Youth Summit 2025: Youth-Led Innovation for a Livable Planet

[Alla Ivanov]
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the very first panel discussion of the World Bank Group Youth Summit 2025. My name is Alla Ivanov, and I serve as this year’s Pitch Competition Co-Lead. I am very excited to be here, and I hope you are as well because we are kicking things off with a very important conversation that I hope will set the tone for the rest of the summit. How can young people not only raise awareness on critical issues, but also bring about meaningful change in their communities and beyond. We will look at this through the lens of youth-led civil society organizations. As I am sure everybody in this room knows, and those of you joining online as well, this generation of young people does not ask for permission to lead. You are building your own platforms. You are pushing the boundaries of what we know possible. However, a key question remains, how can we, across international development and civil society, ensure that youth voices are not only heard, but that they lead to lasting impact? Unfortunately, I personally do not have the perfect answer for this. However, we brought an exceptional panel today that might just point us into the right direction. Let me introduce you. We have here Robin Mearns, Global Director for Social Development here at the World Bank. He’s bringing the institutional perspective on how the Bank evolved its engagement with youth and civil society. Then, we have Pauline Deneufbourg, Youth Empowerment Specialist at UNDP. She has over 15 years of experience in helping youth participate in peace building and governance efforts across Africa and the Arab region. Benjamin Lutz, he is Director of Youth Summits at Young Professionals in Foreign Policy and incoming Chair of the Y20 and Y7 Summit. He is shaping how youth voices connect with global diplomacy and policy. As we begin our conversation, I would like to remind you to keep your remarks short and concise so we can keep the energy moving and have time for everybody’s insights. For you, and the audience here at the World Bank headquarters, and for you joining online, please do keep a mental tab open for all your tough questions because as we will have a Q&A at the end. And with that, let me dive right in. I would like you to share... Oh, my God, I forgot our online pianist. Is she online? Because I don’t see her on the screen. Well, we also have Anoushka Sinha. There she is. This is Anoushka Sinha. She’s joining us online from India, and she is a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree as well as the founder of the Anupam Foundation, leading bold youth-led initiatives that empower women and children through education and development across 40 countries. Now, thank you all for being here. All right. I would like us to start and ask you to share your experiences about how has the landscape of youth-led civil society changed in the past few years, and what is the unique value of this initiative perspectives for underserved communities and populations. Robin, why don’t you start us off?

[Robin Mearns]
Thank you very much, Alla. Wow, so exciting to see you all here. A very warm welcome to the World Bank. Today is finally here. We’ve been eagerly awaiting this, and I’m sure you have, too. Thanks very much for the question. You’ve already heard today from Ajay and from Axel, and they’ve shared a perspective on the importance of engagement with youth. As you know, the World Bank Group’s mission is to end poverty on a livable planet. It’s really putting youth at the forefront of development, creating opportunities for young people to thrive as entrepreneurs, leaders, and change-makers. It’s an absolutely top priority for us. You’ve heard from Ajay about the importance of jobs. You all know how critical it is for youth to have access to jobs and economic opportunity, but in order to do that, it requires engagement as well. We increasingly recognize youth as critical drivers of social change and economic growth. What about some of the demographic trends? We know there’s something like 1.2 billion young people in the world today, accounting for 16% of the global population. Young people are a powerful and growing force, driving economies, innovation, and leading social change. So, not only is the population of young people growing, 85% of that 1.2 billion reside in low and middle-income countries. Actually, half of that number live in fragile and conflict-affected settings, which makes the challenge of engagement all the more critical and important. We’ve seen progress in the last several decades in areas such as education, health, digital, for example. 79% of all youth globally do have access to the Internet, 86% of people aged 15 or older have had access to formal education. Teen pregnancy and birth rates have been falling in the last 20 years. But having said that, life as a young person today remains full of challenges. I’m looking forward to hearing from all of you and our other panelists on all of this. Let me talk about some of the challenges that I see. In areas such as education and health, 20% of youth are actually not in education, training, or employment. Two-thirds of that number are young women. Youth unemployment rates are about 3% higher than those of older adults. Only a third of young people are actually satisfied with the jobs that have for those who actually have jobs. Young women face significant safety challenges, including sexual violence and child marriage. 13% of teenage girls give birth before turning 18. Climate change compounds challenges. One in seven young people experience depression and other mental health challenges. In our work in the World Bank’s Social Development Department, we’re trying to address these in several ways, and we aim to make youth equal partners in the development process. Let me just give a couple of examples, and I’ll be brief. We put out a report called “Change-Makers” that was launched back in January. This underscores that youth-led initiatives are absolutely crucial for delivering locally-driven solutions that are tailored to particular contexts. It is about creating jobs and economic opportunities, but it’s also about engagement. It’s really about empowering youth to directly address the needs of marginalized groups, especially those in fragile and conflict-affected settings. Putting youth at the center of development, these initiatives help mobilize resources, ensure local ownership, and advocate for the inclusion of the most underserved populations. Finally, let me just mention one other initiative which is called CIVIC. We’re in the process of setting this up. This is the Civil Society and Social Innovation Alliance, and it’s aiming to replace our previous program, the Global Program for Social Accountability. It’s really about systematically engaging with civil society and other non-state actors to ensure that citizen-led solutions are integrated into development programs. Now, under CIVIC, the intent is to have a series of thematic platforms, and one of these will be around youth engagement. It aims to empower youth-led organizations, providing grants, coalition building opportunities, and fostering cross country partnership among young change-makers. It’s directly aligned with the findings from the Change-Makers report. In regions like sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, youth-led initiatives are about addressing gender-specific barriers, providing safe transport, childcare, reproductive health services, and protections against gender-based violence, among many other things, all tailored to the needs of young women, a critical area that was featured in the Change-Makers report. Let me stop there. Thanks, Alla.

[Alla Ivanov]
Thank you, Robin. And speaking of youth-led initiatives, I would like to go next to Anoushka. Thank you.

[Anoushka Sinha]
Thank you so much. I’m already so inspired. It’s such a great start. Can you guys hear me okay?

[Alla Ivanov]
Yes.

