since 2000 we've been working in all of our subsequent agreement to reform the isps process by raising standards, tightening them up, adding a whole series of procedural safeguards and then closing loopholes where we found them. one of those issues is when you mentioned in tpp, it makes clear the fact that you cannot sue on the basis of disappointed expectations in regard to profits. in itself that alone is not a basis for a suit. that's when two dozen reforms in the agreement that help make sure that ifcs is being used the way it was intended to be used for, which is when the government comes in but is not being used in ways it was not intended for. >> yes, back there. yes. >> thank you.

mr. ambassador, in the run up to the recent u.s. china strategic and economic dialogue, there were a lot of press reports of the several issues that would be on the table. one of those included the ongoing solar panel dispute and resulting poly silicone tariffs from china. however in the fact sheets that came out, there's emphasis on steel and some of the other issues. but i saw no mention of the solar issue. i was just wondering if you could give us a status report on where that stands. thank you. >> we did discuss it while i was there. we've continued to discuss the issue. it's a long standing outstanding dispute. it's something we would like to try to find a way of settling and our discussions will continue. and i'll see him in shanghai in a couple of weeks. >> a question over here in the back and then we'll take the one

in the front. >> hi. ken biddler. this week president obama is going for the summit. canada has not taken a position on the tpp. it's the only of 12 countries to have not stated whether it intends to ratify or not. do you think it would be helpful for canada to join with mexico and the united states to make a strong statement about the tpp? would that help with the ratification process here in the united states and secondly, do you think that's likely? >> well tpp was negotiated under the previous administration in canada. and when the trudeau administration came in, they made clear that he wanted to go through a robust consultation process around the country, different sectors and different parts of the country to make sure they had the input of a wide range of stakeholders

before moving forward with tpp. and that's the process they're undergoing. we respect that decision. we respect that process. and i don't think it has significant impacts here in the yees on congress's consideration of tpp. >> okay. right here. >> i'm looking at this from a different perspective. my name is martin apple. i'm a scientist from a representationing a large number of scientists. when we look at these kinds of things, we would say at some point if you've got a whole bunch of people who agree on something and who doesn't and you were to make a decision that the whole bunch of people who agree could go ahead and do something and the one who doesn't would have a choice of either joining at the stage they are or pulling out and see if they can negotiate a better deal by themselves. would that be a feasible option? >> are you referring to the wto? >> tpp. >> and canada?

>> no. ours. the agriculture. >> i see. so tpp the intent is for all 12 country to join together. we have procedures that are negotiated for that. if at the end of the day not all -- and all of the tpp countries are in the process of going through their respective domestic approval processes. some are further along in terms of ratifying it. all of them are engaged in the process now. if all 12 countries are not ready to approve it, there are provisions for a subset of the countries, six countries representing 85% of the gdp represented by the tpp country to go ahead and bring it into force. that effectively means that u.s. and japan need to be part of the group that brings it into force but we don't have to wait for all of the countries. some of them are going more slowly.

>> good morning. i'm paul appleguard. come back to china and you mentioned in your opening remarks the challenges that it faces. i think actually the first speaker this morning didn't accept the changes as inevitable. when i look at what's going on, the tightening of the domestic and what's going on in the south china sea, those look like changes in tone and they don't look like positive changes in tone. have you seen the same kind of thing happening in your negotiation with chinese around trade or not or have those continued pretty much the way they were prior, in the last couple of years. >> i think we see a set of mixed data points. on the positive side, as bill is asking, i think they're quite sirius about bilateral investment treaty process. i think there's a lot of senior level attention being paid to it

to bring different parts of their government and committee in to try and chart a path forward there and they seem to generally want to use it as a way of helping to drive reform in parts of their economy. whether or not we get to that necessary high standards remains to be seen but i do think they're serious about putting effort into that process. at the same time you go back and look at the statements coming out a few years ago, very forward leaning about reform. you look at the statements about soe reforms a few years ago and it's been less certain the degree to which those have been followed up on and implemented. the record is rather mixed and that affects the trade negotiations as well. >> hello, am bbassadoambassador.

continuing on the subject of china, i was out there at the same time as you, involved in some of the track two discussions and i once conducted the political part of the political and economic dialogue. to me, at least in the securities sphere, and probably economic, it seems going forward -- in the next decades. i'm not talking about just tomorrow. that the more we can work with china to accomplish global objectives the more likely we're to be successful. an the converse of that proposition is that if we're in serious disagreement of particular questions, then it's going to be hard to get things done on a global scale. i'm thinking of the wonderful exam. of the climate agreement that we reached bilaterally and then accomplished in paris. do you believe in adopting an

inclusive approach to china in thinking about the future of the global economic system? and then how do the things that you've been working on in the past few years, if you agree with that proposition, advance us towards that goal >> that's a very good question. the answer is yes and i think as the second largest economy in the world and by some measure the first largest trading economy in the world, china has a significant national interest in the health and strength of the global trading system. and we need them to take on responsibilities commence rate with their role in the global economy. that was one of the driving forces between the g-20. certainly one of the driving forces of our efforts within the wto and other trade negotiation to engage with china and urge

them to play a leadership role in some of these areas. take the information technology agreement negotiation. it was stuck for a long time. we reached a bilateral deal with china. it took perhaps longer than it should have to reach the deal. but once that was done, we were able to bring the other parties along and reach an agreement. we're trying to do the same thing now in terms of engagement with the chinese on the environment disagreement. we have countries representing 90% of the goods market ready to move ahead with an agreement to eliminate tariffs on a whole bunch of goods, good for the economy and the environment. no country would benefit more than china as a country that desperately needs the disburgs to deal with its environmental challenges. we're urging china to come to the table and be an active party to lead the negotiation to conclusion. so the last one, wto, we're

always encouraging them. and they played an important role at niairobi along with a handful of other country to help guide that process. fund given the political realities of the election, if the tpp could be all of nothing in the lame duck session, are you going to wait for them rather than try to get politicians to commit themselves before the election? >> we're working day in and day

out. with the leadership, the committees, individual member to lay the foundation. obviously it's a challenging political agreement. trade agreements are always hard, they're always close. and if this environment is of course presents its own unique challenges. we're working on the hill with individual members and feel very good about those conversations, that the necessary support will be there whenever the leadership determines that the appropriate window is open. >> let's give mike a big hand for the work he's doing. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you, ambassador. thank you bill. two straight shooters,

refreshing. happen my now that we're moving into our segment of the program on global challenges and solutions which features folks who are real movers and shakers in the world of sustainable development. we're happy to have helene gayle, eric postel and craig steffensen. the segment is moderated by scott mayor ris who has been a committee member since he left his days at treasury and now a senior fellow at the center for global development. also director of the rethinking u.s. development policy initiative that seek to broaden the u.s.'s approach to development. and he works on the remgs between the ifis and the united states. with that, scott, i'll leave it to you.

