Who Gets to Shape the Future? - An Intergenerational Global Policy Dialogue with Members of the UN High-level Advisory Board on Economic and Social Affairs

Alright, we shall begin very shortly. Anybody who's not seated, it looks like everyone is seated except for that gentleman over there who might be taking photographs. Hello and welcome to this global policy dialogue, "Who Gets to Shape the Future?" My name is Shakuntala Santhan, Shaks for short. It is a pleasure to moderate this dialogue, and we are delighted to have you here with us at United Nations Headquarters in New York. Welcome also to everyone joining us online via Zoom, Facebook, and UN Web TV. We are honored to have with us today members of the United Nations High-Level Advisory Board on Economic and Social Affairs, or HLAB. They are some of the most forward-looking thought leaders on global policy today, and they are currently here in New York for one of their annual closed-door meetings to discuss the most pressing economic, social, and environmental issues. And this dialogue is our opportunity to hear directly from them. So, today's event has been organized by UNDESA, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Last week, they released the 2026 edition of the World Social Report, and the focus This year's report is the new economics of social inclusion, making transformations work for all. We know that economic, digital, and energy transformations are reshaping our world at an extraordinary pace, but billions of people remain excluded from the jobs, the skills, the services, infrastructure, and protections they need to benefit from this change. We have to address this. Our plans for the future must include everyone. And that is why we are offering you this opportunity today to voice your concerns and ask our experts exactly how we can do this. So thank you for joining us from wherever you are in the world for being part of this conversation. We'd like to thank the UN Peace and Development Trust Fund for making this event possible today. Now, before we begin, just a few things to note. If you're watching us on Zoom, multilingual captions are available. Just click on the captioning icon at the bottom of your screen and select the language you prefer. I'd like to welcome and thank our international sign interpreters for bringing this session to a wider audience today, and please help share what you here today on social media using the hashtag HLABinNY. That's H-L-A-B-I-N-N-Y. It's not case sensitive. So this is an interactive session. We'd love to hear from you. You can send us your questions via the Slido platform and upvote what you'd like us to focus on during the dialogue. You can send us, you can go to, oh, we're putting the link for you in the chat, and you can go to slido.com/hlabinny. lab in NY or go to Cido.com and insert the hashtag H lab in NY in one word again that's h l a b i n NY we shall soon find out what you our audience wants to know first let's watch this snapshot of the world social report 2026.

As we have today. Economic, digital and green transformations have driven unprecedented progress. but they also threaten to deepen exclusion. One in 10 people still lives in extreme poverty. More than half of global workers are in informal employment with limited social protection. And 26% of the world remains offline. What if there was a way to include the excluded from the start? Could their inclusion save societies from paying a higher price down the road? The World Social Report 2026 calls for new economics of social inclusion that makes changes work for all. Advancing social inclusion is not only the right thing to do, it makes our societies more productive, resilient, and prosperous. Investing in social inclusion today could generate gains equal to 22% of GDP by 2045. The cost of exclusion, on the other hand, poses critical economic risks. This report advances a new economics of social inclusion. It reminds us that social inclusion is not only a moral or ethical imperative, it's an economic necessity. As we navigated the economic, digital, and the green transformations, the World Social Report actually provides the actionable blueprint to encourage these transitions that are socially inclusive by design. The path toward socially inclusive transformation begins with the choices we make today.

We must involve people to see themselves as active participants in shaping inclusive futures.

Through education, work, innovation, civic engagement, and above all, collective action.

Let us unite to shape transformations so that they deliver opportunities, dignity, and prosperity to all.

The new economics of social inclusion. So we know that our world is changing ultra rapidly, technological, economic, demographic, environmental transformations. How is this changing people's lives, their jobs, opportunities, and how do we navigate this transformation to help us answer these questions and much more. We have the following expert members of the High-Level Advisory Board here with us. Right next to me is Stacia Gage. She is professor at the Department of International Health and Sustainable Development at Tulane University in Louisiana. Next to her is Parfait Alundu, who is professor at the Department of Global Development and the Brooks School of Policy at Cornell University here in New York State. Raya Moutarak is next to him. She is Professor of Demography at the University of Bologna in Italy. And over there, we have Ibrahim El-Badawi, founder and managing director of the Development Studies and Research Forum. Next to him is Stephanie Griffith-Jones. She is former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Chile and Professor Emeritus at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex in the UK. Niavani Madise is president of the Union for African Population Studies, among many other things. And next to her is David Smith, director of the Center for Environmental Management and coordinator of the Institute for Sustainable Development at the University of the West Indies, which has campuses in different countries. David is based in Jamaica. Welcome and thank you all very much indeed for agreeing to be part of this dialogue today. Before we hear from our audience, I have a multi-barreled question for three of you to begin with as we dive into the first part of our conversation. So what are the biggest changes you are seeing, what do people need to navigate this increasingly uncertain future? What capabilities do people need? Who's best positioned to benefit from these changes and who risks being left behind or being left even further behind? If we could please get a very brief perspective from you, a very summarized overview, we could, Anastasia, we could start with you, please.

Thank you very much. See, the world is changing. Our population is changing in very different ways across the world. We have societies which are experiencing aging and shrinking labor force participation. We have societies that have young people where you do have a youthful population. If you think about it, I think the report is telling us that from 2030 to 2050, 16% of the world's, of the population in low-income countries will grow by 16%, the population 15 to 24. Whereas in older, aging societies, the share of the young population is going to decline by 24%. So when we think about that, We are also thinking about what does this mean? So one of the issues that have come up is that in the aging societies, that there's an opportunity for people to spend a longer time in the labor force. Whether they want that is another question altogether. In low-income countries where the population is young, we have a situation in which we really need to provide young people with jobs, with skills, with education. But while we talk about these transformations separately, they're really connected. You cannot talk about demographic transformation without talking about economic transformation, without talking about environmental transformation, or even talking about technological transformation. So I think that who's going to benefit? Those with the resources. Those with resources, capabilities, all of you in this room, and those with institutional support. When we think about who's going to be left out, are people who already have disadvantages. So they are disadvantaged in terms of access to healthcare, in terms of access to education, in terms of they have disabilities. in terms of social norms that's like constrain their opportunities. And it's not just about women being constrained, it's also about people who live in remote areas. So we are thinking about all that. And to kind of address these issues, we need to have a coordinated approach to investing in young people, but also to invest in old people. Because especially with technological change, I can see that in countries with aging populations, we might have populations with outdated skills. So we need long term, it's like a long life learning and a long life approach to even having low income countries with rapidly growing populations to prepare for aging. You know, and not wait until the pressures of aging come, you know, and become more acute and to start preparing for that. And then we do have migration. We haven't talked about that. International migration, which an internal migration, which creates opportunities, but also. Affects. Migrants rights, you know, we're not talking about migrants rights. So I think those are the key issues. And let me just also mention about urbanization, because urbanization is creating inequalities within countries and even within cities, where you have the slum populations or informal settlements. People in informal settlements, they will be left behind if we don't have the policies that are going to address some of these issues. So thank you.

