Welcome to the Oxford Martin School. My name is Charles Godfrey, I'm the director.
And it's my enormous pleasure to welcome our speaker this evening, David Nabarro, and you can see David's title on the screen in front of you.
David has a long and illustrious career, has worked in government, has worked in many roles in the United Nations,
including the Special Representative Advisor and envoy of the United Nations,
Secretary General with special responsibility for food security and nutrition.
David was also the recipient of the World Food Prise, with Lawrence said that in October 2018, which was fabulous news.
David is doing all sorts of things at the moment. He's professor of global health at Imperial College.
He's curating Food Systems Dialogue, which is an extraordinary series of events looking at the future of food throughout the world.
And finally,
he supports a social enterprise called for a city based in Switzerland and is building human capital to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
David, you're extremely welcome to the margins. Go, please come and give us your talk.
Thank you very much for making. Well, what an opportunity to be here with you all this afternoon,
and actually what I'm going to do is to take you through a journey that I've been involved in for the last 15 years,
but I'm not going to just be satisfied by talking about the past.
I want to look ahead to the future.
And that's why the the really emphasis of my conversation is where might this intersection of issues to do with people food,
climate and health move to in the coming years?
And I suspect that quite a lot of people in this room will be involved in the journey in some way or other.
So I'd quite like you to come with me and to think through it as we talk about it.
And then at a particular point, when I'm finished talking, just turn off my phone.
Will be a good moment for conversation,
and I very much look forward to the discussion now and in the months and years to come because we're all part of this journey.
It's not something that's just going to be done by. Prime ministers and presidents and ministers in the decision making rooms of government.
It's not going to be done in the UN.
The bringing together of these different issues that are so crucial for our collective future will actually happen in schools and universities.
It'll happen in companies. It'll happen in trade unions. It it'll happen in obviously different professional organisations.
It's going to be something that will involve a very large number of people in collective action.
And it's visualising how that collective action might evolve and the tricky steps
that are going to have to be taken that I want to work with you on this afternoon.
So the way I'm going to do this is with oratory mostly, and then I will go to some slides towards the end.
We are being webcast, so rather than wander around, which is what I was hoping to do,
some of you may have seen I was wandering around as you were coming in. I will stay here because it's easier for the for the camera.
But I want you to imagine that I'm actually with you and then I'm alongside you as we have
this discussion because I think it's intimate for all of us in a rather special way.
So my focus today starts in 2015, when the United Nations, reflecting 193 different entities,
different countries, came together and agreed an overarching plan for the future of the world.
And you might say that's a pretty arrogant thing to do, but this was something that was three years in the making between 2012 and 2015,
and it was built on the experience of development action that had been underway between 2000 and 2015, what we call the Millennium Development Goals.
But this was an altogether different exercise of establishing the plan for the future.
And it was different because instead of being a plan that was based just on the needs and interests of people in developing countries.
This was a global plan, a universal plan, and it had 17 goals and 169 targets.
And it was negotiated in a way that involved taking the views of more than eight million people through an exercise called The World We Want,
and involved more than 60 meetings of different technical groups around the world.
And it's an extraordinary, extraordinary document, you note.
Of course, it's the Sustainable Development Agenda 2030 and within it all the 17 goals that you probably some of you know, almost off by heart.
And it is the only plan that we've got for the future of the world.
And because we don't have another world. This is a pretty important plan.
And so if at any point you're with people and you say, well, is there a plan for the future?
Does anybody have any idea where we might go and how we might be able to make sense of all the contradictions in today's world?
The answer is yes, there is. Now.
This plan. It's mostly famous for its 17 goals.
But inside it, there are five key principles that world leaders agreed on that are worth repeating.
Because have principles that I think apply to just about everything that is done in public life,
but particularly to the areas we're talking about today,
the first of the principles was that what we're doing for the future must be people centred and by people centred.
That means focussing on the interests of all people. And if recognising that the old people have value.
And therefore, trying to make sure that no one is left behind in planning for the future is absolutely vital.
Now, this was agreed by all world leaders, I want to stress this.
No world leader said we're not going to be part of this.
And in fact, more than 100 countries have actually adopted this agenda in their national planning,
so we've got more than 100 actually countries who've adopted a plan for the future in which they explicitly
commit to doing everything they can to lead and leave no one behind and to work for equitable development.
