 An extraordinary panel here today to talk about the new development agenda for Africa. We're in the middle of a very important year around the world, many consider it a once in a generation year, where there are a lot of big events. 2015 is of course the culmination of the Millennium Development Goals, and there is a process underway to finalize what are now being called the Sustainable Development Goals, with a major summit of heads of state in September 2015. That will likely set an agenda through to 2030, and we have two other big events this year. One happens next month in Addis Ababa, the once per generation financing for development conference, and of course in December the culmination of what many consider a generation long negotiation on climate and the COP process in Paris to set a new climate regime for the world. So this is a big year with many people, countless people involved across countless dimensions, and we have leaders on the panel today who have been involved of course in their own extraordinary ways across this whole effort. One thing I will just flag at the outset is we are hoping this is an interactive discussion. There is a online webcast of the conversation. This is Twitter enabled, so we'll take some questions from the room or online if anyone is interested on hashtag SDG, like Sustainable Development Goal, and we'll see if anything comes from the room, and also I'm certain we'll have some live questions, but also for those who might want to use the hashtag SDG please do, and we'll make this as global a conversation as possible. But just to introduce the panelists first, next to me we of course have Paul Pullman, the CEO of Unilever, who's been very active in these conversations through many capacities over the past several years. We have Dr. Ngozi, who's of course Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iwiala, who's the recently liberated Minister of Finance from Nigeria, so he's quite happy to have this new role in life I think. We of course have Mr. Jabu Mabusa, who's the Chairman of the Telcom Group, and of course a long time business leader in the region, no stranger to any of you. And of course we have at the end the leader of UN Women, Dr. Fumzile Mlabo Nguka, who is of course an eminent political leader, previously a community leader in this country for many years and we're thrilled to have such a tremendously talented and dedicated group here. One of the things that's so interesting, just to share some framing thoughts as we dive into this conversation, is that the world has changed so much and there are so many lessons from the past 15 years of the Millennium Development Goals. But the challenges of course are evolving quickly too. So Africa has had its own transformation in many ways in its economy. It's had a sustained period of long-term growth. It's had dramatic transformations in the health sector. I recently did a calculation that roughly three quarters of the extra lives saved just among children alone around the world are in Africa. The progress is tremendous in terms of what's been happening and what so many sectors have been leading. We've seen progress in agriculture. We've seen countries like Malawi change the global conversation and how to think about smallholder agriculture. But we of course have evolving frontiers. We have the jobs issues. We have youth employment issues. We have the environmental strains that have been the flip side of some of this progress. We have much more private investment. Much more recognition of the need for private investment to keep growing. We have the complexities of the global economy and the local economy and how it can all grow together. So this is a big, heavy, complex agenda. And very interesting to think about how each of us can, you know, support the next steps of Africa's dynamic future. And to that end, we thought it would be interesting just to start by asking the panelists what's the one thing that they each think the sustainable development goal agenda could most helpfully mean to Africa. In this next frontier, what would be the greatest victory or greatest success that this might bring to such a dynamic region with such complex challenges ahead of it? So maybe Paul, if you wouldn't mind kicking us off with that. Okay. I think the main opportunity, if you just look at it at a macro level, is that if we really would work the goals, let's take the 70 goals as a starting point and we would really live up to the spirit of those and try to implement them and hold each other accountable and responsible for that implementation, then it truly will be the first and last time that we have to deal with poverty in this world. It will truly mean eradicating poverty. And this part of the world is obviously most in need of that. If you look at the millennial development goals of the last 15 years, then the gap that has been created, despite its enormous success, because after all, it has achieved its objective of halving the number of people living below the poverty line. But the gap between this region of the world unacceptably and the rest of the world has simply increased. So it's an opportunity to re-address that balance. This region has fallen behind on job creation, has fallen behind on poverty alleviation, has fallen behind relatively to the rest of the world on issues of food security. So the biggest thing that we can see implementing these sustainable development goals first and foremost is eradicating poverty in an irreversible way. The second thing that is related to that is to do it in a sustainable way. It is increasingly clear to more and more people that climate change is the other side of development, human development. The poorest of the poor, especially again in this region, which will be the most exposed to climate change, will affect the poor again. So it's not surprising, as you rightfully said, that in this year we both do the COP 21 in December and the SDGs in September, because they're basically two sides of the same coin. So if we can not only alleviate poverty, but can do that in a more sustainable and equitable way, i.e. addressing especially the issue of climate change, we really can be proud of what we've achieved. If we feel that, it's tough to explain that to the future generations. Mgozi, you fought many of these battles from the international system side, of course, from the domestic side in Nigeria and have so much experience on the multi-dimensional nature of this for Africa. How do you see the great opportunities here? I think one opportunity for me, and we were both on the high-level panel with Paul on this, is I know it's going