 So, good morning everybody and thank you for your kind introduction and I hope you all have a good morning. I certainly enjoyed the dinner last night and I've been looking forward to address you here and as you heard, my name is Grete Farmo and I am the head of the United Nations Office of Project Services. You may have heard the acronym UNOPS before. If you haven't, it's fair, but I will try to tell you more about who we are and what we do and we are headquartered in Copenhagen. So already in that, you hear we are quite unique in the UN family. We're actually the only UN organization headquartered in Scandinavia. We are about 20 years of age and we are the operational arm of the UN. We are the agency that implements projects on behalf of, on request from others. Each year we work on some thousand projects in more than 80 countries and through this of course we have experience with policies and regulatory framework in around half of the countries of the world. We have experience with the banking systems, education levels, logistics, trust levels, cultural conditions, restraints, just name it. We stand out in the UN system in another way too. We are fully self-financed. We don't receive core funding. We don't receive grants. We don't even ask for it. We live of our competences, capacity and reputation and we are financed by a low percentage cut on the projects we implement. Of course we're a non-profit. Half of our work each year is implementing projects on behalf of the other UN organizations. The other half is done on requests from governments or financial institutions, the World Bank, other regional development banks, but we also work for foundations and increasingly also with a private sector. Our mandate allows us to do so. As I say, we didn't get the money. We got the mandate to work with partners from all parts of the public and private sector. Our engagement with the private sector is with corporations and investors who wish to invest and engage in developing countries and who are looking for a partner to implement projects and also help mitigating potential risks. And you may already wonder what's ahead of a UN organization that mainly works in non-OECD countries would have to say about innovation in the euro area. So let me explain. My message is the following. Innovation in Europe, of course, is important to Europe. But innovation in developing countries is also important for the developing countries themselves, certainly, but indeed also for Europe. These things are interlinked. And we are guided by the sustainable development goals that were adopted by all member states in the UN, autumn 2015. These goals are global. They are as binding on Germany, Norway that I come from, as they are on Myanmar, Tanzania and just name the country. So these are actually reflecting that we are in for sustainable development together. We sail the same ship. Oddly enough, the situation of the Nordic countries can serve as illustration also to my message. And today, international technology platforms often developed in big countries. And you referred to them yesterday in your introduction at the dinner, formed the backbone of growth, effectiveness, innovation and job creation in countries like the Nordics. So we have all heard about these big, broader platforms, technology platforms. How can they actually be used? And that's why I've taken some examples from the Nordics. Some years ago, I was told that Microsoft invested more in the Nordics than in any other region outside the US. We only count for 25 million people. So why was and is that the case? I can think of several reasons. The Nordics form a very solid testbed of innovation efforts. The Nordics were early adopters of technology years ago and have continued to be so. So as a driver of innovation, you get very quick responses to whether you have a good idea or not. I think it's also due to the high and even level of education, technical and linguistic skills. It is due to an effective and non-corrupt public sector allowing for speedy transition from idea to implementation. It's about permissions, licenses and approvals that are often delivered within hours where the same procedures may take months in other cultures and countries. It's also due to a management culture that encourages independent thinking and expression of opinions and ideas among staff. It actually removes obstacles to innovations. I dare say that a university or even two like the Stanford and Berkeley in California are not in themselves enough to create an environment for innovation, nor is a government-supported innovation hub providing incubation support through grants, offices or other incentives enough. Only when you get the right combination of these two and add a policy environment that encourages entrepreneurship and investors who accept the particular risks of innovation and don't punish failure, you may get a dynamic that may work. If the balance isn't right, there is a danger of wasting resources, by for example supporting lots of startups in a policy environment that hinders further growth through restrictive recruitment regulations or limits on immigration. I dare to use this example because it's so relevant. As I say, let's recall that Steve Jobs' father was a Syrian exile. Let us recognize the constructive role played by many governments. Most innovation initially occurs through public universities or through government-supported programs. Surprisingly, the one issue that does not seem to be crucial is tax breaks. No research and success factors for creating innovation clusters finds any significant correlation between success and lenient tax policies. While on the surface everyone is interested in a government-supported innovation hub, it will soon become apparent that private investors and governments may have different aims. Companies want quick returns and low taxes. Governments want stable employment and tax revenue. Pretending that this conflict doesn't exist doesn't help anyone. Also providing temporarily tax breaks in the hope of attracting investors also tends to backfire, since technology allows