Discussing health care and development with Australian senators and MPs. Grateful for the strong bipartisan support for #Gavi

Celebrating Australia's role with Mr Peter Khalil MP, Dr Andrew Leigh MP, Senator Louise Pratt, Ms Nola Marino MP, Ms Sharon Claydon MP, Ms Madeleine King MP, and Senator Claire Moore

Despite a global push to increase vaccination rates around the world, the World Health Organisation says an estimated 19 million children are still missing out on basic vaccines.

About half of those children live in developing countries.

One organisation working towards countering those statistics is the Gavi Vaccine Alliance, a public-private global health partnership.

Since it was established 17 years ago, Gavi claims to have saved nine million lives by providing affordable vaccines to more than 640 million children around the world.

Listen to interview http://radio.abc.net.au/programitem/pg4G0dkYdG?play=true

At the 2017 Harold Mitchell Oration

With Harold Mitchell AC: Founder of the Harold Mitchell Foundation, Professor Brian Schmidt: Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University, Stephanie Copus-Campbell: Executive Director of the Oil Search Foundation, and Professor Helen Sullivan: Director of the Crawford School of Public Policy.

Watch live stream here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjzKEzEiK9k

Honored to have given the annual Australian National University 2017 Harold Mitchell Oration.

We need multilateralism to help solve the 21st-century development challenges. But multilateral institutions need to be made fit for purpose.

LONDON (Reuters) – The GAVI global vaccine alliance has earmarked $85 million to help support the introduction of typhoid vaccines in poor countries where millions of children are at risk of the often deadly disease.

The funds, agreed by GAVI at a meeting on Thursday, will go towards bulk-buying of new typhoid vaccines including one developed by privately-held Bharat Biotech, the alliance said in a statement.

Typhoid shots from five other drugmakers are also under development and expected to be available between 2018 and 2022. GAVI said it expects the first countries to apply for the vaccine next year, with the aim of starting to roll it out in 2019 for children over the age of 6 months.

GAVI, which is backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Health Organization, the World Bank, UNICEF, donor governments and others, funds bulk-buy vaccination programmes for poorer nations that can’t afford shots at developed-economy prices.

Typhoid is a serious fever caused by consuming contaminated food or water. It affects between 12 and 20 million people worldwide in regions where water quality and sanitation are low, particularly in south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

Around 1 in 100 cases is deadly, and about 3 percent of those infected become chronic carriers of the disease. Global health experts say it killed more than 128,000 people in 2016.

“This vaccine will be a lifesaver for millions of children, especially those living without access to clean water or sanitation,” said the chair of GAVI’s board, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

While typhoid is a bacterial disease that can be treated with antibiotics, access to antibiotics in poorer regions is sometimes limited, and the typhoid bug’s resistance to them is on the rise.

GAVI’s chief executive Seth Berkley said the growing spread of drug resistant strains of typhoid posed a major threat, to which a vaccine could offer an important defence.

“Strong (vaccine) coverage through routine immunisation together with efforts to improve access to clean water and hygiene will play a key role in dramatically reducing the disease,” he said.

Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Peter Graff

CAPTION: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Chair-Elect of GAVI and former finance minister of Nigeria, takes part in a panel during the Clinton Global Initiative's annual meeting in New York, September 27, 2015. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

Exciting time in Laos.

Gavi the organization is awarded a medal of Development first class for contributions to the Health sector and development in Laos.

I was honored to be given the National Award of Labor for contributions to Laos development by decree of H.E President Bounyang Vorachit. The medal was awarded by H.E. Mr. Somdy Douangdy, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance on November 28, 2017 in Vientiane, Laos. #vaccinesrock

In the field in Laos with @Gavi and the Gavi board. Joining a vaccination, maternal and child health campaign in the village of Nasala with H.E Prof Bounkong Syhavong, Minister of Health and ministry officials.

An Abuja industrial Court has removed Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the former minister of finance, as a defendant in the lawsuit filed by Yushau Shuaib to challenge his early retirement by the federal government four years ago.

