You really need to assume that it's here already. Locations in Afghanistan. Means having to run a very dangerous gauntlet Must wake up.
The world must get serious. Global citizens like you know that fight for. Fairness and equality starts with empowering. Women and girls.
Spirit is in us all to rally together and demand that no one, wherever they are born, is left behind. We must tackle. Each of these issues head on. Vaccine equity. And misinformation.
As our reliance on fossil fuels continues to hold our future hostage. Our planet continues to warm. And the result? The massive loss of. Biodiversity, rising sea levels, climate refugees, worsening storms, fires and droughts that plague. Every corner of the globe.
Please welcome Global Citizen Board co-chairs Chris Stadler and Fran Catsuits. Your Excellencies and distinguished guests, welcome to Global Citizen. Now, on behalf of the Global Citizen Board, I want to thank you for taking time to be with us. We're so appreciative of the opportunity to share and to come together and to talk about how we can defend the planet and end poverty.
You may know us best from a global citizen perspective for the amazing shows that we put on around the world and for our social media and for the campaigns that we run. And you may be wondering why we're here together today in this forum. It's because of the urgency of this moment.
Right now, it's clear that business as usual isn't working. Do you all agree? We continue to see the impact and the fallout of multiple cascading crises over the past few years. And we must respond by doing more.
These crises have created the first real uptick in the numbers of people globally living in extreme poverty in over 30 years. Alongside slowing progress on climate action sidelined during the pandemic for millions of global citizens around the world, that proves that the system is just not working for them. For me as a business leader, it's about knowing that you can hide with the fiction, that if you just keep your head down and you run your business well and stay out of politics, that the world will be fine. We must do more. We must invest our time, our money, and our influence to drive real progress. The past few years have clearly demonstrated that all sectors and industries have an important leadership role to play.
And we know that our approach to tackling the biggest challenges facing all of us together is working together. Over the next two days, we'll be doing just that, reaching across the divisions of sectors and industries and learning and working together. We have a truly amazing program lined up, and you're going to hear from political leaders such as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who is with us today, and United States Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi tomorrow. Leading voices, campaigners and journalists from arts and culture, including Billy Porter, Gayle King, Lynsey Addario and Pharrell Williams. Business leaders including CFO La Diego Scotti, Marc Pritchard, Ed Schuyler and Chuck Robbins.
And activists and movement leaders like Gloria Steinem, Edie Nobu, our amazing Global Citizen Prize, and Cisco Youth Leadership Award winners. And remember, if you hear something you'd like to learn more about, catch one of the speakers at one of the breaks. Now let's get started on our program. We've got four amazing discussions for you here today. We're going to start, first off, with the urgency of now.
Second will lead to some special announcements about global citizens plans for 2022. Then we'll transition to a discussion of gender equity and the importance of doing it now. And finally, we'll finish on starting a discussion on the impact that Web3 can have on our issues.
So let's get on with it. Thank you. It's our pleasure to welcome President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, CEO of Global Citizen Hugh Evans, CEO and Chair of Cisco, Chuck Robbins.
And we also have with us to lead the discussion the co-host of MSNBC program Morning Joe and the founder of Know Your Value and Forbes 50 over 50 initiatives, Mika Brzezinski. I feel like it's a graduation and I'm like, class. Please have a seat.
How are you all doing? Good afternoon. It's wonderful to be here. Thank you for the masks. Sorry for the masks.
As we all know, Global Citizen has three main goals defeating poverty, defending the planet, demanding equity. But we are going to address this all now with the urgency of now of what's happening in the moment. And we're going to do it. Morning Joe is style, Madam President. Morning Joe is a very fast paced conversation that we have every morning on television and there's a lot of interrupting.
So feel free to take over anytime you want. Hugh. Chuck But often we find ourselves at times of crisis, beginning with the pandemic and now with the war in Ukraine. And crisis can take things into a new direction. It can realign relationships, create new ones, reshape the landscape and change the way we approach problems. And that's where we will begin with the urgency of now.
Madam President, I'll start with you. From food insecurity to fuel dependance to millions of people displaced. And that's just to name a few of the problems we're facing right now. What are you most concerned about, looking ahead maybe to the next 3 to 6 months for Europe and the world? Yes. First of all, thank you very much for having me here. It's wonderful to be here and to be at this summit. Indeed, there is a multitude of crises we are facing now.
And if you asked me to look at the most pressing ones. Well, of course, the most pressing ones are, I'd say, three. That is the war in Ukraine, the unjustified aggression of Russia against Ukraine.
So we have to do everything to make sure that this country, that Ukraine is withstanding and that it is making it and that this war is a strategic failure for Putin. That's point number one. The second crisis is, of course, climate change.
This is the big looming crisis in the background. And we have to do everything to transform into clean energy. This is linked also to the Ukraine crisis and to Russia's fossil fuel blackmailing against the European Union. And the third one, which is really worrying me, is the upcoming food crisis, which I see. And we have to do everything to get the grain out of Ukraine that is there and of course, to make sure that there is a fair distribution of the worldwide grain also to the vulnerable countries.
So a lot is on my mind, but these are my three most urgent concerns. The food crisis is is potentially a real strategic concern focused on one area of Ukraine of making sure we can have access before we open it up. I'm just concerned. Interested? You made a remarkable trip to Kiev meeting President Glinski. Were you inspired and perhaps even motivated by the determination of the Ukrainian people? Oh, yes.
I mean, I was in Butcher and I saw with my own eyes the body bags on the ground. I saw the mass graves. It's horrible.
