Episode 14: Rejecting Inequality, Impatient for Change
Kaveh Zahedi is the Deputy Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN ESCAP). He oversees ESCAP’s economic, social and environmental programmes and the overall implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Prior to this, Kaveh worked at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as the Regional Director and Representative for Asia and the Pacific and Deputy Director of the Division of Technology, Industry and Economics, overseeing work on the green economy, resource efficiency and climate change. He also set up and headed the Climate and Clean Air Coalition. He joins us from Bangkok, Thailand.
He speaks to us about:
the challenge of fundraising
creating coalitions and partnerships of the willing
policy level advocacy and cause and effect
adaptability
the coronavirus pandemic
investing in social safety nets
building resiliency
engineering change towards sustainability
UN structures and intersectoral approaches
demonstrating impact
the UN reform process
regional level cooperation
being impatient for change
the role of the private sector
ICT for development
rejecting a tolerance for inequality - and much more.
Transcript
Intro : I think that we have to completely reject inequality. I think that’s at the heart of so much — we’ve come to accept levels of inequality that are simply unacceptable, right? And it’s inequality in every sense. It’s not just about wage differentials. It’s about inequality of access. We just talked about ICT inequality, of access to ICT, inequality of access to education, to health care, to opportunities, we’ve really come to accept extraordinarily high levels of inequality. And of course, they lead to not just under development, but they lead to, in a way, social pressure.
Safa : Welcome back to the Rethinking Development Podcast. My name is Safa and I will be your host as we speak with and learn from practitioners of all backgrounds and affiliations around the world. In our conversations, we aim to rethink ethical behavior and best practices through the lived experiences and personal reflections of different practitioners. Our guest today is Kaveh Zahedi. Kaveh is the Deputy Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia Pacific (ESCAP). He oversees ESCAP’s economic, social and environmental programs, including finance, trade, energy, natural disasters, statistics, and the overall implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Prior to this, Kaveh worked at the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), as the Regional Director and Representative for Asia and the Pacific and Deputy Director of the Division of technology, industry and economics, overseeing work on the green economy, resource efficiency and climate change. He also set up and headed the Climate and Clean Air Coalition. Before working with UNEP, Kaveh also worked at an NGO as a Project Manager for microcredit and other development projects in the Latin America and Middle East regions. Kaveh, thank you so much for speaking with us today.
Kaveh : My pleasure.
Safa : Could you begin by telling us about what were some of the experiences that sparked your interest in working in international development in the first place, and that led you down this career path?
Kaveh : Sure. I guess this career path maybe was almost inevitable for me. I was born in Iran and at an early age, I spent some time in the UK and then back to Iran and then back to the UK. So I already had started with a fair amount of sort of international exposure, if I could call it that. And at the same time, my family, my father, and other members of my family, were in the foreign ministry, in the diplomatic corps. So there was an element of sort of internationalism in my family that I guess, somehow rubbed off on me from an early age. So with that already sort of hardwired into me, I think the next trigger was really when I was at university, University College London. And there, when I was studying economics and geography, I started to get exposed to some of the courses which were really dealing with core development issues, development urbanization, development in Latin America, environmental economics, you know, really some of the fundamental development issues. And I was absolutely fascinated and it somehow really triggered such an interest in me, initially, very much around Latin America, and the development history and experience of Latin America. And so that became, in a way, a passion and I knew that somehow I wanted to work and live in developing countries. And eventually, the opportunity came along and it turned into my career.
Safa : Very Interesting. So at that time in the early years, what were some of the challenges you were faced with, that you hadn’t maybe considered when you were a student? Or maybe it’s something that you realize by being on the ground, being in the sector ,working on the issues firsthand that you realized some of the complexities or the challenges that exist?
Kaveh : You know, in a way, I had the perfect start. After I did my master’s, I was back in the UK and I was given the opportunity to work for a very small NGO called Cooperation for Development, and the work of Cooperation for Development was largely around small and micro enterprise credit, agricultural credit and other similar projects. And, you know, immediately I was thrust into a job which involved everything. I was a fundraiser, I was thinking of strategies, I was having to go into the field and help with the implementation. So in a way, I had to become a jack of all trades when it came to development. And it exposed me to absolutely every piece of sort of the difficulties that we face as development practitioners. Of course, in an NGO kind of an environment, the biggest one was funding. How do you keep the funding coming to be able to invest in the kind of programs that we were investing in and to make it sustainable? So it doesn’t just come in, you know, you do a couple of years, 2,3,4 years, out you go again, because clearly, that’s not going to have a lasting impact. So I think the biggest challenge that stayed with me was the challenge of bringing in the resources to have real long term commitment to the programs or to the communities that we were working with, and I don’t think I’d anticipated it being such an overwhelming sort of priority for the work.
