I'm here to I hope is still some
optimism in all of us because I actually
think that there is a little bit of Hope
out there but the other day I read that
the professor Stephen Hawking thinks
that the human species us in this room
will have to populate a new planet in
only 100 years and we have to do that
if the human species is to survive with
climate change overdue asteroid strikes
epidemics population growth and of
course climate change so in hundred
years we have to leave this planet of
course I have no idea whether this is
true or not but there I as so many in
this room I don't want to stay under the
duvet I want to try every day to
understand what is happening in this
world where we going because it is true
and I think the discussion this morning
shows that that sometimes you wake up
and you feel that disruption have gone
rogue and that is hard to follow what's
actually going on and I started counting
last night when I thought I was going to
say today and there are these six
disruptive elements that are changed in
the world right now we have a
technological revolution we have the
breakdown of the economic order we have
the breakdown of the political world
order we have a democratic crisis in the
world we have a humanitarian crisis and
we have a climate crisis I won't have
time to go into all those different
crises but it's just a few words looking
at the tech not technological revolution
there's no doubt that we are at the
beginning of a technological revolution
that will change the way we live the way
we work the way we relate to one another
and
perhaps even what it means to be human
and we just heard that half a million
jobs have already disappeared from the
US because of the technological
revolution I think we are talking about
millions after millions of jobs that
will change character and perhaps
disappear at the same time we are seeing
tectonic shifts in the economic and
political world order the economic world
order has changed and with that of
course a new political world order sets
in over the past 20 years we have seen a
power shift between the advanced and the
emerging nations we are clearly moving
away from a unipolar world and also a
bipolar world
it's not even multipolar anymore it just
feels like chaos and I personally had
the biggest revelation of this year
maybe not the biggest but one of them
when I sat in the room in Davos this
year listening to see Jinping speaking
telling about his vision for for the
world this is in the same week this is a
same week where Donald Trump is
inaugurated as president and I found
myself not telling this to anyone of
course but I found myself actually being
more in agreement with a Chinese
president than the American president
that was a time when my world turned
upside down but the problem with this is
that the world does not feel safer for
any of us because when power relations
like these are unclear there is a
tendency to for impunity and
unpredictability to really prosper and
perhaps most importantly this has a deep
impact in how in how we feel citizens
and there is no doubt and we've been
discussing it this morning that a lot of
people do not feel that globalization
and international cooperation or the new
economic and political world order is
actually delivering for them
a lot of people were promised a bigger
slice of a bigger global pie but they
have still not seen that biggest life
come their way and I never met a lot of
people that are trying to actually
explain this phenomenon what it means
and of all people is actually Mark
Carney the governor of the Bank of
England who has expressed this most
clearly because he says and I quote
despite such immense progress many
citizens in advanced economies are
facing heightened uncertainty lamenting
a loss of control and losing trust in
the system to them measures of accurate
progress bear little relation to their
own experience rather than a golden new
era globalization is associated with low
wages in securing employment stateless
corporations and striking inequalities
in the quote and the thing is that
people are right inequality is growing
just a few figures on that the richest
1% now own 40% of the world's wealth
while the bottom half oh no more than 1%
this is inequality and in this
environment of feeling that I'm not
getting a fair deal out of globalization
and that the world is a little bit out
of control and feeling at the same time
that politicians are not actually in
control they are not in control of our
borders they are not control of our
security and perhaps more importantly a
lot of people are not convinced that the
elite actually cares that the elite and
the establishment of which I of course I
belong for many years has been leader of
my party and Prime Minister people are
not convinced that we really could care
about preserving their way of life the
culture our nation our community and
that is what nurtures
this take-back controlled movement that
we are seeing everywhere and despite the
election and result of the elections in
France last night we should not forget
that it still exists very powerfully the
take back control movement is about that
Britain is better outside the European
Union that we put Austria first France
first America first and a solid return
to economic nationalism and every part
of nationalism actually and what happens
now is that it clearly nurtures a
language and a defining of your group
against another group and always finding
someone to blame and what I'm seeing and
there perhaps more are these four peaks
of people standing straight against each
other we have the graduates versus the
non grudges that's a very powerful
grouping and the language being used is
very strong we have set the verses town
towns where in industry is disappearing
where people don't feel that
globalization have benefited them at all
we have of course poor versus rich with
which we have also always have but now
it is worse and then we have young
against old and on top of those groups
being against each other we have a very
strong tendency to actually label the
others the Trump voters or the National
national voters well they are racist
stupid or deplorable
the big corporations they are
cold-hearted capitalists just in it for
the money and the political globalist