[Anoushka Sinha]
Perfect. One effective strategy for me has been really combining localized problem identification with scalable action pathways. By that, I mean, we really transition from one-off awareness drives to actually talking about how we can ensure that there is longitudinal community engagement. So, one thing that’s worked for us in the past decade, we’ve seen that youth club, civil society has really evolved from informal, volunteer-driven collectives to increasingly structured entities that really contribute directly to service delivery and meaningful dialog, advocacy and accountability. One great example that I know a lot of young people in this room might know of is the UN Youth Office that works to champion and advocate for young people’s rights, ensuring that their meaningful engagement and decision making happens, especially on decisions that affect them and their future. I’d like to quote a report by the UNDESA from 2023 that states over 60% of youth organizations globally now implement community programs in addition to advocacy, a significant shift from the advocacy only mindset that we used to have, where young people were only seen as symbols of tokenism, where they could only be at these seats to talk about these issues, but not to actually serve a proper purpose. The comparative advantage I see as someone who has founded a youth organization myself is in our agility, our cultural proximity, and our grassroots presence, which really enables us to reach the underserved populations directly. Often, those who were overlooked by the traditional actors. I’ll give you an example. Our foundation has designed community-based interventions in hard-to-reach areas, including low-tech educational programming for out-of-school adolescents and teens, as well as awareness campaigns that use vernacular formats to address gender-based barriers to education, as well as building peer-to-peer community that really makes sense for these young people that are not really aware of where they have to start. These approaches are really grounded in the socioeconomic context of these communities. A very important thing that I have to point out right now is they are co-designed with the local youth facilitators to ensure they’re sustainable and they’re relevant to these young people.

[Alla Ivanov]
Thank you so much, Anoushka. Benjamin, would you like to go next?

[Benjamin Lutz]
Yes. Thank you so much. And hello, everyone. Welcome to this summit. Thrilled to be invited. I’m really appreciative today. I’m the Youth Summit Director for Young Professionals in Foreign Policy, YPFP, something I think all of you should be well involved with. We have chapters all across the globe. When we talk about civil society opportunities to directly engage youth, I myself am part of that youth category, so go us. But also, the ability to connect on the professional space, Axel mentioned him starting out as a YP, I would say all of you are also YPs. It gives an opportunity to really collaborate. That’s one of the things why I joined Young Professionals of Foreign Policy and why I strongly encourage you all to at least look it up at the bare minimum. The Youth Summit program that I help lead is for the Y7 and the Y20 summits. I’m assuming most of you are familiar with the G7 and the G20. If not, really quickly, those are the top seven economies in the world that meet every year or the top 20 economies. The United States is in both of those two groups. And so, there is a youth version that advises G7 and G20 leaders every year, which I help select, train, and support the American delegates that go. I’ve been doing that since 2019. In the year 2020, the US hosted the G7, so we also hosted the Y7 on top of supporting the American delegates. Next year, the United States is hosting the G20. And in 2027, the United States is hosting the G7. So really big initiatives coming to this country very soon to support youth initiatives from all of those countries, bringing those youth to the summit to talk about intense global challenges, whether that’s peace and security, climate change, really the themes of this summit, just at that specific space, but directly advising the leaders of the G7, G20 countries to incorporate youth perspectives in their final communicating negotiations. It’s a really unheard-of platform for youth voices to directly be in front of global leaders, and something I find really powerful. On the point of underserved populations, the really heart of this question is really paramount in how we run the applications cycle, at least for the United States, delegates, but I know many of the other G7 and G20 country youth committees also really have a priority on ensuring the youth of their country are well represented in all the definitions of what that may be, whether that’s a minority community, whether that’s a religious space, whatever it could be, ensuring that those youth have the ability to be at that table ensures that even more perspectives across the youth space of those countries are at those negotiation platforms and that’s really, really vital. Two weeks ago was the Y7 summit, which was in Canada. I was there supporting and observing the American Delegation and preparing for us hosting next year. It was really powerful to see how the Canadian organizers included indigenous elements, bilingual elements, the things that make Canada, Canada as a big part of the summit. There were youth from all across the G7 there, but the underlying factor was we are in Canada, we are in Ottawa. So, let’s learn how this country deals with communities, underserved populations and youth voices. The Y20 this year is in South Africa, which I will be going to as well later in August. To serve and support for next year, but also for the handover, as it’s important to have that sustainability between year-to-year summit, since we are hosting the Y20 in 2026. I’ll wrap up there, just saying that there are many, many ways to get involved. The Y7 and Y20 are just a tiny sliver of opportunities to get youth voices like yourselves on the global platform. I’m just thrilled to see the interconnections you all make today and tomorrow and onwards. Thanks so much.

[Alla Ivanov]
Thank you, Benjamin. It’s so good to hear that you focus not only on youth voices, but on diverse youth. With that, I would like to hear from Pauline and how this landscape looks like from UNDP.

[Pauline Deneufbourg]
Thank you, Alla. And good morning, good afternoon, good evening for those who are online, connecting from somewhere else. Let me start thanking the World Bank for the invitation. Very happy to be here and to see such a packed room at an early time in the morning here in DC and very, very thrilled to engage with all of you in the coming two days. So, it’s quite obvious. I believe that we are now evolving in a new changing environment for many reasons. First of all, I think it was mentioned by my peer colleagues before, but we live in a digital era. This is quite obvious. And so, we know that youth, young people and youth-led organizations have to adapt to this new environment and to this emergence of digital tools and AI. We’ll talk a bit more about that later. We also live in a community-driven environment where young people also have to adapt. That brings a lot of challenges, but also a lot of opportunities. Let me just give a couple of examples on how UNDP tries to support young people in this new emerging environment. We do leverage at UNDP innovative and digital tools for young people to increase their participation in governance processes, decision-making processes, and also to reach underrepresented populations. At UNDP, we have built and we support youth leadership programs. At the regional level in Africa, we have built the Youth Connect program that enables young people to connect and to build their skills and capacities in social entrepreneurship. In the Arab States, we have supported the Youth Leadership program that has supported so far more than 20,000 young people and supported 5,000 projects focusing on fostering social innovation with a strong emphasis on gender equality. Let me perhaps zoom in on a couple of other examples. The first one is on the Youth, Peace, and Security agenda, which is a key priority area of support for UNDP across the world. That translates in several initiatives towards young people and youth-led organizations. The Youth, Peace, and Security agenda consists in supporting youth-inclusive political processes. To that end, UNDP has developed and launched a report a guide last year called “Fostering Youth-Inclusive Political Processes.” I’m mentioning it because this guide highlighted a number of challenges and opportunities for young people to actually increase their participation in decision-making processes in this new context. One good example, I believe, is the young people’s participation in electoral processes, which is also key and crucial for UNDP. It’s part of our mandate. For us, it’s key to ensure that young people can have a meaningful role in electoral processes, not only that they can run campaigns, but that they can also participate actively in monitoring the elections, in fact-checking information circulating during electoral processes. Last example I wanted to give, coming back to the digital era that we are all evolving in. Another example that UNDP has been supporting in the past years is the Generation 17 initiative. Together with Samsung, we have partnered to leverage digital tools and the power of digital tools and social media and the power of storytelling to amplify young people’s voices across the world towards the achievements of the SDGs. Now we have a cohort of more than 15 young people working for different SDGs across the world who mobilize their communities at the local, national, or regional level to really amplify their voices and raise awareness on the SDGs and amplify the work that is done at the grassroots level and that can have an impact at the global level. To wrap up, yes, we live in a changing environment, fast changing environment, which brings a lot of challenges, but again, a lot of opportunities. I think it’s up to us together to seize these opportunities and to build young people’s leadership and to foster their participation using those new tools that we have. Thank you.