Safa : Mm hmm. Later on when you transitioned to working in the UN system, did you find that that challenge around funding and being able to have long term funding to be sustainable, was that a continuous challenge? Or did you experience that within the UN system? It’s a bit of a different context and the financial needs are a bit different…
Kaveh : Yeah, actually, it was really one of the reasons that I wanted to join the UN. I thought that joining the UN would mean that I would have to deal much less with having to constantly raise funding, and much more about implementation. I thought, you know, the UN, of course, it’s going to be very well funded, and they have all the money needed to go in there and do the programming and do the work, which was to some degree true, you know, there is much less of a fundraising burden in terms of project fundraising. Of course, funding is always an issue to this very day, but it is less of an issue, I guess, in the UN environment, it’s, you know, some people call it the bureaucracy, some people call it the politics, but it is sort of the enabling environment that is a bit more tricky than what you find in an NGO. You have structures, you have hierarchy, it is at the end of the day, the member states, the countries that define what you do. And clearly, as you can see, in today’s world, there isn’t that much agreement between the member states in terms of the direction we should be traveling in. And that really becomes the biggest challenge in getting good, long term, comprehensive development actions into place.
Safa : You mentioned the member states and the the political context, in your work when you’re trying to establish partnerships or work with governments, and that’s embedded within a broader political context of their own priorities, all the different various political elements that are within the backdrop of trying to work on a development issue, are there approaches or experiences or tools that you use that have helped you in trying to establish cooperation and establish buy-in and support from a wide range of different political actors and partners?
Kaveh : I don’t know if I would approach it quite so academically, I mean, maybe I can give you an example of when I thought everything just came together and worked in spite of a sort of a highly charged policy context. And that was one of the initiatives that you mentioned in the introduction, when we set up the Climate and Clean Air Coalition. A few years ago, as you might remember, the climate negotiations were not going so well. There were a lot of disagreements about what should be done, what can be done, the level of ambition, who pays, etc. And they were very, very difficult and complex negotiations and at the same time, it was very Clear that action was also needed, you know, countries were not getting any less vulnerable throughout the negotiations, the vulnerabilities were increasing, especially in regions like where I’m sitting now, very, very highly vulnerable to climate related disasters. And and it was clear that action was needed. And at that time, at UNEP, at the UN Environment Program, we did a piece of work, an analytical piece of work that showed that the role that what we called short lived climate pollutants could play in reducing climate change. It’s basically about you know, black carbon soot, etc. If you reduce some of these short lived climate pollutants, you get to, in the current terminology, flatten the curve slightly. It doesn’t mean you don’t have to do all the other mitigation, but it does help as I say flatten the curve on global warming. And the study, when it came out, I think it really resonated with a certain group of countries. And not with everyone, you know, not everybody was convinced, but it did resonate with a group of countries. And they came together with us to form this, in a way, coalition of the willing. So it wasn’t something in the old style where you tried to bring on board, you know, 190 plus countries to sign up to a convention or an agreement or an amendment or whatever it might be. But it was really saying, look, clearly there’s work to be done. It’s a huge amount of work that needs to be done on climate change. Here’s one small piece of it around short lived climate pollutants. It’s a great opportunity. You can work on that by working on waste management, you can work on it by reducing ozone and refrigerants. You can work on it by working on diesel from cars, you know, or from brick kilns, very practical and a coalition of countries came together that really supported it politically and financially. And very quickly, we managed to build and expand and expand this coalition into a pretty large operation that exists today that’s working on climate and clean air, on mitigation of climate and on promoting clean air initiatives. And I think that for me is probably, in my career, the best example of everything lining up, in spite of, as I say, a very complex negotiation process going on, on climate change, of in a way being able to separate slightly from that, bring together those who want to work, and that was developed and developing countries, and very quickly get the tangible action. And for me, that’s a great example of how things can be done in spite of maybe the environment that might be politically charged or might be difficult.
