 Well, thank you very much, and I'm delighted to be here. Thank you to Tom, thank you to Michael. I've been coming to the institute for many years, but this is the first time I've been elevated to the top table, so I'm touched and honored by that. So I'm trying to give a quick overview of the negotiations, what they were about, and also where we might be going from here, what happens next, as it were. And I suppose the first question is why have goals at all? What is the value of any development goals? And there is a debate about this, but on balance, the view is that they are a useful signal of priorities which governments across the world have adopted. The Millennium Development Goals, which is really the only precedent we have, had a mixed scorecard, but in overall terms, one could say that significant progress was made in some of them and very little in another. But the general discipline of having a set of goals to guide development efforts over a given period, that was accepted and is still accepted with a sight degree of skepticism. What is different about these goals compared with the Millennium Development Goals? There are really three essential differences. One is that the MDGs, just to abbreviate them, focused on poverty eradication. There were only eight of them, and in effect, they amounted to the developed world gently telling the developing world what they needed to do in order to receive overseas development assistance. It was very much an agenda for developing countries. This time around, the agenda is vast. It includes poverty eradication, but it also covers protecting the planet, creating a better environment, and it also includes creating conditions for balanced economic growth. So these are the three dimensions of what has now been termed Sustainable Development. I should say on terminology that the phrase Sustainable Development may be understood by the Kalinshanti, but in fact, it's not easily understood by most people in the streets as it were. So we did toy with finding some replacement for it during the negotiations, and there is still a lively debate on that subject, principally involving the UK. Because David Cameron had been appointed by Ban Ki-moon to a task force about two years ago, which looked at the Sustainable Development issues, and Cameron became deeply immersed in the subject measure and is to this day with all kinds of views about the number of goals and so on. But in particular, he feels that the phrase Sustainable Development doesn't work. Happily, he didn't actually attract a majority and that most people felt that one way or another, we have to stay with the concept of Sustainable Development. We worked so hard to actually create a consensus around it that even if it's slightly obscure, that the view is that it would gradually become clearer. The MDGs themselves, for example, the Millennium Development Goals, that phrase meant little or nothing 15 years ago. In the meantime, it's widely accepted. So the view is that the hope is that the Sustainable Development Goals as a concept will become gradually easier for people to use. But I just mentioned passing that global goals was the term which Cameron and others preferred, and one sees that still in some of the NGO activity since the goals were implemented or since they were adopted. But let's just say that Sustainable Development has three dimensions, the economic, social, and environmental. And each of the goals and the targets is meant to reflect in itself all three dimensions. And that's a tricky thing, but it is seen to be the way forward. In the formulation of the declaration, which accompanies the new goals and targets, again, great care had to be taken to demonstrate that we were not reverting to what is seen as a silo mentality of just health, just energy, just environment, but rather that we were genuinely moving forward on the basis of an integrated approach which tackles all three dimensions simultaneously. If you want to achieve poverty eradication, then you have to look at all three dimensions together. And that is the essence of Sustainable Development. So the first key difference from the MDGs is the scale of this new agenda. It is vast. It's reflected in the fact that there are 17 goals and 169 targets, which the word target really means subsidiary goal. So under, for example, the education goal, there might be eight individual targets, sexual, children's education, adult education, et cetera. And that's why you come up with 169 targets. So this framework, it's unwieldy in a sense. 17 is an awkward number. But it turned out to be 17 because of the earlier negotiation process to which Mike referred, which is called the Open Working Group. That involved just 30 countries. And it met for a six-month period up to the summer of 2014. And it produced draft goals and targets. It produced proposals for goals and targets, which the entire UN membership was then supposed to negotiate. So where Ireland came in was that we were chairing or co-facilitating the wider process involving 193 member states. But the Open Working Group, as it was called, was, if you like, a test tube approach. We were taking 30 countries and having them meet slightly more informally to see what might constitute the new goals. Out of that process came 17 goals. And efforts were made to reduce them to 15 or even to 10. They got nowhere because every country had its own set of priorities. And for example, if Britain felt that there should be only 12 goals or 10, France was equally determined that there should be 17. Why? Because France feared that climate change, or that the one dealing with climate change might be one to be dropped. And France, obviously, attaches huge importance to the climate change aspect of the agenda. So for every country proposing a reduction, there were many, many others saying, leave it as it is. That approach, in fact, prevailed altogether because we had 17 goals and 169 targets coming out of the Open Working Group process. As we moved into the wider negotiation in which every country in the world, basically, was expected to sign up to the new goals, it was clear that the developing countries, and they constitute a block of 134, although somewhat awkwardly, they're called the Group of 77. The 77 has never, in fact, been updated to 134. But 134 out of 193 clearly shows the center of gravity within the negotiations that the G77, for that read almost twice as many, were in a fairly