 So many people have been speaking about the climate crisis, but the real question is why is it that we're still not acting at the scale and speed that is necessary? For 150 years, we've built up a world based on the assumption that we can exploit the planet for free and it translates to very dramatic impacts happening right as we speak. The climate crisis is a threat multiplier, which means it exacerbates existing inequities in our society. We need to remember we're on the same planet and this is the planet that we need to make sustainable for the whole of humanity. Making much faster progress toward all 17 sustainable development goals is the best pathway to adjust the future for all and public-private partnerships will be absolutely crucial to this transition. We know that this transition will require a fast adoption of a lot of new technologies and the question today is how to find the appropriate way to finance this technology. Younger generations are demanding a sense of purpose. They want to look at companies and say, I am investing with you all for this reason. The solutions are there. What we need is governments to regulate, to invest and we need business to act with values. History will look at us, people, politicians, corporate leaders. These times require not only solutions but speed. There is nowhere else to look than the mirror. We are the ones that need to do this. Good morning from New York. Good morning from the studio of the World Economic Forum on the occasion of the main week, the high level week of the United Nations Journal Assembly. As part of the Sustainable Development Impact Meetings of the World Economic Forum that we are convening here throughout the week with different coalitions of purpose that are working across the 17 SDGs. Today we are here for a specific discussion around how we can really accelerate partnerships and new models of cooperation in terms of helping the most vulnerable around the world in different geographies and it is in the framework of an initiative of the World Economic Forum Humanitarian and Resilience Investing which started in 2019 but is entering a new chapter also here during the week. Just to say that of course the stakes could not be higher. We know 50% of the 17 SDGs are marking week progress, 30% are stalled or even reversing and you can feel here in all the discussions this week that there is really this hunger to accelerate, to find innovation, creativity, find things that are actually working and scale them up and this is really the spirit also of this initiative since its inception but I do have to say that I think now we are entering a new chapter where this is even much more pronounced. I am joined here for this discussion with leaders from different stakeholder groups of this ecosystem exercise that we have within the initiative so I'd like to welcome them here namely Peter Maurer who is the president of the Board of the Basel Institute on Governance in Switzerland. You're also a former head of ICRC. You're also co-chairing the Humanitarian Resilience Investing Initiative of the World Economic Forum. Thank you for joining us Peter. Minister Anne Beate Tvindereim, Minister of International Development of Norway and you're also a co-chair of the initiative. Thank you so much for joining. Runa Alam, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder Development Partners International in the United Kingdom, a major private equity firm focusing on Africa. Welcome. Thank you. And last but not least Peter Benhur Nyeko, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Manduli's Energy. You're based in Uganda. I want to welcome to you. Thank you. So we'll have a discussion here. We have about 30 minutes for the discussion and so I'd like to start with you Peter if I if I can. I said we've been at this now for some years since 2019 and so it would be great if you could introduce a little bit the initiative in detail what we are trying to do how have we evolved and then I will go back to you on this specific thing we're doing here today which excites me because we're trying to really accelerate things as well. So over to you. I think in 2019 when we started with this initiative there was a general recognition that humanitarian crises were increasing that the combination and complexities of war, conflict, poverty, climate change would leave us with an important amount of humanitarian challenges and we couldn't leave these challenges just to humanitarian organizations and to humanitarian response and therefore from its inception the basic idea was to bring multiple stakeholders together and to see how we can capitalize on each one's strength and insights and how we could connect these actors in order to have bigger impact and market based impact joining the sort of eight dimension which of course was always preponderant in humanitarian crises and I think with the acceleration of problems that we have recognized this week here in New York I think at highest levels there is an increased necessity to change gear and to recognize that we can just do business and continue the way we have done business in the past and none of the actors and stakeholders humanitarian organization foundation states multilateral institution investors ventures all of us needed somehow to have a different mindset and to come together in a different way and in a different modus operandi and as you alluded to I think this is a little bit the fork in the moment event where we do believe that the call to action comes in because it signals that we have understood that we need to change gear thank you and so if I could just follow up on that so you mentioned the call to action we had a an in-depth meeting here with I think it was at least 70 people in the room where we discussed that length what we can do with this call to action so we're releasing it as we speak also to the media through other channels but if I could go to you Peter to say what the call to action actually