Nu är vi diskussioner med donor och andra om hur vi kan bli mer effektiv i Aida. Men först vill jag presentera vår nya panel. Välkomna, Charlotte Petra Gornitzka, Direktor-general av Sida. Besides hårt, Tove Dengnboll, head of technical advisor services at Danida, the Danish aid. And then we have Mr. Roman Morenzi, who we met earlier today, the executive director of the Academy of Sciences for the developing world in Trieste, Italy. But born in Rwanda, raised in Burundi, and he has among things served as a minister for science and technology in Rwanda. And besides him we have Fin Tarp, director UNU wider. Charlotte first, we heard a lot about what we know about aid effectiveness and what we still don't do when it comes to aid. How do you, what's your reaction on that? Well I think what you've heard this morning is that there are some words that we keep repeat. We know that we need to work more systemically. We know that we need to coordinate better. We know that capacity building is important. That projects are less effective than programs and all of that. So why don't you do it? You know what? That's the million dollar question. No it's not. I think what is important for donors is to decide the identity of a donor. I think for CEDA we were tasked in 2010 to focus a lot on financial management. Really put the money into efficient aid. And how do you do that without knowing what works? So it's time to prove to ourselves that we care about that. So first of all we need to use research more than we do. We may not need to hear the same things from research. But we just have to start to use them. Well how do we do that then? If we know that a partner or a recipient country has a plan, a health plan, we need to be able to contribute to that plan. And there are things that we have to consider there. Do we sit around the table agreeing on who's doing what to that plan, wide open, or do we gather around the table saying we know that sexual reproductive health is a Swedish expertise, field of expertise. If that's wanted in a collaboration, we can deliver that. If that's not wanted, well a good donor should probably say, Well, we might step back if there are other donors who want to be there. But what about putting, we talked a little bit about putting the bottles in the pool rather. I mean, okay, I explained to you. All the donors say, okay, you need help. We got the money. Put the money in a basket. And then they do something about it together. Rather than saying we have the expertise and we want to help. That's the other alternative. But the thing is that, there is this reality that a donor being an agency based on tax money, not voluntary money, has to be able to say we contribute in a certain way that can be scrutinised and we need to be hold accountable because we're an agency. That is not necessarily the case with voluntary money. But I think there is a way to do that because if we start to plan together and be very clear that this is the pool. This is what's going to be achieved. This is the part of the pool that we are contributing to. So we monitor, evaluate, we research, we communicate around that. I do think we can get the taxpayer on board. But we're far away from that today. In communication as well. So there is this kind of shift now where we need to be able to accept the fact that we need to agree that we all need achievements in what we're doing. And we need to be able to say this is what is supposed to be achieved. And we also need to be brave enough to communicate whether we are successful or not around the achievements. But if we just say we're there to contribute for the sake of contributing. We won't have the trust from people that we are accountable to. Both in country where we work and in our own home country. So it's a balancing act. It always depends on what you mean by results. Yes it does. And that's also communication task to say. For example, many here said that sustainability can take more than four years. More than eight years to develop. A lot of patience from the public. So we need to influence the way we are being governed. We need governments to hold agencies to account on a more long term planning cycle. We need to communicate with the people we work with in much more based on facts and research and regularly. And are you doing all this? No we're not. But you're the general director. Of course we are doing it. But we haven't reached the result yet. No we are working very hard. And sometimes I actually think that as donors we have a lot of different kind of donors. And many donors have to fundraise. So how do they communicate? Well not with what you just said. Nice pictures of happy children or very or crying children. We communicate in very tangible ways that are actually not helping out. And media is very very into that as well. So we have to work hard to do this, to make it sexy enough. And that's what we... It's a real challenge. It is. But it's our work. Yes. Tuve Dengbold från Danila.  And I've seen you writing a lot during the day. I've enjoyed the discussions a lot. Both the presentations by the panel and the questions raised by the audience. And as Charlotte said, some of the key points we may have been aware of already. But it's very good to be reminded. It's important to be reminded when we sign declarations about ownership. And then in practice forget about it and bring in our own ideas. So the fact that we come is documenting consequences when we do not follow what we actually know is good practice. To start take the point of departure in what the countries want themselves. And the priorities they have. But then bring in our own ideas. So actually I think that much of what RECOM is doing is in fact to remind us about things that we may have heard before. But which we tend to overlook for various reasons. One thing that you could remind us more about, in fact, and Charlotte just mentioned it, is that aid is just one among several sources of financing. And it's quite important I think to consider support to health and education also in that context. That there are various other sources. First of all the government's own investments. There are foreign direct investments remittances and so on. And when we discuss what works in aid, it's quite important that we consider aid catalytic. That aid can do something in terms of supporting institutional reforms and processes and capacity building and so on. Which foreign direct investments for instance wouldn't do. But there are some limitations also to what aid can do. And I think this is an important thing to keep in mind when presenting both findings in this area. But also in the other areas that RECOM is covering. Then I think that you put a very clear point to the problem of donor fashions. That we tend to enduring and leave the same areas at the same time. It seems that we have now all agreed that water and sanitation is no longer a problem. And it's much more interesting to discuss conflict and fragility and resilience and climate change and other issues. And it is quite important to be reminded by the clear figures that we have. That we have a very long way to go and 750 million people still miss water and sanitation. And that may be a particularly bilateral donors problem that we shift emphasis according to political directions also. And some suggested that maybe multilateral assistance is the answer to at least some of this. Our government has actually taken the consequence of this point of view in terms of social sector development. And in our recent strategy from May last year it said that we will mainly support health and education and water sanitation through multilateral arrangements. We are with CEDA in the global partnership for education. And we are gradually phasing out our bilateral support to education in order to increase what we are doing in global partnership for education as an example. That's actually a reflection of this thinking that maybe we can do more together if we do it multilaterally. There will be other areas where bilateral aid is definitely important to maintain. Then we've discussed modalities a lot. Is sector budget support better than project aid or how to go about it. And there I think the key message which also came from the presentations we've got is that it's the sector wide approaches which are important. It's important that we have take the point of departure in an overall strategy or plan which is nationally owned. And whether we then contribute to it with projects or with sector budget support and so on. That depends on the context which of these modalities is the most appropriate. But the important thing is that there is an overall framework that we do not just pop in with whatever we think should be supported. You've given us some wake up calls. I mentioned the water and sanitation. Another one that I'd like to mention is the primary education support. We all think that this is really a key priority that we all now support basic education mainly. And then you show us figures that tertiary education is way above what we support to our support to primary and secondary etc. So there's a lot of messages that come out of this which are really important and I think which it'll be difficult to overlook. The better you manage to synthesize it and come out with clear recommendations, messages. The more difficult it'll be next time we need to make decisions just to disregard that actually we're doing something completely different from what is needed. But do you agree on what Charlotte just said about the problems to explain and to get results that you can see? Is that also part for Denmark when you talk about, do you have the same problem as we have in Sweden? Of course we all have the pressure to provide results. I think that we have during the past years managed to engage in a discussion with the general public where it's not just about the need of having produced these results. But where we have been trying to explain that we are contributing to results of the government. That it is the government target of enrolling so and so many children in education. But has that changed the way you give for Nathan? Has it changed the way or have you just talked about it? Whether it's changed the way we're working. Yes it has changed the way we're working in the sense that we maintain budget support for instance. I know that this is now out of fashion in many countries including Sweden. But our policy is that we maintain budget support and sector budget support also. Where it's of course very difficult to attribute results to a particular Danish support. But