Kent Program Summer Training Panel 2: The Golden Triangle: Transforming Conflict through Cooperation

Well, good afternoon and welcome. It's wonderful to be together. This is the second year of this program and the first really in person and hybrid, so I'm feeling particularly thrilled. I'm Merritt Jano, former dean of SIPA and a professor at SIPA in the Law School, and it's just marvelous to be together with all of you today. I'm very grateful and admiring of Muhtar Kent for getting us started down this pathway and so pleased you're with us, Muhtar, and Jean-Marie Guéhenno for really directing this program and putting this outstanding week together. I think we'll be joined by one other. The only disadvantage of this seat is that I can't look behind and see the other speakers as readily as I can all of you, so apologies if I find myself shifting back and forth. The basic idea of the Kent Program from the beginning was that there's hardly an area of conflict resolution, peacebuilding, responding to humanitarian crises, or even just building resilient societies that doesn't require cooperation between governments, corporations, and NGOs, each operating in their relative sphere of influence and competence, and in today's world, where possible, together in support of shared objectives. Today we have a chance to hear from really extraordinary individuals who can bring these perspectives to bear. My hope is that each will speak for a few minutes and then we'll have a chance for interaction. I really invite each to speak to regions they know best, initiatives they have inaugurated or been part of, lessons and observations from your own lives and experiences in conflict, in coalition building for growth, prosperity, and peace. I think that rich tapestry will offer the basis for this very expert group of Kent Program participants, fellows, to engage with our expert panel. Now, you have their bios, so I will be brief, but let me start by Rémy Rioux, who's right here with me, I'm very happy about that, who's been CEO of France's development agency since 2016, AFD, and chairman of the International Development Finance Club since 2017. He is an expert in economics and international finance and has really devoted a lot of his career on development issues in Africa, so I know you bring deep expertise from that region. He served as chief of staff of the French economy and was appointed deputy secretary general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Development and coordinated the finance agenda for COP 21, which was an extraordinary outcome and complex negotiation. We also have with us virtually, Amira Haq, who is a thank you very much for being with us. She's a Bangladeshi official who has served as the UN Under-Secretary-General for the Department of Field Support. She's been the highest-ranking Bangladesh official at the UN from 2012 to 2014, and under Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed her as co-chair of the high-level independent panel on peace operations. She's also served as a special representative for Timor-Leste and head of the UN Integrated Mission in East Timor. But let me also note that she has served on NGO boards. I know she is on the board of BRAC and other organizations, so thank you very much for being with us. Of course, I've also mentioned our own Muhtar Kent. After nearly 40 years serving the world's largest beverage company, he rose from being a salesman to CEO of that company, was an extraordinary leader. He's also been incredibly civic-minded and engaged with so many organizations and is a fellow of the Foreign Policy Association, chairman emeritus of the U.S.-ASEAN Business Council, on the board of many organizations including the American-Turkish Society, the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and was an eminent persons group for ASEAN by President Barack Obama. And with us, he has been really a partner in building the Kent Program, so thank you, Muhtar, for your involvement, your wisdom, and your participation today. I think also we have with us, welcome, Hamdi, so great to see you again. He's been obviously a pioneer in the natural food movement, founder of Chobani, which is one of the fastest-growing food companies in the last decade. He grew up in a small town in Turkey and he launched Chobani in 2007 with the whole vision of making food more accessible, and it became the number one Greek yogurt brand in the U.S. with more than a billion dollars in annual sales. He also created, clearly a creature of his own imagination and passion, the Tent Partnership for Refugees, which is an organization made up of more than 200 other member organizations, I congratulate, which is really focused on improving the lives of refugees around the world, and we hope to hear more about that in our discussions today. And also with us in person, I'm delighted to welcome Matthew Devlin, who leads international relations at Uber, which focuses on all the public policy aspects of the company's expansion and operations outside the United States. Prior to joining Uber, he was working both in the private sector and public sector reform on Latin America, Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Asia. He has a degree from our partner friend school, Harvard Kennedy School, and a law degree from Yale, so thank you, Matthew, for being here, and I'm adding a bravery medal for allowing myself to be introduced after this panel. A tough act. Delighted to have you. May I invite Rémy to lead us off, please?