pivotal position in terms of making demands about the fine outcome. The G77 did not want to change a comma in the goals and targets. And the reason for that was quite simple. They were afraid that if you did change a comma, you would start pulling at the ball of wool and everything else would unravel. That was perhaps a slightly dramatic assumption they were making, or necessarily alarmist, but it was deep in their psyche. Even the slices change would mean that the entire edifice constructed during the open working group phase would collapse. And they felt that they had got it into a state which was as good as it could be. They didn't want to run any risks. That meant that even relatively simple technical adjustments to the targets, which many European countries favored, became an object of great contention. One of the problems was that in the final phase of the open working group, the negotiations, the new goals and targets were rushed through. And a number of them hadn't been properly reflected on. So there was a good technical case for improving a number of them. But the development countries feared that any so-called improvement would in fact be, it would amount to a reworking of the entire framework. So eventually, my colleague and I managed, despite all that, to get a number of changes made of a technical nature. But it still ended up as 17 goals and 169 targets. So this frame were taken together and with the addition of an inspiring, hopefully inspiring declaration at the beginning, and with the addition of material about the resources needed to implement the goals, and also about the monitoring arrangements, putting all that together and you have the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. So it's simply called the 2030 agenda. And that replaces the phrase post-2015 as Michael was saying. Technically, the new agenda only comes into effect on the 1st of January. But effectively, it is already with us and it has been formally adopted as of last month. Where did Ireland come in? I mean, Michael has alluded to some of the previous history. We obviously have a reputation for having a very strong development cooperation program over many years. And we are seen as an honest broker, a good mediator between the Global North and the Global South at the UN. And we did have an earlier involvement co-chairing a summit on the Millennium Development Goals, which took place in September 2013. It is referred to say that other countries would have been interested in the same appointment and there were excellent candidates among them. But one way or another, it fell to us. And we got going about a year ago. The structure of the negotiations was that we had, on average, a week per month. And that meant that you had up to 500 people in the room at any given time. You have 193 member states, each usually with one or two people. You also had a significant representation of civil society at the back of the room. And by that, I mean NGOs of every conceivable agenda and description and nationality. We, my Kenyan colleague and I, arranged for a structured engagement with civil society on one day during the five days of our session. And that would mean we would bring them down literally from the back of the room and put them into the body of the room and have the delegates interacting directly with them. And this was the first time this had been done. On occasion, some of the NGOs were of a rather exotic background. So on one occasion, I remember staring at four gentlemen in Indian headdresses in front of me. And I had to keep on saying to myself, this is indigenous society from Alaska or something. But this is an example of the unexpected variety of civil society that you would find in front of you. But they would engage directly with delegates on topics that had been agreed in advance. And they were happy with that. But then there came a point towards the end of our negotiation when ordinarily civil society would have been excluded. Because the G77 traditionally feel enough is enough. They don't want the extra pressure of having NGOs wagging their fingers at them. And they normally ask for NGOs to be excluded. On this occasion, somehow we managed to distract them. And between one thing and another, the NGOs stayed in the room until the very end. That was gratifying for one particular reason. It meant that the NGOs had complete ownership of the final document. They did not feel that it was somehow ultimately being negotiated behind the scenes by government officials. Rather, they were able to interact, for example, by coming down in the intervals to talk to delegates. So they had a real sense of contributing. And they therefore have described this as the most open negotiation process that ever took place at the UN. And unfortunately, they now see this as the standard to be maintained on all future occasions. And I'd be pleasantly surprised if that were to happen. But one way or another, it happened in our process. And it does, perhaps, set a good example. Another thing which I'll come back in a moment to what the particular challenges were in terms of substance. But there is also a longstanding pattern at the UN whereby in big negotiations like this, the two co-chairmen or co-facilitators, as they are called, are also, in effect, sidelined towards the end. Because the group of 77, the developing countries, feel unnerved by, usually by the northern representatives, they feel that their own interests will be undermined. And they basically say, enough. We want you guys out of the place. And instead, they insist on having the text of the final agreement put up on the screen. And they then ask to have various amendments put up on the screen. So you shortly, within a few, when that gets going, it becomes a chaotic negotiation process, complete paralysis. Because there's nobody there to move things forward. Somehow, my Kenyan colleague and I managed to avoid that fate. And we maintained the same pattern to the end. That's to say, we put a draft on the table, we listened to commons, we went away, revised the draft, went back with the next draft, put that on the table. And I think it was our fifth draft, which was a finally adopted. So that is an old fashioned way of doing it, but it has actually restored hope at the UN in multilateral diplomacy. Because the feeling is that we, as a collectivity of 193 countries, were able to get this agreement across the line in a traditional way, in