Podcast: Salvaging the world we leave our kids with innovative philanthropy

Transcript

Listen: Global inequality has reached a level we haven’t seen in our lifetimes and recent geopolitical convulsions have only made things worse. The rich have gotten richer while extreme poverty has exploded. UN Foundation President Elizabeth Cousens thinks it's the perfect time for institutions backed by the 1% to step up. She speaks with Ian Bremmer on the GZERO World podcast about the key role that innovative philanthropy could play to address problems exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, economic fallout from the COVID pandemic, and a warming planet.

Why now? The stakes are so high and the crises so urgent that Cousens sees a window of opportunity for philanthropy to take swift action instead of their traditional long-term approach. When it comes to immediate and deadly problems like famine and flooding, an influx of money could start making a huge difference very quickly.

TRANSCRIPT: Salvaging the world we leave our kids with innovative philanthropy

Elizabeth Cousens:

We have done heroic things before on the humanitarian front. It's not like we are not collectively capable of it, but the humanitarian scale of this emergency is enormous, and we just have to treat it as such.

Ian Bremmer:

Hello and welcome to the GZERO World Podcast. This is where you'll find extended versions of my interviews on public television. I'm Ian Bremmer, and on today's episode, the haves, the have-nots, and the have-yachts.

Global inequality has reached a level we haven't seen in our lifetimes, and the geopolitical convulsions of the past few years only made things worse. War is ravaging Europe. Economic fallout from the COVID pandemic continues to hobble nations. And a warming planet is flooding some while starving others. Though, through it all, the rich have gotten richer while extreme poverty has exploded. So what can we do to turn things around? My guest today is the UN Foundation's President and CEO, Elizabeth Cousens. She believes that philanthropy has a key role to play. Let's get to it.

Announcer:

The GZERO World Podcast is brought to you by our founding sponsor, First Republic. First Republic, a private bank and wealth management company, understands the value of service, safety, and stability in today's uncertain world. Visit firstrepublic.com to learn more. GZERO World would also like to share a message from our friends at Foreign Policy. The Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women, a podcast from Foreign Policy, is back for season three. This season, you'll hear from reporters around the globe who are covering underreported ways women are challenging the status quo, from justice for domestic migrant workers in Gulf states to how to break down gender barriers in the film industry. Follow and listen to the Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women wherever you get your podcasts.

Ian Bremmer:

And I'm delighted to welcome Elizabeth Cousens.

Elizabeth Cousens:

Great to be here, Ian.

Ian Bremmer:

Such a range of things to talk about. I want to start big picture, which is, of course, we are not seeing 8 billion people on the planet progressing the way we need to. A global middle class is hollowing out. Poverty is increasing. Do you think this is a new condition that people in the world have to get used to, that we're not going to be seeing an actual progress going forward?

Elizabeth Cousens:

Yeah. So is it our new normal to go backwards instead of forwards? No, I don't think it's inevitable at all. But we are in not the best place. Look, we were behind even before the pandemic, even before the war in Ukraine, and even before the last three additional years of climate impacts, which have been so punishing. So there's no secret that we have lost ground in those three years. We've had poverty rising again, extreme poverty, which you just noticed, and so many other development indicators that have gone backwards rather than forwards. Inequality is rising. Too many indicators to count. But that doesn't mean it's inevitable at all. So I think the real challenge for all of us is how do we get back on track? How do we regain lost ground, and how do we renew our commitment to creating a better world? And we have all of the means at our disposal to do that. We just have some politics that, in my view, are interfering.

Ian Bremmer:

When you say the politics are not cooperating, what are the top things that you're talking about in that regard?

Elizabeth Cousens:

Now, I think it's politics, frankly, at every level. So first, it's the challenge of politics in countries, whether it's wealthy donor countries or others who are turned inward more or less in the last few years, and that's led to depressed levels of overseas development assistance and other investments. We've seen, obviously, the war in Ukraine have a real shaping effect on European donors.

But the larger question, to my mind, is whether we see, collectively, that we are on one planet. We're in one world. We have fates that are intertwined, and whether we have a commitment to do something about that with a kind of spirit of common humanity. We've lost ground on that front, and we see that here at home in the United States. We see it in other places around the world.

But that, to me, is really the challenge of our times. To figure out and to re-galvanize that spirit of we're in it together, we have more in common than we have that divides us, and we can't solve any problem on the global agenda that we see today without intensified global cooperation. So that really is, to my mind, the challenge of our times.