is what we're trying to achieve with this I think three things first and foremost one I alluded to it's really about connecting actors in an ecosystem in order to create better impact for people and we are talking about basically the bottom two billion which are fragile and in difficult circumstances the second comes out of the consultations we had in the work towards the call to action and it is the recognition that today when we look at the private sector it's still focusing first and foremost on financial impact and financial impact doesn't do the trick as the market can't do the trick we need somehow a more comprehensive way of looking at impact and we need to have a common grammar on how we measure and how we assess impact and the third issue is really the recognition that at the present moment we have in all the efforts which are done already we have still insufficient transparency on what is actually achieved what is done and in order to create a market you need transparency and I think that's sort of summarizing almost two and a half years of work of consultations of recognizing from the different stakeholders that we need it still to do the plumbing the hard work to come to a common framework a common language a common understanding on how we deliver impact for people in order to change the dynamics in which we are today thank you so much peter to really lay this out so clearly and and just to announce that the call to action aims to mobilize 10 billion dollars in commercial and catalytic capital to enable 1,000 local and international businesses to scale in frontier markets by 2030 and as you said actually it is of course the beginning of the road it's not the end of the road but it is a way to be very concrete about what we can do across all these sectors across all these stakeholders to move the needle and maybe even have a reach a tipping point where where then more scale can be achieved madam minister if I could go to you next Norway is such an important country overall when it comes to humanitarian assistance when it comes to development aid so we've done a little bit of mapping with peter of the initiative and and so also in this spirit of mapping I would just if you could just at the beginning maybe mention what are the key pillars of the work of Norway in this space overall but then why are you part of this specific initiative and why do you think it's so important to have these partnerships and innovate to create more resilience in these fragile communities you know the world is not on track to reach the sggs and we need to think out of the box as minister of international development I cannot this we have to stop doing business as usual and the big bus in the development community now is how to bring private capital on board for the big challenges and that is extremely important and there are many innovative mechanisms of de-risking guarantee schemes etc to get private capital on board but now we are talking about the frontier markets you know the humanitarian settings the really tricky challenging environments but if we are serious about leaving no one behind we need to think out of the box in these environments as well and here obviously ODA official development assistance will still play a major role but we need private initiative and private thinking into these settings because you have private companies have a different mindset like you said Peter the technologies the know house and let me mention one other big challenge that we are really you know dealing with and which is which is we were trying to wrap our minds around in in our in our work and that is the protracted crisis we know that humanitarian crisis are lasting for longer and longer and we have to think resilience and how to build sort of market based solutions from day one when we invest in these in these settings you know whenever I put Mandi on the table for humanitarian investments I'm investing in a frontier market but I need private business on board to do that in the right way so that it becomes resilient and that we start thinking long term rebuilding from day one I think that link also I think we've we've since we've been in touch with Peter quite a lot on this this link between the humanitarian field and the development field I think it's crucial if we were to achieve true resilience in these communities could I ask I here actually this week I had a conversation with an unnamed development finance entity and so we had a discussion about how do you for example de-risk investments in these communities and obviously there is there is a role for countries like yours there is a role for multinational actors but I think that person told me about the core of it is really the national governments and then the national institutions that they have in place to actually do this kind of work do are you because I'm sure you're partnering with these governments in your work do you see new approaches emerging and things we should know about in that sense I think I feel that there is a lot of traction from governments and from private sector but we need to talk to each other and sort of unlock the potential there and what we do from the Norwegian side and we have been doing for some years is that we through one of our directorates Innovation Norway are working with the humanitarian sector and the business the business segment to create sort of a common ground for how we can do this and you know in as a minister I have tools in my toolbox for de-risking for setting the scene so that it can be easier for private businesses to come on board in these these markets but sometimes we make it a little bit too difficult for each other so my appeal is you know let's work together don't be shy you know what do you need from public sector from governments to make it easier for you to take that risk and go into these markets and and we are seeing results on the ground but there is a huge potential out there and could you mention maybe