this has been accepted to at least some extent by the general public, by the politicians. And that reflects a more nuanced understanding of results as something that we're not the only one to produce. But that we produce jointly with the various partners. Including not least the government partners. What do you think is needed to change the way donors are acting today? Because we've seen it's not the best way to act. Other than information from you and your wider. And we are moving out of some of the areas where we've clearly seen today that we need to continue to support. So I don't think that we should praise ourselves for being any different than other donors. But I think that clear information about what has worked and where the deficiencies of funding and the negative consequences of some of the choices that we have that is at least an important step towards making a more reasonable making better decisions when we need to make policy choices. Clear information but you just said that you knew a lot of these things from before. Ja, but I also said we need to be reminded because it's so convenient to forget about it. We know country ownership but we then need to be told what happens if we disregard country ownership and just chip in with our various ideas. Then maybe just one last comment to the researchers. I really appreciate the presentations today. I think Mick Wells paper is excellent. The one where you're synthesizing the experience so far from the literature. But it's quite important when you're communicating with us donors that you do not overly dwell on all the methodological difficulties and where there's a lack of data and so on because there's so much data already out there that could inform us much better than we've managed to be so far. So when you're communicating to us it's quite alright that it's relatively simple clear messages. Of course in your more academic papers you need to have all the caveats and explain the particular context and so on. But some of the messages, the kind of messages that you gave us today they're really very useful and easy to understand also for people like us when they come up in that clear form. Thank you, Roman. Haven't been here all day. What do you say? When I was invited to come, I didn't know I was going to be contributing but when I heard on the issue of budget support I know what it did for me at least and for the country for me as a minister to be able to work to do my work and also in Rwanda as a country for achieving what I was asking my portfolio. So I will say really that a country needs ownership. So we are in a country have to understand a given government that they are operating in an international setting, a global setting. So if you want to go out there because that dollar amount you need to deserve one or another to deserve that money but as the director just said this money comes from the taxpayers of these countries. So if you look at this in the speeches president Kagame he has been saying that telling the Rwandans that money comes from taxpayers. So you need to know how to use that funding properly. So the ownership comes with a policy. Do you have a policy in education? Or do you have a policy in health? Or do you have a policy in transport or in water? So normally these policies, you have not only the ownership of the government but how did you come up with this policy? So you need to come up with a major consultation countrywide at least that's what I did when I was there. Countrywide. But that countrywide also you need to be able to link with your international partners. You cannot with some consultant the World Bank and UNESCO they will help you to shape a policy that only corresponds to what you want that is realistic. And this policy also has to be aligned with international targets because we are in an international setting. If you come and bring money to Rwanda and then they want or to Burund or whatever to Ghana and they want to use the money for some peculiar program that will be a problem. So come with an international target in education such as the education for all or the MDG. I was probably lucky because I was appointed minister in 2001 and the education for all MDG were formulated in 2000. So this means in formulating the Rwanda policy on education, Rwanda policy on science, on higher education. I took care, I was really looking at the international targets and also working with the donors. Actually the lead donor was DFID at the time and then we have other. And then as one of the speakers said, when I arrived I would have all these donors come to see me. I spent the whole day, 260 days, three days meeting these people. Then I realized, is that a better way to deal with these people? Then they told me there is a beast called sector wide approach. So I tried to go to Uganda. Uganda has already started that. So I asked them to explain to me and also I wrote to Ethiopia and they gave me the orientation. Then I understood what it meant and then in a year I said the best way to deal with these people is to put them like in a boss. These are development patterns, you work with them. This is the civil society and then the government of Rwanda. And then we reached this target. That were very important, the education for all targets were the most important ones. And then from there, actually by 2003 what were they called the JRES, the joint review of the education sector of Rwanda. So as I said, it was a one year meeting putting on the target, but during the year we have working groups, working groups on teachers, on teachers education, teacher quality and then on construction and classrooms. So we had various groups, early childhood. In each group we will have a donor and the other community. And then a year later we will have all this meeting I will sit really there and then I will be asked question did you reach the drop out rate? Did you reach the target? Did you reach the transition rate from primary to secondary? All these questions. And when actually I would go to the cabinet I was very so happy because I would say we work all these people, this is the result. And during that day I became, I was minister from 1 to 6 and then continue to be, I was education science but I was almost science from 1 to 9. So during that period I could see really a real rise in primary education enrollment and the other targets. So which was very good, as I said, DFID was the lead donor but there are donors who said I don't want to be involved in the management of the money because the manager of the money then I could just leave it to DFID to follow up on that. So when we have this basket funding we rely on DFID and then of course they will have some report but DFID became the major follow up person. But in your case it worked and also you had good leadership and you knew what you wanted. But it sounded like a very long way though to achieve all this. If you could wish from the beginning instead of all these people coming to you and sitting in your office asking you to under 60 days a year what would you have liked it like what would you have liked it to be in what way, what should the process be the best process in order to fund. Actually you see the whole bank in UNESCO they understood the issue of education and then the other development bank. So they should have actually given to every country orientation on the issue of sectorized approach because once it worked in the ministry of education this is the real story. The other ministry health and other ministry in particular health did follow up on that particular issue. So that became very important. But also with the understanding that don't forget we come from a country that comes just from the war. So this means if you miss to put the children in the school the issue of quality is important but access to education before the quality you need to put the kid in the classroom. Out of the street. Yes, suppose Rwanda has not done that this means Rwanda has not put more than a million children in the classroom. Rwanda has 2,000 cells if you divide a million by that you will get 1,000 children in every cell you cannot govern you can have the whole thing of peace in Rwanda the security that you can see when you visit Rwanda it's related to the father they made that major investment and the donor's money was really used in that orientation. Okay, thank you Roman so far. Fin, your comment. I've been thinking quite a bit during the whole day if you are not the best are you then useless? What do you mean? If I'm not the best father in the world am I then useful as a parent? Of course you are. Who is the best? I think it's a fundamental misconception that if you are not absolutely first best in everything you do then you are by implication useless and there is a fundamental problem in our communication about foreign aid which is about that. I have for my whole career always been striving at getting better at doing things better and as a researcher we are pointing trying to point to results and trying to point to areas for improvement but in our communication efforts we are constantly confronted with the fact that if we are not the best we are useless and I think that it's incredibly important for all of us to reflect on that No, I don't think donors are going to be perfect in coordination I spent years of my life trying to coordinate 123 agencies running around the Ministry of Agriculture in Mozambique it was hopeless. However, in spite of that when I'm thinking about outcomes when I arrived in Mozambique in 1980 there were 14 agronomist Mozambicans Today there are 1,400 How did those 1,400 agronomists come about? Where did they come from? Who funded their education? What happened? Well I use Mozambique as a case because I have happened to work there for a major part of my life but also because this was one of the countries that could not pay for that themselves So what happened? A series of donors who yes did not coordinate I've witnessed that sort of first floor because I was the program officer for the Mozambique Nordic agricultural program that fell apart in part because of donor coordination problems but in the process the number of agronomists in Mozambique increased from 14 to 1,400 that to me is a result I mean, is this the best result? No, it could have been done better But I mean, I really am trying to be conveying this because in the public debate about these issues we tend to focus on that we could be better which we should but we should also not shy away from the results that are there we heard today if you put children in school then