In a ruling dated October 14, 2014, Justice O. A. Shogbola, had struck out the name of Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala from the suit filed by Yushau Shuaib against the Federal Government and Dr Okonjo-Iweala.

In a document exclusively retrieved by NewsBreakers, the judge stated that Dr Okonjo-Iweala, who was then Nigeria’s Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, was not liable for the retirement the complainant.

This ruling, therefore, invalidates a recent media report that Okonjo-Iweala is still a party to the suit. The report also added the judge presiding over the case would deliver judgment on November 22, 2017.

More on https://newsbreakers.ng/exclusive-okonjo-iweala-not-party-shuaibs-lawsuit-court-rules/

What are African lives worth?

Africans auctioned as slaves in Libya. Dozens of Nigerian girls dead in the Mediterranean. Terrible signals to our young people!

The World and Africans must sit up!

We welcome the International Finance Corporation's (IFC) new Climate Report - Creating Markets

With DG European Commission, Stefano Manservisi, and DG Policy and Global Issues German Ministry of Economic Cooperation, Ingrid-Gabriella Hoven, at Cop 23 Bonn launching the Insuresilience Global Partnership workshop to support insurance and other financial innovations to manage climate risk.

Through the African Union's African Risk Capacity organization, Africa is a leader in using innovative market-based instruments to manage climate risk.

The ARC helps African countries improve their capacities to better plan, prepare, and respond to extreme weather events and natural disasters through an insurance mechanism thereby protecting their vulnerable populations from the worst consequences of such disasters.

Thanks to Germany, UK, Sweden, France, Switzerland, Canada, USA, WFP and the Rockefeller Foundation for their partnership and support of ARC.

Happy to be part of the launch of Stanford University's new multidisciplinary Center on Global Poverty and Development.

Congratulations to University President, Prof Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Director of the Center, Prof Grant Miller.

Spoke on "Enabling Development: When can Technology be Effective?"

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala's Thoughts on Breast Cancer Awareness

At the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings with MD Christine Lagarde, Prof Rose-Ackerman of Yale, and Secretary Laura Alonzo of Argentina with Sean Hagan General Counsel IMF discussing avenues to fight corruption, including what the IMF and other international financial institutions can do.

IFIs can help build and strengthen anti-corruption institutions. They can support civil society, strengthen data analytics and the use of technology, and partner with socially responsible private sector #BTeam, and with open government approaches #OGP to deliver on the anti-corruption fight.

Honored to be named an Open Government Partnership (OGP) Ambassador. Congrats to fellow Ambassadors Alicia Barcena, Helen Clark and Helle Thorning-Schmidt.

One way to build trust between citizens and governments is to promote greater transparency in government finances and more citizen access.

Let's support the OGP movement.

http://www.newsbreakers.ng/open-government-partnership-names-okonjo-iweala-three-others-ambassadors/

Breast Cancer Awareness

Okonjo-Iweala's thoughts on Breast Cancer Awareness

At Khazanah Megatrends, kudos to Oxford University Oxford Martin School.

Excellent presentation and discussion by Dr Carl Benedikt Frey on the future of work.

How much of our work and our professions will be taken over by machines in the next decade? What does this mean for developing countries? What do we need to do to prepare our youth? What skills must we focus on? How will Africa cope in the face of deindustrialization? Can the continent recalibrate?

Khazanah Megatrends getting strong intellects together.

With Khazanah CEO Tan Sri Dato Azman and Prof Jomo Kwame Sundaram discussing Malaysia post-Financial Crisis and post the Great Recession.

Malaysia is focusing on the Knowledge Economy, on Artificial Intelligence AI and Robotics as a way to escape the upper-middle-income trap and make it to the rank of developed countries within the decade.

Talking AI and skills for the future for Malaysia and ASEAN at Khazanah Megatrends with Prof Mari Pangestu and Armida Alisjahbana former ministers of Trade and Planning of Indonesia and Datuk Yvonne Chia Chair of Stanchart Malaysia.

President Kagame took out time from his busy UNGA schedule to discuss the ongoing African Union reforms, which he leads, at the Africa Growth Initiative of the Brookings Institution in Washington DC.

