IAN GOLDIN: Thank you very much.
It's a huge pleasure to be here.
Thank you for coming to this
talk on such a glorious day.
It's very tempting
to be outside.
But I think that development
is the most important subject
in the world.
And so, I'm glad you
have prioritized it,
at least for your lunchtime.
It's important because
it's not only about what
happens with other people.
I think, in the end,
it's about ourselves
and who we are as people.
And what I try
and convey in this
"Very Short Introduction"
is everything
I know about development
in 40,000 words, which
is about 30-something
years of my life and career
working in development.
I've been fortunate to work
in many, many different roles
in this.
I've worked for
development agencies.
I've worked for the World Bank.
I've worked for the European
Bank for reconstruction
and development.
I was head of policy for
the World Bank Group.
And I've also been on the
other side of the table.
I've negotiated on
behalf of countries
with the international agencies.
And I was in the South African
government as Nelson Mandela's
economic advisor, and
ran the State Development
Bank for Southern Africa
owned by the South
African government.
And so, it was really
a delight to be
asked by OUP to write this
short book, but a big challenge.
A big challenge because
as much as we've
learned over the
last 70-plus years
about why some people are rich
and why some people are poor,
and why some countries are
rich and some countries poor,
why development takes
off and then reverses
and how to achieve it,
what's extraordinary
is how much we don't know.
And how difficult development
remains, how intractable
it remains in some places
despite the quite extraordinary
advances.
And so one has to
approach this subject,
I think, with a
degree of humbleness
because each case is different.
There's no cookie cutter,
and there's certainly
no recipe for development.
If it was so simple,
the whole world
would have escaped
poverty and we wouldn't
be having this conversation.
At the same time, we can
celebrate huge success
with development.
There have been the most
extraordinary achievements
in my lifetime and, many
of you younger than me,
in your lifetimes.
And so, there must
be some things
we can learn from all of this.
There must be some takeaways.
And what the book tries to
do is strike this balance
between not wanting to
imply that there's a recipe,
but also not wanting to imply
that we haven't learned.
For those that are curious,
this is a wonderful subject
because there's so much
evidence out there--
the world's 200-plus
countries and their experience
over the last hundreds of years.
But there's also massive
uncertainties and questions
going forward which
remain unresolved.
And so, I would
encourage anyone that's
interested in development
to remain interested and not
think that in any
way, tick that box,
there's nothing to add because
everyone has much to add.
And I think it's particularly
interesting being in Google
because one of the
great, great questions
is, how will technological
change impact
on development going forward?
And I'll say
something about that,
but we know very
little about it.
And I certainly don't
subscribe to some people
in Silicon Valley's view.
Not of the sensible people in
Google, of course, which is,
I guess, best articulated in
a book which I better not name
which suggested that there's
no problem an app cannot solve.
In other words, technology
will be the panacea
that cures the world's problems,
whether it's climate or water
or poverty, et cetera.
At the same time,
there's massive advances
that technology can
certainly offer.
And we need to think about
this very, very carefully.
So for me, the great
revelation was, of course,
having been exiled
from South Africa,
thinking I would never
go back in my lifetime,
living in London and
Paris, to discover
how quickly change can happen.
Two months after the
Berlin Wall came down,
Nelson Mandela was released
after 27 years in prison.
And I never thought I would
have that event in my lifetime.
I thought South Africa was in
an intractable bloody civil war
for the future.
And that dramatic change
changed my life, too,
because I then went
back and worked with him
for the next seven years.
Now, these tipping points,
these rapid changes,
are clearly both
about the forces
that are happening in individual
countries, but also elsewhere.
And so, one of the
great, great challenges
is understanding the
interconnectedness
between changes in one place
and changes in another.
And that is getting
more complex.
Within five years
of the Berlin Wall,
dictatorships across
the world fell.
Latin America, Africa,
and Asia, which
had been largely autocratic,
became largely democratic
over a very short
period of time.
Not because of things that
they were doing, necessarily,
although that no doubt
contributed, but from things
that were happening in Europe.
Big change.
And the story of the interaction
between policies in one country
or one set of countries
and what happens
is, of course, a very old story
in development-- colonialism,
imperialism being
part of that problem.
So you can fight
as hard as you want
for change in your
country, and I believe
people should be fighting
for that, but what others do
and how the world behaves
matters desperately as well.
And that's why we are all
responsible for development,
because what the UK
does or what the US does
or what Google does
really does matter
to the prospects for people's
lives in other places,
consciously and unconsciously.
Now, one of the most
other dramatic effects
of this tumbling down of
walls and of the growth
of the internet and
interconnectedness
has been this
extraordinary story
of the improvement of life
expectancy around the world.
And that's because
ideas are traveling
more rapidly, more quickly,
to more places than ever
in history.
And ideas are the
driving force of history.
It's what makes the
difference between how
one used to do things and
how one can do things.
And that imagination
about what the future is
is what drives
development ambitions.
If you do a thought experiment
and try and think about
why is North Korea now 10%
of the income of South Korea
when they were at the same
income levels 60 years ago?