And there are other principles. The first of those is that when thinking about the future, we have to think of the world as a whole.
And that means that every country is undergoing development.
Every country is having to make changes to ensure that we get systems that are fit for the future and that universality has meaning.
And that was a hugely important innovation brought into the negotiations for the sustainable development agenda by Colombia,
but supported by many other countries. So they are universal.
They apply everywhere. Number three is that they are interconnected.
So instead of thinking of life and the future in terms of separate sectors like health, education, sanitation, economic growth,
environment and security, you actually join it all together and say we're actually going to govern for the totality of people's needs.
The fourth principle is that in responding to people's needs, we need to do it in an integrated way,
bringing together different actor agencies like government departments, civil society groups, trade unions and the like.
And then the fifth principle is it to be done through partnership because unless there is an intent to partner for the future,
we will end up fragmented and fail. So these are the principles that were agreed and they are being applied more and more in
development action and in public interest organisations when thinking about the future.
And it's for that reason that I chose to come here and talk about the efforts to link nature,
food and climate with people and talk about the progress and the implications of this
work because that is in keeping with this 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
So you heard from Charles Godfrey that I was working for the secretary general of the United Nations.
Great job. You kind of you're up close and advising called into meetings.
You kind of get a feeling of what's happening. In and around the world, in different countries and in different, quite tricky situations,
and the one that I worked with on this agenda was called Ban Ki Moon,
a Korean, incredibly effective, hard working conscientious guy really grew to love him a lot.
And during my time with him, I was given responsibility for food and thinking about the future of food.
And around the time this new agenda was being agreed, he said to me, David.
I don't think that we are giving enough attention to food and the place of food in the future of people in our world.
We kind of take it for granted.
And so he asked me to bring together about 60 different figures from government, from civil society, from business, from the UN.
To come and work in a think tank over a couple of years, infrequent meetings once every six months.
To answer his question, which is what do we do about food in relation to this planning for the future?
And we would slightly nuanced this by saying we're going to focus on food systems, the systems through which food is produced,
processed, distributed, marketed, made available to people supplied in hospitals used in institutions retailed in supermarkets.
And it was really a very interesting exercise. I'm just going to give you a very short summary of what came out of this work,
which is being published and is now being used by one or two organisations firstly.
There's not much point in having food systems if they don't contribute to people being well nourished and healthy.
And if by any chance to prove that people are eating. Is actually making them sick, then that's pretty bad.
There's a small problem, which is right at the moment.
Between one third and one half of all deaths of all people everywhere in our world are related to the diet that they're eating.
So there's a bit of correction to be done on the links between food systems and nutrition and health.
The most dramatic of these is an enormous epidemic we have right now of type two diabetes.
Which is causing enormous consequences in every country in the world.
And needs intensive intervention attention right now.
The second, the conclusion of this group. Was that?
If we want to be paying attention to the future of water supplies in aquifers,
to the future of forests, to the future of key insects like pollinators.
And to the future of the social fabric in the countryside all over the world.
We have to start focussing on the link between food and the environment and food systems and the ecosystem services on which we all depend.
Because right at the moment, many of the problems of shortage of water, for example,
in South Africa or in California are related to competition between the agriculture sector and the domestic consumers.
Number three. It's unfortunately. The countryside in many parts of the world is no longer providing employment.
That is considered satisfactory by young people who are coming onto the labour market.
So 10 million young people coming onto the labour market each year in Africa,
and the majority of them are going for their employment into towns and cities and are not staying in the countryside.
And the reason for that is that the countryside,
which is the haven of agriculture and where the opportunities for employment usually come through agriculture,
is just not working as a magnet for employment for young people.
And indeed. Most communities where I have been travelling in the last few years tell me that actually farming as a sector is in real distress.
And unless farmers have either got quite large assets or rather unique products, they're finding it harder and harder to make a living.
Given the cost that they're getting for their produce compared with the amount they
have to invest in making it happen and some areas of particularly serious like,
for example, in this country, those who are farming sheep in the hills and dairy farming in much of Europe.
But we're finding the same problem in India, same problem in China, the same problem in Latin America, same problem in Africa.
The rural space as a place for employment and agriculture is a sector that's attractive to young people, just not working.
So that's a problem. Three is the rural environment as an economic magnet?
Not good enough problem for.