>> well, thank you randy. let me start with format. we're going to be having a conversation here, not formal remarks from the podium. i want to briefly introduce what is an intel lent panel. i'm pleased and looking forward to hearing their insights on the broad topic of global development. i'm going to try my best to do a few minutes of framing the issues before i turn to them for some questions and then turn to you all for some questions. so let me start to my left.

eric postel, associate administrator for the united states agency for international development confirmed by the u.s. senate in 2011. and prior to his service as a senior official in this administration, really a distinguished career in the private sector and really doing development finance from the private side in a way that really speak to how i think a.i.d. is changing its approach cost as development policy. dr. helene gayle, newly coe of mckinsey social initiative. looking guard to hearing about

that. and comes from mckinsey, a leading humanitarian organization, before that leadership positions at the cdc, bill and linda gates foundation. and finally craig steffensen who has the challenging task of representing the asian development bank here in washington. both the united states and canada but you know from where i sit with the u.s. focus, a lot on his plate in the engagement with the u.s. government, particularly at a time -- we'll talk more about this. but at a time when the development bank and the asian development bank in particular of change, of a shifting landscape of new actors. and craig is really central in the u.s. engagement in all of

that. prior to that position really an impressive career at the bank, including leading engagements in areas challenging themselves as afghanistan and recently the banks engagement with myanmar, really an interesting case. so those are impressive speakers and really impressive both not only if in their own backgrounds but the diversity they represent in this development enterprise. i hope we can explore more of that. let me just try to, in two minutes, try to lay out what i see as big issues in the development landscape and hope to get your reaction as a first question on this set of issues. and i do want the say, because this is bretton woods, that it's important and perhaps this sounds a little defensive but we're saying the imf, not the

world bank this morning. but it's important to recognize that development was a core mandate at bretton woods. and it's been a consistent element over seven decades now. so you know, entirely fitting that we're here talking about the development agenda among other issues today. let me start by trying to create a little bit of a laundry list. and i've organized these issues in three areas. from a policy perspective, we've had really a landmark set of new commitments in the last few years, well, specifically last year with the sustainable development goals and the major commitments reflected there. in the same year you have major commitments around climate. and very much an understanding

in the international community that these issues are linked and have to be approached jointly. at the same time, you had a commitment, as i've alluded to launch a new multilateral development bank. and while it is regional in nature it has a global membership and that is very meaningful, members from latin america, europe, africa. notably not a member in the form of the united states. we see new risks and new challenges in the development landscape. very visibly the refugee crisis associated with syria. we've had pandemic threats in the last few years that have caused us to think hard about policy responses and impact on development. we certainly see economic head wind, we've had a lot of that conversation this morning, even what it means for developing

countries, whether low-income countries or emerging market. there are threats going forward. and associated, whether you want to interpret brexit from that side of things, what it will do for the developing world, for remittances that are a hugely important part of development finance for many of these countries. but also reflect in brexit a question about political retreat from globalization at a time when developing countries are perhaps benefitting more than ever from integration. and then finally not to be entirely negative, you know, really looking at new opportunities represented in the global landscape today when it comes to development progress. and here i think well known to

the development community, but the nature of finance today where you have really tremendous sources of private finance flowing to the developing world and really within the developing world, including on the public side. you know, the size of domestic resource mobilization today come paired to what it has been historically. all of these things point to real progress but also raise questions about what the law of foreign assistance is going forward. remarkable success in poverty reduction. what we've heard as sort of a, you know, what continued to be an anchor for institutions like the world bank. also the reality that we have made tremendous progress and what does that look like going forward. and finally thinking about the role f

adaptiadap adapting but also to look at are they adapting. our own development agency has been very actively reforms itself in recent years. we're seeing anytime the mmb community both at the world bank across the street, in institutions like the asian development bank, the creation of new institutions and then finally i think outside of this official sector really seeing very interesting new models that speak to exploit the capital, the expertise, resources, other private sector. but they do so under a not for profit mod. i think we're hear more about that as well. that's my two minutes or so on a tour of the global landscape. let me turn with the basic

question for our panelists. you can either approach independent as an optimist, a pessimist or maybe a problem solver. but what do you see as the sthau is too much overlooked or most con kwenl going forward when it comes to global development today. what should we be thinking about as major opportunity, major challenge. let me start with you, eric and we'll go down the row. >> thanks, scott. good morning, everyone. as he said, there's a lot of, there's a lot of change going on around the world and a lot of opportunity. and some people think about the ftg as as a file on the mtgs and sometimes they are. but it's not business as usual. as you said yourself, there are new things, new challenges and

obviously climate change, that's one of them. but one that's a challenge involves what we call drg, democracy rights of governance. you see closing spaces in countries where they're shutting down, you're seeing restrictions of freedom and openness. and that sounds sort of in the weeds but we've seen where these things can lead to conflict. and the conflict then leads to big big problems that even hit the macro scene with the migration as one of the most traumatic examples. don't need to talk about the implications of that given the last few days. drg is one of the drivers of these problems and an area that is very difficult for anybody to challenge or solve but nonetheless extremely important

for everybody to work on together. >> yeah. and thanks for that kind of framing of all of the issues. you know, i think first and foremost what the ftgs have done for the global community i think is tremendous but it does give us a framework. and as you said, it's more than just an add-on to the development goals. it's a new pair dooim. and even the way they were created, was a different dialogue. first and foremost continuing to say that's our framework and our guidance over our blue prints, what we think about as we tackle the challenges of the world going forward. and i guess to your point of being optimist/pessimist, i go back and ford. i think there's an incredible

