The Kigali Global Dialogue brings together policymakers, academics, civil society, and the private sector from around the world to deliberate and devise solutions to critical sustainable development challenges facing the global community today.
The three-day conference is co-hosted by the Observer Research Foundation, ORF America, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Rwanda. The inaugural edition of the dialogue saw the participation of more than 350 people from 50 countries.
The last three years have witnessed geopolitical, social, ecological, and economic upheaval amplified by the exogenous shock of the pandemic.
As the decade of action progresses, it is critical to share experiences and solutions and forge new partnerships. Many of our development and economic orthodoxies – especially those propagated by high-income countries – have failed to deliver sustainable and equitable development for most of the world. New development institutions, financial arrangements, and paradigms are urgently needed and are already emerging.
It is clear that African nations will create and lead new models for development and growth over the coming decades. The success of these experiences will serve as templates for other parts of the world as they navigate development pathways more responsive to climate constraints and social, environmental, and economic imperatives.
Climate change and increasing inequality are demanding new growth models that are sustainable and equitable. As economies undergo a new industrial ‘stress test’, the international community needs to reconcile growth aspirations with the realities of constrained carbon space and limited resource availability. Innovations catering to the needs of the emerging world must be given centrality in political discourse. At the same time, responding to the demands borne out of climate change and new societal mores presents new opportunities for value creation. Resource-based economies must work for leadership in the knowledge age and Africa may discover this resolution.
Despite unprecedented levels of global savings, less than 1% of institutional investor funds are directed towards infrastructure and sustainable development projects in the developing world. With approximately 2.5 trillion dollars needed annually in the developing world, the funds parked in OECD countries earning negative percent returns have an unprecedented opportunity. This requires new regulatory approaches, innovative financial instruments, robust financial markets and contemporary transmission pipelines. Lazy money must reach vibrant economies in order to serve the fiduciary responsibilities to their depositors and respond to the planetary obligation of mitigating and adapting.
Rapid technological and demographic transformations are changing employment relations, workplaces, and the nature of work globally. They are implicating gender relations and offering new avenues for livelihood and value creation. Ideals of social protection – hallmarks of the formal economy – must evolve within the gig economy. And communication technologies must help integrate rather than divide societies. How regions, nations, firms, and communities respond to these transformations will determine whether they will deepen existing fissures or resolve old cleavages.
lobalisation has new sceptics in the developed world. Old and established institutions that curated global trade, financial flows and integration are witnessing fatigue and capacity deficits. The developing world needs to navigate this new moment by conjuring up continental partnerships, regional alliances, government-private sector coalitions, urban networks, and communities that infuse new energy and vitality into the globalisation agenda.
No conversation on political and economic equality is complete without adequate consideration of gender-based discrimination and violence. Current efforts towards closing the gender gap are often de-prioritized as a consequence of a perceived resource scarcity. The Fourth Industrial Revolution, however, presents a unique opportunity – from increased STEM education for women to non-traditional organizational structures – to unshackle new economies from their gendered pasts.
Executive Director, UN Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation,