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our guests today are Mahmood Mohideen of the senior vice president at the World Bank Group in charge of partnerships and
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also Georgia Petrowski who is a senior fellow at the zipline Center member Georgia thank you so much for joining us
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today on knowledge at Wharton thank you so much thank you very much but maybe to begin with you when we met
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in Washington DC last year we were talking about the sustainable development goals and I was wondering if
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we could begin by talking about where are things today where do things stand in terms of deemed of implementation of
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those goals right there are many ways in looking at the progress on the SDGs one
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of them in the official way of handling the progress so if you measure it by the
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number of presentations and submissions to the UN system through ministers of finance and development it is going to
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be on the increase because many more countries have committed to present their plans for the 2030 agenda and they
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are all going to be doing that in July this year at the UN headquarters in New York so you can really see that there is
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some sort of official commitment demonstrated by the number of ministers and governments participating this year
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that will bring the total of submissions and presentations to more than 110 countries so this is more than half of
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the membership of the UN which is 193 countries then you take it into the more practical level at the national level
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how many countries have done better in terms of designing their own national plans design their own budgets to deal
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with the SDGs I would say that not all of those who submitted have done that there is always a difference between
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what's happening a reality the official presentations and the measure of that is basically how many
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countries that you can logo and their websites and see the SDGs in their budgets and you'll will be surprised to
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see that there are only very small number of countries which have done that so far
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the justification could be that still the third years and the launching of the SDGs that some of the lines of business
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are continuing but without really naming or renaming them under the new s disease
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but coming from a finance institution we take matters more seriously when you see
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the government plans are reflected in their budget priorities the third level which is more important than the two is
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basically the local level to what extent you have seen improvements in people's
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lives or the policies and institutions addressing their issues of concern since the launching of these disease in 2015
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as we know the SDGs or the sustainable development goals are about more inclusive growth better social
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development and better consideration for environment and climate change issues again not all countries have done that
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at the local level there are some good bright cases I was in Colombia recently I've seen some good progress I I know
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that there are other Latin American countries including Mexico and others who are taken this issue seriously there
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are countries in the East like China and Vietnam and Korea and Japan who have the
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good investments in in the connection between the central level and the local level India have done well in that front
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as well in Africa I think there are many issues that are constraining governments
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but again you can really see countries like Rwanda doing very well in this front this doesn't mean that others are
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not doing but basically I'm trying to give examples of exceptional progress in terms of the
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commitment of the leadership and translating this commitment into some sort of localized solutions so you happy
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with the progress so far or using things that are running a little bit later than
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you'd like yeah well it's very much related to the performance at the country level so it it's not my
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happiness of the people's happiness that matter here if you are seeing this kind
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of improvement at the local level and people are more engaged and seeing some sort of better impact on reduction of
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poverty improvement and on health and education services and the rest of the 17 goals you can see every Development
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Agency and it stopped like me happy with the progress Georgia turning to you one
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of the initiatives that you in the cyclin Center have been collaborating on with the World Bank Group and other
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partners is the ideas for action which is a way to inspire young people to get involved in coming up with ideas to make
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the sustainable development goals a reality how is that program coming along based on what Mahmood just said in terms
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of countries that are not perhaps doing as much as they could be doing as quickly as they should be so I mean this
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year we are really surprised I mean last year we were surprised because we double
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the proposals but this year we triple the proposals which clearly demonstrate tremendous interest from young people to
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be part of this process to own the process and at the same time to come with actionable actionable ideas of
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implementation so what mood was referring that the government is signaling commitment to these issues now
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the question is because the implementation at the end of the day will not happen just because the
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government engage you have to engage the private sector you have to engage young
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entrepreneurs and this is something where we would like to interfere I mean engage with and the fact that we
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in addition to students we have young entrepreneurs and young professionals that means that they are also making
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kite of not just pressure but making the CEOs of the companies more comfortable that they have already young people
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working for who can commit innovative ideas so basically if we travel the triple the
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proposals we have over 2100 the number of teams was four times higher than that we have examples of business association