Ian Bremmer:

I mean, for decades, in a sense, there were tailwinds. I mean, the politics were never easy. But if you're supporting globalization, if you want to put capital into countries that need their working classes and their middle classes developed and expanded, life gets a lot easier. Also, if you can take resources out of the ground and not worry about the implications for sustainability, that makes it a lot easier. Those things are not true anymore. Now, climate is a headwind on inexpensive energy. And now, of course, globalization is facing headwinds from protectionism, including from the wealthiest countries of the world. So I wonder to what extent you are seeing the politics in any way make progress and try to break through a much more challenging global environment?

Elizabeth Cousens:

Yeah, well, the politics aren't breaking through. That's why it's the rate limiter for our possibilities right now. I do think when I think about climate change and what the future economy, a climate-friendly economy, looks like, part of the question is about timeframe. Some of it's about how markets are structured. A lot of it's about the policy signals to get the capital, that there is plenty of in the world, directed at the right kinds of things. So that is a political problem. It's a policy challenge. It's one, so far, we're starting to solve, but insufficiently solving, and we just need to accelerate our efforts to do that.

Ian Bremmer:

If I were to put in front of you right now the imminence of the food and fertilizer crisis, the imminence of global inflation, and push and pull that against climate and what's happening every single year, and the costs are only getting greater, is it an extricable reality that we've just lost an enormous amount of time and momentum because the former is distracting from the latter, or are they actually moving together?

Elizabeth Cousens:

Well, two things. First, overall, we have to get better at dealing with simultaneous crises. We obviously face several right now that are global in nature, systemic in their impacts, started with the pandemic. Every year, it includes climate, and the food and hunger crisis is obviously galloping along with us, commanding less attention, I think, still, than it should. So we have to get better at dealing with simultaneous crises one way or the other and understanding what the interaction effects are between them. So there are some crises that drive others. There are some trade-offs, but we just have to get better at that. But there's both a bandwidth question and also a resource challenge. But you don't fix the food and hunger crisis that we have this year or in future years unless you fix the climate emergency. So you have to do both. They're absolutely intertwined.

Ian Bremmer:

I was recently with Chef José Andrés, who was about as dire as I have seen a human being be in front of me in expectations for massive expansion of starvation unless enormous amounts of funds are directed immediately towards food aid, critical food aid. I know it's what he focuses on, and he's deeply committed to it, but was he overstating the case?

Elizabeth Cousens:

No, not remotely. I mean, I have to say, I spent the last week in Davos, as I think you and others did. I was struck that compared to just several months ago, when this was top of the agenda, it didn't feature.

Ian Bremmer:

It did not.

Elizabeth Cousens:

Remotely.

Ian Bremmer:

It did not.

Elizabeth Cousens:

Actually, it's only getting worse. And there's a seasonality to food and hunger crises because they depend on food yields and they depend on when crops are produced and when fields are fallowed. So we are going to see this get so much worse over the course of this year, and I don't think we're paying collectively the right kind of emergency attention to it that we need to. We will in the moment, but we need to be doing it now. So I fear he's right.

Ian Bremmer:

And what might that look like?

Elizabeth Cousens:

We have done heroic things before on the humanitarian front. It's not like we're not collectively capable of it. I mean, this needs a true mobilization of efforts. Some of it's about financing. Some of it's about making sure that we're working directly with communities who are the most vulnerable and likely to be affected. I mean, you do see the UN already doing what it can so far under its current conditions, trying to negotiate food supplies and fertilizer from Ukraine and Russia. That's a really important piece of their diplomatic effort. But the humanitarian scale of this emergency is enormous, and we just have to treat it as such.

Ian Bremmer:

And I mean, is it true that the total amount of humanitarian aid that's been allocated for alleviating global hunger is actually expected to be constrained, is going to be reduced in the coming year compared to what it's been on average the last five?

Elizabeth Cousens:

Well, I'm not sure if it's going to be reduced, but certainly compared to the need, it's less than is required. You have the largest combined humanitarian appeal that the US has ever put forward last December. It was about $50 billion. So the needs are huge and growing, and we have to be able to rise to this challenge and see it as something that's in both our interests and in our sense of common humanity. We're not confronted at the moment with the images. We're not confronted with the reality that so many people around the world are facing. But that is coming, and we will wish we had done more earlier.

Ian Bremmer:

I've spent so much time over the last almost a year talking about which countries are and are not providing humanitarian support, economic, and also military defense for Ukraine, which ones are not. We haven't spent as much time talking about which countries are doing the most to alleviate global hunger. When I look at the countries that could be allocating real resources, who's standing up and who's absent at the table?