Hello everybody. It's a great honor and pleasure to be here. Actually, I'm not sure I'm the best place to start the discussion, but if I'm right, your discussion has already started since this morning. Because coming into this panel, I was wondering why. I'm not an academic, of course. I'm no longer a diplomat, thank you. It's a session for diplomats, so I'm not into conflict resolution. And maybe a specificity of the organization of France is I'm not into humanitarian. In many countries, in Sweden, in the U.S., elsewhere, you have institutions that are doing both humanitarian and development. This is not the case in France, and I think that's an interesting setting for our discussion. Meaning, we are institutions, at least AFD is an institution that is obsessed with its mandate, which is development. Meaning, we are obsessed with long-term issues and we are obsessed with sustainability. Our interventions have to stay, they have to change the structures of the territories, the societies we are intervening in. So somehow, development is the opposite of humanitarian. It's long-term compared to short-term. It's relying always on local counterparts. AFD is never operating or financing directly a project; we are always going through a local counterpart, which, of course, in very, very troubled settings you cannot find. So maybe I'm the least possible intervention for that. And I'm visiting New York actually with a group of CEOs of public development banks that I left for a moment to meet with you. So we have the CEO of the Development Bank of Rwanda, the CEO of the Development Bank of Indonesia, PTSMI, and the CEO of the Development Bank of the State of São Paulo in Brazil. And we're here to discuss with the IMF, the World Bank tomorrow, the UN, of course, this year, how do we finance the SDGs. So I would say the big thing, the fight against climate change, the just transition frameworks, and the group I'm representing somehow, meaning all public financial institutions, public development banks, 550 in the world, amounts to 2.7 trillion dollars a year. So this is something that is really at scale with this agenda 2030, the SDGs. But of course, and probably that's the reason why, and you, Merritt, you asked me to come and say a few words, I do not forget that in the 2015 mandate message there was the 'leave no one behind' dimension. So somehow the mandate we received then is to do both. It's supposed to finance common goods, global public goods, but also to find a way to leave no territories, to leave no communities behind. And probably what was set in the SDG agenda was extremely innovative at that time, and probably we're only beginning to understand what it means to do both. The situation we're living right now, of course, and I think Jean-Marie explained it very carefully in his recent book, 'The Premier Événement', I think it's very different from what we thought 15 years ago. I remember the book of Paul Collier, 'The Bottom Billion', the 2011 World Development Report on fragile situations. Somehow there was a billion of people we had to support, and if we add the specific tools, the best way to intervene, they will come back with us, and then it will be fine. And probably we are way beyond a billion right now. And then the extension of the fragilities, because of climate, because of the inequalities, is going way, way beyond maybe the situations you are discussing today. And probably these fractures, these lines of divide, they are in each and every society, including ours. In France, if I'm right, there was an election yesterday. And so we have to invent or adapt or transform our institutions to be able to explore these linkages and have various instruments converge in a new way. So this is what we are trying to do. It's no longer a continuum of interventions, as you know it. So I'm talking about contiguity. Of course, we need to have all the capacities, defense, diplomacy, humanitarian, and development at the same time, and each and every step of the crisis, which was not probably what we had in mind previously. Meaning, a unique development bank, development agency, to change the way they operate in order to, yes, to be alongside other professionals trying to find a solution, and then of course find the amount of each component you need for conflict resolution or to prevent further conflict. So I will not go into the details of what AFD is doing, because it's a question mark for all of us in my mind. But of course, we had to allocate part of the resources for fragile settings. We had to speed up, because when you have a counterpart and the counterpart is very weak, of course, it takes a lot of time to strengthen, bring capacities, and cooperate. So it's more of doing our development work in a new way and being able to support and to accompany the SDGs everywhere. So just to share that with you, I have no clear answer, as you see, but I have clear questions, and this is certainly a tension and an evolution that is happening, I would say, both on the side of donors, classic donors doing the humanitarian as well as the development part that you are doing with grants, which is a very small one, actually. These type of institutions, they know now that they have to mobilize the private sector. They know that they have to find a way to invest in water and sanitation and infrastructure. So they are developing, for instance, warranty mechanisms or things like that, which is very unusual. And on the other side, the world of public banks, public development banks, like multilateral or national, we know that we cannot let these fragilities develop. So we need to find ways to operate. So good news is that we were living somehow, I mean, we were somehow saying we were doing the same thing, but we were very, very different. See USAID, for instance, USAID, if I'm right, is passing only six percent of its resources through local counterparts, and AFD, it's 94. So it's really something completely different. But USAID is willing to increase the share up to 20, 25 percent, if I'm right. And we also understood that when you are in the Sahel, sometimes you have no counterpart, and so you need to provide the impact, and so you need to do it by yourself somehow temporarily, maybe. And so I see, because of the SDGs again, this is our framework, I see a sort of convergence between institutions and the possibility maybe to avoid these never-ending dramas certain territories are living, that was what 'The Bottom Billion' was about a few years ago. Thank you.

Thank you very much. You know, I jumped in to get us started because we're all together, but I denied Jean-Marie some introductory remarks if you had wanted to make any, because you have been conceptualizing this panel more broadly. And let me just invite you, if you wish, to...

Oh, no, just a couple of words. I think it was important to have a voice from a major public institution of development like the AFD, for the reasons that Rémy, you stated, because it shows the wide range of options that exist, whether you directly engage or whether you engage with local partners. And I was interested in what you said at the end on the relationship with business and corporations, because on the one hand, you mentioned that in a way you are at scale when one puts together all the huge amounts of money that exists with the banks that can fund what you're doing. But on the other hand, even that is not quite at scale without the active participation of corporations and business. And in that panel, I'm interested also in getting from all the panelists this, where not where public action ends, but how public action interfaces with the action of other actors, whether it's business actors, and business actors they can be on the humanitarian side as well as on the development side through corporate governance for a variety of things. How is that interaction working? And hearing from you, from business actors like Matthew or Hamdi, and from people like Amira Haq, who knows from within the role of civil society as well as from the UN perspective, I think that's what we have to get at, is really the links between those various players who don't easily talk to each other. I mean, you were mentioning, like me as we were entering the room, that you were the development guy in the middle of people who are more diplomats than development people. So if you had one word to add, when you have to reach out to business, how do you do it? And then can you give us one maybe concrete example of that?

Oh, it can last a bit of time. Just to remind you, one first thing is a public development bank by itself is a way to mobilize private finance. Simply because we are issuing bonds on the market, and so private investors can use these instruments to go in very fragile settings only by buying their papers. So this is the first way, because sometimes it's a bit naive to imagine that we will succeed in having large corporations coming into the heart of the Sahel. I mean, how? Why? No, it will not happen. But we are at the heart of the Sahel, and we are financed through the market. So that certainly is one way that is often forgotten to mobilize private finance by increasing the balance sheet of public banks themselves. Then there are a lot of experiences happening, small local businesses, small local business, and again, very important to invest, have local MSMEs emerging. So the solution will not come from FDI, of course. Very helpful if there are foreign investors coming, but as you know, a foreign investor will never come, we will be listened to colleagues, only if it has an entry point in the country, if there's someone, an SME, that is able to explain the market, that is, even before talking about the business climate of the country, taxation, or the political stability or not, firms just need a counterpart in the country. And if there's none, I mean, we have a problem, and there's no way to attract private investors. So first, having home ground, having the DFIs, this particular segment of the public development banks that are devoted to financing the private sector, is absolutely key to have the whole system deployed.

Thank you very much. Let me now go to our distinguished guests who are with us virtually, and perhaps I'll invite Hamdi to speak, because you have been working both individually but also building coalitions of businesses around a shared purpose. Share with us what has motivated this and how you think it's working, and is there a public-private aspect to it?