The conversation was with Brahima Coulibaly, Director AGI, and a large audience.

The AU wants to become more efficient and effective and financially independent with limited, if any reliance, on donors. It aims to empower women and youth to be better integrated into the dialogue on the Continent's challenges and opportunities. The AU wants to open up borders to facilitate trade and freer movement of goods and services on the continent.

Rwanda serves as an example it can be done! All Africans can now travel to Rwanda and obtain visa on arrival. Rwanda's population is 52% female but its parliament is 64% female and its cabinet 40%.

Can the AU take the best practice from several of its countries trying to reform and move the Continent in the right direction?

http://www.newsbreakers.ng/okonjo-iweala-charges-africa-leaders-reforms/

Did you know that land use is the only sector that can currently remove carbon from the atmosphere on a large scale?

Land use reforms have the potential to deliver 30% of the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions needed by 2030.

A study by the New Climate Economy group found that if just 12% of the world's degraded lands were restored to production, we could feed another 200 million people and farmers' incomes would be raised by $40 billion a year!

These were the issues we discussed at the Food and Land Use Coalition meeting at UNGA, with Paul Polman of Unilever, Sara Menker of GRO, Vidar Helgesen of Norway, and great moderation by Zeinab Badawi of the BBC.

To fight climate change, removing bad incentives is just as vital as rolling out good policies

By Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

The world has already embarked upon its journey towards a zero-carbon, climate-resilient future. But how quickly we get there depends on the strength of the headwind. Despite the political will behind this global transition to a low-carbon economy – evident again at both the G7 and G20 summits this year – it is, in part, competing policies of these same governments that are creating some of the headwinds. In other words, governments are often unknowingly implementing policies either not aligned with or, at worst, working against their broader climate agenda, making it harder to create truly sustainable economies.

Before counter-intuitive policies can be turned around, or at the very least neutralised, governments need to ask the right questions as they formulate policies:

● Do specific policies clash with other policy objectives?
● Are different levels of government working well together or getting in each other’s way?
● Are governments providing the right incentives for the private sector to engage?

The questions are simple, but the answers are not. Unlike business, where the bottom line is usually king, governments have many criteria by which to measure success. Adding climate into the mix may add a layer of complexity, but also adds to the ways in which policies can help achieve a grand vision. For instance, policies that encourage compact cities can deliver a range of social and economic benefits, including greener spaces, cleaner air, less congestion and improved efficiency in delivering basic water and energy services. But if this is not well aligned with other policies, unintended consequences may follow.

Competing government subsidies for fossil fuel and renewable energy production are a prime example of a counter-intuitive policy getting in the way of governments’ climate objectives. G20 countries have pledged to get rid of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, yet the world still spent approximately US$325 billion on fossil fuel subsidies in 2015, according to data from the International Energy Agency and OECD. Not only does subsidising fossil fuel incentivise air pollution and contribute to climate change, incurring yet more costs for society, it also works against the US$150 billion we spend subsidising renewable energy.

Another counter-intuitive policy that many countries offer is a tax incentive for company cars. Most advanced economies tax the use of company cars for personal purposes more favourably than they do wage income, with only Canada and Norway approaching equal treatment. This creates an incentive for employees to drive longer distances, including for personal use, than they might otherwise. The environmental and social costs of what superficially seems like a niche policy are estimated to add up to US$137 billion in OECD countries.

From left, China's representative on climate change Xie Zhenhua, Canadian environment minister Catherine McKenna and European Union commissioner for climate change and energy Miguel Arias Canete speak to the press after a ministerial meeting on September 16 in Montreal to push forward on implementing the Paris climate accord even without the United States.

Addressing these sorts of misalignments will require getting government departments to talk to and coordinate with one another. More than 190 countries announced national climate pledges in the run-up to the Paris climate change agreement. Integrating these pledges into economic and development strategies and across sectoral development and investment plans will be key. The New Climate Economy, a project of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, is working with countries from Uganda and Ethiopia in Africa, to Indonesia and Colombia to help achieve this transformation.

