 OK, ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests. My name is Patrick Paul Walsh. I'm Chair of the Global Association of Masters in Development Practice Programs and Senior Advisor to the SDSN Association. My job, firstly, is to give a very warm welcome to everybody here, and particularly to those who are joining us online as well, who will be following us on the webcast for today. Everyone is very welcome. Just to say, to recognize that yesterday was a very successful day, just to thank the Academic Steering Committee, who actually designed yesterday. There were some lots of very nice papers and lots of nice energy and diversity yesterday. I'd like to congratulate everyone on those papers. And we will be a bit of housekeeping. We will be giving best paper awards and Eiffel awards at the end of day today. So after the President of Costa Rica, please stay on and see whether you won prizes for best papers. Another piece of housekeeping is that you do have this black card on your seat. I want you to be here at 12 noon with this card, or otherwise you cannot dance with the future. This is very important. And this is going to be an amazing experience. So I want you to be here at 12 with this card. Just a little background on SDSN. SDSN, the director is Jeffrey Sachs, who's special advisor to the general secretary of the UN. And I just want to very briefly just to review some of the things that have happened this year, the good things that have happened. One way of summarizing the activities of SDSN is actually to focus on what we call means of implementation. So when SDSN was formed, it had a mandate on the Ban Ki Moon to actually give academic and technical sport in what's called the post-2015 agenda. Now we're into implementation stage. And we have a range of projects. So one of the most important ones is finance. Monday was a very important day. We saw Jeffrey sitting down with the leaders of the World Bank and the IMF. And what we have for the first time is the multilateral finance agencies orientating themselves towards the SDGs. This is very important. They will coordinate philanthropy and all other sorts of finances, et cetera, the private side. So even though you might have not noticed it on Monday in the General Assembly, I think this is probably a huge step forward for the implementations of the SDGs. Secondly, we have a work program on data. I think the most famous one was the SDG index and dashboard which came out this year and has been very successful. We have a big focus on partnerships. We have to say that our work on our national chapters and regional chapters is deepening. And it's a very, very important thing that we're doing on partnership. The other side, what we do is ute. Our ute is a big what we call means of invitation. So this is SD stand ute. And of course, what they bring to the table is what we call dreaming, idealism. They bring energy and innovation. And as they tell us old people, they're the ones who basically will be the ones who will suffer most from not getting the job done today. We also do work on science, technology, innovation to our teamatics over six transformations. We have our S, what we call sustainable development education with a new relationship with edX. This is the MIT Harvard online platform. And already in terms of, I think, of enrollments on these courses, there are more than we actually had in the history of our SDG Academy. So this is turning out to be a very important partnership. And finally, we have our edX and action group run from the Pontifical Academy of Science and Social Science, but it's interfaith and it's secular and it's about just getting communities to get this job done in terms of the SDGs. Now, unfortunately, we had our SDSN nine sustainable development summit in the Badden a few weeks ago and we focused on what we call the big emerging teams. And we are losing the battle here. There is no doubt on, say, the social front, what's happening with migration is a disgrace. On the economic front, global value chains are accumulating wealth and causing damage to society and the environment is more aggressively than we've ever seen in the last year. On the environmental front, the oceans are getting poor health and are getting as worse as we've ever seen. And then finally, the most dangerous thing is that on the governance pillar, there's huge attacks on multilateralism. And we're even seeing this within the UN system. So it was a lot of people attending this conference and we came to the conclusion how we are going to deal with this. And this is the spirit of the MDPs. So the MDP program, I should have said, is our way of training young professionals what the MBA is for business, the MDP is for stable development and the top universities in the world are training young professionals to implement the SDGs in the private sector, government and society. But the solution to these, what I'd call the megatrends that are really going against us, I think our reply to this is very simple. Basically, it's to play music more intensely, more beautiful, more devotion than ever before. That's our response. So with that, I want to turn and introduce you to our first speaker, Stefano Mazzurvesi. He's the director general of DEFCO, which is the director general for international