Good morning everybody and thank you very much for your patience. My name is Barry Colfer, I'm the Director of Research here at the IIA. Absolutely thrilled to have Carson Stauer here to speak to us about development assistance in a changing world. That's all I have to do because it's my pleasure to invite Michael Gaffey from Irish Aid to give a couple of opening remarks. Michael. Great, thank you very much. If I can keep my introduction as brief as that, I'll be doing really, really well. Good morning everyone. It's great to be here on the latest of the Development Matters series of lectures. With the IIA, which we, in collaboration with Irish Aid, it's a really good forum for us over recent years in bringing significant and influential figures in the world of development to speak in Dublin. I have to say it is a real honor and a pleasure to have the guest today, Carson Stauer. It feels, I should first of all say, it feels like a bit like an old ambassadors club standing up here because Carson has been ambassador to the UN in New York when I went as ambassador to the UN in Geneva. He was the Danish ambassador and of course David was the Irish ambassador to the UN in New York and the father of the SDGs. So we'll just set all that ex diplomacy aside because Carson is here today as the chair of the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD and the DAC is a really important influential organization. He was elected chair about a year ago. He's in his first year. He's making a real impact and I would say that the world today, as we say constantly, is in a state of multiple overlapping crises and the place of ODA of official Development Assistance in helping in the response to some of those crises or to that poly crisis situation is a subject of huge debate at the moment. I think in Ireland and probably across the world, the debate on whether we need to have ODA anymore has finished. I think the focus now is on how do we use ODA? It's not going to solve all our problems, but it is a very significant piece resource of voted government expenditure and the DAC, the Development Assistance Committee, is the custodian of ODA, the rules for ODA, how it works and how consensus can be reached on that. So I attended last week the DAC high level meeting in Paris and it was actually a really important two days of discussion on the place of development in our world today and on how we can use and apply ODA as effectively as possible. So I want to say Carsten has already met with our Senior Management Group this morning and given us a really, really clear and interesting sort of analysis of how he sees the world today and how we deploy ODA in it. So rather than me going on anymore about that, I just want to welcome Carsten and look forward to a really good discussion with him this morning. Thank you very much, Carsten Starr. Michael, thank you as ever. And just echoing your remarks, it's really wonderful, Carsten, to have this opportunity to welcome you to Ireland. Not your first time. I think you've had an illustrious career and Michael and I were able to be able to work with you at different points when you were State Secretary for International Development Corporation in Denmark. We worked closely and then later in your various UN roles and indeed other colleagues worked with you while you were Danish Ambassador to the OECD and now you've ascended as a result this crucial role and we're all delighted that a friend is there and that's somebody whom we value greatly. A few housekeeping points before I ask Carsten to take the floor. First, you'll be able to join the discussion using the Q&A function on the Zoom. Please feel free to send in questions throughout the session as they occur to you or observations or challenges or whatever and we'll come to them after Carsten has finished his presentation. A reminder that both his presentation and the Q&A will be on the record. Please feel free to join the discussion on Twitter or X using the handle at IIEA. We're also live streaming the discussion today. So with that, Carsten, once again, a very warm welcome from the IIEA and over to you. Thank you. I might stand up here just to make it a bit more informal. Just to say thank you very much for the invitation and for this honor and opportunity to be here and to say a few words. I have worked closely with Ireland in a number of occasions, not least in the Global Fund. Nicola Brennan, I think she's now in Addis, was a good colleague in the Global Fund Board where we both represented the group that was called 0.7. That was aspirational on part of Ireland. It was more a matter of fact in part of Denmark. But basically we worked in Nordic countries plus the Netherlands, the UK, Luxembourg. Not the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg with the Nordics in one of the 10 constituencies on the donor side. And it was a real pleasure to work with you on that. If you look at the OECD DAC and on developer cooperation on ODA from the outside, you can say that this is just a success story. Last year, 2022, we had the highest ODA ever. More than the first time we passed the $200 billion mark, $204 billion, up $18 billion compared to $21.36% of GNI, the highest number that we have had for since 1986. So basically a success story is in many ways. ODA is as strong as it's ever been. The DAC itself I think is also a success story in the way that we do rulemaking, in the way that we do data and the way we do analysis, in the way that we create peer learning environments for member states to work on. So basically a good story and an easy job. On the other hand, there are some real challenges out there that I think we need to be aware of and where we basically need to start discussing and some of them we have been discussing for some time. ODA is $200 billion a year, but there's a lot of pressure on it. We see pressure from humanitarian assistance. Gaza right now is providing a lot of pressure on ODA budgets to deal with the present emergencies of course and there will be a discussion about reconstruction coming up very soon hopefully. Then we have pressure on Ukraine. Biggest recipient of ODA from Ireland, from Denmark, from a number of other countries in 2022. We have the pressure from indowner refugee costs, which are huge in 2022. You saw half of the Irish budget is indowner refugee costs. For other countries it's not necessarily all that, but it's a significant part. 14.4% of total ODA in 2022 was indowner refugee costs, most of it from Ukrainian in general. We have seen a lot of pressure on COVID-19, the whole issue of vaccine donations. We have seen the knock-on effects of COVID-19 and the economic circumstances of countries. We have seen only 12% of the SDGs being on track when we had the discussion in New York in September. We will not go to be in a situation where we can see we have lived up to the SDGs when we are in 2030. The only question right now is how close will we get and we need to get as close as possible.  Part of that, a large part of that, assistance to mitigate and to adapt to climate change will be ODA or is ODA, but there's also a pressure of moving more ODA into the work of climate change, mitigation and adaptation than in what has been traditional focus of ODA in social sectors in health education, social protections and so on. So there's a lot of pressures on the envelope of ODA from a number of sources. At the same time, we see competing models of cooperation emerging. China is not a big provider of ODA, but it's a big provider of finance. A lot of it, of course, is capital that's lend out at commercial terms. Huge importance to Africa in recent years, and we have seen the Belt and Road Initiative, we've seen the Global Development Initiative from the Chinese side, in the sense that that provides and is seen as providing an alternative to the traditional donor role of the West. It's not entirely so, and I do think that there are ways of also where we can also cooperate, but in very much also seen that in a way that it is basically a competing model. We will never get to a new Cold War situation where we have two different systems opposing each other, but we will get to a situation where there will be tensions in some areas and cooperation and others, and that's something that we need to deal with. We also see pressure on trade patterns. When we had the 30 years of ODA driven by Cold War from 1960 to 1990, then we went into a mode of globalization. Globalization was the driver of our ODA narrative. We wanted developing countries to join the global economy to grow through integration into the international trade and to have export-led economic growth. That was dependent on free, open trade in the world. We are in a slightly different situation now. We will talk about home-shoring, near-shoring, French-shoring, strategic autonomy, talk about shortening supply chains. We talk about more resilience in our supply chain. So there's a lot of change in the way that we look at trade, and it all boils down to maybe a