Thank you, Anastasia. I know it's a lot to cover, and you did an admirable job indeed. Pape, what do you think?

What I think about the future? Anybody here in this room who is worried about the future? Okay, wonderful. I think it's a good thing to worry about the future. It's normal. We worry about the future because it's uncertain. We don't know how we're going to make it, if we're going to survive. Um, and so, um, we have to deal with this uncertainty. There's nothing that we can do about it. The future is always going to be uncertain. What we could do, however, is to reduce the uncertainty, reduce the margin of what we don't know. And as we think about the future, uh, today, We are going to think about three kinds of disruption that are at different levels of severity. This is one first type of disruption that you can call a trend or megatrend. So this is a change that is gradual. You can see it coming. And so how do you prepare for this? You have institution that help you do a bit of forecasting and help you see the changes that are most likely to come into the future. And so you start preparing slowly. And so that's the least worrisome, the trend. Next to trend, you are going to have something that is called a crisis. A crisis is something that you could not expect. It's sudden. abrupt, it can happen overnight. All of a sudden you have a pandemic, all of a sudden you have a food crisis, an oil crisis, a political crisis, and so you have to adapt right away, right? And so this is a little bit more unsettling, but we can also adapt to this by basically building a bit of resilience into the systems that we have. So for instance, as you plan hospitals, schools, food reserves, you leave some margin for the case where you have a crisis that you did not expect so that you're not caught too much by surprise, right? So we have trends, we have crisis. Anybody guesses what is the most severe change beyond crisis and trends? That would have to be a revolution. So a revolution here is also sudden and contrary to crisis, there's no return to the past. There's no return to normal. Things change forever. And so you have to learn and to adapt into that new world. Let's just suppose today we had the ability to grow our own food out of water in a bathtub, right? All of a sudden, we don't need farmers. All of a sudden, we don't need to grow food. The entire economy changes, and so we have to live in a world that is completely transformed, and that is not going to return to normal. And so that too, we need to learn to adapt. And so on a personal level, what we need to do is to be flexible, be nimble, learn to adapt, but most importantly, study history. There's really nothing new completely under the sun. Other societies have had to deal with crisis, with trends, and with revolutions. And so by learning from that history, from that historical record, we can reduce uncertainty about the future and be a little bit more serene about the present.

Thank you, Pafe. Raya, your thoughts, please.

Yes, thank you. So I'm going to literally interpret your question because you asked about the biggest change. I think many changes linked or interconnected, but the biggest one for me is climate change. because it has a global scale. It's not like we're not talking about environmental change, right? We may think if we face air pollution in a certain city, a city can work towards reducing, put regulations. But when the climate has changed and is changing and will change in the future, we need the global collaboration. It's probably one of the hardest thing to tackle. And it's affecting every country in the world and right now. Because in the past, we may think of it's going to affect someone somewhere far away from where we live. It's not like that anymore. It affects every region and it's current. what are we going to do about it? So Anastasia mentioned disadvantaged person who are already disadvantaged would be those who get hit harder, have more vulnerability, have less capacity to adapt. So kind of reducing or try to address this fundamental disadvantages, positions can be poverty, can be lack of education, lack of access to health and many other things, housing. So that would be the key. But I think at the same time, we talk about transformation and transition. The type of energy system that we are currently using is not sustainable, right? So we need to transform towards clean energy. Now, this transformation would leave someone behind because there are some people may benefit who working on this industry, coal miners, those who work in the fossil fuel industry. So we need to ensure so that they have other opportunities if we do this transition. At the same time, I think in the report that we saw as well, many people still don't have access to clean energy. So we need to make sure that this is going to happen as well. Yeah.

Thanks very much, Raya. Thank you all. You've given us lots to think about already, and we've only just begun. Let's get some questions now from our wonderful audience. We have received lots of questions in advance. We thank you very much indeed. We're going to get to as many as we can. Our first question is on video from Amima in Pakistan. Let's listen to her question.

Hi, my name is Amina Khaldun and I'm joining from Pakistan. My question is how can we reshape society so that AI automation creates shared wealth and human purpose rather than extreme inequality? Thank you.

Right. So thanks, Amima, for your question. Not surprisingly, we have received many similar questions on AI from our audience. So how can we make sure that AI and automation lead to shared wealth and human purpose instead of deepening inequality? Raya, would you like to answer Amima's question?

Yes, I'd like to take this question because AI also affecting me or each of us as a teacher, right? So I think many of you would share with us, how do we assess students' essays and their written work? We need to transform also our way of doing exams and so on. And another thing that it affects the work of many who work in research setting is we have received double amount of submissions in term of publication because of AI is a good thing because it increases our access, right? People who do not use English as their first language, now you can use AI tools to also to edit your work. So then it's doubled amount of submissions, also grant submission, research grants. So we have the same number of people who evaluate grants, but we have much more of work to do because it's still human evaluating. So in term of adjusting, the system is not like ready enough. But in talking about, I think the question is about who's gonna get left behind in this transformation and who gonna benefit from it. Again, we come back to those who already don't have access to technologies, to energy, who may not have tablet to work on, or those who don't have enough education. So they may be the one who lack behind in this sense and on the opposite, obviously. those who already have the human resources. But I think we shouldn't inflate too much the role of AI. I mean, we use it, it's involved with our life, but still at the same time, as a teacher, we still want our student know, to have the human capital, learn how to read by themselves, have the analytical view by themselves, being critical, because all of this actually, all of this capital that, that you would get it in, in your own learning, in your, in your head, let's say, you know, in your cognitive development, it stays with you. AI cannot replace human creativity or originality, because I see this really clearly that it's still important that we can use it as a tool, but it shouldn't replace our skills of the human. Yeah.