One particularly ripe area to begin such coordination lies between transport and land use departments. Singapore’s Land Transport Authority, for example, merged four different government agencies and removed administrative boundaries to ensure policy coherence in the planning, operation, and maintenance of transport infrastructure. As a result, Singapore is now simultaneously working towards its climate goals while providing better transportation. By 2030, it plans for 80 percent of households to be within a 10-minute walk of a train station, and 75 percent of all journeys in peak hours to be by public transit.

While it has yet to be addressed in such a comprehensive basis, parking in the United States is another area that is increasingly recognised as a challenge that is ripe for action. There are four parking spaces per vehicle in the US. According to the Canada-based Victoria Transport Policy Institute, the cost of land, construction, maintenance, and operations comes to US$600 per parking space, per year. Parking fees do not reflect the true cost of parking. If Americans paid for the parking they consume, they’d drive 500 billion fewer miles each year, saving around US$30 billion on gas. This would also lead to clear benefits in terms of reduced congestion, fewer accidents, and better air quality.
China, already on the cusp of implementing the world’s largest emissions trading scheme, is planning to phase out of petrol and diesel cars and is aiming for 5 million electric cars on the road by 2020.

As a former finance minister, I know only too well how policy decisions rest on the information in hand and often need to be taken without the luxury of time to conduct a major analysis. In practice, good policymaking usually depends on systematic reviews that identify and realign policies that run counter to broader goals. The process may be complex but the mindset is simple: ensure coherence and consistency of policies so that governments can deliver on all those goals that make up the promise of the Paris agreement.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is a former finance minister of Nigeria and a member of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate

Discussing the fight against corruption at UNGA Week, at a B Team and Transparency International sponsored event, with Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of International Trade Union Congress; Jose Ugaz, Chair Transparency International; Pavlo Petrenko, Minister of Justice Ukraine; Mariam Yunusa, Young African Leader, Mo Ibrahim fellow and Economist African Development Bank; Geoff Healy of BHP Billinton.

The keynotes were delivered by the Minister of Planning Ghana, HE Prof George Gyan-Baffour, Paul Polman CEO Unilever and Bob Collymore CEO Safaricom.

The UN General Assembly Week provides the opportunity to discuss challenges and progress on the important sustainable development goals.

At the Concordia Summit, the private sector led B Team, in partnership with Transparency International and the Open Government Partnership, held a dialogue on transparency and progress on fighting corruption. All agreed that the SDGs cannot be achieved without real progress on fighting corruption and improving transparency of both business and government.

See the attached link to follow the session.

https://www.facebook.com/TheBTeamHQ/posts/1499147810172448

Interesting blog from Philanthropist-Investor Richard C. Blum and writer Thomas C. Hayes who watched "Beasts of No Nation" last week based on Uzodinma Iweala's book of the same name.

http://www.accidentofgeography.com/film-glorious-national-parks-horrific-child-soldiers/

I listened to a truly powerful, constructive, and hard-hitting bipartisan panel of Condeleeza Rice, Susan Rice, Stephen Hadley and Tom Donilon - ably moderated by Nicholas Burns - tackle the issue of American leadership.

They talked about how to bring America back together domestically so that it can be strong internally and externally to continue to lead and champion global collective action or multilateralism.

Well done to the Aspen Strategy Group and Aspen Institute.

Wonderful to speak at the Aspen Institute about how technology - from biometrics to drones, to life-saving vaccines supported by Gavi, to geospatial data - is enabling development and development-spurring technology.

Honored also to accept the 2017 Aspen Institute Madeleine Albright award.

My attention has been drawn to a spurious and nefarious story circulating on the internet. The story makes false claims of utterances against President Buhari.

I had earlier debunked the same fake news on Jan 5, 2017, but it is obviously in some people's interest to see this falsehood circulate again.

Please see https://www.facebook.com/NgoziOkonjoIweala/posts/1360512913998969.

Kindly ignore this. These junk news outlets are hereby warned to cease and desist.

Acting on the climate remains firmly on the global agenda. It remained a top priority for all but one of the G20 leaders who gathered in Germany this month. That is because it is increasingly clear that strong action is in the economic self-interest of countries at all stages of development.