amount to be optimist about. we've decreased poverty, disease rates are going down, education rates are going up, et cetera, is incredibly hopeful. but there are some things, embedded and then some are not clearly called out. the issue of income and equality, now more poor people live in middle income properties. but t i think that is going to continue to define our world for the foreseeable future. and if we don't think about that we're going to continue to have the consequences that we're feeling in terms of the conflict that arises. i think the other one, and you touched on it, is the whole issue of migration and migratory populations. this is only going to get bigger, more complicated and i

think we haven't thought enough about the solutions to the reality. we all want -- we all wish migration, refugee crisis et cetera would go away and that we could solve them. the reality is we're going to have a larger portion of our population who will not be in their home country. we're going to have to think about jobs, education, what does that mean to really think about adapting the way we do business for people who are displaced from their home countries. the only other one i would just say that i think is both a reason for optimism but also one for caution and that's the issue of gender equity. that's called out in the ftgs. i think it is one of the most hopeful opportunities that we have for making a difference in the world. if we just do the things that it takes to make sure that we have gender equity in our world across the board, whether it's

workplace, whether it's in policies, leadership positions, what have you, we could dramatically change the outcomes. so you know, i think that that's incredibly optimistic. in a very simple solution we could have a huge impact. the difficult part is that we know that we have been talking about how to we change the sta value of girls and women around our world and we know we are still having a difficult time doing that. so a lot of optimism around it. on the other hand, we still have a ways to go. >> thanks, scott. the list of development priorities that the multilateral development banks, adb included is long. for example, the way we see the world today, there's a need to create jobs for the increasing number of young people.

the development community, the banks included, are going to have to focus on helping out with job creation and improved workplace conditions by supporting education and skills development for youth, particularly young women and to help promote core labor standards. on top of this, there's a need, as was always stated, to enhance gender equity under our development projects and in the communities we serve, the private sector suzuki s an area that requires strengthening on our part, on everyone's part, especially to develop new and innovative financing in support of the activities we found and to come up with new technologies for doing so. adb -- i'll limit my remarks near adb. we need to come up with -- with ways to improve our project implementation and dispersement so we can deliver projects and outcomes faster.

i think particularly with the rise of the asian infrastructure and investment bank and the new development bank it's a more competitive market than it used to be and i know how much adb's president, my former boss, is -- just how much emphasis he puts on project delivery in time frames that are -- one responsible but two sort of respond to the political imperatives of doing things quickly. along the same line i think the banks need to come up with an improved pooipline project. in asia there's a shortage of bankable projects and development which directly affect the mdbs ability to address other development needs. the limited flow of bankable projects represents a major obstacle to public/private partnerships which everyone is

promoting now days, particularly in infrastructure development. this is an urgent need that is to come up with a pipeline of bankable projects. i could go on. there's the whole issue of aging populations and demographic change, the needs for improved pension and poverty, professref the zika virus, global pandemics, work -- trying to deal with all of them at the same time is not easy but i think that -- i think we're doing the best we can and i think we've got a pretty good history of responding to these challenges in a way that make sen sense. >> so i want to stick with the sdgs for a minute and eric a question to you. you know, i sit at the center of

global development, a bunch of development experts, far more expert, frankly, than i see myself on these issues but they bring a critical eye to this exercise from a number of standpoints but one thing that's striking about it as a listen to them and read myself is this is a complex agenda and if you compare it to the millennium development goals which in a way more reflected a traditional approach and thinking about development and particularly the role of foreign assistance. so you think about usaid's role, the role of the u.s. government more broadly, much of the mdgs were about how do we allocate our funds directly to support maternal health, et cetera. the sdgs are casting a wider and more complicated net. so i wonder if you could tell us a little bit about whether you want to hook it directly to the sdgs, but how is the -- how is

usaid as an institution thinking about itself these days that is different from a very traditional role of foreign assistant provider from your leadership perspective for five years now. how do you think about meeting a set of goals. it's about your partnerships and relationships. could you elaborate on that a little bit [. >> i'll say a couple things. i would say the sdgs were not an action-forcing event for us in terms of the changes that we've been going through because our changes have predated the sdgs but the sdgs reflect several different things and the most

succinct way i could describe it is that basically we're the minority partner now in the development exercise and i would argue though some might disagree that actually all the official development agencies are the minority partner and this -- you can see this just in the numbers, in the flow of funds, in the fact that ngos and others are providing just as much money or more. gates foundation is, what, about -- greater than the french official development if i remember the ranking. you have private sector investment in countries that 30 years ago when i went to business school they never would have dreamed of thinking about and now they all are. you have remittances and other things so the fundamental driver, i think, for a lot of thinks was the fact that we're the minority partner, which leads you to a really different mind-set. it's partly about partnerships.

it's partly about innovation. you know, back when usaid was formed and, you know, there were very few courses on development around this country, now the course at berkeley that has the highest single attendance is the development course. 900 kids a semester taking that course. and you have kids in high school and college setting up their own ngos and traveling around the world and now days everyone from many top business schools all spend time in developing countries. so -- and you have huge amounts of innovation. the development breakthroughs are not necessarily coming out of development agency or their partners. we did our grand challenge on ebola to deal with the fact that that suit that everyone uses was so hot in west africa the resulting design that will

enable people to work longer staying in the suit included a baltimore dress seamstress, a new york city fashion designer and dupont. i mean, that is an amazing collection of people and that's now going into production for use in these hot climates. so every -- when you start thinking through the implications, also, obviously, vis-a-vis our relationship with the private sector is hugely transformed when you think of yourself more as a -- the minority partner in the exercise. so that's part of all the changes. to me on the sdg side, you know, there is a lot of traditional development in there. goals or new jersey or health, all of those are in sectors where the mdbs have been working for decades.