The answer has to be because
their ideas are different,
and the way that those
are being operationalized
in their country.
Same people.
No cultural differences
or other differences
between these people.
And the same story could
be told, for example,
of East and West Germany and
their very, very different
living standards, et cetera.
But we should be careful not to
fall into the trap that says,
oh, well, one is simply market
forces and the other is not.
Cuba has a higher average
life expectancy than the US,
although it's only got 20% of
its average per capita income
levels.
So it's not simply
about markets.
It's about how much
countries prioritize things,
what their policies are, that
really does make a difference.
But if you're feeling that
policy doesn't matter,
just do these sorts of
thought experiments.
And I talk about some
of them in the book.
Ghana and South Korea used to
have the same incomes in 1965.
In fact, Ghana was
wealthier than South Korea.
Today, South Korea
has an income which
is 14 times that of Ghana.
Argentina used to be the fifth
richest country in the world.
Today it is the 65th.
What's happened?
Why is this the case?
Those are the sorts of
things I explore in the book.
And bad policies have
a lot to do with it.
By policies, I
mean the decisions
that governments make regarding
the key drivers of development.
And they are health, education,
infrastructure, the hardware,
and the software.
And it's that, judicial
systems, rule of law
that really make an
enormous difference.
Now, because ideas are traveling
more rapidly around the world,
there are some things which
are sometimes slightly
independent of national policy.
And life expectancy is
broadly, although there
are some major
exceptions, like that.
So average life expectancy
has increased in the world
by about 20 years over
the past 40 years.
It took from the
Stone Age to the 1960s
to get that sort of
improvement in life expectancy.
And it's because ideas
have traveled more rapidly,
particularly since about
1990, and then the late '90s
with the development
of the internet.
Very simple ideas,
like washing your hands
prevents contagious diseases.
Smoking kills you.
Wearing a safety
belt saves your life.
Those sorts of ideas.
And very, very
complex ideas, like
those embedded in
vaccines and new cures
for cancer spreading
around the world.
Some big exceptions.
Notably, southern Africa,
because of HIV/AIDS,
where life expectancy
went down by 20 years
when the rest of the world went
up, simply because of HIV/AIDS.
And Russia for a whole
set of other circumstances
where life expectancy has
decreased by about 10 years
since the fall of
the Soviet Union,
as the health system
has collapsed,
as suicide, smoking, car
accidents, and other things,
crime, take their toll.
Now, one of the most
difficult questions
is what we mean by development.
And of course, when I
talk about development,
I'm talking about
the development
of individuals' lives
and capabilities,
as well as economic development.
Other people-- my wife
who's a psychotherapist
has a completely different
meaning for the term.
And, of course, the
fundraising office at Oxford
is called the
Development Office.
And Google development.
You get many different things.
And that was a big question
in naming this book,
because we might get the
wrong people picking it up.
And I thought, well, that
was a good thing anyway.
So let's have a term that has
lots of different meanings
where lots of people might
pick it up by mistake
and learn something.
But this concept
remains very contested.
Economists tend to think of
this as economic development.
So they'd say a country
is more developed if it
has a higher per capita income.
Of course, that is an extremely
imperfect understanding
of what development is.
There are countries
like Bangladesh,
for example, average
life expectancy of 75.
I mentioned Cuba and
its life expectancy.
And there are some much
wealthier countries
at a lower life expectancy.
There are countries,
like Bangladesh
again, that have very
low fertility rates.
And other countries
at much higher incomes
that have much more
rampant fertility.
There are countries
that have higher levels
of girls' education, et cetera.
So defining what we
mean by development
is pretty crucial in order to
have a conversation about what
are we striving
for as a society?
Are we striving
for higher incomes?
Do we need growth in
order to get development?
Or can you have
development without growth?
Which I don't think is possible,
not at low levels of income.
Which is why this let's
get away from growth idea
that the rich countries are
sometimes falling in love with,
particularly the
greens, I think,
doesn't work for, say, Africa.
Because if you're at a per
capita income level of $2,000,
you'd better grow if
you want to raise that.
No amount of redistribution.
But does the US
still need to grow?
Does Britain still need to grow?
That's an interesting question.
What is it that we mean by
development in these contexts?
And of course, this is
changing all the time.
Now, one of the
most exciting things
is the capabilities
approach, which
says that development is
about people's ability
to transform their own lives.
And this is Amartya
Sen who really
was at the forefront of this.
That's how we should
think about development.
Do people have agency?
Are people able to
affect their own futures?
And that's both about,
well, you better
be alive in order to do it.
You better be
properly nourished.
You better be educated to know
about what the options are.
You better be healthy.
And you better have
freedoms and rights in order
to affect your own outcome.
And I'm very attracted to
this capabilities approach.
As people become more and more
educated around the world,
they learn more.
But we should be careful
not to fall into the trap
to believe that simply more
education means more freedom,
because we know that
this isn't true.