cooperation and development in the European Commission. He's going to give you a little talk, but we have to realize that the webcast is in partnership with what's called the Kaposkinski Lectures. So really, it's all the staff at UNDP and all the staff at the European Commission are joining us, and it's actually webcast out right across the world. So with that, I'm actually going to allow Stefano Mazzurvesi to introduce the Kaposkinski Lecture, thank you. Thank you very much, thank you. Thank you, Paul, and thank you to everybody to be here. Since we are using this horrible European acronym, DEFCO means International Development and Cooperation, so just to situate what we are doing. Now, a real pleasure to be again here in the Columbia University in order to share a bit, not only our experience, but also a bit of thinking ahead of what is the perspective and the reality for development policy today in the SDG context and framework. The Kaposkinski Lecture have been invited for that to, let's say, create opportunity to think ahead and to think a bit in the long term and to think all together. And we are quite proud because we have now more than 90 Kaposkinski Lectures since 2009, and I think that shows that there is really a need to discuss a bit of track and in an open way, because development today in particular is increasingly identifying with the unsustainability of globalization, and therefore I think that this is the key issue. Now, we are in these days in the middle of the week of the general assembly, and therefore all the leaders of the world are here in order to discuss, to shape the world, and to share their own experience. I think we have therefore a duty and opportunity in order to give a sort of supplementary input to this debate in order to, let's say, reflect altogether about what is the reality today and what we can do for the future. I would like just to identify three points that I would deliver for the following debate and ensure that the leaders that are coming after will elaborate on that. First, first point is that is a good thing. I mean, from 1990 to 2015, the percentage of people living in extreme poverty globally has gone down from 36% to 10%, and the forecast is to go further down to 8.6%. Meaning is doable, first message is doable. If we work in a clear way, if we put the right means in order to, let's say, to tackle extreme poverty, and with this many other issues are linked, I concentrate on extreme poverty because I think it's the most tellable part. So first message is doable if we really act in an effective way. Second, the bad news, which is affecting partially this result is that inequalities are on the rise. And inequality is not just a question of better distribution of revenues. It's a question of the structure of a society, the fabric of a society, social cohesion. And including in Europe, if you read the last Eurostat report, you will see that concerning the SDG-10, which is a better measurement of all this, inequalities in Europe are on the rise. And for us, it's something which is a bit shocking because we have been building our European integration on what is called the European social model, which is, even before the SDG, leaving no one behind, antiliteram, if I may say. Therefore, I think we have to take this, why? Because this is an indicator which shows that fighting poverty numbers is obviously the most important thing. But this result is not sustainable if we generate inequality or if we don't take into account this structural trend which is affecting our society. This is destroying social cohesion. This is also affecting the credibility of our institution. I think this is my second point. The first is doable to reach important result to fight poverty, but the second is that inequalities are on the rise. And if we don't get it right there altogether, which is not only a question of money, is a question of right policies, then these results risk to be very short living. Now, the third is the fact that in order to address of this, we do not need only short-term action, but to think ahead, to think long-term, to maybe restart thinking long-term. In these days in which short-term, Facebook, easy short are dominating, we have to restart thinking long-term. Sustainability can be reached only if, you know, we think in a more elaborated and long-term way. These are the three points on which I would like to draw the attention in order to contribute to frame this discussion. Now, how to deal with that? First, political leadership. It is absolutely necessary that the leaders take their responsibility. This is politics. It's not just about a good paper or a good distribution of money, it's politics. Because then we will discover that if politics is bad, we'll discover plenty of what we usually call populism around. Populism is that pressure that they don't like because for a number of reasons. But then we will be facing this new phenomenon in which there is a rejection of the institution, a rejection of solidarity, a rejection or a risk rejection of democracy. Therefore, leadership, political leadership. Second issue is to take seriously the SDG framework. It offers a fantastic, let's say, opportunity to address structurally the insustainability of globalization and inequality is this. I think