but there's a wider number and then the final few sdgs talk heavily in the idea of partnership and good governance and things like that so you have that expansion. so they -- in some ways i think it will be business as usual and in other ways it will profoundly not be business as usual. >> so helene, you emphasized the issue of migration and doing the challenge of displace some in the category of not business as usual, let me ask you a little bit more about that. so it does seem -- you've had this very visible tragic situation playing out in our newspapers and there's always a silver lining of something like that as it brings more attention to an issue that didn't occur overnight and, in fact, displacement has been with us in many parts of the world for a

long time and i think with more attention being paid now we're starting to understand better nature of displacement, that it's not strictly or simply a short-term crisis, that it's long term in nature for many populations and countries hosting them. so i wonder if -- you know, you've been a leader in the humanitarian sector. you have a new venture that has more of a development focus to it. can you speak to that nexus of thinking about issues that on the one hand are humanitarian crises but really have longer term development implications and how we should be thinking differently about our approaches, whether it is specifically displaced populations or other types of disruption from conflicts crisis. >> thanks. eric kind of touched on it in

some of his earlier comments but i think those of us who are working in this space between humanitarian and development realize that more and more that needs to be thought of as a continuum and it used to be an organization like cair, that used to be primarily humanitarian in crisis is now as focused on its development mandate that grew out of the fact that when you think of the populations we work with, whether it's cair or some of the work we're doing now, those same populations are also very likely to have crisis situation from time to time. and so the development -- if you're committed to a community then you need to be committed to them whether it is in a crisis stage or it's in the long-term stage. it's also important to realize that if we could put more into

preparedness and prevention that a lot of those crises will have a lesser impact. so as an example, when i was at cair and we were working on issues related to food insecurity, particularly during crises we were able to show that food security from a development standpoint were the same countries who rebounded more rapidly when there was food -- immediate food crisis from drought, famine or human conflict. so we know that, we know if we look at the work in climate change and looking at helping populations adapt to the impact of climate change, if you can shift people's livelihoods so that they're more suited to

intermittent climate occurrences like drought or flooding that you can in fact make those populations more sustainable. we have one that people often remember this little vignette we were working in bangladesh, for instance, where cyclones have become much more frequent as a result of climate change and we work with populations to shift their income generation, income generating work and one simple one was taking people who use chickens as their economic engine, growing chickens, selling egg, et cetera, and shifted to ducks because chickens will drown but ducks float. so a simple thing like moving from chickens to duck where there were frequent cyclones and flooding meant you had people

whose hole income streams weren't wiped out every time there was this sort of crisis situation so i think those simple ways of learning how to adapt will mean when crises do occur people are much more likely to withstand them. and, again, that's where the continuum between development and humanitarian response is so important to keep in mind. >> i guess sometimes innovation is recognizing what mother nature has already done for us. >> exactly. >> maybe if i can stick with you, could you tell us more about this new venture and what it represents in terms of a new model and approach to thinking about particularly the nonprofit role in development? >> so mckinzie, tsyey ckinsy do social impact work for clients but looking at a philanthropic way.

how could they use their assets to make broader kripgss to society and perhaps have greater focused impact. and with the real sense that today's solutions are no longer primarily going to be in one sector or the other. just as you talked about, the development agencies now becoming a minority partner we recognize development funding is different. who the actors are are very different and a firm that is firmly rooted with very strong ties to the private sector, very strong ties to public sector and also the not-for-profit sector could bring together solutions that were perhaps different than the traditional solutions where we had those kind of stove pipe approaches to solving problems. and so the mckinsey social initiatives is how you bring these trisector collaboratives

together to develop different kinds of solutions to problems. you mentioned the issue of youth and youth unemployment. one of the first programs we launched is a program on youth employment. it's now in five different countries, the u.s., mexico, spain, india and kenya and really looking at the reality that there are so many young people who want to be employed but don't have the skills. a lot of employers who say that they can't find enough skilled entry-level workers, matching those together, giving young people the skills but also working on the employer side so we've reached out the the private sector so we have employers working with civil society organizations that do training for young people and working with the public sector that often sets some of the policies around where the areas are that are most important for their locality for young people

and jobs and we've launched this program, we now have trained and placed over 10,000 young people and we expect to be to 30,000 and hopefully 100,000 over the next couple of years, finding high return on investment, employers are now willing to actually pay for those programs and really bri bringing together these sectors we're at least putting a dent in one of the big global problems of youth employment, a problem we know is going to continue to increase. >> i know you have a fan in eric in this program. >> well usaid is a funder of the program so we're pleased to have the partnership of usaid. >> basically, they use the skill set of mckinsey in those relationships to understand what is the situation and they basically scoured the planet for

where are models where this could new york a very cost-effective way at scale and in my view usaid's historical approach to doing this stuff has had many successes but the cost per student was too high and it wasn't replicable and it wasn't leading in all cases to this direct connection to jobs so i feel like this is a huge effort at scale that if it succeeds we will want to take all those learnings and imbue that into everything that we're doing and that's why we're supporting this and following it closely. >> and just one other thing, sorry, i'll let you go on but, you know, i think the role of technology has also been huge in the ability to replicate and scale and we haven't talked about the role technology can play in development but i think it's -- back to being optimistic, it's one of the

things that makes me very optimistic when we see the technology advancements that are helping leapfrog development and it has helped to scale this program very rapidly. >> go ahead, greg. i'm going to you next but on a different topic. >> i was going to say one thing that the sdgs make clear is that the finance requirements are huge and no one organization is going to meet them and it's imperative therefore that we cooperate with one another, i think that the initiatives and -- that helene and eric have just described are really exciting. i've got on the know them in the past few years since returning to washington but i hate to use a surfing analogy but we've seen a lot of w.a.v.e.aves in my liv come and go but this is a good wave coming up and i'm pushing

adb hard to ride it. i think we're still looking at it and asking ourself what is are we getting into here? because it's a sea change we're talking about in terms of the way that we could work and partners with whom we work and in the end whether ideas when it comes to meeting some of the development challenges that we're up against are as important, more important than the financing we're making available. >> so craig let me stick with your institution and more broadly the multilateral development bank, i think it's hard particularly in the midst of the brexit discussions, it's hard to remember back and think about how much of this sort of existential hand wringing was occurring around the creation of this new multilateral development bank well over a

year ago and the events that played out particularly here in washington and the u.s. reaction to the asian infrastructure investment bank but there really was a sense of almost crisis occurring, particularly in the united states in its approach to the mdbs. i think a lot of that has comed down. i think we're now moving forward with the more prosaic issues in beijing but nonetheless i think it's use to feel think about the aib through a development lens because we certainly -- during that period of drama, plenty of discussion around what it meant for the u.s. strategically, diplomatical diplomatically, those kinds of issues but if we bring it back to what these institutions do, the adb, the aib, the west bank he