And one of the great
challenges for development
is understanding why highly
educated people sometimes
make decisions which seem to
be contrary to development.
And I'm thinking, for example,
about the highly educated
jihadists, for example,
who on average have
very high levels of education.
So education in
itself I don't believe
is a development objective.
It's a means.
And that's true of many,
many different dimensions.
Because there are more
people in the world educated
and connected, we should
expect more rapid change.
And a crucial question
of development
is, can societies
adapt fast enough?
Let's say you develop today.
Will you be developed tomorrow?
And as the world
changes more rapidly,
this becomes a bigger
and bigger concern.
And it's a concern not
only between countries,
it's a concern within countries.
Is the reason we
have Trump and Brexit
because some parts of Britain
or some parts of the US
are developing much more rapidly
than other parts, for example?
And this increasing
differentiation
within countries
is a big concern.
Now, I talked about how the
world changed since the Berlin
Wall came down.
And some described this as
a process of globalization--
which I talk a bit
about in the book--
by which we simply mean
flows across national borders
of goods, services,
products, and ideas.
Got a bad rap
recently, but my view
is, this is the most progressive
force for development
that history has ever known.
But it's also the most
dangerous, and potentially
the ugliest.
You see these transformations
in flows depicted here.
As the walls came
down, the flows
between countries,
of financial flows
in this case, investment aid--
the black is private
equity and bonds--
and foreign direct
investment increased.
But so, too, did
their complexity.
And one of the great
challenges going forward
for countries is
managing complexity,
is that everything comes
from more and more places.
And where you fit
into supply chains,
and where you fit into
the realm of ideas,
and how you influence things
is becoming more complex.
Now, development
really does happen.
These are two simple graphs
of the last 2,000 years,
or two simple lines,
depicting income growth--
that's red exponential--
and population growth--
that's green arithmetic.
The simple point of
this is that we're
in a period which is
unprecedented in progress
in our lifetimes, both in terms
of income growth and population
growth.
The great challenge
thinking forward is,
is this sustainable?
Will these very unusual patterns
be replicated going forward?
And I believe the
pace of this change
is because of
integration of ideas.
Because evolution, in effect,
is happening more quickly
because people are
discarding their old ideas
and taking on new ideas
quicker about how to do things,
and how to learn, how to
get girls into school, how
to stay healthy, how to do
things of that sort of nature.
So we see, in this period,
average life expectancy
increasing.
We see illiteracy going
down dramatically.
In a world of five billion
people at the end of the '80s,
only two billion people
could read and write.
In a world of 7.5 billion people
today, 6 and 1/2 billion people
can read and write.
4 and 1/2 billion
more literate people.
And if you believe
in that knowledge
as a way of getting agency
of your own life, learning,
then, of course, is the
most exciting thing.
It's also the reason I believe
this is the slowest lunch
hour you'll know for
the rest of your lives.
Relax and enjoy it.
And that's because
there are more people
with more ideas
participating more and more
in the challenging
and replication
and invention of new ideas
and their application
to their local environments.
So innovation is
accelerating because there
are more participants, and
they're sparking off each other
in new ways.
Both random
distribution of genius,
just more geniuses, but also
sparks, more sparks flying.
And as a result of all
of this, the number
of desperately poor people has
gone down by about 300 million,
despite the world's population
going up by over a billion.
And this has never
happened before in history.
We have rapid population
growth and a reduction
in poverty at the same time.
So something is happening
in our lifetimes which
is extraordinarily exciting
and leads to a great optimism
that poverty can
actually be overcome.
We should be able to live to
see a world of no poverty.
But will we?
And that is the question that's
on the development agenda.
And of course, it's not only
about poverty that we care.
We care about many
other things as well.
Now, the SDGs and other
agendas out of the UN
are the first collective effort,
Sustainable Development Goals,
Millennium Development
Goals preceding it,
to establish
collective goal posts.
And that's very
important because when
one has collective goal posts,
team players know what to do.
And the teams, of course,
are the countries themselves,
plus everyone around the
world trying to help them
in the public and
private sectors,
as well as in charitable
and other institutions.
Has this led to great progress?
Yes.
But of course, the ambitions
are high, and much,
much more needs to be done.
In addition to writing this
"Very Short Introduction"
I've written over the last
couple of years, this book,
"Age of Discovery,"
which is arguing
that this is a renaissance
moment in human history.
The best time by
far to be alive.
But also like the Renaissance,
not only associated
with enormous creativity that
we'll celebrate, obviously
in that case 500 years later,
but also a perilous time.
You know the Renaissance
ended in religious wars
and complete destruction of
the intellectual environment
and experts, as well as the
hounding of all diversity out
of Europe, including the
Inquisitions, et cetera.
And the question
is how one manages
rapid development and
social and political change.
And I address that both
in the "Age of Discovery"
and in the "Very
Short Introduction."
Now, development is a
very uneven process.
And one of the great
challenges is that,
while the differences between
countries have been reduced,
with an exception of about the
bottom 25 countries who are
in conflict or in
fragile states--
and we can come back to those if
you'd like to in conversation--
increasingly, we see
differences within countries.