some examples in some markets that that you are let's say very proud of in terms of some innovations that Norway has been able to put in place well we have one heartwarming example from Somalia for example where we threw a de-risking mechanism with the World Bank was able to get a Norwegian company to set up solar panels close to the Alshabab frontier in Baidoa in in in Somalia obviously a very very challenging market nonetheless it is possible if we work together no thank you so much Peter if I could go to you next the other Peter mentioned we have a whole ecosystem of entities or players that we're trying to put together to really think through this together connect the dots so you are an entrepreneur in the energy field based in Uganda and you operate in markets that are that are um fragile that were really the entrepreneurial spirit is really is really needed um and I was sitting next to you in the other discussion that we had and you sounded very upbeat and and you said that you see so many opportunities there in your work um in the environment that that you work so I would love if you could just share a little bit about your company and and yourself and then maybe the things that make you so upbeat and opportunity driven in your work thank you so much thank you so I'd like to begin by saying thank you to innovation Norway we're one of those examples we co-invested alongside innovation Norway in a project the other party on the on the non-profit side was actually UN FAO and you know during the pandemic we're able to de-risk our deployment of our technology and our solutions to live a clean cooking solutions to over 7500 households in refugee communities in Uganda so it is working my my self personally I'm from Uganda born in Uganda I was a refugee for 20 years I've lived in the camp environment but I've also kind of gone through and become an aerospace engineer on the other side and then now back in Uganda working with mandu list energy trying to figure out how to turn anything that's wasted wasted opportunity wasted products wasted ideas into what is more valuable and so it comes down to an approach really and what makes us so excited is you know um if you look at a conflict area or you know a challenging area like a refugee ecosystem there's always waste people eat and when they are cooked there's a waste from the cooking there when they grow crops there's a waste from the crops but the point is what we see as waste can be converted into what's useful not just for that community but also for the greater marketplace we we's electricity is one thing that can be generated from the residues of rural farmers but can be supplied to you know large industries um cooking waste from the kind of stove we work together on can produce a biochar that can be used as fertilizer or a coal replacement for cement plants so you find a source suddenly you have non-traditional players working together you know you've got a refugee household that's now supplying you know Fortune 500 company indirectly through their waste becoming an input you go into the hydrogen sector for example and you find that you can produce green hydrogen from agricultural waste so suddenly someone in a settlement or in a camp setting can have the dignity of knowing I am part of this leapfrog you know just by simply cooking a meal three times a day for my kids so that's what makes me so positive because I see that it has been done there's willingness to continue doing the right thing and what we see as the death of the scorching earth you know in in some of these these areas even from those ashes you know the little embers of inspiration and from that we're able to light fires of hope and and move brightly forward thank you so much and really congratulations on the work that you're doing it's really impressive can I because we are of course trying to scale this we're trying to learn from each other and part of that is also Franco exchange of opinions and so I think if we were to have systemic change and this step change we would need to have everyone kind of stepping up so are there things that are not working or things that could be done are there things you would ask either of the stakeholders that are here in the room but we don't have everyone here we don't have we don't have some of the DFIs some other other you know the the foundations are not here etc so it's a full ecosystem of players and so if we were to have this frank exchange what would be the things we should work on so that efforts of yourself or others could be scaled I thank you I would say the first thing to work on is you know paradigm shift you know and paradigm shift from looking at the base of the pyramid as an opportunity to lift up the plateau that's that's the first thing you know and when the plateau is lifted up everyone wins and then secondly to look at the people the base of the pyramid as an opportunity to realize some partnerships some synergies some some some ideas mapping out a refugee community and figuring out where are the ideas there you know where is the talent um you know and and and and where are the opportunities to strengthen the interventions being planned for that then we look at the systems we may have and systems that maybe were designed for a very difficult ecosystem but as we have a lot more hope and a lot more you know willingness to move forward could some of these systems be made more able to work alongside different partnerships so that the private sector can work in tandem with the public sector in tandem with the humanitarian sector so it's just it's I I'm praying for a paradigm shift really and I'm praying for innovation first and I'm praying for you know a belief that it is possible and that you know positivity can realize results yes thank you because in our work we also have a work stream on organizational readiness and there we focus a lot on how do we equip the different organizations in the ecosystem to maybe just first talk to