new look on markets and where we should solicit from companies, where should their suppliers be. And we see a number of interest in maybe getting closer to Europe, in our case and in your case, and also to move to new markets. And that was where Africa will become a big issue in the discussions in the years to come. And finally, we see criticism of ODA in the way that we account for ODA. I think 90% of all ODA is grants, and that's very easy to account for. But we do have some part of ODA which is related to loans, to debt, forgiveness. And there has been a discussion about that. And we basically are in a situation now where we also have to address that kind of criticism. So under the surface of a great success, there are some challenges that we need to address in the years to come. And we're quite aware of that. And the high-level meeting that Michael alluded to last week has also set an agenda for how to address some of these points in time. Now what to do when I'll try to be brief here and we can elaborate on that during the Q&A. But for me, it's very clear that we need to increase ODA. 0.36% overall is good. It's better than for a long time, but it's not enough. And especially not enough if we use ODA for a lot of sideshow, so to speak. Additional aid to Ukraine. Ukraine is not the typical developing country. It is a European middle-income country that happens to be on the ODA eligibility list. But it is not a typical country for what is meant historically by ODA. And so I think it is important that our assistance to Ukraine become additional. It may not be possible in the forum, but I think we have to, as we did in 2022, to be able to say that most of our assistance to Ukraine has been additional. It was clear, if you look at it overall for 2022, that we can say not all of it, not for all countries, but as an average, the majority of our assistance to Ukraine was additional in last year. So that's really important. What is also important is that we don't get into a situation where we can say that Africa is going to pay for Ukraine. Again, look at the numbers for 2022, the provisional numbers, fall in bilateral assistance for Africa overall of around 7%. It may be corrected when we get the final numbers just before Christmas, but there was basically a story out there that can say that for a certain part, Africa did actually pay for the assistance to Ukraine. And that is not, I think, what we want, where we want to see ODA. And that's not a situation that is politically conducive. So we have to be sure that we can increase ODA. We can also increase within ODA our assistance to Africa. And we should not get into a situation where we are forced to choose between increased military expenditures and increased ODA. It is not. And I think that may be the most important political message here. It is not an either or it is a both and. There are a number of huge pressure on our security in parts of the world, including in Europe. There's a good reason to increase military spending, defense spending due to the threat which is Russia poses in our neighborhood. But it should not be at the expense of our possibilities to increase ODA. And I think that hopefully will be a key important political issue in the time to come. The other issue that we have is the allocation of ODA. The pressure right now is very much on more support for middle-income countries. The World Bank reform, the MDB reform, the pressure that we now get to provide more funding for the international development and financing system is basically going to be a lot of pressure to provide money for middle-income countries. We also see when we get to a new search in our support for debt relief, which will come that will also happen to be presumably for number of middle-income countries. So the pressure is there. Middle-income countries are battling with a lot of challenges in terms of climate change mitigation in terms of dealing with all sorts of problems geopolitically and economically. And of course, the political pressure from this group of countries, I'm sure, will only increase in the time to come. In that situation, I think we really need to look into to try to defend and protect our support for low-income countries for disease, which traditionally has been the recipients of ODA. ODA is much more economically important for low-income countries than it is for middle-income countries. I think up to 10 percent of GNI in low-income countries actually emanates from ODA, whereas less than 1 percent if you look at lower middle-income countries. So the economic importance of ODA is quite strikingly different in the poorer countries than it is in the middle-income countries. And the potential effect of ODA is also increasing in low-income countries. And there's no doubt that we need to change the way that we do business. There has been a lot of discussion at the ILO meeting last week that we need to listen more, we need to stay engaged, we need to build more on locally-led development, we need to be more flexible in the way we adapt to changing political situations, economic situations in ODA. And as maybe at some point in time, some people say that we have to be less personalistic in the way we do business and I think that is really, really important. We've tried to do that for a long time, but we have not finished that job and we need to reinforce the way that we try to create partnerships with our partner countries. We also need to look a little bit more deeply into the role of ODA. ODA has always been a catalyst for change. We try to move, we try to help countries do the reforms that need to do and they want to do by way of ODA. So we invest in change, we invest in reform. We have a lot of focus now on investing more in domestic resource mobilization and tax systems and creating revenues in countries for them to themselves to be able to increase their investment in health, education, social protection and other main important issues. And that still, that using ODA to create an enabling environment for growth and for development will still be a very key factor in the way that we do ODA. But we have an increasing discussion about ODA in mobilization, leveraging ODA, making sure that we can use ODA to generate more private investment, more private finance and development. We do that through, and Ireland is not in that club that has development finance institutions, but half of the DAC members actually do that. So there is a growing interest and that's the reason that we had a lot of discussion in recent years on private sector instruments. How can we use ODA to raise private fund? How can we de-risk? How can we in other ways try to be helpful to overcome some of the obstacles for private finance in developing countries so that we can actually do what we need to do? Even though ODA is $200 billion, even it's a record number. It's a small part, five percent maybe, of the total financial needs in developing countries. If you look at the SDG business and if you look at the climate change, the calculations, you see numbers in the classes of trillions. ODA is a small part of that, and ODA was never meant to fill that gap. Countries themselves have to mobilize. Private sector has to play an important role in mobilization for development, in financing for development. So how can ODA be helpful in generating that change? That's another quite important agenda, which I think we need to take too hard. Then maybe just to finish, there will be an important conference coming up a few years time, financing for development in 2025. And some of these questions about the role of ODA, where it fits in, what are the targets for interventions, which are the countries that should receive ODA and why, will have to be dealt with in the run-up to that conference. So that donors and the DAC community, I think, have aligned and have an opportunity to discuss them as far as possible, also to coordinate our views on that issue. And I think that would be a very important fixed point. And one thing that we are very aware of is we start preparations now. Final point on ODA integrity. It's very clear that ODA is a strange thing. It's a concept that was invented by the DAC in 1969. It's a concept that was put into the UN legislation, so to speak, or the decision from the General Assembly in 1970, 53 years from now, almost to the day, where the General Assembly adopted the framework of ODA and adopted the 0.7 percent target, which means that then that target was adopted as an international standard for what developed countries should do in support of developing countries. And at the same time, it was left to the OCD DAC to define what actually development assistance was. And for the past 54 years, we tried to do that, tried to change and modify the definitions and reporting directors as the world changed. And we're still in that situation. But it's also a lot of trust in the DAC from the international community that said that we have given you a pressure-intangible asset here, ODA, and you gave it to you to administer that. And what do you do that with the whole world's eyes on you and that responsibility and that accountability to the international community at large? I think it's something that we need to be aware of. It's the question of how we adapt gradually as things change, the concept of ODA and the way that we account for it, but we still have to do it in a way where we can say that we maintain the original spirit and the integrity of ODA. And for me, that is a real important thing for us because we have an intangible with a lot of political value, all countries feel, all members of the DAC feel that they should attain the 0.7 percent target one way or another at some point in time. So the political pressure is there. And we need to make sure that the value of that target is kept and that we don't dilute it. So that would be one of the I think the main challenges for the years to come that we that we try to maintain that integrity of ODA. Thank you. Carlson, thank you very, very much. Extremely interesting set of challenges as you are describing it. Many of those resonate, of course, very strongly with an Irish audience. I think the emphasis on low income countries, Africa cannot pay for Ukraine and so on. Let me invite people to put questions and comments to Carlson. And I can kick off with a couple of myself. I think there was a reference last week at the high level meeting Carlson to a strategy, a new strategy, which will come out in 2024. What kind of content do you see for that strategy? Would you embrace some of the questions that you just been talking about? That I think, Michael, that basically is I think the reason I think it's a well kept secret, but actually in 2017 there was an annex to the high level meeting outcome which also had the chair strategy for the duck. I must confess I only read that after I became the chair. So it was a well kept secret that we actually had one. So at the end we said that we renew our strategy. And I think that's the basis. So we do have a point of departure from that. Maintaining integrity. Maintaining the traditional emphasis on the poorest countries. And I think what we try to do now is to be sure because the world has changed dramatically since you did the SDGs in 2015. And basically look at it's eight years since then. We have had Trump. We have had Brexit. We have had a financial crisis and COVID. We had Russian aggression. Now we have Gaza. So that small eight years less than a decade has really changed the way that we have been looking at things and looking at ODA. And I think as I said, I think the main structure of the house is fairly good. The question is the village in which the house is situated has changed. So we need to be sure that that house still fits in that village. And that would be the main challenge for the strategy to contextualize ODA in another world. What about overall ODA levels, Carson? I mean, is it your sense that the traditional donors will keep up their commitments? And what about possible new donors? I mean, one thinks of the Gulf of traditionally and there are other countries. I mean, China, to say, gives relatively little in ODA terms, but it clearly has resources available. I mean, what number one, how are the traditional donors shaping up and number two, what scope is there for adding to the number of donors? I think that the main pressure I think on traditional donors is that on one hand, I think we can see increasingly that the global agenda is an important one. In the trade-off right now is between the short term, and I took a lot about Europe here, the short term regional agenda in terms of grain, Russia, security, our own integration processes, vis-a-vis the longer term or global agenda. They have, of course, a crossroads on there where you can look at the whole issue of security, of migration, a number of challenges to Europe that has to be dealt with in the medium and long term. And the sooner we get to that, the more sure our investments will or the more profitable in that language our investments will be. So I think that the main challenge is to have a discourse in the public, in political circles and parliaments that actually tries to look at this in a bit longer term and in a global perspective, not being totally absorbed about the short term regional one. I think that is the main challenge. And then to have a good, solid analysis of how things are interrelated and interconnected in a way that makes sure that we can make the investments at the right time and the right size. I think that is basically the argument for ODA and to increase ODA. It's the hard political cell. There's no doubt about it. But again, it's a question also about those who actually create the political discourse and create the political discussions. How far can you take that? How much can you expand the narrative around that? I think that would be critical. On new donors, Michael was present at our first meeting of global providers in February just before I took over as dark chair. And there is a clear ambition from the OECD dark 32 members to increase collaboration with non-dark members. And we had a lot of countries present there and we are trying actually to pursue that. Arabs is one thing, but also Indonesia, Thailand. Brazil have interest in extending collaboration with that. And that has a lot to offer on the technical side. How do you do developer cooperation in a rational way? There's a lot of instruments that we have that we can put at least disposal of others. So I think that we are trying to find how can we actually get into a second global providers meeting. We will have a meeting next year in the DAC Arab dialogue in Kuwait, which we're trying to find a date for right now. So we are reaching out to all this non-traditional donors that we will tell them. The big elephant in the room, of course, is China. And we all have strategies on dealing with China that goes from cooperation on climate change to that we are competitors as an economic front and then we are systemic rivals on a third dimension. So where do we take development? Because development deals with climate change. It also deals with economic growth and competition. And it basically also deals with values, which are the systemic issues. So development cooperation is spread on all levels of our relationship with China. So we need to discuss how we intervene, how we seek dialogue with China. But I think there's a good basis for it. And I think we need to reach out to China and to have some discussions on the issues that are of mutual interest. And I think we can do that. Yeah. You mentioned cost and security and migration among the challenges certainly facing Europe. And that brings up then the question of the definition of ODA because in recent years, as you know, various efforts have been made to bend or to solve from the DAC rules. I remember 20 years ago, when we were both in sort of similar positions, there were quite strict rules in those days. From your perspective now, how do you see the integrity of the rules? I'm not necessarily advocating that they stay immutable, but security and migration are two areas. If you like, you mentioned the indoner refugee costs. And then there have been efforts by the UK, for example, to solve for the present British government to soften the rules in favor of military type expenditure. There are threats, therefore, to the purity of the rules. How do you assess those threats? It's obvious that, as I said, it is an ongoing discussion. And there are adaptations of the rules because the world changes and the rules have to change. So that's a natural development over time. But there's always been a pressure in the sense that for a number of countries, they have only ODA. They don't have any other bucket of fun here. Some countries will have other buckets of funding, so they are more relaxed on what is ODA and what is not ODA. But a number of countries actually only have ODA. So whether an investment is included in ODA or not is quite decisive for whether that investment is possible. And if you can expand ODA with yet another kind of investment that usually has not been ODA, it makes it much more possible to do more on that front. And that creates, of course, an ongoing discussion around where the limits are. Luckily, we're in a situation that we can only change the rules if all 32 members are in agreement. That means that we spend a lot of time on our last discussions on private sector instruments. We spent seven years discussing what we agreed to here in October. There's also 100 pages of good language on how we can actually define and count ODA. So it also goes into the details. The DAC is striving on reporting directors or member states are doing the reporting according to those directives. And we can change those directives if we agree on it as we did with PSI. And the reason for that was exactly to try to, first of all, to create rules where there hadn't been rules before, but also to create rules that would incentivize the use