And this poses very big
questions for development
agencies and others.
Because if a
country, on average,
can afford to overcome poverty,
why should external parties
have a role to play in it?
What is the role of outsiders
in overcoming poverty,
for example, in the northeast of
Brazil and other middle income
countries?
Of course, many countries
remain in dire poverty,
not least in Africa.
Now, rising
inequality is largely
the result of the very uneven
distribution of the benefits
of globalization.
In other words, some places,
particularly dynamic cities,
are doing much better than
rural areas and smaller decaying
towns, whether it's in India,
or whether it's in the US,
or whether it's in the UK.
These are just numbers
around inequality.
Another big issue
associated with this
is, of course, taxation and
the ability of governments
in a globalized world to
get the revenues to pay
for redistribution to
invest in health, education,
infrastructure, all the
things that governments
have to invest in.
And the poorer the
country is, the greater
the need for investment.
So a crucial area is,
what is the relationship
in globalized firms and
globalized tax systems
and national financial
capabilities for development?
And that's one aspect of the
international responsibility
towards development.
So one big issue going forward,
which is a newer issue,
is this rising inequality
within countries,
and how one addresses it.
A second big issue is
growing systemic risk.
When we connect, and
when we open our borders
and have interconnected systems,
whether they're cybersystems,
airport hubs, or
financial systems,
we don't only grow
our capabilities,
but we grow our interdependency.
And the challenge
for many countries,
particularly poor countries, is
managing this interdependency.
How do we ensure that
they have the capability
to not be either the
spreaders or the importers
of financial crises, pandemics,
cyberattacks, et cetera?
This interdependency
is growing as we
become more numerous, wealthier,
and more interconnected.
When people were poorer
in the countryside,
they could do whatever
they wanted to that
didn't affect the world.
But as they become wealthier
and more connected,
all their actions and all our
actions have spillover effects.
So one is this contagion between
systems and interdependency,
the underbelly of
interconnectivity.
A second dimension
of this, of course,
is the spillover effects of
the goods becoming the bads.
It's wonderful that
so many countries
are escaping energy poverty
and climbing the energy curve.
That's fantastic.
At the same time,
a possible result
is catastrophic climate change.
It's wonderful that so many
people around the world
are taking antibiotics.
A possible outcome is rapidly
rising antibiotic resistance.
It's wonderful that
people in other countries
have the options to
enjoy tuna sushi like you
do in your canteen.
Possible outcome is
extinction of the tuna.
The summing up of the goods
when more and more people enjoy
development can lead
to very bad outcomes.
And the challenge here is
to understand that we all
have a responsibility in this.
That, as people
become more connected,
their freedom grows,
they have more choice.
As their income grows
and as their ability
to choose and take drugs--
well, I mean, not
recreational drugs.
[LAUGHS] Antibiotics
and other drugs.
Maybe recreational drugs,
but we won't comment on that.
Have the lights on, et cetera.
But with that freedom
comes a new responsibility,
and that is a recognition
that our freedoms have
to be curtailed
if we want others
to be able to enjoy them, too.
And this is a big, big
challenge to the market system.
Now, I'm going to rush
through, because I've
taken a bit more
time than I planned
on this, some megatrends.
I mentioned rising life
expectancy converging,
except for Southern Africa
collapsing because of HIV/AIDS.
I mentioned
fertility going down,
except for Africa where the
uncertainty is primarily
in four countries--
Nigeria, Niger, and
a couple of others.
So world life
expectancy improving,
but because of
fertility going down,
populations flattening and
declining in many countries.
I do not believe, and I put
the arguments in the book,
that the problem is too
many people in the world,
which, of course, some
people worry about in case
of [INAUDIBLE].
The world's population
be flattening.
Median age is doubling
around the world,
Africa the only exception.
And that changes many
things, including schooling.
So we need to remove from our
mental map ideas of population
pyramids and put in place these
sorts of structures which are
the structure of the future.
And they have a dramatic
implication for many things.
And they also demonstrate what
all the women in the room know,
which is women are
wiser than men.
Women live longer in all
countries of the world.
They have better
development prospects.
And the simple
answer is, they don't
make as many stupid decisions.
They don't smoke as much.
They don't drink as much.
They don't stick as many
knives into each other,
and don't drive as many
cars into as many trees,
and they live longer
around the world.
But the opposite in every
country of the world,
more young boys than girls.
And the reason is because we
all live in sexist societies,
and the status, income,
career prospects of boys
are greater than girls.
And the girls no longer look
after us in our old age.
And so, people are
choosing when they only
have one kid to have
more boys than girls.
And this is a global phenomenon.
So increasingly
skewed distribution.
And that, of course, has
dramatic consequences
for many things.
Every country is unique.
China, one child policy.
US immigration,
very significant.
I did this before
Trump was elected.
And it matters because over
half the children born in the US
are to immigrant parents.
So if you change
immigration policy,
you remove this healthy
outlook for the US.