other words, with two chairs who held the pen, as they say, held the pen to the end. So that was encouraging in its own way. Part of it were the big issues or challenges. Again, I try not to be too technical, but one of them was there is a phrase, common but differentiated responsibilities. Now, this is a phrase drawn from the Rio conference of 1992, which began the whole process of leading to sustainable development. And that phrase is interpreted by the global north by the developed countries as applying only to climate change. That means that if you like, industrialized countries would accept that they carry a certain debt towards developing countries in relation to the impact of climate change. But the developing countries in the meantime have taken the view that that phrase applies to the whole development agenda. So if you like, it would mean that the same industrialized countries would have to accept that they owe a debt to the developing world, that if you like, there is a historic liability to be paid off. And that is too much for most developing countries. So the net result is that this phrase and how it should appear in the document was deeply controversial. And it was one of the points which could have broken the negotiations. Eventually, we found a drafting solution which keeps it, which neutralized the term. That was one big issue. A second one was the extent to which you could or should change the goals and targets. And I just touched on that a moment ago. Net result was we altered some of the targets just marginally. A third one was how to refer to the separate conference which had taken place in Addis Ababa in July and which focused on financing for development. Again, I won't go into that too much, but suffice it to say that the developing countries coming out of that conference were disgruntled. One particular issue annoyed them intensely, and that was that the global north was not willing to allow international tax cooperation to be handled at the UN in any significant sense. They preferred it to be handled at the OECD. The developing countries, on the other hand, said this is now a universal agenda. Logically, it should be at the UN. Frankly, you can see merit in both arguments. But essentially, the global north won that argument in Addis Ababa. And therefore, there was a degree of resentment which played into the final two weeks of our negotiations and indeed threatened to derail them at one point. So that was a big issue. Another one was how you would refer to climate change, bearing in mind that there is a separate process on that whose outcome is very uncertain. And again, on the second last day, we found a language which it's a bit torturous, but it was a compromise across the 193 member states. Then there were various issues around the declaration which accompanies the goals and targets and which is meant to be a kind of updated version of the Millennium Declaration. Here, a European perspective was that we need to be able to communicate the goals and targets in the political domain. To ordinary men and women, children, we need to be able to make sense of them. We're not all development experts. I was very sympathetic to that argument, I have to say. But the G77, the developing countries, feared that any effort to simplify or crystallize the goals and targets would be detrimental to them. And they attach less importance to communication. The net result was a compromise whereby the first page of the declaration is a so-called preamble. And it picks out what we call the five P's. People, planet, prosperity, peace, and partnership. And we eventually achieved a consensus that it was reasonable to present the new framework in those terms. And it makes a number of other points about gender equality, human rights. But that first page is intended to be the short snappy communication tool on which others have existed. So there were some very difficult human rights references, which had to be resolved in the final stages. This is where the African group, in particular, lashed out against concepts which the rest of us found quite reasonable. One of the slogans of the framework is leave nobody behind. We will leave nobody behind. And we will reach the furthest behind first. So this is intended to emphasize how inclusive and participatory the whole framework is. But many developing countries did not want to be tied to particular concessions to individual groups, individual minority groups. And so again, that was difficult towards the end. Somehow, don't ask me how, but we managed to resolve the various problems earlier than expected. We thought that we had a deadline of the 31st of July. We thought that it would actually run until about the 15th of September. In fact, we got it through on the 2nd of August. And there were two all night sessions. But there was no great magic wand. I think it was a lot of luck involved. People were tired. Maybe we had deliberately tired them. And somehow, the various problems which were outstanding, we set up small groups of key states. And we got gradually to the point where there were only one or two issues left. And then finally on the Sunday 2nd of August, we got it through. And I have to say, it was a great moment, which I'll always remember, because one of the concerns was that there would be caveats. And I see Roy Montgomery at the end. And Roy and I both remember the Good Friday agreement negotiations. And in a similar situation, where the heads of government, well, the teacher, the prime minister, and others in the Good Friday agreement negotiations were being asked to sign up to the agreement. And we were bracing ourselves for caveats, reservations, complications of all kinds. And there was a beautiful simplicity when everybody just said yes, yes. And in the same way, in these negotiations, the group of 77 spoke first when we got to our final session. And then they said, simply, the document isn't perfect, but it's as good as it's going to get. And we're going to join the consensus. So then I realized that was 134 countries in the bag straight off. So that was a nice feeling. And it went on from there. And there were no reservations. So it meant that there was a good basis for the document to go forward then to the heads of state and government. And it was purely adopted last month. And I probably long exceeded my time, Tom. But I was going to say just a few words about where we go to from here, just what happens as a