Is that if you look at agriculture as a sector, it seems to contribute if you add together the land use changes as a result of agriculture.
To around 38 percent plus or minus of greenhouse gas emissions, which make room.
But it's not factored into governance, increasingly chucking stuff in the sea.
Or throwing stuff away in other ways or cutting down trees or setting fire to forests is seen to be something that is somehow permissible.
Without sanction by governments. Or by businesses?
But the position developed by China and the other countries I mentioned that's now been endorsed by 30 countries in the United Nations,
context is basically saying stop that. Value nature, because without nature, we don't have a decent hope for the future.
It needs a lot of science to get it right to work out.
How do you value a mature forest in the Amazon versus a plantation forest in Scandinavia?
How do you value the protection of coastline by mangroves when we've got more and more evidence that that's possibly
the only thing that protects poor people when they get hit by a tropical storm from being washed away and killed?
How do you value that answer? It's a huge value, and it's time to put numbers on it and treat it as a proper economics.
And there is. Professor Partha Dasgupta and the team in Cambridge, but others are now beginning to develop the economic analysis.
It requires very, very good multi working involving people in local communities because they know the answers.
They may be living in the delta in Bangladesh, or they may be living in the Sahel.
They know how they use nature to maintain their lives, and they know better than us.
So it requires painstaking work of working with local communities to get information about
the value of nature and then to put a cost on it and then to find ways to finance it.
So that is the current emphasis on now.
We've been a bit knocked sideways with some of our thinking about how to take it forward because there was going to be a meeting in Santiago,
Chile, in December where we would have brought together the different people working on this and advanced the subject.
But that's been postponed. But we will pick it up again in various events coming next year.
There's a big biodiversity conference in Kunming, in China in October next year,
and then there's a big climate event in Glasgow, UK in December next year, next year, next year.
Yeah. And we will use those as ways of really weaving the different subject areas
together to create the new disciplines for what I call nature based living.
Which are the disciplines needed to establish government finance, boardroom management?
Curricula in classrooms, plus the software to support them.
Where are they? And all the various different things that are needed to make this happen so that weaving it's more than
linking its weaving together disciplines is to work for next year and leading into the year after.
And we will bring the nature weave alongside the food.
We've to try to make sure that in the process, things are not separated but are kept together,
whether it's in government or in business or in civil society or between different professional groups.
Now you can say, is this fantasy or is it talking for real? You're being very kind to listen to this answer.
I am talking for real. And the way in which I believe that we will be able to make this happen.
Is by finding ways to work together to create new styles of decision making.
But outside the existing departmental structure in government or faculty structure in universities.
And it involves something that my colleagues and I have actually stumbled across after we've been doing it for some years,
we thought somebody must have written about it. And yes, there is a theory and it's called living systems leadership.
So I'll give you a take it apart. One.
Leadership because when you're trying to change the way things are being done and work outside normal, normal patterns of organisation of thought,
you have to be ready to be a leader,
which means taking risks and working with others to make sure that you get the best possible result to make life better for others.
Systems is essential because all the issues we're talking about involve the interaction between different systems in society.
They're not processes that are occurring as a result of linear processes.
A gives a result gives gives rise to be no.
They are interactive processes where the result is due to multiple systems.
Each with their own characteristics and living systems, because these are about systems that involve people,
but they also involve other living organisms, they might be microorganism organisms in your microbiome.
They might be organisms in the animal kingdom, in the plant kingdom, in the fungal kingdom.
That doesn't matter. What matters is that we recognise is the living systems,
which means you have to treat them differently from mechanical systems because they have very different properties.
And this science of working with living systems of could just have to project a bone cloud just for a second,
that takes us into a different way of working.
That I just wanted to share with you before I closed. And stand here and tell you.
If you want to make change in the way in which things get done,
a vital attribute to have at the beginning is to be able to connect intensively between disciplines,
between people, between groups with different interests.
But the connecting has to be particularly profound because it means working with people you would not normally get on with.
Sitting with people you would not normally sit opposite in the meeting room, writing to people who would not normally be receiving emails from you.
You can't do this if you go into the work so principled that you said I won't sit down with them because they're meat eaters and I'm a vegan.
No, you've got to be able to communicate and communicate with people with whom you have radical differences of opinion because it's out of that,
that the magic of transformation can happen. Secondly.