I'm so honored to be here with you, and especially I'm so honored that the seminar is about, it starts with Kent, someone I respect greatly on business, call him Muhtar Abi. And if his name is going to be attached to any topic, it would be this conflict resolution. You know, I don't come from a business background, I come from a farming background in the eastern part of Turkey, not having so much positivity against it, but being in it now and having a perspective. And I think he lived and operated the business with the mind of how to deal with governments or policymakers, and have in mind that business has power, and that power comes with responsibility. And some of that power can make life better for others, and using the business's capability in partnering with the NGO world is also part of the business. So this world is more and more inseparable, and we no longer live in our isolations, and we cannot shut out or throw things to each other from distance. So there has to be a finding a way to working together. So that's my starting point. And I want you all and Muhtar to invite me here. We are different in the world of business, right? We kind of look at the policymakers, and I think the governor represents more like a bureaucratic place. And we often complain about a large NGO world also, a bureaucratic, wasting a lot of time and wasting a lot of other things, resources, at the same time. And then as business gets larger, somehow also sometimes gets closer to the things that we complain about, you know, more bureaucratic and decisions don't come through really fast. And I heard being mentioned there is a third power in all this dimension, which is the consumer, and necessity of the social dynamics and issues and problems that we went through and expectations of the, especially the young, but the societies from all those three dimensions, especially business and government. This has been said in the last decade, but I don't think has ever been so clear as of today that public-private partnership is essential. It's a must if we are going to make any changes or differences on the issues that we are facing as humanity globally. And I've heard, you know, climate change, there is no solution if we don't get together and do this partnership, and it's not just in a verbal way but has to find a way to work together. You're talking about refugees, you know, I'll give a little example on the refugees. There is no solution to bring this most alarming humanitarian crisis that we're facing in the world today if there is no private-public partnership. That means government, NGOs, and businesses in a very, very meaningful way. So that means that if one finds the other one is boring, we have to find a way to make sure that we are not bored in these meetings, and we have long-lasting relationships. And I'm talking very simply on a human level. I have seen signs, and be honest with you, I have seen signs working with some government agencies and working with large UN agencies when it comes to the topic of refugees in the last three, four, five years. You know, when we started Tent, the humanitarian side of refugees, which is saving people's lives and bringing shelter above their head, and yet refugees stay in refugee camps or whatever the city that they settled, average 19 years. But there's other angles of this, which is the employment, education, health, or human potential being stuck and not moving any forward. So, and you know, global NGOs like UN foundations can do only so much, government can only do so much, but when you bring the business side of things and say, hey, there's a win-win-win here that if we all work together, hey, NGO, you do all the safety, education, whatever your specialty is, shelter. Government, can you do the adjustments on working permits or other things that come related to it? And the business, prepared to hire and train and make it part of the society. And we have examples over and over from Colombia to Netherlands to Brazil to U.S. to Canada to Western Europe. This model works, but it really requires getting together. And what is good for NGO, what is good for the government, is good for the business. That means it's good for the consumer, that means it's good for the extended society. If some conflict is good for business, I don't know if I want to call that a business. I mean, that means that you're either making guns or you're making something that is good for the business when there's a conflict. If the suffering of humanity is good for the business, that means it's a business that is not generally, I see it as business. But for the most part, what business likes is the conflict to be resolved, humanity to move forward, and people to be optimistic about the future. And if the government's job or the policymaker's job is the same, which is to move their country or the people who live in that country or in that region to move forward, and if you look at the NGOs, of course, the purest of all is to help humanity move forward or the planet to be preserved or move forward. So it is good for all partners to come together to make this happen, so then the environment is good for the society. I think the number one is how do we talk, how do we get to know each other, how do we talk to each other, how do we find a common goal within each other, and how we make this work. I find, from my own experience, and I live it there, from my own experience, there is a bigger reception on the policymakers, on the government side, to the businesses more than ever before. And I can speak here in the U.S. or the rest of the world that I have been to. There is a power of businesses and CEOs more than ever before, being represented with the employees and the workers and the consumers and the brand of power, if it acts in the right direction, meaning consciously, socially, in an attempt, authentic. And I think it's been accepted that when it comes to getting things done, the way that is done in the business is the most probably faster and most economic way to get it done. So there is a benefit from all dimensions are getting together. I have never seen the reception as much as I have seen, as I said before. But we still have question marks because the policymakers are always changing from election to election, the ideas can change, the opinion on social conflict can change, one can be for it, one can be against it. And how do your businesses and NGOs can interact with the policymakers on this dimension? So there is this uncertainty. But yet, really, if the case is done in a convincing way, for example, you asked refugees, when we go to the policymakers, we make economic studies, scientific studies, and say supporting refugees to be part of the workforce in your country, in your community, in the long run, four years and five years, is the best thing you can do for your economy. And here's the proof, here's the studies that have been done. And if we can make that kind of arguments, it's really, you know, that risk, I shouldn't say is eliminated completely, but it is reduced. But if you're talking about health in Africa, like Muhtar and Coca-Cola get involved all these years, or girls' education, this is something that is really never changes. It's always there. It's just finding a way to come in together and working together. And I really do believe the only way that we're going to find any solutions to the big conflicts and problems that we're facing is going to come on this topic that you're just talking about. It's as crucial, as important as anything else. And if we do that, really, there is no problem that we cannot solve, including climate today. I'll just give you one simple example of 220 companies on Tent Partnership for Refugees, and committing to hire and train and support refugees wherever they are, with collaboration and relationship with the government and NGOs in each territory that you operate. And that allowed us hundreds of thousands of refugees to have a job that otherwise they wouldn't be. It's a simple, small example of how things are. I would love to believe that if we had put these conflict resolutions in the highest place, and I would love to believe that if businesses and CEOs get involved, you probably could have saved a lot of refugee-making conflicts in the world that is today. We probably could have stopped certain conflicts already that is causing an enormous amount of refugees globally, including Syria, maybe Russia, and maybe Venezuela. So I think the world leaders need to bring more and more business leaders into these type of discussions and finding solutions, and we need to, of course, work deeper with the NGO community.

Thank you very, very much. I think you've spoken to exactly the ambition that we have here for the Kent Program, which is to bring these diverse but powerful interests together in support of conflict resolution where that proves possible, building resilient societies where that proves possible. And as you're saying, you know, how to create those conditions for continuity and for collaboration and finding those opportunities, that is, I think, what we are exploring. And you've offered some wonderful comments that help contextualize it. Let me now invite Amira Haq to offer, you've heard now these comments, and you've been working in some real conflict zones. And so as you hear this conversation, could you share with us your reactions and your thoughts about what role for bringing different constituencies together in some of the most difficult settings that you've seen, and with the very powerful institutions that you've been part of?