[Alla Ivanov]
Thank you so much. You all touched upon strategies and projects you have in your own institutions to engage with youth. I would like to know what obstacles have you faced, especially when working in challenging and fragile context and how did you overcome them? Just for the interest of time, choose one obstacle and one solution. Benjamin, let’s start with you.

[Benjamin Lutz]
Thank you. I’m actually going to talk about something different. My full-time job is not the Youth Summit’s Director work. It’s at a global peace building organization called Mediators Beyond Borders International, which really answers this exact question directly. We work in fragile contexts globally, supporting peace building initiatives on the ground directly through primarily youth-led civil society organizations in those other countries. The largest challenge that we’ve noticed, which Robin mentioned, is access to technology. I know there are many of you online, many of you in here who are on your phones and taking notes, which is great, but a lot of communities don’t have reliable and consistent access to technology. And so, technological literacy is quite down, quite frankly, because there’s not consistent engagement there, but when we do global peace building work, a lot of it is through support, coaching, mentoring, social cohesion, dialog, all of these great elements, but require some element of technology and technological access to be effective, whether that’s sharing documents and resources, whether that’s consistent checking in or mentorship, whatever the specific context is needed. Of course, it’s very different depending on the local community, the language, the country, the religion, etcetera. One of the ways we’ve gotten around that is being proactive in adding Wi-Fi cafés or technological literacy sessions before we even start the peace building work. They’re still currently in that conflict, but ensuring that they have those specific tools will help them even further to ensure no backsliding. And so, some of that is specific funding for a Wi-Fi café, and that also might not be where they live. Transportation and potentially even a day’s summit or food. You have to really think about all of the community elements of a social program, not just “let’s stop the violence” or “let’s have a dialog session.” And so, technology has been a really big boon in a lot of ways of directly accessing global spaces through Mediators Beyond Borders and other peace building initiatives out there, but ensuring that those are consistent, reliable, and connected are really vital. And so, through our partners all across the globe, again, depending on the specific context and culture, has been a way to support on-the-ground initiatives more directly. We’ve become quite creative in how we fund and support local initiatives. Instead of just giving funding for X, Y, Z program, it’s funding for a computer for the village, or again, whatever might be specific and necessary for that conflict. Technology has been that undercurrent and a challenge, but one that requires more creative thinking and more proactivity.

[Alla Ivanov]
Thank you, Benjamin. It’s so great to hear about this very practical solution that you implement. Pauline, what are you doing at UNDP on this front?

[Pauline Deneufbourg]
It’s a pity that you only allow me one challenge because I had a full list, but I will just pick one which actually echoes a little bit what Benjamin just shared. It’s access to information. I mean, let’s face it, the reason why everybody is here in the room or online is because you got the information. But this is unfortunately not the case for everyone. So, information remains a privilege, I believe. And so, what UNDP is doing to ensure that everybody has access to information, and to quality information, different things. But as Benjamin said, I think we have to be creative and we’ve proved that being creative, we can allow access to information. Sometimes, for instance, Internet is not the best way. We need to use more traditional ways to reach population in their communities and to provide the information that they need and to also disseminate information. One example that I can quote is, again, coming back to the Youth Peace and Security agenda that I mentioned before as part of the support that UNDP is providing. We have supported youth-led organizations in the Great Lakes region in Africa using community radios so very local radios, to disseminate information across the communities, across the villages in their local language. And that made a lot of difference because it was a good way to actually disseminate key messages on youth peace and security, to debate on key issues that matter for the population, for the youth population in their communities, but using local tools and local language. An adapted information circulation is important. That’s what I would say.

[Alla Ivanov]
Thank you, Pauline. Pauline and Benjamin, you’ve set the bar quite high. Robin, why don’t you tell us what the Bank is doing?

[Robin Mearns]
Thanks, Alla. I think there were two parts to the question. You’re asking about what are effective strategies for engaging youth, particularly in FCV, fragile and conflict-affected settings, and then about overcoming obstacles. So, let me start with—

[Alla Ivanov]
One obstacle.

[Robin Mearns]
One obstacle. I’ll stick to one. Let me start with the effective strategies. I mentioned the Change-Makers report that we launched back in January, and what it highlights is that the most effective youth programs are those that actually engage young people as agents of change, not just as beneficiaries. And that means involving youth at all stages of program preparation, design, implementation, and so on. CIVIC that I mentioned that we’re just setting up, the Civil Society and Social Innovation Alliance, is about supporting this, making sure that youth aren’t just participants, but leaders in shaping the development agenda. This is just as… even more important, I would say, in fragile and conflict-affected settings, where youth often face insecurity, lack of resources. In these settings, the focus has to be on social cohesion and civic engagement. Let me just give an example of this with some similarities to Pauline’s response on the importance of engaging young people in local governance, in good governance. The World Bank is supporting a program across the northern Gulf of Guinea region. This is in northern Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, just south of the Sahel region. It’s about community-led initiatives that bolster and build social cohesion, trying to prevent the spillover effects of violence from the Sahel to the north. In doing this, A key part of the program is about engaging youth. I just came back from Ghana last week and was there for the opening of a youth parliament in Tamale in Northern Ghana. This is one of several youth parliaments that are being supported under this program. It’s a way of supporting youth leaders to be able to advocate for their interests, to be able to engage with policymakers, and influence many things that help shape the lives of young leaders. So, empowering young people to be active citizens and leaders of change. In terms of obstacles, the one I would highlight in FCV settings is safety. Youth have to be protected to be able to engage meaningfully in development programming. The Change-Maker’s report stresses this that youth in fragile and conflict-affected settings need safe spaces and settings that can help foster trust and collaboration. And so, the CIVIC platform is aiming to build on this and support this, to give spaces where young people can co-develop and co-lead development programs with local youth leaders, making sure that they have the resources, the support, and the protection that they need.