Here, here, Raya. Thank you. Up next, we have another, oh, yes, Stephanie, you wanna add to that?

Can I just make one point additional to the excellent points that Raya made about AI? I think that one of the key issues that has been coming up in the press and in discussions is that AI can also have a negative effects, even beyond the important ones that Raya was talking about. And there's all this stuff that somebody said that there's more than 10% chance that they will kill us all, you know, this rogue. And so I think there is a need, an urgent need for regulation. which is technically difficult, but I think politically is even more difficult. Because if we look now at the world economy, one of the reasons why the United States in particular, but also the world economy continues to grow, even though there are all these shocks, you know, oil price rises, wars, pandemics, is because of this growth of AI. And so there is a sort of vested interest, if you like, of many governments to keep this going because if it doesn't, growth will be less. And so their records won't look so good. And I think that that is very dangerous because it may inhibit doing this regulation, which is absolutely essential. I mean, for example, we've had financial crisis, when finance has been badly regulated. But, and the arguments were the same, finance brings a lot of wealth, a lot of well paid jobs, and let's not regulate too much. And then there's a big financial crisis, and a lot of people lose their jobs, especially poorer people and poorer countries, and lots of people bankrupt and so on. Now in the case of AI, there's a sort of similar thing, but it's more serious because I think you can recover from a financial crisis. But if there is this very negative effect of AI, then, you know, it may be difficult to recover because the robots may be in charge.

Thank you for that very candid and important perspective, Stephanie. I mean, we're getting warnings now from companies developing AI that we should slow it down, right? Ebrahim, you wanted to add your thoughts?

It's on. Okay, I just wanted to add a kind of telegraphic note to this by quoting Professor Daron Acemoglu that digital technology and AI is so critical to humanity and the future of work that it shouldn't be left to tech billionaires. And in their book, he cited the history of social activism. Again, every time there was a new wave of new technologies and so on, there has been very strong social activism to kind of temper and influence the development of technology, which I think is a very important point.

Very important checks and balances. Thank you very much, Ibrahim. Right, up next, we have another audience question on video, this time from Omotolani in Nigeria.

Hello, my name is Omotolani, I'm from Nigeria. My question is, what should be the immediate focus of the youth as the world is changing rapidly?

Thank you. Thanks for your question, Omotolani. Before you answer that, let's listen to this related question from Rahina in Mexico.

Hi, UNDESA Policy Dialogue.

My name is Regina Gerard from Mar Adentro de Mexico A.C., a civil society organization that works with youth in Mexico. Our question is, young people will inherit today's challenges. How can we ensure that they have a meaningful role in shaping the future? Thank you.

Thanks, Rahina. And her question is echoed by lots of other audience members, including Herbin Lee, who is sitting to my right over here. So how can we ensure that young people have a meaningful role in shaping the future? And what should their immediate focus be in our rapidly changing world? Parfait, you wanted to take this one first.

Well, thank you very much. May I start with Rahina? Her question is very interesting, and maybe I'll give her an answer that she may not like. Rahina, you came to that microphone because you took a step into the microphone. Many people had the opportunity to participate. They didn't, and you did. What I'm trying to argue here is that no one is going to give you a role. A role, just like power, is taken. You have to take the steps to assign a role to yourself, right? And what does it mean? It means on a daily basis, learning something new, making yourself useful, doing the hard work that other people will not do, helping a person who needs help. And this is how you get a role, right? Nobody's going to come and hand you a role while you sleep. And so that is the part that you have to do. Of course, governments have to do their part. You have to make claims on governments. And that brings us to the first question, which is, what is the role that government should give to their youth in the effort to create a better future? And I think in most societies today, and especially in countries that are now having what is called a youth bulge, It's really important to see young people as a powerful entry point. As you know, some people would call it a turning point, but that's not a term that I will use myself. It's an important turning point for a few reasons. Number one, this is a critical stage in life. This is a time where you are going to make some of the most important decisions in your life. whether to continue your education, whether to move to a different place, what you're going to consume, who your friends are going to be, your health behavior, et cetera, et cetera. And many of these decisions are going to have a tremendous importance for what happens next. Very often, it's not easy to turn around if you make poor decision at that timeframe. Let's say when you are between the ages of 18 to 21 or a little bit larger, so it's a critical moment. It's not just years that go after year. I tend to think about that time period as the moment when the caterpillar turns into a butterfly, right? This is the moment where you become the adult that you're going to become. And so it's the role, it's the responsibility of societies to create circumstances that you move through that period as healthily as possible. So it's a critical turning point. Second, it has tremendous implications for the rest of your life. And third, it also has implications for the rest of society. Governments invest in you for your sake, but also for the sake of other groups. Youth are going to, if we create the appropriate jobs, youth are going to be beneficial to the adults, to older people in terms of geriatric care, in terms of support for technological transition, in terms of the tutor industry, in terms of child and domestic care and so forth. So they are jobs that can be created to have a win-win situation where employment is created for youth, but benefits the entire society. Thank you.

Thanks, Parfait. So back to your first point, choose to take action, right? However small that first step might be, whether it be for yourself or for your community, whatever that step might be to make that positive difference. And we can all, that applies to all of us, whatever our age, right? So does this apply as well, though, Ibrahim, to young people in places affected by conflict? We have this question from an online viewer, Maya Thin. She asks, how can young people from conflict affected and marginalized communities, including Myanmar, have a meaningful role in shaping global economic and social policy so that decisions about jobs, technology and inequality reflect these young people's needs and aspirations? Ibrahim, you are from Sudan. In fact, you're a former minister of finance and economic planning for the Republic of Sudan. Your thoughts, please, on Maya's question.