Thank you, Merritt, and hello Jean-Marie and the rest of the panel members. It's wonderful to join you today on this very important topic. I must say before I start, Hamdi Ulukaya won't remember, but a few years ago I was on a panel with you with the UN Foundation, with Princess Rania of Jordan was also there, and I heard at that time you talking about employing in Chobani the refugees and the program. And I have used that example over and over and over again in terms of saying, you know, it can be done, and here's proof that this kind of partnership is there. So let me just, I will talk from both the UN perspective and the NGO perspective. And from the UN perspective, you know, Jean-Marie will know, and I happen to be right now in a seminar in Stockholm with you and colleagues, and because we are addressing a group of diplomats who are in the audience, I think they will know what I'm talking about. But when we have an issue of a peacekeeping mission being started by the UN, it is the Security Council that makes a decision in terms of saying, you know, we need the UN to go in, and the Security Council gives the mandate for the mission in terms of what they want done in a particular conflict-ridden country. And you know, we've talked about the mandates that these missions get, there's an expression that they're called 'Christmas tree mandates' because each member state sort of adds to the mandate their particular interest. And so these mandates become very unwieldy in terms of the vast array of tasks and objectives that the Security Council sets for it. But one thing that doesn't, and I think still doesn't, come about strongly in these mandates is the peacebuilding part of it. So there's a lot of emphasis on the political settlements and the stabilization and the human rights issues and everything else, but the peacebuilding doesn't get the rightful emphasis that it should. And the other part of that is that whilst the Security Council establishes the mandate and the member states of the UN are assessed, in other words, they have to pay the money in order to achieve that mandate, the peacebuilding work, which is the development work and the early recovery work and the humanitarian work, comes from a different part of member states' budgets, which are called voluntary contributions. And the reason that I take time to explain this is that I think Hamdi is absolutely right that multilateralism, as a concept, has tremendous onslaught in terms of where multilateralism will end up. But also we know that in many capitals the aid budget is shrinking. And the confluence of those two, with this kind of attack on multilateralism and aid budgets shrinking, forces everyone to think about, well, what are we going to do? It can't all stop. And this is where partnerships are just absolutely critical. And I think partnerships with businesses and other partners are absolutely critical. And if we look closer into what is most effective, and I have served for 40 years in the United Nations, and now after I retired I came on the board of a number of NGOs, but one very large NGO which is in Bangladesh called BRAC. And when I see the flexibility and the agility and the response times of NGOs as opposed to the larger, more bureaucratic, whether they're bilateral aid or the UN, it makes a lot of sense to me to have NGO partners who can implement things very quickly on the ground. We have, for example, in Bangladesh, as you all know, there was a huge, the Bangladesh government agreed to accept a million refugees, Rohingya refugees from Myanmar. I mean, that was a huge challenge, one million people crossing the border to come across. UNHCR is the agency, is the refugee agency, but UNHCR worked through BRAC to a large extent, and BRAC was actually the partner that was reaching about 700,000 of the refugees who had come across from Myanmar. And why? Because they could deploy very quickly, there was no language barrier, because they were able to mobilize large numbers of national staff, and also with an NGO there are no bureaucratic delays as we have in public sector agencies. So I think we have to wake up to this kind of call, and we have to become realistic that we can't wait. As a result of COVID, for example, we've got what we call the 'new poor', those who were once living in thriving households are now in this new poor status, in a survival mode. And how do we reach out? These are people who are qualified, most of them maybe teachers or mid-level bureaucrats, but suddenly they find themselves in a survival mode. So I think the partnerships, and particularly I'm so pleased always to hear when businesses and the kind of point that Hamdi has made, that we need that kind of partnership. And I have seen where businesses take an interest in a particular locality or a region, and you see that development take place in that region. Because either the farmers, if they've been given microcredit and have bought cows, they've got a dairy place where they can sell the milk to, and it sort of promotes, and they're able to send their children to school and education and everything else. So that kind of partnership is absolutely critical. And the other factor I think with working with NGOs, which I also felt that we didn't pay that much attention to in my career in development, was that very often those of us who are in public agencies, and even certain governments, we tend to work with more what we call elites in the capitals or big urban centers, or maybe those who are living along the main roads. But to go deep into the deep field of countries and regions and villages, where even roads don't exist, and to try and reach those who are what we call absolutely the ultra-poor, and again there I think there are huge partnerships now with technology, the ability, I mean this organization that I'm on the board of, BRAC, they are reaching out through mobile telephones, through cash transfers, all kinds of things which can bring development through the private sector and take it right to the hinterlands where poverty matters, and where people really need to be lifted up and are in that category of absolutely the ultra-poor. And that has a preventive element too, to relate it to conflict, exactly the point that Hamdi made, that we needn't have to see these refugee situations, but we needn't also have to see conflicts beginning to start because people feel neglected or marginalized because they are not in the field of vision of those who are making policies. And so I think this is a very powerful partnership that just has to be emphasized. And one other point that I would like to make is that there are people with ideas all over the world, but there is very little that's done in the realm of venture capital for social entrepreneurship. And so if someone has a great business idea, they can sell it, but if someone has also an idea where they say that this is going to promote development, they don't normally get the financing for that. And I think that kind of incubation, allowing ideas to incubate through these kinds of venture capital for social entrepreneurship, is also a very good step that businesses can make and promote the overall achievement, whether it's conflict resolution or just preventing conflict by emphasizing development and bringing the entire society along on a development trajectory. So let me leave it at that, Merritt, and thank you.

Thank you, thank you very much. You've brought a great deal to this conversation. You know, I'm struck that Rémy started us off talking about the SDGs being your guiding light and working through third parties, and Hamdi has told us about the critical collaboration between public, private, and NGOs, and the ways in which this can have a powerful impact with refugees, and talked about how important this is. And you've brought us, Amira, further about how really peacebuilding requires new collaborations, and you're seeing some that you spoke to, which I too have seen in companies bringing technologies and others, but really there's no escaping that and how important it is to reach the far corners of the earth where the needs are the greatest, and you gave us many specific examples. You know, Muhtar, you started us down this path, and I'd like to invite you to, from your life experiences and listening to this conversation, do you think we're fashioning solutions going forward? Let me invite you to share your thoughts.

