 Hello everyone and a very, very warm welcome to the Barbara Ward lecture honouring outstanding women in development. Thank you to all of you for being part of our virtual space today. We're really delighted to have you all here with us this evening. We are also delighted about the truly outstanding speakers that we have and we're going to hear from tonight and who will be introduced shortly. Thanks Juliet. I'm the events officer at IID and I'll be providing technical support during this event along with some IID colleagues who are behind the scenes. So that please allow me to hand over to Andrew Norton, the director of IID for our welcome words. Thank you. Huge thanks Juliet. It's my great pleasure to kick off tonight's Barbara Ward lecture. Not a long wait. IID's Barbara Ward lectures are normally held every couple of years, every two years, but due to the pandemic we had to put this back this one back from 2020 to 2021. And we've wound up entirely online. We were hoping to have an in person element, but anyway, it's great that we got there in the end. And it's my pleasure to welcome you all to the lecture. The lectures have featured a range of outstanding women leaders in development thinking and practice, including Mary Robinson, Deborah Roberts, Grohalem Bruntland, Fatima Denton and Christiana Figueres. Tonight we are really delighted to have Rebecca Greenspan, the former chair of IID's board and recently appointed to lead UNTAD, the UN conference on trade and development. She will be a former vice president of Costa Rica, and will be reflecting on her country's journey, really to the forefront of the struggle for sustainable development so visible when Costa Rica and Denmark stepped up at COP26 to lead the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, which is really the cutting edge of the fight against the climate crisis. In 2021, we have been thinking particularly about IID's founder Barbara Ward and her amazing legacy. And that's because this year, 2021 marks IID's 50th year. So thanks to look out for in relation to the work we're doing to celebrate 50 years of IID. We've published a number of blogs. The most recent one was just last week, and looking at the legacy of IID's dry lands work. We are publishing an edition of our Make Change Happen podcast, and that will be a conversation between IID's first ever paid employee, Dave Runnels, and our dear ex-colleague Achela Abasinghe, who is now director and head of programs for Asia at the Green Growth Institute, GGGI. And that conversation will explore the role that an organization like IID can play in the future, as well as looking at all the experience embodied in IID's 50 years. We will be launching our alumni group on LinkedIn just before Christmas, and we'll be inviting ex-colleagues and partners and friends to give their thoughts on where sustainable development is now and what the future will look like. This will contribute to a piece we are preparing that will be released in March of next year for the 50th anniversary titled Movements Not Moments, that will examine IID's journey in the light of the partnerships and the intellectual and social movements that IID has been part of over the last 50 years. We're also working to showcase the work of our partners on our website, and the first five pieces in that series will appear early next year. So it's now my great pleasure to introduce some reflections from our dear colleague David Satterthwaite, who very recently stood down as an IID staff member after 47 years of incredible work. And for me personally, it was a real privilege, has been a real privilege to have David as a colleague. I'm very much looking forward to continuing working with David as a senior associate, but this is really a moment to celebrate his immense contribution, not just to IID's work on human settlements, but also to the creation and nurturing of what is a global community of practice focused on issues of environment and urbanization, with a focus on low income people in informal settlements and how they could be included and their organizations could be included as voices in global debates. David's own contribution to the study of urban social and environmental change has of course been immense. I would encourage anyone who hasn't looked at it to take a look at the blog series he curated over the last year on the transition to a predominantly urban world. There's a lot of incredibly useful, constructive, fascinating, but also visceral material about the realities of urban change. Now, in the context of the Barbara Ward lecture, David has been our last staff member who worked personally himself directly with Barbara Ward. It's very, very special to have these reflections from him on Barbara, her legacy and IID. At the end of 1972, Barbara Ward could look back at what had been a very successful year with some satisfaction. The UN conference on the human environment had been a great success. The book that she authored with Rene de Beau for the conference, Only One Earth, carrying maintenance of a small planet, had been published a greater claim. But potentially disastrous boycott by more than half the world's nations had been avoided. The group of 77 had threatened to boycott the conference, saying that it was a northern agenda. Barbara Ward had worked hard behind the scenes to avoid this and Only One Earth included the key development issues that were the main concern of the group of 77. She had set the foundation for sustainable development in 1972, as she said that the charge of the UN to the Stockholm conference was clearly to define what should be done to maintain the Earth as a place suitable for human life, not only now, but also for future generations. But she was struggling with cancer, wanted to return to England. And into this came an invitation from the International Institute for Environmental Affairs to become its president. This was a new institution headed by David Ronalds, who had been one of our grad students during her time as professor at Columbia University. She agreed but asked that the name be changed to the International Institute for Environmental Development and that the Institute moved to London. The Institute was also a time of growing disquiet that international aid focus too much on the big infrastructure reports that down to the airports are not enough on meeting people's basic needs. For instance, for water for sanitation for health care for schools. There was the worry too that the new concern for the environment was also ignoring meeting basic needs. Since there's a fantastic challenge to the new Institute to show how environment and development issues can be combined and should be combined. So Barbara Ward returned to England. She worked mostly from her home in a small English village for much of the time bedridden. I was her research assistant for her last two books, and I had this wonderful office in her attic with an amazing view of the English countryside. Meanwhile, David Ronalds built the institution in London. Five features of the emerging new IED remain and observed the Institute well. Bring in remarkable people. Jorge Ardoi, truly the outstanding urbanist of his generation, accepted Barbara Ward's invitation to join the IED and form a human settlements program. So he set up our sister