Climate investment opportunities in emerging markets could be as much as $23tn by 2030. National governments, states, cities and businesses are all seeing the opportunities of climate action, from employment to investment and from smarter growth to a cleaner, healthier future for all.

Take jobs, where climate action could generate a veritable bounty of clean energy employment. Globally, 62 per cent of renewable energy jobs are already in Asia, with 3.6m jobs in China alone, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency. China expects to create 13m jobs in the renewable energy sector over the next four years.

Across the African continent, forays into the clean energy industry have been promising, with renewables already providing 62,000 jobs and much potential ahead.

Algeria, for example, created 3,500 jobs in the construction of 14 grid-connected solar PV projects in 2015, with 700 permanent jobs expected in operation and management.

Kenya is building Africa’s largest wind farm at Lake Turkana, planned to be fully operational later this year. Its construction has created more than 2,000 local jobs since October 2014.

Overall investment in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly for clean energy, represents a $783bn opportunity.

We are also particularly well placed to take advantage of cheap and plentiful resources from the sun and wind. The potential for renewables in sub-Saharan Africa stands at about 1,100 gigawatts of solar capacity, 350 gigawatts of hydropower and 109 gigawatts of wind.

This would be more than enough to meet future demand. Meanwhile, the cost of utility-scale solar in Africa fell 50 per cent from 2010 to 2014 and continues to fall.

Further upstream, African countries could also capitalise on opportunities to get more involved in the production of low-carbon technology. Rather than importing solar panels and wind turbines from elsewhere, Africa can establish itself as a green manufacturing giant.

We shouldn’t let people just sell us items that we are well positioned to produce ourselves. Instead, we can lead in developing and producing the clean energy solutions we need.

African cities can leapfrog the urban development challenges that other fast moving economies have faced. The population of Lagos, for instance, is set to reach 25m people by 2030. The city’s traffic congestion is already notorious, costing commuters 3bn hours a year from 2007 to 2009 and — in one memorable case — costing a man his marriage.

But recent investment in bus-oriented transport infrastructure, with dedicated lanes for environmentally friendly mass-transit vehicles, has improved the situation considerably and at a fraction of what it has cost elsewhere. Getting our cities right and, in some cases, building them right in the first place will not only deliver economic benefits but will help us avoid the costs of sprawl, traffic congestion and debilitating air pollution that plague residents of Beijing or Delhi.

Rural economies matter just as much as our urban opportunities. And here too, positive actions are yielding solid results. Farmers in Niger, for example, using new agroforestry techniques benefited from increased grain production as well as increased gross annual income, going up by $1,000 per household for more than 1m households.

Local communities in northern Ethiopia organised themselves to control livestock grazing and wood cutting on degraded plateaux and mountain slopes, allowing vegetation to regenerate naturally and making the region greener than it has been for well over a century.

Large-scale initiatives are also delivering. AFR100, for instance, was launched in 2015 to bring 100m hectares of deforested and degraded landscapes across Africa into restoration by 2030. Within a year, 21 countries have signed on to committing 63.5m ha into restoration and more than $1bn in development finance and $545m in private investment have been secured.

There should be no doubt — in developing countries the world over and especially in Africa — that the new climate economy of the future will bring benefits ranging from jobs in clean energy to improved air quality and more productive land. Staying the course will put us at the forefront of this green economic revolution. That’s a good place to be.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is co-chair of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate and chair of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization. She was previously finance minister of Nigeria and managing director of the World Bank.

https://www.ft.com/content/48e7ca40-712e-11e7-aca6-c6bd07df1a3c

Nigerian’s former Minister of Finance & Coordinator of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has been re-appointed as the Chair of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Gavi is a global health initiative of billionaire, Bill & Melinda Gates, set up with the aim of saving children’s lives and protecting people’s health by increasing equitable use of vaccines in third worlds and developing countries.

In a development monitored on the institution’s website, Nigeria’s Okonjo-Iweala was re-appointed for another 3-year term. An official statement from Gavi reads: http://www.newsbreakers.ng/breaking-news-okonjo-iweala-re-appointed-chair-of-gavi/