[Alla Ivanov]
Thank you, Robin. You’re absolutely right. Trust is something we really have to work on and ensure that young people really trust these organizations. I have one more question. It is the easiest one by far. I would like to know, how can youth led civil society organizations and established institutions build more effective and equitable partnerships? How international financial institutions such as the World Bank can play a supporting role in youth-led civil society? And as you said Robin, recognize young people as genuine agents of change. I would like to start this question with Anoushka.

[Anoushka Sinha]
Thank you. I just want to point out that for the last question, a lot of people mentioned that there are technological gaps, and we need to build safe spaces. I actually have to give a shout out to Pauline because I started my advocacy journey at 10 years old. The first thing I did as a tool was use community radios. I was one of the youngest members of the press, and I ran three seasons on a community radio talking about these issues that affect young people the most. I have to say it’s very effective for sure. Coming to your question, Alla, youth-led civil society and established institutions can really build more equitable partnerships by grounding collaboration with shared governance, not just tokenistic consultation or one-off thing. This includes providing core unrestricted funding, reducing administrative burdens, and really integrating youth-led monitoring and evaluation processes into their functioning. International financial organizations, such as the World Bank can really play that catalytic role by embedding youth-led initiatives within their formal development pipelines and I know that there are a lot of programs right now at the Bank, like the Solutions for Youth Employment program that I’m a part of as an advisor. We can also think about including and establishing dedicated youth innovation funds, simplifying access to financing for unregistered or nascent organizations that are led by young people at the grassroots level, because that’s something that we struggle a lot with, and really institutionalizing youth representation in program design, evaluation, and resource allocation frameworks. I think, ultimately, it all comes down to what we’re saying is meaningful youth engagement must be underpinned by mutual accountability from both sides of the party, be it the young person, be it the organization, structural inclusion, and the recognition of youth, not just as beneficiaries or tokens, but as our actual architects of development solutions across the world. I’ll stop there.

[Alla Ivanov]
Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Anoushka, and I hope everyone was taking notes. All right, Let’s go to Pauline next.

[Pauline Deneufbourg]
What can we do to build trust between young people and institutions? A lot of things, I believe, but I would perhaps quote three things. The first one, I think we can help, and I include UNDP, actually in the question, if you allow me. But we can help create infrastructures to enable youth-led organizations and young people to not only operate, but also to network and connect between each other’s. I mentioned before the example of Youth Connect that UNDP has supported in Africa. It’s just one example of how we have tried to not only build capacities of youth led organizations, but also connect them, create connections across the region, across the continent. Infrastructure is important, but also, and Robin talked about it briefly, but the creation of safe spaces is important online and offline, because, of course, we talked a bit about the digital era that we live in. Now we need to also use those tools, use the digital tools, but also ensure that protection is there. So, online spaces are also important, but spaces that can guarantee young people’s meaningful participation and that they can actually influence policies. It’s not only about spaces for young people to sit at the table, but to also be able to meaningfully take part in the conversation and influence policies. I think Anoushka also mentioned it. We need to go away from a tokenistic approach and not only guarantee the seat, but also provide voices and make sure that they can influence the policies. One good example, and I’m sure we will talk a bit about that in the coming two days, but it’s a major challenge, obviously. We all live in a climate crisis. One thing that UNDP is also doing is supporting young people’s participation in climate governance. So, when we talk about climate governance, we talk about NDCs, Nationally-Determined Contributions. Through its climate promise, UNDP has supported a number of countries, 125 countries in the definition of their NDCs, always ensuring that those processes, those governance processes, are inclusive of young people, indigenous people, women, and local communities. So, spaces. And the third one, and I promise I will wrap up, it’s about access to funding. Flexible funding, and adapted funding for young people to implement their local and innovative solutions. And one last example that I will give in that regard because it’s very timely, is the Youth for Climate initiative that UNDP has built together with the government of Italy. And the initiative supports young people who are driving climate action across countries, providing seed funding to those young people, but also mentorship opportunities and training. I’m mentioning this because we have an open call for solutions closing on the 26th of May. So, if you’re planning to apply, go to the Youth for Climate website and you will have all the instructions. Thank you.

[Alla Ivanov]
Thank you, Pauline. I saw a lot of heads nodding in the room. So, I think these are some great additions to your to-do list. Benjamin, what do you have to add?

[Benjamin Lutz]
Thank you. Everything that Anoushka said, hopefully you saw me snapping, I agreed with, and quite frankly, I have nothing additional to add. The opportunities to engage youth in global spaces like you all are doing right now is paramount. I think one thing that Alla said at her beginning, and thank you for kicking us off that way, is that you all and the interconnections you make are much more important than anything we say on this stage. It’s true. I mean, yes, we’ve done really cool work and are supporting youth, but the connections you all make with one another will last after these two days. I’m going to say that again because it’s important. The connections you all make here in person and online in these two days are going to last. Maybe that’s an initiative you all start together. Maybe that’s the climate thing that Pauline just said, all of you apply. There are opportunities that you all now have together, the access, the information, the ability to connect. That is the thing that you should take away from these two days of the summit. Share your successes, share your struggles, share your engagements with one another because you all can support one another. You’re all youth. You’re all at the summit, you all care about the really big challenges that face our globe, and you’re all here for a specific reason. All of you are. I mean, the people you’re sitting next to are and the people online tuning in are. And so, capitalize on those spaces. Start an initiative together, support each other in current initiatives, be each other’s letters of recommendation. You see each other here today. Having this community and network is so much more valuable. And honestly, anything I can say on the stage, I won’t speak for the rest of my panelists, but at least anything I can say is your interconnections are so much more valuable. So, do that. Build those partnerships together. Join initiatives, be a part of YPFP or other international organizations that focus and deliberately engage with youth. That is the way forward here. And that’s really what I hope you truly only listen to me is just right now is connect with one another. Be aggressive in your LinkedIn connections. Be really connected in how you all can work on solving challenges of the globe together here online and here in person. You are the change that we need today. So, start making those connections now.

[Alla Ivanov]
Thank you, Benjamin. I feel like I need to clap.

[Applause]

[Alla Ivanov]
Thank you so much for this great advice. Robin, you will answer the last question, and then we will get a few questions from the audience.

