The dialogue took place in 2015, but many issues and insights they talk about can be applied to the current world. I have transcribed it.
Barack Obama: Number one, young people can make changes. Old people get comfortable or cranky or protective of their status or set in their ways there’s a reason why if you’re looking for example here in the United States the Civil Rights Movement the leaders of those movements were in their 20s.Dr. King was 26 when he started the civil movement and 39 when he was killed. If you canvas the world often times bad is the infamous people asking I think are familiar to many. That’s number one that the young people I think can make an enormous difference.
Number two is the beat most by the live countries that purport to be democracies because we have won the battle. governments and are our common efforts have to be rooted in the legitimacy of people there is more power than ever in people being able to band together and collectively pushing for initiatives that are going to make change in their lives that’s something that for most of human history was unimaginable that is one of the amazing transition that is taking place and you will notice that even in autocracies today there is at least the pretense of democracy because people believed that governments that are rooted in people are more legitimate and we that’s a battle we won and now have to make rea.
Number three is simple math. In most places if you want to get something done whether it’s smarter climate change policy or healthcare for people or more funding for girls education. you got to have a majority of people supporting you,you have to got votes ,you have the allocation of resources and that requires mobilization and a game of addiction rather than subtraction. so the point I would make would be the internet now has turbocharged that capacity for us to develop movements in ways that we had not imagined before.
The last one I want to say is a smaller point but a profound one. I think organizing, mobilizing, starting movements start with a story. You can’t create stories that move large numbers of people unless you are able to listen and hear the story of the person next to you. The story of your neighbors, the stories of your co-workers, the stories of your community, the story of people who are not like you and so one of the things that I think is is important is for us to learn how to listen to each other and learn how it is that we came to be who we are, the way we do. Because that understanding of other people’s stories is how you end up ultimate forging bonds and creating the glue that sprays movements.
Look at great movement. Stories are important.For example, Gandhi,the understanding of India’s story and his own story, and singing Indians in South Africa discriminated against and recognized that there were traditions and myths in those stories that ended up driving out. The most powerful thing on earth, it wasn’t guns and increasingly that will be the case and certainly, that will be the case if we’re able if we want to move forward the sustainable development goals. We tell stories not just to big donors or politicians but also to people here in the United States. you may feel like the look. I’ve got my own problems why should I be worried about somebody on the other side of the world.
Bill Gates:Even very well-educated people in a what’s happened with vaccination what’s happened with hid they don’t know the depository in a little bit the news is always going to focus on the setbacks cuz that’s what happened that day the gradual progress doesn’t think that Paradigm raise money for these cuz I have to say you know sometimes even some of the material we create is talking about the piece that remains as though it’s never improved do you have any thoughts on how do we get this more positive Samsung of progress going and what how we would get that word out ?
Barack Obama:This is the nature of the media.At least about 40% of country didn’t believe me until I was gone and then suddenly they believe in thing so with that stevia add makeup allows relations one We’re going to be able to change that The nature of the media of human brain is to fasten on what’s wrong not on what’s right and I’m not sure we’re going to be able to change that visual displays.
You’re just talking to somebody who tried to get work done.then after I left,people start to believe in it things are going on(Laugh).I made several observations. The nature of the media and maybe just the human brain is to fasten on.what’s wrong not on what’s right and I’m not sure we’re going to be able to change that. Visual displays of a fire are much more interesting than just a building sitting there.T the fire is going to make the news, the building sitting there nicely and people are walking their dogs in front of them stuff that will not make the news.So I don’t think that we can count on conventional media necessarily to spread the word.This is nowhere the power of the internet has not I think that harnessed the way it needs to be, particularly when we think about young people and young audiences.Maria and Sasha consume information differently than I do . I think that those of us who’ve been involved with policy work are still putting out these reports with pie charts and this and that. That’s not interesting to them but stories and visual representations of progress can go viral.There is a hunger for it ,it is just we do not systematically think of it.