Different African countries,
different perspectives.
Nigeria, massive population
growth, as with Kenya.
Impact of HIV having
this dramatic shadow
in many countries.
And, of course,
particularly South Africa.
Terribly distorted by HIV/AIDS.
This is Botswana with
and without HIV/AIDS.
The light what it would be
without, and the dark with.
So these things can just
wreck development prospects
for a country.
Botswana, in other respects,
a well-managed economy
with lots of resource diamonds,
but wrecked by a failure
to manage this.
Migration becomes a
bigger and bigger part
of the development story.
Now, migration has
always been the way
that countries have
dealt with development.
The reason we're all here
is because of development.
If not first, second
or third generation.
It's always been that way that
people escaped poverty, famine,
disease, and war.
A third of Ireland migrated.
A third of Scandinavia migrated.
A third of Italy migrated.
But as that option becomes
closed off to people
and the number of
countries increase--
there's 100 more countries in
the world over the last 100
years--
the potential for
migration is doing
what it's always
served humanity to do,
which is give people opportunity
to get away from trouble
and find new potential.
That option is being closed off.
And so, development has
removed from a central place
this absolutely key
potential, which is migration.
Now, migration is good not only
for the people that migrate,
but also for the
societies they're
leaving because of
remittances going back,
and the societies they're
going to because of what they
contribute to those societies.
None of our societies
in the rich countries
would be anything
like what they are.
Indeed, I argue that
all great civilizations
have depended on massive
inflows of immigrants.
So migrants are
exceptional people.
And migration shaped our world
and will define our future
in the way that it manifests.
And this is a previous book.
And what the "Very
Short Introduction"
does, which is partly
why I was able to do it,
is it draws on all my books
on globalization, migration,
financial flows,
and other things.
The work forces of the
world change dramatically,
and Africa becomes, by far,
the most significant source
of labor.
And a key question
for Africa is, can it
fulfill this potential?
That's both about
education, which there's
a very positive story to be
told, illiteracy declining,
but it's also about
the fact that it's
54 different
fragmented countries,
and so its political
future is important.
When one looks at the economic
prospects of countries,
the startling thing
is how important
development has become.
Developing countries, what
we used to call developing
countries-- and that term
itself is subject to revision--
and I have a little
graph or table
in the book which shows how
these terms keep changing,
as they rightly should.
But what some call
emerging markets
now account for 2/3
of global growth.
Without them, we would
be in a much worse state
in the UK or the US.
They are lifting global growth.
They are the engine
of global growth.
They're also the
stabilizers of global growth
because there are many
more growth engines.
In other words, when the US gets
a cold, the rest of the world
no longer gets a fever because
of China, because of India,
because of other countries.
So we should thank them for
their development's success.
And our development now
depends more and more
on their development, which
is a great irony of history.
Many countries that we think
of as developing countries
will overtake us in
per capita terms.
Many countries become
richer than the UK.
And of course, when you
compound these growth rates,
you have to divide
the total income
growth by the population,
which is why China goes
above $30,000 per capita and
India doesn't go above $10,000,
and Africa above $5,000.
But this is very sensitive
to what assumptions one makes
not only on economic growth,
but on population growth.
How these population dynamics
transfer into income levels
matches desperately, and
in the key uncertainties
of some very big
countries in Africa
where you see this
difference in per
capita and in average
income levels.
Now, this also,
of course, doesn't
talk about the inequalities
that are behind it.
And that goes back
to this question of,
we move towards a world in
where the only countries that
are, on average, desperately
poor are the countries that
are failed states, in some
respects, or in conflict.
And then within the
middle income countries,
how does one tackle these
distributional questions?
The middle class,
defined as $10 per day,
explodes around the
world in its size.
4.9 billion middle
class consumers by 2030.
These are the people buying
your products and going online.
And in this, the center of
gravity is firmly towards Asia.
Now, a key question is
this adding-up question.
This is another book I've done.
Is there enough for everyone
in the world to develop?
What about the
resource constraints?
Is the planet full?
Our planet.
And here I'll come back
to a few observations,
but I think we have
to say it depends.
It depends partly on what
happens with technology,
but it also depends on
behavior in the rich countries,
as well as in the
developing countries.
New York State consumes
more antibiotics
than the whole of
sub-Saharan Africa.
New York State
consumes more energy
than the whole of
sub-Saharan Africa.
So it's all about numbers.
It's about consumption
patterns and behavior
that really determines
one's outlook as how are we
going to manage
resources going forward?
Now, you know more
than most about
revolutionary technologies.
And I hope one thing you've
learned is that you cannot
predict the future unless you're
even smarter than all the great
minds that have
ever tried before.
But we know that there are some
predictables, like Moore's Law.
In the Oxford
Martin school, which
I was the director of for 10
years, we have over 50 people
working on aspects of this.
We think it's going to continue
for about the next 20 years.
So we have 100,000 to a
million times the power.
And so, revolutionary
technologies like
nanomedicine-- this
is from my nano lab--
or stem cell-- this is from our
stem cell lab that we created.