It all depends on people. You can't make changes outside the normal disciplinary or ideological boundaries if you just work with institutions,
because institutions tend to try to keep the same basic characteristics.
But the people inside these institutions, as many of you will find if you talk to others in this room,
it's always exciting and encourage people to work with.
But it's focussing on three things focussing on the common identity working for a better world for everybody.
Focussing on the relationships between people because it's relationships that determine
how teams work and creating the trust that is necessary to share to share information,
ideas and emotions. Networks are how change happens, and that kind of work that I'm involved in is all about networks.
As I've already said, you can't get new ways of thought without encouraging dialogue that explores priorities and trade-offs when decisions are made.
Because shifting the way in which decisions are made involves shifting the priorities that are applied
to the decision choices and shifting the variables that are applied when you're making trade-offs.
It's not difficult stuff, but it does involve a lot of tense politics.
And to get into the politics, you have to do it through looking at decision making and priorities and trade-offs.
But then when you started to put together the new way of thought and action, then comes the really exciting part because you create a new narrative.
What does food mean to us instead of seeing it as fuel?
We see it as nourishment. When you see just love and respect and also something to keep people healthy,
you don't want to give loving food that stuffed full of cream and other stuff. If at the same time you're worried it's going to kill somebody.
So there's a whole way of adjusting the narrative around food so that it has value, and within the narratives come the pathways.
That's where the scientists help us by saying, Well, you make choices, you go this way, that way.
That's what the choices are, and there's so much exciting work developed to frame the journey.
And then to cradle the process because the new process is going to merge without a lot of care and the care is
done through creating the cradles with which within which people interact and then the coalitions can be built.
Working together, you get five, six, seven, 10, 20, 30, 50, 100 different organisations working together.
And becoming a movement for change. And then we start the cycle again, so all I want to do is to say to you that this process is happening,
but it involves a different way of working that we call living systems leadership.
And to get there. We have to have certain skills, we have to be super comfortable with complexity.
We can't do this work if we just want to simplify everything.
We have to welcome complexity, get off on it and we have to then also welcomed different understandings.
Not everybody sees things the same way. Fine.
It's the absolute reverse of the sort of Facebook mentality you are working with people who see things differently.
You value networks because you see them as the most powerful source for change and you
appreciate the potential of coalitions and you anticipate new paradigms to emerge.
And just to finish it, what do we need to be able to do to get into this way of working?
It's kind of interesting. Because if somebody had said to me 20 years ago, as you get older,
you're going to have to be able to get better at holding competing perspectives in your mind at the same time.
I've just said now surely as you get older, you get more certainty that X is right and Y is wrong.
Surely that's what's going to happen to me. But it hasn't happened like that.
As I've got older,
I realised that to be able to hold different perspectives in my mind without getting too fast about what is right or what is wrong is absolutely
key to doing this kind of work because everybody has a different view of the food system or the health system or the climate system.
And that's legitimate. It's OK. And it only gets funny when you try to say, well, there's an ideology and got got to respect the ideology.
But I'm saying try to break free of the ideologies of academic discipline and
the ideologies of belief systems if you're going to do this kind of work.
See the whole system differently to the separate parts,
because it's the whole system that really excites us when we're looking at things through new eyes.
Feel into the pace and the rhythm, don't try to change things.
When they're not ready to be changed, that's why this work requires intense patience.
And at the same time, incredible opportunism so that when the moment is right, you go for it, stop being a disc jockey, but a disc jockey of lights.
Fourthly, always recognise that systems vary in relation to their environments that I think everybody would hear would understand.
And lastly, meet people right where they really are, not where you should think they should be.
Anyway, this is living systems work. This is the kind of work that I believe as a result of the work I've been,
what I've been doing over the last few years will lead to paradigm shifts that will bring together work we do.
Around people and their well-being nature, and it's central to our lives.
Food is something that's a vital concern to all seven point six billion people on our planet.
And climate, because unless we really get it together on climate, we're going to be in deep trouble.
So thank you very much for listening and I hope that you enjoyed it and I'd love to stay in touch.
Thank you. Thanks, David, for an extraordinary, wide ranging conversation.
I'm sure they're going to be lots of questions and who would like to go first lady with a white top?
How are you doing? I'm sorry just to remind everyone this is being broadcast.
Thank you. It's been most outspoken.
Yes. So my question relates to talking about the taxation of food.
