 Why don't we start by me having the pleasure of welcoming you all to Sida. My name is Charlotte Petri Gonitzka, and I'm the director general here at Sida, and I'm very, very pleased to welcome you to this today's development talks on aid and our changing environment, and very honored and very pleased to see all guests here today. I know that many of you have traveled long distances to make this meeting today to participate in this joint event with our partners, UNU-Wider, Danida, and the researchers of the RECOM program. I'm also pleased to acknowledge that we have our development minister from Denmark, and we will have our development minister from Sweden here today joining this afternoon and for a panel discussion, so we know from before there's been a meeting this morning that there will be messages to our ministers, so it's going to be a fantastic afternoon. And many people from all over the world will also follow this meeting through webcast, and you are all very welcome. We are gathered here today because we care about global development, we care about global development, and we realize the strong links between development and our environment. To achieve sustainable development, we need knowledge not only on environmental change as such, but also knowledge on how the role of aid can and should be played in making the linkage even better and working for us. We are here today because we want to know more of what actually works. How should we develop our operations, our aid structures, the institutions, our international system overall? Research on aid is needed to form future policies, and we want to bridge the science on one side, the policy on the other side. We want to bridge the gap, make use of knowledge. To be of use, the knowledge generated by researchers must be shared with policy makers, aid officials like us, parliamentarians and other practitioners. And the support that we give to the RECOM programme is a means to this end, and please use the knowledge RECOM generates. There are plenty of ways to do that. The challenge of achieving sustainable development is urgent. We know that humans are the prime drivers of planetary change. We know that we are putting extreme pressure on food, energy and water resources. We also know that we need to act to protect the earth. We are risking the sustainable development goals for people. All people, rich and poor, and the planet, and the people living on the planet, and the planet, and the people, it goes hand in hand. Environmental sustainability and human wellbeing are linked and need to be tackled on a global scale through global partnerships based on integrated inclusive knowledge. We are pleased to see that another meeting we had today with Swedish Development Minister and our minister from Denmark around the Millennium Development Post, Millennium Development Goals report that's just been delivered to Ban Ki-moon, has an integrated approach to this as well, which was, as I understand, not a given when the process started. But more important for the work that we do, the implementers, is what happened here this morning. For those of us who couldn't join this morning, we should know that there has been a meeting with leading experts who have shared their in-depth research studies on aid initiatives that aim at achieving sustainable human development. They have shared their research on what has worked in aid, what has not worked so well, and what makes aid work. And how can aid be structured and implemented most efficiently in relation to environmental and climate change? And CEDA, being an implementing agency, we need to be able to draw conclusions from this research and use them in our operations. We need to be the experts on what works. We are expected to be an agency to go to. What does this imply? Well, it implies dialogue with the research community. It also implies facilitating the production and dissemination on research-based knowledge. Easy to say, much more has to be done. It also implies self-reflection and self-criticism. What can we, as donors, learn from research? And are we doing the right thing? Based on research results, how can we, together with our partners, contribute to efficient governance and support environmental objectives in our partner countries? Important for us. With these words, you are waiting there, aren't you? I once again wish you very welcome to this meeting, and I leave the floor to our partner and co-host, Professor Finne-Tarp. Wait a minute, because you have a title here. Director of the World Institute for Development Economic Research, UNU-Wider, as a research institute, part of the United Nations University. Finne will tell you more about the RECOM programme and the particular topic on aid and our changing environment. Welcome, and thank you, and over to you, Finne. Okay. Thank you very much, Elada, for these warm, welcoming words. I first have a duty and a pleasure of saying welcome, first of all, to the Danish Development Minister. I appreciate very much your coming. We're supposed to say honourable minister and so on, but I think you understand that I mean that very warmly. Then also, welcome to all of those who were not here in the morning. I hope that we will this afternoon be able to bridge the gap, bridge the gap between what we did in the morning, and then point in towards what Elada was exactly referring to, namely the policy arena. Also, a very warm welcome to those of you who have been sticking with us throughout. Make sure that you correct, if we do not synthesize correctly this afternoon, and what will happen is that Sharon will continue to moderate. Channing and I, we will first give our understanding, our take on a number of the discussions that we've had. We have tried to stick out our neck and say how we think, how we read a number of these debates. That's why we do call it a draft position paper. It is to suggest that this is maybe not the final say, but we have been working on trying to come out with a number of messages. And they are now put out for debate, for interaction, for discussion. And today is the first time that we will present that, and we will then be working on refining that as the coming months pass. So welcome everybody.