Davos 2020 through my SDG Intent Experience

Davos 2020 through my SDG Intent Experience

Last week at Davos, I was invited into a community of people who are imagining a world of possibility, a world where culture is a bridge to science, art and the economy, where dehumanizing inequality can be intentionally eradicated, where business is conducted with sustainability and trust as core principles, where natural capital matters, where access for all is at the heart of health innovation and where feeding humanity and preserving biodiversity are one in the same.  This was the experience I had last week taking part in the InTent Sustainable Development Goals (SGD) Tent events. In this temporary structure, our interconnectedness touched the fragility of our individual lives in ways that our collective dreams became fuel of a future of collective impact. I had the opportunity to be with others without striving for perfection but together, our collective intelligence created a sense of belonging that allowed our collective strengths to shine brighter than our weaknesses. We could touch our fears and anxiety while leaning into our dreams for nature and people. This open space, outside of the Davos Forum security zone, created a space for a wider community to meet, beyond the badge holders attending the official Forum events.

This sense of belonging to an intentional community focused on ways business can be a Force for Good, working with academia, government and civil society. We discussed ways to scale the Sustainable Development Goals by catalyzing innovations for a more inclusive, caring future for planet and people.

There was a time in my life, when this sense of belonging was the farthest thing from my mind. I was 22 years old, when the Genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda happened, this was 26 years ago. It was the rainy season in Rwanda. In Eastern Canada where I lived, the small town where McGill’s Faculty of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences is nestled between the Sainte Laurence River on one side and on the other side by the university’s beautiful arboretum, was going through a beautiful spring. I was living in a house full of students also pursuing their dreams. I was writing a master’s thesis. My thesis involved studying the mystery of how DNA encodes information that allows plants to fight off viral infections. I found myself in the unusual situation that spring and summer of working on my master’s thesis while wondering if I would ever see my family again back home in Rwanda. A heart wrenching testimony of a missionary based in Rwanda featured on the cover of TIME magazine cover of 16 May 1994 during that time read as follows : “There are no devils left in Hell, they are all in Rwanda.”

I witnessed the tragic events of my motherland afar. For over a quarter century since, I have obsessively reflected on the power of humanity to do evil as well as to do great. In this regard I feel highly inspired when I hear the story, the former head of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency International in Rwanda. In 1994, he was the only American who chose to remain in the country after the genocide began. When the Interahamwe came round with machetes, ready to kill everyone at the Gisimba orphanage, the sight of Mr Wilkens stopped them in their tracks. "Carl Wilkens used his walkie-talkie to call the UN and the interim government, and just because the American was there, they decided to leave, not to kill us at that moment," says Jean-Francois Gisimba. Mr Wilkens' intervention eventually led to members of the regular army taking the people to safety in a Catholic church in the centre of Kigali. As a result, more than 400 lives were saved https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-12978946.

As a scientist, I have also asked myself, how can what I do be a force for good. As artificial intelligence permeates all we do I reflect on Martin Luther King Jr.’s words: “Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”

As a mother, I ask myself, what legacy I want to leave my daughter and the generations that will come after her. I remember Wangari Maathai’s retelling of a hummingbird carrying one drop at a time to try to extinguish a forest fire while all the other bigger animals mocked her. I want to be like the hummingbird. I want to do the best I can. But something important was missing. What I dared not hope for, was finding and belonging to a community willing to do the same or better.

As I walked off the train on January 20, 2020 at Dorf Platzt in Davos, with my grey backpack, my sturdy blue rollaway suitcase and a brown handbag that can fit more than my osteopath would recommend but was light on that particular day, I was entering a new world. I navigated streets towards my hotel guided by my phone's GPS. Others like me were going about their way, juggling suitcases and carry-ons. Another crowd was navigating the streets with skies walking reminding us that Davos is a winter resort destination. Cars passed by slowly. Everyone was mindful not to knock someone else over. I had left one kind of cold behind, by a not yet frozen river in Canada for the cool Alpine surroundings of Davos.  What I didn’t know yet was how changed I would be by the encounters I made. The theme for the 50th edition of the World Economic Forum in Davos was “Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World”.

For as long as I can remember, I have dreamt of a world where each child is loved, well-nourished and given the opportunity to thrive physically, mentally and psychologically. I have dreamt of a world where exposure to the Arts and Science is available to all children despite socio-economic backgrounds, where their talents are strengthened to meet the strengths of the world. What I had not prepared for was meeting others striving to build the same dreams while holding different pieces of a collective vision that years ago would have seemed impossible to me.

According to J.K. Rowling: “We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.”