Safa : What a great example and also, it’s great to hear that it continues to this day. When it comes to a project or an initiative and the process of measuring impact or evaluating results, what have been some of the lessons you’ve learned or experiences you’ve had — sometimes, you know, there are reports that are written, but maybe new colleagues don’t read them, or the analysis of the reports are maybe not internalized, what have been your experiences when it comes to learning from a history of work, learning from past projects, maybe learning from mistakes that happen over time?
Kaveh : Yeah, it’s a really difficult question, because the parts of the UN that I’ve worked with, or work in, the kind of initiatives we have are in a way meant to, I think, change people’s minds, if I can put it that way. So you know, we’re trying to shape policy, we’re trying to shape the way policymakers think, we’re trying to shape investments, so they go into a different direction. So you know, we’re trying to ensure that countries, for example, move towards decarbonization, which means that they move towards much more renewable energy, they begin to phase out coal, they begin to phase out the use of fossil fuels. And we advocate for that by showing it can be done. We do scenario work, we do the analysis that’s needed, we work on that by helping countries access the right technology, we bring together partners, etc. But it’s very, very difficult, in this kind of work, when you’re trying to shape policy, to demonstrate cause and effect, right? What’s to say that the country’s move towards renewable energy had anything to do with what we did, the workshops, the analysis, the capacity building, the technical assistance, rather than the Minister just having read a piece in The New York Times and being converted? Or having spoken, you know, to their children and being converted? We just don’t know, right? So that cause and effect is very, very difficult in sort of, in the work that I do. It’s quite different to inoculating children or building schools, right? It’s harder to measure the impact that you have. And I think that’s been the main lesson for me, is that it is simply not possible to do it in the same traditional way. So we have had to try to find sort of almost proxy indicators for our progress. And we have had to convince ourselves that ultimately, our success is measured by the biggest goals of all, which right now, of course, are the Sustainable Development Goals. So if this region that we’re working in to promote sustainable development is not progressing on sustainable development, is going backwards on some of the goals as we know it is, and to some degree, part of that has to be attributed to us. Or to put it in a positive way, it helps us identify where the gaps are that we still need to address and I think that’s really been the lesson. And the second one is, maybe the way we do programming doesn’t lend itself really at all to success and innovation. You know, we try to program years in advance, every activity, every output, every outcome that we’re going to have over the next five years. That’s not realistic. You know, look at what’s happened right now, the entire world is on pause, right? Priorities have shifted, extraordinary number of people now out of jobs, suffering, etc. How can you possibly implement something that you designed five years ago in this current context? Of course, I understand this is exceptional, it’s extreme, but it’s not that different in a region like ours, constant natural disasters, constant fluxes in terms of the prices of the natural resources they sell, constant fluxes in markets. So I think that adaptability is another important lesson for us, you know, we have to be a bit more agile, we have to be a bit more willing to test, make mistakes, reorient, test again, make mistakes, reorient until we get it right. And then when we get it right, to build on it, and really the structures and our planning processes, and in fact, our monitoring and evaluation frameworks, are very rigid and don’t really allow for that kind of innovation and implementation. And that’s a second maybe lesson that I’ve taken away.
Safa : Speaking of the the coronavirus pandemic and the kind of pause that the world is facing on different levels, how has it impacted your work in terms of your organization and the work that ESCAP is doing? Are there ways in which you’ve pivoted the work you’re doing or adapted it as you say?