I didn't hear what you said. My question relates to you talk about the taxation of food.
So I mean, this comes down to the idea of food as a commodity rather than a right anyway,
which I think is maybe an ideology might be good to think about breaking free from.
But if we put that aside and take that as given and look at it in purely economic terms,
the social cost of the environmental damage done by food production at the moment is mostly felt by the consumers,
the people that are going to buy the food.
And I agree that farmers shouldn't feel that taxation either because farmers are equally pushed and equally struggle in the system.
But there are groups of people that that do benefit,
and those are the people selling the fossil fuels that own the intellectual property rights to seeds,
and they're producing the chemicals that input into our food system as well.
And I don't understand the logic in the consumer feeling both the social cost of the environmental damage and then having to pay the economic cost,
the taxation on the food when the people that are benefiting from the social cost can then go scot free and feel none of the blame.
So how would you excuse me if you were if you keep the mike just for a second?
Because this is the way you phrased the question, I think opens up the dilemma that I'm feeling more and more.
Which is. It's just grossly unfair to ask consumers to cover the cost that results from things that had nothing to do with them.
Such as, as you say, environmentally damaging aspects of food production, especially when these are linked to other harmful commercial practises.
So I just ask you, do you have in your view,
if you're doing work on this model of of how the cost should be parsed between the different potential contributors?
Or is this not something you've been working on in a vague way?
I would see that the people that are having a genuine economic benefit from the social cost being felt of the environmental damage are the people,
for the most part, selling inputs to farmers.
And in the case of tenant farmers, probably the people that own the land, particularly landowners that are benefiting,
for example, in this country from cap payments without necessarily fulfilling any of their environmental obligations.
So I think there are there are plenty of people who we could tax,
the people that are making a great deal of money from extracting and selling fossil fuels,
who are benefiting from owning intellectual property rights to organisms.
People that are creating chemical inputs and that create a farming system that
is destructive to the environment is creating really unhealthy food for us.
As you said, a very limited diet that centred on just a handful of crops,
which is affecting the genetic resilience as well of our biodiversity and our food.
And it's it's not good for the farmers and it's not good for the consumers that the people that
stand to benefit the people that are at the top of that chain and they should feel the adaptation.
And it's interesting just to complete this exchange that I think in the European Parliament and then the European Commission,
probably more than any other political environment, this is now really coming through strongly.
It needs care. Because we've got to be get the science right before identifying particular practises that are harmful.
But I sense that looking ahead a few years, the pattern of both subsidy and taxation in relation to agricultural inputs will change.
I think it will happen. Rather quicker in the European setting than perhaps in some of the North American settings, but let's wait and see.
But I personally believe that the point of view you're expressing is getting more and more into the mainstream, I believe.
Would you agree that the consumers and farmers shouldn't feel that tax? I'm against the idea that consumers should have to pay.
And indeed, the farmers should have to pay for destructive action that is perhaps more the responsibility of others.
I'm being very careful how I say it, but I hope that you got my point question over here.
Hello there. Thank you so much for coming to speak today. I really enjoyed your talk.
I'm a business student at Side Business School,
and so I'd really like to hear your perspective on the responsibility of business to contribute to the change that you're talking about today.
So if you let us imagine that you are chief executive of one of the largest multinational food companies.
And you're looking at your business strategy for the next 10 years.
What are you thinking when you have your private discussions in your boardroom about what that business strategy should be like?
I'll bet you. That you're starting to see a very different kind of world.
Where your consumers are wanting to look, not just at.
But the food they buy is going to do for their bodies and their minds.
But you're also getting consumers who are saying what this food produced in a way that is environmentally sustainable or environmentally damaging.
Is this food? Compatible with climate or is it contributing unnecessarily to climate change?
And were the farmers or the fishers or others who were involved in producing this food,
getting an adequate remuneration or were they being ripped off?
And I actually am seeing more and more business leaders asking these questions and asking them.
In quite a deep way. So one quite large company that does confectionery and and animal food and other things.
Has recently been saying to itself, we've been having a pretty consistent business model for the last hundred years.
How do we need to change our business model for the next hundred years?
But I think that the food sector, particularly the food sector, is dealing with hyper processed foods.
We'll be changing its business model within the next 10 years, not the next 100 years.
And I think the reason why that business model would change is that their consumers will start expressing preferences with more and more volume.