Thank you very much. This is a very profound question and question that very close to my heart because I think just drawing from the Sudanese experience, the youth of Sudan, many of them paid the ultimate price and were able to achieve an uprising that drew considerable admiration and popularity in the world in December 2018. But some of the older elites in the military decided to short circuit that process towards national renewal and development and democracy. And so the youth are the one who actually make the sacrifice, but then also they are the one who had their future mortgaged by the designs of the older generation. So I think they have every reason to be concerned and to be interested in changing the course of their lives and of their country. I think the youth, because of their willingness to sacrifice and selflessness, of course there are exceptions, but I'm talking about the youth as a group, I think they can actually help to delegitimize wars, especially civil wars, by actually you know, being active in social media, those of them who can actually write research and articles and so on about the atrocities, about the human rights violation of wars, and very importantly about how civil wars destroys the fabric of societies. Because what makes civil wars particularly devastating not just the physical destruction and the disruption of productive capabilities and capacity of societies, but because they destroy the fabric of society, because the risk makes people resort to their co-ethnics And so the allegiance to nationhood and to larger than specific community or a tribe, you know, becomes very difficult because passion actually becomes a driving force, not only for justifying the war, but also for recruitment and what have you. So I think the youth can play a very important role because they are the one who would inherit the future of the country for good or for bad. The other thing also is, and I'm drawing this experience from Sudan, the humanitarian assistance. They are used now in several cities in Sudan and townships who operate food distribution channels for the affected mothers and small children and so on. And they receive a lot of respect from you know, humanitarian institutions and UN institutions like, for example, UNICEF, caring for children and so on. So I think there is a lot that the youth could do in order to help, but then they have vested interest because they are the one who will inherit the situation.

Thank you, Ibrahim, for your most valuable insights there. So Now, it is time to get a question from our lovely audience here in the room. Some of you gave us your questions in advance. First up, we have Nathan Moldova. Nathan, what is your question for our experts?

Hi.

According to the World Health Organization, 655 million people don't have access to any electricity at all.

Many more don't have access to reliable electricity that they can depend on. How should a generation so concerned about the environment balance the need for sustainable development with the rapid?

Development in these places that don't have the energy infrastructure in order to support their population?

Thank you for your question, Nathan. David, do you want to take this one?

Thank you very much. A very good question. It's a sort of what we sometimes refer to as a last mile problem. The ability to provide services for most people costs a lot less than when you try to get to 100 per cent. In the case of energy, we are very often looking at possible renewables and other kinds of solutions that can be deployed to very remote areas or not easy to get to. So that might sometimes be hydro. There are small hydro plants that can work. Sometimes it's wind. Most often, it's likely to be solar and solar photovoltaic panels. So a good number of those 650 million people may be able to get energy by having solar installations in the villages and communities that they live in, and in some cases, maybe also able to put those in their own homes. What has worked in some places is, along with providing the structures, is to teach young people how to maintain them, fix them, install them, repair them, and keep them in good running order. Because typically we've had situations where you put in solar, but because people don't know how to run the batteries properly, well, they can talk about when they had solar, but they can't talk about now, you know, what are those beautiful panels for? So that will help, but it may not reach all 650 million. And so in some cases, we may have to come up with completely new solutions. And that's going to be difficult. But let me, I think Stephanie had said she had some perspectives on this as well. So let me hand over to her.

Thank you very much. I mean, I think David's made the main points, but I think one important issue is how you allocate the use of electricity within countries and between countries. Because what you have is that if you are, you know, a billionaire and you want to fly a personal private jet, you use the fuel or you have massive electricity for a very large house and swimming pools, heated and so on, then because you have money, you have access to it. But the people who need it most, to use an economic term, marginal utility. Other children in the poorest countries who need light so they can do their homework after it gets dark, the peasants who need to go to town to possibly buy an electric train to sell their goods, and not these billionaires. So there is an issue of how you allocate resources, and that is, of course, nationally. And I think it's important, it's nice to be here at the United Nations because United Nations is a place where every country has one vote, independently of how rich and how large, at least in the General Assembly. So I think that's another good thing, that the United Nations can represent also the less privileged. And finally, I wanted to say that in many ways, and David already mentioned this, In many ways, it has become relatively cheaper and easier to do these things because renewables are now cheaper than fossil fuels. And so you can actually, with relatively limited resources, reach this goal. The question, very interesting question asked, of trying to give access to electricity to all these 650 million people.

Thank you very much, Stephanie and David. Nathan, does that answer your question? Yes, thank you so much. Brilliant. So we're going to get more audience questions soon. Thank you all for imparting some of your vast knowledge to us thus far. And now let's dive deeper into who gets to shape our future. What responsibilities do governments, markets, and international institutions have in making sure that they distribute the benefits of transformation more broadly. Let's start this round with a big broad question now for Ibrahim, Stephanie, and Yvonne and David. Very briefly, if you could, how can governments, institutions become more inclusive, anticipatory, and responsive across generations amid this change? Ibrahim, do you want to go first?

Okay. Yes, actually, I'm quite impressed by some empirical regularity about the comparison between democracy and accountability. So there are indicators in the gross literature about, you know, checks and balances. And it seems to me that as we see around you know, the developing world in particular, and that even in some developed countries, that democracy was not enough to ensure participation and, you know, inclusion. But if we think of checks and balances as an institution that allows, you know, several stakeholders at a variety of levels, from farmers association to, you know, to parent association and schools, to, you know, investigative journalism and what have you, to actually, you know, influence and condition the process of decision making and the design of policies, then I think this would this would be very important to stress in the context of inclusion, because actually you could have a democratic system that is not inclusive. And the reason being is because checks and balances are lacking, that actually accountability is not achieved through electoral democracy and people going to cast their votes and so on. But if there are strong such institutions, for example, I lived in Kenya, in Nairobi in the '90s. And even at that time, there was a system that cannot be described as democracy. It is some sort of like a civilian autocracy. Nonetheless, the auditor general position in Kenya was very interesting, I think, a case to be studied by institutional economists and political scientists, has always been a very strong institution. And the auditor report was highly anticipated every year. And that has actually made a very significant contribution to the eventual development and improvement in the governance in Kenya. So I would say checks and balances are very important institution for enhancing inclusion and accountability.

Thank you, Ibrahim. So as you rightly pointed out, democracy does not guarantee inclusion. Yeah. Stephanie, your thoughts, please.