you can say oh, some of them come out of school don't read absolutely but I can assure you that a larger number of children are now existing school reading and writing than 20 years ago we heard that participation works we heard that school feeding is very effective we heard that social protection can actually work it was pointed out that we have to be very careful in circumstances or when the domestic revenue generation capabilities is not there then we of course we have to be really careful because we need and that's maybe something that we should from an age perspective be reflecting more on have we as eight donors, eight actors have we potentially built up systems that will be very hard to keep sustainable that's clearly an issue but we know that there has been an impact of all of this we know that it pays to listen to others' mistakes but that's why I kind of like to be a researcher and kind of like to communicate because I kind of think that this actually matters I belong to those who actually very fundamentally regretted when the so-called development plans became out of fashion in the old days there were development plans and they were not always very good and sure some of them reflected a central planning perspective but they were documents of trying to explain something about what the aspirations of countries were they were trying to identify what the building blocks of development should be they became unfashionable I personally believe but this is where I maybe differ a little bit is that I personally believe that that's where we should put a lot of focus on trying to get these plans developed with a lot of what some people would call ownership I'm a little bit hesitant about the ownership because typically I don't think I get title deed to somebody that somebody sort of gives me so I tend to use domestic control influence, planning documents and so on rather than the ownership but I do know what it means but I really think that that is where we should jointly put a lot more emphasis on coming up with mutually agreed documents that can sort of say what we want I came to Vietnam in 2000 and I'll stop now I came to Vietnam in 2000 I was a spouse my wife had gotten a job I had been in Vietnam for two weeks when I was phoned up by the UNDP could I kindly write the Vietnamese document for the MGGs there wasn't a lot of ownership in that so of course we see these things but I would suggest that we must not be negligent of what has been achieved we should constantly try to become better but we must not let the latter get in the way we must not be let the excellent be the enemy of the good because there are good things actually happening so I kind of I think everyone would agree on that in this room I would like to know from all of you what you think about this question about the countries that newly discovered natural resources and actually became rich countries how do we make them spend more on the social sectors themselves and people to pay taxes in their countries in what way could aid be helping out that what do you think Charlotte? I think that it has a lot to do with policy dialogue and I think that for instance Sweden's development aid plan Sweden's what Sweden regards itself to be in that policy there is a lot of room for dialogue which must not go together with money which can in a humble but also with a self confidence way say that we also had a journey from not social protection system to the model we have today let's share models and I think one of the things that Sweden can do more of in supporting that dialogue is to more systematically work with the institutions that can really change for instance the tax authority in Sweden can do the twinning aid but not in this small nice storytelling way really strategic I know we have colleagues in Colombia who told me maybe this is a story that is a bit not mature yet but I was told that the Swedish tax authority is asked to not help to build the technicality around how to pay taxes but to work together with Colombia to advocate in Colombia for the reason why you should pay tax because they don't pay much and those kind of sharing experiences I don't think we use that enough if we do that in combination with systems if we introduce for instance also maybe commercial systems we have microfinance we can have micro insurance so it mustn't be just the tax so there's a lot of things we can do Do you agree? Do you have any other ideas? Yes? Well of course it's our possibilities of direct influence are less because we would usually phase out support to those countries and then concentrate on poorer countries You said Denmark you just leave if Vietnam is an example we have had a long development cooperation with Vietnam at a certain stage we will decide that now this country will be able to do without our support and we can spend it better elsewhere in fragile states or the countries but that doesn't mean that we leave the country entirely then we will continue a commercial cooperation and there maybe CSR policies and other for a dialogue will be important but of course we cannot influence things as we can when we are major donors to a country So what to do? For me if I support that country and becoming richer rather than living I will work with that country to be a donor How can you help now that I have helped you to reach this kind of level how can you do that to help the other in a more transparent way in a more accountable way So you have these countries such as China, India, Brazil and you have some other countries Yes I have been dealing with them now in my capacity as the head of the Academy of Science I have seen actually they are supporting a lot our programs If you allow me I can give you just an example because just an example If you have to do a PhD in the US it will for four years it will require you around $200,000 but China, India, Brazil, Malaysia they are giving to twice already this year around 300 fellowships for PhD So this means they pay everything and we work with them on the return and we pay the ticket to go to China, India and come So they understand that but that money actually if you look it's a lot of money so in that they become donors but how do you put them in the international system so to make sure that all that aid is accounted and is done properly Can I just say that I think that's a very important role Sweden has also decided to focus the bilateral aid to fewer countries and one of the things that is being discussed should that be for poor people in poor countries well what does that leave all the poor people in middle income countries and one of the things that one of the tools that Sweden is working with maybe not as a response to that strategy but at the same time does is to how can we work with Turkey, South Korea countries that have decided to be a donor and they will they are big so how can we use our experiences with them to influence their ways of working being much more effective than Sweden even though we're big we're not biggest in all of that so that's kind of an alternative strategy that might lead to much better results than just saying they are there to do their work so it's really an opportunity this new distribution of poverty meaning that most poor people don't live in poor countries should we change the focus should we focus on poor countries or on poor people what do you think, Fin? That's a very big discussion if I may just kick in in relation to what we just discussed I mean, I'm an employee of the UN I work as a citizen of the world and I think it's very important in these discussions that we try to the maximum extent possible to talk about them and us because that introduces a relationship which I fundamentally don't believe is the right one we are all here in the same world and we have together to try to figure out how the world is going to move forward and then in that process we need to keep in mind that there's not just one way that development can take place there is a variety of paths that you can go through and we as researchers and policy makers we actually don't know which way so it's very important that we keep that in the back of our mind in the way in which we act I'm leading an institution that has for years been said that we are focused on the poorest people in the poorest countries so obviously your question is touching on something that's extremely important because now we are seeing in part as a consequence of aid that quite a number of countries no longer low income so are they no longer the poorest countries well obviously that leads to discussion but I think it's important here to keep in mind that the fact that some countries have now moved just above a relatively artificial poverty line from having been low income to now being lower middle income in many cases the living conditions of the people have not really changed that much but it does of course challenge mechanistic aid allocation formulas that we need to sort of rethink but we should not forget for one second that a lot of the knowledge generation a lot of the experiences and so on they are of course relevant whether you are in a low income or in a low middle income now I'm trying to be very quick but what we should keep in mind is that if you take the consequence of allocating aid by head then you are going to get some aid allocation results that you might not have expected and I think that needs to be put on the table I don't think for one second that the world is going to live with most of the aid going to India and China but that's actually going to be the implication of taking the consequence of what you are sort of suggesting namely that you count per person rather than by nation so we need to be a little bit clear here and realistic and sort of you know go ahead again the Swedish example there is a bilateral budget and a multilateral budget and an EU cooperation so you you don't have to abandon poor people and if you don't have a bilateral and the thing is if you are thinking how can we actually use the different formats in a strategic way you can do that and I do think that that is something that governments and government agencies needs to be smarter around because we sometimes divide the channels and formats between instead but that's very important because we are trying to find new ways not repeating lessons not repeating mistakes one of the things that we need to do is to be smarter on the strategic holistic portfolio and there is opportunities that we still have to explore I completely agree with that I just wanted, I was actually hitting in that direction