Thank you very much, Muhtar, and thank you for bringing to life that powerful example which has been an industry leader, inspired many corporations. I'm delighted that we also have Matthew Devlin with us here in person. When I first met Matthew, he was dealing with conflict, local conflict, I'd say, Uber rolling out across America and also around the world. But in more recent times, you've really helped to create a global presence including in very difficult settings. I know recently in the Ukraine, you've been partnering with the World Food Programme, you announced, and really doing—and I think the story of Ukraine will come out this week in different examples and different panels because there are things happening in real time there that are quite extraordinary. And among those, I think, are interventions by the private sector to step in where public agencies are having difficulties or not naturally go. So could you share with us—you needn't just speak of Ukraine, but I think you've been in many settings now thinking about the power of what your company can bring to bear in difficult settings.

Sure, and then thank you again for having me. Thank you everyone for listening to me. We'll see how this goes. But Uber, so we operate in 75 countries globally, many of which experience conflict or the threat of conflict or at the very least heightened insecurity and instability. So that can be across Latin America, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, Central and South Asia. But I do think rather than try to add to some of the global frameworks that the other panelists have offered, I can be pretty specific about what's happening in Ukraine and how we're acting there, because again, as Merritt said, that's in real time and very much on the ground and concrete.

So if you go back to the 23rd of February, we had operations in nine cities in Ukraine, about 35,000 people worked on our platform in the country. We had a very large joint venture in Russia and Belarus and other former Soviet republics with Yandex, the Russian technology company. And we had hundreds of employees and contractors in Ukraine, in Belarus and Russia, or their immediate family members in those countries. And we of course have large businesses also across the border from Ukraine in Poland, Slovakia, and Romania. So that was the day before the war began, and of course the war began on February 24th. It's been 110 days, I believe, since then. And since then we've been pretty much consumed by responding to the war.

To kind of impose a false sense of simplicity on what we've done, you can kind of think of what we're doing in Ukraine and then what we're doing in the neighboring states to Ukraine. So inside Ukraine, the first thing we did was simply keep operating, which may sound simple but it's actually not the default feeling for most companies. In some ways, if you're risk-averse and you're confused and you don't know that much about Ukraine and suddenly there's a war that everyone said wouldn't happen, maybe you should simply just stop operating because what can go wrong if you pull all the chips off the table. And we made a very different decision there, that we would keep operating wherever possible and whenever possible through the war.

We made that for three main reasons, I would say. Firstly, we were aware that we provide an essential service to our riders, our consumers. Public transport in many parts of Ukraine has simply shut down, in no small part because a lot of the buses have been pulled over to Donbas to move soldiers and civilians and IDPs. And so the fact that we could provide a transportation option had always been important and had quickly become essential. And so that was part of what we believe was an ethical obligation to keep operating where we could.

The other side of our platform are our drivers. It's not lost on us that continuing to earn an income remains important despite whatever war may be happening for people. There's a headline number of 13 million internally displaced and refugees. The other number you don't hear so often is, I think, six million unemployed in the first few weeks. And so continuing to stay active in the country, continuing to provide people a work opportunity was a big part of our decision to keep going. And then lastly, symbolism. We recognize that it's important. We have a globally visible brand, many people have heard of Uber. It was important that if we're able to operate there, we could demonstrate to other companies that perhaps they can take a second look and maybe they can keep operating as well.

So once we made the decision to keep operating, it was a matter of where we could. Obviously, there's some cities like Kharkiv, heavily shelled and continue to be, or been occupied by Russian forces, and so we no longer operate there. But in the rest of Ukraine, we continued operations. We actually expanded into more cities in Ukraine, again driven by this belief that we are operating an essential service for folks. And so when the war started we were in nine cities, we're now in 16 at the moment. So actually the fastest growth of our business, if you want to think of it this way, in Ukraine has actually been during this war, which is a surprising thing to say.

Then in cities, we obviously had to build in a lot of safety and security protocols in terms of what times people could take trips, which areas they could take trips to, how would we respond in the event of a bombing or an airstrike. And so there's an enormous amount of work went into that and very, very closely coordinated with the local city halls. I think Muhtar just spoke to the importance of looking beyond the national government, and that's certainly been true for many of our experiences, but especially this war in Ukraine. We worked very, very closely at that local level with those governments.

Then what we're doing, we frankly we operate at a loss in Ukraine. The revenue we make in Ukraine we immediately turn around and give back to either the rider in the form of a reduced cost of transportation or the driver in the form of increased earnings. And we also give free transportation to the local city governments to move their essential workers and local NGOs to distribute supplies and move their own staff. And that has simply become our basic wartime operating model. We operate where we can and when we can, and as the situation changes, elements of that are in flux and probably will continue to be, but that is we will try to stay as close to that as possible through as long as this war continues.

In addition to simply kind of running a business like that, we're very focused on two, I'd say, core pillars of supporting Ukraine and inside of Ukraine. One would be refugee evacuation and transport for IDPs. So when the war first started and there was a big exodus towards the western borders of Ukraine, we basically threw open unlimited free rides on Uber. So anyone opening our app on their phone in western Ukraine could simply call a car to take them to the border for free. Over time we've transitioned to a regular shuttle bus now that runs from the Polish border, and people can just walk up and get on that, no questions asked, and we'll help get them where they need to be.

I would say another big thing, we work closely with international organizations, so UNHCR, providing their staff in Ukraine transportation to get around the country, and also collecting and distributing essential supplies inside of Ukraine for IDPs. So Ukrainians are also really, really one of the main donors to Ukrainian IDPs at the moment rather than a lot of the aid coming from externally. This is internally sourced aid that just needs to be redistributed within Ukraine to IDPs still in the country. And so we're trying to play a small part in helping that.

Additional to the refugee and IDP issue, there's as mentioned kind of emergency food aid work. And so there we've partnered with the World Food Programme. And their main challenge is they can get large bulk cargo shipments into their warehouses in Ukraine, but it's the next last mile, which is a bit of a misnomer, it's going to last 30 to 40 kilometers, right? How do you get out from a central warehouse to end recipients of this food aid? And so what we've done is we've built them a custom software platform that they can use to basically dispatch a small car or a small truck to their warehouses, route the trip to wherever they need to go, coordinate with the recipient, confirm receipt, and then integrate it into their warehouse management system. And so you can think of it as a private label Uber for the World Food Programme that we built for them.