Thank you. So how can governments be more inclusive? Well, first, they have to want to be inclusive because there's some governments that try and defend the established order, the interests of the ruling elite, which of course, rich people have a lot of influence on politics. One could say in some countries even increasing. And in second place, if there are governments committed to make the economy and the society more inclusive, it is not so easy. Because for example, if they don't have a majority in parliament, they cannot increase taxes the rich. If they increase minimum wages, they will be criticized by economists saying, oh, this will lower employment. So then, you know, what are the tools? What can you do? And it's a big challenge, I think, to get the support of people who are less privileged to those governments and for these governments to be bold to to be able to try and transform a society to become more inclusive. It's not an easy task. You also mentioned anticipatory, and Parfait talked about uncertainty. I mean, we are, I think, in a particularly uncertain world today, lots of unexpected shocks. And I can try and deal with it. For example, at a level of the countries, you can have buffers. So you know that there may be a rise in the price of oil and you import a lot of oil, so you have more foreign exchange reserves, which is not easy to do, but it has the advantage that if the price of oil doubles, you will be able to cope, at least in the short term. And you can have international institutions also protecting these countries by having sort of lending facilities when these countries face shocks. So I think you have to be very anticipatory. And therefore, and also the last part of the question is very interesting. How are you more responsive across generations? And I was at a conference where they even talked about how you think about the interests of future generations, of the children and the youth who cannot be there, but who will be there in 20, 30 years. And I think this is particularly, of course, important in issues that was mentioned by Raya of climate change. Because in climate change, we may consume a lot of carbon, and that will damage not only the young people of today, but the future children and grandchildren of those young people. So how do we represent these long-term interests?

Thanks, Daphne. Nirvani, what do you think?

Right. Just to add to what Ibrahim and Stephanie have said, I just reflect on the role of government and, you know, the big role in ensuring that people, its citizens benefit is that of legislation. But you can have legislation that is bad legislation, you can have legislation that is good, and therefore, Equality assessments are really important. I used to work with an organization where we were teaching members of parliament in Malawi, in some parts, sometimes in Kenya, on how you draft bills and how you assess who is going to benefit or who is going to be left out. All that information is important to make sure that the laws and legislation are actually inclusive. But legislation is not enough. You can have policies, you can have laws, and nothing happens. And that's why we need civil society, very strong civil society, to help make governments accountable. Because if we don't do that, we will have really nice policies and laws, as my country Malawi does, and other countries come and learn from Malawi and go and implement and develop, while Malawi has these policies, but we're not developing as well. And then finally, the citizens need to know their rights, because if you don't know your rights, you don't know that the government is supposed to provide an education for you, You don't know that you have the right to food. Kenya is an interesting country because it has this bill of rights that are very interesting, the right to food, right to education, all sorts of rights. And so citizens need to know because then you can take a government to court for not providing what is rightfully yours.

Thank you very much indeed, Nirvani. David.

Following up with what Nirvani was saying in terms of those laws which help to make sure that the government is getting the right things done. One of our recent graduates looking at this kind of thing was trying to find out how young people could play a role in energy policy because energy policy will affect their lives as they continue to grow. And yes, it's great to have these laws and so on, but you have to make sure that government is not just simply treating the, let's say, young people as tokens. In other words, Yeah, we're having a meeting on energy, so let's invite a few young people. And you get to come and you get free food. Or we could go to the next stage and actually consult and ask you some questions. Or we could go to the next stage and say, well, let's have them as collaborators, which means not just inviting you to the table, but sitting down, valuing your answers to those questions, and then you guys get to work with the government, which goes back to what Parfait was saying at the beginning, stepping up to the plate. That doesn't happen very often, partly because governments aren't very good at trying to figure out how to bring in, let's say, the NGOs. It's not about young people necessarily. They're not very good at bringing NGOs in either. and not very good at having them sit down and work with, because there's always the thing, well, who's actually going to be accountable if this all goes wrong? It's me, the civil servant, not you, the person I collaborated with. It doesn't mean it shouldn't happen. It just means it's a lot more complex and complicated than it seems at first sight, but it's definitely something we should be working for.

Fantastic. Thank you very much indeed, David. Now let's get more questions from our audience. Again, we have received some in advance on video from our online audience. We've got this one from Waneba first in Uganda.

Thank you. My name is Waneba Fred Numbers. On the argument that transformation being inevitable and exclusion not being part of that, I would love to ask, aside from building things from the ground, what is being done and what could be done to integrate initiatives into already built initiatives? Because that is the best approach to inclusion by the end of the day. Thank you.

Thanks for your question, Waneeba. Ibrahim, I think you wanted to take this, if we could, very briefly.

Yes, that's a very important question. I would say that in terms of the, I would take the SDGs as the central existing framework and see how, for example, we can accommodate the kind of developments and disruptions that are taking place within the SDGs while being responsive. And I think the core principles of the SDGs agenda should remain. Universality, national ownership, integration of the economic, social, environmental dimensions, leaving no one behind, and measurable accountability. So the SDGs provide a common language, and that should be strengthened rather than discarded. However, the framework should become more focused on operational. For example, retain universal goals, but allow differential national pathways for achieving them, particularly for fragile and conflict-affected countries, but also For example, small islands and, you know, climate, you know, those countries that are more particularly impacted by environmental change and climate change and so on. Combine global minimum standards with nationally determined targets and timeliness. Integrate peace, institutional resilience and state capacity more explicitly into sustainable development. and then link every goal to clearly identified financing, technology, and implementation arrangement. So I think thinking about these issues, in addition to use fewer and more policy-relevant indicators, because now we have a large number of indicators that's difficult to comprehend. Strengthen independent national and international review, concentrating on outcomes rather than processes. So in a nutshell, the post-2030 framework should be preserved as an ambition, while becoming more selective, context-sensitive and implementable.

Thanks very much, Ibrahim. Just in case anyone here doesn't know, SDG stands for Sustainable Development Goals. Thank you very much for that. Now, we have a question from Ruth in the UK.

Hi, this is Ruth calling from the United Kingdom and representing the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health.

My question is, as economies undergo major transitions, how can you ensure

that the right to a safe and healthy working environment is embedded?

Thank you.

Thank you, Ruth, for your question. Nirvani, you wanted to address this.

Yes, thank you so much, Ruth. I think that As a community, we need to be looking at human-centered approaches. And as we transition, if we focus on the human being, we will want to ensure that they are safe and they are in a healthy working environment. Let's not focus on profits. Let's not focus too much on, you know, all manner of things, how you do this, how you do that, first and fundamentally is that, you know, human beings are kept safe. So the human-centered approach is important. And as Pherphay said, transitions are inevitable. So whatever approach we are thinking of now, we may need to move as time moves with, you know, changes in happening. So we can look back 20 years ago, things that were considered safe, we would not even dare to think of them now because they'll be considered not safe, unhealthy, et cetera. So with our frameworks for safety and health, we also need to move with the transitions. Just the human-centered approach is my number one thing. Making sure as an individual, we need to care for the person and ensure that they're safe and can do the work.