to surprise people that one thing this new SDGs will do for Africa is delivering the universality of these goals. Under the MDGs, there was a bit of a feeling that this was being done to Africa, you know, the pursuit of these goals. You know, the world was trying to help Africa, to achieve this and achieve that. What I've heard from many young people, in the new way the SDGs have been approached, has been much more grassroots, much more collaborative, much more universal. And so that's delivering dignity, because the goals apply to countries all over the globe. So already we are delivering that and giving young people a sense that it's not just this continent, but all the other continents that are involved. That's very important for them to really absorb. And I think just adding to what Paul said, I think what the SDGs will do, the SDGs pull out and buttress the Africa's own objectives and goals and results. In the Africa 2063 report of the AU, in order to deliver the kind of growth and development that this continent needs, we will have to do many of the things that are in the SDGs. So the SDGs reinforce, buttress, and keep attention on those very things that we want to do for ourselves. And I think that this is very important for the continent. It makes ownership of this much more important for us. Jabu, from the business side, as a local leader for so long in the private sector, how do you see this global conversation hitting home? I think the first observation to make is Africa is no longer the same as it was 15 years ago. Just in context, this is going through a huge transformation to give you a scale of this. Africa's population is forecasted to double by 2050. The GDP from $2 trillion to $5 trillion by 2050. Consumer spending to move from 5, to be 5-fold from $1 trillion to $5 trillion in 2050. So what you're facing going forward, you cannot longer use the same methods that you used 15 years ago. So we need both scale and speed. And secondly, from business, I think what we need, we need inclusive growth. Inclusive growth that is inclusive of African indigenous entrepreneurs. Inclusive of youth, inclusive of local players, inclusive of regional players, inclusive of women, but also it's well and good that we are now so attractive as a continent to foreign direct investment. But as important is accessibility of those opportunities to local indigenous African business people and also an African-to-African business transactions. Fumzile, what do you see as the great success that's on the horizon? One of the first things to say, so could you just pull the mic a bit closer? I think one of the first things to say is not just about Africa, but about the world, is that we're the first generation with a real possibility to end poverty. So that is huge for Africa. If we can deliver that, because we need it more than anyone else. We also are the first generation with a serious possibility to move the gender agenda significantly and to address the underlying structural issues that make gender inequality re-care. We have worked as hard as we have in the last decades addressing issues of gender, but it's quite worrying that there are just some stubborn things that are refusing to go away. In the SDGs for the first time, we have included things like unpaid care work. That's always been something that's lost for the lefties and the hardcore feminists. The fact that this is an issue that Member States now are embracing as a problem that suppresses the development of women and girls means that we're getting deep into understanding the structural issues that retain gender inequality. Also in the SDGs, gender mainstreaming has been institutionalised. Unlike in the MDGs, where we had goal three that focused on women and girls, and within goal three there were two issues. It was access to education and leadership and equality. In the SDGs, we have a standalone goal that addresses women and girls with a number of big issues. Violence against women, which we didn't have in the MDGs, and we regret that we did not have that because it's such a big issue. It has habits, cultural habits that work against women such as FGM and forced marriages. It has women's economic empowerment. It has leadership. It has reproductive rights and reproductive health. So the goal is much deeper, but in addition to that, there is gender mainstreaming and we have to address the issues of women in every goal. So it's certainly much more comprehensive. The goals are not very strong on rights. And I think this is something that in Africa we have to be concerned about because we do have a challenge of ensuring that human rights are universally respected. I'm just looking. We have some questions that have come in using the hashtag and there's one but I think it's a very common one. I'd love to get the panel's views. Polis Project said SDGs are set at the global level but we need local adoption for them to succeed. How can this be achieved? I think this is a big question right now. The SDGs are set at the global level but they need local adoption to succeed. How can this be achieved? And I think there's a sub theme to this and we've seen it in some of the public debates and media coverage lately. There are so many goals, so many targets being proposed. It's just too big to be implemented. There are other people who say on the other side, well, the world is complicated. You can't boil it down too much. Everyone has their piece to play or to cover. And so how do you see this in terms of translating from the big global to the practical? Maybe Ngozi is the recently liberated minister. You have the freshest perspective on that. Actually I think Paul and I can talk about this. I say that I feel somewhat differently about the SDGs and the MDGs. When the SDGs were being put together, it wasn't given from on high. Since we're involved in the process, we actually when met grassroots tried to reach out both through the social media and electronic media but also meeting with youth in countries, trying to get their views, you know, taking questions, having people dissect what it meant and it was there that the issue of governance, the youth of Africa that we met at various times in various ways said, if governance, we didn't have it in the MDGs but somehow within these goals, accountability, good governance should come in. Also financing. You know, financing came later. You know, this should be put in as something that we have to think about up front. So I'm saying all this to say that, yes, it is global but there was a big attempt made to also have grassroots taking up of these goals. So when you now bring it back