institution, EEAD America Latina, and he built a very influential program of research and support for action across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Jerry Leach, all six foot seven was invited to develop an energy program, but included a very innovative, heartbreaking, low energy strategy for the UK in 1976, and an assessment of deforestation in Africa that showed the importance of reforestation. Anil Agawal, really one of the world's best known environmentalists, was invited to IED's media information unit, Erskine. He then returned to India to set up the Centre for Science and Environment that was to become one of the most influential NGOs. A second feature of work is work in partnership with global south organizations, including civil society. You can't do research on the global south, back in the global north. This was to become a characteristic of much of IED's work, the working with local partners. The Human Settlements Group, for instance, was formed by research institutes in India, Nigeria, Argentina, and the Sudan. The third feature, convened strategic meetings. Barbara Ward convened or chaired so many critical meetings during the 1970s. These brought together the world's best specialists from the north and the south. They issued recommendations that were to influence international discussions, agendas, and institutions. This includes the meetings just before the Global UN conferences on food and on human settlements. The fourth feature which Barbara Ward exemplified was tenacity. Keep going, keep pushing. She was certainly a powerful influence on getting more attention for water and sanitation. Through highlighting this need over the years in her books and articles, in her briefings for prime ministers and presidents, through expert meetings mentioned already, through her address to the plenary of the UN conference on human settlements, which ambitious targets for improving water and sanitation were endorsed by all governments. The fifth feature was working with and serving the press. Barbara Ward was an accomplished journalist, as well as a development specialist. She reached huge audiences through her popular books. Only one earth was published in 13 languages. She could write in the Economist supplements about the different UN conferences. She wrote often in the Washington Post. When she supported young journalists through press briefings and study visits. Sometimes the subtlety of her language eluded understanding. The UN environment program had supported the preparation of her last book, Progress for a Small Planet. We send them a copy of the manuscript. The only comment we got was, remove racist text on page 191. But we turned to page 191. We scratched our heads. What she had talked about is the not entirely un-astute Japanese. There's a very elegant and sweet comment on their astuteness. It was misunderstood. We had to remove it. So perhaps there's a sixth feature that we inherited from the early 1970s of our sister institution. When asked about the possibilities of getting needed change in global and local environment development. She said that it was our duty to home. Huge thanks to David for those thoughts and insights on Barbara Ward, her special and seminal contribution to sustainable development and her work with IID. It's now my pleasure to introduce our board chair, Dr Tara Shine, who will be the moderator for today's event. Tara is a climate scientist and experienced policy advisor and climate negotiator. And has worked with a range of development organizations including Irish Aid, Swedish Cedar and the Mary Robinson Foundation for climate justice. She is also director and co-founder of Change by Degrees, a social enterprise that delivers sustainability advice. In advance of COP26, she was appointed co-facilitator of the structured expert dialogue under the UNFCCC. That's a science policy discussion, which forms part of efforts to achieve the long-term goal of keeping the average global temperature increase within the targets set by the Paris Agreement, obviously with a particular focus on the critical 1.5 degree target. We're very proud to have Tara as our chair and delighted to have her with us to moderate this event. Tara, please go ahead. Thank you, Andy, Annrin, and I'm so, so, so excited to be introducing Rebecca Grinspan to you all today. It's been lovely listening to David Satherpates reminiscing of IID and IID and I are almost exactly the same age. So I will be 50 next year. David spoke a lot of 1972, the year I was born, and it strikes me how much things have progressed yet how much the challenges remain the same in that time period. And what I am proud of in that time is how much IID has been at the center of those discussions and always on the side of fairness, truth, and science and research and the voices of the most vulnerable people being represented and heard and used to inform policy. So colleagues, thank you for joining us. We had hoped, I had hoped I might have been clinking glasses with Rebecca after this lecture for a real-life glass of wine, but it is not to be so, but we will find a chance in the future. The IID bar reward lectures are always fun. They're always a networking opportunity. It's always a chance to get to meet people that you haven't seen in a long while. So, unfortunately, we don't have that this evening, but we are going to have breakout groups after Rebecca's words to us so that we get a moment just to say hi to some other people that are here in this virtual room with us. And of course, we've set up this evening's event so that there's lots of opportunity to ask questions and for this to be interactive. So we'll hear from Rebecca first, but then we will also hear from you. So do stay tuned and get ready to get involved. So Andy has given an introduction to the amazing roles that Rebecca has played in her life to date. And I have to say that when I succeeded Rebecca as chair of the board of IID in 2019, I possibly had my first case of imposter syndrome ever. I remember being part of a leadership program for women in science where we had to talk about, you know, experiences we'd had with imposter syndrome and I really couldn't come up with any until I came to fill the shoes of Rebecca Grinspan. To add to the accolades that Andy has has read out just to note that in 2014 and 2015 Rebecca was recognized as one of the 50 leading intellectuals of Latin America. So she is very clever, but she's also been recognized as one of the most 100 most powerful women in Central America by Forbes magazine, not just in 2017 but also in 2018 2019 and 2020. She has been honored by the Spanish government, by the president of Portugal. She has honorary awards. She is really, really amazing. And the most amazing part of Rebecca is that she is a consistent advocate for human development for the people at the heart of development for inequality and poverty and for gender equality. And Rebecca, as a woman leader, seeking to fill those big shoes that you left behind in IID, I thank you for the leadership and for the great role model that you are for all of us. And I cannot wait to hear your wise words for us this evening. So, Rebecca, the floor is yours. Thank you and welcome everybody to the 2021 Barber Award Lecture. Thank you so much Tara for those very warm, very