elite they are unpatriotic out of touch
in it for themselves and on top of this
deep deep political crisis which can
also be a democratic crisis we have all
the other problems that the prelate have
has to try to understand and come to
grips with we are in the mid
of the worst humanitarian crisis since
the Second World War at least 65 million
people about the population of this
country have been forcibly displaced at
the same time we have 20 million people
facing starvation across South Sudan
Somalia Yemen and Nigeria in the most
serious hunger crisis in decades and all
this is before we consider the
consequences of climate change so
there's a lot of problems and they don't
seem to be going away but we know that
they also get much worse if we don't
address them and I believe that the only
way to fix all these problems and
challenges that I've been talking about
now is through more cooperation not less
my god is easy to lose all hope when you
look at it all together but I really
urge you not to I become CEO of Save the
Children International it's a big
organization big NGO every year we touch
the lives of 60 million people 60
million children and I want you not to
forget this and Tony said it earlier on
as well the world for children is
actually better today than it was
yesterday
children have never been wealthier they
have never been more likely to survive
their fifth birthday and they have never
been better educated and the reason why
I'm saying that is that we should never
lose hope that it is actually possible
to change the world for the better
and at these two very powerful things
have to happen to change to make that
change one we have to start finding the
common ground we have to start a new
conversation where we listen much harder
to each other where we build bridges and
find the compassion and our common
humanity it is there in short we have to
rebuild your trust
perhaps listen more than we talk and
second we must place true partnerships
at the heart of our commitment to
rebuild that trust I feel that for too
long governments and business have been
on diverging paths they are not been
talking to each other and the received
vision this wisdom has been that each
should just keep out of the other's way
that would be better regulation bad less
affair good and what is the reason we
result of this hyper deregulation that
we have had over the last many years
well it's the subprime crisis it's the
crash that almost brought down the whole
economic system and what we have to
learn from that crash is that we have to
change our mindset we have to understand
that smart regulation is the only way in
which we can build a sustainable
economic model that it was good for
business and good for people and good
for government and I really believe that
this is a spirit of partnership that we
have to foster and the future are our
children and our grandchildren it and
even though our blog might not be broken
I feel that it is skating on thin ice
these years and we have to fix it but
the correct question is how do we do
that
I believe that big cooperation can be a
big part of the change part of building
the bridges that I'm talking about here
and it is not by just by more CSR or
more fuel and philanthropy the world
have moved away from that no it is about
really understanding that business can
change the operating practice and policy
in a way that both benefit the bottom
line of a company and at the same time
our advanced economic and social
condition in the communities where they
operate and are there is a shared value
for both business business and community
just think of it
think of what role this is actually
playing in ending poverty for example
but just by doing business they're
playing that role in the jobs they
create in the taxes they paid by the
value they create but some vestiges have
gone much further than just that they
have acted that that includes actually
standing up and explaining how for
example overseas help can help their
businesses and turn help them turn get
get more economic growth but it also
means that big business now has to
understand and this is in the words of
Paul Polman who's a leader in this area
that there is no business for extreme
poverty and that business leaders are
actually investing in this business
leaders out there right now making the
case for foreign aid but some business
are taking the revolutionary step these
years and I think that is where the
change will really come in integrating
the sustainable development goals
directly into their strategies and
investment choices the sustainable
development goals are the goals that we
adopted almost two years ago if the UN
it's all countries that are behind them
and those are the new benchmark are
where we want to take the world in 2013
and I have met business leaders that
actually taking those goals and putting
them into their strategy and just
imagine what we could achieve in every
last every large business in the world
could use the esta G's in their general
goals and what we have now is basically
short term president short term profit
that takes president of long term impact
but what if every company in the world
was to actually introduce triple
bottom-line reporting based on people
based on planet and based on
imagine that in their enumeration
packages of every CEO of big corporation
what they were actually measured on were
those three P's and this is of course a
pate opposed to the quarterly surplus
that they get measured on now imagine
they were measured on those three P's I
believe that we need a vanguard of
business leaders that have this
progressive view of business and I
believe that we can completely reimagine
the way in which business do their
business in 21st century and this could
change the world I come to my end but
just remind us that what the world needs
more than anything right now is that we
listen do not label each other
and build bridges and I believe that
business leaders can be part of that
partnerships with business can do good
partnership with NGOs with bit with the
governments that can actually embody the
kind of hope and determination that is
still very much alive out there I think
we can change the world for the better
business can be a part of that let us
not lose hope let's build bridges thank
you very much