all I was trying to communicate was just that if we are talking about the aid allocation formula if we change that to a by head poor person then we are going to get some implications of that which I don't think would be acceptable but you are absolutely spot on in terms of the implications of this Roman and Dan Tuva I was just as an employee of the UN and if you look at all these countries that have moved actually up you look at their science and technology education over the last three four decades investment aid actually went into that if you look at South Korea how the US invested in that so you realize actually science technology is a key in education so there are more than 81 countries let's say 90 countries that are lagging behind in science and technology if you look at the 2010 UNESCO science report for these countries they have less than 0% of the scientific output journals and other international property etc. so the aid organization or the aid should be able to focus on those aid because education and then the holistic part which is science and technology should be taken into account as I know CEDA does that but we should come up with a major orientation because all the issues related to sustainable development has developed in Rio and we are going towards post 2015 what are we going to do with the global city the one, the poor the one that really needs the basic science are we going to formulate a science for all like we did for education for all I've been trying to advocate a global science for all initiative so that actually people move from reading and writing more for a basic science knowledge if we take the mother who is delivering a child now, who is taking care of the child who is below 5 years old that mother needs some basic science understanding that feeding the key, bread feeding is a scientific endeavor and that will make a huge the issue of hygiene is very very important so the basic science is such important as it is in just big science and other education and health so speaks the former minister of science but I agree with you just one remark on how to prioritize bilaterally this is what we are talking about I think we need to reckon that we are small donors and we need to be a bit humble in what we can do with our funds and one of the criteria that we have is that we need to be able to work with governments on the overall priorities and if we are talking about governments who do not give priority to equality to actually redistribution of resources then it will be a very tall order for us to convince India, Nigeria, whatever to change these priorities and the best we would be able to do is to surround in poverty pockets and do projects and this is not what we want to do we want to support systems and build up capacities and we want to do something which is sustainable so I think it is just just from recognizing that this is really out of our zone of influence we have decided to work with the countries where we have a chance of having a dialogue so we would rather shift this is actually what we do we shift into fragile states when we move out of better off countries when we are facing out support to Vietnam for instance in order to build up enough Afghanistan and elsewhere I want to have some comments and questions from the floor where are the microphones we have two people here and are our experts still, are you awake are you here, good I also want to say that there are actually 200 people following us in real time on the web right now so while we are sitting here people are sitting in Washington Afghanistan and London yes please two questions could you say please Rwanda followed a very specific path with respect to science and technology and didn't just go along the line of focusing on primary education how was that decision made and what implications does it have and then the second really is to anyone on the panel who wants to take it up surely the thing with the the large absolute number of very poor people in middle income countries surely that opens up a new area for policy dialogue as well but I wonder if what you're doing in that regard do you write this down and we have another question where did I see the other mic there someone there too so we start with you wait we start with this gentleman and then you you have to wave very high oh sorry you didn't have a mic okay thank you my name is Bjarnagarden I represent Norad Oslo greetings from Oslo to the panelists and the audience Norwegian aid I observe that we have for the main part not always today but for the main part we have moved within the traditional aid paradigm very much and there are examples now of changes going on some have been mentioned but I would like to draw the attention to one or two such examples and then check the appetite with the panelists for that sort of interventions and one example is because we sometimes aid has been associated with giving sort of supporting service delivery and not to a very large extent addressing the structures or the structural problems behind the lack of development so for instance on HIV AIDS there have been quite successful attempts and results made in making anti-retroviral medicines much cheaper so that much more people can access them and one would think that the impact of such price reductions would be much bigger than having some social workers in small communities and that would also not be only limited to country even people beyond borders would have gains from that and another one is a very recent UN initiative on introducing and through public private partnership obtaining very much cheaper medicines critical medicines for maternal health connected to birth and one should think that would also have a much bigger impact than all sorts of social programs within countries maybe but I would like to check that direction and the appetite for that with the panelists, thank you very much Thank you, so we have one more question and then we'll answer see where you are at this My question is very short once more, Professor Francis Matamaria from the Nordic Africa Institute and Tasnian My question is a direct to all of you we know that one of the challenges we face is that some of these countries we are trying to assist don't even have the capacity to absorb AIDS and that usually leads to a situation that gets less AIDS than a relatively more advanced country I wonder whether you have thought about that and whether you have a solution for that also Thank you, okay, where do we start who wants to start Yes I can pick one question Give it a go, first of all the policy dialogue the shift there is a chance if the post MDG process uses to take the chance to address this because what's being discussed now is that the post MDG targets should still be about poverty reduction but universal which means that the people we talk about living countries that are absolutely in the game, not outside the game and if the UN system and us being UN take the chance of really understanding this shift and how to create a policy dialogue that is not bilateral because as we said yes we want to believe that we can influence but obviously we need other systems than the bilateral system and I think there is a possibility within that process to find ways and to realize that it is about equality and policy changes not only about money and what is being addressed in that process as we speak is that if the MDGs were about development aid this is not about ODA any longer this is about other financial other actors and all of that so there is an opportunity but we really need to make sure that the right actors are engaging and invited to engage in that and I want to see the glasses half full in that sense appetite for tackling root courses more dramatically or yes trying to find different ways of doing that one example that we have currently is that we are working together with Gates Foundation and a guarantee tool that CEDA has got to influence so that the producer of something that is too expensive can be cheaper over four some years thanks to a guarantee which is a loss protection tool and we also have clients that are willing to buy enough to make sure that that pilot for three years will be sustainable so we are trying to tackle the price situation but for some years with a combination of tools we love to see ourselves doing more of that but you here I am talking about different actors than just development actor like in Sweden we are experimenting also with different approaches considering that there are so many other key actors now we are linking up with some of the new south donors such as south Korea for instance working with them on climate change support to other countries we are trying to look into possibilities of synergies between our development cooperation how can we bring in private companies for instance in health who can do some of the things that we are unable to do as a donor for instance developing drugs which are relevant to a particular target group etc we are looking at such possibilities because as it's been said the world is changing and we cannot confine ourselves to look only at the traditional age structure then there was a question about the capacities and the importance of capacity when we work in a country and it's quite apparent I don't know if you phrased it that way but it takes capacity to build capacity it requires also from a poor and maybe a fragile country a lot of capacity to deal with donors in a proper way and we need to formulate strategies and work in a way that considers the difficulty of a country for instance of coordinating if they have very poor capacity we can easily undermine whatever little capacity they have if we just move in the way that we would have done in a traditional cooperation country so targeting our strategies and the way that we are working to the countries and as I said we have now embarked upon work with fragile countries in quite a large scale and that gives us some completely new challenges to the way that we used to work Fin The challenge of many poor people in middle income countries is a challenge for all of us from the point of view of the perspective of the institution I work for you and your wider as an international think tank in development I mean this is obviously a challenge but it's also part of the rationale for our existence is that we are creating and we are sharing knowledge and we are hoping that we are capable of feeding that into this process in such a way that that knowledge influences what's going on in the north in the south across east and west so in that sense what