to countries, I think the goals should be taken and debated in each country. Before you make it stick, the ownership has to be cemented. So I think both from the leadership of the countries and from even the federal agencies who work in these countries from civil society I think civil society will be crucial in disseminating these goals that these goals ought to, once they are adopted, taken, debated, owned, customized because they have to be delivered at country level. And a framework for monitoring the results should be put in place and our young people should be engaged in the monitoring. That is what is going to make the goals real and hold people accountable for delivery. Yeah, no, I would totally echo that. You know, I was in the camp having worked with Saengosi on the 10 goals. We had the aid, we came to the 10, we had a lot of debates, what do we put under one and what do we put under the other because 10 we sort of can remember. But you know, you stop anybody in the street and I'm talking about the 99.9% of the people they don't know the 8 goals either I put us all to the test here and if you have 8 or 10 goals or 17 goals, it's not really important. What is important is that you cover the right areas. You're talking here about a moral compass for the world and that you get it right what you try to fix. And what we find is now that it is a global agenda as Saengosi said, and not specifically an agenda for a certain part of the world, you will find that some countries put more emphasis on some goals, other countries put more emphasis on other goals and I think it would be wasted energy now at the rates that we are between now and September to still continue to debate how many goals we should have. Instead we would be much better off spending all of our energy on figuring out how we are going to measure these goals who are we going to hold accountable and what are some of the transformative partnerships that we need to make these goals come alive. That's what I call positive energy. Now so this is what we should be doing and then the implementation obviously is a hybrid of global, local and regional if you want to. It's not surprising that the financing for development conference is in others. It's probably the first time that Africa had in its own territory, I have to look at you, but in its own territory a financing conference and that's going to be absolutely crucial on how the governmental process works in unlocking the financial mechanisms to make these goals possible. That's probably the most important meeting actually in this and at the base of the success of the SDGs because if there's no financing behind it, it will be difficult to achieve all of these objectives. Last point is what Ngozi said. I have never seen such a reach out effort on anything I've been involved in or read about. When the website came up, the world we want, we had over 10 million African youth especially commenting what they wanted and how their world looked like and I tell you their ambitions were a hell of a lot better than when we were at their age and they've discovered long before that they don't want to just be part of that future, they want to actively create it, so that involvement of everybody is absolutely crucial. I think this point on the youth and the financing, maybe we can come back to in a moment, but this issue of the number of goals just personally having been involved with the MDGs from early days, as I've put it I've given a lot of speeches listing the eight goals and by number of them, I'm going to go off. So it's not just about the number of goals for discussion, it's about how they actually translate into local action. Well there's one goal, that is one goal is to eradicate property, you know, sustainable and equitable way. That's the goal and that we should keep in mind besides all the other things that we talk. I just want to touch on the issue of universality. If I just think of the United Nations we are a body that is supposed to enforce universal values for humanity and there are issues that are not just for developing world or for developing world, for instance the human rights. Rights must be respected, whether you are in the south or in the north so we have to hold each other accountable for respecting the rights of all individuals. And I think if I think about for instance the rights of women the arguments that in some parts of the world you can beat up a woman because it's a culture and then all of us can stand back and say I cannot intervene because it is the culture of that community. I mean there's limits to what you could allow sorry a local context to dictate what you regard as acceptable. So there are those things around which we have to embrace universality. If we think also about the environment there's lots of universal values there that we have to emphasize and this has to be true whether we are in the south or in the north we all need to have the same quality of environmental conditions but of course it's also important to domesticate and to fit the goals to the domestic context and that is where we begin to choose what we're going to emphasize. In Africa for instance we have to emphasize for instance what we're going to do to support young people in order for the issue of the demographic dividend to be a reality something that we've been talking about a lot but not doing enough about so we need to be on fast drive when it comes into an issue of that sort. In that way we will be balancing both the global and the universal but also being context specific. Javi do you have thoughts on this? How do we make it real? I think the observation I make is we've seen a lot of enthusiasm and at times that the risk of duplication a lot has been done but it's been very fragmented so I think we need to be more collaborative to get the kind of scale to have the impact that is required and also another observation is traditionally most of these issues from a police they were government driven I see we in an era now where there's more collaboration from the private sector private sector is more engaged now not only engaged in whinging and complaining it's more engaged now in crafting and identifying collectively the problem statement which it must be good for identifying the solutions. This point of the private sector and how it gets involved with the financing is also one of the big debates right now and it's one of the big topics leading up to Addis both on the real economy side and the investor side what are the ways that these communities can actively engage I'm curious maybe you're starting with Ngozi again on this in the Addis conference