So they have five main warehouses: Lviv, Vinnytsia, Chernivtsi, Kyiv, and Dnipro. And so we'll be doing that last mile distribution of food from those central warehouses again out to those ultimate recipients. And it's something of a model now that we've built the technology and kind of fine-tuning the operations that we can also hopefully replicate that with some of the other large aid agencies or having that problem once they get large shipments into Ukraine, actually getting it to the people who need it.

Then if you move across the border to outside of Ukraine, a bit of a mirror image. Free trips, say if someone caught, we can bring someone to the border of Poland and Ukraine, then we're offering free trips from the Polish border, which has become something of a choke point or was especially at the beginning of the war, to the large cities that are farther away from the border where most of the housing supply and social services are. And then once refugees arrive there, we're working very closely with a lot of the local NGOs and local city governments to again provide ongoing free transportation.

This is a refugee population, as many of you know far better than I, that is somewhat unusual. The gender skew is, I'm told, unprecedented perhaps. It is predominantly younger single mothers with very young children, and then it is the elderly and disabled. And that's a function of Ukraine's martial law and restrictions on military-eligible men leaving the country has created this unusual refugee population that has kind of lumpy needs, if you will. And so we're focused on trying to help with that—pediatrician appointments, counseling, post-trauma counseling for children, and then as you'd imagine, social services appointments, job interviews, language trainings, etc.

And the last part of what we're doing there is, which Hamdi very modestly described as small and simple, but we're one of the companies in his definitely not small and definitely not simple initiatives who have tried with his help and leadership to develop the muscle to build programs that find work and employment for refugees. So that's something we're trying to now replicate in Poland. So how can we identify work opportunities for the refugees from Ukraine and also package that with skills training that provides them with some form of lifelong skill that will benefit them immediately in the short term and hopefully kind of enrich the human capital that is going to be returning back into Ukraine, hopefully sooner rather than later.

And so that's kind of just a scatter shot of what we're doing. There's a long tail of other initiatives where we're either getting off the ground or attempting to get off the ground, but I hope that gives you a sense of the reality that to the extent we've done anything well and had an impact, it is only because we have done it in partnership with government or the social sector. And to the extent we've failed to work well in partnership with government and social sector, I think the honest answer is we have failed the people we were trying to serve to a degree. And so, not that it needs re-emphasis in this room, but the importance of what you all are discussing is playing out in real time all over the world. And I can certainly vouch for the fact that in Ukraine, and to the degree we collectively can become incrementally better at doing this work, I think over time these crises could hopefully reach exponentially better outcomes.

Thank you very, very much. I think with that we can open this up for some questions from our very expert audience. Thank you, Matthew, that was a wonderful example of an intervention where you can make a difference, you are making a difference, and you're choosing the instrument of your own business as the vehicle to drive change. And finding those interventions where companies can be effective and then finding those coalitions that can work is part of the challenge that I think Hamdi and Muhtar and Amira have all emphasized in different ways. Each one of our speakers really deserves this full session, but instead we're all together without enough time for each, but a great richness of perspective has been offered. Let me invite—we have now time for some questions and comments from our fellows. Sir, please introduce yourself and please ask your question or comment.

My name is Albert Cesaro, I'm from the Turkish Mission to the UN. And I want to thank the panelists for their briefings, very useful insights in their work. Also, my question, another comment relates to the remarks by Mr. Hamdi. He mentioned that if a business makes profit from a conflict, he wouldn't really see it as a business, which I of course see the reasoning behind that. But given the situation in Ukraine, and I also commend your work as Uber there, I was thinking about the discussion regarding arms exports to Ukraine. And I was thinking that I don't think Ukrainian armed forces would be as capable in defending their country if they didn't receive the arms from certain European nations. And I know that Germany is, for example, the fifth biggest arms exporter in the world currently. So my thinking was that sending arms into a nation is not necessarily fueling conflict in that country but rather enabling the defending forces to establish a stalemate in terms of the military situation on the ground that will hopefully in the long term lead to the necessary groundwork for negotiations for a long-term ceasefire and peace agreement to be made. So I would like to hear the comments.

Thank you. I wonder if Amira would care to comment. Were you able to hear the observation?

Yes, I did, but I think it was addressed to Hamdi because of a comment that he made.

Okay, well the Turkish—

But I agree with Albert. I mean, there is some benefit that might come from supplying arms to defend someone who is in need. But I think when it comes to conflict resolution, for me, it's conflict resolution before the conflict starts, right? There was a lot of time with conflict before the war started, and I think we could have stopped it before. You know, we have all these distractions that we are seeing. Millions of people lost their homes and refugees, like Matthew has been explaining.

You know, you look at a lot of damages on earth or war or deforestation, you follow the chain, at least my limited knowledge and as I'm growing up, is somehow someone getting rich out of that somewhere where a lot of people are suffering. I'd like to think that the era of that kind of business is done, where businesses align with public benefits as it's good for business, it's good for greater community. So I'm not going to sit here and defend why arms are good for one and another. I think where you want to go, and I think what Muhtar and we had in mind, is how we can move society forward that we don't need to use arms. You can have that conversation today's topic in this country where children are being shot and there is an opinion of the Second Amendment why people need to have access to guns. And to an extent, there is a lobby and there is a gun manufacturing community, and you can argue in so many different directions why this is, and that's endless. You can go forever for that one. But in the end, we don't want children to die, right? So how do we get there? How do we find the conflicts through business, policymakers, and civil servants to come together and say, okay, enough, enough, we need to find a solution to this.

I want to add one more thing what Matthew said on Ukraine. I was at that border and I met with people, drove on Uber cars and crossed the border. And if it wasn't that Dara and the team had made a decision to continue to operate and use that resources to mobilize people to cross the border so they can get into safety, people's lives were saved because of that decision.

And you give another example. We went to a place where there was a cash center where the Ukrainian refugees—and just at least on this topic, we can agree—the Europeans, the Polish, the Germans, Romanians, Slovaks, you know, the list goes on, they really come together really fast. They activated the law that they had before to have Ukrainians access to work and public services like education in schools. And the people come together and the businesses come together. And I think we keep coming to this refugee topic since in recent refugees, developing refugee-making conflicts, this one was the fastest people move ever. You're talking about within four or five weeks, three, four million people passed from that border, where in Syria it took a few years, in Colombia it took a few years and some of them more. But yet you couldn't find one refugee on the street of anywhere in Poland or anywhere in Europe. You couldn't find one tent. There was no tent that people were living under. There was no stadium or public arena where a lot of kids and young parents were living under rough conditions. It was organized so beautifully that as companies like Uber participated, people came to a border, they knew where to register, they knew which family was going to take them in, they knew which city and town where that family was, and they were given a clear direction where to go.