This is a hard cell--
or genetic manipulation
become a real possibility.
And the key question,
I think, for all of us
is, how will these technologies
play through the world?
And will they widen inequalities
or narrow inequalities?
Will these extraordinary
technologies,
like gene therapy, the
back mouse, a wild mouse,
the front mouse, a modified
mouse going for 10 times
the time, will these
technologies increase them?
Will only the rich have them?
Will they only be available
in rich countries?
These are key questions
because these technologies
are advancing at
superexponential speed.
And so, one of the key questions
for developing countries
is to understand
what's going on.
And have they got
the capabilities
of using them to address
development questions?
Now, I'm very concerned about
this because I think in the UK,
for example, we don't
really understand.
The government isn't really on
top of technological change.
Or in the US, for that matter.
So how do we expect a
poor African country
to be on top of it?
Risk is a whole other question.
Risk is very asymmetric.
Remember that risk
disproportionately
impacts on poor people
and poor countries.
Rich people can buy themselves
out of trouble, largely.
We see the rapid
growth in the US,
in cities like Phoenix
and Las Vegas--
which is quite an interesting
story, seeing they're
both in the middle
of the desert.
Just pipe deeper from
longer, turn the aircon on,
and survive in the desert.
No problem.
In fact, not survive, thrive.
These are rapidly
growing cities.
The same option is
obviously not open to people
living in the [INAUDIBLE].
So this disproportionate
impact leads
to a greater need for anyone
that cares about development
to manage risk.
Climate change,
pandemics, everything.
Financial crises, impact on
the poor and poor countries
much more than the
impact on the rich.
And that's one of the great
challenges going forward,
is how to manage
risk, and to ensure
that we mitigate the risks that
come out of interconnectivity.
These are not new, but their
pace and scale is different.
The swine flu that
starts in Mexico City
is in 130 countries in 30 days.
That's new.
And so, the preparedness
of countries
to this we've modeled and shown
replicates airline traffic.
And preparing countries for
the cyber vulnerabilities.
Can hackers close
down a country?
Or malicious governments,
or other forces,
destroy their systems, their
financial systems and others?
And how do we help them
become resilient to that?
Because these are very,
very big challenges.
As the cyber becomes the new
nervous system of the world,
and as we move into
the Internet of Things,
this becomes more important.
Another great
challenge of the future
is how do we think about
technology and jobs going
forward?
Now, you might be
familiar with the work
that I developed with
colleagues in Oxford, which
suggests that about
47% of US jobs
are vulnerable to machine
intelligence and AI
over the next 20 to 30 years.
About 40% of European jobs.
And the proportions
are much higher
for developing countries.
Why is this?
Because we believe
that anything that's
repetitive and rules-based
that doesn't require dexterity
or empathy is likely
to be disintermediated
by AI over the coming decades.
So if you take away the middle
rungs of the development
ladder, those middle rungs
which are repetitive tasks,
be they in manufacturing,
or be they in call centers
or back offices, and
replace them with AI,
what is the development
model for countries?
What are we going to
be replacing this with?
And how can these people escape
poverty in that world of AI?
Will they have the skills?
Can we just say they'll all
become creative and do things
that machines cannot do?
And if we, at the
same time, close
in the migration gates to them,
do we have a new challenge?
And of course,
this is coinciding
with many other things
like 3D printing.
This is footage I filmed at
SpaceX, titanium printing.
So reshoring of production.
Of course, the politics of
nationalism and xenophobia
feeding into this
is very, very scary.
So as we think about
this relationship,
this interconnectivity
is very, very important.
So, too, are these
issues of the commons.
Nature has no price.
We know that no matter how
much the rhino horn is worth,
they won't reproduce more.
And that's true of
all natural systems.
And they become increasingly
important for developing
countries who depend on
these natural resources.
Of course, governments sharing
these resources aren't good.
This is the Aral Sea.
And so climate,
change really matters.
And it particularly matters
to poor people in poor places.
And that's why stopping
climate change,
or slowing its rate of increase,
is dramatically important.
And we might enjoy the fact that
we've had the hottest May bank
holiday on record in the UK.
But this is extremely worrying,
for developing countries,
particularly.
We have to come up
with a model that
allows people to climb
the development curve
and have energy forms
which are different.
And we have to appreciate
the vulnerabilities,
particularly in
agriculture, but not only.
The most rapidly growing
cities in developing countries
are seafront cities.
That's where 80% of the
growth of dynamism is,
on these coastal cities.
So climate change
dramatically affects crops.
Now, the global
governance system
is totally unfit for
21st century purpose--
rearranging the furniture.
And countries are
like individual cabins
on an ocean liner with
no captain on the deck.
Like so many aspects
of development,
this is an unintended
negative of a very good thing.
We can celebrate the
fact that the world
is no longer run by 12 white
men smoking cigars in a room.
In the latest climate
change negotiations,
there were 35,000
participants, and the process
was run by a woman,
Laurence Tubiana.