given that this is only six weeks away where do you see the victories that could really support Africa on the financing side what on the public and the private sector side well I think there may be two or three things that we have to seek to achieve in Addis I think the first big thing you noted is the fact that we're having the support on the conference last time the financing for the MDGs came as after and didn't quite come together now times are tougher the aid architecture has changed considerably and involves a lot more complexity than before also it doesn't involve as much money on the table yet in the private sector there's lots of liquidity that can be brought into financing development so I think Addis should seek to deliver two or three things that would help the continent let me start we are financing most of our own development with our own domestic resources so the first thing we Addis should deliver is where we need additional capacity to generate more domestic resources Addis should deliver that I've said before the OECD had made known that only 1% of of assistance is going to support strengthening of tax administrations and strengthening domestic capacity to deliver more revenues this could change Addis should deliver double that why is that important because those of us we need capacity to track things like profit base erosion profit shifting all the illegal transactions and legal and illegal that happen that take away revenues from our continent the African finance ministers had this study led by the OECD which showed that 60 billion is escaping the continent through some of these means what if we could deliver more in Addis that would help us track that money then we wouldn't need anybody to be giving us as much assistance so that's the first point let's double the amount of international assistance that goes to building capacity for strengthening tax revenue collection to get a clear commitment you know to get countries to agree to stick to the promises they made for ODA some countries have done it the Scandinavian countries have been wonderful the UK what about the others yes it's a tough world I think the third thing is Addis should deliver the risk mitigation mechanisms that can bring in private capital into many of these projects not one source can finance them all not aid not government resources not the privacy all three have to come together in blended financing mechanisms which we discussed here this morning but to make that happen we need to sit down and say what do we want in this blending and what are the risks that prevent the private sector from bringing in the capital the way they should they want to do it but they are facing several risks can we in Addis discuss these things can help so those are three very clear things in my mind that we need to achieve if we deliver those or map out a clear path to doing that then we will unleash the resources that can help finance and back up the SDGs but remember that for the private sector it's not a charity thing so on the go to SDGs we have to identify what are those specific things that earn a return that they would be attracted to infrastructure for instance which underpins so much of what to make the SDGs successful just a reminder hashtag is SDG for anyone who wants to tweet us a question and we're going to open up to the audience shortly for live questions I think we have some mics in the room but maybe just on this question Paul I think I know you've been quite thoughtful about how this Addis discussion can converge with a company like yours in the broader business community you know the partnership and the original millennial development goals was an equal afterthought and that became the last goal now it's embedded in all of the goals in clearly realizing that if we want to achieve these ambitious objectives we need to work differently and partnership is just not with only the private sector it's with civil society, NGOs governments and all that what I talk what people realized now is that in the emerging markets actually about 60% of the GDP 80% of the financial flows and 90% of the job creation so if we really want to continue on this path of progress and prosperity we need to get that quality growth by actively involving business unfortunately Addis doesn't have the business community actively involved which is a shame because the main in light of the western world having their own huge economic problems and deficits it is indeed highly likely that the money will not flow anymore certainly not after Addis and that we need to use that money that is there whatever the money is the green growth fund or the red plus or the 0.7 development funds that we have to use that smartly to leverage that up with the private sector to scale that up with a factor of 10 or 20 and there are many examples frankly where it has been done already and we should leverage those examples the the thing that we need to do in the coming 15 years especially in this part of the world by the way where you have an enormous population growth enormous urbanization enormous need for infrastructure to develop enormous need for energy we have a unique opportunity to design that right and the 90 trillion that we need to invest in the world in the next 15 years to do that around energy land use and cities and a big chunk of that is in this part of the world and the private sector increasingly sees that as a very attractive opportunity provided these framework conditions are in place to invest and our point on top of that is if you invest it right i.e. taking climate mitigation actions do sustainable agriculture stop the deforestation etc which is increasingly costing us more money but if you invest it right in the future too you can have economic growth you can have development and you can mitigate climate change and this continent has all the elements including an entrepreneurial workforce including a young population that is eager to actually leapfrog this and could find itself in a very competitive situation if it does it well in the next 15 or 20 years and Jabu one side of this we talked about a little bit before is the technology side of nations right now one of the big debates is how to promote diffusion of technology access to technology especially in Africa where there are so many firms that would benefit from better technologies as a leader in that area how do you see these global conversations and how they might help build the technological dynamism of african industry i think as we as we embrace technology and what technology can offer us we also need to be mindful that there could be unintended