word. The implementation phase is now with us. And that means it'll be a while, to be honest, before we get up to speed on this. There are a number of things. One is that in addition to the goals and targets, so-called indicators have to be developed. There will be a set of global indicators, which will be completed by next March. This means simply, let's imagine that a target is to achieve equal access for men and women to third level education by 2030. I think that is a target, but let's take that. An indicator would be number of men and women at third level education in the year 2022 or something. That would be a simple version of an indicator. So it's meant to be an aid to countries to implement the goals. And they will also have their own national and regional indicators. The second thing is that every country needs to consider how it's going to implement them. The normal route would be put the new goals and targets into the national development plan if a country has one. Already, some countries have actually jumped the gun in a helpful way. Columbia, for example, a year ago, already put the then emerging draft goals and targets into legislation to show that it was taking them seriously. So it would be expected that national development plans would now reflect the new agenda in its entirety. Another issue is where governments should locate the coordination effort, which would be needed, to ensure that this vast agenda is actually implemented. There would be a certain logic in having it at the center of government, and not, for example, in a foreign ministry or a development ministry. And I'm talking internationally now because the agenda covers a vast range of domestic issues. There is hardly anything left out. It's health, energy, education, environment, oceans, cities, human rights, gender equality, food security. There is practically nothing omitted from this agenda. Therefore, it doesn't really make sense that you would continue to see it as a purely development issue or set of objectives. But it's for each country to decide on how that should be handled. Another issue is at the UN level. There is a body called the High Level Political Forum, which has only met a couple of times so far. But it's a ministerial group. And it will have the role of supervising implementation at the global level. Its next meeting is next July. And between now and then, a lot of the detail about how it will work, which we studiously avoided in our document in order to get consensus, a lot of that detail will have to be agreed. And the Secretary General, for example, of the UN has a role, and he has to produce a report which will make suggestions about how this High Level Political Forum would work. And there will also be, I mean, there was a lot of emphasis on national ownership of these goals and targets. So the developing countries on the whole were worried about too many demands being made of them at the global level. They feared that they actually didn't want the word accountability to feature in the document. They didn't want the word monitoring to feature because they fear being almost called to account by the developed countries for sins of underperformance. And we try to reassure them that this is not a legally binding framework. This is only politically binding, morally binding, maybe. But it's not legally binding. So there cannot be any sanctions imposed if a country doesn't come up to the mark. But they still fear a situation. They fear that ODA would be made available in a diminished way to them if they are not performing adequately. And also there's a practical problem. Many of them are tiny developing states without any central statistics office. They have virtually no capacity to collect data. And data will be essential for all of us in monitoring how we're performing with the new goals. There are cross-cutting dimensions to the new goals, such as gender equality. How are you going to measure gender equality as it applies in the environmental area or as it applies in the education area unless you have a very sophisticated and very sensitive data differentiation and they call this disaggregated data? So the rest of us frankly have to help developing countries to bring their own statistical capacities up to scratch so that there will not be nearly nil returns when it comes to providing data to the global level. So it's in all of our interest to help all 193 member states to be in a position to show what they are doing or not doing. But the emphasis is on a positive collegial relationship. We, the more developed countries, want to help the developing countries as part of a collective effort. So my final point is that in the declaration, the declaration was deliberately couched in sort of visionary, uplifting terms to show the political will behind all this. We emphasize a lot that this is a single collective effort that the entire world is moving forward in one step, as it were. And that is, we're no longer talking about a north-south, slightly patronizing distinction where the north is telling the south what to do, but rather we all are going in the same direction. To illustrate that, let's imagine, let me come back to my example about third level access to third level education. Take a country, and I'm picking it randomly, in Norway, in Norway might, for example, have already achieved that goal, the goal of equal access to third level education. It might have achieved that to, say, the 99%. And I'm just inventing this example. Ireland might have achieved it to 98%, but Malawi might have achieved it to 30%. No country, this is the contention, no country would have achieved it to 100%. Every country has some distance to go to meet all of the goals. And therefore, we're emphasizing this collective march forward, as it were, and without any guilt attached or without any finger pointing, this is meant to be a single global effort. It's utopian, I'd be the first to admit that, but for the moment, it has seized the imagination and the World Summit or the UN Summit last month certainly expressed a huge degree of commitment and enthusiasm, and it's now up to the rest of us to find ways of keeping that momentum going. Over the next few months, when it will, in practical terms, require some effort, there was never going to be overnight implementation, but we will need to show in a few months that in practical terms, all governments have begun to implement it. David, thank you. Thank you.