It's there are no words to describe it. I saw the houses, the hospitals, the kindergartens hit by Russian bombs and shelling and really like wounds or scars in the landscape. But what I also must say, I was so impressed by the bravery and the hope that the Ukrainian people have for their future. This is amazing.
We can never match their sacrifice, but we can do everything to support them and we have to do everything to support them. And after my talks with President Zelensky, I mean, his outstanding leadership. This should be motivation for all of us. Really, to support this.
Brave country. Absolutely. And that's where. Couldn't agree more. That's where Global Citizen and companies like Cisco step up.
Chuck Robbins Cisco pivoted right away and made a decision pretty much immediately to stop all business in Russia and Belarus. Can you take us inside the decision in-house, inside Cisco? How did that complicate your operation or was it an easy decision to make? Well, first of all, thanks for having me here and Q congratulations on everything that you guys continue to do. Just it's it's inspirational to all of us as well. So thank you.
You know, from where I sit, the decision was easy. I'm sure it was much more complicated for my team that had to implement it. But it was there was not much of a decision to be made. I think, you know, if you just step back and looked at the legality of it relative to the different sanctions that we had to abide with, we had the European sanctions, we had the UK sanctions and we had the U.S. sanctions. And when you do the Venn diagram on that, it basically says shut your operations down.
But we we would have made that call anyway. And but the other things that we did is we we wanted to also take care of our Russian employees, because most of them were not supportive of what was happening. And so we when we ceased operations, we we actually gave them subsidies, income subsidies, and sent them home for some period of time. We have continued to help them in various ways financially.
Some of them have made the decision to leave the country and that we've supported them once they've exited. And then at the same time, we have been very active. Before the invasion, we had offered to financially cover cost of getting our employees out of Ukraine if they wanted to get out. Subsequently, we've been sent in lots of equipment and networking gear and for communication teams, setting up wireless access and refugee camps and all sorts of good stuff. So we have a great team and to be honest, in a lot of these situations, they come, tell me what we're going to do, and because they just know that's what we're going to. Do, then they know what you're going to want.
Hugh Global Citizen pivoted again. There's been a lot of pivoting lately, a lot of global crises, and this time for the war in Ukraine. I know you were in Warsaw where you had some time with my brother, the ambassador to Poland, Mark Brzezinski, U.S. ambassador to Poland.
And you were there for stand up for Ukraine, the campaign, which is amazing. Were you just curious at all motivated by inspired by the global response to the refugee crisis that you were able to see with your own eyes at the border? Absolutely. And I should start by saying that your brother, Mark Brzezinski, is an absolute legend.
We spent time with him at the with at the embassy. And his leadership across Poland is truly extraordinary right now. And there was one thing that stuck with me when we went and some of my colleagues who are here today, friend, could suit us. We went to the border of Poland and Ukraine and there was this one image that I'll never forget of this young mother crossing the border from Ukraine into Poland, almost having to drag the baby bassinet that she was carrying because it was too heavy across the border and onto an unmarked bus.
And I just sat there and I'm I don't consider myself an overly emotional man, but I cried the whole time. And I thought to myself, we have to do everything we can to help make sure that mother gets onto the bus to get somewhere safe and warm and has the medical attention to support her and her child if needed. And so that's why our whole Global Citizen team immediately launched Stand Up for Ukraine. We partnered with everyone that we could and we asked all of the artist community get involved.
We had U2 and Bono really took the reins together with Billie Eilish, and then Bruce Springsteen jumped on board. And then all of a sudden, the whole lot of community mobilized. And this came to a head a month ago, actually, where President von der Leyen and Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada and also with President Zelensky of Ukraine, came together for stand up for Ukraine. And that campaign ultimately raised $10.1 billion for refugee relief, which is being immediately deployed for people across the region. But I think that. But I think that the President von der Leyen made a really important point and this is something I hope all of us in this room will internalize that the next crisis of food security is coming.
And if we care about the mission of helping the most vulnerable people on our planet, the fact is that people across the Middle East and parts of sub-Saharan Africa soon will not have enough grain not just to support their own food security, but for their agricultural food security. And so this is a huge looming challenge as Russia continues to bomb warehouses and block wheat from leaving ports. We have to jump onto this right away. Yeah. And can you imagine how tight the timing has been for all this that has happened, including the mobilization?
My brother kind of describes this as this sort of rolling miracle that he is bearing witness to at the border, especially in Poland, where the United States and the Polish government, the country, the world, local communities, organically and systematically and so rapidly stepped up, taking in, I don't know, up to 4 million refugees in three months. By the way, would this happen in America? And by the way, they have baby formula, a lot of it. And so I just wonder, Hugh, Madam President, what are the learning opportunities on how to effectively, effectively mobilize on a grand scale so quickly? Well, I think that as an organization and I'll I'll pass to Madame President in a few seconds, I think what we've learned as an organization is because the world is facing a confluence of crises all at once, you have to be incredibly disciplined because you could take on a new crisis every single week.
Yeah. And we have a mission. And our mission is to eradicate extreme poverty within our lifetime. And we look at it through that lens very carefully. And it's a judgment call. It's often incredibly hard to make that judgment call.
But to give you one example, I remember when when COVID 19/1 struck. To be really honest, I was a bit despondent. I was like, okay, what is Global Citizen possibly going to do from here? And I remember our board came together and they all looked me in the eye and they said, Hugh, pull yourself together. Literally, I remember friends said that and. Thank you, friend.