you're saying is that in many ways we want to try to contribute exactly in those circumstances generating that knowledge which we believe is absolutely key let me say in relation to appetite I personally believe that age should have a lot of appetite whenever there is a good public reason for doing it whenever the private sector is not going to do it there is an a priori rationale for age to at least be thinking about it it doesn't mean that age should do it but the reason to think about it but part of what is changing in the world is and that's where fortunately age donors are paying more attention is that they also have to see themselves as very catalytic vis-a-vis the private sector because the balance has to gradually shift more and more should be done by the private sector and us age helps put in place the contact the framework within which private agents are going to see it in their interest to do things that's exactly why age is so incredibly important in a number of these context that we are talking about including the fragile states did you want to comment short so we can let in the point he made age is an investment so we all know that for a long time economy growth capital and labor is not enough you need to generate knowledge new investment coming into a country help to generate knowledge to build the capacity that's why we came over the orientation major on science and technology if some of this investment goes into knowledge in creating knowledge for long term this has a huge impact if one day Rwanda wants to graduate or Burund or Benio wants to graduate from from the center there now is the investment in science if some of this could be focused on that because it will for many years produce and that's where education is a key yes thank you okay I want to push that on and then you can have a comment and then one two three that's about it please okay thank you very much and I have a couple of comments and maybe one question a couple of comments short yes very briefly I think we all are in the similar situation as I have been when in the performance appraisal I was asked what is your long term aim I work in the center for international development I said my long term aim is that my job doesn't exist all right so I think we are in we would like to see a world that doesn't need aid and it's very difficult to be part of that and I think we must be the only marketing or sales people who want to sell things which we don't want to have in the future that I think has its own incentive issues but also as we work on these kind of things we know that for example whether it is poverty number of poor people or development outcomes they don't decline linearly if that is the case then things would be different but we know that it's always that the last mile is steeper and steeper so it's kind of asymptotic or whatever is the mathematical word so we know that also so as more and more people or more and more countries graduate you know about a certain level the things that we want to achieve out of 750 million people we said that about the water and sanitation water in our access to water maybe it's much easier to reach the first 375 million rather than the next 307 million I think we know that in terms of how do we in that kind of a context think about aid or development as something which we would if we are really effective then maybe in 20 years, 30 years there should be no discussion on aid and second point and I will be very brief I think again we all recognize that governance and institutions are very important and corruption comes up in public opinion surveys about aid for example the DFID corruption when tax payer citizens talk about aid almost the first word do you think aid is important everybody says yes it is important and then very second word they say but most of the recipient governments are corrupt so corruption I think issue is a very important one but at the same time we really don't know how to deal with that because we have to be very careful otherwise we may fall into the moral imperialism or in the new way of measuring aid and effectiveness maybe in a new term that is the efficiency imperialism so we are kind of always picking countries which are doing very well so again that creates some of the incentive problems so thank you please we have so little time I want to hear all of you so please be brief hi my name is Michelle I'm a research student this is a question for the panel I just want to know you sort of basically touched on it but do you as agencies together collectively lobby for touching on technology and science with the WTO about patents we mentioned about HIV and antra vitriol drugs and science and technology but because patents are being extended what have you looked at that because if you're going to grow science and technology in the developing world where they're going to require development of those drugs do you use your agency collectively within the European Union to lobby against with the WTO okay we'll see what how far we'll get in five minutes and three more speakers yes oh you don't have a microphone so who has so please start okay I can't retain myself to still come back to the data issue once I mean I totally agreed that we have lots of areas where we have collected a lot of data and where we don't actually use them but now I mean we are being asked for this conference to relate data to outcome data and I mean when you see things like in the dark data the coverage of the sector wise data is until the mid 90s by about 30 percent and then until 2002 60 percent and even like for 2010 even though you have the data for 2011 but in 2010 again it's still low because probably not all the reporting has been done which you don't see immediately because you already have newer data so it becomes very very difficult because then you get a trend up like I showed it in the education data and you have to make a whole lot of assumptions for instance to make sure that you are not just correlating a trend in reporting with a trend in enrollment rates rather than a trend in actual aid with enrollment and these kind of things are so tricky so I'm actually not surprised even within our research community we are getting such contrasting results in many cases because if you always have to make this on that assumptions and of course the assumptions may be different I mean that generates problems right yes please Abby you've been mentioning about multilateral agencies we have two new multilateral agencies that I think are both Gavi which is a vaccine initiative and of course a global fund for malaria aids and TB so what sort of new multilateral aids do you sorry governance agencies do you envision and are you just going to do through UN and World Bank or do we need to think about the architecture of multilateral agencies including the Gates Foundation which I believe actually is controlled by one person in some ways and do we need to think about a board that just does things like global fund or WHO which would be an entire nation sorry entire set of nations okay the last comment question and then we'll try to answer some of the questions and give some remarks because quarter past we had to finish yeah my name is Rosie Grönklo I work at plan Sweden I have actually two questions maybe not possible but I will see what you can do the one is linked to what we talked about just recently on the private sector I fully agree that we have to see development requires a number of different actors but I also see that when it comes to the private sector we have to also be a little bit cautious it's not like any actor it's not like a donor a bilateral donor they have also other goals so what do you see there what are the things we should think of I think research is very much needed to understand what has been done so far with private sector we have seen in Sweden cases where it doesn't work very well I would say maybe in Denmark too so it's interesting to hear what the challenges you see and what can be done to avoid mistakes because of course there will always be things happening that we don't want I think you will hold that this one question okay now can I get five more minutes over time I have a really interesting remarks and questions who wants to pick up and then short answers I think there was a question for me regarding data lack of data that you have to make a lot of assumptions because it's missing I want to be clear that I didn't say that research is not needed and better monitoring systems are needed but I think sometimes we should not have to wait for the debate about our priorities until we have the full picture and all the the details and the context of everything sometimes we can actually based on what you have produced already have a fruitful discussion and I think that the discussion today illustrates that we can if we just sit and wait until we have the perfect data it's almost like Finsett we're sitting and waiting for the perfect and until then we cannot really make any decisions is already much better than what we have and this is really what we wanted with the RECOM program when we started it together with Sweden we wanted to have a synthesis of the existing knowledge not necessarily a lot of of new knowledge on this but a synthesis on the existing knowledge which would make it apparent to us what have the experience so far been when do we need to have further attention and are there areas where it comes out very clearly that we should be reluctant to support that and then of course further research can put in some more nuances and even challenge some of these conclusions but it's already much better than what we have. Thank you Tove. Short answers No I don't think we'll all be on science and technologies. Thank you thought provoking to multilateral system we have some new examples that we think are working we actually think they are quite effective this is my personal view I'm not deciding on this it's the government so please I don't think that the solution for the future is to create more platforms we have enough of them thank you let's decide what we want if you and the peace mandate is governance for instance let's hold that together and work within the system as shareholders to make it more effective and that is hard work but that's what we are here to do as a system. Thank you Roman and private sector we need to do the mistakes we need to learn about their driving forces we are not always good either okay Roman short we live in a shared world the poor of the world we cannot forget them because if you forget them it may have an impact on sustainable development all the issues of climate and emissions and cutting the truth the deforestation so really Ed is there not only because that you just feel like it is a charity no because it is even for you it is very important because you want you don't want these people to continue to cut the trees in the tropics the consequences so really investing in development and education it's a priority even for the developed world to help have a sustainable world and development thank you last word Fin I'm not sure if all of those questions were answered but please bear with us when Amataya Sen came up with the acronym WIDA the wider perspective 27 years ago this was exactly to highlight that we do need to keep the wider development perspective in mind throughout Ed is one but only one element of a complex development puzzle we need to keep the wider perspective in mind throughout the eight project for wider is an interesting area it's one among 11 projects or programs another one is on learning to compete it's on trying to understand what's happening in the private sector in Africa another one is about the interlinkages between growth inequality and poverty so Ed is for us one specific element which we are pursuing and it's a very fine comment yes as researchers of course we always like more data and so on and so forth but there is also a task in trying to weed out those results that are out there that actually don't stand on their feet when they are subjected to careful professional analysis and that's part of what we are doing in Recon Thank you