-- world bank as development actors can you talk a little bit more particularly in the asian context about why the aib matters, what it was responding to, infrastructure is in the name, i think by all accounts for the next five to ten years it will be an structure development bank. what is that agenda all about? why does the aib matter? how is adb itself adapting to try to respond more effectively to what we would call the infrastructure imperative for development? >> sure. in a 2009 report, adb estimated the infrastructure needs of asia and the pacific totalled about $8.3 trillion. 8 trillion for domestic, 300 billion for regional infrastructure.

to sustain the current levels of growth and development that we're seeing. that works out to about $750 billion a year and if you look at what adb is providing to the region, it's a drop in the bucket compared to what's required. if you look at what is provided by for development internationally, regionally, locally by multilaterals, bilaterals, the civil society, by governments, by private investors globally it's still addressing about 16% of asia's infrastructure needs. that's just to give you some idea of the amount of resources that are required to address what we see across the region today, pollution, water pollution, air pollution, traffic, mass transit needs, hospitals, schools, and, you

know, i could just run down the list. so adb and the west bank and usaid and others, we're simply not providing the resources that -- and neither are governments or private investors to give what's required to make much of a dent. i think adb has gone so far as to call it an infrastructure crisis. aib is a welcome. their subscribed capital is $100 billion. their paid in capital over five years will be about $20 billion. adb's paid in capital is $7 billion so that is what is used to borrow on international markets, we leverage that assistance to provide support for our member countries.

so aib is going to make a dent in terms of what's going on out there and i think adb's hope is that we'll work closely with them in these formative stages. we signed an mou for a roadway project in pakistan last week, we'll be co-financing it with aib and difd and there are possibilities for more projects coming up this year. and at least initially i think we'll be co-financing a lot of projects together using adbs rules and regulations, safeguards, what have you and adb will assume major responsibility for implementing these projects. but at the same time, aib will be developing the capacity to identify and implement these projects on their own. at that stage i think tables may well turn. unless adb get ascapal increase, i think it's likely that aibs

financial wherewithal will exceed that of adb early on. but the concerns of last year about aib and what it meant for the region, i mean, adb provides $17 billion of our own funds and $10 billion more per year in financial assistance to the region. $27 billion total. i think there was -- and 80% of that amount is for infrastructure. and by that i mean transport, energy, irrigation, those sorts of investments. and so the asian infrastructure investment bank looked in many ways something like adb is doing but i can say having been in these meetings, especially since jin li tun, aib's president, my

former boss, he was vice president for five years, the aim of both institutions is to work closely together in parallel on things if not actual co-mingling of finances. and i think aib has every intention of living up to the safeguards which we all think are so important and i think they'll be a good partner in development assistance moving forward. >> so everything you say -- i want to pause. i wanted to do this earlier and i forgot to use the prerogative of the moderator to do a little advertising for my organization because the center for global development used the opportunity of all the attention at the time of the creation to stand up its own high level panel and the future of the multilateral development banks, that group has been working over the course of the past year and will be issuing a report with recommendations very soon in the months ahead so i encourage you

to look for that ch. we've brought together very good group of actors. so back to this question, everything you've described suggests that when you boil it down the aib is about bringing more capital to what everyone agrees is a pressing development need, and you know and to the degrees that we either worry or hope for a different kind of model from the chinese, maybe we won't see it here. they have a particular need in the near term to co-finance with adb, with world bank as a matter of basic capacity and they've committed themselves to a set of rules and standards that look a

lot like mdbs. so i wonder, and this is a question for all three of you. if we think about emerging powers in development sovereigns, country powers, the chinese in particular, are they representing a different model for development? you know, we've put a lot into this new institution and i think as time goes on we think it looks like the adb, there's not that much different here but beyond that one institution, how should we think about whether it's the chinese approach to development in the developing world outside of its own borders, does it cause us sitting here in washington to think differently about our own approaches institutionally as development actors, et cetera, or can we simply welcome the additional amount of capital that is flowing as a result of emerging markets themselves

becoming wealther. >> any one of you. >> i don't want to start each one. >> well, you're sitting in a development agency but i guess i would say i think overall it's a good thing, more money for development is a good thing. that said, you know, i think the more we're able to strengthen countries' capacity to really be at the core of making sure they are the leaders in how development funds are spent, i think it's less a matter of whether or not what china is doing is changing u.s. official development funds or not but more are we all strengthening the country's ability to influence how resources are used? and i think until that happens, you know, there will still be

kind of the chaos that exists. i also think we -- as we've said throughout more and more different kinds of actors are in there. i think the role of the private sector, i think the role of things like remittances. so you know there's so many different flows now that i don't think we can think about it as simplistically as we did before but at the core of it i think the more countries are strengthened to be able to really be in the lead the better all of this will be. >> it's the bretton woods annual meeting. i'll be remiss not to say that policies and institutions matter. and i think when it comes to infrastructure needs, finance is one thing but one only has to look at the experiences of japan and korea and taiwan and hong kong, singapore to see that they

had their policies and institutions right and frankly didn't require a whole lot of support from us to achieve the level of success they've realized today and if more countries across the region were to work on their legal and regulatory environments, their foreign investment codes, their judicial systems so that there's accountability and transparency and predictability to what's going on then they probably wouldn't be having some of the problems they're having today with foreign investors coming in and the fact that, you know, some public/private partnerships are not getting off the ground as quickly as they might. so that's the way i'd answer the question. finance is one thing. bankable projects is a whole different story. >> and i'd say that we are constantly looking at our model to figure out -- we're always on

the lookout for good ideas and it doesn't matter where they come from, it's not restricted to china. it can come from some startup in silicon valley or some local community in remote uganda or anywhere else. so we are constantly looking because the situation keeps changing and, you know, we have big, big goals to try to reach so we need every good idea from wherever it comes and i would simply say also that that's true for everyone including the chinese. we have a strategic dialogue, development dialogue with the chinese. my boss gail smith, the head of usaid was in beijing in the last month meeting with senior officials there, talking about con treat projects and talking about also general development architecture type issues and they immediate clear and described the ways in which they're evolving.