Elizabeth Cousens:

Well, I'm more interested in the overall basket than who's standing up. So I think it really is mounting a collective global effort that recognizes the severity of this challenge. Working very much also with, again, affected countries, countries who are neighboring those countries, it really has to be an all-hands effort to make sure that we don't see the prospective levels of famine that we fear.

Ian Bremmer:

And I accept that. And that's not just a diplomatic answer, but it's an analytically correct answer. But I wonder, as the world moves towards China becoming the largest economy by the end of this decade, in all likelihood, but China also being a middle income country, a poor country, not a country that historically has done a lot in terms of leadership when we talk about humanitarian aid around the world. Are you feeling that geopolitical reality as more of a constraint in terms of humanitarian support?

Elizabeth Cousens:

Yeah, well, look, I hope that the geopolitical realities, which are fierce in a lot of different dimensions, actually create opportunities for global leadership. You've certainly seen China increase its contribution to the UN for all things, from the regular budget to peacekeeping. I hope that may also be true in humanitarian terms. I think this has to be seen as a global effort, which really does require all of us to step up for our fellow human beings who are in grave need.

Ian Bremmer:

We've talked mostly about government support so far. Of course, your approach is a multi-stakeholder approach. You've had a lot to say about philanthropy. And I'm wondering how you think philanthropy, what role it is playing right now from the private sector, from the foundation environment, and whether or not that is also evolving to meet the needs.

Elizabeth Cousens:

I think we have seen the role of philanthropy, big and small, and let's recognize that philanthropy is a very diverse set of actors and all geographies at all scales and levels. But we have seen both traditional philanthropies and new philanthropies really step up increasingly to recognize the gravity of the challenges we face, their unique role in their respective societies and communities, both with their money and with their voice, and with their ability sometimes to provide a novel platform for innovation and different kinds of solutions.

That's something that we at the UN Foundation have tried to be. And you see that with so many philanthropies around the world, those who came together around COVID. There was a global alliance of philanthropies that came together to support COVID response. You've seen that around the energy transition. You see it around climate in particular. And I think there is a real prospect also around this food and hunger crisis. Working very much with other sectors, not just philanthropies, but it's everyone that they can bring to bear and in ways that they can contribute meaningfully.

I think we see the deficit of trust in so many institutions these days, and that does create the possibility for others to step into that breach and to recognize that we all have different kinds of roles that we can play and it's important that we play them as ambitiously and fully as possible.

Ian Bremmer:

Now, I noticed that the Gates Foundation recently announced that they're moving from 6 billion to 9 billion of allocated funding a year in today's environment. Now, they've been quite notable in the sense that they've said consistently they want to spend all their money. They don't want to create a foundation that's going to live forever. I mean, governments, of course, tend to spend much more than the money that they actually have, though not always on the smartest things. Foundations tend to be much, much more cautious and conservative. Does that need to change, and is that changing if it does?

Elizabeth Cousens:

Well, I think it's already changing. I mean, it's true that foundations, historically, have tended to be conservative because they want to retain their philanthropic capital so they can use it in a perpetual basis. But what I think you're seeing from quite a lot of philanthropies, and you're seeing it from the business sector as well, is a recognition that we have a window right now. This is a moment in time where the choices we make, the investments we make have such long-term consequence.

And so you are seeing a great freeing up, I think, from certainly a lot of the philanthropies we work with to want to use their capital again, use their voice, and use their influence in different ways to contribute to the sort of changes that are needed in real time. We don't have 20 or 40 or 50 years to wait to deal with the climate crisis. We have to do it in the next 5 to 10. The people we were talking about who are hungry at the beginning of this call, they're hungry now. They're not hungry 10 years from now. So there's a time sensitivity to action that, I think, you're seeing an increasing recognition of. To me, that has a lot of possibility in it. We, of course, have to make best use of it, but I do think you're seeing that kind of thing change quite a lot.

Ian Bremmer:

I mean, it really needs to. I think, about climate in particular, it is so obvious that the damage and the dangers in the world today have been overwhelmingly caused by the wealthiest countries in the world. And it's not the fault of an India or an Indonesia or Pakistan that they're facing the challenges that they are right now. And yet these wealthy governments and the corporations that have done so well inside them just do not seem to take any direct accountability or responsibility for being stewards, for actually being responsible for the position that we're presently in. And I know this frustrates the United Nations greatly.