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like the German Brazilian Chamber of Commerce which utilized the network of companies to engage them in young
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profession to generate ideas in Eastern Europe a pharmaceutical company Hema far
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use this as a platform not only to generate ideas to make their company more sustainable or engagement in
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sustainability but at the same time really to communicate to the government that corporations can get engaged with
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additional and critical knowledge of how to deal with these issues so that's
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really very encouraging to know that the amount of participation has increased so
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much what are some of the reasons that drove this increase I think the philosophy of this program that is not
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just about competition but is a platform for learning platform for exchanging knowledge and critical critically local
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partnership I mean we made some major breakthroughs for example in Egypt and that was driven by idea for action Egypt
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club major breakthrough in Nigeria but idea for action African club I already mentioned there Hema Fonda the company
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in Eastern Europe I measure the Chamber of Commerce so basically I think the collaboration between the signaling
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center and the World Bank is more or creating that platform and facilitating so that the local initiatives are better
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designed and also supported so that they can generate better ideas coming back to
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you how does the idea for ideas for action programme fit in more broadly with what you and the World Bank are
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trying to achieve with the sustainable development goals one of the main things that came out from the UN discussions of
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this disease and one of the that we are pushing at the bank is the issue of partnerships it's one of the
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goals of the sustainable development agenda and in our case it's basically about how to rely on on our own
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comparative advantage when it comes to finance or knowledge but realizing as well that others would have their own
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comparative advantages in some particular fields the advantage of doing this kind of partnership with the
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Wharton has a place of excellence when it comes to knowledge and academia the partnerships with the business sector
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and the partnership with young minds and young people with their own ideas and their own ways of challenging the status
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quo and and actually the whole thing came out from here I was invited by Georgia four years ago to one of his
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classes and based on an exchange and of ideas and discussion and my way back to Washington DC I called him from the
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Train I said well why don't we start having all of these ideas institutionalized rather than having
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them coming out from a seminar or a lecture so let's have that and let not limit not limited to Wharton and make it
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a kind of a big platform and the idea developed and this is the fourth year we have thousands of participants from
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around the world from more than 120 countries coming with their own proposals of tough competition because
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and actually the difficulty now is not for those who wrote the proposals and finishing them the difficulty as it
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happened last year and the year before for those who are going to be assessing such high quality of good ideas mixing
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very good understanding in a positive way good understanding of the problems in their neighborhoods and their
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villages in their townships and their urban areas as well with whatever they learned in school and university with
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their exposure of different ideas coming through the open space of ideas around the world and getting there all in a way
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to convince very tough assessors of what could be really a good workable scalable proposal
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on finance for for development you mentioned 120 countries involved in this exercise is it your sense that it
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is primarily the developing countries that should be focusing on the SDGs or is this also something for the developed
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countries to focus on for example our STG is also important for the u.s. it is the main thing about the SDG is in
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comparison to its predecessor the MDGs nor the Millennium Development Goals in the past which ended in 2015 that the
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previous goals were basically focusing on developing countries and human development and with particular areas of
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work only eight goals the new and more challenging aspect of the his disease its universal universality it is
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addressing the challenges in the poorest of the countries in the world and the challenges as well of progress and
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maintaining what what you have and improving on it in the most advanced of the economies and if we measure it again
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by the submissions you will be happy to see that there is this enthusiasm by developing countries but again many of
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the OECD countries the Nordics some of the richest countries in the world we're
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in the forefront including the g20 and the g7 countries have been submitting earlier than others just to challenge
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themselves and their communities about what's going to be happening in the future
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would referred to the tremendous difficulty of taking all these thousands of wonderful ideas and trying to
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cherry-pick some of the most impactful ideas how do you do that well what's how
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do you select which are the best ideas that should be focused on and prioritized okay let me first mention
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that those who are making the selection are also very motivated to do that because for them that's exposing
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themselves to the reality or the ground so it's a mutually learning process when we have people from IFC or
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the World Bank selecting these projects in a particular country for example they
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will get pretty clear idea what from young people perspectives are priorities for these countries and there are very
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different layers of selection so that in each layer they get more feedback on how
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to improve their proposals and of course the final proposals will end up in the book which is published by the World
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Bank which goes through very elaborate editing so the bottom line basically is yes it takes time but if you don't look