each other better and have the skills that are complementary so that they can work together better again in in the markets that you work do you see enough of at least dialogue or cooperation among the different players between also I don't want to create a dichotomy between the humanitarian development but among the actors or I I see a lot of work which is going on yeah and and I applaud that yeah um and and there's incredible work that has been done especially if you look at you know um linking up smaller initiatives to more global opportunities the opportunity I see is opportunities to look for opportunities to do things the other way as well to look at smaller solutions that might support the more global ecosystem to make it a more interesting multifaceted movement of ideas movement of wasteful movements of potentials to have success rethinking the idea of risk rethinking the idea of opportunity and rethinking the idea of viability and you know and and having a more open conversation around that so I think we've started I think we've done an amazing job but I think yes we can you know it's um we can't give up you know we've all of us together the whole ecosystem have been at this for you know decades and decades but I'll say one thing I was in a camp as a refugee in the 80s I see where things are today I see the conversation we had earlier kids growing up today in these camps will have even better situations than I've had in life so I see hope and all I need to say is we should not fear anything we should not fear thinking massively big we did put humans on the moon so we can definitely think beyond the horizon thank you so much um Runa if I could go to you I was surfing your website earlier this morning so it's an impressive company you've built great track record of investing in companies in Africa so I think you're really really well positioned to to help us understand kind of how do we get more capital in let's say in this case it would be in in in Africa there is of course this other thing which we also discussed this perceived risk someone said that there is a lot of perceived risk around some some markets either it was I think a general comment and so obviously there is also a lot that maybe can be done as part of these efforts now around how development institutions either multilateral ones or regional ones or national ones are actually helping with the rating of certain markets etc but since you've been at it for a while are you actually seeing a step change in interest of both catalytic and commercial capital and let's say in this case it would be the market of Africa markets of Africa I have to say I'm seeing some changes but not a catalytic shift so let's talk about the perceived risk there is when as soon as you start getting away from Africa there's a perception of tremendous amount of risk it's not the whole market it's far away there aren't enough stories being told about successes but the reality is that there's a tremendous opportunity to invest in these fragile regions Africa and others also for Africa itself just a few thoughts by 2050 one out of every four humans in the world and some say one out of every three will be African by the same time 10 out of the 25 largest cities in the world will be in Africa we know that as people are created as they move to urban areas there's a consumer class so Peter talked about the shift in paradigms so to get around the perception you have to think about a shift of paradigm of thinking about some of these vulnerable populations but also some of the wealthier populations in these regions not as people that just need help but as consumers and what's interesting in in Africa but all over the world is that there's digitization so with digitization it actually becomes easier for companies to reach the lower income peoples with goods and services that they absolutely buy and they pay for so it's less it's less expensive so more efficient and so actually that paradigm shift can help companies increase revenues and also efficiency to increase the cash flow of the companies this is 100% in what companies think about what private sector companies think about so a great opportunity to invest and with investment comes the once we get companies to invest they understand the market and the markets can be different but actually equal opportunity once they understand the market and their success there's no going back so definitely a perception of risk but also great opportunities in these markets thank you I've always been very interested in how how capital reaches the micro entrepreneurs I'm a little more familiar let's say with the Middle East I spent a lot of time working there and quite familiar for example with some of the refugee populations in in in Jordan and and so there is a lot of micro enterprise a lot of micro entrepreneurship and so I had I think it's public that for example the African Development Bank they have now special landing vehicles I don't know what the term they are using by its landing vehicles to really lend to younger people that are micro entrepreneurs but is it enough how do we if if if let's say there are bigger investment entities that would want to consider then entering these markets and they really want to then have and drive step change in among let's say refugee populations and they know that most of it is really at the micro level do we have mechanisms to do that I don't know if for example within your firm you are actually reaching also these entrepreneurs at the micro level yeah so there's really two ways of doing that there's many ways but two main ways one is that in Africa our venture capital industry has grown quite a bit that comes from a history of undersea cables being laid the regions where they first reached Africa whether it's Nairobi or Lagos or other parts of Africa there is a ecosystem that's been built up of technical people of engineers and of entrepreneurs and many and these are young people many of those