Elizabeth Cousens:

Yeah, look, I think there's a lot of collective responsibility to go around because the world's not in an optimal place and we variously all contributed to that. I think there is a real reckoning of a sort to come as people are increasingly recognizing their contribution to the state of the world, that is not particularly healthy. And then the question is, what are you going to do about it?

So I do see growing appreciation, increasing candor and self-reflection, frankly, from big institutions, from powerful and influential institutions, not enough and not fast enough. But I do think it's trending in the right direction because sometimes that comes from people's own kids, kids who are questioning, "What kind of world are you going to leave us with?" These are very deep issues, not just at a professional or an institutional level, but very much at a personal one. And I think we need to see that sort of recognition grow, deepen, and then inspire some real changes in behavior.

Ian Bremmer:

It's funny you just ended with that because it was what I was going to ask you about because we do see, I mean, among the advanced industrial economies, it is the young people that recognize that the planet that they're going to be growing up in is not one that they're proud of having inherited. When we talk about some of these big structural developments, what is your foundation doing to try to better engage the voices, the participation and capture, harness the energy of those young people?

Elizabeth Cousens:

Well, let me tell you how I started my morning this morning. So I started my morning by hosting a call with the world's leading youth-focused and youth-led organizations, who represent roughly 875 million young people around the world. They have all come together in something called the Unlock the Future Coalition. That's something we've supported from the beginning to exert influence on the global stage, to align around things that they want to see happen, and mobilize their collective energy and influence in a powerful way. So that's one of the things we're doing.

I think anybody who can contribute to putting power, resources, voice, underneath young people who are already exercising incredible leadership in their communities around the world, often at great risk to themselves, is all going to be for the better. And it's their world. I mean, I keep thinking of that saying that, "You don't inherit the world from your ancestors, you borrow it from your children." I mean, that couldn't be truer now than at any time in the past. So I think that sensibility of what we're bequeathing to younger generations, and not just the young people who make up half of the world's population today, but the 11 billion people who are yet to be born by the end of this century, what are we leaving to them?

So I think anything we can do to heighten our appreciation for that responsibility and to think really searchingly about what we can each do, and some people can do very small things, some people can do huge things, anything you can do is worth it because this really will take all of us to make the kinds of transitions that are required in our economies, in our industries, in our politics to be able to move into the 21st century and anticipate that it will be a better, fairer, and healthier place.

Ian Bremmer:

So I want to end on an optimistic note. If I had to come up with something where global governance can be successful, I'd say the ozone layer, which was going away, and we got the Montreal Protocol, and it's now almost fixed, and it's going to be completely fixed within a matter of a couple of decades. That's pretty extraordinary. Tell the audience something that you are working on right now, specifically or broadly, where the global response is actually surprising you on the upside.

Elizabeth Cousens:

I think there are great surprises, and of course, smallpox eradication is a great one from history. That is also an incredible achievement, also at a time of great geopolitical competition. But let me remind colleagues who are listening, last year was a tough year, but three big things got done last year. An agreement by all countries that they're going to negotiate a comprehensive treaty on plastics in the ocean, an agreement to negotiate a treaty on pandemic preparedness and response. And at the end of the year, it's something we are involved in with so many others, a landmark agreement on biodiversity to try to halt and reverse biodiversity loss on this planet by 2030. Some of that comes under the term, 30 by 30, to preserve 30% of the world's land and seas by 2030. But I think you know the statistics, the extraordinary toll on biodiversity and species loss that has been, that we're facing. And there is incredible opportunity to band together, I think, especially on the basis of this agreement that was unexpectedly reached at the end of last year by all countries to try to do something about it.

Ian Bremmer:

Elizabeth Cousens, thanks so much for joining me today.

Elizabeth Cousens:

Thank you, and great to be with you.

Ian Bremmer:

That's it for today's edition of the GZERO World Podcast. Like what you've heard? Come check us out at gzeromedia.com and sign up for our newsletter, Signal.

Announcer:

The GZERO World Podcast is brought to you by our founding sponsor, First Republic. First Republic, a private bank and wealth management company, understands the value of service, safety, and stability in today's uncertain world. Visit firstrepublic.com to learn more.

GZERO World would also like to share a message from our friends at Foreign Policy. The Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women, a podcast from Foreign Policy, is back for season three. This season, you'll hear from reporters around the globe who are covering underreported ways women are challenging the status quo, from justice for domestic migrant workers in Gulf states to how to break down gender barriers in the film industry. Follow and listen to the Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women wherever you get your podcasts.

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