of smaller part of ODA to leverage other kinds of funding. And that was the idea around that. And then, of course, a lot of people said, we need to be sure that we're not trying to finance things that are not ODA and are not naturally within ODA. So a lot of discussion on where the limits were and also the whole accountability for the transparency of arrangements. So I think that's a good example on peace and security. It's obvious that we do have rules if for a peacekeeping operation, a certain percentage can be reported as ODA, it's usually a very low number. But we can always adjust that and it's based on evidence on how big a share of a peacekeeping operation is actually dealt with, dealing with issues that are within the ODA fund. So these things can be done. But we have to do, as I said, we are accountable. We're accountable to our voters that we don't cheat on where they see ODA and what it actually is. So there has to be some kind of transparency and accountability there. But we're also accountable to the world at large. And we cannot, in my view, change the rules dramatically from one day to the next without losing that vote of trust and vote of confidence from the international community to us. So it's a balancing act where we need to adjust because the world is changing. But we also need to be sure that we adjust on the basis of the values and the criteria and the definition that we have had for decades. So it's not an easy answer to that. But the good thing is that taking 32 countries to move very dramatically is a bit of a hard sell. So all the changes will be incremental. They'll all be tested. And they all try to stand the test of political acceptance by 30 different governments and monuments. I remember 20 years ago that we were hoping that maybe some additional migrant relation costs could be accepted within the ODA definition. But I remember our Swedish colleague of the time, Tenebi, no way that they wouldn't go along with that. Of course, I run a day more recently, Swedish government had no problem altering the definition of ODA. But when it's done in donor refugee costs, we clarified those rules in 2017 after the migration crisis in Europe in 1516. We said that you can report these costs for the first 12 months. That the 12 months actually kick in once the refugee comes to a European country. So if you go through Germany and Poland and end up in Ireland, actually it's not full 12 months in Ireland. That's one thing. The other thing is that it's basically basic sustenance. So it's health, education, it's housing. It's not preparation for the labor market. It's not tertiary education. There are a number of rules in the sense that puts an eye on that. And then we also said that usually it would be home offices the metrics on those rules. But we also said that the reporting agent, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which submits the ODA figures to the DAC, also has a responsibility to vouch for the accuracy of the reporting that that takes place. So we tried to put in some safeguards. And then we also, of course, all urge countries to be slightly conservative. There's a judgment called in many of these reportings, that's very clear, but to be slightly conservative in the way that they do the reporting. The big thing, of course, is whether the 2023 data will be at the same level of the 2022 data. In 2022, we saw an increase in assistance to Ukraine going up from 1 billion in 2021 to 16 billion by natural assistance in 2022. We saw a surge in the donor refugee cost moving from I think 16 billion dollars over and over in 2021 to almost 30 billion dollars in 2022. Now that was, of course, everybody could understand that. Ukrainian refugees coming into Europe, an exception of certain states and that. So we all had to cope with that. Now the number of Ukrainians have decreased. Maybe other asylum seekers and refugees are moving into Europe at the same time. So we will see when we get the 2023 numbers in April, whether this huge level of donor refugee cost is actually still the same in 2023 as it was in 2022. Or whether it's going down or how much it's going down. It peaked before in 2015 and 2016, then it went down again in 2017-18 and up again in 2022. So it's cyclical in many ways, but responding to crisis situations. But we will need to see and we also then need to see whether we have to take this issue up again and the discussion in the back. The OECD generally and the DAC have done great work on accountability and transparency. And I have a question here about the private investments framework. So how do you see the cooperation between DAC and the sector generally? I think that if we take as point of departure that we need more private finance in order to reach the SDGs. We cannot do that with ODA alone. Domestic resources will still be the most important source of financing for development, but domestic resources need to be supplemented with more investments, more trading opportunities. If you take an African country, then you say, okay, can we inject more private investment that can bring a lot of benefits to a country? Can we basically develop more trading opportunities? Can we reach the content level of products and basically the value added of products that goes for sale from African countries to Europe? It all has a great meaning to use ODA for that. But we have to walk the thin line between this being a necessary incentive to doing things and not being basically a subsidy for what you are already doing. And I think that's the thin line that's at the basis of all this. And we don't want to create you know, another subsidy competition between the European countries using ODA to the best possible. We need to limit this use to where it's actually necessary in order to make the investment. We have a lot of discussion about risks. There are country risks, there are currency risks, there are project risks. And on project risks, the sense is that we need, and that's also one of the things from the High Level Meeting Communique, we need to look a bit more on the way that we assess risks. The sense is that some of the data that we have on risk will contradict the popular assumption that risks are verified. So the notion is that we need more transparency on this data. And then we need maybe also to have a discussion with the rating agencies on this because there is maybe a perception out there and that's the indication that the assumption for the work that we're going to take on this, that there an overestimation of the risk level that means that a lot of investments do not take place because the risk is set too high. And if we can set the risk more realistically, maybe we can actually make more investments happen. And that's, it's not an ODA issue per se, but it is basically an issue where ODA play a role in de-risking and bringing down risk and also in funding of a lot of the development finance institutions. So we do have an interest in that specific level, but just one final note on this, that what we did with the agreement on private sector instrument was also to say we now set in motion a system for reporting and we would review this system again in a few years time when we have more data. It cannot be done tomorrow because it takes time to make this new system work, but we actually will try to review that in 2030 and see whether these things that are that we have put in motion, how they actually worked. And we also give the secretariat a bit more cloud to engage with member states if they see things that are basically very strange in the way that member states do reporting on ODA on private sector instruments. So that's also a more assertive role for the secretariat in these discussions and as part of the agreement. Yeah. You're absolutely right about the STG's financing. I mean, we only ever envisaged that ODA would be more or less a drop in the ocean, that in the needs of this vast agenda would acquire a huge investment by the private sector. And sometimes that is lost sight of that it was never going to rely entirely on ODA. The question of the partnership with Africa, Karsten, can you say a little bit more about that? Because in many ways, not only do we want to make sure that Africa is not disproportionately affected by the current crisis as it is, but I think it makes sense that the tax would reach out to the low income countries in Africa. How do you intend to go ahead with that? I think that that's a discussion we can have in the dark, but it's also important that that discussion is also taken in all member states. Because if we somehow, if we still maintain, I think we should, that the main emphasis on ODA should be on low income countries, LDCs and other low income countries. The majority of those are in Africa. Those LDCs that you find in other places in Africa are on their way to graduation from the LDC status. So it's very much, if you look at what can call poor countries, least developed countries, low income countries, the bulk of that is in Africa. It's also where we have a huge demographic challenge and huge economic challenge. And also basically where the issue of migration, of irregular flows of migrants, where the issue of security in terms of risking terrorist activities and hotbeds in a right outside European frontier, where a whole issue of instability is most urgent. We see the numbers for demographics that Africa will double its population from 2020 to 2050. The majority of young people in this world will be living in Africa in 2050. So there has to be jobs, there has to be economic opportunity, and we have an interest in assisting African countries making that move in order to be able to cope with increased population and create pathways for young people that can either stay in country or leave in a part of regional migration schemes or whatever they want to do and what we can negotiate in times to come. So I think that Africa would need to be the main emphasis. The challenge of course is that Africa, if you look at it from a climate change perspective, Africa is less than 4% of all global emissions. So from a climate change perspective, mitigation issues are not at very high on the agenda or Africa. Adaptation is. How can you, because climate change will happen, we saw the new numbers from the UN the other day, change will happen. It will affect livelihood, precipitation patterns and livelihoods for a number of African countries. So there will be a lot of change in African countries due to climate change, and adaptation to that will be a key issue for ODA. And that's the reason that we have an ongoing discussion about the balance between mitigation and adaptation. Because at the end of the day, this is also a discussion about middle-income countries which would benefit much more for investments in mitigation and low-income countries that would benefit much more from investment in adaptation. So that knows that balance and the strive to increase the relative share of adaptation in ODA, I think is hugely important. But it's something that we have to deal with and it's something that I think adds to the emphasis of Africa because the link, we have an HDP nexus, Humanitarian Development piece, which we OCD formalized in 2019, which basically says that we need to be more coordinated with our humanitarian systems, our development systems, and our political diplomacy systems. So those three systems that we all have need to be more integrated in the way we approach situations in countries. Now we also need to be sure that we take care of climate change issues in that nexus, not as a fourth pillar, but integrated across the nexus. I think that would be a real challenge for us and that would also mean that somehow it's also a way to mitigate the pressure from climate, from humanitarian, on development, on the core of development cooperation. If we can, through the HDP nexus and integrated approach to climate change, can bring these things together, more together and avoid this kind of pressures that pressures on the core of development. Thank you, Carsten. Let me advise you any questions from the audience. We have a few minutes left. Thank you very much, Carsten, and thank you for a really fascinating presentation. And just to pick you up there on the diplomacy and diplomatic systems, you've become the face of the DAC and the recent report on PSIs as well, I think was very well received. And I know that you move around a lot to various countries. I was wondering when you were talking about getting new members for the DAC, whether the association of a reputation, for a positive reputation, for accountability and involvement in the DAC is something which assists you, for example, in non-like-minded countries where we might not share the same value systems politically, but in terms of the DAC, that there is a benefit for them in being seen and being peer-reviewed globally, basically, that might assist you in your diplomatic efforts. Thank you. It's a really good set of questions. The DAC membership is limited to countries that are members of the OECD. So we have a limited number of countries that can be members of the DAC. Of OECD members, six are not members of the DAC. It goes for Israel and Turkey, and it goes for the four Latin American countries that we have as members of Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Mexico, of course, the longest serving of those members. Those four are not members of the DAC. And the reason that they are not is that they have traditionally also been members of G77, and they have traditionally also been identifying as developing countries. So to make the move, even if you have become a member of the OECD, to make the move from that to be actually in a donors club has not taken place yet. But what we have done now is that we also have created the status of associate in the DAC. So we can actually become a DAC member with voting rights. We don't vote, but basically with the full rights, even if you're not a member of the OECD. And that's something that we just decided if you want to go. And the interest of that, of course, is to see whether we can find others that will actually do that. And some have indicated a certain interest in that, very preliminary, of course, but basically to go for their donor activities, go get closer to the DAC and join the DAC work. And we're very interested and very open to do that. Whether it will transpire, I don't know, but I'm hopeful that we can get in that direction. But there's still a lot of old North-Souths atmospherics around the OECD, around the DAC. The OECD is now still very much the rich countries' club. Okay, Colombia is a member, so it may be not that rich. But still that kind of atmospherics is still there. And it's very much the case with the DAC, but reaching out to other providers of ODA. Also, too, we had discussions with Indonesia the other day, and they have interest in maybe exploring this kind of associated states with the DAC. There's still a huge recipient of at least climate-related assistance from DAC members, but they also have their own development program. So that's double identity here as both being a recipient and a donor, which is maybe the answer to the complexities of this world, that you can be both things at the same time. And I think we need to encourage that, and we want to encourage that. So I think we would get a less... My hope is that we get a world that is much more confusing than it is today, because I don't like this kind of North-South divide. I think it hampers us utilizing all the little things that can combine all the countries of this world, and we don't want to create the kind of traditional North-South divide that we saw in the 70s and 80s conferences North and South. But I do hope that the complexity of the world and the fact that a lot of the middle-income countries are moving quickly upward and becoming... Basically, what we see is, if you look at China, China is a developing country today. China will reach the average level of the cut-off point for ODA within the next few years. We don't know exactly when, when it's on world bank data, but if you have a DNI per capita around $13,000 a year, you will graduate from being an ODA recipient. That's the rules. And China will reach that point within a few years, and at some point in time over the next five, six, seven years, we will actually probably take a decision that China is no longer legible for development assistance if we look at the numbers that we now have. And that's basically looking, just looking at how things will develop in economies. And that will basically create a new situation around one of the big players in the global economy. And it also illustrates the complexities of which countries are which. For example, I think it was made this book about the rise of the rest. And that is basically what we have seen in recent years and what we continue to see, that a number of developing countries emerging in power economies will actually increase their economic growth considerably and change the way that the tix or possible world will look quite different. And that division or south will be splintered and replaced by much more, much different world. And somehow we need to make sure that the concept of ODA will fit into that and that the emphasis on the poor countries, on the low income countries, on those groups of people in these countries that have no recourse to other finance than the support that they get through all the, will still be the main targets for the system. Great question. I'm on favor over time now. We probably have to bring it to a halt unless there are any, I suspect that you have to go to your next appointment. That's why, okay. Thank you very, very much, Carsten, for making us available this morning at the Institute. We've really benefited hugely from your presentation and from the Q&A session now. I hope you'll come again. And I think you have lots of friends in Ireland and we wish you well in your new role and for which you're ideally suited. So best of luck. Thank you.