Kaveh : It’s affected everything. It’s literally affected everything that we do. Obviously, it’s affected where we work and how we work and we have the fortune of being able to go online with much of our work and work from home. But we realized that that’s a luxury that many many people don’t have. So we have literally reprogrammed all of our work to be able to address COVID. So for example, a lot of our work at ESCAP is about promoting connectivity, regional cooperation, integration. This is traditionally been the area that ESCAP has worked in, since it was set up, you know, over 70 years ago, promoting interconnectivity in this region through its roads, its railway, trade, etc. We saw with the pandemic hitting how fragile all of that connectivity is, it was literally cut off overnight. So our connectivity work is right now absolutely reoriented to see how can we build resilience in case this kind of event happens? And it’s this kind of event, it might not be as extreme, but it’s not too different from some of the sort of natural disasters that parts of this region frequently face and it’s not too different from what we call the slow onset climate disasters like drought that hit this region, as well. So how do we build the resilience and all our work in trade and transport is now looking at building the resilience of trade, building the resilience of transport, building resilience in case of pandemics. Similarly, our work on the social development side is absolutely focused on how do you strengthen the health and social protection systems so that they can cope with an event like this? In our region, and this is, you know, COVID has just magnified the existing vulnerabilities and inequalities, but even before the pandemic hit, we knew from our analysis that in Asia Pacific, investment in social protection is extremely low, on average across the region about 3.7% of GDP, whereas the global average is over 11%. Basically, what that means, or what that meant, even before the pandemic, was if somebody got sick, or became unemployed, or pregnant, or old, or was hit by a natural disaster, they would be sucked back into poverty, there was no social safety net to help them overcome that event. And we’ve seen that with COVID. And so what we’re trying to do with our social work is to see how we can work with countries to increase the expenditures on people, right, on social protection, just taking our expenditures in this region from where they are now to the global average, and not even to the sort of OECD levels, just to the global average, it’s going to pull about 350 million people out of poverty. So this is the kind of investment that’s absolutely needed, also to build resilience to pandemics. So we’ve redoubled our work there. And similarly, on the environment side, we’re seeing how can we lock in some of the gains we’ve seen in terms of the reduction in greenhouse gases, especially on air pollution, because we’ve seen how close the relationship there is between COVID impact and high levels of air pollution. So again, we’ve redoubled our efforts, trying to work with countries to put in place the systems to mitigate the air pollution, to begin to increase the quality of fuels, to phase out some of the diesel vehicles, etc, all the things that are needed to reduce air pollution, because clearly that’s another thing that is needed to build resilience to any kind of future pandemics. So we haven’t done anything entirely new, but I think this is given justification to double down on many of the things we were advocating, whether it’s on resilience in connectivity, resilience in terms of the social protection or indeed, resilience from an environment perspective.
Safa : Mm hmm. When it comes to a situation where there’s really such a high urgency for a particular policy approach or a new initiative or new program, in that kind of urgent context, how is the approach to the activities or the work that you do different? You know, sometimes in the sector, there is maybe a tension between the need for social change and the reality that it actually takes a longer time. How do you navigate that or deal with that?
Kaveh : Yeah, obviously, a big part of change is political will, right. If there is political will, extraordinary things are possible. Just look at the COVID pandemic and the reaction of governments. All of a sudden, here in this region, governments have had to spend anywhere between 1% and 20% of their GDP on emergency response, whether it’s in the healthcare centre, whether it’s to prop up the small and medium enterprises, whether it’s on immediate cash transfers, whatever it might be, all of a sudden, all of this money has been made available, right. And for some time now, we’ve been advocating that for countries to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, they need exactly that, to increase investments. We’ve said you need about one and a half trillion additional investment a year to be able to achieve the SDGs, with a lot of that being the kind of investments I’ve talked about, investing in people. 600 or 700 billion would be needed just on the sort of the poverty reduction, the hunger, 600 billion would be needed on environmental investments, investing in the planet, as it were. So we’ve been advocating for that. And what we’ve been advocating for would add up to something like you know, $1 per person per day, right? It sounds huge when you first say it, 1.5 trillion, but when you boil it down, it’s about $1 per person per day, and GDP wise, it’s much, much less than the 20% or 15% of the 10% that countries have now been forced to spend to respond to the pandemic. I think from this we’ve seen that it is possible, when the political will is there, it is possible. So political will is key. How do we do that? Well, we’re quite fortunate because at ESCAP, we are the convener of the countries, in fact, we are a Secretariat, the Commission is the coming together of the countries. And they did come together the week before last in their annual commission, of course it was virtual this year for the very first time. And it was astounding to see how many of the leaders were talking about the importance of building back better, of not going back to the old way of doing things, of investing in the kind of things that I’ve been mentioning to you, whether it’s social protection or building environmental resilience. So I see a real change in tide in terms of that political will that maybe hasn’t been in place to the degree needed in the past and when you look across the whole region. And this really is the opportunity, if we can’t engineer change towards sustainability, towards the Sustainable Development Goals, then I really don’t know when we’d be able to do it.
