get on the ball very very quickly specifically with regards to you know allowing for the private sector to really do its job in terms of regulations where are we with that today in your view I think that the glasses have full I think the have full part of the glass is is primarily in the fact that the government now is much more aware of the importance of public private partnerships and I think we hear more and more a narrative about how to actually engage with the private sector which I think is important we have a much better I would say legislative framework across the region when it gets to engaging the private sector but the reality especially in the economies that matter the most is that we still continue to see an inherent desire by the government or the public sector let's say in general to actually engage and have a more I would say directive role about about growth that somehow comes across as competing with the private sector I think the the buy is big enough and I definitely think that more I would say engaging posture with the private sector will go a longer way in driving sustainable growth I don't think we're there yet but although I believe that we are much more aware of the importance of it but what does it mean and how we translate that in reality is something that at time is somewhere where at times we collectively fail and we can do much better I really believe that the private sector in the region can actually contribute much more to GDP and I think this will only unlock the real potential of this region through better economic integration through enlarging the size of our market through working seriously on stakeholder capitalism and driving the principles of stakeholder capitalism will also be able to drive much more FDI into our markets unfortunately one of the downsides I would say of the covid of the covid crisis of I mean I would say of 2020 and and hopefully we will find the way around it is the fact that we've seen a lot of attitudes about governments wanting to how do I deal with my own issues which is understandable but I think we have a big role to play as private sector to actually push towards better and more integration and finding global solutions to global problems and in our case here regional solution to regional problems because I don't think anyone can deal with this issue or similar issues that would certainly come our way in the future on our own we have to learn how we complement each other rather than how do we compete against the public but away and on this one because we talk so often about the private sector in terms of CNBC and just looking at the numbers and frankly this part of the world with all prices a lot of fear about investing and putting their money out there at this point especially with regards to governments as as I'm almost saying being very very much about their own agendas at this point which as he says he says is in fact understandable what is the number one thing that you need as an investor and as a leader in the private sector what you need to hear from these governments in order to feel more comfortable putting more money out there and employing more people and frankly making a more sustainable business environment so just but we talked a bit about the government role the private sector role there's one more piece to the puzzle I think that deserves I think more attention than it often gets in the MENA region and that's philanthropic capital for far too long philanthropy has been treated like the neglected child of our capital system seen by many as a peripheral player and sometimes regarded with a high degree of suspicion the reality is that over 350 billion dollars of private philanthropic capital more than the global annual development and humanitarian aid budgets combined is deployed every year in and from our region so this is a huge space and we need to think about strategic philanthropy as a mainstream intervention another tool at our disposal if you will that can help us to overcome our greatest challenges and to help plug the estimated annual gap of 2.5 trillion dollars that the world needs to fill if we are to have any hope of achieving the stg's by 2030 and on the question about the governments the governments obviously have a leading role to play in addressing governments social and environmental challenges they alone have in many ways the power in our region to articulate the vision and implement policies to make it happen and set the rules of the road they also deploy significant amounts of capital in our region however one of the most important things that the governments can do is to put in place the right incentives and disincentives along with an enabling regulatory framework that encourages others including businesses but also as I mentioned philanthropists to get off the sidelines and make their own contributions business in my humble opinion which as you said I've been ranting on about for well over a decade has no other choice but to be at the forefront of addressing our region's social and economic challenges it's not so much just because it's a moral imperative it's a long-term commercial one because as we've seen again and again there does not have to be a trade-off between profit and purpose on the country the inextricable link between long-term economic success and positive societal impact is becoming increasingly clear for all to see including the big skeptics out there and you know who you are Mohammed I want to ask you specifically about something that that we've been talking about as well within the world economic forum for several years now of course and that's the fourth industrial revolution how to harness technology to really help businesses and young people specifically with this transition and now against the backdrop of the pandemic how important do you think is that kind of engagement when it comes really to the challenges ahead well I don't think we can live away from technology and when you're trying to improve the systems that you have when you're relying on artificial intelligence or when you're relying on all the advances that are taking place and the input business for example you must be up there and the region that the young in the region are very adept at using the technology but at what is this technology being used are having a twitter account is one thing and being active on social media is one thing but we've often been accused of having missed some of the earlier revolutions so how do we harness this existing you know technical revolution the fourth industrial revolution and prepare for for the next one I think having preparing our young skilling them and re-skilling them for the jobs of the future is very important I think in this respect we haven't done enough we must do much much more because unemployment is an issue in our region youth unemployment is an issue and the matching the skills of the youth for the jobs of the future is another critical systemic failure that we have and at a time when yes there is a decline in GDP there's decline in revenues there's a pandemic at hand how do you focus the attention of the governments on those issues that to them you know they seem to be drowning in this pandemic and we need to ensure that the pandemic does not overshadow everything else including issues costs that are much more important long term than what the pandemic is doing to us in terms of cost and paralysis today so but there are basics I just want to touch on one thing um someone mentioned you know the role of governments and and do the do our governments understand what stakeholder capitalism is there is a country in the Gulf and I will not name this country whose air pollution the quality of its air is possibly the worst in the world now this is due to a production of carbons this is the government now they could do something about it but they don't and they haven't so how can governments lead by example when how can they come and tell you to be more sustainable when they themselves are not being sustainable I think governments have to take a very hard look at the costs long term of their actions and start to ensure you know it may mean for government that the production of its oil or gas is going to be more expensive because they're implementing because they're producing cleaner air the fact that you know people aren't falling dead today because they're breathing bad air doesn't mean that it's good for them it means that like with everything else like with this business of dealing with diabetes and and and and the the um syndrome diseases we're kicking the can into the future we need to stop doing that we really need to start thinking about the costs incredible costs of inaction today and this is where metrics will play a role but it's also a matter of mindset changing the mindset of the government of consumers and of shareholders