And they said and they said and focus on where you can be of greater service to those in need. And the next day, I got a call from Dr. Tedros, the head of the World Health Organization, who asked us if we could mobilize the artist community. And the next day, One World Together at Home was born. And then when Lady Gaga brought it all around the world with the Rolling Stones, that's actually what enabled President von der Leyen and I to first meet because it was broadcast into over 300 countries around the world and ultimately 300 homes around the world, and ultimately raised $127.9 million in one night for PPE.
And that's when together we launched a fundraising effort the following month to raise urgent money for vaccine relief. But I think what this highlights is one of service quickly, but bridge partnerships between we're an NGO. We mobilize young people all around the world. Is the CEO of a huge, huge organization.
President von der Leyen oversees all of the European Commission. We have to build bridges and work together super quickly. Madam President.
I can only compliment that. First of all, what we see with the Ukrainian refugees is, of course, fantastic people in Poland and Hungary and Slovakia and Romania all over the European Union and even further on who open their hearts, the minds of their homes. This is the first thing, and we should always really applaud the people who do that. And then indeed there is a responsibility for us, each one of us in our place.
And what you should ask us, what can I do? This famous Kennedy speaking, don't ask what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. This, and in a wider sense, is there too. And then it is was for me a fantastic experience to join forces with you, because indeed here is European politics, the 27 member states, but there is the artist community, here is the global citizen. And if we join forces, we are so strong we can achieve so much.
If we have the business sector, the corporate responsibility on our side, we are so strong. And that should be our motto for crisis that are coming, that are there. Together, we can really overcome the crisis and many of the European nations. What fuels the passion here and the urgency of now is the shared history.
We have been down this road before. We cannot believe that this is happening again and we will not have it. That is what the Polish people are definitely saying as they look into the eyes of Ukrainians when they traipse across the border broken families, broken hearts. And that helps. But for the private sector, Chuck, what drives and what what more can be done to compel the private sector to step up and not only stepped up for Russians who worked for the company or Ukrainians who wanted to leave, but also for the Ukrainian people setting up Ukrainian Humanitarian Assistance Fund. But where does that come from when there isn't that sort of foundational, shared passion in history? Well, what I would tell you is that most CEOs in the United States, and particularly that I know very well, feel the same way that I do about these issues.
And the great thing about what you both were just describing is we give them a framework to plug into. And I think much like you rally the musical and the arts community, the president rallies the political and government, and we try to rally the business community and we bring all those together. I think that's the power that you were speaking of. And I just think we have to it's incumbent upon the business community to do a better job of roping in our peers.
And we've been trying and we've had some level of success during the pandemic. We we learned and we had conference call after conference call raising money, buying PPE, doing all those kinds of things. And. We would we would pull every company together.
And, you know, we might be able to give $20 million and someone else can only give 100,000. But it's like any any time you're talking about charity, every bit helps, right? And so I think we just have to continue to create frameworks that they can plug into. But a company has to have a moral compass to want to do these things. And it sounds like everybody is in sync at Cisco. They knew without having to ask. That's for sure.
Which is nice. They don't ask much. Is that good? Yeah, I think that's good. Madam President, your thoughts on mobilizing the private sector, but also the the complicated geostrategic landscape, if I could.
What lessons can we take you take from the Russian invasion in terms of energy independence and the search for alternative forms of fuel that would ultimately be aligned with global citizens? Number one goal of defending the planet, because right now we find ourselves we the collective, the United States and Europe find ourselves in a bind. Yes, indeed. If you look at Russia's way to wage war, it's also weaponising energy. And indeed, the European Union is heavily dependent on Russian fossil fuels, oil, gas and coal.
And we experienced over the last weeks and months the pressure that Russia tried to put on us and the way it tried to blackmail us. You might have read that they cut off Finland now of supply of gas, also Bulgaria, also Poland. But the good part in a very, very bitter story is that because we experienced that, we are even accelerating the move forward, our weaning out of fossil fuels and going into the renewables as a clean and independent energy with jobs growing at home. And therefore, right now, there's a strong determination of the European Union to get rid of the dependency of Russian fossil fuels.
But overall fossil fuels and this is something where it very strange. I mean, Putin would have never, ever thought that he is accelerating the green transition, the European green deal towards a zero emission economy. And that's basically three things.
First of all, it's all of us, the consumer, save energy. You can do so much by saving energy. Just if we speak, for example, of air conditioning or heating one degree, more or less air conditioning or heating, it's 10 billion cubic.
Meters saved per year in the European Union, for. Example. It's energy saving energy.
The second one is, of course, that we diversify away from Russia to reliable suppliers like our friends in the United States. But the most important is massive investment in renewables, in wind and solar and hydro power and hydrogen. And this is also not only good news for us if we move into the renewable energy, but it's also extremely good news for the Global South because it's there where in abundance these resources are, it's there where the future sits for renewable energy to be exported, for example, to the European Union or to the United States. So it's also something where we heavily now invest in, for example, with our friends on the African country to really build the infrastructure for hydrogen. That one day will be the energy of the future. But how far off is that? Because if for some countries it's years away and we are in the urgency of now with this war and and holding back from sanctioning Russia, the EU on fuel, this sort of drives that makes it the situation worse, does it not? Should we not fully be surrounding him with the worst sanctions possible? Absolutely.
Absolutely. Therefore, we completely cut off now our imports of Russian coal. We're weaning down the Russian oil. And interesting in the gas sector, let me give you two figures that show already a trend. Last year, we imported 40% of our needs and gas from Russia. In April this year, we were down to 26% already.