kind words from you. You know, I have seen firsthand the great contribution to environment and development that IID has made. And listening to David and listening to the things we have to learn from the lessons learned, the legacy of Barber Award, I always start to say that the ones, the women that today are in these positions have to really thank those that opened the door for us before. Because none of us would have been here if it was not for many women that fought for us and for our rights before so really, really being here today in this unique institution with a staff that is because IID has a staff that is really committed to the values that inspire IID from the beginning. It's an institution like you said, Tara, where science and research and action happens together. Where we learn from the people, from the communities, from the local partners, like David said, we learn from their experiences, we work with them. They are actors of the journey that we all try to walk towards collective solutions. So this is an institution that never lost the objective of improving people's lives while caring for our planet. And this is a legacy of Barber Award as we heard, an amazing woman. And it is really an honor for me to give the Barber Award lecture. So really thank you. I want to send a warm regards to Andrew Norton and to the board colleagues and the colleagues of IID from whom I learned so much during the years that I was there. And I am sure, Tara, that you are doing already such an amazing job. So no imposter syndrome needed. So thank you, thank you really to Andy, to the staff, to the wonderful people that makes IID great. My lecture today is about my country and about the journey that Costa Rica travels from being a poor country to a global sustainable development leader, not only climate change but sustainable development I would say. And I will divide my lecture in three parts. First, I will talk about our history, what shaped us. Second, I will talk about our climate policy over the years, what we have learned. And I will conclude with with with lessons that can be, you know, taken from our experience. I have a lot to say I will try not to abuse your time. But probably to understand Costa Rica, we will have to start with our geography, you know. Carolyn Hall, an Oxford Geographer called Costa Rica a tropical laboratory, because few places in the world have so much ecological variety in such a small place. Costa Rica is about 50,000 square kilometers big, so very small. And it's about the size of Denmark, but we have more plant and animal species than the US and Canada combined. And this is true, and this is our wealth in terms of nature, but you have to understand that when nature was that valued, we didn't have what was valued, we didn't have gold or silver or precious stones. So we never, and we never had a very big population. So Costa Rica was one of the poorest and most peripheral Spanish colonies at that time. And at the same time, because of these characteristics because we were peripheral, and we were poor and we didn't have a what was valued at the time. And we didn't have a big population. The truth is that we were more decentralized and less concentrated in terms of power and money than other parts of Latin America. So that characteristic was very important because Costa Rica had this characteristic from the beginning. So what was at the time a bad thing through time became a good thing. And the other thing that we have to remember is that Costa Rica remain a very brutal, a brutal and agricultural country until very recently. So we were a country of subsistence farmers. Our link to international trade and bigger commercial plantations started only in 1830 when coffee production started in Costa Rica. But even in 1963, even in the 60s, Costa Rica was still half brutal, half of the population still live in the rural areas. So the question really is how a country of small farmers reaching biodiversity but poor in other resources became a climate leader for the world. And there are three moments in history that I would highlight that explain a big part of this journey. The first is that Costa Rica declared education free and compulsory for girls and boys in 1869 and I will refer to this in a moment 1869 primary education free and compulsory for girls and boys. In 1948, after the Civil War of Costa Rica, Costa Rica abolished the army, abolished the military, democratized credit, set up big public programs and institutions for basic needs for energy access for water and sanitation and for social protection. And in the 70s, so 1869, 1948, and in the 70s, it were really our climate policy began Costa Rica protected 25% of its territory. Anyway, as a friend of mine used to say Costa Rica did things where when nobody expected Costa Rica to make them. We did things when they were not in the fashion, nobody was talking about them, you know. So, and these events, doing the right thing marked our history of success. And in my mind, these three events are marked not only because of what was achieved, but because what was the state of the country when when when we achieve achievement and let me let me tell you why you know. In 1869, I told you that we were the most peripheral and poor of the colonies in the Spanish Empire. What's up in the midst of the 19th century that we got our independence. So in 1969, when we declare education free and compulsory for boys and girls, we were around 200,000 people in Costa Rica 200,000 inhabitants. Very small population. Every percent of the country was in extreme poverty. And remember, we did things when nobody expected us to do them, you know, at that time, France and the US did not have free and compulsory education, but Costa Rica did. And you can you can see here what is to think about the next generations. You know, Costa Rica didn't have water inside the countries you know we were, as I said, 94% of the population was in extreme poverty. We didn't need to return right for what the jobs were at that time, or the activities of the people were at that time subsistence activities. And still, we thought that education was the most important priority for the country. It took us a long time to get to universal primary education. It didn't happen right away. We didn't have the resources to happen right away. But it gave us a moving target. It gave us something to move towards it. And it became the most important mobility, social mobility instrument of the country. In 1949, when we abolished the military, half of the population was still poor, half of the population was still poor. And obviously, nobody expected us to do something like that. We abolished the military in the Constitution, precisely after a civil war. And the one that abolished the army was the one that won the civil war. So in a way he abolished his own army and decided that those resources were better to put them to good use for the people. And in 1970, we protected 25% of our territory. Our GDP per capita at that moment in the 70s was $500 per person, $500 per person, one of the lowest in Latin America at that time. And still this vision, yes, this idea that you have to look for the future, that you have to have a vision and a strategy to be able to get there was so strong that we did these three things. Probably