that on this, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change is particularly telling because it operationalized. The third point is to address the gender gap. It's not an issue of, you know, gender at large. It's an issue of a multiplier. If we don't address structurally, the gender gap will never be able to have something sustainable in structure. Now, I conclude on this because these are the three elements and the three ways they would like to suggest to concentrate. The Secretary General of the United Nations has started his speech saying that in our world, in this moment, is suffering for a bad case of trust deficit disease. I think this is a right expression. And he said also, let's conquer fear with solidarity. I think that this is our task. This is what is the main purpose of development policy today. Thank you very much. Good morning. It's wonderful to be together again in the quest for sustainable development and wonderful to be partnering with the Kapuchinsky lectures and with Stefano Monservisi and the European Commission in this. We are partners in trying to find a way forward. And I know that we're partners with all of you here, people that are committed to making a better world, achieving the sustainable development goals, achieving the Paris climate agreement and finding a way forward. And very briefly, let me bring you up to date on my assessment of where we stand. We adopted these goals because the world is off track. And the way that real capitalism works does not get us on track. The way the world economy works does not get us on track. The idea of sustainable development is three big ideas. Prosperity, social justice and environmental sustainability. And I would say the world economy works actually almost amazingly well in one regard. It produces economic growth. $100 trillion world economy roughly, growing at 3% to 4% per year is a pretty amazing social fact. And it is producing a lot of wealth and income. But it does not produce the second and the third objectives. There's nothing guaranteed to be at all fair about this economy. And it is not at all fair. Inequality of wealth and income is soaring. Marginalized and vulnerable populations are suffering and dying, as we saw in the disasters in Puerto Rico last year, for example, with Hurricane Maria claiming 3,000 to 5,000 lives, whether Donald Trump knows it or not. It's time for him to read one journal article in his life rather than making it up on the fly. And there's nothing that is guaranteed to produce environmental sustainability. The whole history of the global economy is rather rapacious exploitation of nature. And for hundreds of years, that could be done at the cost of human suffering. But nature was big, and humanity was still pretty small, compared to the scale of the oceans, the rainforest, and the like. Now that's not true. 7.6 billion of us. And with all the modern technology, we can rip down all the rainforest in the world in a blink of an eye. And we can poison the soils, the air, the oceans. And we even are absolutely, disastrously changing the climate itself. Something nearly unimaginable to a human-scale psychology, but something that is absolutely underway. So that's our challenge. It is a big deal, and it's hard, because the system as a system is not oriented that way. We have to change how the system operates, the rules, the politics, the mores, the behavior. And against very powerful vested interests and corruption. America is one of the most corrupt political systems in the world to my take these days. Probably $8 billion per election, changing hands right now, much of its secret. Unbelievable power of vested interests. This is obnoxious. And that's why so many of the good young progressive candidates are running precisely on no corporate contributions, no PACs. These are the candidates we need to support, because otherwise the vested interests are absolutely going to continue to dominate. They own the Senate you may have noticed right now. These are bought politicians in the United States. They will do anything, as we're going to watch on TV this morning, when you see the Kavanaugh hearings. They will do anything and say anything. They're liars, and they're corrupt. And that's our problem, because they're on the take with money, big money. And that's why the system is so resistant. That's why universities are great, young people. And I'm looking out at a sea of young people, and I know you're going to change the world. And we are inspired today to have two absolutely marvelous young leaders who are inspiring for all of us here. And I'm going to be very lucky to not only introduce them, but we'll have a discussion and then also be able to take questions, if not from the floor, at least from Twitter feed, I understand, in meeting them. And we will start out with a first keynote address of her excellency, the prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, who is a hero of progressive young leadership and a complete embodiment of SDG-5, of gender equality and women's power, and also the first head of state who's had a baby in office just around the time of my fourth granddaughter. I'm thrilled to say so they will grow up in a better world together because of our first speaker, the prime minister of New Zealand. Please.