So almost cut in half. And we move on on that. And in parallel, of course, we have to move forward with the renewable energies. This is our famous European green deal. I was a few days ago in Denmark, where four member states are forming an alliance for offshore wind.
They are now planning together, deploying the offshore wind together, and they plan on having in 2030 heating and serving 50 million homes only with offshore wind. So it's a transformation that is going on. It was already quite ambitious, but with the blackmail from Russia. Right, it's now being accelerated and that's the development we want and it is blackmail.
So at this point, Vladimir Putin is responsible for reinvigorating and growing in size. Naito bringing great strength and determination and unity to the European Union. And who is helping you get closer to one of your three goals of defending the planet? Who would have thought? Absolutely. It's the great irony. And I think that, you know, for citizens around the world that are asking themselves right now, what can you do to defend the planet? You know, I think Chuck was selling himself short before when he said that Cisco was willing to do whatever they've been at the forefront, say, as part of corporate push for the race to zero.
They were one of the first Fortune 100 companies to commit to net zero carbon emissions by 2030 and 2050, in line with the science based Target Initiative. We need all of corporate America and the European Roundtable to commit to do the same, because ultimately, you know, we know that the private sector makes up 80% of the world's carbon emissions if we're truly serious about cutting back. We need the private sector to lead. And so I commend you, Chuck. And I agree with what you said earlier about pushing other CEOs gently or sometimes not so gently to head in that direction immediately. Chuck, can you comment a little bit tell us what how long have you been committed to these goals? Well, we have we actually got involved with the circular economy probably a decade ago, I think.
And so we've been offering, you know, we sell hardware and networking equipment that runs the Internet. Right. So we that our customers, when they take things out of service, we've been offering services for years where we'll actually pay to have that sent back to us. We're really the recycler to reuse it.
We're now working on lots of efforts around reducing plastics in our packaging, redesigning our products, more efficiency. Ironically, you can write software in a way that makes your hardware platforms more efficient and use less power. And we've also designed our own silicon. Semiconductors.
Everybody's heard of semiconductors lately, right? Supply chain in semiconductors, things people didn't know about until the last year. We design our own semiconductors that that are actually in big data centers are taking the power consumption down for the cloud. The cloud players down by 70 to 80%. So there's a there's a lot of work that that can be done.
And I think over the next few couple of decades, we'll figure out how we get to the ultimate goal. But there's so much that every company today can do because we just haven't I mean, most companies I have to give my team a lot of credit. They they have led in pursuing activities around trying to ensure that we're contributing to defending our planet for a long time. But I think now there's even more opportunity for us to do so. And I think we have more aggressive goals across the entire company. So there's been a whirlwind of stepping up around Ukraine at the border and certainly the type of impact that companies have had during the pandemic.
You were very focused. Have you seen that change with the war in Ukraine? What more is needed to help global citizen get toward its goals and to inspire the private sector to maybe broaden out a little bit? I think that the essence of what's needed at this juncture is the renewal of urgent political will. And what I mean by that is that I think you've seen and I think we should all take a lesson from the last two years, maybe even three. You saw how, you know, even under Trump, his his tenacity created, whether you like it or hate it, a political movement.
Right. And I'm not talking about your point of view. I'm just sharing the observation. Right. In this context. What I think we also see is that immediately response to a pandemic, the world mobilized $17 trillion in economic resource, and they were right to do so because they staved off what could have otherwise been a catastrophic economic meltdown.
But there was enormous political will when it was necessary. Right. Right. And similarly, right now in the war in Ukraine, enormous political will, immediate mobilization of resource.
I actually think if we can encourage political and business leaders and, by the way, ourselves as citizens to take the long view on the greatest challenges we face right now, because I guarantee you the cost of inaction on climate change or on extreme poverty is far greater than the war in Ukraine or COVID 19, which is a single disease, because you're talking about all global health, every communicable disease at stake. Right. So if we had that same degree of urgency, we would address the world's greatest challenges. Because if you add up all of the world's foreign aid, that is the entire foreign aid budget of every wealthy nation combined, we would have to spend that foreign aid budget again and again and again and again for 100 years just to match that pandemic relief spend.
That's $17 trillion figure. We can mobilize political will. We just need to frame the issues, the most urgent issues, whether it's climate change or extreme poverty, with that same degree of political urgency and create the space for society to go on that journey and address these issues head on. So equality is another solution to the world's problems and globally there is a long way to go.
I recently threw my Know Your Value platform, partnered with Forbes to start the 50 over 50 list, recognizing women over 50 who are reaching their greatest impact in their sixties, 1780s, nineties. And it was such a success that we started the US list and then did a 50 over 50 Asia and then immediately did 50 over 50 Europe, Middle East and Africa. And now there is a summit every year on and around International Women's Day in Abu Dhabi. And what I discovered in this partnership and working so hard on discovering these women and shining a light on them, is that there are so many of them.
It is incredible. Something has happened. We have arrived. In a big way and we're not going anywhere. So my question to you, Madam President, is did you ever very honestly and the answer might have been yes, but I've gotten a lot of no's to this question. Did you ever imagine because I asked every woman on every one of these lists, did you ever imagine having your greatest impact at 63 in your sixties? And what is your advice to young women starting out? So, of course, I did never imagine that.
But what I always had were dreams. I love it. And if I can, I see many, many young people in this audience. That's wonderful. Of course, there are few over 60 like me, I guess, but not so many.