it's very early days for them, they don't have 50 year's worth of experience, they don't have staff who have worked in it for that long or the numbers of staff and so it's going to be a constant evolution whether with regards to the intersection of our work with china's but also our work with everybody else's. >> so let me ask one last question before i turn to the audience and frankly more plit political in nature and i want to note that eric you have a particular responsibility as an administration official here but frankly i think all of us on the stage are probably u.s. voters and taxpayers so we do have to think about this issue of how the electorate is feeling these days when it comes to questions of globalization but particularly the role that our

enterprise plays, of development. what is the receptivity in this area? nobody is going to campaign on this issue, of course. but elections will have consequences when it comes to pursuing the kinds of agendas that we want to pursue and specifically i guess the question is this, i would argue that when it comes to political support and on a bipartisan basis when we talked about foreign assistance historically, to the degree it could be characterized as a charitable function, that, you know, we are doing direct poverty alleviation, we are helping with disease rad situation, there's always been a core of support there in our electorate. it's becoming more of a challenge as we broaden the scope of activities and if you look at the sdgs, which is a

universal exercise, there's a lot on the list that the average taxpayer would say "i would like some of that for myself." do you see a challenge and how are we making the case for our taxpayers? i wonder if any of you have thoughts on are we seeing a rising tension? is this something that maybe development remains under the radar and it's something we have to confront? >> so, you know, it's a constant discussion that has gone on for decades with american taxpayers and there are some helps and flows to it as you suggest one pillar of the work of our agency has incredible support from around the united states because americans are very generous at

times of humanitarian crisis and there's widespread support. if anything, criticism of can't you go faster to help solve this humanitarian crisis or that. i think increasingly there is -- one thing has made it easier in terms of the discussion about the development parts of the enterprise because i think my personal opinion, you know, you could go back to the cold war days and reasonable people might justifiably say you know we don't really care about country x. it's not geo politically important to us, they are trapped in a terrible cycle of bad governance and terrible development indicators. it's in the middle of nowhere, it doesn't matter to us, it's not a priority because we do

want to do these things domestically that you mentioned so basically let's ignore it. as long as they vote with us in the u.n. when it's soviet union and the united states. i don't think as many americans have that same view these days. because they've seen what happens if you don't have a good global health systems architecture and someone comes down with ebola in remote west africa and 24 hours later they here in a dallas hospital, so i think more and more people are -- you know, the globalization discussion which has many, many facets but in the area of development, as i go around the united states, more and more people when you get into a discussion they realize there's basically no spot left on the planet where you can just let it fester. and if you're having the discussion about national security and terrorism it's the

same thing. we can't have these places that are just where things fester so i think from that point of view, new dialogues are possible and new understandings and you see a loot of bipartisan collaboration, i mean amidst everything else going on it would be completely understandable if the fog logue wasn't on people's radar screens but actually on a bipartisan basis congress passed a bill about power africa, there is one getting very close to passage involving feed the future and there are at least two others with people working across the aisle on bill which is the president has or probably will sign and that shows that people do see that we need to have development as one of those three ds that the bush administration described,

development, defense, i want issy -- diplomacy and we have 150 generals working who passionately feel that way. the conversation is never simple especially when you have such misinformation. the annual kaiser poll where they ask americans how much do you think you're spending on foreign assistance out of your tax dollar and the average respond is 20% when the reality that everything including consular affairs and all that is under 1%. we have to keep having the dialogue, but there are new ways to have the dialogue these days than in the past. >> that's great, that's encouraging to hear that. helene? >> yeah, again, this is one where i'm probably kind of bipolar. i'm sometimes optimistic and sometimes very pessimistic about it. adding to your kaiser poll data, not only do people think that we're spending 20%, 25% on

foreign aid, whatever "foreign aid" is which i think people don't really understand what that means and we're spending less than 1%, if you ask them what we should be spending they'll say 10%. i would love to have 10% to spend on development aid. my optimism is in seeing some of the things you talked about. a lot of the work that i've done over the years in global health, for instance, as you said people will give to global health, people believe it's wrong for people to die from malaria, from hiv, malnutrition, et cetera. that's very tangible, it's very concrete. if you ask people ant funding governance initiatives, you get into a different sort of dialogue. but, again when i was at care we used to have everyday our lobby to -- every year our lobby day

where we had volunteers and there would be people from across the united states, usually 45 to 50 states represented, anywhere from 500 to one year 2,000 people who came, paid their own way just so that they could come and be able to be a voice for these issues on capitol hill and you know to see this crowd of people who represent a broad swath of america, learning about these issues and feeling like they really want to make a difference in helping our elected officials understand why these issues matter to everyday people. you know, so i can come out of that hugely optimistic, on the other hand, you know there's a large swath of the public who feel very, very differently and that's come out in this election period in very strong and very

disturbing ways that in fact everybody doesn't understand our obligation, our commitment to the rest of the world and why it matters even for their own individual lives and i think we've got to do a better job of being able to paint the connections and help people to understand why it duds matter and why it isn't just charity but i think as you said, once you get beyond some of these very tangible things like education, health, et cetera, you have a much harder job and talk about governance and people think you're out planning coups in different countries. they don't get the more intangible or underlying cause issues that we deal with in development. >> i'm going to pause there because i've neglected the audience too long so let me go, we have time for a handful of questions, i think. . this young woman here, we'll start with her.

>> my name is homja i'm a ph.d. student at george mason university. my question goes to mr. steffanson. you talked about being an addition to the developments but we're seeing practices in parallel which is the chinese policy banks, especially export and import bank of china is actively funding infrastructure projects pall over the world and i don't know about the numbers but it might have surpassed many of the multilateral banks. so how do you see this practice is affecting the ecosystem of global development. what kind of impact does it have? thank you? >> why don't we pick up two more questions and maybe we'll have time for another round right here in front. just wait a second for the mic.