And of course, me being a security expert, I can provide all sorts of security for your company. So where do you start from? We start from regulations, of course, naturally, such as the Data Protection Act. What about the others? What others? RISMA, GLV, Solvain Oxley, FTA, BCIDSS, CTPAP.


Operation Green Sweep. That's cannabis right there. Card number 34. Marijuana Wars. Operation Green Sweep. Marijuana Wars. The US is the second largest producer of marijuana in the world after Mexico. Growing 10 million pounds a year worth four billion dollars. Enough to supply 35% of the consumption of America's 10 to 20 million marijuana users. Some of the highest quality marijuana has grown in the so-called Emerald Triangle, Humboldt, Mendocino, and Trinity counties in Northern California. Since 1983, the state's campaign against marijuana production, CAMP, has conducted military-style sweeps of the area, seizing more than two billion dollars worth of plants in seven years. The result of CAMP, eight raids, have been a tripling of the price of California homegrown. Finding it possible to make the same profit growing much less, California's pot farmers have moved their operations indoors. The state's marijuana industry has thus become decentralized and almost impossible to detect. In the summer of 1990, for the first time ever, federal troops, 200 national guardsmen, and Bureau of Land Management Rangers conducted the marijuana raid dubbed Operation Greensweep in a federal conservation area called King Range. The troops confiscated 1,408 miniature plants were worth no more than two million dollars. 17-year-old Blossom Edwards encountered silent camouflage troops on a hiking trail near her home. Quote, all their automatic weapons were pointing at me. I yelled. I tried to get them to talk. They wouldn't lower their guns. End quote. On August 9th, 1990, local residents filed a $100 million lawsuit claiming that federal agents illegally invaded their property, wrongfully arresting them, and harassed them with low-flying helicopters and loaded guns. Marijuana wars. And these marijuana wars, just so you guys know, again, these cars came out in 1991, right? In the 1990s, Canada, especially British Columbia, where I live, became a major supplier of cannabis to the United States and to Canada. It reached a point where the US government considered British Columbia classified British Columbia as a narco-state the same as Columbia. In the early 2000s, they actually, or they tried to extradite Mark Emery, a Canadian businessman, for selling cannabis seeds to Americans through the mail. And in the mid-19, in the mid-2000s, he was extradited to the United States and served five years in prison there. Okay? So this, what they're talking about here, that the United States was doing in the 1980s, 1970s, 1980s in California, right? Late 1980s and early 1990s, they started doing in Canada. During the early 2000s, a lot of Canadians were very, very pissed when Black Hawk helicopters, those black silent helicopters, were coming across the US border into British Columbia to conduct these same type of raids on cannabis plants in BC forests. Okay? And BC farms. So what's, what they're talking about here? As far as I know, right, still continues to the state on a smaller scale because a lot of states now have legalized.


Olen kysynyt Hosea ja Joa, jossa ajattelin, että maailmastosyhteykset on todella tärkeää, mutta ajattelin, että sinulla ei olisi tärkeää, miten moni on tullut. Hosea sanoi, että moni pitäisi lennäämään, SSDR pitäisi lennäämään, jossa Joa sanoi, että Suomen Suomen Suomen Suomen pitäisi lähteä suomalaiset maailmastosyhteykset. Joten, olen ajattelin, että Hosea sanoi, että se pitäisi tärkeää, ja Joa sanoi, että se pitäisi tärkeää, jossa on tärkeää. Joten, kun lennäämään, jossa on vähän, koska joten en tarvitse, että moni pitäisi tärkeää, koska se pitäisi tärkeitä maailmasta, koska se pitäisi tärkeää maailmasta, ja se pitäisi tärkeää, ei ole mennyt, koska on se, että se on tärkeää, jossa on tärkeää. Saataisin, että maailmasta ovat todella tyhjellis manneria, jossa on tärkeää, which is my proposal, are given to countries, so it's an asset given to countries. But my point is that on top of that they should be used to finance IMF lending. Because today you have to raise money for IMF lending. The IMF has through capital increases of the IMF, through borrowing of different sorts that the IMF does. So my point is that that's totally useless. You could do everything with SDRs. Or in a proposal like yours, more global central bank, it will operate the same way. You use the money that you issue in the source of the financing, like in all central banks of the world. So except the central banks sometimes call them bond financing. But bonds are a form of lending. So it's the same. San Antonio wants to use SDRs to finance the IMF so that the IMF could lend. But he would also, I don't think inconsistent with also using SDRs as deposits in each country accounts for them to spend just as they want. And the only distinction is I focus just on putting money in people's account to spend for exactly the reason. What one wants to do is not increase the indebtedness of developing countries, but increase their ability to purchase. And use that purchase power to offset. They're not purchasing as a result of putting money in reserves. Thank you. Thank you for a very interesting talk. Joe, you mentioned that John Maynard Keynes has described a similar system some time ago. And Professor Fitzgerald, you suggested that your unreconstructed Keynesians. And it reminded me, I recently watched a lecture by a dear turner from the Institute of New Economic Thinking in which he said the title of that institute be a quiz upon him, an incentive to come up with new ideas. And he says he struggles to think of these new ideas. And every time he thinks he comes up with one, he finds out that John Maynard Keynes had written about 80 years ago. And I wondered if you had any sympathy with that feeling that he has. In the Bible it said nothing is new under the sun. So there may be, but on the other hand, the analytics that we talked about and there's a lot of analytics today are different from what Keynesians. Keynes had talked about. The institutional ideas. He had one idea that I think was very interesting, which was that he wanted to tax the reserve countries that have surpluses. Because he recognized that surplus countries exert a negative externality on the others by this deficiency in global aggregate demand. So in that perspective he was saying, you know, Germany is really imposing a cost on the global economy. And one way of, in some of our earlier work of putting in that kind of idea was to have the issuance of the global reserves be conditional on not having reserves, not having a huge surplus. Proposals. But the fact that he was talking about a world economy in transition in the sense that having got off the gold standard, which had been the great debate of his youth. Then as I think somebody mentioned, they were in a transition from a sterling dominated system to a dollar dominated system. So I think some of the ideas perhaps are coming back now because in a sense we're facing a transition of moving towards a multipolar world economically and to some extent presumably, you know, probably will be dead before it happens. But some different monetary system is going to emerge, which will reflect that change in the clear change in the trading balance and clear changes in the countries where capital originates from, you know, all those sort of fundamentals I think. So that's why I think the ideas are relevant. I mean it's not just because it's Keynes, it's because it's somebody writing about it. Andres Solimano. Two questions. Do you see, Jose Antonio, or the panel participants, any role for gold in the multi-currency or a reserve scheme that you're proposing? And the other is how long would it take to shift from dollar being the reserve currency, which is a country that has been running current account deficits, fiscal deficits for, let's say, almost three decades to even be such that this may affect the role of the dollar as a global reserve currency. And how long this substitution may take place. I mean if you look at history, the transition from the British pound to the US dollar lasted for, I don't know, 30, 40 years. So could you speculate or give some insights on this? Gold and the dollar as a reserve currency. Well, let me talk about gold. The only thing good that should be done with gold is to totally demonetize the world economy from gold. Actually, I do have an analysis in chapter one of what has happened with gold since the breakdown of the Bretton Wood system. And essentially, there has been a significant demonetization. In fact, there was a long term reduction in the demand for gold by central banks, particularly since the 1980s, not in the 1970s. And that has essentially continued, except that since the North Atlantic crisis, some emerging economies demanded a bit of gold, but even that in historical terms is extremely small. So the share of gold in global reserves, which is estimated both at official and then at market prices in the first chapter of the book, is now fortunately very low. Now on the role of the dollar, I don't know, Joe. So basically, the idea of spending resources to take gold out of the ground and then bring it up and then put it back in the ground is the kind of thing if you were an anthropologist looking at us, we would say that's very weird. So I really think it is weird. So as far as the transition, my view is basically introduce these new STRs, new global reserve currencies at the rate of 300, 400, 500 billion a year to make up for the deficiency of aggregate demand. And over a period of 20 years, it would become the dominant form of people holding reserves. I have one non-serious point, one serious point. One little monetary economics I know is taught by Roy Harrod, who told us that not only all the problems of the gold standard we all know well, but the other one was that the gold was produced by then the two most obnoxious regimes on Earths, which were Soviet, Russia and apartheid South Africa. But to be slightly more serious, if you're going to have other reserve currencies, particularly the euro and China as possible candidates, there have to be extra conditions. One of those is that you have to have a large and very liquid debt stock to trade in, as people were mentioning. And to date of course the Europe as a whole or the ECB has not been in a position to issue debt and doesn't trade in government debts in the right way to enable that to happen. So you couldn't have the euro as a reserve currency unless you have the central budget for Europe and in consequence a euro bond which is actually issued by the European Central Bank. And the second condition is you must be happy for it to be extensively traded offshore and that is one which the China is not willing at the moment for that to happen. So it's very difficult to see how either of those two extra candidates either reserve currencies or as the underpinning for Jose Antonio sort of basket could happen unless those changes take place as well. Richard Newfarm of the International Growth Center. Thanks for a terrific panel. This has been very informative. The question I'd like to ask is about the scenario that you might be holding in the backs of your minds for the political economy that leads to the implementation of some of these things. I mean we see we have the US administration focusing and threatening to withdraw from the multilateral system entirely trash the WTO probably the only reason that the Trump administration hasn't focused on the IMF yet is because he thinks it's part of mission impossible and not what it actually is. But I suspect that we also have problems in Europe as well with Brexit. What's the political economy scenario that leads to a reconsideration of these kinds of ideas. And I hope your answer is not another global crisis global crisis until you just added that I think that I had anticipated that the long deficiency of aggregate demand for instance. That we had after 2008 would have led to more demand for this kind of global reserve system. I thought that the instability that was exhibited in the contagion and financial markets in 2008 would have led to recognition and need for global reserve a global financial market cross border regulation. And neither of those have happened and even more disturbing is are the calls that I find understandable to reverse the IMF decision about the institutional view that those who make money out of cross border flows and make money out of instability are obviously opposed to it. So I think it's going to be a continuing battle. So maybe the right answer he has to do with having sufficiently progressive governments in the relevant countries that understand the economics of this is maybe the only condition on which this will go forward. I agree totally but I think one hope one source of hope may be emerging economies because as Joe mentioned for example the Chinese were very much pushing for a global currency. And sometimes the developing countries also push the developed countries to better regulate their own financial markets. And I've heard you know senior Chinese officials tell the US Treasury look you've got to get your house in order. Regulation markets well because if not we're not going to keep buying your Treasury bill. So I think there's a little bit of hope there particularly if they take a progressive line and as they have an increasingly important weight and as they can also create parallel institutions. I mean we saw that with the creation of the NDB in which incidentally the BRICS Bank in which Joe played a big role and the AIB have I think pushed already the World Bank to do a lot of more investment in infrastructure because they feel compelled to but they feel challenged and to the extent that say you have regional monetary funds and so on that are successful and that are used or swap arrangements. There's a lot of swap arrangements now amongst developing countries. So then that may push push the developed countries to do more. Yeah and just let me say one of the things I pointed out in my book making globalization work is that some of these ideas don't have to be global in nature. Exactly what Stephanie said. There are regional or even subgroups of countries like emerging markets that could establish a framework and then others could join it. Delay your framework. Okay. Now I have three small questions. Number one. What did the granting of SDRs by the IMF to the developing countries or whoever else be conditional on the use of these resources? Should they be used for capital account or can be used for capital account and should they find that's it. So it should be conditional on a certain number of routes. So perhaps sustaining the current account because otherwise you may use this money just bring money to Switzerland and that wouldn't be desirable. Number two. What did imply a redefinition of the quotas in the IMF? I mean the UIS has been so far I mean adamantly against I mean issuing SDR. And then as long as they have the largest voting shares I think that in the ability to convince other developed countries that basically that won't fly. And the third one is in a way what Stephanie mentioned that now there are all sorts of mini IMF cropping up in Asia. The Chinese mini IMF. The IMF does not want to increase quota in the IMF because China because basically they're building their own substitute IMF. So is it the idea of expanding SDR being sort of put backwards by the fact that there are other schemes which are emerging in rich developing countries? Short answers. There is no conditionality to any issuance of SDRs. That's how they were created. That's how they should continue to be. If you totally move the IMF into an SDR based institution, you don't need quotas as such because in a sense the SDRs that they accumulate in the fund will be their quotas. So that's an alternative. I mean that's been a long term proposal by those who have defended the idea of totally SDR based IMF. And on the other issue I must say that the IMF is not against today, not against regional funds. Of course it does want to have a kind of a bit of control. Actually we had a conference on that a few months ago which I participated. Actually they were against the Japanese proposal of the Asian Monetary Fund after the Asian crisis. But later on the Chiang Mai initiative which was the reincarnation of that idea, they did not oppose. So actually Michele Kandesu was the one who was opposed, actually probably pushed by Larry Summers to oppose the Asian Monetary Fund idea. Anyway, let me finish. We have four minutes, so let me use them as