Welcome to insurance agent training every Monday two o'clock central standard time and today We got a big topic for you today is all about the top three tips for becoming a better insurance salesperson insurance and succeeding in sales right is Not the easiest thing you can do But there's three things that will help three things We're gonna touch on today and three big reasons why you need to stick around and watch this entire episode Live with me every single Monday. I get excited for this. I get excited for my professor hat on become Right a professional and help you so today the first tip.  So energy would you agree with that? Energy is where it is all about energy and interest Energy in that. Hey, are you energized? I'm gonna give you a little secret. Okay? I'm gonna give you a little secret. I've never talked about this. There's one thing I would always do before I would go into an appointment This wasn't planned Dylan has no clue what I'm gonna say, right live on video. I've never said this. I would have this Cody's $100,000 CD right that I made this playlist that I made and actually use a CD back there There's like a decade ago, right? Nobody uses CDs anymore, but I did okay On that CD. It was a hype list. It was a motivation list It was music to get me going and hyped up and jacked up and bring my energy Maybe a five or six or seven to an eight nine or a ten I would play that on the way to an appointment every single time, right? If I left appointment with a cell, I had a certain song I'd play if I left the appointment without a cell I had another song that I would play Because I didn't make the cell So your energy like for instance when I go speak or I go to conferences Where I have breakout sessions or I do all these free live training events all over the country like the one we have here in a Little bit tonight, right in in in Little Rock Every single time I go to the stairs or the stairwell or the bathroom or to my room or the fitness center or down the hall And I start doing jumping jacks, right? I start doing jumping jacks. I start jumping up and down I start getting excited. I start getting jacked up. I start getting my heart racing Because my energy ends up Depicting the outcome of That event of that speech of that training just like your energy When you get a chance to sit down with a prospect ends up Determining if you get the cell. So that's the first piece is energy The beat that's a the B piece one B interest is are you interesting? How interesting are you when you get a chance to gain? Interests along the way through engagement and trial closes and stay interesting and keep their attention, how do you do it? Energy and interest Will help you be a better salesperson number one. It will give you confidence Number two, it will give the prospect confidence in you Because you have energy and it looks like you should be passionate about what you do But either way and I'm not saying to fake it because you should never fake anything But it looks like you have a lot of passion for what you do and hopefully it's true Hopefully it's real right, but when you put out energy and interest you look passionate Okay, so that's number one top three sales for those just joining us top three sales tips Right for being a better insurance sales person tip number one in energy and interest tip number two great address the five buying Decisions there's five buying decisions when you sit down with the prospect right how trustworthy are you? That's why I talk about how this is a relationship game. They are evaluating how trustworthy you are as a salesperson Okay, that's number one number two is Are you and the company and the carrier and the agency you represent? Are they reputable? That's big people do the research nowadays. Okay, also what problems does this insurance sell solve for them as a prospect? They need to understand the benefits the value we talked about relationship Value and you make the sell right so those are several things also is the price worth it If they see more value if the values higher than the price people make a decision if the value is lower than the price, right? There's less value and the price is higher than it feels right. There's less value. They don't buy lastly Is this the best time for them to take action? The timing is Important when someone is so that's why as a salesperson it's good for you to stress that the time is now Like the no call back closed. So that's the second tip address the five buying decisions, right? Because yes, you can have energy and interest, right? Yes, you can address the five buying decisions, right? All five of those Because if you don't address their problems their concerns their complaints, right their fears They will feel less confident Making a decision right now. Okay, so that's tip number two tip number two to being a better insurance salesperson, okay? tip number three is Dipping into psychology. I learned the psychology of sales at 19 years old And I was better because of it when I say psychology I'm talking about the fact that when they give you an objection they do not mean it The psychology of sales that you should always finish with a question, right? The psychology of sales that you should ask questions and get them talking more Than you do when I talked less. I make sales when I talk more than they do I don't make sales right get them opening up get them talking get them sharing open into questions, right? They will tell you why the psychology in that They have interest. They're sitting with you. They're looking for a reason to buy Can you help them take advantage right now, right? Or the psychology that few pauses you lack confidence that they will take control of the cell and the conversation and you Will fail on your objective to make that cell. So when we talk about top three tips For being a better insurance salesperson The first one has to do with your energy and interest how energized are you and how much interest do they have in what you're talking about, right? Your energy is everything. I need a sort of new video series called energy is everything because energy is Every emphatically Everything right it really is also the buying motives the buying decisions. Why? Are they about to buy from you right now, right? That's tip number two and the third one is Dipping into the psychology of sales gives you got if you have the interest you have the why and them connect it, right? And then you know the psychology behind sales to help people make a decision getting a lot of yeses, right trial closes Engagement getting them involved getting them going and sitting by them and being in their bubble all these things can be huge Helpful tips for making you a better insurance salesperson I don't want to I didn't want to go really long today today I wanted to go direct today I wanted to challenge you and today I want to give you three tips to make you better This is insurance agent training every Monday two o'clock central center time. I'm gonna come to you now I've been coming to you for years and I'm gonna keep coming to you for freaking decades because I'm the dude That's here to help and these three tips if you follow them if you implement them And if you actually try to learn them and be a master of the art of your craft you will dominate Thanks for watching We'll see you tomorrow for phone phenome use these three tips and guess what you'll be a better insurance salesperson today Than you were yesterday. Appreciate you guys


Hi, I'm Laura Gaskill. It's an honor to be chosen as a recipient of a special session scholarship for current MLIS students. I'm in my second year in the program, and as my husband and son can attest, I frequently mention how much I love it. Being an iSchool student has given me the flexibility to pursue my dream of changing careers into the world of librarianship after 10 years in a different field and with a child at home. Through the iSchool, I have discovered a passion for diverse and inclusive literature, collection development, new and emerging technologies and academic librarianship. I've designed library websites, created lip guides, recorded instructional screencasts, and researched the transgender and non-binary youth information community. I'm looking forward to another rich semester of learning and hands-on experiences this fall as I begin an internship with Florida Southern College as an instructional materials intern. After graduation, I plan to pursue a career in academic librarianship, ideally at an institution where I can use my passions for education, child and adolescent development and diverse books through research and collaboration with professors and students. Although if there's one thing I've learned from my professors and peers in the iSchool, there are many interesting paths to take with an MLIS degree and I'm remaining open to new opportunities as well. I'm truly grateful for the generous scholarship support. Thank you so much for your support of San Jose State University iSchool students.