So I have dreams. And if I can give you one advice, from my experience, it is never, ever let anybody make you a bad conscience about what you're doing. Never, ever stick to your dreams. Go for it. Because only then it is possible to see that you're going much wider than you ever dreamt to be able to do that. And what the over 50 or 60 years old are concerned, there is a very nice saying in Germany that says, well, the young ones are running faster.
But the older ones knows the shortcut. So. I love it. I will add I will add a few more.
Pieces of advice. And this is what I didn't know when I was starting out. I don't know what it was like for you, but I always felt I was in a rush. And what I learned with this incredible partnership with Forbes, learning about these incredible women like the president of the European Commission, is that you have a long runway for your life and your career.
So slow down. Slow down. I'm actually telling my to stay ambitious. Stay ambitious.
Oh, and I never said lose your ambition, but. But slow down a little bit because you make fewer mistakes if you're not rushing, hyperventilating, trying to figure out how to squeeze it all into 30 years. You have a lot more time than that. Okay.
To pivot, to reset, to have life. Interrupt your work and work. Interrupt your life. And secondly and most importantly about your confidence, nobody knows what they're doing. Okay? Especially men. They have no idea that.
No, listen, you'll be with me on this. They don't remember anything. They don't remember. So they're always pressing reset. So who are you again? And it's nice to meet you, Chuck.
Yeah, exactly. But the thing is, that. Makes them talented because they don't remember bad moments, they don't remember bad meetings, they don't remember getting fired. They don't care. In fact, if they got fired from a place, they're going to burn it down.
Right. And they don't remember it. And we hold all that negativity and think like we should live and feed on it. So nobody knows what they're doing, especially the guys. And that's what makes them so successful.
So it's a good I mean, once I realized that, I. Was like, Oh. I'm pretty good at what I do then.
Okay, so Hugh, I want to sort of I want to bring a guest up. But before we do call to action, now that I've insulted you, please tell the world what you need be forgot. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Oh, my goodness. That was awesome. I think.
Give me a round. Of applause to the gentleman. Come on.
You are awesome. Well, I think here in the room, everyone is here because you're global citizens, right? You share that common belief that something that happens to someone on the other side of the planet affects you, and that's why you care. And you see the interconnectedness of people.
And so my final call to action is. Never allow the injustices of the world to become anything less than urgent. Because for those people who are working every day just to survive, it is the urgency of their entire life. And so my ask for all of you is fight for it. Like if it was your own life, fight for these issues, like it was actually your life at stake. Not someone else's life, not someone abstract on the other side of the world, but your life.
Because if you are fighting for your life, damn, you would fight so hard. So fight with that degree of urgency as we work to fight these injustices over the coming years so that we actually can see an end of extreme poverty within our lifetime. Hugh, thank you very much.
And we have. Yes, definitely. We have in. The audience today, the Ukraine ambassador to the U.N., Ambassador Chris Lisa.
And if we could bring him a microphone, please. You'll remember he so eloquently confronted the Russian ambassador at the U.N. in the early days of the invasion.
And I'm wondering, Mr. Ambassador, if you could please stand up and share your thoughts with us on the urgency of now. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. I.
I have a prepared, prepared speech, but I put it aside because when I see Mika Brzezinski and her Ukrainian themed flag, I should start with a very famous quote from Zbigniew Brzezinski, who said, and you can quote it better than I do. He said, Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire. With Ukraine subordinated. Russia is an empire.
It is very unfortunate that in the 21st century there are still people, there is still a leader or the leader, rather, who believes that empires can be rebuilt and reestablished. It will never happen, and it will never happen because of the global citizenship of all of you and because of the global effort to help Ukraine to fight the evil. And I would like to thank, Madam President, to underline and in your yourself, the entire European community of nations, for helping Ukraine and standing by Ukraine. I would like to thank you for his team doing excellent job to help Ukraine. Ukraine fights for its life.
Every citizen fights for its life. And it's what Hugh has called. All of us to fight for our life. We also fight for the life of all of you.
All of you. And we have to acknowledge that this fight is a long haul operation. It's not. Going to be resolved the day after. Tomorrow, not even this year. Even if Russia is militarily defeated in Ukraine, it is still not the end of it.
Because the world will be safe. When democracy and the rule of law is back in Russia. And how to make it back in Russia? Nobody knows the answer. Nobody knows. And so we have discussed this in many venues, including this morning. Nobody knows the answer because it is up to the Russians to take their destiny in their hands and to bring democracy back in their country.
So once again, I would like to thank the global citizens, Hugh and his team. I would like to thank President van der Leyen for the campaign that allowed to get so much money to help Ukrainians and to help yourself, all of you. I would like to thank the U.S. Congress and the U.S.
government for the decision this week. To provide $40 billion to the Ukrainians and to the Americans. In fact, this part of the money is going to be used here in the United States. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, mika.
For the wonderful family for your was big news from Argentina for yourself. Thank you very much. Thanks so much. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.
You know, my family has not only a close connection with. Poland, but also with Ukraine. My brother and who you just mentioned lived in in Kiev for a couple of years, helping the country back in 1993 establish defense policy. We did a family vacation in Ukraine in the Carpathian Mountains. It is beautiful and we stand with Ukraine. Thank you very much.
Madam President. Thank you, Chuck Robbins. Thank you, Hugh Evans. Thank you very much. Rarely be in five years.
In 50 years, let's be here and here. Let's deliver technology to give everyone everywhere access to security and privacy, to equality and fairness, to a sustainable world. Cisco has made it its purpose to power an inclusive future for all. Where will we be in 50 years? Let's go see between the world and what we make of us.