Safa : Mm hmm. It’s encouraging to hear that you say that there’s a lot of advocacy around building back better and you feel that sentiment being shared by different partners. When it comes to your work, it seems that you have had a lot of experience that cuts across different issues, different economic, social, environmental issues. When it comes to working with colleagues or establishing partnership around different sectors, you know, sometimes there’s challenges around people working in silos or having a very single issue focus or, you know, being reluctant to work outside of their area. What have been your experiences, or what are your thoughts around bringing different social scientists and scientists together, different actors together, to work together on issues that do intersect and do have such an impact on one another?
Kaveh : Yeah, of course, it’s true, you know, we to some degree as the UN and certainly the countries, we are not set up in an intersectoral way, right. You have sectoral ministries, very clear responsibilities for transport, for trade, for environment. So, in a way, our setup has been sectoral and trying to build bridges between those sectors has taken time, internally and externally. I think the 2030 Agenda was a very critical attempt to build those bridges. It showed exactly how much of our success depends on intersectoral work, because you don’t just have the old style, environment goals or development goals or social goals. You know, they’re all intermixed if you look at the goals, they have targets within them that really are very economic in nature or very environment in nature or under the same goal, and I think that’s been a fundamental shift in mindset that this intersectoral work is critical. And similarly for us as the UN to be able to support the implementation of such an intersectoral agenda, we have had to change and the Secretary General has put in place a massive UN reform process that really has, I think, forced us to come together much, much better across sectors. And I already see that really paying off, whether it’s at the country level where we have independent Resident Coordinators, really empowered to pull the strings, to pull all of the different sectors together, to have a singular development impact that’s needed, or whether it’s at the regional level where similarly we’re being pulled together to make sure that we are coherent in what we advocate and how we support countries and the agendas that we’ve been talking about. I mean, just take social protection. What is that? Is that an economic agenda or a social agenda? Or is it actually a disaster resilience agenda? Right? It’s needed for all of them. Social protection is fundamental for supporting, you know, the 690 million people in Asia Pacific who are living with some form of disability. So is it a disability issue? But at the same time, it’s fundamental for the small and medium enterprises, which form the backbone of our economies? Does that make it an economic issue? It’s an everything issue. And that’s why we have to be brought together. And I think, as I say, with the UN reform, and with the 2030 agenda, a lot of those bridges have been built. I’m not saying it’s a job done. It is very, very complex. You know, you sit in a room and you’re talking to Ministers or high level officials who have always been responsible for transport or energy, and suddenly you’re talking to them about the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. It’s like a totally brave new world, right? But I think we are absolutely moving in the right direction. I now see the transport Ministers talking about resilience, talking about sustainability, the environment ministers absolutely moving towards the decarbonization, understanding the trade offs. So I think we’re going in the right direction, but as always, and like you said, it’s not as fast as we would all like, and maybe not as fast as the science demands it.
Safa : Mm hmm. It’s a complex challenge, but it’s encouraging to see that you’ve heard from many different partners and Ministers that there is an intention to do more of this intersectoral work. In your role, more in a leadership position, as you have taken on more senior positions in UNEP and also in ESCAP, what have been your experiences when it comes to being the manager or the leader in cases of management of funds, or maybe in some cases, misuse of funds or ensuring accountability, ensuring transparency? Have you ever had to face difficult situations in these kinds of contexts? Or what have been your experiences around managing and being accountable for these kind of issues?
Kaveh : Well, I think within the UN certainly there are so many checks and balances that I certainly, thankfully haven’t ever encountered any kind of situation of misuse of funds, as you say. There’s so much accountability and there is so much transparency and rightly so. You know, I haven’t come across it. Having said that, a lot of the work that I’ve done, both at UNEP and now at ESCAP, is not dependent on massive money transfers, right? We don’t do a huge amount of procurement. We don’t do a lot of massive sort of cash transfers like some of the other agencies have to do, especially agencies working in emergency situations. So maybe that’s just the scenario that’s less relevant to the kind of organizations that I’ve been working for. But at the end of the day, you know, it doesn’t have to go all the way to mismanagement. At the end of the day, it is about having impact, we have to demonstrate that the money that is being invested is being invested well, and that it’s having an impact. And increasingly, we’re being pushed to demonstrate that, and rightly so. So I think it’s also almost part of the same package. Of course, you have to be accountable for the money, but even more substantively, you have to demonstrate value, and you have to demonstrate impact. And it’s absolutely not easy in the sort of policy context that we work. But I see it happening. And even within my own organization, we’re constantly now- right now at ESCAP, we’re creating a new dashboard so on a daily basis, we can understand what we’re doing, where we’re on target, where we’re not on target, and we’ve built all of that into our performance as well, as annual performance now is measured by have we implemented on time? What kind of impact have we had? So, in a way, it really is an integral part of our performance and our work. But going back to your original question, I haven’t really had that dilemma of the sort of the misuse of funds, I guess, that others might have come across, even in the most senior posts that I’ve held.