you know areas are really spawning founders and companies and there's an organized way of funding them we're starting to do that ourselves so this is classic venture capital but of course adapted to Africa and so funds putting in money helping the founders with hands-on help also and then growing them over time we also have unicorns already in Africa which demonstrates that others should be coming in and in fact in Africa we have people investors from the Silicon Valley and other places who have come in in the last five years to invest one of our own companies M&T Halon went from a few years to handwriting loans to a unicorn so that demonstration effect is making that ecosystem work then you have the other part which is not maybe digitized or tech companies but still micro entrepreneurs and there I think what we've been talking about in the last session and here is very important we have to build an ecosystem there is a role for everyone to play for governments to essentially you know provide the ability of either first loss capital or even funding into funds that actually invest in them or even even loans you know the debt part for NGOs and also other people like that to go from classic development work but also into investing to creating small funds with many of the classic humanitarian organizations they're actually doing and we who are in the industry are helping them by sitting on boards and doing various things so transitioning them to think about a market-based system and they are very well placed to invest in these areas because they are local and they're working with micro entrepreneurs whether they're in refugee camps or they are in vulnerable communities and really giving both the capital and the know-how for that to develop and it also means that in you know local communities people are creating funds to get capital from places like Norway and other places and having the expertise then to invest and support these entrepreneurs on their journey maybe just one last thing to follow up is so there is now a great momentum around climate finance for developing nations and so and I'm a layperson so I will ask a very simple question how do we how do we make sure that this is such a critical situation now with of course there is pressures on fiscal situations of countries etc so that also plays a role so there is obviously a very complex situation globally and then we have this big focus on climate finance which is really really important and now with our call here how do we find maybe conversions or synergies how do how do you see that so again two parts which is first I think those of us who invest have to think about climate change and we have to incorporate it in everything we do at DPI we've done that for several years now we have several impact buckets one of which is climate change so we're not a renewable fund but we can contribute in our own way and how do we do that we at the sourcing of companies and during due diligence we develop a plan how to reduce the footprint the carbon footprint of our company and we invest in some of the largest companies in Africa so it does have some impact as well as how do we start their journey of using renewables within their companies we do an action plan and then over the holding period of our investment we make sure we do exactly that using the greenhouse gas scopes one two three as well as guidance from several dfis so doing that we essentially put in the DNA of a company even after we exit that they keep going on this journey and that is very very important to do important to measure important to report important to become essentially a entity that others look to so if we do it maybe others will do it the other part is not to ignore that these parts of the world actually need capital for straight up climate change funds and climate change companies there is now the ecosystem there with experienced fund managers but also entrepreneurs who work in clean tech who have ideas and who are setting up companies in the circular economy or consumer facing solar companies so it's all there we need to get more capital in there and again the best thing we in the private sector can do is work in these areas with this lens but give returns without that you don't attract other private capital so we have the dual purpose of yes we have to look at these areas we have to invest in these areas and we have to figure out ways that it gives returns that brings in more capital and it's real sustainability if our companies are successful and last outlast us by 20 30 years it creates that real impact sustainable impact thank you so much we're about five to ten minutes left peter if i could go back to you i think we can we also have a specific example that we discuss around northern kenya maybe you could mention that and then what would be kind of the next steps for us also in the initiative if you could share listening carefully to what my colleagues just said i think we we have still two shape deals which work at larger scale and runa you just mentioned now we have impact we have impact and return and we need to combine impact and return on many of those issues because that's the only sustainable way in which we can grow the cake uh if we have both together we all know that there are still insufficient governments which would be risk and guarantee for investments and then speaking about northern kenya we have just heard that there is still a lot of political work to do to set the legal infrastructure in place so that market-based solutions can grow if you want to make refugees work and have income and have a self-sustaining and dignified life you need to change the framework under which you operate you can't camp uh and incarcerate refugee populations you have to liberate those energies and give them the possibility to work and so that's as we all know politically complicated but in the long term immensely important and i think what we never should forget and i think it's