So that's wonderful.
At the same time, in
this time of handover,
this lack of leadership.
So what international
information systems do
is important.
The best institutions
in the best places,
the best expert
systems, notably those
in finance and our central
banks' treasuries, IMF
and others, have proved
themselves totally incapable.
And so, when we
see this rejection
of experts and authority, we
need to understand it's real.
Us experts-- I'm
talking about myself--
have let the system down by
allowing a financial crisis
to happen, which
has particularly
affected poor people
and vulnerable people.
Life expectancy and other
attributes of development
are not improving in many parts
of the advanced economies,
let alone in the poor countries.
So these distribution questions
are more and more important.
However, the idea that
you can withdraw from this
is profoundly misguided.
There is no wall
high enough that
will keep out climate change, a
pandemic, a cyberattack, or any
of the real threats
to our futures.
But what these high
walls do keep out
is the technologies, the ideas,
the people, the products,
the services that we need
to navigate and thrive
in the future.
And of course, what these
high walls mostly keep out
is our ability to cooperate,
which is absolutely central.
So I prefer the concept of
entanglement to globalization.
We're in an entangled world.
We're in a world
in which everything
that we do matters
for others, and what
they do matters for us.
And that's why
development, in the end,
is about being more connected,
but not being more vulnerable.
In feeling an empathy with
people around the world.
And of course, your technologies
allow us to do that,
to share an experience with
people around the world
in a way which was just
unimaginable in the past.
But whether that leads
to a new learning
of our interconnectedness
and helps
us to understand that,
actually, we are the development
agencies, development
is not about someone
else somewhere else.
Development's about us.
It's what we do every minute of
our lives, the choices we make,
the things that we
consume, the way we
develop products and services.
And a consciousness that it's
these kids in the end that
will be as entwined with
our future as our neighbors
next door.
So this is an
ambitious little book.
It tries to do
the past, present,
and future of globalization
in 40,000 words.
I hope you find it
really-- if there's
any word in it you don't
understand, send me an email
or connect me on
Twitter, because it's
designed for non-specialists.
But if you find
it is dumbed down,
then also send me
a message and say I
haven't challenged you enough.
Because it wants to strike that
balance between inviting people
into the conversation,
but also giving them
a sense of the challenges.
And that's what, if it does,
I'll be happy to have achieved.
Thank you.
SPEAKER: We've got time
for a few questions.
So, everyone, put
your hands up and I'll
come to you with the mic.
And I'll kick us off if you want
to think of something to ask.
So I was just
thinking, you alluded
to education and the
importance of education.
And I was just
thinking about how
you've got world leaders
who reject experts.
You've got world leaders
who don't seem to have
a good grasp on human history.
What impact does that have?
And more importantly,
what should leaders know?
What understanding
should they have
of what's gone before them?
And how does that
trickle down when
you're looking at educating
the future generations?
IAN GOLDIN: Yeah.
The only leader that I've been
bowled over by in my life,
and I've met many leaders,
was Nelson Mandela.
And it was because
what he had above all
was an ability to listen and
to learn and to be curious.
No leader, no matter how
powerful or intelligent
or whatever, could possibly
be on top of everything that's
going on in the world
and possibly understand
what they need to know.
And it's that ability to
ask the right questions
and listen, but also
change your mind.
You know, Nelson
Mandela had basically
become, by the time he'd
come out of prison, a pretty
heavy socialist.
The prevailing
position of his party
was nationalization of
the minds, of the banks,
and a whole lot of policies
which not only did he not
see through, but he abandoned
pretty quickly on coming out,
because he was able to
interrogate the facts,
and learn, and change his
mind, and not at all be ashamed
that changing our
mind is somehow
a sign of weakness, which
our leaders seem to think.
You know, they basically want
to be know-alls in a world
where know-all is impossible.
The other thing is, of course,
to be slightly more humble.
There's no leader, no country,
be it the US or China,
that can shape their
future anymore.
And that's because we're
in an entangled world.
What happens in other
places is as likely
to shape the futures
of its citizens as--
and that attribution
problem, the ability
to stand up and
say, vote for me.
Not that I will
guarantee you a job or I
will guarantee your future,
because that's definitely
a lie, but vote for
me because I will
do my best to work
with others to do
that is a more honest thing.
We seem to not have
that capability.
There's huge nationalism.
And I think what's
so interesting to me
about Macron is not only
that he used new technology
in the same way that
the extreme right
wing and extreme left wing did
to disintermediate authority
in traditional
political parties,
but he did it in a
pro-globalization, pro-Europe
ticket, which is, in
France, not the most
popular winning strategy.
I don't think his opinion
pollsters would have told him,
be pro-globalization.
That's the way to become
a French president.
But he did it because of the
strength of his conviction.
And he took 70% of the
French population with him.
So that ability to
lead because you
are able to make a convincing
argument around the case
is something our
leaders don't seem
to be able to have in a positive
way and an optimistic way.
AUDIENCE: Hi, Ian.
Thanks so much.