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at that as a mechanical process of selection but there's a process of learning and providing feedback for
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those who are participating is very fulfilling I'm sure it is coming back to
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you these days there is a tremendous focus on science and technology and innovation as game changers in how how
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the world of business is evolving and a world of economic development is evolving how do you see the role of
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innovation and science and technology in the implementation of the SDGs overall but also in the kind of ideas that are
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proposed through initiatives like ideas for action there's a very good question
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the SDI or science technology and innovation were included in the documents of Addis which are basically
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the documents related to the implementation of the sustainable development goals there is a full
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chapter on that but and as you know it has happened in July 2015 but because of the fast changes that are happening in
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the areas of science and innovation and technology and this big discussion about
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the implications of the fourth Industrial Revolution if you write this chapter today despite the fact there's
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only three years old you it would be a completely different chapter in terms of the ways of handling
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the matter in terms of the kind of partnerships you feel that and the address again that was more of the
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responsibility of the government I want to do that and perhaps to partner with the Centers of Excellence and the
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private sector now in reality you can't really see who are driving the the changes in this area
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yes government is involved in different aspects it can incubate and support and give a good platform for the flourishing
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of new ideas and better technological solutions but the private sector business and academia that are basically
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behind all of these new ideas so I think the emphasis will be different and the kind of achievable outcomes from a focus
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on science technology and innovation rather than dealing with it as a kind of a separate sector it should be
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mainstreamed and integrated in every aspect of work including how to get better data by using Big Data solutions
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and other means to get better evidence of what works and what doesn't work when
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we talk about financed what extent the use of technology mobile money clouding finance the new technologies including
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blockchain and some of its good and controversial outcomes as well how can we consider them when we talk about
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implementation how technology can enable a hospital or a clinic in a remote village to get the best ideas coming out
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say from the United States of America when it comes to good solutions to to medical problems and diseases so all of
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all of these kinds of new ideas associated with STI needs to get us into a more dynamic version of considering it
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rather than just say well getting more from the government and ignoring the private sector and academic centers when
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it comes to the partnerships one of the most interesting things that you just mentioned Georgia is the role of
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academia in helping to come up with these ideas how do you see in from your perspective
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of the ideas for action program the rule of academic institutions and in making these kinds of initiatives successful I
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mean let me just step back before directly answering that question over the weekend the singly center organized
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an event related to blockchain and there was an interesting presentation from Macaulay from MIT who basically said
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most of the disruptive innovations in that space come from people between 24 and 28 years old so I asked the question
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what kind of education they got before they got there so I think from academic perspective we have at least two
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challenges one is to go beyond the traditional boundaries because in this space of blockchains you see people from
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technology side and lawyers to make sure that they don't get in trouble but they
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are development experts business people are not there so I would argue that they
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still a disconnect between what are the most exciting technological solutions and what are the real needs on the
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ground that needs to be addressed to this and I think that that hit Silicon Valley is already feeling there is no
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major new ideas coming from there because it's more kind of kind of a linear improvement on the technology
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side but not a major change of identifying the real problems that can be handled and make money by the way
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it's not just an absurd philanthropy or development issues now of course on the
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academia side one big benefit of this whole initiative is that we from one side we captured the reality on the
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ground but we also get understanding of what are the gaps in terms of knowledge and skills the dis young people are
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coming and cannot utilize them because they are facing a little bit different reality than what is sometimes presented
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in the regular education and for academies I think identifying these gaps is a good reminder
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that in addition of publishing papers they also need to be a little bit more focused and careful how to that process
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we are preparing the next generation of leaders or at the preneur so that they really deal with these the fundamental
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issues looking to the future a little bit one of the biggest issues that the world faces today is that of gender
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imbalance and how even the resources that exist are distributed so unequally between men and women if you think about
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the use of innovation and science and technology in not just empowering women but but bringing about greater gender
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parity around the world what are some of the new ideas that can be implemented to
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drive that sort of change you know maybe I wonder if you have any thoughts on new
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initiatives that could point in that direction yeah just over the horizon confirm what you said the problems