There's a bridge. Cisco. The bridge to possible. Please welcome the Honorable Ibrahim Muhammad Awal, Minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts for Ghana and Chief Vision Officer for global citizen Kweku Mandela. Thank you, everyone for being here. And thank you, Minister, for driving us all the way from Ghana.
Thank you. I was introduced to Global Citizen over ten years ago, and together we developed a vision to take global citizens to Africa. It took us a few years, but in 2008, we realized our shared vision. For the hundredth anniversary of the birth of my grandfather, nelson Mandela. We created and launched the Mandela 100 campaign.
And the youth of Africa mobilized in their hundreds of thousands to take action on social, economic and climate challenges that plague humanitarian issues that are affecting our world. Ten years ago, we committed to continue to build on the legacy of so many men and women who came before us. And we have kept our commitment to keep creating an equitable society and empowering the youth of today. Listen, gentlemen, the future of the wallet is African. It is in the continent's youth who are leading innovation mainstream in Afrikaans, quite promising excellence and spreading the spirit of Ubuntu or Pan-Africanism across the continent and the diaspora. When we come together as well, the strength in our unity.
Garner plays a critical role in setting the trajectory of Africa's development and will continue to do so for the coming decades. Bringing our past to our future as a jet, as a gateway, connecting Africans at home and the diaspora. This year marks the 65th anniversary of Ghana's independence and 20th anniversary of the African Union. Focus on us. Is that the ten? M.K. two.
My common milestones of our countrymen. Spirit of unity and resilience. Ghana, along with the Horn of West Africa, is emerging as a cultural powerhouse that's leading the world. And we're excited to highlight this to a global audience in line with the Beyond a Return Campaign. A ten year project under a team at the African Renaissance 2020 Trinity that celebrates the resilience of the African people who are past 400 years.
We are committed to partner with Global Citizen to continue to expand the global citizen movement across Africa. Burden on the organization's progress for the South African Nigeria. That's why we are proud to be standing here together to make an important announcement today. And we couldn't have brought the festival to Africa the first time without the support of world leaders like Prime Minister Erna Solberg and of course, like our partner Cisco.
So we're very proud to announce this year when we hold the festival in New York City on September 24th. We will also be holding the festival in Accra, Ghana. And we're inviting all of you to come along for the journey, because the time is now for us to empower the.
World's youngest population, which is in Africa. Listen, gentlemen, I have a quote from the president of Ghana, Nana Addo, Dankwa Akufo-Addo. It's it's got my honor to host this.
Yes, at last it is. And first of all, I look forward to welcoming each and every one of you to Accra. I'm from the country at the center of the world together, has joined hands and half as late progressed authorization of the SGC. We owe it to the next generation to live in a world free from poverty, disease and degradation of the environment. And good. Now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome me and welcoming the 110th mayor of New York City and patron of global citizen, the Honorable Eric Adams.
Thank you. It's good to be here with you both. I was just in Ghana last year. Before I became mayor, I wanted to go and return and spend time in Ghana and just really absorb the energies of our ancestors. As I started this journey, and I'm looking forward to a continuing relationship between New York and the continent of Africa, and thank you for what you're doing, because we are all global citizens all together.
Thank you, Mayor Adams and the commission of his tireless effort to drive traffic to Ghana. Garner comments the greeting him and get him as the first ambassador to Ghana. So, Mayor.
There's a guy that's. Everything about tourism in Ghana can be found here. And another of. Okay.
And I'm quitting. I do have to support the mayor to drive 2 million tourists to Ghana every. Thank you.
Thank you. I need you to come with my gifts next time. Aha. You are welcome.
But this is so important. You know, one of the. One of the most challenging things. You know, when you exercise, you try to exercise based on, you know, your body parts. And any trainer would tell you that to have a healthy arm or a healthy back, you must have a holistic approach. And that's what global citizenship is about.
Whatever happens in America impacts Africa. Whatever happens in Africa impacts. South Asia impacts. The middle ways. It impacts us all. We're in this together.
The pandemic taught us that, that if we don't come together not only to deal with the viruses that impact our physical bodies, but to deal with hunger, to deal with homelessness, to deal with violence that impacts the anatomy of our spirits. And it's time for us to understand I cannot harm you without harming myself. And our leaders globally must lift up the obligations and responsibility to authentically care about the people that they serve. And so I'm humbled to be the mayor of this city, a young person who grew up dyslexic, a young person who was arrested and was abused by police. A young person who had to go through many harmful periods.
Leaders must be individuals who have gone through a lot to help people who are going through a lot. And it's time for us to come together as citizens, not of our countries or of our cities, but as citizens of the globe. And I'm ready to be a citizen of the globe and have a passport that says, My heart is with every citizen that's on this globe. I want to be a member of the important race called the human race. And that's a global activation that we need at this time.
Thank you for what you're doing, brother. You really touched me the first time I met you. Your humbleness, your caring. You really are committed to doing this. And I'm proud to call you as a friend.
Thank you very much. Thank you so. That's.
When we invest in progress, amazing things start to happen. City is investing in the creation of jobs, education and access to basic services to help improve the lives of 15 million households, including 10 million women around the world in the communities we serve. So welcome. Former Prime Minister of Norway. Global Citizen. Global Board Member Erna Solberg.
Singer. Songwriter. Producer and advocate. Milk and co-host of Bloomberg Markets. The Clothes.
Caroline Hyde. How fabulous to be here next to two phenomenal women. What I love about. Global Citizen is it about calling on action of each individual from a grassroots level, from the most highest elected officials? And we have just that.