Thanks very much, Nirvani. Our next question comes from Alex in Guyana.

Thank you for this opportunity to be a part of the UN DASA Global Policy Dialogue. My name is Alex Dayan Fraser. I am from Georgetown, Guyana. And my question today to the panel and to everyone is, should we go beyond GDP to include merits like individual well-being, environmental health, and social equality to measure progress? Thank you.

Thanks, Alex. And the simple answer to your question is yes. I think we can all agree on that. David, would you like to expand on that?

I think it's great that that question comes from Guyana as well, because they recently found oil and their economy has skyrocketed. So the amount of GDP they have floating around is enormous. But that doesn't necessarily mean that somebody who's living in even in Georgetown, but worse still, somewhere further beyond, is necessarily better off. So definitely it's a great opportunity to measure other things, to find ways of measuring human well-being, to make sure that you're measuring things like access to communications, access to energy, that children are getting the education that they need to build the human capital that Guyana needs as well. Guyana is doing a great job of managing its rainforest. It's nearly a 90% covered in rainforest. So what it wants to do is move forward and make sure that all Guyanese move forward along with the country. So I think it's an absolute vital thing to do. They've got to take advantage of things like the multidimensional vulnerability index and measure as many things as they possibly can and move forward. Economists need to get down there and start studying it.

Thank you very much, David. Hafe, you raised your hand first, so over to you first.

Yeah, just very quickly, I want to thank Alex for raising this question. I just want to reinforce David's emphatic yes. And maybe do a bit of anthropomorphic comparison here. That is to say, we cannot judge countries by their GDP or their economic value, just as much we cannot judge people by their economic value. So, Alex, for instance, if I said, well, tell me how much you have in your pocket, and you said you don't have a dime, And then I say, therefore, you are worth nothing. That, essentially, would be wrong. Because you may not have anything in your pocket, but you have stuff in your head. You have stuff in your soul. You have stuff in your heart. And so many economists have begun to understand this, and so moved away from the notion of capital just being about money and finance. And to think about what has been called human capital, which is things that you know, your health and your productive capacity. Think about cultural capital, your understanding of the world around you and how you can transform it. I think about what I would call emotional and spiritual capital, your character. You know, all of these are assets. And so what we would do at the level of people, you can also think about transposing these for the level of society. And so you can't reduce an entire society only by what it can.

Thanks, Parfait. A lot more to our worth than just dollars and cents, right? Raya, you wanted to add something?

I just want to add something about data. Because what I mean is we, even for GDP, we probably need the accurate way of counting that. That's one thing. Another thing that when we take the average, whatever indicators that we would use can be the level of average happiness in the society, in the country, that may not be enough because what we want to do, we want to understand the subgroups. We want the disaggregated kind of data. I think that is important by subgroup of population, but also by different regions within that country too. So I think that's important.

Thank you, Raya. Yeah, accurate data, so very important for sound decision making, right? We have a question now from Omotola in Nigeria. Let's find out what she wants to know.

My name is Zali Manuel Omotola. I'm from Nigeria. I'm recording live from my home in Nigeria. My question for the UN Can we shift the way from a linear economy and make circular economy our everyday lifestyle reality? Thank you.

Okay. I was rather windy there and there was some background noise. So I'll just repeat her question. Can we shift away from a linear economy and make a circular economy our everyday lifestyle reality? Parfait, would you like to take this question?

Yeah, very quickly. The answer is obviously yes. Not only we can do that, but we must. And there are three arguments. Just for background, a linear economy is one in which we don't recycle. You extract stuff, you manufacture, you consume, and then you dump. The circular economy is try to recycle and reuse as much as we can. And we do this for three reasons. Number one is the environmental reason, so that we don't deplete the resources at a faster rate, the natural resources. The second reason is efficiency. Once you learn how to save and preserve and reuse, you equip yourself for the possibility of a crisis moment where you have a little bit less. And so it's also good for you to learn to live in that circular manner. And the third thing is really an equity concern. That is the amount of food and supplies and goods that we waste are goods that could be useful for other people. So the act of waste in itself is violence to those who don't, right? So next time you want to throw out this, you know, shirt that for you looks, you know, torn out or no good, remember that somebody someplace might have a good use for that shirt. Yeah, thank you.

So sustainability, right? The basis, the premise behind the sustainable development goals

Right, we've got more questions now from folks here in the room with us. Again, some of you sent us your questions in advance. Let's hear first from Fundi Ngongwane. I hope I said that right. Fundi, what is your question, please, for our H Lab members?

So my question today is, how has the UN helped empower African youth, particularly from the countries that are smaller, into influencing global policy making?

And what more can be done to ensure that their voices are led to action and decision making, since power making right now often is in the hands of the older generation?

Thanks, Wendy. And online viewer Genevieve Law also asked a similar question. Yovani, over to you.

How many know that there's a UN Youth Office? Okay, some do, some don't, but this was agreed at General Assembly in 2022. So I think that just demonstrates the commitment that the UN has towards youth. But I also wanted to push back a little by saying, but when we say the UN, who do we mean? Because the UN is member states. So in fact, it's all of us who are part of the UN. Our representatives go to the General Assembly and help make the decisions that are then labeled as UN resolutions. We are all part of that. So I would say that we all have a responsibility to making sure that our young people and youth, by the way, goes all the way up to 35. So we're not just talking about 15 year old, all the way up to 35. Most African governments have actually committed to at least 30% representation in decision making in their countries, in parliament, in places like that. So that's what I say when I talk about working with civil society and knowing your rights so that you can actually question where are the young people in Parliament, where are the young people in these areas where decisions are being made, because in doing that you get a voice in your own country, but because you're so effective, you can also get a voice at the global stage. I will just say, I think was it David who said, when you're invited, don't just go and have the coffee and eat. Speak, speak. If you don't speak, next time they will not invite you. So get prepared. The night before, read up. What is this meeting about? Read up, understand, look intelligent, speak intelligently. Then you get a voice at the global stage.