consequences we cannot stop advancement but at the same time we've got to recognize the following that in an interconnected world where which is very fast if you are not moving forward you're actually going backwards you're not standing still we need to recognize that but that said in this language of disruptions we've got to see how you disrupt the disruptions to try and achieve a situation if i can give you an analogy we you have the likes of me that are either no tech or low tech you've got people that are high tech you need to almost have two streams one that deals with those that are high tech to move and not leave just drop a curtain and say those that are no tech low tech that's it tough there's a new world that we're going into an example was made at lunch today about the effect of technology to jobs you've moved from manual labor to mechanization we're into robotics now unless you take that whole unemployed people with you you either honestly you have to have a new world where only those that are technologically save you will live but we know that's not the reality so there may well be a need to have a targeted but isolated sectors to say this is one that almost you want to have a legacy type of a world and a future looking type of a world and when you think about just to pull some of these threads together we have this question of youth and this continent of course has the largest share of youth of any region in the world you have this notion of how to make the goals real and you have these evolving challenges of say the gender discussion maybe if we were to package that together how do we help the youth of this continent or how does one or how could this continent take on the notion of the youth owning something like the gender targets and goals how do we make that real over the next several years I mean if we think about inclusive growth it's about we talking numbers the number of people that are not on the right side of the argument these are women and youth in the large majority if we are targeted to those two constituencies we would be moving a lot of humanity forward and we know some of the problems and the profiles that are there so we could actually have targeted interventions for those target group so in relation for instance to using technology especially in the context of sub-Saharan Africa where people buy in large in countries where broadband is expensive etc I think from a policy level I think governments need to look at technology as a proper policy not as a luxury and I think sometimes because we develop a lot of our ICT policy pre-mobile technology we have ICT policies that belong to the time of the desktop and the laptop for that matter and we need to move the technology so that when we have a technology policy that is proper it relates to a tablet because as Jabu was saying it is if you are not moving forward and you are standing still you are moving backwards the risk if you are not targeted to the poor and to the young people about technology those that can afford an iPad will be over-advantaged and they will be incenting and those that are in Guakwa will stay out of their equation and will move backwards so if we don't target the most rural with the tablets we risk making the divide it can be an equalizer but it can also be a divider and for both men and women and youth we need to be able to target them in a more specific way very interesting we would like to open it up to the room at least there are questions that people might have just by a show of hands I think we have a roving mic so if anyone would like to ask a question I just ask that you please introduce yourself and keep it brief and make sure it ends with a question mark so up in the front row maybe to start thank you I am Dion Foster from the University of Stellenbosch just down the road here one of the topics that interests me particularly is that Africa is a very religious continent and we have a widespread of religious communities and movements what role can the religious sector play in the SDGs great question and maybe there is one other maybe we can take a couple and see what people would like to take on thank you my name is Duprasim Chayna from Amnesty International so you have to hold the mic a little closer to your mouth ok Duprasim Chayna Amnesty International my name is really a comment firstly to really support what Mr. Labudan Rukai has been saying about the exclusion or the right slight nature of SDGs that if we are going to go forward it's really critical that we put human rights at the centre of the development process that means we have to change our language I continue to hear inclusive growth inclusive growth but I never hear inclusive development if we think about inclusivity at the growth level and not at the initial development process the outcomes will be so minimal to the development process that we are looking for and when we say we want to put rights at the centre of development I think we really need to embrace that on the continent when we say this freedom of expression we must have that we must also have freedom after expression many people who are free to speak find themselves in very difficult circumstances and we end up helping them and that undermines the development process and I will put these two messages across thank you that's a handful right there just to think about these questions of faith and the role of faith in these conversations and a lot of people on this panel who have thought about that I know but also this notion of inclusive development the rights-based I think for the skeptics just to try and put a fine point on it some of the skeptics will say we have a rights-based approach to development for the advocates they say there's no other way than to achieve development unless it's rights-based how do you think about these issues and how they can make the best progress anyone want to jump in on any of them let me I cannot but agree with inclusive development but I think I see that more as the result of the outcome of what would happen when you include people as I say in identifying what the issues and together work with them in determining the solution the effect has to be development so I'm seeing this inclusivity to result in a developed type of outcome I think it is faith-based organizations they certainly are part of community they certainly part of society and indeed when we talk about localizing these goals or future goals that would of course I mean we include all spheres of society including faith-based organizations I think faith-based organization and faith in general is actually very important for the quality