The one of the areas that I’m deeply interested in is how do we build a certain digital platform whereby people can go to find out what’s happening that is moving the progress on issues and then activate them.Because I heard somebody saying I’m very interested how online communities can move offline? How is this incredible power to convene through hashtags tweets at this and the other eventually leads to people meeting each other and talking to each other? We have not fully tapped that is a way of spreading the word about progress that has been made. I also think it is important for us to put some friendly pressure on leaders to tell good stories and to make sure that we are so rigid in our partisanship or ideologies that we are not willing to acknowledge and share when somebody who might be of a different political persuasion has done something really good even if it runs contrary to our short-term political interest.Me and my friend predecessor Geogia W Bush his administration initiated with pepfar was a bad we needed to sustain and build up and I didn’t think that somehow detracted for me to say it’s somebody from another political party did something really smart and really good and deserve credit for and and I feel as if these days within our political circles that’s a hard thing for people to bring themselves to do .
As big as the differences were between me and my present predecessor George W bush that initiated with excessive singularly important that we needed to sustain and Dona and I didn’t think that somehow the track if you want me to say it’s somebody from another political party did something really smart and really good and deserve credit for and and I feel as if these days well within our political circles that’s a hard thing for people to bring themselves to do.
Melinda Gates:Jen’s (Her daughter) about the age of your girls a little bit older but how have you and Michelle thought about talking to your children about being leaders in the dismantle of what needs to be done in the world?
Barack Obama:We ‘ve tried to communicate our entire life that each of us has responsibilities. when they were small say when you want to go party and your responsibility is small.Then as you get older your responsibilities and try to communicate is that being responsible is is an enormous privilege that’s what marks you as a fully grown human is that you that other people rely on you that you have influence that you can make your mark bad if you do something well that that will improve other people’s lives .We tried to instill any of them your basic values like kindness and consideration in empathy and hard work that those are our tools by which you can shape the world around and so. What we tried to encourage is the sense that it’s not somebody else’s job it’s your job. I think that is that that’s an epic that they’ve embraced now they will choose to participate in different ways.
Because they have different strengths. One of the mistakes that we sometimes make is to think that there’s just one way of making a difference. If you are a brilliant engineer ,you don’t have to make a speech, you can create an app that allows an amplification or the scaling up of something if it is really powerful. If you are somebody who likes to care for people you don’t have to go out to lead a protest, you can mentor some kid thats or work it out at a local Health Clinic. There are a lot of different ways in which to make them as well.
The third thing we try to encourage is you have to be persistent. I always tell people that my early work as a community organizer in Chicago taught me an incredible amount but I didn’t set the world on fire.I got some public parks for communities that needed them.I started school programs. We help set up a job training program for people who have been laid off of work but those communities do not suddenly be transformed,they still haves lot of problems. But I took that experience and then I was able to build on and I think so often we get impatient because change does not look as if sometimes it’s not as discernible or mediate for impactful as we had imagined in our minds. We get disappointed and we get frustrated. For me that’s advice in life and not just in social change I assume occasionally there was a bug in the software built for it.
Bill Gates:New Yorkers to see United Nations is meeting in in somebody’s Global institutions or create a right after World War World Bank World Health Organization UNICEF many of these calls him yet there is definitely a cynicism about their bureaucracy their efficiency and their ability to change in fact very few exceptions like over the next 10 or 20 years do you think the new ones not in climate change can they step up to play the role we need them to play?