A cultural icon and elected icon sat next to me now, and I want to thank you both so. Much for spending some time to talk about gender equity. We could talk about equity in many guises, but right here, right now, we talk about gender equity.
And I want to start with you, of course. And Madam Prime Minister. Eight years at the helm of Norway, of course, more than 30 years since you were an elected official to that nation. And you also co-chaired with the United Nations the Sustainable Development Goals, primarily. One of that.
Is about driving gender equity. And of course, now as a board member of Global Citizen, no wonder when that white paper was announced back in March. Much of that is about ending extreme poverty now, but that has a real focus on gender equity as well. And I just wanted to get your take about your why why did you. Decide gender equity was something you needed to.
Drive as a mother of a daughter, a sister of two other sisters? Was that what you're calling was? No. I can give you a lot of good reasons, you know, on what you would do in a policy discussion on why we should invest in women. But to me, the core thing was when I was 15, 16, I felt that the world were in just when there were not the same opportunities for women and men in my country and a lot of other countries. So that mobilized, in a way, my political will to go into politics and start debates. So the core thing is it's injust. And the second thing, of course, is all of these.
Development issues and how you deal with a country. Businesses lack out of 50% of the possible talent. If they don't look at gender in a balanced way. Developing countries lose out on a lot of talent and may be the most important development figure investing in girls education.
Because we know that girls education moves society too forward and that. Sorry, boys. But in men we have quite good evidence that girls who are educated invest more in their family, local communities and grassroot development than men who are educated. And that's why it's so extremely important. But the basic injustice, it's not fun to be a girl if you feel that the boys are getting a better deal. Well said.
Milk, you have been relentless. You've become basically the. Voice of a protest nation of a of a woman who goes out in 2017 and puts her feet to the ground and protests for her rights as a woman who is now.
Doing it once again here in America. And I want to of course, you must. Know her song choir to became basically the unofficial anthem of the 2017 Women's March, biggest march ever in American history. It's understood to be. Why your why what about empowerment for you? To echo. Well, thanks, first of all, for having me.
I'm really grateful to be here. And to echo what Madam Prime Minister was saying, women have a power to be viral. I remember when my song went viral at the Women's March. I got pulled into these spaces where maybe my real self was not as courageous too. But with art. Art we create our future selves into existence.
With every song, I write my future self into existence. So my song was pulling me into these political spaces, teaching me how to speak out. And even if my heart is fluttering and I'm so scared. I was at a space for UN women and they were saying that women are viral. And I said, Can you can you explain that concept? So when one woman as well, the community around her become as well.
And so I firmly believe in that very concrete and simple takeaway point is that when I invest in myself. When I invest in my girlfriends or. Other female leaders, the world becomes a more kind and a more fruitful place for all.
It's abundant and not scarce. Like the previous panel, we were talking about how we don't have to rush. I love that for us as well as women. And the other lesson I learned was my micro existence is the parallel to a macro existence.
So when I address my own wounds, my insecurities and my fears, the I operate better in my community. And it echoes out like tremendously because that song for me was my healing of my own sexual assaults. And then it echoed onto the globe and everyone took it for their own meaning.
From viral. To. Virus, the last couple of years have upended. Much progress made for women. Do you feel, Anna? Yes, absolutely. We have now large reports telling about abuse of women.
Sexual harassment increasing. Girls not going to school and not getting back to school. One, it's the schools are reopening because families are poor. They only send their boys to school. I think we have seen a massive backlash on on on those core areas and a lot of countries. And of course, if you lock people up and I have done that, I've closed down parts of my country as the prime minister in this.
You know that for those who have for those families who are not functioning, for those who are living in an abuse situation, it's much more difficult. And of course, we didn't have that long a period that were so lockdown. But a lot of countries have had a long period and maybe have had more. Also abuse in families because in Scandinavia, I think women's positions are a little bit different.
But it's it's a back it's it's a lot of women who now are losing out on their education, who are going back to not being in the workplace and who are in an abusive situation in their families. Milk used just spoke about the abuse you. Suffered, how you spoken out about it. This is about grassroots level discussion that people who will be tuning on a may the 25th want to know how you've helped yourself mentally, supported yourself mentally. What can you say to them? That's a great question. I like zooming in and zooming out.
So when things in the world become really overwhelming, I like to zoom in and look at the micro moments in front of me, of my family, my local community, the concrete on the streets before me as I walk. What leaves are there to kind of ground myself in my body, taking deep breaths. And then when I feel a little too self centered, a little too in my career, a little too heady about where my my path is going, I like to zoom back out and look at the global situation. And I am constantly like a camera lens. I'm just shifting focus so I.
Can stay balanced. What is always so important about these conversations? There's always something that people are fighting for. And in gender equity right now, it is a real tangibility here in the United States. We both and I come from Europe where these things are not politicized, but everyone has Roe versus Wade in their head.
I'm interested in your perspective on your reaction to that and to those that listen what small steps they can take no matter what their politics. Well, first of all, for Europeans, it's. Very special to see that such a big issue is not decided in the democratic field of parliaments, but is in fact a legislator but is in fact made by a bi judicial court. That's just to say, Europeans, we don't really feel it, because my first instinct would be vote advocate, persuade your politician, show your discussion. And I've amendment my own party.
I am a party leader of a European Conservative Party. I mean, they are a little bit different than than the conservatives in this country. We are quite liberal.
We are on on family issues, for example, and prudent on financial discussions. But it's then we would have said, be active, talk to your politician, know the source. If you don't allow abortions. It's not abortions you are abolishing is safe.