What I encountered on the side-lines of the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos - in the SDG Tent, was a community of people willing to think critically about hard complex problems. None of us singlehandedly have a readymade solution but collectively we can connect with the urgency of limiting global temperature rising above 1.5 degrees. We can work towards entering a decade where transformative change for a cohesive and sustainable world is a must. We all came ready to make new connections, renew old ones, and expand our circles of influence and action in ways that make all stakeholders matter, large and small. The SDG Tent brought business, government, academia, civil society to build bridges between islands of knowledge, of power, of marginalization, of diversity of thought to strive towards a common goal. Whether I was sitting in the audience, taking part in a panel discussion or sitting at a round table, every opportunity was given to give voice and listen to rich and divergent ideas.

In my current work with Global Open Data in Agriculture and Nutrition and as a professor of Practice at McGill University in public private partnerships for international development my aim is to bring opportunity where information asymmetry has disenfranchised many. A century’s long education gap separates wealthy areas in the world with the best access with the lowest income countries. While some countries are struggling to achieve the education level that was achieved in some industrialized countries in the early twentieth century, another hundred-year gap is felt globally related to gender pay. Why do both these factors matter as we face climate change? Half of the world’s work force will be African by 2035. Africa’s population is set to reach 2.6 billion by 2050. How the continent grows its economy and protects its biodiversity and carbon sinks will be critical to either adding to the global carbon footprint or moving us to carbon neutrality. Empowering girls through education in Africa “could result in 1.8 billion people less than the U.N. median variant suggests by 2100” diminishing pressure on the planet’s resources and significantly reducing carbon emissions. According to McKinsey Institute (2015), 700 billion dollars could be added to Sub Saharan Africa’s GDP by 2025 if gender parity could be reached in financial access alone. Africa has 60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land and 26% of global plant biodiversity. African women represent the highest share of agricultural work force compared in comparison to other continents. It is also important to note that small holder farmers produce 80% of the food grown on the continent. How we will feed the continent in ways that regenerate soil or deplete nutrients will affect global food security and nutrition. This in turn will make certain areas more vulnerable to climate change, to conflict and to massive movement to populations toward cities or unsafe migration. In order to build African economies in the 21st century where sustainable livelihoods, food security and healthy environments are possible, the continent urgently needs a development path that embraces the 4th Industrial Revolution while avoiding the ecological negative footprint that previous industrial revolutions have brought. Embracing pathways towards circular economies and cradle-to-cradle industrial processes could actually make Africa’s ecological footprint positive for the planet. My experience is that of an African woman in the diaspora. Different perspectives from all over the world are needed to understand local and global contexts to ensure how we innovate to thrive interdependently is embedded in indigenous cultures that can drive long term sustainability. How we reconcile giving voice to all stakeholders will be critical to moving towards a cohesive and sustainable world.

The takeaway I got from my week in Davos in the SDG Tent is that we can:

·        Create space where diverse stakeholders meet and are all given a seat at the table without any form of exclusion  to ensure sustainable finance doesn’t leave anyone behind

·        Have respectful, courageous and uncomfortable conversations can ensure we take the needed blinders off to care for nature and people.

·        Suspend judgement and bring our strengths to the table with curiosity for what others bring so all forms of capital including natural capital drive decision making.

What this created for me was a sense of belonging to a purposeful diverse group in a temporary space of sharing that allowed all of us to go back home hopeful and more connected to collectively co-create a future of greater impact. As I journeyed home, I felt less alone, less daunted by the ambitious goals I hold to contribute to Sustainable Development. I look forward to harnessing my new connections and deepening the older ones in ways that contribute to a future that truly embodies a cohesive and sustainable world. I also want to belong to a global community giving every ounce of intelligence and care to meeting the urgency of this defining moment in humanity’s history where climate change, conflict and the accelerated pace of advancement of the 4th industrial revolution could leave so many behind or create momentum towards 2030 to bend the curve on biodiversity loss and nurture natural resources.

Being part of this open community on the sidelines of such a powerful and exclusive event as the 50th WEF Annual Meeting in Davos, created a space for all from the margins to the center of power to meet and lean collectively together. How we engage in all forms of capital, how the trillions that have been promised translate into creating value for people and planet matters. This space engaged and stretched us to rethink and re-imagine our capacity to innovate, to open to art and science as we co-create an emerging future where each voice urgently matters. New metrics, social, business and technological innovations were presented to accompany sustainable growth.  We can all contribute to a global wholeness; the planet is eager for us to steward. Collectively, if we each do the best we can, while cultivating our interconnectedness with nature and people, we can make this decade deliver on all the SDGs!

I am immensely thankful to all who contributed to making InTent 2020 https://intent-sdg.org/ such a memorable experience.