no non-economists, diamond economists would have advised Costa Rica to do any of this at that time. So these historical decisions had massive consequences for our development. Mandatory education meant Costa Rica always had oversupply of educated professionals. So when people, educated people, when the public sector expanded to provide the services, we had the best people that was in the country, that was educated, that was waiting for job opportunity. Not only men, also women. So, because education was compulsory for men, for boys and girls, also women entered the working force when the public services were expanding. And because the public sector discriminates less than other activities, so women also started to have a more prominent role in terms of Costa Rica's development. So, and as you can see, so education was the main vehicle for social mobility during all that time. Having no army meant that we had more resources for social development, obviously, if you can sum up what other countries have spent in the military during all those decades. Costa Rica dedicated those investments to education and health. But the other consequence of that is that the elites were forced to negotiate to get the way, because you didn't have a repression instrument for your population. You needed to negotiate, you needed to dialogue, you needed to go to the institutions, to the parliament, and that obliged us to have a common project. We didn't change so much because a lot of the decisions needed to be made by consensus. And protecting the territory, the 25% of our territory in the 70s meant that this country of small farmers could become one of the richest, more diversified countries in the western hemisphere. And it did such a contribution to our economy, not only because we protected the environment, because it became a mark of the country, and it became part of its diversification and successful economic story. So the other feature probably of these three great events coming together is that these decisions were permanent. You know, there was the buy in of the people. And so you couldn't go against them. And there were the wars in Central America when there were such violent times where we had the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the contrasts against the Sandinistas and they wanted to use Costa Rica and there were voices saying that we needed the military again. Nobody will dare to propose those in Costa Rica because the country wanted the peace because they believed it was the right decision to take because they benefited from the story. So these historical decisions were permanent through a culture of dialogue and institutions in a sense of a common national project. That the people defended. So several institutions became in fact the trademark of our common identity. And we had a common project that we defended. And as an example I always think when I was already in government, I am much older than Tara. I was born before IED. And we were in the lost decade when in the death crisis of Latin America, when we were in our negotiations and in our debt negotiations that Costa Rica also defaulted at that time were very difficult times for all of us. And we hope not to see them again with this crisis. And we negotiated with the World Bank and with the IMF in the 80s. That was the midst of the Washington consensus of a very neoliberal agenda. Yeah. And these institutions survived the test in many other countries, they didn't. We didn't privatize education and we didn't privatize health. And we didn't privatize the pension system, or the electrical institutions. We opened up the market for competition, but we didn't privatize them. And so the strong sense that education, health, electricity for all, social protection, water and sanitation, the national pipes were public services and needed to be there for all. It was very strong and it was really an integral part of our social contract and the social cohesion strategy of our common project. When the many of the international organizations were pushing for focalization of the social services. I remember this say discussions very clearly. Yes, because the problem with the focalization at that time was not to focalize in the very poor. It was that you need you wanted to exclude they wanted to exclude the middle classes from the services. The problem was not to get to the very poor because we needed to go farther together. But the problem is that the proposal was to exclude the middle classes to be able to include the others, something that never happened in the countries that follow that advice. And we defended and said very clearly that we were a stable country with a social contract where the middle classes were a very important part of it. And that it was impossible to have a social compact without the middle classes and breaking the alliance of the middle classes with the poor. And then there will be no voice and there will be no quality services. So the whole thing about this public services was that we made those services for the middle classes and we included the poor. So they had much better services than when you have poor services for the poor people. We defended our social compact because and that's the important thing we actually had one. You cannot defend what you don't have. But we had a social compact and we defended it. So this takes me to the second part of my talk to you today, Costa Rica's climate policy. And Costa Rica, you know climate, the climate part of our social contract, it has been there for a long time, yes, because the climate policy has brought also dynamism to the countryside. Our countryside got better and less poor because of the climate policy. It's not the other way around. It was not agriculture that took most of the most further parts of Costa Rica and marginalized part of the countryside into the mainstream into economic progress and prosperity. It was the climate policy. Because the small farmers became ecotourist entrepreneurs and a wildlife researchers, the new generations benefited from it were able to go to trainings and and because we didn't have an army, how to protect it 25% of the national parts that we expanded afterwards. The people protected them because they were part of their livelihoods. And so we diversified our economy in 1950 just for some numbers in 1950 Costa Rica and banana exports accounted for 88% of our total exports in the 50s. Today there are less than 11%. So what, what were the the climate policies. Very quickly. I would mention five, but probably the experts on this will will will will be mad at me. But let me, let me go by five. First day, the protection of the of 25% of the national territory in the in the 70s as I said, you know when I got to be to be in the minister of finance in the, in the 80s meet 80s, we will stay still pain. Since I know because I saw the checks. So, we will still pay the national parks and the expropriations to have the national parks and protect them. Renewable renewable electricity. You know that Costa Rica has that around 99% of renewable energy right now. And it was made available in the countryside in the 50s and 60s. Then we had the incentives for ecotourism in the 80s and 90s. So Costa Rica's tourism industry was not an all inclusive tourist industry. It were medium and small size enterprises that, and so there was this sharing of the prosperity that tourism brought, not without tensions of water and resources. This is not Shangri-La. But we were able to have a different model. And since nature was such an important part of Costa Rica being competitive because we couldn't compete by prices, we needed to compete by something else. So the attachment of the people and the defense of the people in terms of their environment only grew, not, not the other way around. Then we had early reforestation initiatives. I was in government at that time in the finance minister. Forest Protection Certificates in 1996, I was in government at that time in the finance minister. Forest Protection Certificates in 1995, I also was in the government at that time. So I'm very proud of this. And you know when, when, when we started, we didn't know how to do it well. We needed to experiment experimentation and correct ourselves to think again because the first incentives only went to the big farmers because they were the only ones that could really wait for the benefits of the reforestation. But then we learned, and then we went to the small farmers in Costa Rica today have reversed the forestation. We have more, more green coverage than we had before. It's one of the few countries in the world that has been able to do that. And then our famous policy of all the payment for environmental services in 1996. So we were the recipients this year of the Prince William's earth shot price because of that because of the payment for environmental services. And we recognize that the time for services provided for by forest ecosystems. First mitigation of greenhouse gases. Second hydrological services. I am talking about 1996. That's for you to remember. Yes, hydrological services by your diversity conservation. And finally the profession, the provision of scenic beauty for recreation and tourism. And this allowed us to to contract land owners for the services provided by their lands using the national fund for forest financing. Because of early reforestation efforts, we already had a system then in our treasury to pay for this efforts. I have told you as finance minister we experimented, but we never in this persevering party tenacity part that David was talking about. Not because we failed the first time we abolished the, the objective of trying to do it well. Many times happens, yes, when when you are talking about social and it's interesting to think that many of the innovations in social and environment. When they don't resolve the first time they are abolished in economics it doesn't happen because when you go to the market and you try things you try again and again and again. And probably that was part of our success that we persevered, and we learned from from our mistakes. So, you know, you know in a way it thinking allowed good climate policy requires two things yes it requires making trade offs into win-wins. And I am very sad to see that the trade off narrative is coming back in the negotiations because I think that in 2015 we were able to talk about the win-wins much more. And you need, apart from transforming trade offs into win-wins, you, you have to make people feel the benefits firsthand. And Costa Rica did both. So our climate policy is the result of decades of trial and error. It is based in practices, not only in principles. In parisist also, not only the, no, ethics and values were very important and I don't want, you know, this is very important, but you also have to let yourself to make empirical, you know, errors and mistakes. And you cannot be a maximalist from the beginning, you need to set up the process, yes. And we learned how to get incentives right. And that was a very important part of our history. And culture and education matter. When we protected 25% of our territory in the 70s, in the first part of the 70s, in the second part we included this as something in school. And in education. And so our children were better than us. And I remember when my children's were in school, and there was a famous slogan in schools, and it was sustainable development, welfare forever. And that's what they learned. And that's what they tried one thing today. You know, so, so it was very important. So let me, let me finish with some very general lessons. They are probably much more, but maybe this one that I say a lot is that Costa Rica is an example of development not being short term. Short term museum is killing us. And we, we had a long term view. But we also understood that the short and the long term start at the same time. So we did both. We had a vision. So short term is not only a, you know, a linear succession. Long term is not a linear succession of short terms. Yes, you have a line. And the short term has to bring you closer to that target to that objective to that vision. And for that you need a strategy. And that's the other part, you need a stable strategy, not only a strategy, a stable strategy. And for that you have to build consensus. And in this polarized world and my country right now is not, is not an exception on the polarization that we are seeing everywhere. That is not allowing countries to have a national project that is shared by all that really brings share prosperity and inclusivity. So to build consensus to have not only a strategy but a stable strategy is essential. And the third I already said experiment experiment experiment, learn and revise, learn and revise a bring the universities bring the research bring the evidence based innovate, you know, look at the new ideas he wrote other experiences, but don't try to copy, please adopt a be resistant to the latest fashion or panacea that is being sold to you. And for that you need to build your own capacity, your own capacity, and you have to build the capacity also for public policy, not only in the private sector. You need capacity in the public sector you need to invest in good institutions and in bring the best of policy making embrace new leaderships. They're very important. They will bring new breath fresh air, never lose the end game of improving people's lives. Please, never lose the end game. And my two final points that much is never irreversible. We can be a forest. And we prove that and poverty is not the same. And my last point thinking about Costa Rica is that nothing is ever so small that it cannot make a difference, a small country of small farmers can bring itself to be our leader. Thank you. I have to imagine that I'm a whole hall of people clapping for you. It's strange when you make these speeches without the reactions of us all I know and you did so well and I want you to know that we're here and we're clapping and I've been writing and, you know, wanting to say oh she's so right yes I want to know how. But yeah, thank you so much and I say this because I live in a small country with a small population that is very rural, and we are really well educated, and we're way more wealthy than Costa Rica ever was, or is right now, and we haven't managed to do this. So what you have done is significant it is not changing small countries is hard I'm living in one that's finding it really hard to change, really hard to adapt to what's out there. And so it really is commendable what Costa Rica has done, but more important