Abortions you are abolishing. More women will die because they are poor, because they will try to stop the pregnancy. All of these things will happen. We know this from history. That's why it's so important that we have safe abortion and to to make sure that this is accessible to all.
And I think what we I learned just allowed it. The U.S. is going back.
I mean, the last countries in Europe have now changed the other way around. And you this is going back, I think is it's a bit fascinating. And I think it's worrying that it's not decided on it's decided on legal discussions instead of decided on by votes. Politicians open debate. But of course, it depends on who you vote, on your federal on your on your state level.
But my first thing would be tell the stories, tell how abortions are when they are unsafe, will kill both children and and their mothers. It will. And it is also a question of inequality, because everybody knows if you have enough money, you will get an abortion. And it's this is a way people who are lacking income and women who are lacking income will be put into a poverty trap for the rest of their lives. Milk Empower us.
It's about. Storytelling. You tell stories. Your song, Quiet made people. People feel empowered when they took to the streets.
You've got a new song coming out. I know that you're already talking a lot about protests as well on your social media. How are you looking to empower yourself in this moment? Hmm. That's a good question. I'm looking to empower myself by continuing to be a part of this effort towards protecting a woman's right to choose.
That's really, really important. I believe when we give space to women to to have time, to desire, to have time to dream and think of what is best for themselves, our ecosystems, not our empires. Right. We're done with empires. Let's make ecosystems become beautiful and vibrant and lively.
And so when I wrote Quiet, the lyrics are I can't keep quiet a one woman riot. And I just want to say, it is so important for all of us to decide what we cannot and will not do to set up those boundaries so we can build a fence to figure out what our garden is filled with, what kinds of roses or flowers. And then we can think about what we want. And then when we have more time to think about what we want, we can think about what we can do and then who we are, because ultimately we are for each other. But we cannot have that process unless we have the ability to say no. And this is what I want.
We are, but all citizens, we're global citizens. And thank you, too, for being global leaders and both of your worlds. We thank you so much, of course, and are still back on milk.
Please give it. Up to the wonderful time. Earthlings.
I have come to your planet with wonderment with every action. You will take care of it. I shall keep a watchful eye because resource conservation is vital for cooperation and collaboration so we can secure a prosperous future for us all. Yours truly. Please welcome President of Defy Kingdoms, Dreamer, Deputy Director of Binance Charity.
Elizabeth Lee, CEO and co-founder of Metta Angels Alexandra Vlachos and Chief Content Officer of Forbes Randall Lane. Raise your hand. If when you hear web three, you're not a go. Yeah, web3. But you have no idea what you're talking about. About the few more.
Well, I'm going to this is a this is a panel for both groups. We're going to both demystify. And if you're up on it, we're going to talk about how to use it at this very pivotal moment to actually take it forward.
If I had to define it for those who are web3 shy, I would say if you take web one that was about consuming content, you know, places like Global Citizen or Fourth World Post content, people would consume it. Web two. You're creating content.
You're doing a Twitter post or a YouTube video or a Craigslist ad. It was about creating. And now with three, if you really to me had to boil it to one word, it would be owning. It's about owning. And that's the difference. But what's interesting is that we're still in this very, very early stage where we can try to figure out together, what does ownership mean? What does it mean to own? What does it mean in a decentralized Internet to have to kind of take out the middleman? And how can we then create a pivot that actually creates some good here? So so that's the goal today.
And we've got a great panel and maybe Dreamer, start with you first. I'd like, you know, in explaining what you guys do, I also want you to critique my definition. How did I you live this world, so how did I do? And then how do we create based on what you're experiencing with gamification, how do we create that that social good within the ownership? Sure. So I'll I'll add to your explanation for. S excellent cakes.
By the way, if I was named Dreamer, I would have those shoes. Thank you. So, yeah, if I. If I go through that again, web one, two and three, web one. In the nineties we had read only you load up a website you're just reading and it doesn't look very pretty.
Can't do a lot. But it was it was huge. It's revolutionary information at our fingertips. Web two for talking about social media read and right now we are contributing to the story. However, those owning the data, owning the content are a select few very centralized.
The Facebooks, the Googles, the Amazons Web three is not only just ownership, digital ownership, the ability to prove ownership of any digital asset, but it's an effort to decentralize, give power to the communities that people, regardless of border, regardless of where you reside. So that's kind of just expanding a little bit on the read White and Own. So what we're trying to do now, the technology's there, what do we do with the ownership? So there are projects like Defi Kingdoms, which I'm the president of Kingdom Studios. We are developing Defi kingdoms.
It's a player in game where we have simplified things like trading on an an end protocol or a decentralized exchange. Some of you might have heard a DAX decentralized exchange and protocol. What is that? How does that benefit me? How do I make money? How do I play? Well, if you go to to look at defi kingdoms, it removes a lot of the fuzz that deters many people from Web3.
And it's very approachable. It's a game. But you're learning, you're participating, you're taking control of your own finances. You mentioned remove the middleman. I worked for the middleman for about ten years.
Ten years at Goldman Sachs. I quit that to do the. Middle East of them all.
Because the technology allows everybody to have complete control of the transfer of assets, to monitor them, to apply them and contribute to the movement of decentralization. That's great. And then in terms of what you know, what you're doing, a defi, of course, is for decentralized finance and with defi kingdoms specifically.
How are you using that that platform to then accelerate what you're talking about? Sure. So it's not only a player in game. We have an invitation out to any protocol out there to come and join us, because one problem I'll say is a problem or weakness in Web three is a lot of peopl
2022-05-27