of the development that we are talking about because faith is very much responsible for some of the most devastating stereotypes that work against development especially in relation to women to the extent that faith-based organization and religion in general can actually play a role in talking about the removal of some of the stereotypes sometimes these are the stereotypes that have led to some of the conflicts that we see in our continent extremists use religion and sometimes the progressive scholars do not speak loud enough to address people who are abusing religion so you actually need ordinary people in the pews also to speak very loud and to protect the value system that is important to it most of which is actually pro-development and not to allow a few extremists to hijack the agenda if I just think about for instance your ISIS your Boko Harams right now if they are saying that part of their faith and their doctrine is against women controlling their body and education and the rest of us who are religious people if we are Muslim we do not challenge that in the loudest voice possible we are actually taking away an opportunity for us to develop a handful of extremists to drive the agenda and the impact of that is that indeed in many parts of the world to be a woman and a girl is more dangerous than being a soldier because you are part of the collateral damage that the extremists want to destroy and on the issue of rights I agree you cannot have growth without development if it is inclusive it is exactly disagree in the sense that you need to have I am talking about his head because you need the issue of rights of development front and center of the process because there is just a danger that if you think that you are going to have the development trickled down at the end you may not get there so I think it is safer to actually have it out of the process right from the beginning and just yeah please I just wanted to follow up on the issue of the the role of religion I want to agree with what Pumsile has said but to say that from a practical viewpoint the gentleman said that this is such a religious continent everybody believes belongs to some congregation whatever faith there may be and therefore we can actually get a religious community to play a very active goal in the implementation of the SDGs I was looking at it differently how much were they involved when we were doing the MDGs how can we get the churches the mosques the faiths looking at these goals and seeing that this is what is going to help us deliver a better life for people on this continent and actively promoting and talking about this as part of what they do in church now people spend their whole day and their whole life in church in most of our countries the church provides everything now it is from birth to death to marriage to everything so this is a good place to put these SDGs and ask them to promote the SDGs to be active in helping to deliver the SDGs you know faith based organizations can be deliverers of service a lot of implementation of the SDGs will require services to be better delivered to the population you cannot get it especially for issues of maternal health child health water and sanitation this they can help us the third part where I think the faith based organizations and the religious community can help and being you know holding the feet to the fire of the communities they are in you know not getting in cozy with those who are ruling the place but being a strong moral voice to say are you really can you be held accountable for delivering these goals and are you doing that and what are the results that we get in the results we want so I was thinking of that I think it's an excellent question that we ought to activate this community of in this religious sector to help us actively do this and on the inclusive growth or inclusive development I will feel included when I am empowered to be in control of my own life so all those who are not this inclusion for me is that we are living in our growth process on the continent we are leaving people out they don't have the power to control their own lives so whether you call it growth or you call it development to me it doesn't matter it is am I empowered to have control over myself once I can do that and economically deliver for myself if the kind of growth being promoted in my country does not deliver that and I sat down the quality of growth on the continent is not what we want it to be we are growing but it is leading to more inequality and people are being left behind so fixing that by looking at how this growth can create jobs and empower girls and women in particular like Pumzile said but even our men because if there too are not empowered the women will not be able to be empowered I think that a lot of the talk on rights and gender should be addressed to the men also because if you don't get your boys knowing what is the right thing they will not promote rights for the girls and for women when they grow up but giving me that control whether economically or socially or health wise I think that is when growth is inclusive thank you this development agenda is an agenda of the common good it is an agenda of putting your own interest on the back states and focusing on the interest of others we are all fine all the people that are in my part of the world all the people that attend these conferences don't have to deal with a child dying before the age of 5 or going to bed hungry or not having access to clean water or sanitation so if we want to put this world back on track it is a little bit getting the lessons from the lack of morality of the crisis we have just created at a global level and putting the interest of others ahead of our own that is face to some extent there is enough evidence now that we can have hard numbers to say that it makes sense that the cost of not acting is becoming higher than the cost of acting but at the same time there is an element of face I was very encouraged we were in Rome last week the Pope is going to issue an encyclical very soon now there are 1.3 billion Catholics in this world happens to be a big group of people fortunately majority of them still listen to him it seems the Encyclical on climate change will send a message to a big group of people other religions will undoubtedly join at the same time he was telling us that he has committed definitely to be in September in New York no better opportunity with the heads of state to also have the major responsible like any responsible business responsible governments have responsible face leaders there echoing the message of support basically