that you do now what you're doing which is share what you learned so that those of us who are trying to make change now with less time to do it so we can go back to 1869. And we can't go back to 1948 and we can't go back to the 1970s. We just have to do it faster, right now, which means we have to learn from each other we have to share our experiences. We have to be prepared to fail, and we have to innovate on a scale that we've never innovated before. And I really love what you said about and all the time keep the central focus on people and making their future better. So Rebecca, thank you, thank you, thank you from us all. I know there are going to be loads of questions they're starting to come in already you were really inspiring. Hi everybody welcome back. And we were just in mid chat and there we are back in the plenary. I'm sure the same happened to many of you. And so we are now going to turn to Rebecca for some questions thank you to those of you who have been sending them in the chat. Please continue to do so. I'm just going to read out the first question and put it to Rebecca and then I have one of my own I might come to after that. So Noel and compo notes that Costa Rica gave a lot of leadership on the new universal rights to a healthy environment that has been recognized by the UN Human Rights Council just this October. So the question to Rebecca is, how could this new right to a healthy environment be used to support wider transformation and change in the sustainable development agenda. I think, I think that is very, the normative is very important, because it's true that it doesn't happen by the crit, but it gives you an instrument to push the agenda. And I think that the most important thing that I've learned with respect to the human rights agenda in this case the rights to a healthy environment is that you have to educate the citizenship, because they are the ones that have to use the right to claim it. And I think that that is the most important thing the most important thing is that there will be a place where you can claim the right that you are not receiving. And you have to educate people in that they have that possibility that there is that right that they can make use of the different human rights instruments to try to make it happen for you. Yes. And there it probably I would stress collective action. Yes, you have to not only educate people but organize people in that respect, because if there is a resolution that is part of the normative framework of the multilateral system that all countries agreed on your country too. So you can really make it an instrument of change. Yes, but you have to organize you have to educate you have to make people know that the right to exist that it was approved that and how to use the instruments, you know that that will be the the the the the important effort that we have to make. Yeah, that was it. That was perfect. That's one question. In the meantime, I'm just going to ask Rebecca my own question. So Rebecca in my small country where we're trying to catch up with you and the rate of change and pace of change particularly on and sustainable climate action. And it strikes me that what we need to get to is what you called a sense of common national project defended by the people. So, whilst we have quite a lot of consensus in our political system around the needs to take climate action we have very differing views amongst our different publics when it comes to implementing climate action. It's a very difficult conversation between say for example our farming community. And those seem to be taking ambitious climate action. How, how do you get. How does a country create a national, a common national project and how do you create the space for a conversation that can then be inclusive rather than partisan. That's a very difficult question. I don't, I don't have, I don't have all the answers but but let me share some some some of my experience yes because you get to you get to consensus or to a common project. And not because there are no differences because you, but because you have spaces where where you can bring them into an agreed outcome, an agreed solution. Yes. And I think that part of the problem still is, and I'm sorry to say this having been in the UN for so long. I really feel that we are still in the silos and that the silos have become more and more maximalist. You know, if, if a sustainable, you know, a sustainable solution has to come from the three sides of the solution yes it has to come from the economy it has to come from the social and inclusivity, and it has to come from the environment. If only the environmentalist lead, we have a problem. If only the economist list you have a lead you have a problem. Yes, and if only the poverty people needs you have a problem. So you need to bring the communities of practice together. It doesn't matter what is the window, or the door that you open to get there, you need to get to the same solution. I think that part of the problem is policy coherence. Yeah, because you know one side wants everything and the other side says but I cannot do it so quickly, because it has consequences that you need to understand the consequences of the other. Yes. I would only say, I am the good guy. I am the one that have the answers. I am the, the one that have the right values, and the, the others are wrong. And so what I want to do is my agenda to preside the others. That's why green is difficult from sustainable development because green can be exclusive. You know green can, can put other people in the margins, you know if you don't share the technology if you don't bring the others. It's not enough to be green it has to be inclusive. And, and, and it has to, to give the prosperity people need. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Chris in Wales says you need the teamwork to make the dream work. There you go I like that. And I know we have a question from Claire Shackia from IID so Claire if you're at the ready. We might let you ask the question so Rebecca can hear some voices that aren't just mine. Sure. So, and lovely to love amazing. Rebecca thank you so much for that incredible speak that incredible talk. So what I was wondering was, you know Costa Rica has been, has been leading from the front for so many decades now. And how do we build the courage the political courage in other countries what is it that we can do to, to increase the number of Costa Rica's in the globe. I was saying in the, in the five minutes break that the, I was worried about what are the incentives for the long term. You know to build the courage to do it. You need to show that it is worthwhile. Yes. And, and I think that the youth is, is part of what is pushing us, you know, the young people are really, you know, aware that their future depends on the decisions that are being taken today. So that is, you know, if I think about where are the voices for for for division for the long term vision. I think that it comes a lot from the young. And, and from important parts of civil society. My problem there is that you don't only need a vision you need a strategy as I said before. Yes. And to have a strategy you need to be propositive. You need to sit down to negotiate and the spaces for that a like Glasgow, for example, yes, and are, are, are, are, are, are a, have to say, these politely are not giving people all what they are expecting. And I'm very worried that then mistrust is the thing that will prevail and mistrust is the, the main problem if we need to sit down and negotiate that strategy to get to a target. And, and so the courage, the courage will will come from the push. But, you know, in a way, more and more a part of the citizenship is, is, you know, asking leaders to be more responsible with respect to environment and development. I think that the courage will also come from this crisis. Because a development is again in the center and environment is again in the center, because we, we, we tend to forget, yes, suddenly when everything we think is going right, you forget about development and about environment. And I think that this crisis has made us more fragile and has shown us how bad it can be when when we don't take the right actions. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, Rebecca, I had asked Patrick for his question. He is still listening so I'm going to read it out to you. This is on from your comments about Glasgow and COP 26. So, given the outcomes of COP 26. What would Rebecca say is the single biggest problem to solve over the next five years. I assume that's a global problem. So what's the biggest single biggest problem to solve over the next five years to solve for Glasgow to work. I understand. Yeah, well I think interpreted as you wish. Okay, I will do both. If you give me the opportunity, I have to take the floor. Yeah. My main problem to solve a Glasgow is that I said that I think that there is profound mistrust. And especially between the development and the developing countries and developing countries is a diverse group. I agree. We don't think all the same. But there is this very different narratives that sometimes I hear with respect to the negotiations, not with respect to the target. Yes, but with respect to the negotiations to what matters to make the journey towards the target. And so different. And, and I don't see many places where the develop and the developing countries are really a seat and dialogue in a more open, in a more open way so so it there is there are entrenched positions. Yes, that have been very difficult to break. I think that Glasgow was very was very good in terms of that the ambition on the voluntary contributions yes that we didn't see in Glasgow will be revised in Egypt in COP 27 and I think that that is a make and break moment for for the world. So, and was very important to make that decision to make the decision to revise them not in five years time like, you know, but in Egypt, I think that that was very important but we need to rebuild trust and part of the building trust and sorry to say this is to comply with the commitments that everybody made in 2015 in the Paris agreement and they have not been met. And I think that we have to say that with all the words, they have not been met and is part of this. The second. The second, the second part of the main problem for the next years is the divergence in the recovery and in the asymmetries that have been widened because of the crisis of COVID-19. So the developed world is vaccinating and growing at several times the rates of the developing countries, excluding China. Yes, and if you look at the numbers, vaccination 70% in the advanced countries, 35% in the middle countries, 45% in the low income countries with many of the African countries with no more than 2% of the population vaccinated and the G seven countries have locked vaccines in excess of their population in the amount of three billion doses. Okay, that's enough to vaccinate all Africa with two doses. Okay, so that is the problem. The problem is that we have, you know, we have to say we have to celebrate the success of science, but we have to admit the failure of governance. And that will be our main problem. Yeah, thank you, Rebecca. Yeah, I find it so hard to think about how we are going to solve the climate crisis effectively on the global scale when I look at the mistakes we're making and finding solidarity to respond to the to the pandemic. And Chris in Wales, who had our teamwork come into minutes ago. Here's a quick one for you, Rebecca. How do you feel about tourists coming to Costa Rica now. That's a tricky one. I think I really think that what will solve the problem is not the border closed out. What will solve the problem is vaccination. And I heard the scientist saying, and he's right. Yes, that this problem, the Omicron, you know, the new variant is because we didn't do what we had to do. So let's do it now. You know, you have the PCRs you have, we have learned during these two years. Yes, we have learned, we can do it much better. Yes, but if what we are is only afraid. You know, that will be a problem, because then you take the, the, you know, you, you, you take the P of politics and not the P of the pandemic into account. And, and, you know, so my call is to be evidence based to be science driven to understand what you have to do and not to be led by local politics and, you know, fear. Rebecca, Rebecca, I'm going to read out one of the questions and then I can see there's a few hands up as well. So, Neri Ozer asked, how did Costa Rica manage to make and implement such radical decisions. While it's neighboring countries, much bigger states didn't. Well, what were a couple of the big differences in your opinion. Yeah, it's a, it's a very, it's a very good question, you know, and as I said, since, since very early days, because we didn't have big population, we didn't have the natural resources that were, you know, valued at the time that allowed us for more policy space for Costa Rica. In a way, you know, it allowed for less concentrated power. And, and that was very important to the building of, of, of a different society. And we had very good leadership. Yeah, very crucial moments, you know, and that's why I stressed the three moments of, of that made Costa Rica, Costa Rica different. Yeah. Once you have that dynamic, what is happening, the, the, the example of your neighbors is not one that you want to follow because you are doing better because you understand what is it to have more consensus, more institutions, more human development. The problem now, and let me be very frank, is that I really believe that is very important regional integration to make the next step and to me to do the quality jump and for us is very important that our neighbors will have also stable successful, you know, a political systems and societies is as vital to us as to as our own. Yes. And I think that there has to be an effort in that, in that direction, really. Another problem and I'm sorry here to say, Tara is that in the organized crime and narcotraffic is really, really having a great toll on us in our institutions in our societies in our dynamics. And for that we need multilateral help. We need an international framework and that is not Central American alone, the one that will be able to deal with that. And that will, that will also help the whole, all the countries of region. And thank you for being honest about that, that, that significant challenge to and how it does require again more than the efforts of one country to solve it. Rosa, I think asked this