Safa : A lot of your work has also been kind of at the regional level, but of course, you’ve also had experiences at the national level, when it comes to that kind of regional work versus national work or perhaps, south south or international cooperation, what have been the different experiences you’ve had or what do you think about the different processes of working at national level or regional level or creating collaborations across all different regions and the different dynamics of each type of work?
Kaveh : Yeah, it’s a very good question and it’s actually one that’s actually absolutely a central part of the ongoing UN reform process. I mean, ultimately, development, sustainable development happens at the national level, right. So that is where you have to have the impact. If you’re going to change the trajectory to make sure that the countries meet the Sustainable Development Goals, it is going to be at the country level that this happens. But that doesn’t mean that all the work is in the country. So as well as what has to happen at the country level itself or in the country, it just happens that countries do come together at the regional level, and they come together for various reasons. Sometimes they come together to set themselves a higher bar, right. To come up with a framework on the way they deal with disability, or gender issues, or migration, or whatever it might be. And in a way they set themselves a bar, similar to the 2030 Agenda, right but at the regional level, they agree to the Incheon Strategy on Disability or some other kind of framework agreement on paperless trade, whatever it might be, they agree to do things a little bit differently and possibly a little bit better. And that then, in a way becomes inspiration for what we and other agencies can support the countries to do, we have to support them to implement that aspiration at the national level. And a lot of it, as you say, there’s a lot to be learned across a region as varied as the one we’re in. Taking just the COVID situation, you know, if you look around, I hope that many other countries take inspiration from South Korea’s Green New Deal that they are rolling out, as one way of reacting to and addressing the pandemic. And we want to see exactly that kind of policy leadership in many other countries. And so one of the other reasons we bring countries together is to share these experiences. Especially given that we’re on an accelerated timeline, you know, we have the 2030 Agenda, we have 10 years. That’s all. 10 years for an extraordinarily ambitious agenda, to eradicate poverty, right. To deal with all of our environmental issues, to deal with all of the social issues. And no one country holds all of the answers. Some have done very well in terms of social protection and putting in place the kind of social protection systems that are needed. Others have managed to do better when it comes to reorienting their energy investments or their decarbonization. Still others are working much better in terms of bringing their small and medium enterprises, the informal sector, more into formality and more into the formal economy. And there’s a huge amount of information, of experiences that exists and that’s one of the roles that we have, to make sure that everyone can very, very quickly access these successes stories and maybe the non success stories from which we can learn as well. And so many of our meetings, that’s what they’re about, you know. Some people say oh the UN has so many meetings, essentially, that’s what our meetings are about. We have an annual forum on sustainable development, the Asia Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development. That’s exactly the purpose, countries come together and say, I did this, it really worked well, I did that, it didn’t work so well. And they share that through their voluntary national reports and through other mechanisms. But at its core, it’s to share these ideas and to inspire each other to higher levels of action. So it’s not for me an either or, of a regional or national. It’s a really symbiotic relationship. It’s almost a gray zone that goes from the global through the regional to the national level, and back again, and that’s what we’re trying to work on making more seamless, because maybe it hasn’t been as seamless as it could have been in the past. Now we are trying to make it seamless, in terms of action across the agencies, across the UN at the regional level, and from the regional level in support of the countries and our Resident Coordinators, the UN country teams, and of course, the country itself.
Safa : I think that’s very well said. Would you say that over the years, your motivations in your work have changed or your focus has maybe shifted or has your understanding kind of become more nuanced in some way? And if so, in what ways?