[Robin Mearns]
Thanks a lot, Alla. Hard to follow Benjamin. Real passion. It’s fantastic. The evidence from our research shows that really the most effective partnerships between youth-led organizations and established international financial institutions like the World Bank, UNDP, and other organizations are those that are built on mutual respect and shared goals. What youth-led organizations can very often bring is innovation, but connecting with, and I think Anoushka put it really, really well, the catalytic role that IFIs can play, I think is the key here. What the established institutions like the World Bank can offer are resources, networks, and policy influence to connect to existing programming and influence governments that bring the solutions that youth-led organizations can bring to scale. It’s really about seeking those scalable solutions. I would also say that effective partnerships would probably require capacity building as well, making sure that youth-led organizations have the skills and the resources that they need in order to succeed over the long term. And so, the Change-Makers report that I mentioned highlights many of these things, and I won’t repeat a lot of it. At the heart of it, though, is absolutely recognizing youth as agents of change. It’s about voice and agency, prioritizing youth leadership and youth-centered solutions, but making sure that we have those channels and those avenues to integrate these innovative solutions into mainstream development strategies and policies. So, what works to propel youth employment? What works to propel young people’s empowerment? How do we foster greater independence and well-being of young people worldwide? Our findings show overwhelmingly that we have to be more intentional about how we engage young people as agents of change, and hence the title of the report. A couple of final closing comments, if I may. One is that there are, I think in order to create jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities for youth, these initiatives work best when they address the specific barriers that certain groups may face. For young women and girls, for example, it’s often about ensuring that there’s access to safe transport, childcare, access to reproductive health services and so forth, paying attention to gender-based violence in addition to skills and entrepreneurship. That’s just one example. We’ve talked quite a bit about digital opportunities and AI, and I think here, of course, there are big opportunities, but there are also huge risks of leaving the most marginalized behind. If we want to be able to harness those opportunities for excluded young people, we really have to get it right and specifically address those risks. We need to make sure that everyone has access to the Internet, but as my fellow panelists have said, it’s not all about the Internet. There are other channels, other forms of media that are essential, but I think in relation to the Internet, making sure that girls and boys are safe from online forms of gender-based violence, cyber harassment, cyber bullying, and so forth is absolutely critical. So, let me end with one final comment. I’m getting evil eye from Alla. It’s really that as the World Bank deepens its commitment to engaging with youth, we have to find meaningful ways to measure impact, and it goes beyond just counting beneficiaries. But how many young people are actually satisfied with the interventions? Looking at the outcomes that actually matter to young people, and tracking if we’re actually able to reach youth at the greatest risk of exclusion and doing so at scale. Thank you very much.

[Alla Ivanov]
Thank you, Robin.

[Applause]

[Alla Ivanov]
I know it’s very hard to keep the time when we have such important conversations, but now I will turn to our audience. And oh, wow, so many hands. The lady in the blue shirt, I think I saw you first. Yes. Can we get her a mic, please? Mic is on the way.

[Lillian Smith]
Thank you all so much for being here and speaking to us. My name is Lillian Smith. I’m from South Carolina. I just wanted to ask more deeply about this safety aspect of development and youth-led initiatives. I wanted to know more about the “how.” How do we bring safety to these spaces? I know we can’t just expect it to come about. What collaboration is being done between the World Bank and maybe another organization to make this happen?

[Alla Ivanov]
Robin, maybe you’ll take that as she mentioned the World Bank.

[Robin Mearns]
Yeah, I’ll be happy to do that. This is a very clear example where it’s completely impossible for governments to try to go it alone. Most governments don’t have anything like the capacity required to be able to ensure safety, particularly for women and girls, in context of a very high prevalence of gender-based violence. I was just in West Africa, as I mentioned, over the last couple of weeks, and actually last week was in Liberia and Sierra Leone. In Liberia and Sierra Leone, half of all women have actually experienced intimate partner violence and really shocking prevalence rates. And obviously, a lot of this is the legacy of civil war in both countries, but it’s perpetuated, and it’s perpetuated by harmful social norms that actually normalize and lead to very high levels of acceptance of gender-based violence of many forms, including early marriage, teen pregnancy, and so forth. These are precisely the kinds of settings where the World Bank has an environmental and social framework, and it applies across all programs that that we support. We have social specialists who are embedded in every single team. Among the various risks that we need to safeguard against are the risks of sexual exploitation, abuse, and sexual harassment. To do that, usually it requires partnerships with civil society organizations, service providers around gender-based violence. I saw some really good examples of this just last week in Sierra Leone. It’s forging those collective partnerships and doing it in every setting where it’s required. Then in addition, trying to program around the prevention of gender-based violence, including interventions that actually get to the heart of those harmful social norms, trying to address and change norms together with men and boys as allies and champions. Not easy to do, but I can tell you it’s become an increasingly prominent area of programming for us across the Bank, both on that risk mitigation side and on the prevention and response side. Thank you.

[Alla Ivanov]
Thank you so much. Let’s take one more question. I see a gentleman with glasses. One, two, three, four, five. Yes, you, I’m looking at you. Can you stand up?

[Bidemi Ojudu]
Hi, everyone. My name is Bidemi Ojudu from Nigeria. My question is quite basic, actually, for Anoushka. What is the most effective way to set up these initiatives from a legal perspective? Do you set it up as a charity, a foundation, or a civil society?

[Alla Ivanov]
Thank you.

[Anoushka Sinha]
Thank you so much. I think to answer your question, something that makes sense to you. Start locally. I think every solution that you implement, doesn’t matter if it’s a charity, if it’s a foundation, what makes sense to you and what’s relevant to you and your work and your community. You don’t necessarily have to have an organization with millions of dollars in budgets. You really need to start small, act locally and think globally is what I’d like to say. Thank you.

[Alla Ivanov]
Thank you, Anoushka. I think this is great advice for everyone. I have great news for you. We have time for one more question. Okay, but they are 20. Young lady in pink suit? Yes. Wear bright colors. This is how people can see you from afar.

[Dima Alsudairy]
Hi, everyone. Good morning. My name is Dima Alsudairy. I’m here representing the Misk Foundation. I’m also currently intern at the United Nations. So, to start off, I want to thank each one of you for such insightful advice. I feel like I speak for everyone in the room by saying that you really motivated us. My question is to Pauline, since it’s regarding the UN. I wanted to thank you first for emphasizing the importance of meaningful youth inclusion. I also wanted to ask, in your experience, what mechanism or accountability frameworks have proven most effective in ensuring that the youth-led recommendations are not only acknowledged, but tracked, funded, and reported on within UN agencies and even national governments?