Hi, I'm Matthew Coast, head dating coach and founder at commitmentconnection.com. And in today's video, we're gonna ask the question, will you be single forever? Here's how to know.  If this is your first time to our channel, make sure you go and hit the subscribe button to get more videos on how to have the relationship that you've always wanted. So let's get started. If you're frustrated with being single and you're not sure if maybe you're just gonna be single forever, let's ask a few questions. The first question is, are you meeting new people? So in today's day and age with the internet and online dating, it's really easy to kind of get stuck in your home and never really leave and meet new people. Go from job to home to job to home. Maybe out and not really wanna meet guys that are out there. So are you regularly meeting new people? If you kind of take a look at it and you're like, okay, well, how many new people would I have to meet in order to meet a guy that I like?  I think that you'd realize that it's probably pretty small. So if you're not actually meeting guys, that could be a huge problem for you. Question number two, are you waiting for a good man or are you looking for Mr. Perfect? So one of the things that runs up with both men and women is that they kind of have this idealization about the person that they wanna be with. And so for a lot of them, what will end up happening is if you're kind of stuck on this, Mr. Perfect showing up in your life and you want him to be this giant long list of this and that and this and that and this and that, you might end up running into a problem where you know, maybe that guy doesn't even really exist. And certainly the men that you meet, guys who might be really great for you might not fit into that category of this Mr. Perfect guy. So instead of looking for Mr. Perfect, you might wanna find a guy that's just really great. Number three, are you disqualifying men because of their character flaws or just because they're unfamiliar and they're, you're not really sure yet? First off, I wanna say that it's very important to disqualify guys that show red flags, right? If a guy shows some obvious red flags of some kind of problem, that's a great time to disqualify them. But one of the things that I see with a lot of women out there is that they'll just, they'll disqualify guys for all kinds of stupid things that don't really make any sense. And you know, I think part of what is to blame here is also online dating because a lot of online dating, they set things up so that you search for people or accept and reject people based on things that have no real indication of whether you guys are gonna be good for each other or not. So the question is, have you automatically been rejecting guys because of superficial things? You know, chemistry doesn't always just hit you like that.  And you know, what I think happens more often is that a lot of times a woman can be surprised by the chemistry or surprised by how much they really like a guy that initially they didn't really think they were going to like. And that's one of the reasons, one of the big situations that a lot of women come to me with is they end up in these casual friend with benefits relationships where they now want a guy to commit to them. And the reason that that ends up happening is because they disqualify this guy early on because he's not perfect and then they end up catching feelings and they go, oh, yeah, I actually do like this guy now and now I'm starting to see his amazing qualities and now I'm starting to fall in love with him and you know, so how do I get him to commit now? And so, you know, I don't want you to be in that situation because it's harder than getting into a situation where you learn about a guy initially, don't get into the sexual relationship and then end up deciding that he's right for you later on. It's better to connect with him and learn about him before sleeping with him because if you connect with him after you sleep with him, he might not be in the right space. Question number four, are you still stuck on an ex or maybe something that happened in your past? I see this all the time. One of the, a big problem that you might run into if you're still kind of emotionally connected to your ex or maybe some kind of situation that happens in your past is that you'll end up going into a new relationship and you will just screw things up with a guy or maybe you'll go into a new dating situation and you'll really push the guy away because of how much you're either talking about your ex or some kind of negative emotional experience from your past. And so, if you really want to attract a man, you have to do the work there. There's work that needs to be done where you have to forgive and you have to let go and you have to heal and move on in order for you to really be open to a new relationship. And sometimes this happens subconsciously where you don't even realize you're not really in a space to connect with a guy. Question number five, are you letting a man invest in you? So one of the big things that I talk about in some of my videos and programs is that in order for a guy to want to stay with you and commit to you, he has to feel invested in you. And I'm not just talking about monetary investment, although that can help. But there's also a physical investment, there's also an emotional investment, there's a time investment. So there's a whole bunch of different types of ways that a man will invest in you and you have to let him do that before you jump on him. So this is actually the thing behind the chase. When a guy chases you, he starts creating those investments or I like to call it pursuing. If you let a man chase you, he'll start to invest in you and there's a much higher probability that he'll end up getting to a space where he feels like you're the type of person that he wants to be in a relationship with, who he wants to take off the market and who he wants to commit to for a long-term lasting type relationship. Thanks for watching this video. If you're ready to know exactly what to say and do to attract the man and the relationship you've always wanted, click on the button on the right-hand side of this video and go to our website.


Textile industries produce large quantities of wastewater contaminated with hazardous dyes such as anthroquinone, AQ. These dyes are difficult to degrade due to their complex and stable structure. However, recent studies have shown that certain types of fungi can break down these dyes, which could be used for remediating polluted water sources. This paper reviewed the current state of knowledge on AQ dyes, including their structures and classification, as well as the potential role of fungi in breaking them down. It also discussed the challenges associated with using fungi for remediating AQ-contaminated water sources and suggested areas for further research. This article was authored by Sudeep Sen, Smeeta Raut and Sangita Raut.


Welcome folks, this is Jacob Schup filling in for Tom O'Brien, he will be back tomorrow. Let's see what we have going on today. We have the ES mini trading about sideways of about $4,908.50 right there. We have the Russell futures trading at $1982 of about 0.5%. The NQ slightly down off about 0.09, 0.08%, trading about $17,606 there. Dow futures sideways again at $38,071. Gold contract, interesting movements in it going forward, okay? So we're about sideways right now, trading at $2,017, of course we've been having not a lot of action in it, but just kind of a slow burn down, just a tad, still above that level of $2,000, which is good for the psyche on a lot of things here. We're looking at silver trading at $23 on the futures contract. Copper finally back up $386, now we're down slightly today. We had about yesterday a massive tick up in it on some pretty significant volume, so that's good for all the copper holders out there. We take a look at, let's really say some commodities that are getting pretty strong right now. We've got light suede crude futures trading up about $2, $0.32, up about 3.09%, that is about $77.41, of course a lot is going on. We had some issues in production in the Northwest last week, you had some issues with freezing of the pipes, of course some things still persist complication-wise around the Red Sea area, I believe Libya is back and producing. As it is, we were kind of anticipating a tick up in crude oil futures. Energy is just a little bit more expensive right now, of course it's been a very cold winter in the U.S., too. Tesla, this is pretty substantial for this stock. A lot of the times, you know, you have this conversation, Tesla gets sold off every now and then, excuse me, gets sold off every now and then, it really rebounds quite well. This has been a decline in this stock since about December 28th. It has been a healthy decline with a lot of volume, or not a lot of volume, but you know, a substantial amount of volume. And then today, with some reports released, and then some comments from Elon Musk, quite a gap down, trading at $182.58, down about 12.16%, we'll talk a little bit about them later in the program. We're still dynamic trading at just under $116, crazy the stock moves. The DXY, okay, so let's take a look, right? DXY's still trading at $103.58, it was off about 800 ticks yesterday morning. A lot of people were, I mean, we were trading, what, $102.74? And then it really, it made a recovery throughout the day. This is the hard thing with anticipating this market, okay? As you can see with the lower dollar, there's kind of a, you know, typically an inverse relationship with the rest of the market, and then of course with metals as well. We've been having a lot of trouble with gold, getting gold moving, and just kind of getting any kind of