leveraging their networks much like we leverage our networks our value chains, our people and our resources leverage their networks to make this come alive there is no better organization in the world that fights for poverty than most of the face based organizations on the second point this is not about equality the world will never be equal but this is about creating equal opportunities if everybody just has the chance to develop themselves to the fullest potential it might still work differently but the agenda is made to create equal opportunities and for equal opportunities you need equal rights sexual reproductive rights rights to education if you want to rights to employment if you want to access to legal systems still 4 million people in the world not having access that is what these millennial development goals hopefully are trying to address to create a playing field for everybody irrespective of gender, background or race of equal opportunity and that is the essence of unlocking the key to poverty alleviation one of the interesting things just building on this comments and insights is that the inclusion of so-called goal 16 for peace and justice has dramatically expanded the global conversation around how to think about the global agenda for development just the inclusion of one goal alone which was the product of many years of debate has I think broadened the tent in a way that lets everyone feel a new type of ownership of this global conversation it's one of the not unintended consequences but notable consequences that's already come together I just want to see by show of hands if we have time for maybe one or two more quick questions there's a young woman up here please I'll go to the mic here alright we'll let you go and then we'll grab you a second but if you could be brief then please sir thank you my name is Peter I'm with Becton Dickinson my question is around financing or the funding aspects of this SDGs and Millennium Development Goals Mr. Pullman mentioned earlier that the private sector is still outside even going to the I this meeting I think it's a it's probably very important to sort out you know the funding aspect of this before launching basically avoid the rush now by making sure that funding is sorted out you know before implementation so that we're not re-looking at funding five years down the line because some of the challenges and the reasons why we didn't achieve Millennium Development Goals has been also related to funding thank you so funding how do we get that funding teed up as quickly as possible please thank you my name is Jamal Keldwally the Institute of Social Studies in the Netherlands University of Lagos Natura now Africa is the only region that actually has a legally binding right to development article 22 of the African Charter what exactly does that right mean in practical terms for the African peoples and what are the obligations that African governments feel they owe to the African peoples in that legally binding right thank you right thank you maybe we can just take or maybe have one oh sorry we'll go super quick and Maryam Jame please Maryam my name is Maryam Jam I'm a CEO of Spot 1 Global Solutions in the UK you all have influences in making sure that every single African understand the sustainable development goals what will you do today if you had an influence to speak to a president or a citizen to make sure they understand all the goals or few of the goals to improve their lives great and one more right up here thank you my name is Brennan Cox from Save the Children so just to come back to that question that was asked at the start about the complexity of the framework so 17 goal framework I agree with a lot of the comments from the panel that it's not impossible but the danger is that it becomes a pick and mix approach that the governments take the goals that they like the goals that they're already doing something about and they ignore the more uncomfortable ones particularly those that are designed to have an impact on the poorest and most marginalized whether that's women whether that's youth whether that's children so how do we make sure that within this 169 goal sorry target framework we keep it universal and we keep it as something that's designed to be implemented in its entirety great so we have just summarized we have the financing questions how to get the money as quickly as possible how do we make the right to development mean something or what does it mean third is how do you finish with this last one how do you make this a really universal and comprehensive agenda as opposed to a menu that leads to shortcuts and then finally and maybe we'll have everyone answer this question what would you do if you could say one thing to a head of state or a citizen to make this real in the coming days so does anyone want to talk about the financing one yes okay I mean I agree with you I tried in my comments to address this that this financing for development conference coming before we go to discuss the SDGs has redressed the balance of what we had when we had the MDGs I just did not know that the business community has not been invited I think this has to be fixed as quickly as possible because the large pools of finance that we have out in the world the liquidity there is you know is going to come from the private sector so if we don't have them in the room as part of this discussion then that's going to be so maybe Pumsile can help us to tell the secretary general that something is missing and certainly there is enough for coming together just as a point of clarification I know and actually the forum is helping to convene that now for us but it says it's a separate business for and certainly I think the World Bank they were in the room when you made the comment in the other session so I think the message will go out we bring them in and I think we try to fix and get answers on the three areas that I laid out at the beginning clarity on that will help us going to New York to know that some of these mobilization of financial resources to help finance the NDGs will be there then quickly on picking and choosing goals I really want to touch on that I think these goals are meant to apply to everyone and to be implemented by every country so I don't think the luxury should be to pick and choose yes there are many but they will all deliver one result that Paul talked about why are we in there a result of lifting people who today have no means of livelihood and no control over their lives and lifting them to a level where they have dignity, they have control they have income so it is for everyone to implement