question in Spanish Rebecca and it's been translated, what percentage of the land in Costa Rica is in the hand of private landowners, and how many hotels are managed for big multinational How do you manage the kind of the getting the balance between the large sectors of public land that you spoke about and getting the private landowners on board, and particularly I guess in this case if it's, you know, international hotels that are that are having some of the road to play. I will ask my people to look for the number but I think that we are over 30% of public land right now. The land reform that took place in the 70s is in the hands of small land owners. Yeah, so I don't think that Costa Rica has a lot of public land for for a production exploitation. And I think that the reserves and public land should be in more than 32% right now but let's let's look for the for the number. You know, and there are big multinational and big hotels in Costa Rica, they are also all inclusive hotels. Yes, but that that is not the center and and hard of the tourist. And coming to Costa Rica. Yes, in many of the of these small holders are the ones that have, you know, the, the, the tours to the national parks and the explanations with respect to the local culture and a lot of brutal, brutal tourism starts to be very important and wellness wellness tourism is becoming very important in Costa Rica so they are these other forms of tourism that they survive together with the big ones and the big ones are not the the largest part of a of the tourist dynamic. Yes, there is much more sharing as I say, of the of the tourist industry, but it doesn't mean that there are no problems, there are problems and tensions. As I said, between land and an investment and foreign investment or water and tourists and the tourism and agriculture and water use. You know, there are tensions, but Costa Rica has been able to have institutions that are much better trained to a to deal with them. Yes. And probably now the important thing will be to really support local local municipalities local governments to have much more strength and capacities to deal with these problems because many times is there are weak and then corruption or, or, you know, lack of a capacity to help them are coming in the way. Yes, and that's something that should be strengthened, no doubt. Okay, so Rebecca time for one last question. It has come in from Vanessa or Spina Lopez. What recommendations would you give to countries rich in biodiversity but with high levels of poverty to help them to mobilize more investment income in environmental conservation. That's a very good question. I believe that the new instruments Tara has to be really, you know, taken advantage of, you know, the green bonds that many of the of the governments are putting forward, you know, or the green funds that are that are the real ones, not the greenwashing ones, the real ones, yes, that have really indicators and you know for for the compliance. I think that those have become very important instruments, you know, and the management of the biodiversity of the forest, the good management for people not to be left out of the, you know, of the things that the forest can give if you manage it well you know is is not taking people out of nature is people being able to live in harmony with nature. And I think those are two different ways of looking at it. And, and I think that if you have the projects if you have, if you are able to harness the financing that there are much more today than it was that we had before. And finally, you know, international, the international community has to comply with the commitments that we made in 2015. And, you know, the 100 billion, at least that is not enough of the climate funds and I think that a lot of it has to go for adaptation, not only for mitigation adaptation has to be a very important agenda and for biodiversity adaptation is a very important agenda. And so I will, you know, take my, you know, a made my voice part of that crowd that are trying to put adaptation and international finance at the center of the discussions. Thank you, Rebecca. Well, thank you for doing that. Thank you for your leadership. And, and we wish you the best of luck with your role in and we are all watching carefully and inspired by your leadership and thank you for the time this evening and for making this a truly memorable Barbara Ward lecture. And I'm going to hand back to Andy director of ID for the final word but Rebecca from me. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you all. Huge thanks to her and huge thanks to you Rebecca that was really inspiring. And I do think it's important to be reminded of the positive examples sure the histories are unique. I'm sure not everything is transferable. Not everything is unproblematic as well. But understanding histories of progress can help us to think about the political challenges we face and the ways in which we can think about overcoming them. So huge thanks Rebecca for an very inspiring talk. So many thanks to Tara for a fantastic chairing of the discussion and inputs. And also I'd like to say some words of thanks to our fantastic comms team ID who did heroic work in turning this round to a fully online event. Very, very quickly. I don't have too many to mention but particularly Juliet Tunstall who you saw at the beginning, Clare Grant salmon who overs, oversaw this Barbara Ward lecture, and also Matt Wright and and show us who are also in the team. And a final word of huge thanks to everyone for participating in this event. It was very special for us. And to close it out. It was a really nice short film of Barbara Ward's legacy, which I do recommend you watch if you haven't seen it before. So many, many thanks. I mean it is inconceivable for any Western democracy to subsist even for 10 years more if we didn't have through progressive taxation a steady transfer resources from rich people to poor. I consider that we can begin to talk about the world environment and about safeguarding our planet when we the rich nations are giving in perfectly formal institutionalized tax assistance. Oh, at least 1% of our gross national product in development capital for the poorer nations, I would go higher myself. We've got to stop lecturing them while we sit back and in gross 80% of the world's income for 20% of the world's people. And that I think is the critical thing on this development environment issue. That you see from the moon, a single alone full of life and the only single planet that's got these qualities that that vision, especially among the young can mean a redirection of how people think about this problem because you will not create a community unless you've got some moral commitment and moral commitment needs some very stern underpinnings because we ain't moral easy. We're to participate in this ceremony, which is on it, predistinguished citizens of the free world, President Pusey, our friend from the world of freedom, Lady Jackson. What worries me is that so great is the shortage of capital so obstructed are the means of development that they won't even be able to learn from our mistakes. That would be the ultimate tragedy. I mean for us to go and make the mistakes and then no one to learn from them. That really would be a cosmic bad joke.