Kaveh : I think, as the years have gone by, I’ve remained impatient, you know, impatient for change, impatient for getting things done. But maybe I redirect that impatience for change in a way that can actually work in the kind of environments that I work in and the kind of environment that is the UN. And I think I’ve grown to value, much more, the necessity of building willingness, of building coalition’s of the willing, who actually can then spur the kind of action that is needed, ultimately, you know, it is the countries that have to believe, it is the countries that have to want to bring about that change. It is the countries that have to amend their legislation, it is the countries that have to monitor the implementation of the new legislation, it is the countries that have to change the kind of investment that are being made with public funds, and to help redirect the private investments. So it’s imperative for the countries to believe and to be fully on board. And getting to that stage is actually a long process, and at times a highly frustrating one. But I think I’ve learned to appreciate that it’s also an absolutely critical one if we are to have the kind of impact that we aspire to, if we are ultimately to this mega 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Safa : Mm hmm. I’ve had other guests who have said that frustration is really the energy that drives them. So as you say, you’re impatient for change and it’s kind of a catalyst or energizing force. On another topic, part of the work that you’ve done has also involved public private partnerships or partnerships and collaborations with the private sector. What have been your experiences in that type of work? And maybe some of the ethical considerations that you think about or you navigate when it comes to working with private sector partners?
Kaveh : Yeah, we’ve got a very schizophrenic relationship with the private sector as the UN, we sort of keep saying it’s a vital part of bringing about change, of meeting the SDGs. And at the same time, we put a lot of roadblocks in front of ourselves to actually be able to work with the private sector. But I’ve seen that change a lot. I mean, over the past 10 years, I’ve seen really the barriers to working with the private sector reduced, partially because the private sector itself has evolved. I mean, you know, it’s hard to generalize. But, you know, even 10 years ago, the best of the businesses that were thinking about sustainability, were probably doing it from a corporate social responsibility perspective, which is more or less about advertising, as opposed to what you’re seeing now, where businesses are looking at sustainability as part of their business model, right. As part of actually delivering what they do. So it’s more from a shareholder to stakeholder evaluation that we’re seeing. And because of that shift, I think it becomes much easier for us to engage with the private sector, that evolution has helped. Of course, we still have all the right checks and balances to make sure that we’re not helping with any kind of green washing or whatever it might be. But you also see that there is a higher level of ambition with many businesses, you know, you see some of the business leaders who have fundamentally shifted and changed their companies to make sure that actually sustainability becomes part of their DNA. So I see a good trajectory, but a long way to go, especially given that some of the businesses, frankly, their business is to do things that are not particularly good in a broader sustainable development context, right? If your business is to develop coal fired power plants, you’re in the wrong business, right? You’re in an old business, but that’s your business. And of course, we don’t advocate and prop up or support that kind of business, but our role is to advocate for and support the transition to a very different kind of business where sustainability really is a core part of the consideration. And we have actually a small group within ESCAP, the ESCAP Sustainable Business Network, really so varied companies, not the biggest, but companies in this region, really committed to sustainability, both in a way advocating for sustainability outside to wherever it might be, but also sustainability within their businesses. And you know, sometimes I feel that we haven’t made it easy in that we bring them on board and we excite businesses about the agenda, and they say, we believe, we agree with you. This is the agenda, the 2030 Agenda, we fully agree with you. What should we do? And then we start scratching our head and saying, wow, okay, let me think. And I don’t think we’ve been clear enough on exactly what could be done. And that’s really been the most interesting conversation with businesses right now, is to get down to specifics. So, plastics in the ocean, it’s a major problem. Okay. How can we confront that? What is the role of the businesses that are somehow in the supply chains that create single use plastic? How can we address that? How can we help countries monitor? How can we help businesses monitor where that plastic single use is coming from, where it’s going, where it’s ending up? How can we support them to even start businesses that would then come up with alternatives to the single use plastic, for example. So I think they are maybe one level more practical than we’ve been and we need to make sure that we support them in that process.
Safa : One of the issues that ESCAP also works on is ICT for development, and now in the time of the pandemic, with an increased use of the internet and digital technologies — I know in some countries, for example, Internet access is being talked about as a public utility that maybe governments should help make available and accessible to all, so in this context and thinking about private public sector partnerships, and also the relevance and the importance of access to internet and technologies, what are some of the initiatives that you’re working on or some of your experiences around that issue in the Asia Pacific region?