action in it that's not just a very, you know, kind of slow rundown in that kind of industry. I think that fake out, how do a lot of people see some action potentially forming? We're right back here at that $103.57 level, and it has been pretty sticky around that, at least for this month, and we'll have to wait and see what kind of goes on. I do think, obviously the markets are making all-time highs, it's been doing, you know, all right. We're going to wait for the Fed in January 30th to see if we get any really big conviction either way. I think people really want to see these rates come down from the Fed, and I don't know if it'll be as soon as they're expecting. If that's the case, and it's not a very, you know, flowery kind of meeting this month from the Fed, you know, I could potentially see some kind of minor pullback in it. Obviously, it's inarguable that the market wants higher price. If the market wants higher price, the market gets higher price, but you know, I wonder if there's going to be some kind of step back into kind of more conservative outlook for the next few months, depending on what the Fed says. The Q here trading at $425.68, Google at $153.29, up about 2% today, Meta trading $392.71, Disney making a little bit of progress with it, trading just under $95.00, $95.49, of course, some great kind of pump-up here around November 9th and November 10th has been able to trade within this balance of $90.95, you know, if you can get back above this $95.00 level for a few days with some decent volume, yeah, stock looks okay. Apple, $194.00, we're going to talk a little bit about them as well. Then, of course, some of the companies we were looking at last week. But what I want to look at is Humera, you know, they're down 11.33% today. Again, some pretty significant earnings downside. Fisker, you know, they had some great news, but again, as I was saying, I don't think Fisker's really shelled out fully yet. And of course, they got us sold off today. Nokia, super interesting. We'll talk about them in a little bit, of course, Comcast as well. Let's talk about Comcast quickly. They are the parent company of a streaming program called, excuse me, excuse me, a streaming platform called Peacock. I don't know much about Peacock. Nobody really uses Peacock. You keep getting these email blasts from them constantly on every email I have. They've somehow have gotten that address and then they keep sending it to us. Nobody uses it. However, it looks that NFL is going to be streaming on Peacock and this was pretty good for Comcast. Let's take a look a little bit about them. Okay, so they had three million new Peacock subscribers during the latest financial quarter, came apart from viewers drawn to the NFL in the Big 10 football games without specifying actual numbers. NBCU's loss related to Peacock amounted to 825 million in the fourth quarter, compared with a year ago loss of 978 million on revenue of 660 million. They're saying that Peacock is now going to be the fastest growing streaming platform. Okay, I don't know if that means anything when the platform is already significantly smaller user base wise than every other platform they're having to compete with. Obviously, you can have high percent growth and it's a lot easier to achieve that when you already don't have a very high base to begin with, right? I don't know what staying power really Peacock has in this world. You're already seeing way higher costs of operation and things like Netflix. They're going to be increasing the price. They're getting rid of some of their ad free subscription in other parts of the world, so you'll still pay the same amount for subscription. And now you're going to get ads and that's kind of giving you insight into what other streamers are dealing with. It's something like Peacock that already doesn't really have a huge base. I don't know what the future is for them. Folks, stay tuned and we'll be right back.


Good morning team. This is Admiral Richardson, the Chief of Naval Operations. Like you, I was devastated and heartbroken, broken to hear about the collision of the USS John McCain off of Singapore. They have moored in Singapore right now, and all of our assistance is flowing to the ship and the crew. That is our primary focus right now, the safety of the crew and the ship and taking care of their families. I'd like to thank everybody who has helped us get to this point, including and especially the Republic of Singapore Navy. Admiral Swift, the commander of the Pacific Fleet, is en route to take charge and to make sure that they have all the assistance that they need. We'll continue to provide you updates as we learn more about the John S. McCain. As you know, this is the second collision in three months and the last in a series of incidents in the Pacific Theater. This trend demands more forceful action. As such, I direct an operational pause be taken in all of our fleets around the world. Want our fleet commanders to get together with their leaders and their commands to ensure that we're taking all appropriate immediate actions to ensure safe and effective operations around the world. In addition to that operational pause, I've directed a more comprehensive review to ensure that we get at the contributing factors, the root causes of these incidents. This review is in addition to the investigations that are looking into the details of the collisions of the USS Fitzgerald and now the USS John S. McCain. I've asked Admiral Phil Davidson, the commander of the USS Fleet Forces Command, to take charge of that investigation. I will examine the process by which we train and certify our forces that are forward deployed in Japan to make sure that we're doing everything we can to make them ready for operations and war fighting. This will include but not be limited to looking at operational tempo trends in personnel, material, maintenance, and equipment. It will also include a review of how we train and certify our surface war for our community, including tactical and navigational proficiency. Now, I want to make as many resources across the Navy available to Admiral Davidson in the conduct of this review. That will include the Naval Inspector General, the Naval Safety Center, and others. I want this to be a broad and diverse team, including officer and enlisted from across the Navy and also people outside the Navy, the other services and the private sector. I want this team to be as diverse as they can be so that we don't miss anything in our review. This review will be on a very tight timeline. I want to get frequent updates. This requires urgent action. We need to get to it and take corrective action. Finally, I will be getting updates throughout and I'll keep our leadership informed. In closing, our thoughts and prayers go out to the sailors and families of USS John McCain and USS Fitzgerald. We need to get to the bottom of this, so let's get to it.


The University of California has a tradition of doing research in the interest of the public good. This is a great example of research that's going to benefit the public. We're going to produce an anti-malarial drug inexpensively for the people of the developing world and potentially save one to two million lives every year. Currently malaria affects 40% of the world's population. Two to three million people die every year from malaria. 90% of them are children under the age of five. And in those countries most affected by malaria it's been estimated by economists that it reduces their gross domestic product by 50%. So not only is it taking a lot of lives but those who have it and live with it are debilitated and can't work, which reduces their country's capacity to compete in the world. Artemisinin is currently being used to treat malaria. Artemisinin is a cure for malaria because there's no resistance to the drug. The problem with many of the inexpensive drugs that are available, like the chloroquine-based drugs, is that they are no longer effective. The organism that causes malaria has grown resistant to them and therefore they're not effective even though they're the drugs that people can afford. Artemisinin comes from a plant called sweet wormwood. Sweet wormwood grows throughout the world but the plants that produce the most Artemisinin are grown in Southeast Asia. The current process for producing Artemisinin is very expensive. It involves growing the plant on small farms, extracting the molecule, the active ingredient from the plant, and then taking it to a pharmaceutical to be purified further and incorporated into a drug. The problem with Artemisinin is that it is far too expensive for anyone in Africa or in any developing world country to afford. It costs about $2.40 and that's the best negotiated price, negotiated by the World Health Organization, and it's available to a very few people. The goal of our project is to produce Artemisinin at one-tenth of its current costs. The research we're doing is to develop essentially a chemical factory inside a bacterium to produce the anti-malarial drug. We can use modern biotechnology and modern engineering principles to engineer this bacterium. We take the genes from the plant, we place them in the bacterium, and then the bacterium produces this anti-malarial drug, Artemisinin. By building this small chemical factory, we can produce the drug very inexpensively and cut down purification costs that plague the current drug that's extracted from plants. The impact of doing research in this particular area is that we could save one to two million lives every year if we can supply this drug inexpensively to them. This is a real motivation for graduate students and postdocs working at the bench with the day-to-day details knowing that their research could be applied to saving millions of lives.