[Pauline Deneufbourg]
Thank you. It’s a good question and happy to actually continue the conversation if we don’t have time during the break, I will be here. But perhaps, short answer. Again, I would perhaps quote the example of Youth, Peace, and Security, and more particularly the National Action Plan on Youth, Peace, and Security, because that’s one specific area of support for us at UNDP, together with other UN entities. We support countries in developing their national action plans on youth, peace, and security, which of course includes means to ensure young people’s meaningful participation in decision-making processes, in civic spaces, in political processes, broadly speaking. And so, in those national action plans, when we provide support to countries because this is a long process, of course, it goes through local consultations where we collect recommendations from local communities to feed into this National Action Plan to ensure that it’s then owned by everybody in the country, that it’s also owned by local communities, and that it translates into something concrete, concrete actions at the local level. And so, we ensure that also those National Action Plans include accountability mechanisms and monitoring mechanisms, that it’s not only an adopted document that then sits on the shelf, but that we have a clear reporting mechanism to enable a clear follow-up on the actions adopted in the National Action Plan. So that’s one thing, but perhaps another example that I would be happy to discuss more with you during the break is we haven’t mentioned it, but the Pact for the Future that was recently adopted in September is also inclusive. As you know, there is a whole chapter on youth and future generations, which is quite a milestone for all of us, I believe. That also includes a number of recommendations and commitments for those accountability mechanisms and with concrete actions to be taken to ensure that there is a follow-up and that there is accountability, but happy to talk more about that later.

[Alla Ivanov]
It’s a cliffhanger. Thank you all so much for your questions. Thank you for our wonderful panelists for your time, for your insights, for your advice and for your willingness to meaningfully engage with young people. Let’s keep up the good work. To you, please enjoy the rest of the summit, and I’ll see you around. Thank you.

[Applause]

[Shwetha Grace Eapen]
Thank you so much. Thank you so much to the panelists for that insightful session.

[Cynthia Mene]
Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to everyone joining us around the globe, virtually. And to all of you here, welcome to this exciting panel discussion at the World Bank Youth Summit 2025. My name is Cynthia Mene, and I am the Content Co-Lead as Shwetha said. Thank you. This session, we will be exploring how data-driven and digital solutions are empowering youth to innovate for peace and resilience. I will start by having a quick question and discussion with the panelists, and then we will open up to Q&A. So, if you are online, please put your questions in the chat throughout the session. We will get to it. When it’s time for the Q&A session, if you have questions, we will call on you as we’ve been doing. Before I introduce my panelists, I would like to start by providing a brief context to this discussion today. As we all know, digital transformation is reshaping our world and offering unprecedented opportunities for innovation and development. However, without intentional inclusion, it risks deepening existing inequalities. And as one of our speakers, Robin, said, he highlighted the World Bank Change-Makers report. I’m going to just say a few statistics from that. The Change-Makers report mentioned that 20% of youth globally are not in education, employment, or training, with two-thirds of them being young women. Additionally, over 600 million people live in fragile contexts, facing barriers like limited Internet access, where 38% of them are from rural households, unlike 72% in urban regions. And then, the World Bank Digital Economy Initiative in Africa also mentioned that closing this digital divide could help boost global GDP by 13 trillion dollars by 2030. Despite these challenges, we know that youth are at the forefront of driving digital innovations for development, leveraging data and technology to help reshape economies and foster inclusion. So, this panel will discuss practical solutions and innovative models to ensure that digital transformation benefits everyone and fosters a more inclusive and a resilient future. That said, I’m thrilled to be joined by a lineup of incredible speakers who are at the forefront of this work. I will start by introducing our first panelist, Johan Bjurman Bergman. He’s a digital specialist in the artificial business line of the World Bank Digital Vice Presidency, where he’s helping to build the Bank’s country advisory and lending program on AI. He also launched and is leading a cross-cutting program to advance digital transformation in fragile and conflict-affected states. Previously, Johan invested and scaled up programs and companies that use digital technology to build human capital, create jobs, and deliver services to over more than 30 low to medium-income countries. And then, we also have Beverly. Beverly Hatcher-Mbu. She is a Director of Policy at Development Gateway, an IREX venture. As an international lawyer with over 10 years of experience in digitization, Beverly has led projects in nine countries globally, and she leads oversight and policy positioning for the organization’s agriculture portfolio and also shapes key messaging across DG in AI, in digital public infrastructure, and in health. But previously, Beverly worked at the World Bank Group as a legal consultant, and she’s also on the Board of Accountability Lab. And finally, joining us virtually is Sinead Bovell. Sinead is a futurist and Founder of WAYE, an organization that prepares youth for a future with advanced technologies, with a focus on non-traditional and minority markets. To date, she has educated over 500,000 young people, young entrepreneurs on the future of technology. Shined has advised presidents, royalty, and Fortune 500 leaders on AI and innovation. She’s also a regular tech communal on CNN, NBC, and [unintelligible], and she was named as one of the top 50 voices shaping the future by AfroTech and has won the Mozilla Rise25 Award for her work in championing open and responsible AI development. Thank you all for joining us today and welcome. Okay, so we will start. I have a few questions, so we’ll start. So, this first question I want all our panelists to answer. Please, feel free, but keep your response to at least three minutes for the sake of time. My first question is drawing on the Change-Makers report’s emphasis on a tailored approach to different youth’s population, what innovative digital solutions have you developed or implemented to reach and benefit different or underserved youth, especially like women, those marginalized groups? And also tell us what barriers did you encounter and how did you design your solution to address those challenges? Let me start with you, Johan.

[Johan Bjurman Bergman]
Thank you very much. I think the example I would like to share is from our work in the West Bank and Gaza in the Middle East. I just came back from there last week. We had what we call a midterm review mission for our project, the World Bank project there, which is really supporting the IT services industry in the West Bank to upgrade its proposition and to be able to deliver more advanced services to clients. There, it’s really about not necessarily inventing or creating a specific product as the World Bank, but really acting as an enabler for others to do that. I think that’s a lot of how we think about our role as the Digital Vice Presidency, both externally as well as internally as an enabler and a platform to support others… Whether that be governments or our internal colleagues here within the Bank, to really use digital tools as a way to enhance the effectiveness of solutions, improve the efficiency of those solutions, and then really replicate and scale those solutions as well. In this particular project in the West Bank, that really looks like understanding what the main barriers for these firms are, to be able to achieve higher-level and higher-value businesses, to be able to deliver and secure clients. For us, we are supporting them by addressing the skills gap that really exists and the barrier that they have to get the skills that they need to secure international clients. Second, we’re addressing the lack of firms in the market by de-risking the launch of new firms. So, really to grow the pie and grow the market and also grow job opportunities for those people that we help train and equip with skills. Third, we’re providing access to R&D technology, so more advanced technology, which in many cases, these firms do not have the incentives and the opportunity to purchase themselves because either it’s too expensive or somehow, they’re otherwise prevented from accessing this technology. Then fourth, we’re supporting them to professionalize both their organizational structures, their marketing materials, and their product offering so that they then can go out and seek new business opportunities, whether that be in the region or globally. Really, for us, it’s about understanding very, very in-depth what are the barriers that the stakeholders that we’re trying support are facing, whether those be firms in the West Bank, governments in Central Africa, or our colleagues within agriculture or education, and then coming in with specific solutions that can really address those barriers and having a strong rationale for why the World Bank should be engaged based on our comparative advantage as an organization that can really bring expertise, bring financing, and bring a platform to convene partners around these issues. Thank you.