Now it doesn't take the problem away because they left their brothers or husbands or loved ones behind. But people when they crossed the border, it was welcomed by really beautiful humanity. And this model of getting together really worked in that scenario. And in, for example, in Poland, you had two and a half, three million refugees, mostly kids and women and kids like you said, and they were housed in people's homes. So of course the people played the role, government played the role, and the businesses played it all. And this is a showcase and I hope that exactly for example of this we've seen all around the world. But if you ask every single one of them, even though you see this kindness and you see this beautiful welcoming, the best would have been that they wouldn't leave their home, right? That's where this goes to.

And I come back to one example. I took a group of businesses with me to a country where there was 500,000 refugees had no access to work and the policy needed to change. And yet these people were working under rough conditions like human rights violations, child labor, etc. If you take 10, 12, 15, 20 businesses and go to the policymakers and say, in order for me to extend my businesses, increase my production, or invest in your country, you really need to give permission for these people to be a part of the workforce. The reason for that is this is the economic study, this is why this is good for your country, and this is why we're going to hire these people. And this is what we believe because that's the way that we are. The first reaction of the policymakers is, why do you care? I mean, we never thought this would be a business to care about this. The second thing is that this is real, we will come to your country, invest in your country more if you do this, and if you don't, I will have a different approach, maybe some you might not like.

I'd like to think that if the business community got involved early on in this Russia-Ukraine conflict, and what would be the circumstances of businesses' reactions in Russia if they continue on this aggression, maybe I'd like to think more now than ever before that they would have a second thought and maybe there was a way that they could solve this. My interest is not how we get together, which is beautiful, we should, and there are conditions that we must, but it's really, I think what Muhtar is interested, is to solve the conflict before it becomes the destruction to a lot of people's life or community and society we live in.

Thank you very much. I'm seeing lots of hands now and not much time. So in that dilemma, what I'd like to do is to invite a few people to offer their questions and then let the panel respond each to that portion of the questions they wish. Let's start in the back, but we'll collect those comments. If you could be brief, and we'll go around the room and then let our panel each speak.

Thank you, and thank you so much to our panel. I'm Caroline Quinn from the Permanent Mission of the United Kingdom to the UN. My question is about whether there are more creative or innovative things that governments could be doing to de-risk business involvement in fragile and conflict-affected states. So Rémy spoke about issuing bonds through development banks, but are there tax incentives, insurance underwriting, other things that governments could be doing more of but maybe haven't thought of? Thank you.

Thank you very much. Over to this table, please.

My name is De La Puente and I work for the Verification Mission in Colombia. My question goes more into what is your perception or recommendations also as businessmen and women in terms of what to do about the industry of, for example, forestry, destructive industry that has a much bigger role perceived particularly as those that are involved in conflict or stark conflict. And actually it's not really the fault of the business itself, but it's also the lack of the government providing leadership in terms of what can be done and not be done.

Thank you to all of our panelists. My name is Christian Lubo, I'm a US diplomat for the United States and a CIPA alum. Hamdi very eloquently laid out the comparative advantages of government, business, and civil society in terms of how each has a role to play in conflict. And the private sector of course moves quicker than government, and tech even more specifically. I think tech has an ability to move very quickly. So my question is for Matthew: in the 75 countries in which Uber is now working, what has been key and important for Uber in terms of getting up to speed in those countries quickly and operating in those 75 countries, each with their own unique cultural and historical circumstances? Thank you.

Hi, my name is Tina Suttoli, I'm from the EU Delegation to the UN here. Thank you to all the speakers who've been really inspiring today. I have plenty of questions for you all, but maybe I'll just limit myself to a couple. To Monsieur Rioux, just a question: you mentioned SMEs and the formal sector. Does the French administration have an approach towards the informal sector, which in many countries I guess is very important in terms of employment and social fabric? And also, it occurred to me that maybe what we need is a kind of Shark Tank for development concept in terms of venture capital for societal entrepreneurship. And most of all, I wanted to ask the question, and thank you to Mr. Kent for bringing it up, about incentives. And that brings me to my last question, which is maybe to both the business representatives: beyond philanthropy and kind of having your heart in the right place, what drives your company and how do you make sure that those incentives are known by your counterparts? And how do you make sure that beyond doing the right thing, you get something out of it out of this partnership? Thank you.

Okay, last two questions. Okay, we want to give our panel a minute each, so please very quick. Okay, keep it short.

Invaders from the United Nations. If you could change one thing for the better to improve the collaboration between the private sector and the public sector, what would that be? One thing you could do to improve that type of collaboration.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Sayonara from Angola. I just want to thank you all because normal civil society is usually seen like out of solution when it regards to the conflicts. And the example of Chobani company brings another perspective on integrating refugees. I would like to know if there is a specific country that you work with or how is the selection of these refugees and how things go on and the procedure to have refugees in your company. Thank you.

And the last comment about—yeah, thank you to all for the very inspiring, connecting the dots presentations. It's me, I'm Major from the delegation dealing with human rights. So my first question would be: how do you demonstrate that you are leading by example? Because business and human rights is important for resilient societies and social rights. And the second question is, you just said that Uber is amazing what you're doing and all the rest as well, but I just wanted to say this is when you have a crisis. My question is: early warning, are you really involved in early warning analysis so then you are there before there is a conflict? And the final one is: are you planning to organize yourself globally? Because that would be interesting with lessons learned. Thank you.

Thank you all very much. It's of course impossible to answer all these questions, especially since we are out of time. But I would like to give each of our distinguished guests a minute to speak to that which has been provoked by the questions we've heard. And if I may, and then you can follow up later as you see possible. Let me start with my colleague to the left, Rémy.