impressive when we look at just one example which for me stands with all the experiences i have made at icrc in visiting fragile context none of these populations want to be dependent on it none want to be decapacitated from participating in the market they are by nature much more entrepreneurial than many are in the northern hemisphere where we earn our money often through bureaucratic lives in institutions and and i think we have to recognize that what has changed is the reality in the global south and that's what forces us very frankly to change our whole concept on how we deal with some of the important challenges we have there is local business there is local investment but insufficiently supported by also outside actors and here we can do more thank you peter and also thank you for your leadership of the initiative um um madam minister if if i could go to you for your kind of final reflection um because we have the call to action so we said we would also kind of look to see how each of us could actually implement it so i i don't know if there are ways and plans that that you have that you could share and then if you don't mind me asking we talked a lot about convergence among different ecosystem players etc but then of course we also see globally a lot of fragmentation so if you just look at development overall if we just take development we do see of course that we have different powers if you will not not not not not not coordinating to say the least in terms of how things are done and it could have other than of course effects in terms of multilateral institutions and how effective they are so i would i would open it up to you for any final reflections but i am curious you as the minister of international development of a major country how do you see this overall polarization of the world affecting the ability of of well you know well intentioned entities to actually help figure this out that's a big question and that's what keeps me up at night because we are in this together we have we are now at Anga the UN discussing we are meeting at COP28 in a few weeks and we really need to work together get all hands on deck and start with ourselves as well in terms of the fragmentation and getting back to this topic in terms of investments in humanitarian settings there is a lot of fragmentation out there and and that is you know the responsibility of me as a donor but everyone to really you know we have to we have to clean up this mess and then i really liked what you said peter about this is you know this is about dignity i think many people out there still have this idea of humanitarian investments as being some sort of charity and of course i mean a part of humanitarian effort is about saving lives it's short terms but like i said at the start of this conversation we see that these settings are lasting longer and longer and then we have to think out of the box and whenever i visit you know refugee camps or people living in fragile settings i see businessmen and business women and entrepreneurs and consumers so we just have to get these markets to work from day one we need to think smart and like i said ODA and you know public money will still play an essential essential role but there are so many synergies out there if we are able to to work together thank you so much peter i'll close up with you with your final reflections just to say that we of course for us this is a milestone in our ongoing work we are also preparing the annual meeting in davos where this will be front and center of the discussions and so any advice any message you would have either to us or to others who would be then trying to see okay are we making progress what would be your message my message is there is so much opportunity if we look at this 10 billion number and think backwards that's probably 50 million tons of carbon removed how do you get there it's not too difficult if you have 500 000 families you have 20 000 hectares of invasive encroacher bush which is a problem already there for drought and everything if you've got you know salty water that needs to be desalinated and useful for irrigation the investment opportunities to actually solve those problems automatically unlock that much carbon removal potential which when you talk to any of the big banks around that region they will be actually be able to get that money on the table so there is a massive opportunity you know carbon green hydrogen desalination water for irrigation clean cooking but at the same time you're able to turn all of these you know 500 000 you know people in these families but the surrounding you know rural communities who are from the local you know country into a situation where you've lifted the base of the pyramid up by lifting the plateau up and there is a business opportunity it's an opportunity to have all the flares working together an opportunity to supplement the budgets of the humanitarian institutions whose role is crucial in that whereby whoever is there is there but the private sector comes in with the innovation with unlocking opportunities and just grows it to what is sustainable and what can lead Kenya to be you know a shining light to what is possible yeah thank you so much to you thank you to all of you for the very important discussion here in the studio but also then for participating in the longer deeper even deeper discussion that we had earlier thank you also to all of you who are following us online a commitment on behalf of the world economic forum that we will continue to put this front and center of the agenda um and I think what we did today is also uh then um really speaks to the larger effort that we have which is we will continue to make sure that we put forward solutions concrete solutions that can be scaled but at the same time we'll make sure we'll continue to connect the dots to make sure that we create this ecosystem that can lead to long-term resilience thank you so much and thank you so much for watching