Thanks, Nirvani. Now, if you are not part of the UN system, there seems to be rather a lot of confusion about the role of the United Nations, what it can, what it cannot do. You talked a bit about it, Nirvani. Stephanie talked a little bit about it as well earlier. Would anyone else like to add to this, to clarify this role? Anyone? about, yes, please, Stephanie.

Well, maybe I think it's important because people sometimes criticize the UN because they say, oh, why didn't the UN do more in this area? The point is that the UN is, as you have just said, a conglomerate of countries, and also some of these countries are more powerful than others, the ones that are the members of the Security Council. So a lot of small countries may want to do something, say, on climate change, but some of the security member countries or others may block that. So I think one has to understand the limits of the power of the UN and think about how one could improve it. So, for example, the way the votes are done, the influence of the Security Council, the size of the Security Council, Brazil is, for example, not a member. Indonesia, I mean countries with big populations. The country where I live, which has a lot less population, UK, is there. And this is because of the way the world looked after the Second World War. So I think there are these limits. But on the other hand, I think one has to value also the role of the UN. Because in many situations, which are usually underreported, The UN has played important roles in peace and security, in development, introduced new ideas, for example, on development that have led to increases on welfare of a lot of people. So I think one has to be balanced at one level to appreciate, but another level to try and improve.

Thanks, Daphne. Yeah, it is also a great convener. of people, of nations, and it gives us a space where we can agree to agree or agree to disagree. Right? Thank you, Stephanie. Anyone want to add anything more to that before we move on to the next question? No? All right. So, Fundy, was your question answered? Yes, it was. Okay. Happy to hear that. Joshua Bach also has a question for you. Over to you, Joshua.

Thank you for having me. How are you working to make sure that LGBTQI+ voices are being heard and accounted for when making decisions about and discussing sustainability? Thank you.

Thank you, Joshua. Anastasia, do you want to take this first?

Thank you. One of the most important aspects for me in the SDGs is the pledge to leave no one behind. I just love to hear it. especially when we come from certain countries where we wonder, is anybody looking out for people who are discriminated against and who are marginalized? So one of the things that I think the UN has done, even though the SDGs do not expressly mention LGBTQIA+ people, is that the group that's in charge of reviewing the SDG's progress does have an LGBTI stakeholder group. And that stakeholder group does encourage people to contribute to it. I was also quite encouraged by seeing that UNDP has come up with an LGBTQI index that it uses to protect people from discrimination and also violence. And I think those are really important points because at the global stage, there is an institution that's protecting everybody. It may not happen at the country level, we know that. But at the global stage, there is an institution that's looking out for LGBTQIA+ people. So that is, I think, very encouraging. And I think the stakeholder group does encourage people to participate and contribute to its forum. So I would encourage everybody who wants to participate to do that. because there is a global organization that's making sure certain people are not discriminated on the basis of gender.

Thanks, Anastasia. Nirvani, did you want to add to this?

I've been opened already. I just wanted to add and say that There is a fundamental human right for everybody in the world, everybody. This is, everybody is entitled to this earth. This is home for everyone. So it's always important to remember that, the fact that regardless of whatever character you want to give me, whatever label you want to give me, first and foremost, I'm a human being and I belong. Then the second one is that I think we talked earlier about a dividend from diversity. We need to celebrate diversity because diversity actually encourages growth. You hear a lot about, you know, McKinsey reports that talk about the diversity dividend, et cetera. It's all part of trying to say to the rest of us to say, Your neighbor may be different from you, but you can learn from them. So I fully support what Stacey said, and I just want to encourage all of us to understand that first and foremost, we are all human beings. We all belong. Secondly, we all learn and we benefit from diversity.

Thank you. Does anyone want to add any more to that? That was a wonderful answer. Thank you very much indeed. So, you've been so very efficient with your answers. We've got time for you to give us all closing thoughts. What would you like to leave our lovely audience with? Oh, before I forget, Joshua, are you satisfied with that answer?

I'm satisfied with that answer.

Thank you, Joshua. So back to that. We have time for you to give us your closing thoughts. No need to rush through this. I'm going to go in order here. Anastasia.

Thank you. My closing thoughts. When we think about economic growth, We're often looking at measures like GDP, but I think it's high time that countries be evaluated in terms of the extent to which they have reduced inequalities within countries, because you can have economic growth, but people would still be, you'd have a lot of inequality, people would still be marginalized economically. So I would like to see which countries are going to pass when we look at the extent to which they have reduced inequality over time.

Thanks, Anastasia. Parfait.

Thank you. This is a very pleasant meeting for me. I want to just take a minute to acknowledge this person with the sign language, the persons with the sign language. Thank you for your your work. I also want to recognize the voices of youth that we heard here. As I listened to Alex, as I listened to Nathan, Rahina, Omolotami, their questions come from different parts of the world, but they remind me of youth that I work with in Cameroon. Their concerns are very similar. The voices have the same echo. And when we say youth are the future, they are truly the future in more than one sense. If you think about what the world is going to be tomorrow, in 25 years, in 50 years, not just for the scale of a country, but the world as a whole, geopolitically, the center of gravity of the world, The next international world order is going to be defined by youth. Where you live, the culture you share, the skills that you have are going to define what the world is going to look like tomorrow. And I can just give you a few numbers for you to keep in mind. I think we now, Stacy talked about divergence. We are now at an odd moment where you have countries that have half of their population that is composed of young people and places that have less than 15% only. Big gap. You have places, let's say Sub-Saharan Africa, by the turn of this century is going to have half of all the young people in the world are going to live in Africa. That's a big momentum shift. The skills that you have now are exploding. You are able to, you are, you know, digital natives, but the skills that you have really by a large measure, much better than the skills that your parent had, at least from a purely academic side, you still need to learn from the old generation, a few of the values that we can still impart. If we think about the culture and the cultural values that we have, there's a tendency in all of these meetings to treat culture as a residual. But culture and the global youth culture is something that we need to think about. And I mean music, the K-pop industry, Korea is a powerhouse in the world because in part of its music. There are countries that are powerhouses because of their sports. There are countries that are powerhouses because of their, because of their cuisine, because of their fashion industry, because of their movie industry, et cetera, et cetera. And so What is really refreshing about youth is also that cultural vitality and how you, more than past generations, are able to grow into a common culture, right, regardless of the country that you come from. And to me, that is very heartening. Thank you.