Possibly with the the actual purchase of the product, that's not necessarily the same.
Secondly, their employees are beginning to say we want to be part of a business and an industry that is ethically viable and sustainable.
And thirdly, their suppliers are being brought into the discussion,
so I think there are going to be more and more significant changes in the food sector.
I'm trying not to say whether people ought to do something or not,
because I don't think that you are just saying this is a pattern that I'm seeing happening.
Talk to you about it afterwards if you like you very much. Thank you. A question right at the front.
Thanks very much, David. I'm wondering in your dialogues, the many dialogues that you have held,
how effectively do they expose the power relationships between the many interacting players,
whether it's nature, agriculture, climate change and so on?
You spoke at one point in your talk about the value of nature, but you also implied,
of course, that there are many values of nature, conflicting values of nature.
So how effectively do you expose the power structures in those relationships?
Who gets to choose? When we started the food systems dialogues, we had a choice.
Do we tried to run them as technical discussions? And.
Minimise the the debates about the politics,
about who's got the power to make change or do we keep them as essentially political because if you're going to try to make change?
Power is the most vital variable of all to include into your matrix.
Well, we didn't have to think about it the moment the dialogues started.
They became intense and passionate about the power dynamics in the food sector and I think both when talking about food and when talking about nature.
We get very quickly into power issues.
But that's in a way why I am saying, Chris, that the increased engagement of consumers.
If we're talking about businesses or the voting public, if we're talking about governance.
In debating these issues is going to have an impact on policy, and I think it's going to happen quicker.
Than many of us who've watched policy change in the last 30 or 40 years.
Would predict, like here a year ago.
None of us, I think, would have predicted four and a half million young people, we're going to be on the streets on September the 21st.
Really? I think really sensibly and simply asking political leaders to take climate futures seriously.
That has happened. Now, we believe myself and colleagues in the UN process for the four and a half million who are on the streets.
There were 10, 20, 30 times as many who was sympathising, but weren't there.
And that's just something that's happened in one year.
And they are not simply saying we are going to protest and then go home and go to school or whatever or go to university.
It's we're engaged now and you're not going to shake us off.
We're actually wanting to be part of these discussions.
Because we can't because we don't believe government is actually governing for the future, we think government is governing for the present.
We think that's wrong. So Chris, I actually think we must relish the fact that we're talking here about issues of power.
And we must be anticipating and expecting the participation in power around the future
of food or the value given to nature from a greatly increasing number of people.
And that just trying to get the phrasing that I wanted to say, but I was looking for the place to say it.
That's why I am what I call a stubborn optimist.
Not because I'm just walking around being an optimist because I like to be an optimist,
but because I actually am totally of the opinion that humanity in the form of people,
particularly younger people,
will take this stuff on and will not let it go on with arrangements that are damaging to people and to the planet and nobody that we have.
So that's my view on that one question here. And then.
They you possibly tell. I just wanted to ask how indigenous people and subsistence farmers who are not consumers by definition,
therefore get treated as very poor are being brought into this discussion part of the work.
Thank you for that question. So I should I should just say, first of all, that we be able to leave.
Thank you for coming. And secondly, thank you for your questions. If we are trying to have dialogue and if we accept that in any environment,
there are power relations that tend to exclude key people from the dialogue,
it is really our responsibility to find ways to engage those who would otherwise be excluded,
yet whose interests have to be taken into account in the discussion.
There are, we believe,
somewhere in the region of half a billion smallholder farmers in the world and about 170 million indigenous peoples in the world.
One of the things that I really like about working within the UN structure is that the fact that these people are often, in normal parlance,
excluded from debates about policy and practise and often not participating in political processes has been recognised over the years in the UN.
So mechanisms for the engagement of indigenous peoples.
In the broader UN process and mechanism for the involvement of smallholder farmers in the U.N. food process there.
However, the work I'm doing on the food systems dialogues is not a UN process.
And we realised quite early on that unless we make a special effort to bring in those groups who are not at the table, they won't come.
But it's more than that. I mean. You realise sometimes how stupid you are when you just don't think of these things,
but my friends from Australian indigenous communities told me, we just can't come to your dialogues.
If you don't let us come in a few days early, get to meet some of your people, get to understand your idioms, how you're going to talk,
get to feel the structure of the buildings and the way you've got to feel the spirits in the building as well.