Really, really interesting.
I'll definitely get
hold of the book.
IAN GOLDIN: You can get
it by Google, thankfully.
AUDIENCE: Oh, done.
I have two young children.
And I'm sometimes-- you
know, the future worries me.
It looks a bit pessimistic,
bit gloomy, that type of view.
What would be your advice
for me as a parent in terms
of how I may help them take
ownership of their own futures
and their own
careers and things?
IAN GOLDIN: Well, I discuss
this a little bit in this book,
but I also discuss it
explicitly in "Age of Discovery"
in the concluding chapter,
this sort of advice
for different groups.
My own sense is
what we all need,
but particularly young people.
Remember, their
life expectancy is
supposed to be over
100 in a world that's
changing more rapidly.
So we cannot possibly predict
what they are going to be
encountering in the future,
what skills they'll need,
or anything like that.
I think what you need to be
able to do is have a curiosity.
Have an interest in learning
and relearning, taking off
on new ideas.
An openness to people
and different diversity
in all its forms,
and a flexibility
to change your mind,
and to feel welcoming
of new ideas and people.
And a resilience as
well, because there are
going to be tough times ahead.
There's a lot of systemic
risk in the system.
And that psychological ability
to bounce back and have
an inner core which
sustains you, I think,
will be important for people.
And that's based on things like
values, on a common humanity,
on ethical
principles, on family,
on principles like that which
are very difficult to teach.
As a professor at
Oxford, I often
get asked the question
by aspiring parents.
Not so much the kids,
but their parents.
Should my kid do maths or
should they do humanities
for the future, or whatever?
What subject is future-proof?
And my view on that
is that there's
no subject that's future-proof.
Computers are pretty
good at maths,
but you need maths
to program them.
So for the time being, maths
is a good subject, or computer
science.
But I'm not sure we'll
be in a machine learning
world in 20 years' time.
But what we really
need as well is ethic
and humanities, understanding
of history, et cetera.
And that's what "Age of
Discovery" tries to convey.
If you had asked Da
Vinci that question,
he would've looked at
you in total amazement.
I mean, he wouldn't understand
what the concept was,
what discipline was he.
Or Adam Smith for that matter,
or any of these people.
This idea of [INAUDIBLE]
is a new idea,
and it's increasingly fragmented
and is a dangerous idea.
Now, you have to be
expert in one subject.
And specialization is
growing, so you have
to focus more on one subject.
And I don't believe
that we can we just
be master of everything.
At the same time, it
requires an understanding
that that silo that you're
in, you need a T-shape.
You need to be able to spread
and understand different ideas
if you want to
survive in the future.
And so both are necessary.
And you might need to create
a different vertical over time
as the needed verticals change.
But the horizontal
will not change.
That'll be your stabilizer.
AUDIENCE: I was just
wondering if you've
looked at where
the dollar stops,
and kind of general
well-being kicks in.
Or is that a luxury that's just
afforded to the UK or the US?
IAN GOLDIN: No.
Well, you know, until
about $20,000 per capita,
or maybe less depending on
the site, $15,000 per capita,
you're in a world where you
need more money in order
to be able to basically
have enough food,
to pay for health and education.
But over that, the
improvements are not great.
There's a big issue
about debt, which
is why the rich countries
have to keep growing.
Because they've got so much
debt, they have to repay it.
The big issue is
on distribution.
If 1% of the population is
capturing 80% of the wealth--
you know, the number of
people in the world that
could fit on a double-decker
bus have half the wealth
of the world.
They have over 3
billion people's wealth.
That matters in terms
of whether you think
how much money do you need?
So these average
per capita numbers
don't mean very much
to someone who's
poor in the middle
of the UK or the US,
and desperately in debt,
and about to be evicted
from their house because
they can't pay the rent
and they don't have a job.
Tell them that they don't
need more jobs in the country.
So distribution really matters.
But I do believe
that we should see,
as a medium-term goal, basically
well-being, sustainability,
and other things.
We don't need to be, on
average, wealthier in the UK,
for example, or in the US.
The problem is distribution.
And it's also, of course,
the consumption bundle.
The US is already, and the
UK, consuming too much, much
too much carbon fuel, much
too much other non-sustainable
products.
So we have to change our
mix in the process, as well.
Well-being is an
important concept.
I mean, economists
are very crude.
They always fall back
on income, and that's
because there's no other
broadly comparable measure.
And well-being concepts
are particularly slippery.
So you can ask people,
how do you feel?
That's a typical
well-being/happiness index.
Very weird results you get.
You can look at other measures
like suicide, depression,
alcoholism as indicators of
how happy societies are or not,
or groups within society.
But then you also do
get cultural differences
that shape that.
So I think we need to move to
much broader sustainability,
well-being types of
dashboards for our society
where we talk about
all the things
that we want to achieve
and achieve them.
SPEAKER: Thank you very much.
That is out of time.
Thank you [INAUDIBLE]
IAN GOLDIN: Yeah.
Thank you for the opportunity.
[LAUGHS]