>> i'm from george mason university and formerly of adb. i have a question for craig. you mentioned a shortage of bankable projects so what is the adb's concept of a bankable project as compared to the aiib? is there a difference in how they view risk? and if you can't directly address that i'm wondering if you can be more explicit about what the criteria is of the adb for determining whether a project is bankable. >> so why don't you answer those questions and then we'll go to another round of questions. >> sure. i think you're referring to a recent article in the "financial times" that said that china xm and china development bank combined provide more resources for development and trade than

the multilateral development banks as we know them combined and i guess you want to know what i think of their role and whether or not it's a good thing? >>. [ inaudible question ] >> because how these developing countries when they pursue infrastructure, how do they approach these different entities? >> i think -- here i'm really reading between the lines, this is nothing my management nor aib has ever said. but i think my former boss, he has a pretty broad experience in world bank and adb and i think he was concerned about what china was doing in the name of

development given what we were all reading in the papers a few years ago. he was concerned about it because me thought china could do a better job and i think aib is funneling resources that would otherwise be made available by development by china through a multilateral development bank to ensure that these same investments are guided by the same safeguards related to the environment and procurement and resettlement and gender and community participation. the aspects of project development that the multilateral development banks believe are important. sacrosanct. and for china to develop the capacity to process projects the same way. even to exceed what we're doing, i think that's his hope and i think he also wanted to get

things done fast er i know he wanted to get things done faster than what we're currently doing, we take about two to three years to get a project to our board for consideration and another six or seven years to implement it and i think there are concerns around the world that that's not fast enough so he'll be at least for the foreseeable future working in tandem with adb and the world bank and other ifis, using our procurement rules and regulations and our implementation requirements and monitoring arrangements and aiib will develop the capacity to do what anyone's guess. they can improve upon what we set in place and maybe exceed

what we're doing but to get into the marketplace some level of competiti competition if you will. our resources are needed, sure but i think the borrowers are going to start judging us according to our ability to get things done in ways that are responsible and efficient. so i think the role of aib in response to your question has been positive to the environment and the infrastructure rell phenomenon that part of the world because it's introduced a new dynamic to what's being provided by. >> and the question of bankable projects? >> i thought i addressed that. it goes beyond economic ratesover return and doing things by the book but i think bankable refers to investment codes that are bankable. to bankruptcy and other forms of

investor protection. laws that people can rely upon, access to arbitration in the courts in ways that risk management committees in corporations and others that are thinking about investing in a place are okay with. everyone remembers the experience of '97 and more recently in 2008 when a lot of investors got burned and it's hard for them to carry the same projects to their boards today that they could then without lots of assurances and i think everyone has to up their game when it comes to the software-related issues to these projects before they're going to get approved. >> let's try to get -- we have time for another round so let's try to get three or four, start

here and move over here, so right up front. >> thank you for your presentation, i'm courtney vaughan. my question probably will expand on the two that were asked earlier in the context of risk. is there any concern for the type of infrastructure investment that china is making cross border in countries that are probably vulnerable? especially when one looks at critical infrastructure which normally countries like the united states do not allow foreign government to invest in, since it's not necessarily the chinese private sector that's investing in these infrastructures. that's one question. and the second question is on the bankable business plan. from the u.s. and a number of projects -- i'm an investment banker economist, wall street, world bank, i've looked at

projects that come out of african countries and i know usaid is there and you have brought in transaction advisors in recent years to help now it seems to me that there needs to be some education on the u.s. side as to what u.s. private sector companies look for, what incentivized them, that sort of thing? because we're looking at greenfield projects in most cases and often times even in the united states there's certain incentives of a government would actually provide to investors here, right? that one can consider cross border so other than the typical cross-border risk that one has to look at among other things, i think there's a ladge of education as to what u.s. investors are looking for and now taxation drives invest norse the u.s. >> i'm going to try very

quickly. we'll go to whitney and two more here and i'll ask the panelists to make their responses and concluding remarks. >> >> it may be the case that we have an interesting moment to reflect on setting up multilateral institutions because we have the aiib, we have the new development bank and the green climate fund. aiab, the initial concern was not enough focus on safeguards, the green climate funds seems to take the view that they have their own safeguards but they only work through implementing agencies and the world bank and asian development banks aren't good enough or have to be down twice or something which is going to lead to inefficiencies but that's a u.n. organization, it's not weighted voting and a paralyzed board and so forth. but what lessons can we learn from these three start-up

institutions as we think about the development process? >> and very quickly i'll ask both of you short questions right here. >> >> helene, i'm going to put you on the spot, i apologize, you're doing great work through mckinsey but i'm reading reports that mckinsey has been facilitating illicit or gray money outside from developing and developed countries into tax havens. is there conversation within mckinsey on consistency across its work in support of development? >> last question right here. >> i'll try not to ask a zinger like that. bob burke, world economy of art and science. what i'm concerned about is that our field of international development has has its fundamental rationale the

elimination of the worst forms of poverty and now the bank says that those under the poverty line are less than 10% and declining. so i'm wondering whether you see the need to bolster the rationale for development more towards the -- in the spirit of the sdgs of mutual interest of creating growth for our own markets and whether there's more to what's going on in your work that is of domestic benefit as you mentioned in the employment creation that could lead to a broader justification. >> one minute each to answer what you like, ignore what you like. we'll go down the row. >> so quickly on two of them. on power africa, the whole

concept of the transaction advisors, which is something i introduced as the five or six of us put this together was based on my citibank experience where i felt like we had people who get up every morning and go to sleep every night thinking about how do they get the deals done. that's a concept that applies when you're the minority partner, and of course the countries in some cases don't have the standards or the processes or laws or whatever it might be in some cases that facilitate the flow of private capital and that's part of what private sector was telling us they needed. yes, they want some risk mitigation and capital mitigate risk yes they want investment but they want the engagement of u.s. ambassadors and u.s. senior u.s. people as well as these people on the ground to work

with the governments to make the changes necessary so some modest portion of that huge wall of capital that's sitting out there at negative interest rates but is looking for a return. so agree and that's part of what the transaction advisors and different agency involved from the u.s. government side are about. then i would say to bop's question, i don't think the u.s. government has a policy per se about the point you raised. my personal opinion is that all the development agencies and banks aside from the humanitarian function ought to be working ourselves out of a job. so we ought to make progress on these extreme poverty sdg things and then at that point let the countries do it for themselves. that's why drm is so important and let us go out of business as we've done in dozens of countries already, graduation. >> on the question you raised

about mckinsey, first, mckinsey's social initiative is an ngo, not directly part of mckinsey so i may not have all of the information about it but i think you're talking about this investment group that is also somewhat a separate part from mckinsey itself. i think the article that came out in the "financial times" didn't have all of the facts and i think made more of a link than is actually there but i honestly can't answer all of the information. i would be happy to provide you with names if you want to get more information about some of it, i think they feel very comfortable that is business is being transacted in a fair, transparent way sand not abusing developing country money in any way. so -- and just also on your question. i agree that we should be