Thank you, Pafe. Raya.

Yes, all of the problems of beyond what we have been talking about today require collective action to solve. So each of us have mentioned that we, we plays a role for people as a part of the problem. We created the problem, but we also part of the solution. So we shouldn't give up hope on that. And. a tiny thing that we do, it may seem that if I do it, if I let me give an example of maybe some pro-environmental action, or you may say that, okay, I give up using a car, I cycle to work, but if only I do, it may not change anything. But even so, your action also contribute to something. Because if everyone thinks we're not going to change the world, then it's not going to happen. And we can participate more than just the action we do. We have a voice. We can vote. The younger people, later on, you can vote. And we can influence policies directly or indirectly. So I think whatever problems that we have, we can collectively change something.

Yes, together we shall overcome and we all matter. We all matter. Ibrahim.

Yes, actually, I think it's imperative on us, kind of the older cohort of population compared to the youth around us here, is to actually stress the point that they can control their destiny. And the way to control their destiny is to actually influence at the level of their societies, countries, and globally, the creation of the kind of institutions that are capable of resolving conflicts in a peaceful and sustainable way in terms of divergent, which is part of our human nature, divergent preferences, divergent interest across social groups, across economic stratas and so on. And one actually idea that was brought down to a level of an empirical research was an old paper that I was very impressed by, by Dani Rodrik, in which he distinguished between igniting growth and sustaining growth. And his argument was that igniting growth is relatively simple. You just need to resolve some few binding constraints and you ignite growth. But the difficult one is sustaining growth, which I think is very much dovetail with what Stacey said. In terms of that, to be able to sustain growth, you have to have the kind of an institution that resolve conflicts and address inequalities, because otherwise the process will collapse. There will be either a civil war or civilian disturbances or whatever. So I think it's very important for us to have faith in the institutions, whether multilateral institutions like the UN, local institutions at the level of communities, or national institutions. Because really, that is the way to go, to ensure that we as humans manage to mediate our conflicts in a way that sustain us as societies and as nations and so on. amid conflicts and sorry, amid disruptions and shocks, which of course is the theme of this discussion. And in fact, this is the major theme that is going to be with us for a very long time. Thank you.

Thanks, Ibrahim. Yeah, working together because we are all interconnected. Stephanie.

I think following a bit the same line, I think importance is to have hope and to see what the role of you, the young people, can play. When the Second World War was finishing, there was a meeting to create the United Nations. Then at Bretton Woods, there was a meeting to create the IMF and the World Bank. And also in that period, post-war period, governments on the whole, particularly I would say in Europe and the United States, but also in many countries in the developing world, had policies that increased growth, improved income distribution. They understood that better income distribution would actually support growth, more social peace, and so on. And now we're in a time when we have a need for global public goods more than ever, and to limit global public bads like climate change. And so we need these global institutions and these responsible governments more than ever. But there's a bit of fraying of these institutions, a lot of criticism of the IMF, a little strange governments being elected, and so on. And I think it is up the role of the young generation to pick up the torch, the torch that was, we like, passed by this generation of post-World War II, which was a positive, hopeful generation, a positive institutional arrangement, and to recover that energy, that vision, and that hope.

Thank you, Stephanie. Nirvani, over to you.

I've really enjoyed this session, listening to the questions. And I just keep thinking, would I have asked those questions at that age? So it's really been great listening. And that actually gives us older people comfort in knowing that the world is in safe hands, safe only if you share the principles of togetherness, principles of, you know, you mentioned human capital, it's embracing all. You don't measure yourself just by the wealth, but also the degree of empathy, the joy that you get in environment, in nature, et cetera. Those are all important things. And I'm glad that we had other people who are older than youth, and some of us now feel at home with that. But I think it's important that when we talk about youth and all that, we recognize the fact that sometimes youth have the ideas and want to have the voice, but they don't always have the resources to do those things they want to do. And it's important that the older people who value the voice of young people can partner to ensure that young people are able to be in the platforms that they need to be. So we need that togetherness, older people and young people to make sure that our young people can Go forth and conquer.

Hear, hear. David, last word to you.

Thank you. I think, and I may have said this before, the most important part of the wealth of nations, according to the World Bank, is human capital. So we've got to spend a lot of time developing human capital and put a lot of energy and resources into it. and encourage our governments to make that the number one job and the job that they must do. Otherwise, they don't get to be government again. So let's focus a lot on human capital. But also, while we're working on this, energy is important, making sure everyone has access to energy, making sure everyone has access to communications. I want to just end on a note about measuring things. You've heard a lot about data, and you've heard a lot about We should be measuring things that are important and what matters. So a couple of things. What matters to you, measure it and make sure people know what your measurements were and get other people to measure it and put those numbers out there. And the last thing I want to say is that coming from a country where some of the fastest people on the planet are, It's very important, even at the child below the age of 10, competing in our national athletics championships, to measure. What do we measure? How fast can you get from the start line to the 100 meters? It's not about feeling good. It's about how fast you can do it. If you can do it, and you can do it fast, and believe me, we can, then we will be world leaders in the way that we've become world leaders in sprints. you measure the right thing and make sure everybody knows they can measure it and compete against it, you'll become world leaders in that as well. Thank you.

David, thank you. Thank you all, brilliant members of the High-Level Advisory Board for sharing some of your wisdom, your ideas, and sound advice with us, for being game to be questioned, grilled maybe by our audience. Thank you for what you're doing to help make our world a better place. And many thanks to you our audience for your interest, your participation, for your great questions. I certainly learned a lot. I hope you have as well. Just a reminder, the World Social Report 2026 on the new economics of social inclusion is out now. It is available on un.org/desa. If you want to explore any of the issues, the many issues that we've talked about today, UN DESA has a wealth of public resources, more reports and databases, you will find that once again at un.org/desa. We're going to put that in the chat for you if you are online. If you are on Zoom with us today, an exit survey will pop up shortly. Please do fill that in. We really appreciate your feedback to help us plan future events for you. A big thank you to UN DESA, our colleagues at UN DESA for organizing and coordinating today's dialogue. Thanks also to the Department of Global Communications here at the UN for your online production. That brings us to the end of our time here together. Have a wonderful rest of your day or night, depending on wherever you are in the world, from me and everyone on the team. Goodbye for now. We hope to see you again.