 We really need the United Nations to navigate and also we need the multilateral cooperation and more cooperation and not less cooperation. We are very much looking forward to hear your intervention speech. The Secretary General didn't want to do it from an election. He shows that he will speak to us off the cuff sitting and then I'll try to come up with some questions. Secretary General, floor seers and welcome to Davos. Thank you very much. Well thank you very much my dear friend and thank you very much to all of you for being here. If I had to select one sentence to describe the state of the world I would say we are in a world in which global challenges are more and more integrated and the responses are more and more fragmented. And if this is not reversed it's a recipe for disaster. Now if one looks at global politics and geopolitical tensions, the global economy and the mega trends, climate change, movement of people, digitalization, the truth is that they are more and more interlinked, interfering more and more with each other and indeed the problems are global but the responses are fragmented. Looking at the global economy we are now growing still with a relatively acceptable GDP growth 3.1 last year but slowing down and everybody agrees that there are dark clouds in the horizon and that there are risks. And if one looks at the risks there is really an interrelation of those risks with all the other aspects of the global international relations. The first risk is probably trade tensions and trade tensions are today essentially a political problem. A second risk of course related to the debt that is much higher than in the last financial crisis and which is limiting the capacity to respond to any potential emerging crisis and also limiting the capacity of states to implement the projects that would be necessary to achieve the sustainable development goals but in any case it remains essentially an economic dimension of the problem. Then we have the instability in financial markets and there clearly it's a better of confidence so political events have an influence on that. And if one looks at the shutdowns and the Brexit saga there is a certain sentence that political systems do not know exactly what to do when dealing with problems that have strong economic impacts and so that is a factor of lack of confidence and a factor of lack of confidence creates or increases instability in the markets. And then the climate risk and I think the climate risk is the most important systemic risk for the near future. I believe we are losing the race climate change is running faster than what we are and we have these paradox. The reality is proving to be worse than what science is as foreseen and all the last indicators show that. We are moving dramatically into a runaway climate change if we are not able to stop it and at the same time I see the political will slowing down. These when technology is on our side and when we see more and more the business community ready to respond in a positive way and the civil society more and more engage but the political will is still very slow and we see lots of subsidies to fossil fuels we see carbon pricing in a very limited way and we see many still putting into doubt whether climate change is a threat but in my opinion it's the most important global systemic threat in relation to the global economy. And then we have aspects that are more complex but it's true that globalization with all its fantastic improvements in the world and the technological progress linked to it has increased inequality at country level especially inside countries and there's people that was left behind the people sectors regions that has created a sense of frustration in the rust belts of these worlds and this has been a factor of reducing confidence confidence trust in governments in social in political establishments and in international organizations like ours and this also makes it more difficult to have effective strategies in dealing with economic problems and then the fact that growth has been uneven and that we have a number of least developed countries in which per capita growth is stagnant this is creating development gaps that are a factor of instability and of conflict linked to other violations of human rights and other aspects and so there is this unevenness in the in in growth is a factor of potential increase in conflict and countries that are able to solve conflicts always at risk are going back into those conflicts and then if you look at the political mega trends it is clear for me that we are witnessing a multiplication of conflicts more and more and related and more and more related to a threat of global terrorism but at the same time the response is more and more fragmented we no longer live in a bipolar or unipolar world but we are not yet in a multipolar world you know a kind of a chaotic situation of transition power relations became unclear the relationship between the three most important powers Russia the United States and China has never been as dysfunctional as this today and this is true for the economy but it's also true in the paralysis of security council in many very important aspects we see the emergence of medium-sized powers that start to be very influence in different scenarios it's impossible to look at what happened in Syria without recognizing the role of Turkey Iran Saudi Arabia and we can do the same in other conflicts around the world so power relations becoming unclear fragmentation of actions in punitive and unpredictability prevailing and when you say and you said and it's right that we are probably moving into a multipolar world that's have no doubts multipolarity it might be a factor of equilibrium but it's not necessarily a factor of peace and security we have Europe before the first world war a multipolar Europe but in the absence of multilateral mechanisms of cooperation governance we had the first world war so it is very important to recognize the importance of multilateral mechanisms and if I would go on with the mega trends that I mentioned the climate change the movement of people that today became a central political problem or the questions related to digitalization we would see in all of them more and more linkage between politics economy technology movement of all these situations more and more interlinked and then enormous difficulty of the international community at country level and at global level to respond in a global way and this brings us to the center of the debate today I am a multilateralist I am deeply convinced that there is no other way to deal with global challenges but with global responses and organized in a