startups only established to move easily. So once you end the tax break, your investors might head somewhere else. And the raise to the bottom on tax incentives has proven to be a losing proposition for local and national governments in many places. In fact, some of the most successful clusters of innovation are indistinctly high-tax environments. So I cannot stand the temptation to use the Swedish example. Sweden is an unlikely success story. Not only are taxes high, but Scandinavia's well-developed welfare system has been accused of not being encouraging to innovation and entrepreneurship. And how wrong? Sweden has emerged as the center of music-related innovation and entrepreneurship. The reason for this is interesting and illustrative. Some in the audience seem to be old enough to remember the 1974 European Song Contest. Not everyone liked that kind of contests, but they would rather talk about it as kitsch, even bad taste, but they produced ABBA. And ABBA success could have been a one-hit wonder, but the very entrepreneurial people behind the group not only made ABBA into one of the most successful music groups of all time. They actually made the foundation for a whole industry of songwriting and paved the way for a long list of Swedish groups that made global successes. You may have heard about Rokset, Ace of Bass, The Cardigans, Nene Sherry, Swedish House Mafia. I could go on. Actually, the numbers are quite substantial. And this led again to a whole recording and music video industry growing up in Stockholm. It didn't take long before this bubbling of creativity went digital. Kassar, a music file-sharing site, started up as a Estonian-Swedish invention. Skype came soon afterwards. When the music industry realized it had to go digital, Sweden was very well placed to take advantage. Spotify became the result. Later came sound industries and soundtrack, just to mention a couple. And the ultimate proof, some would say, lies in the fact that stars like Pink, Kate Perry, Taylor Swift, all very well-recognized US names and, I would say, globally recognized artists, where do they go to get songs and lyrics? Stockholm. It is difficult to put a figure on the value of music-related industries and innovation as part of Sweden's total output, but it is very significant. Sweden's example gives us two important lessons. There are growth opportunities even in an industry in crisis, such as the global music industry. If you are innovative enough and can get ahead of the curve. And second, if you build on and nurture a natural or historical advantage in skills or resources, your chances of creating a successful innovation cluster are significantly higher. In other words, build on what is already there. And now, to why innovation in developing countries is possible and important for everybody. As of recently, UNOPS is developing innovation centers around the world. Together with our global innovation partners from education, incubation, investment and government, we set up and manage global innovation centers on behalf of local, regional or and national stakeholders. Our partners include MIT, our co-host today. We also have Columbia University on board. We are operating three global innovation centers in China at the moment, plus developing around 10 new global innovation centers in places like Dubai, Japan, Canada, Nepal, even in the Caribbean island states. And we are discussing with Pacific states who also would like the same things. And I wanted today to share with you some lessons we've learned along the way. The starting point for anyone wanting to create an innovation center is, as you may have noticed from my speech already, in my opinion, local. A local or national government wants to create jobs for its own population and tax revenue for itself. And it's a natural and a good starting point. The driver of innovation is the free pursuit of solutions to real needs. In a globalized world, those needs are rarely limited to a local context. Moreover, the major needs of today are linked to development challenges in developing countries. It is in Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific, where innovation and leapfrogging of all technologies could make the most change for good. Interestingly, these are also parts of the world where rapid growth markets lie. And with growth markets comes economic opportunities. And there are practically no limits to what we could do to improve the livelihoods of millions who are striving for a better life and to whom technology could make a huge difference. And remember that already many developing countries have already as many cell phones as they have people. So just imagine how the world will change when we create smartphone apps that can register new aids, tuberculosis or diabetes patients and even monitor their treatment. Can we, for instance, enable rural farmers to get bank accounts through their phones? When water containers can roll like wheelbarrows from well to home rather than being carried on the head or even easy to use computerized tax systems they could reduce corruption, increase tax revenue and assure taxpayers that their money is well spent. And imagine how rural teachers can widen the horizons of their students by stimulating their curiosity through accessing a universe of knowledge and learning available online. So the first lesson is to think globally, even when you act locally. Think about market opportunities that go far beyond your local context. And ICT technology is the key to scaling marketable products and services. So what is an innovation center and what does it take to establish one? From UNOPS perspective, an innovation center can start with attracting and co-locating talents, give them broadband and access to water and sanitation. One beauty of this is that it does not require a lot of financial muscle. We connect the talents. We nurture the incubators. We link up with the universities and it should, at the outset, not require even a lot of public sector involvement with respect to permits and licenses. Sounds easy, maybe difficult. But I also would like to remind us all