[Cynthia Mene]
Thank you. Go ahead.

[Beverly Hatcher-Mbu]
Great. I got to have my own one, I think. I’m going to be a typical lawyer for a second and answer a question with another question, which is there are two questions I think that we need to be asking when we’re designing meaningfully and we’re designing with young people and marginalized communities in mind is, one, what data do we really need to solve the problem? And two, how can we model and mitigate any risks associated with that. I start there because, and I have an example to back it up. A few years ago, Development Gateway built a dashboard for maternal and neonatal health. The idea being if we can map where maternal and infant deaths are occurring in Ghana, then we can see where the deaths are highest and use that geo-located information to help policymakers target limited resources directed at improving service delivery. We knew going into there was likely to be some sense of some highly sensitive data. So as part of, and we’ll talk about this a bit more in the panel around partnerships, but we thought a lot around what can we do to minimize, how can we make sure there’s a minimum amount of data available for policymakers to actually make an evidence-informed decision around improving service delivery, but how can we protect the most vulnerable? In that case, we used location fussing. So, there’s enough geographic specificity for policymakers to be able to see where the most deaths were taking place. But then, it was not so precise that you could name down to the level of the house or the individual who was impacted. Sometimes I think we overcomplicate digital development, especially in resource constrained environments. It’s not rocket science. If we want to reach underserved communities, we need to meet them where they are. I would leave it there.

[Cynthia Mene]
Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay, over to you, Sinead.

[Sinead Bovell]
Hi, everyone. I’ll try to keep it brief as well. For us at WAYE, we focus on access to tech education and through learning about the future. The big question that we wanted to ask when we were initially founding WAYE is, what do young people, in particular, need to know and understand today about emerging technologies to better prepare for their future tomorrow? And we’ve tried various different approaches to tech education. So, we have our WAYE Talks series, which initially was in person, but we realized we could reach a lot more people by moving that online. We host mentorship days because we realize not everybody is comfortable asking their questions about the future or accessing content online. But then, we found open content using social media platforms where young people already are and consistently reinforcing our message, whether it’s skills, whether it’s understanding how the societal impacts of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence or biotechnologies, or whether it’s what you should be studying today, was the most effective way to reach young people with a consistent message. So, we put together a board. We call them the WAYE Young Leaders Board that help guide the decisions on the content that we share, what stories are relevant? Where are we in this moment? And we try to be as consistent as possible in the messaging that we share. So young people really feel like they know what skills are relevant for them today. How do I navigate the technologies that are coming down the pipeline? I think for some of us, it feels like a freight train. And what other breakthroughs do we have to look forward to or to look forward to in the future? Right now, our audience, I’d say, is about over 60% women, which we’re pretty happy about. We continue to grow our reach and continue to grow our representation. I found even just being a first person of color at the forefront of our organization has really shaped who does feel invited to the conversations. I think even representation, it can be hard to see yourself aspiring in a lane that nobody looks like you. That representation, we feel like has been modeled back in our audience as well. I’d actually say the final thing, it’s one thing, I think, to ensure that young people are educated on the forefront, but making sure that we’re in the background in the policy rooms, educating parents as well, educating educators on what they need to know to shape a future for young people in which they can thrive. So, we really do that two-pronged approach. One is direct to young people, and then the other is the infrastructure from education to parents policy.

[Cynthia Mene]
Thank you very much. Thank you, Johan. Really exciting to see the work you’re doing to use digital tools to enhance the effectiveness of solutions. Beverly, you mentioned about data and how that’s helping to protect those vulnerable populations. And then, Sinead, also thank you for bringing up. Thank you for empowering youth, them with the right skills they need to thrive and building on when you mentioned digital infrastructure. I also want to ask one question again. You have educated over 500,000 young entrepreneurs on the future of technology. How can we better prepare young people to thrive in the digital economy and actively shape digital future? And then, building on that, I want you to also share with us if there’s any foresight-driven curricula or experiential learning model that has proven very successful to either equip on the side of youth, especially young women with the mental skills they need to thrive in this AI-driven labor market?

[Sinead Bovell]
Yeah, and I’ll actually start with the latter part of that question. Strategic foresight is a form of practice that has been used for decades. How do you spot trends and data and understand the complex systems around them? And one thing I always like to say is nobody can predict the future, and that’s not the practice that I’m in, but it’s also not a surprise. So, if you can think about what patents have recently been filed, how have different technological breakthroughs in history traditionally shaped how society has evolved? When you equip people with those skills, they can start to understand how the future may unfold. One of those skills is long term thinking. We often, even within education, study for the immediate unit test right in front of us. We don’t think about how does what we’re learning today, how could that intersect with a different technology or a different society and change how we evolve in four, five, six years, just taking a different horizon. Even just things like “what if” questions. So, what if this happened? What if “X” happened? And mapping out different trends which really build a muscle for long-term thinking. Another part of strategic foresight is cross-disciplinary thinking. We think about school often in silos. You have science, you have math, you have history, but helping students and helping young people to think at the intersection of it. How does what you learned in history and what you also learned in science, how did those interact for example, historically? So, it’s a formal practice. We just don’t really introduce it to young people. I happened to stumble upon it during my Master’s taking a course. And when I finished that course, I realized everybody needs the tools to understand the future so we don’t feel so caught off guard by it. I think for a lot of people, it feels like you’re playing Whac-A-Mole with headlines when you can see different trends coming and anticipate how technology will impact your own job. I actually think that’s one of the best ways to prepare for a future with AI. Instead of being surprised as to how it might impact a career that you’re interested in, if you start to anticipate, how has this technology evolved? How have past technologies, for instance, like the Internet, changed the devices we used. What did those devices lead to? We had a smartphone that led to a creator economy. If we have a tool like AI and we talk to it more, does that mean we’ll probably look at our smartphones less because we have a system we talk to? Those are types of trend lines that don’t require deep technical expertise. They just require more complex thinking. And then, the second part of your question was, how do we prepare people? What are the meta skills for an AI-driven world? Of course, working with AI systems as a hard skill. I put AI with reading and writing. Reading, writing, and working with AI. This doesn’t mean knowing how to code a supercomputer. It’s just understanding the basics of how, its strengths and its weaknesses. But I think the more important skills, I mean, I would bet on somebody who had deep thinking skills and judgment skills and critical analysis skills more than somebody who just knew how to prompt an AI system. Because when AI can give you 10 pretty decent answers, which one are you going to choose? That’s a deep judgment skill. That’s more complex, higher-order thinking. The future of jobs, it’s up in the air as to what AI will and won’t be able to do. But if you flex those muscles of judgment and critical analysis, maybe you don’t consider yourself a finance person, but in a world with advanced AI systems, you might still be the best person to lead the finance department because of your judgment skills. AI does a lot of the critical analysis and the financial number crunching, and you have really good judgment, you know what scenario would be optimal for the company. So, the skills in the AI age, some of them are technical, but most of them are, and I don’t want to say soft skills because I think complex thinking and deep thinking can be harder, but those are the types of the foundational skills necessary to thrive in the digital age.

