Jamie Drummond: Let's crowd-source the world's goals

63,698 views ・ 2012-07-17

TED


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Translator: Joseph Geni Reviewer: Morton Bast
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So let me start by taking you back,
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back into the mists of your memory
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to perhaps the most anticipated year in your life,
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but certainly the most anticipated year
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in all human history:
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the year 2000. Remember that?
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Y2K, the dotcom bubble,
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stressing about whose party you're going to go to
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as the clock strikes midnight,
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before the champagne goes flat,
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and then there's that inchoate yearning
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that was felt, I think, by many, that the millennium,
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that the year 2000, should mean more,
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more than just a two and some zeroes.
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Well, amazingly, for once, our world leaders
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actually lived up to that millennium moment
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and back in 2000 agreed to some
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pretty extraordinary stuff:
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visionary, measurable, long-term targets
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called the Millennium Development Goals.
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Now, I'm sure you all keep a copy of the goals
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under your pillow, or by the bedside table,
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but just in case you don't,
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and your memory needs some jogging,
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the deal agreed then goes like this:
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developing countries promised to at least halve
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extreme poverty, hunger and deaths from disease,
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alongside some other targets, by 2015,
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and developed nations promised to help them
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get that done by dropping debts,
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increasing smart aid, and trade reform.
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Well, we're approaching 2015,
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so we'd better assess, how are we doing on these goals?
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But we've also got to decide, do we like such global goals?
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Some people don't. And if we like them, we've got to decide
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what we want to do on these goals going forward.
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What does the world want to do together?
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We've got to decide a process by which we decide.
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Well, I definitely think these goals are worth building on
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and seeing through, and here's just a few reasons why.
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Incredible partnerships between the private sector,
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political leaders, philanthropists
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and amazing grassroots activists
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across the developing world,
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but also 250,000 people marched in the streets
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of Edinburgh outside this very building
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for Make Poverty History.
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All together, they achieved these results:
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increased the number of people on anti-retrovirals,
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life-saving anti-AIDS drugs;
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nearly halved deaths from malaria;
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vaccinated so many that 5.4 million lives will be saved.
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And combined, this is going to result
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in two million fewer children dying every year,
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last year, than in the year 2000.
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That's 5,000 fewer kids dying every day,
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ten times you lot not dead every day,
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because of all of these partnerships.
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So I think this is amazing living proof of progress
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that more people should know about,
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but the challenge of communicating this kind of good news
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is probably the subject of a different TEDTalk.
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Anyway, for now, anyone involved in getting these results,
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thank you. I think this proved these goals are worth it.
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But there's still a lot of unfinished business.
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Still, 7.6 million children die every year of preventable,
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treatable diseases,
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and 178 million kids are malnourished
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to the point of stunting, a horrible term
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which means physical and cognitive lifelong impairment.
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So there's plainly a lot more to do on the goals we've got.
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But then, a lot of people think there are things
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that should have been in the original package
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that weren't agreed back then that should now be included,
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like sustainable development targets,
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natural resource governance targets,
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access to opportunity, to knowledge,
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equity, fighting corruption.
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All of this is measurable and could be in the new goals.
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But the key thing here is,
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what do you think should be in the new goals?
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What do you want?
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Are you annoyed that I didn't talk about gender equality
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or education?
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Should those be in the new package of goals?
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And quite frankly, that's a good question,
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but there's going to be some tough tradeoffs
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and choices here, so you want to hope
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that the process by which the world decides
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these new goals is going to be legitimate, right?
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Well, as we gather here in Edinburgh,
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technocrats appointed by the U.N. and certain governments,
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with the best intentions, are busying themselves
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designing a new package of goals,
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and currently they're doing that through pretty much the same old
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late-20th-century, top-down, elite, closed process.
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But, of course, since then, the Web and mobile telephony,
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along with ubiquitous reality TV formats
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have spread all around the world.
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So what we'd like to propose is that we use them
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to involve people from all around the world
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in an historic first: the world's first truly global
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poll and consultation, where everyone everywhere
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has an equal voice for the very first time.
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I mean, wouldn't it be a huge historic missed opportunity
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not to do this, given that we can?
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There's hundreds of billions of your aid dollars at stake,
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tens of millions of lives, or deaths, at stake,
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and, I'd argue, the security and future
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of you and your family is also at stake.
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So, if you're with me, I'd say there's three essential steps
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in this crowdsourcing campaign:
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collecting, connecting and committing.
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So first of all, we've got to ground this campaign
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in core polling data.
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Let's go into every country that will let us in,
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ask 1,001 people what they want
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the new goals to be, making special efforts
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to reach the poorest, those without access
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to modern technology, and let's make sure that their views
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are at the center of the goals going forward.
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Then, we've got to commission a baseline survey
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to make sure we can monitor and progress the goals
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going forward. The original goals didn't really have
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good baseline survey data,
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and we're going to need the help of big data through all of this process to make sure
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we can really monitor the progress.
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And then we've got to connect with the big crowd.
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Now here, we see the role for an unprecedented coalition
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of social media giants and upstarts,
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telecoms companies, reality TV show formats,
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gaming companies, telecoms, all of them together
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in kind of their "We Are The World" moment.
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Could they come together and help
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the Millennium Development Goals get rebranded
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into the Millennial Generation's Goals?
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And if just five percent of the five billion plus
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who are currently connected made a comment,
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and that comment turned into a commitment,
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we could crowdsource a force of 300 million people
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around the world to help see these goals through.
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If we have this collected data, and this connected crowd,
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based upon our experience of campaigning
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and getting world leaders to commit,
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I think world leaders will commit
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to most of the crowdsourced recommendations.
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But the question really is, through this process
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will we all have become committed?
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And if we are, are we ready to iterate, monitor
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and provide feedback, make sure these promises
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are really delivering results?
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Well, there's some fantastic examples here to scale up,
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mostly piloted within Africa, actually.
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There's Open Data Kenya, which geocodes
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and crowdsources information about where projects are,
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are they delivering results.
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Often, they're not in the right place.
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And Ushahidi, which means "witness" in Swahili,
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which geocodes and crowdsources information
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in complex emergencies to help target responses.
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This is some of the most exciting stuff
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in development and democracy,
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where citizens on the edge of a network
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are helping to force open the process
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to make sure that the big global aid promises
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and vague stuff up at the top really delivers for people
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at a grassroots level and inverts that pyramid.
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This openness, this forcing openness, is key,
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and if it wasn't entirely transparent already,
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I should be open: I've got a completely transparent agenda.
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Long-term trends suggest that this century
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is going to be a tough place to live,
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with population increases, consumption patterns increasing,
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and conflict over scarce natural resources.
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And look at the state of global politics today.
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Look at the Rio Earth Summit that happened just last week,
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or the Mexican G20, also last week.
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Both, if we're honest, a bust.
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Our world leaders, our global politics,
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currently can't get it done.
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They need our help. They need the cavalry,
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and the cavalry's not going to come from Mars.
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It's got to come from us, and I see this process
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of deciding democratically in a bottom-up fashion
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what the world wants to work on together
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as one vital means by which we can crowdsource
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the force to really build that constituency
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that's going to reinvigorate global governance
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in the 21st century.
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I started in 2000. Let me finish in 2030.
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Many people made fun of a big campaign a few years ago
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we had called Make Poverty History.
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It was a naive thought in many people's minds,
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and it's true, it was just a t-shirt slogan
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that worked for the moment. But look.
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The empirical condition of living under a dollar and 25
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is trending down, and look where it gets to by 2030.
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It's getting near zero.
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Now sure, progress in China and India
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and poverty reduction there was key to that,
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but recently also in Africa, poverty rates are being reduced.
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It will get harder as we get towards zero,
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as the poor will be increasingly located
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in post-conflict, fragile states,
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or maybe in middle income states
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where they don't really care about the marginalized.
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But I'm confident, with the right kind of political campaigning
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and creative and technological innovation combined
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working together more and more as one,
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I think we can get this and other goals done.
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Thank you. (Applause)
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(Applause)
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Chris Anderson: Jamie, here's the puzzle to me.
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If there was an incident today where a hundred kids
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died in some tragedy or where, say, a hundred kids
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were kidnapped and then rescued by special forces,
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I mean, it would be all over the news for a week, right?
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You just put up, just as one of your numbers there,
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that 5,000 -- is that the number?
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Jamie Drummond: Fewer children every day.
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CA: Five thousand fewer children dying every day.
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I mean, it dwarfs, dwarfs everything
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that is actually on our news agenda, and it's invisible.
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This must drive you crazy.
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JD: It does, and we're having a huge debate in this country
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about aid levels, for example, and aid alone is not
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the whole solution. Nobody thinks it is.
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But, you know, if people saw the results of this smart aid,
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I mean, they'd be going crazy for it.
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I wish the 250,000 people who really did march
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outside this very building knew these results.
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Right now they don't, and it would be great to find a way
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to better communicate it, because we have not.
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Creatively, we've failed to communicate this success so far.
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If those kinds of efforts just could multiply their voice
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and amplify it at the key moments, I know for a fact
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we'd get better policy.
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The Mexican G20 need not have been a bust.
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Rio, if anyone cares about the environment,
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need not have been a bust, okay?
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But these conferences are going on,
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and I know people get skeptical and cynical
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about the big global summits and the promises
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and their never being kept, but actually,
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the bits that are, are making a difference,
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and what the politicians need
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is more permission from the public.
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CA: But you haven't fully worked out the Web mechanisms, etc.
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by which this might happen.
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I mean, if the people here who've had experience
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using open platforms, you're interested to talk with them
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this week and try to take this forward.
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JD: Absolutely. CA: All right, well I must say,
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if this conference led in some way
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to advancing that idea, that's a huge idea,
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and if you carry that forward, that is really awesome,
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so thank you. JD: I'd love your help.
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CA: Thank you, thank you.
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(Applause)
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