about a statement that the earlier President Eisenhower in the US made, he was surprised to learn that half of all Americans were less than average intelligence. Well, maybe it should serve as a reminder that half of the world's population is more than average intelligent. So there are such vast human resources to tap and knowledge is not a scarce resource. There is enough for everybody. As connectivity opens new markets for new products, reduces waste and improves logistics, we in the developed world will increasingly see developing countries as our home markets. And the benefits will go both ways. So ladies and gentlemen, I've mentioned some of the lessons we are taking with us when we help countries establish incubators, innovation and entrepreneurial clusters. Of course, what we bring to the table is also to ensure that any project we manage is transparent, effectively managed, and has a global scope and reach. And our global innovation centers aim to establish a pioneering platform with a global innovative operational model. We connect people and encourage knowledge sharing across public and private sector. We build into these models, policies and practices that are known to stimulate innovation, good economics and growth. We also focus gender, minorities, youth and vulnerable groups. And we have just launched what we call a possibilities portal, where these groups more easily also can enter the great universe of innovation and test their ideas with partners. And we are very much looking forward to continue this journey. And we're willing and happy to be a partner of all who would like to contribute to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, implying a sustainable future for all. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Greta. We have a couple of minutes for one or two questions, if there's questions in the audience. On my own side, I mean, if I understand correctly, there are plans or already initiatives for global innovation centers in Japan, Vancouver, however not in continental Europe or even perhaps the whole of Europe. Is that by design or is more like there were no proposals so far, are there any plans to have also some innovation centers in Europe? Of course, this is very much managed by the demand. So working in non-OECD countries, I think it comes natural that our focal points have been not continental Europe or US, but it can be, I guess, placed in any parts of the world because what we want to do is to connect the partners. So working with technology, working with finance, working with education and making sure there is a good reach for the local community as well as communities in other parts of the world where we work. So sometimes, thinking of where we work out of Dubai, you can easily see how we can be easily reached from the Middle East and parts of Africa. Sometimes it would make sense to position something in Europe because it's easier to connect to Europe instead of going across, as is the case in Africa very often. So location is coming out of where we see the opportunities come together for both developed and developing markets and citizens from these countries and regions. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yep. So we're working with data concerning investment in Africa from the UNIDO, so Foreign Direct Investment, and we notice that perhaps you may have, maybe you might like to comment on this, differential returns to investment within Africa, so intra-African investment. So a South African investor investing, let's say, in sub-Saharan Africa might induce greater returns in terms of knowledge transfer, but also very tangible benefits. So help with product quality. Do you have in these incubators any evidence that the returns are very differential depending on who the link-up is with? The South-South investment is a very different story to North-South investment. Thank you. I think all investors would like to know the markets they are investing in. So we have been approached from a number of private investors who would like to understand more how to mitigate risks. A lot of companies are doing good business in Africa. A lot of companies are doing good business in any parts of the world. What we can help is understanding what it takes to do sustainable business in any parts of the world in a financial, environmental and social context. So we have established a social impact investing initiative where we would like to work with private sector and where we can help mitigate risk actually through providing our local knowledge about what it takes to establish business in the different markets. We also of course talk to governments about how to mitigate risk through actually using the official development aid even as a first loss risk. So it is local knowledge, it's about new financial instruments and it's about sustainable development. Sustainable development will of course require a return. Unless there is a return it will not be sustainable. But it needs to be sustainable in the social and environmental dimensions too. It's a long answer to your question but this is actually to try to help the understanding that we cannot deliver on the broader challenge of what it takes to do investments in a sound manner all over the world but we can actually help mitigate the risks in some of the projects where the investors approach us and find a way to do what they have planned to do. We can also bring other investors on board. Many investors don't like to go alone so we can bring more investors to the table and of course when you also bring if necessary ODA official development aid into projects it may also add the soft component that turns the investment from a no to a yes. And I think the sustainable development goals actually will require new thinking. What does it take to actually encourage investments in new parts of the world, new markets because the alternative is leaving people behind building an even bigger gap between developed and developing markets. Thank you very much. We have to stop here. Let me thank Greta again. Thank you. Thank you Don Cucati for the next session.