No, thanks. Thanks, you all. I really appreciated the way the discussion turned mostly from conflict resolution to, I would say, working in extreme economies, which is the title of an excellent book you probably know by Richard Davies. And looking at these very difficult settings as economic situations, I mean, where places where of course with extreme difficulties you can create money. It's absolutely crucial to provide, I would say, short-term and long-term solutions. So this was what we got from so many interventions. And it's certainly a clear incentive to yes, to transform our instruments. So yes, de-risking is the way forward. You just want to insist on this that it starts again with local actors. So we, maybe because we are in New York, we think that the solution will come from foreign interventions, be they military or in terms of economy. I want to stress that it starts with local actors. And so the risk appetite, of course, of these actors, be they formal or informal, are very different from what foreign direct investors are willing to take. I mean, the geopolitical risk, this is their risk. The currency risk, if you provide financing in local currency, there's no currency risk. So let's start with a risk framework that is consistent with the territory we have to intervene and then find a way, of course, to connect other investors. Venture capital, yeah, sure. Last point is, of course, we understand from the discussion that we need to find governance where we are all together. So there are many ways to do it in many countries, but we have again to have all capacities all the time, including before, during, and after the crisis, including this capacity to invest close to the tradition.

Thank you very much. May I invite Amira Haq for a final comment.

I'm afraid you're on mute.

Sorry.

Yeah, I was trying to think of one issue where I could sort of lump all the questions. And what comes to my mind is procurement. That everyone does procurement of goods, services, everything else. If aid programs, if other programs could do local procurement, we would do a lot for local businesses. So someone else asked what was one thing that you can change. One thing that has to change then is procurement policy. Because even I lived in Afghanistan for many years, and there even all the bottled water for all the troops was being imported into the country. And I think there is a great deal that can be done if just through these kinds of policies, whether it's promoting the local public sector, giving a jump start to the economy in the conflict-ridden countries when peace has just come. And there is one organization called Peace Dividend Trust, I think that's their mandate is really to try and do that. But I think we need to look at how we can promote jobs and small businesses in these post-conflict countries.

Thank you so much. May I invite Hamdi for a final comment.

Thank you, Merritt, and thank you for this discussion. I think as I said in the beginning, this is by far one of the most important topics. It really is. If you're going to make any improvement on any issues that we're facing here at home or anywhere around the world, this is how we can start to think that we could solve it. Really bringing a public-private partnership together. We do have work to do on the business side and the governments and policymakers have some work to do on their side, how to engage with businesses and NGOs and other important players. You know, it's not easy. This whole thing happens in rooms. There is some, you know, three ideas we have about each other. The government always looks at the businesses in the eye of profit makers, the only reason that they exist or the only reason they care about making profits. The businesses have opinions of the governments or the policymakers. And it's not all true. The companies have to learn how to be passionate and opinionated about some topics and learn not to be political. So stay above and beyond the politics and stay connected to the topics that you're facing. And the governments need to understand that businesses not just exist to make money, they have greater responsibility to all stakeholders, and that includes the people and the community, people that work for them, and the customers that they serve. And if you look at the NGO world and public servant world, there is a deeper understanding that needs to happen that it's not all about raising capital for them to survive or operate. They need to learn how to tag into the businesses that they already have services and ways of doing some of the work that they needed so they can focus on the humanitarian side of things. So there is some work that needs to happen, but in every example, if we can get together and stay firm about what we want to accomplish, the result is a lot faster than anything that we do alone. So we can't do it alone, we have to create these coalitions. And I think the only way to start building this coalition is talk about how we can build it.

Thank you so much. I think we're down to our last seconds, but let me give penultimate voice to my colleague here, Matthew, and then the final word to Muhtar, if I may.

I'll try and do a lightning round. So the diplomat from the UK asked what could governments do to de-risk investment in potentially unstable markets. I make a vote for the very simple commercial advocacy and regulatory modernization. It's near and dear to pretty much the entire tech sector, but many, many other sectors as well. I remember trying to get a business off the ground in a country that has an independent sovereign country that has some challenges, and opening up the law book to see what law would govern operations in the 21st century, and it began invoking Her Imperial Majesty. It's tough to run a tech company when the law is like seven years old.

The US diplomat mentioned how do you get off the ground across 75 countries. It's very hard to generalize at once. I'd say one thing is finding a champion, kind of a policy entrepreneur, I believe is the jargon people are fond of these days. But without a single politically empowered champion, it's very hard to do things in many of these markets. I will say in some markets that look from the outside like the most challenging and emerging frontier markets, they actually can—there's a close alignment between what companies can do, what governments need, addressing youth unemployment, addressing sustainable urbanization such as cities that become loci of instability. There's actually a productive conversation to have in an environment that otherwise may look more challenging at first glance. Sorry for going right through these.

Business incentives: why are businesses incentivized to operate in environments like this? Very few businesses have a business model that makes money in an active war, so that's pretty basic. But beyond that, I would say, of course absent arms manufacturers, but I would say consumers really care. I think Hamdi stressed this, has always been true to some degree, it's just becoming increasingly true. Consumers really care. Most companies are consumer-facing, many companies are consumer-facing, and those that aren't, employees really care. And I think that's a point that is probably insufficiently understood by our partners outside of the private sector. If you can get a company's employees to care, you can get the company to care. That's an extremely powerful lever.

Collaboration: what one thing would be changed about collaboration? It's been said before, but start before the conflict begins. Most private companies have no idea which organizations, public or social sector, they should turn to until something goes wrong. They definitely don't know who's the right person within that organization. They have no idea how to navigate that organization. All the terminology is wrong, the organization is set up differently than anything they've ever encountered, people use words they've never heard, and you can't really afford that delay once you're already in a problem. So start early and make friends on a human level so you can have productive, quick conversations.

There's one question about early warning and are we too late. So we did begin early warning for Ukraine very consciously quite a long time before the war began. I wouldn't pat myself too strongly on the back. I think that's just a general lesson many companies learned the hard way with COVID. There's kind of a general crisis emergency response functionality that many companies didn't have before COVID and have actually—a thin silver lining to that tragedy—built over the past couple years. And I think between COVID and Ukraine, I think most companies have got the message: you need to be ahead of the problem before it's in your face. And then there was a question about how we organized globally, which I'm sorry I didn't catch, but happy to address afterwards.

Thank you. Muhtar, I invite you to close us out with any reflections you have from this extraordinary conversation.

Thank you very much. Please join me in thanking our amazing panelists. It's been a wonderful conversation, I hope you agree.