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related to inequality discrepancy and unfairness against women are all over not just in the developing countries but
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in many of the advanced economies as well when it comes to pay opportunities furnace in in dealing but when it comes
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to developing countries women would be suffering from the same problems like like what men would suffer from but they
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have their own problems as well and one of the new initiatives that we are trying to develop and to launch during
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the spring meetings of the World Bank and the IMF in April this year is an initiative that would link the SDGs
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to women entrepreneurs recognizing that if you happen to be a woman in a rural area under the age of 25 so each one of
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what I said now being a woman in a rural area under 25 brings different aspects of these advantages and discrimination
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when it comes to Financial Inclusion access to market and access to opportunities we can really see that
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technology and innovation especially in IT field could really bring many good solutions to these problems but you need
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to have the investments some of these investments could be related to the digital world but many of them could be
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analog investments who shouldn't really be undermining the importance of good
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education good access on the road better investment in nutrition and health for for women as well having said that we
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are the in partnership again with the second Center and Wharton Business School and with the UN system through
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the participation of the United Nation the Development Programme with the UN women with variety of economic
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Commission's of the UN system and the business sector we are having an initiative we are calling it s disease
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an error so it's sustainable development goals and women in all ages but we are
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focusing on the role of women as entrepreneurs and through their own micro enterprises and whatever they are
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investing of their time and their efforts and their talents in order to bring some solutions to their poverty
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and the poverty of their families and the poverty of their neighborhood sounds like a very interesting initiative from
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the cycling centers point of view what is your perspective how would this fit in with the work that you are already
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doing for ideas for action and where would you like to see this initiative go well from one side there is a tremendous
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complementarity in this because many proposal we receive are coming from young girls and women so the connections
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is already there and also we would like through this engagement to utilize this not as a competition for good ideas or
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recognizing a woman who've been successful so far but also utilizing the resources that Wharton and other
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academic institutions have to provide a platform where they can better equip themselves to take a leadership role
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because it's not a matter whether we cannot just separate the fact that they
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are not equally paid we first to have another class at least in peril we have to address are they are equally equipped
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do they have opportunity to really get access to that knowledge that will make them more creative more productive and
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through that and what Matt would mention I think the critical question is their role as a heads of the families so it's
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not just about a woman it's about their family about encouraging their own daughters to get in this in this space
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so I think from our perspective definitely this is something where we would like to go you know stronger to
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sort of wrap this up with one final question for each of you if I were to ask you to gaze into the crystal ball
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and and look at the future next you know 12 to 24 months where would you want to
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see ideas for action and this SDGs and her initiative go and and what contribution would you like to see it
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make to the sustainable development goals around the world men would start with you perhaps well three things for
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the ideas for action next year is going to be the fifth year so we hope for more
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progress and progress is measured by two things by the quantity and we are happy
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with the enormous progress and we hope to reach not just the 120 plus countries but the whole membership of the World
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Bank and the UN system in terms of quality we were very much impressed by the the quality we need more in terms of
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having ideas that could be workable solutions and scalable and the third is related to the SDGs on her while it is
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following the good footsteps of the ideas for action but we need really to see a big start for this one initiative
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given the importance of the role of women especially young women and micro enterprises in the society and the
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economy and to have the impact shirt wonderful George I think you had the final word what would you be pressure I
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would say if first to go beyond what usually is a topic of conversation of heroic entrepreneurs people who will
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change the world solved all these global we would like to see more progress at the local level more progress of
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initiatives which are driven at the local level solving the local problems because that
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will be a key contribution to solving these more broader current programs and that's what we've been particularly this
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year achieving so we also want to see more recognitions of these ideas at the local level because they solve specific
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problems and we will see in the coming months in fact that that is happening in Democratic Republic of Congo which is
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country with not that strong institutions at King Nigeria Colombia in the Balkans and that's what I'm really
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after more in terms of implementation but through that implementation shaping the the ecosystem inside the country and
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even sub law a local level so that more ideas which are not necessarily generate
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with right years for action will have a chance to succeed Georgia thank you so much for speaking today with knowledge
00:27:15
at Wharton thank you very much for more insight from knowledge at Wharton please visit knowledge Wharton
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