multilateral way but I think that it's not enough to say this and it's also not enough to vilify those that disagree with these and just consider them as nationalists or populists or whatever I think we need to understand the grievances and to understand the reasons why the root causes of why large sectors of the population in different parts of the world today disagree with us and we need to address those root causes and we need to show these people that we care for them and the problem is that to large extent political establishments and international organizations during large periods let these people be left behind in those as I mentioned rust belts of these worlds and did not show that they cared and people would think all politicians and just take care of their own interests and the elections and whatever and we are here we are abandoned we don't see a future our jobs are lost we can't rebuild our lives we feel insecure with everything that is happen we need to be able to address the concerns of these people to talk to them and to act in relation to them and for that I think we need a multilateralism that is simultaneously networked to make sure that we are able to address complex challenges very important for the when to be in close cooperation as it is today with World Bank and the IMF but also with all these organizations the world trade organization we need to work together there is no way we can do isolated responses to the problems we face they are all interlinked and it needs to be a inclusive multilateralism it needs to be a multilateralism in which not only states are part of the system but in which more and more the business community the civil society the academia they are all part of the way to analyze problems to define strategies to define policies and then to implement them there is no way governments or intergovernment organizations alone can deal with climate change can deal with the impact of the force industrial revolution or can deal with migration we need more and more multilateralism that also is able to incorporate the contribution of all these other sectors and I think World Economic Forum has an absolutely vital role to play on these and if you ask me what are the priorities for me in the UN for these at the present moment I would raise three first to demonstrate to all those that today are not in favor of multilateralism that we care for them to demonstrate to all those that are feeling that they were left behind that our ideas our policies our programs aim at solving their problems or helping them to solve them and that is the reason why we try to look at the agenda 2030 and the sustainable development goals as an inclusive process to leave no one behind and there a huge cooperation is necessary obviously with the business community and with member states in general and with the civil society but clearly to make people understand it is not an abstract debate on global development this is something linked to the concerns that people have about the future of their jobs about the future of their communities and this is even more important when we know the impact of the first industrial revolution second concern to tell people clearly look we understand that for you we in the UN we have problems of bureaucracy we have problems of being too heavy we need to reform and we are reforming we have launched a very substantial robust program of reform aiming at simplification of procedures decentralization I just sent 200 letters to 200 managers giving them powers they never had in relation to staff management budget procurement and other aspects to make them take decisions closer to the point of delivery closer to the people we deal with and then transparency and accountability that is essential to prove taxpayers that they have value for money in what we do and then the third aspect that for me is a priority is to show the added value of the United Nations and there I must say I think we are doing things I mean look at December last year we were able to bring together the international community in Katowice everybody thought Katowice would be a failure it was not we managed to approve the work program of the of the Paris Agreement it doesn't solve the problem of we need more ambition more ambition in mitigation in and that was not solved there but it was possible to bring together countries that were in a totally different position to at least agree on the basis to move forward nobody believed that it was possible to have an agreement a first agreement in Yemen it was possible it will be very difficult to move but we are pushing for a surge in diplomacy for peace and many other situations have been improving in recent times South Sudan is looking better Ethiopia that is not our merit it's the merit of the Prime Minister has done a fantastic step forward in relation to Eritrea so a surge in diplomacy for peace I think is something that we are proving that we are there that we are doing things that are necessary and that nobody can replace the UN in this work a second aspect that I would like to underline on this is the fact that in the human in the humanitarian world the UN still represents more than half of the humanitarian aid distributed around the world we have we supported last year 100 million people in 40 countries mobilizing 15 billion US dollars and I think that the work the UN does is absolutely repressible and looking at world food program UNICEF UNHCR what is happening in the world would be the tragedy would be much bigger without this work so I think we have an added value that is proven but it's clear we need to accelerate accelerate in 2019 accelerate in the surge in the diplomacy for peace accelerate in relation to climate change and we'll have a summit in which we want more ambition in mitigation in adaptation in finance and in innovation and to make governments understand that they are not doing enough and to mobilize as much as possible the business community and the civil society and then accelerate in relation to the perspectives of the agenda 2030 there's a set of involvement goals and create the conditions to mobilize the business community to mobilize the the the civil society because obviously governments cannot do it alone and this is a central question of these inclusive multilateralism is the recognition whether people like it or not that the power of governments to shape societies and the power of governments to solve problems is today much more limited and if we want to have a true multilateral system we need of course to have an intergovernmental perspective but we need to make sure that we bring together into this multilateral system the voice and