I mean, it's not so the simple stuff, but when you've got to give us the space and the opportunity to do this,
which means you have to find the money to make sure that we can come and the people who were companies.
And the same applies with smallholder farmers,
so the one thing that I think we often need to be reminded of is that if you want to include people who have got this power,
you have to make a special effort.
Another example is we wanted to try to make sure that people who are genuinely food poor could participate in the dialogues in the UK.
And it was pointed out to us that bringing really quite poor people along to a meeting
where there are a lot of really well-off people is in itself a very tricky thing to do.
It's difficult for them.
So this has been not the easiest issue, and it's one that we all need to be continuously reminded of and thank you for bringing it up.
I can't question that. And thank you for your talk.
As I listen to your description of living systems, leadership and on from what you've just said now,
it sounds very similar to citizens assemblies, which actually Oxford City has already held.
It's already held one on one on climate emergency and a citizens assembly overcomes
some of the problems you're describing because it it's like jury service,
but it also picks a cross-section of society very consciously, rather like a scientific experiment.
So it sounds very similar to what you're doing. I mean, I just wondered if you had any comments on citizens assemblies as a way forward.
First of all, what I described about the processes that we're using, both in the dialogues and living systems leadership.
They are not unique, and you're right that in so many societies, there are different processes that enable people to be involved.
I'm particularly interested in the citizens assembly process because of what you said that it is.
You're selected, I believe, by some kind of lottery process.
But there are also constituencies. So it's very difficult to end up with a an entirely non representative community.
And I like that number one.
Number two is that what we're trying to do with the dialogues is to maintain them as a regular process so that you don't just have one session,
but you go on with a particular view to finding points of common interest and ability to form coalitions.
I'm not sure whether that comes out of the citizens assembly you describe,
but it is coming out of many of the similar kind of new ways of working in other countries where I've been particularly involving indigenous people.
So what I would like to suggest is that any of these processes that enables dialogue and discussion is the
kind of thing we ought to be encouraging to help create a future that's fit for for generations to come.
And let's share and and I'll just put up my email at the end.
Please don't hesitate to share any experiences you've got because the more we can network and wave, the more likely we are to bring about change.
It won't be done by fragmentation. OK. Thank you.
Questioner right at the front here, and I think this will be the last question. OK.
Yeah. Hi, Dr. Navarro. Hello, my name's Rowan. I'm an undergraduate at the University of Oxford.
I noticed that you talked a lot about bringing young people into the discussion and some of the climate movement that's happened.
What are some areas that you feel that you could be more involved that you'd like
to see used to be more involved in that are currently they're underrepresented?
Thank you very much indeed. Just this is a tricky question.
I want to say to you straight away. I've put up my email address up there and the project comes off.
This is a tricky question because I would like younger people to be involved in all aspects of governance in every institution,
in every geographical area or administration, and in every issue that's dealing with challenges for the future.
Because I just don't see the point of you relying on older people who are going to be dead in 20 or 30
years time to actually make decisions that are going to influence the chances you have in your life.
But I don't know how to do it.
I mean, what we've tried in the in the UN process was creating process, creating new ways of working with young people, and we have a big summit.
You might know on the 21st of September. But I worry that it's a flash in the pan and that we will slip back into the initial
system of just pulling people from the usual places to come and make decisions.
So I don't have an answer, but I think it's one of the most important issues that we ought to walk away from here with.
And I encourage you. To not give up in making certain that your participation in decision making
processes is genuine and not tokenistic and is continuous and not to content.
So thank you for making the point, and that that's the last point. That's a very good point, Wendell.
Thanks very much. Typekit, I guess just a parochial question for those of you who are UK citizens,
and one way you can make a difference is to vote on December the wherever it is.
David, it's been a really fabulous hour and a bit.
You brought up so many different things. I think what has really come across as your absolute passion for health, for the environment,
for nature, and you talk about bringing down barriers and moving across silos.
I think your career sort of embodies that movement to go and going across.
So thank you again for thanks to Oxford and thank you again for such things.
Interesting, too. Thank you. Could I just. I'd just like to thank my son is here.
He's just sitting in the front. Thank you for coming and to my daughter, Polly might be.
I've talked to police here. Both of them have got children less than two to.
This is about why we do this. Thank you very much.
Thank.