thinking about putting ourselves out of business. when i was at care we had the opportunity to see several countries that graduated, if you will, and became self-sufficient and that should be our job. i also think more and more companies that we worked with, particularly multinational companies, global companies that we're seeing that their future revenues were going to come from emerging markets really started thinking in different ways about their responsibilities to the countries in which they were hoping to have future markets and it was also a way of being able to talk about how american jobs were being created because as they were actually doing things that made a difference to develop those communities, they were actually building their businesses so i think we can make the case for how continuing to invest in development goals will continue to also enable,

businesses, american businesses, to grow as they move more and more into emerging markets. >> last word, craig. >> i'm not going to get in the way of lunch here but three quick points. i've spent 33 years in development and i know how much our assistance is appreciated in the field. it still is and from my part i -- you know, have -- can't wait to get out of bed in the morning everyday to keep working on this area. one. two, since coming back to washington a few years ago i'm amazed with the debate that takes place in this town when it comes to development on a daily basis. there are more seminars and round tables and things like this providing constant feedback to policymakers and planners a to what's needed. i think we're good at making course corrections and

adjustments so we remain relevant. third this is a related point, i'd just like to acknowledge the efforts of scott and the center for development in supporting a proposal by adb last year to merge our concessional and ordinary capital resource which is allows us to boost our support for development by 50% beginning next year. we're talking 50% more loans and 70% more grants. there's a fair amount of financial engineering involved but it was cost-free to our donors. with things like that that are still possible to be done i just think that we're making it easy for donors to support us and i hope there isn't a whole lot of questioning anywhere about our ability to do what's necessary to help out, thanks. >> okay, on that note, please join me in thanking our panel.

[ applause ] >> thank you all very much and thank you, panel, for a wonderful discussion. on a topic that left us with a lot of optimism. and three quick points before we leave. thank you to all of you for staying and offering your respect and being contentious with your good questions. you're wonderfully patient and i want to say thanks again to our sponsors, soros fund management this year as well as imf partners and obviously our secretariat staff out there who really put this program together. and finally, we do have a reception if you're willing to stay and talk a little bit more. thank you very much. [ applause ]

[ indistinct conversation ] [ indistinct conversation ] 6- the transpacific partnership is a trade agreement that was reached last year between the u.s. and 11 other pacific rim nations. thursday, u.s. trade representative michael froman makes the case for the agreement at an event hosted by the kato institute. that's live at 9:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span 3. this weekend on c-span cities tour, along with our comcast cable partners, we'll explore the history and literary life of provo, utah. we'll visit moon's rare books.

reid moon, the store's proprietor, who's been collecting rare books from all over the world for the past 30 years, showcases many of his great finds, including brigham young's copy of the book of mormon as well as an original copy of thomas paine's "common sense." >> thomas paine went to robert bell, wanted to have this printed and he wanted the proceeds to buy the soldiers mittens. well after it went through three printings they had a falling out and so thomas paine allowed anybody to print it, he lowered the price and said anybody can print it and that's one reason the book is so well known. >> and jay spencer fleuman talks about anti-mormonism through their current struggles of a religious minority. >> latter-day saints fit awkwardly in that. they are a religious minority who over time have youred in

disproportionately visible ways in the debates about religion. and on american history tv, take a tour of the brig lam young university museum of paleontology and see the dinosaur fossils collected by dr. james a. jenson. the curator talks about how dr. gener jenson changed the way fossils are displayed? >> when you can hide the armature and steel supports the animal looks more alive in the sense that you get the feeling these are bones but it brings life to these bones. >> and jay spencer fleuman, professor of history tells how after mormon pioneers settled salt lake city, they set up sloo satellite communities 357bd 3 mormon families established the settlement of provo in 1849. watch the cities tour to provo

utah on c-span's book tv and sunday afternoon on american history tv on c-span. 3. the cities tour working with cable affiliates and visiting cities across the country. >> hurz,thursday, a hearing on national flood insurance program. roy wright testifies before the senate small business and entrepreneurship committee. live coverage at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> thursday, national transportation safety board chairman christopher hart discusses safety issue and the development of self-driving cars, you can see his remarks at the national press club at 1:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. the hard-fought 2016 primary

season is over with historic conventions to follow this summer. >> colorado. >> florida. texas. >> ohio. . watch c-span as the delegates consider the nomination of the first woman ever to head a major political party and the first non-politician in several decades. watch live on c-span, listen on the c-span radio app or get video on demand at cspan.org. off front-row seat to every minute of both conventions on c-span beginning on monday, july 18. now veterans affairs secretary robert mcdonald on veterans health care, v.a. didn't claims processing and agency modernization efforts. the v.a. secretary took part in a one-hour discussion hosted by the brookings institution.

>> all right, good afternoon, everyone. my name is elaine kamark, i'm the director for the center of effective -- you know, something or other. center for effective government management here at brookings and also a senior fellow. it is my great privilege today to open this session on can the department of veterans affairs be modernized with the secretary of veterans affairs, robert mcdonald. so let me introduce the secretary and then i'm going to introduce norm eisen, one of my colleagues here. the secretary will speak and norm will come up and join him here, moderate some questions he's getting from twitter and other places and also take your questions and we will have a hard stop at 3:00.

secretary mcdonald is a west point graduate. graduated in the top 2% of his class in 1975 and he served as brigade adjutant for the corps of cadets and was recognized by the royal society for the encouragement of arts, manufacturing, and commerce as the most distinguished graduate in academics leadership and physical education. so that's quite something. he served with the 82n't air born division, completed jungle, arctic and warfare training and earned the ranger tab, the expert infantry badge and senior parachutist wings. leaving him tear service, captain mcdonald was awarded the meritorious service medal. he then spent most of his career at procter & gamble where he ended up as chairman, president and chief executive officer. under his leadership procter &

gamble significantly recalibr e recalibrated its product portfolio, expanding its manufacturing footprint, adding nearly one billion people to its global customer base and grew the firm's organic sales by an average of 3% a year. and in two years ago, just about two years ago, president obama selected robert mcdonald to be the secretary of veterans affairs.