a dictatorial manner. But really to thank the three panelists, again Fintar who left, but to thank Fintar again for all the support in the elaboration of this book. Let me just finish with comments. I think one of the good features of the book is that it has a historical background to every topic that is discussed. This is of course who I learned from my mentor, Carlos Diaz Alejandro, who taught me to understand the present through history, which I deeply appreciate. I recognize that actually in my preface. The second one is that your ideas of the global research system actually mimic exactly what I say in the book. In the three fundamental problems, I call the Keynesian issue, I call the asymmetric adjustment problem because it focuses in the asymmetry between deficit and surplus economies, which you don't correct that, you generate a recessionary bias. The second is the tripping dilemma, the role of the US dollar, which by the way on the next last question, one thing that I have a graph in the book about the net liability position of the United States. One of the most problematic features that in contrast to Great Britain, which always had a surplus position, a net asset position, the US turned to net liability position with the rest of the world in the mid 1980s. But what is scary is to see the numbers in the last 10 years. They're really scary. So they run on the dollar, it could actually be, if it happens, if tripping is correct, at some point that may happen, it's really scary. And the third is inequities associated with the fact that it's basically emerging economies and developing countries that have to accumulate reserves to self-insure themselves against capital accountable utility. And that is an inequity, as Joe mentioned, it's basically emerging and developing countries transferring large amount of resources in very low yielding assets, which are the foreign exchange reserves. That's actually what makes sense to give SDRs instead of accumulating reserves in the system. And on the stable capital flows, which is the point that both Stephanie and Balpy pointed out, first of all, I totally agree with Balpy's idea that this is inherently on the stable part of the system. But it's basically vis-à-vis emerging and developing countries. Although the European periphery during the crisis shares some features of exactly that. And sometimes some European countries have continued to do so. But basically, historically, all that volatility that Balpy showed is for emerging and developing countries. Now, the market segmentation is actually what you do through capital accountable regulations. Actually, just for example, I mentioned one thing that Colombia does. Colombia banks are now expanding to Central America and South America. We have this currency mismatches policy for every individual currency. So we estimate what is the individual currency mismatch of every bank. And they have limits on how much probably the US banks should do the same and the US regulation. But part of the problem is that in the discussion on international financial regulation, currency mismatches are nowhere. I mean, the financial stability board has played no attention to currency mismatches. I think that's one of the fundamental problems. Or the balance sheet at all. Or the balance sheet at all. Actually, you also put the balance sheet mismatch as a constraint. Anyway, that's for example something that... We call about not only price-based regulation, but also administrative or quantity-based regulation. That sort of regulation. In Colombia, which has a long tradition of regulating capital, the capital account does that regularly. Actually, interesting, they had no constraints on doing that. There are constraints on other things. For example, on price-based regulation actually, particularly the US agreement with the US, it does constrain severely that although Colombia negotiated better than Chile. That close in the regulation. Anyway, there are many ways of regulating the capital account that basically is through this sort of regulatory tools that you use all the time for domestic financial regulation. Why the hell don't banks use it or countries use it to regulate the international financial transactions of the countries. Anyway, the other point is maybe you want... I mean, I totally support the idea of regulation in the source countries, which Stephanie mentioned, except that that doesn't seem viable. I mean, what the IMF does in the institutional view is try to tell developed countries, don't try to push more of these regulations on developing countries. That's exactly what they actually state in a very, of course, convoluted form. But that's what they say in the institutional view. Of course, by the way, the European countries in the early post-world period, as I point out, were in favor of the US-related capital flows to try to avoid the capital flight from Europe into the US in the early post-world period. And the basic problem was not Keynes, was not Harry Dexter White, was the US financial sector pressuring the US government not to do that. At that time, it is true today. Stephanie, one short point. Yeah, one very short point on why capital controls are important. You can, through domestic financial regulation, regulate the mismatches of, for example, currency mismatches of banks and even indirectly of corporates that borrow via banks. But if a company goes directly and issues are born in New York, you can't do anything through domestic financial regulation, the only way you can get at that is through capital controls. And increasingly, even the G20 have participated in the workshop, are particularly worried now about corporate debt in foreign currency. And the best way of dealing with that is either some administrative limits, which is difficult, or through capital control. The other point I want to stress is that Keynes lived in a world of much smaller relative capital flows. And in fact, he liked it. I mean, he has this famous paragraph about let trade and friendship and culture and travel be international, and let capital be homesprung. And I think this is quite radical today. But should we think about a world where private capital flows are relatively smaller in proportion to official flows, and we have more of these nice development banks nationally, regionally and internationally, we have less unstable capital. I mean, it's difficult politically because these guys are making so much money, but it's not for the good of the world economy. Just a small historical correction. The peak of foreign assets prior to the First World War was extremely high. So Keynes knew a world in which there was significant capital flows. Of course, it came down later on, and of course it collapsed during the Great Depression. The discussions actually, why even the U.S. was in favor of some capital account regulations, was exactly because of the experience of the interwar period, the same.


Being here in Edinburgh my first time living and studying abroad. I was getting elastic surgery from my eyes so I can see 2020 now. Coming to Edinburgh and studying at the prestigious university such as the University of Edinburgh. It's getting to go to the Highlands. Being accepted at the one of the best universities in the world. I moved here for the first time by myself abroad. My highlight of the year are people. I mean the University of Edinburgh, coming to Edinburgh and networking is like the best thing. Getting to do your class from there, students and graduates from the University of Edinburgh Business School. My farewell and birthday party which was thrown by my family, friends back in India. Getting an offer from the University of Edinburgh because it has always been my dream university and coming here to study my dream course. I started doing pole dance. I got my offer to pursue my masters here at the University of Edinburgh Business School and the opportunities which I'm getting here is really making my life here smoother. All the diverse students in Edinburgh and then we go out on a trip together and explore the city. Being here at the University is the first time that they are having the masters. So we all are very excited to be involved in the process of creating this and just linking sustainability to the private sector. Going to Edinburgh, exploring the city, going to the Arthur's seat as soon as I came here and just enjoying the lovely views.