the influence of the business community the civil society the scientific community and all those others that are essential to address together the very dramatic problems we are facing thank you very much what an impressive summing up in 15 minutes on tour of the horizon of the world I think we're very privileged to have a secretary general that are so proactive on all these important issues you mentioned this with a multi-polar world we're not yet there we we maybe have like a g2 composition we also have the three powers of Russia China as us you mentioned but in addition to a multi-polar world that we're seeing more and more because we're seeing also other countries more assertive than before and if there is a vacuum it will be tried to be filled we have have this notion of multi-conceptual world and that adds to the complications because this is also seen as asking questions around human rights and also agreements that we have had in the UN the rules-based world order when you look at human rights look at gender and the rights of girls for education in the world that are crucial issues some are saying oh these are Western values but these are really universal values can we do more to protect this and are you concerned that these values are under pressure I think it varies but it is clear that in general we can say that we have witnessed probably because governments feel weaker in relation to the solution of the problems that they face we have witnessed in several parts of the world the national sovereignty agenda gaining ground in relation to the human rights agenda and so it is clear that in several parts of the world we see the civil society space shrinking we see media freedom being negatively impacted and we see the expression of forms of authoritarianism or this new fantastic expression that was invented in liberal democracy so this is clear the human rights agenda is in trouble and we need to make sure that we mobilize the international community and again the civil society has a key role to play on these for human rights to be protected now gender is different in the sense that in gender I think that we are witnessing a gigantic movement for gender equality coming from the rank and file from the society we have many governments clearly in this direction we are in the UN totally committed we have reached gender parity at the level of this the senior management group and the team leaders around the world it's true those are the ones I appoint directly so it's easier to have gender parity but even in the system we have now a roadmap to reach full gender parity in 2028 with the agreement of member states and I see in many other countries a lot of efforts being done in relation to bringing children bringing girls to school fighting genital mutilation fighting early marriage so there's a number of things that is happening but it's not enough but in general I would say the human rights situation in general is worse than what we are seeing in gender where I still well I see now some progress in some areas where we have we are having a regression in other areas we have some progress and I hope that in gender we are making some progress of course there is a long way to go this is a male dominated world with a male dominated culture and this is essentially a question of power and we know that all it's always difficult for power to be given normally power has to be taken secretary general you also mention the importance of collaboration between governments business and civil society and our partnership between the UN and the World Economic Forum here I think is very important and as you said governments cannot do things alone anymore you have to mobilize also the private sector that is 75% of the global GDP so moving forward I think collaboration with business and you have some of the key CEOs in the world here is crucial when it comes to fighting climate change but also to meet the sustainable development goals eradicate all extreme poverty by 2030 and we're not on track on this so what would your challenge be to the business community or your invitation to the business community in the coming years I think we need to have action on several fronts together I've been talking to many financial institutions for instance about the need to support investments in many developing countries and usually the answer is related to problems of governments and the questions of corruption and others so that is why one of the goals is exactly related to governance is exactly related to improved governance improved capacity of member states especially the least developed member states to be able to attract private investment and to be able to have normal relations with private investment in the in the working of their economies so we need to act with member states to create the conditions for adequate governments for rules based relationship with the private sector we need to mobilize the private sector in order to invest in those countries and we need working with governments with the aid entities and with the financial system to find some new instruments or to increase some the impact of instruments to reduce the risks of investment in many of these countries and a lot has been done as you know in the insurance a lot has been done in relation to different forms of financing now we have the green bonds we have social bonds so a lot needs to be done to make sure that we are able to create the the combination of these things a welcoming event a welcoming environment in the least developed countries a commitment of the private sector to invest and the creation of a number of instruments to reduce the risks of that investment in order to make sure to address the huge gaps that we have in the civil development goals in the a large chunk of the least developed countries secretary general you also mentioned the fourth industrial revolution we have no developments in areas like artificial intelligence internet of things precision medicine and drones that are happening at an unparalleled pace and you know also the world economic forum works on the fourth industrial revolution and this morning I was with African leaders saying that we lost out on the first second and the third industrial revolution but we're not planning to lose out on the fourth we will have to leapfrog and we also see that there it is a big technological competition between the big nations and we know in the platform economy the winner easily takes it all how do you see the UN playing a constructive role here that this fourth industrial revolution can also be an inclusive revolution and a revolution that gains all the population of this world I see three