Barack Obama: Let me first say that no one nation is going to be able to solve it on its own, not even a nation as powerful as the United States of America. There are times during my presidency where I was attacked for not claiming that we could go on our own as if that was an expression of weakness. The United States is in fact an indispensable nation. And that many of these initiatives and much of the progress that we made could not have been done unless we under rope those efforts.I will use an example of we handling Ebola which in retrospect intervention in history we had to create the architecture and infrastructure and send our military into rate runways where the Chinese could then land planes to deliver goods and we had to provide guarantees to the Europeans so that if they sent help workers they could feel some assurance that they could be Medevac doubt if they got so I take great pride in what the United States can do but if we’re talking about climate change or global migration spurred on by drought or ethnic conflicts.Those things by ourselves and I’m like a slow-moving slow diseases difficult transmit like Ebola ahead of time so number one you have to start with the premise and believe that multilateral institutions and efforts are important and you don’t have to cede all your sovereignty or it doesn’t make you less patriotic to believe that you just have to have some sense and read.
Number two is that in fact there are problems with existing multilateral institutions not surprisingly they were designed for the most part. I have anticipated everything that’s happened there is bureaucracy and inertia and resistance to reform. So it is important for every country every leader to be honest about the need for reform and not simply think they’re only about well I want to keep certain numbers of slots and votes and that. At least on main issues where there shouldn’t be a big ideological controversy.Look, reforming the security Council that’s something that goes to core geopolitical interest and is a huge difficult and perhaps unachievable go off anytime soon.
On the other hand, make sure WHO works sufficiently. Have a sufficient security trigger when a pandemic or something else happens and it shouldn’t be controversial. it’s just a matter of digging in and getting the work done.
When it comes to girls education there may be cultural resistance in some places to actually getting it done.How do you say I’m sorry we don’t want to educate our girls and women as a practical matter they may you may see that in certain countries. but at the level of our multilateral institutions, there should be a broad consensus. so what what I would hope for is that we come up with concrete plans in those areas often times with respect to sustainable development goals are areas where there is a consensus on at least the aims if not always the memes and think about how can we improve Delivery Systems how can we improve their operations on a day-to-day basis. but ultimately,to feel as if it matters and is important that in turn requires the public think that it matters and is important because unfortunately what you discover is that most politicians in the leaders are followers and not leaders.They call leaders but most of the time they follow.they see what do their constituencies care about and they respond .One of the biggest challenges that we’ve had is that most definitely by the United States.
The general public response with enormous generosity when they see a specific story of a child for somebody who has been stricken by what when it comes to just a general knowledge or interest in development funding, not only do they not know much but they oftentimes have a negative reaction because their view is we got a lot of need here at home when are we sending money overseas. Sadly it is one of the area of the only areas where Democrats or Republicans agree in this in the United States is and repeatedly you seen public opinion surveys where people overestimate what we spend on foreign aid they think 25% of the federal budget is going to foreign aid and helping people other than folks in town center so the need for public education in the ways we talked about that promote that tell a good story that point out that this is actually a bargain dad connect what we do with respect to development to security not in a perfect correlation but to say that look if you got failed States.
In general so that’s going to spill over on us if you have economies that are failing ironically if you are concerned about immigration and mass migration. it’s really a good investment to make countries work so that people can eat cuz then it’s not like they’re dying to get on a dinghy and float across an ocean if the place the country where they were born and they loved was functioning.
So thinking about ways in which we describe this both as I need an AMA comparative an environmental imperative the more we can influence public opinion. The more we can influence public opinions, the more you’ll see politicians respond. That doesn’t mean that there is not a normal role to play for NGOs philanthropy and so forth but I and I said this to both Bill and Melinda even with the incredible generosity and enormous skill with which they’ve deployed their resources over the years. The U.S. budget is still bigger (a lie?)and sometimes from young people that you can work around the government and work around politics because that’s too messy or is corruptive.I just don’t like those folks or what have you. I’m sorry guys that’s not going to work if you want to get done what you’re talking about you will have to combine philanthropy and Technical know-how and smart policy engineering with getting your hands dirty trying to change ensure that the people were in charge of the levers of power are responsive and that will require work and I guarantee you you will be disappointed at once. but what a glorious thing is to be responsible for saving the world. that’s your responsibility. Thanks.
Commentaires