Kaveh : Well, you know, you’re absolutely right. ICT is a fundamental part of development now. And what we’ve noticed in this region is, whereas the potential of ICT is enormous, we also see it is becoming sort of the new frontier of inequality, right? We see a huge digital divide between those that have access and those that don’t, both within countries and between countries. So it really is becoming the new frontier of inequality. And it’s clearly an area that countries now need to invest more in. It is not a luxury to have ICT and, as you said, the pandemic has demonstrated that better than any of the reports that we’ve published over the past five years could have done. So, if it’s such a vital part of delivering services to people, whether it’s e-government or e-health, whether it’s about emergency information and emergency response information, whether it’s about enabling people to continue education when something happens, like we see now, it’s a fundamental part of development. So once there is that acceptance that ICT is not a luxury, but it is fundamental for a country’s development, making sure that there is 100% access, just as we have to make sure that there is 100% access to electricity, for example, then becomes part and parcel of any country’s development planning. And we’ve seen a lot of countries have recognized that, and I suspect more will recognize it going forward. I mean, if you look at the pandemic situation, a country like South Korea that has dealt so well with the pandemic, much of it relied on ICT, whether it was contact tracing or whatever it might have been, it’s because they have fantastic ICT infrastructure in place. Others struggled because they didn’t have that same ICT infrastructure in place. So I think that investment is going to increase. And programs like you have here, for example, in Thailand, there are programs to connect the unconnected, there’s a program called Net Pracharat, where they’re trying to go to the remotest villages and make sure that they have internet access so that they can access these vital services. I think you’re going to see that increase. And here, like elsewhere, that public private partnership is going to be important, but it’s not that difficult. At the end of the day, it is the governments that are giving out the broadband, right? They are the ones that are auctioning the different broadband that then the network providers build on. It could be a condition, a condition of any kind of giving away of broadband and license is that actually, these companies have to also go into the less profitable areas and make sure that everybody is connected. And I think it’s a very, very fertile ground. And that’s exactly one of the initiatives that we have. We have this thing called the Asia Pacific Information Superhighway, and it’s to do exactly that. How can we make sure that, including through public private partnership, you build these resilient and all encompassing networks that reach everyone they need to reach. Of course, we were advocating it before the pandemic, because it’s also vital in a situation of any kind of natural disaster. It’s also vital if we are to leave no one behind in terms of education, it’s vital if we are to leave no one behind in terms of healthcare. It’s also vital in terms of social protection because many of the new ways of reaching people are digital, right, especially the cash transfer mechanisms, etc. So, it is the backbone of delivering the kind of sustainable development that we want to deliver.
Safa : Absolutely. Taking a step back and thinking about the international development sector very broadly, I know we’ve touched on a variety of issues, but when you think about the state of affairs in the sector, and also globally, nationally, internationally, and the various social issues around the world, what do you think needs to really be changed or addressed? Or are there things that maybe discourage you or are there particular issues that are the most important for you?
Kaveh : At the core of it, I think that we have to completely reject inequality. I think that’s at the heart of so much. We’ve come to accept levels of inequality that are simply unacceptable, right. And it’s inequality in every sense. It’s not just about wage differentials. It’s about inequality of access. We just talked about ICT, inequality of access to ICT, inequality of access to education, to healthcare, to opportunities, we’ve really come to accept extraordinarily high levels of inequality. And of course, they lead to not just under development, but they lead to, in a way, social pressure. Clearly, people who don’t have similar access to the benefits that society provides, are going to feel some sort of resentment. I really think so much at the core of what we do, we have to be much more intolerant of inequality, and invest in that. Invest in it heavily. We’ve already talked about investing in the social protection schemes, but it goes way, way beyond that. We have to invest in building resilience so that every time a typhoon or a cyclone hits, a family isn’t dragged back into poverty, we have to invest in ensuring resilience in the agricultural sector so that every bad year doesn’t drag that entire family back into poverty, which means that they’ve got to pull their children out of school, which means that you just perpetuate that inequality and poverty from one generation to the next. So I think if it’s, if I could put it very, very simply, I think we have to be totally intolerant of inequality. And that has to guide so much of our work.
Safa : I think that’s very, very well said very beautifully said. I really want to thank you for everything that you’ve shared with us. There’s so much food for thought and so much to kind of internalize and think about.
Kaveh : I think we covered a lot of ground Safa, so thank you.
Safa : It’s been a pleasure to learn from you and we really appreciate it. As always, thank you to our listeners. I really appreciate your attention and value being able to facilitate these important conversations for all of us. As we are nearing the end of the second season, I’d love to hear from you. I have created a short survey for you to fill out to share your feedback.
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