and I think the way to get it done is through monitoring that is why I think that the active involvement of civil society in every country the active involvement of the young people they wanted to be able to monitor this goal is what will stop governments from picking and choosing because all the goals are important but if we don't have people you know laying out how governments are performing how countries that was a good thing with the NDGs we had monitoring reports that reported out on how each country was performing and you could see where did Africa lie which goals was it not meeting which specific countries were holding it back we have to follow a similar approach in order to make sure that there is accountability on all the goals so we can't pick and choose thank you and just as a time check I'm going to fail moderator class soon but we have just about two minutes left so apologies if each of you maybe just one minute max to really try and take whatever piece of these questions you think most pertinent I just do a very quick one I don't think it's important that we all know all the goals it's important that whatever goals we can focus that we can influence that we will actually drive those for a company like mine it might be agriculture make it sustainable or small holder farmers or the wash program but you cannot do everything and so I think it's better that people out there have a passion for a certain goal and try to drive it than trying to be a jack of all trades having said that we need to create and that is currently part of the thing is this transparency accountability measurement so that we can see and there's enough opportunities and ideas out there how to do this the second point very quickly is at the end of the day we can sit here and talk about it in an abstract level but what really counts is what are the projects that make it come alive and we have two things that I would like to stress in the last minute the first one is involving the young and letting their voices be heard now to the people that are trying to make these goals is incredibly important project everyone is being put together to try to mobilize one billion use they especially have an event here in Africa for that reason it has gotten an enormous response but it is the young crying out for responsible challenging and ambitious goals the second thing is that from the business community with the UN global compact GRI and others we are trying to galvanize enough companies sectoral and include others in there to have tangible projects that make these goals come alive it's nice to talk about creating jobs but it's different to say we are going to create two or three million jobs for small holder farmers in this and this and this country behind the grow Africa initiative it's nice to say we shouldn't cut the forest but it's better to create the tropical forest alliance and get every company to sign up and say we don't buy anything anymore if it comes from illegal deforestation we can ask every company to implement the rugby framework on rights skills and opportunities all these things have to be now come alive well creating this piece of paper in September doesn't mean anything it's like with the climate change negotiations signing the negotiations in December doesn't mean anything the only thing that counts is how good are we to implement these things as fast as possible so get to the practical side as soon as possible and I hope we will have the next forums to really focus on that to galvanize these changes I'm so glad you mentioned the agriculture by the way because obviously so central to Africa's future it's the the number one source of labor in the country in the continent pardon me Chavo maybe just one comment about an example of what we've been able to do in the funding space the original business council for Africa three years ago we were requested by the African Union Commission to look at some of the strategic infrastructure initiatives as part of the PIDA arrangement what we've managed to do is to mobilize a business working group that sought technical support from the African Development Bank and DBSA through that we've been in a position to have gotten some of the PIDA projects like the Central Corridor to be at a stage that we as at yesterday we've been able to hand back to NEPAT something that can be replicated that can be scaled that can be done in other parts of the continent for us that has we have been told today that as at the 26th of March the heads of states have agreed and have accepted this and the fund has conference to place the following day and as at yesterday there was about nine billion dollars that has already been committed so yes there is examples of what can be can be done even in sourcing funding but that is if we are involved at the initial stages of those. Fusele, last word to you yeah well we cannot achieve anything if we do not address these funding issues it's absolutely very important and the combination of ODA, private sector domestic preferential trade arrangements all of it is necessary including addressing things like illicit trade that takes away I mean illicit cash outflows that take away money from the continent so we've got to engage these things to actually work together I am afraid the question on the right to development that we supposed to have in Africa it's actually not as impossible I think as we would like it to be and this is something maybe to engage our leaders about and if I had one wish on this issue it would be to ask leaders to lead and to make sure that they inspire all of us and young people and they also exemplary to the extent possible so that we really can look up to them and and really gets the inspiration because many of these things are actually doable there's a chance that we can do a lot. Thank you so much the panel I've just been taking notes of all the topics that have come up everything from tax collection human rights agriculture finance faith technology climate accountability gender youth funding and inclusion it's representative of how big this agenda is but I would just maybe let us finish on this point of inclusion I think the notion of everyone being part of this process is central to the global success and so everyone here is now included and the leadership needs to come from the leaders but also I think from all the forms of leaders in all parts of life and all parts of the world so thanks to all of you for your leadership in being part of this today and please join me in thanking the panel for their leadership and helping the world make things thank you so much thank you everyone thank you