platforms of action first the impact of a force industrial revolution which artificial intelligence as probably the leading role the impact in the economies and societies will be huge there will be a massive destruction of jobs and the massive creation of jobs the problem is that they are not the same jobs and not requiring the same skills and I think that the world economic forum has been doing a lot to raise awareness and to find solutions over but let's be clear we need to mobilize much more governments and the business community and the civil society to understand what kind of impact are we going to have in the next decades and what kind of measures do we need to start taking now in order to respond to it educational systems it it doesn't really matter now how much you learn how many things you learn what matters is how you learn to learn because you will be doing completely different things in your life skill question of safety nets a new generation of safety nets able to address the kind of so there is a lot that I believe the UN can be a platform for discussion the business community of governments within the societal development goals the discussion in order to try to address the massive impact that the force industrial revolution will have on societies and economies and to try to prevent instead of react and then of course the concept of work will change the relations between work leisure work time leisure other occupations will change these are things we need to discuss much more in international community and prepare for what's coming then there is a second level in which we are now very much engaged with the high level panel on digital cooperation when I look at the web no it's clear that the web is a fantastic instrument for all of us it's clear that we have the dark web and the deep web and all the problems of cybersecurity etc and the question of regulation is a very complex question relation to this my feeling is that there is no way to use the traditional mechanism of intergovernmental regulations through conventions that are approved and then agencies that now I think that this is the kind of situation in which we need soft mechanisms we need to bring together all stakeholders governments the business community the scientists community the civil society and create mechanisms that allow for a permanent following of what's happening for the consensus in creating some norms and protocols but not with rigid forms of bureaucratization I would say of regulation and creating with these the possibility of more and more to web to be an instrument for good and at the same time taking into account that the web is also a question that some governments are using from the point of view of violation of human rights etc so it is clear for me this cannot be only an intergovernmental process and then I think we have a third area of great interest for us which is linked to with dimensions of peace and security of artificial intelligence the weaponization of artificial intelligence we have an agreement for instance today the general agreement that international law applies to the cyberspace but there is no agreement on all international material law applies to the cyber dimension of conflict there is no agreement what self-defense means in the case of cyber attacks and on the other hand we are witnessing the emergence of systems of weapons that will be autonomous and in which it will be possible for those weapons to decide on targets and to decide on taking out the life of people without any human intervention in situations in which there is a reach of escalation and there is no accountability now how to handle these situations is this discussion is a discussion in which we are in the beginning in which there are big differences of opinion but this isn't it these are the areas where we still need international law and in which the role of the United Nations and namely of the second Commission of the General Assembly is vital we need to find a minimum of consensus in the world on how to integrate these new technologies in the laws of war that we defined decades ago in a completely different context thank you last question secretary general we live in a complicated and complex world that's for sure we don't necessarily act like we're in the same boat but the reality is that we are in the same boat so what happens in one country affects the other and etc but when you looked at the last year no there has been some positive developments to you mentioned Ethiopian Eritrea in Davos last year would say that it would be peace no one would have believed that we also under your leadership and the UN special envoy making some progress in Yemen that is a big humanitarian catastrophe but if you look at the at the coming year what are your aspirations where where do you see the silver linings moving forward because we I think we should end on an optimistic note because there is a lot of positive things happening there is a wind of hope that is blowing and I think Ethiopia was crucial for this wind of hope that is blowing in relation to the dramatic conflict situation we have in many parts of the world and my intention is to intensify our surge in diplomacy for peace and to enhance our partnerships with regional organizations it is the case of the African Union it is the case of the regional African it's a case of other parts of the world and to do everything possible to bring a number of situations in which until now it was not possible to launch a serious political process to bring those situations into a serious political process countries like Central African Republic South Sudan countries like Yemen Libya Syria with all its complex our countries where we would like to make huge progress next year and then we have situations in which what I was saying about how everything is interlinked are clear that they require innovative forms of handling them the sale in the sale you have conflicts you have terrorism you have climate change impacting dramatically you have huge problems of and the lack of development and you have problems of governance that are very serious so it's it's a whole area in which all these mega problems are combined and in which we need to that is why we need this kind of multilateralism that is networking to address everything at the same time in community and inclusive because this is the kind of area that proves that the systems that we have that still are fragmented are not able to respond to the kind of problems that's more and more we are having in the future in which everything is interconnected and all answers need to be comprehensive thank you so much thank you so much Mr. Secretary