[Cynthia Mene]
Thank you, Sinead. Good to know that

[having]
judgment skills is really important. Thanks for sharing that having the long-time thinking and cross-disciplinary thinking is really helpful. So, I will turn to you, Johan. Given your work with the Cross-Cutting program within the World Bank, could you tell us how can we imagine technologies like AI be harnessed in such a way that we can breach digital divides? And how can we empower young leaders and entrepreneurs, especially those in FCV regions, to enhance the work that they do? If you could share some use cases or prerequisites, that would be helpful. Thank you.

[Johan Bjurman Bergman]
Great. Thank you, Cynthia, this is obviously the eternal question, how can we use emerging technologies to really help improve outcomes for young people? I think we need to think about it in two prongs, if you will. First of all, I think it’s very simple. It’s really getting the tech into the hands of these young people, the innovators, the entrepreneurs, and let them start experimenting with it. We are seeing some examples already of this working. In Nigeria, for example, a Gen AI chatbot really improved learning, it helped students in after-school learning get the information that they may get in six months, in just two weeks. We’re seeing in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in the mining sector, foresight-driven AI and forecasting is helping mines access the capital they need to grow, improve safety, and create good jobs. In Burkina Faso, there have been pilots with computer vision AI looking at diseases of plants and helping improve how you treat those and increasing yields by up to 30%. We have these small pockets of pilots of results that we’re seeing, and I think we need to really start learning as much as we can from this, gather to your point, the data on how these are working. But then the second prong really is a bit more on the scaling side, because if we continue with small pilots here and there, that is not going to have this impact that you’re talking about, Cynthia. Really there, it’s about understanding, first of all, what evidence do we have so far of AI or emerging technologies being able to bridge those divides? Then second, what is the approach we can take? I think for us, we know AI is different than previous technologies in the sense that it can learn, it’s heavily data dependent. Gen AI can also create new content. Sometimes it hallucinates a little bit. It can help you do some high-skilled work. Our research or our colleagues’ research here at the Bank have found that on the opportunity side, we’re AI being able to really democratize access to knowledge. So, that’s a positive thing we can access, and I’m sure you’ve experienced it yourselves, accessing really insights that you weren’t able to before. It’s improving productivity, it’s supporting faster innovation, and it can also help on the broader level enhance services trade and close the gaps between markets, overcoming language barriers and such. But then on the risk side, we’re seeing also the potential that countries that do not adopt or are not able to adopt AI quickly can really struggle in the future to create good services jobs, to create high paying jobs and get locked into a situation of low stability and low earning jobs. It can lower the incentive to learn because why should I go and get all these new skills when I can use AI to get them? It can widen inequality between countries and also within countries based on who has access to AI and who doesn’t. There’s also a timing aspect here. Some people are saying AI will have these effects within the next one, two years. Talk about AGI. I think we’re trying to take a bit more of a balanced view, looking perhaps to Sinead’s point at what can we learn from previous general-purpose technologies like electricity, like the steam engine, in terms of what it took for capabilities to be translated into applications and then be adopted. This can really take a lot of feedback, a lot of testing, a lot of learning. We’re seeing with these previous technologies, it took decades to go from actual capabilities to actual adoption in the market. We really need to keep a good eye on the timing of these aspects as well. In terms of the approach for FCV countries or FCV context that you’re asking about, I think three things. First, what are we trying to use AI for? We’re not going to use AI for AI’s sake. We need to have a specific use case. We need to have a specific problem. Then we need to understand what specific AI technology should we be using to address this problem. Do we need generative AI? Do we need computer vision? Do we need some other type of AI technology? Second, what are the prerequisites based on that technology that we’ve picked? For us, we like to think about this in terms of three or four Cs, the foundational connectivity and energy to really connect you to the Internet. Second, compute, whether that’s on the edge, on your phone, in the cloud, or GPUs that are in a data center on the premise. Third, what we call context, which is really the data wrapped in strong governance and safeguards. And then the fourth, which is the competencies, like Sinead was saying, the skills really both to use, but also to build AI. And then last of all, which is really important here is the FCS context. We know that on the one hand, we have the Ukraines of the world, which are classified by the Bank as an FCS context. But on the other side, we also have countries like Somalia and Central African Republic. These are very, very different. We need to understand how are those solutions potentially exacerbating drivers and risks of fragility, and how can they support the resilience that we really need to build. In summary, really encouraging a two-pronged approach. First, getting the tech into the hands of the young entrepreneurs and innovators and start experimenting and really learning as much as possible, and then feeding those learnings and insights into broader efforts to improve the prerequisites and build up the capabilities that you need to have impact at scale.

[Cynthia Mene]
Exactly. Thank you, Johan, for sharing those wonderful insights. And then over to you, Beverly. I would like to focus more on the policy aspect. I know your work in terms of advancing the framework for digital public infrastructure highlights the importance of interoperability and governance in DPI. Could you, based on your experience, tell us what policy levers have proven most effective for governments in establishing data governance standards that empower youth-led innovations, either in health, in agriculture, extractive industries, and beyond? And building on that, also maybe share with us, how can youth voices be integrated into the development of digital policies that impacts their future?

[Beverly Hatcher-Mbu]
Great. Thanks. Any more questions? No, I’m just kidding.

[Laughs]
Just to lighten the mood. I think Sinead and Johan have set me up really well here because I think the core of when we’re thinking seriously about data governance is, it’s complex systems at scale. In Nigeria, Development Gateway, we’ve been working with the Ministry of Health around tobacco control and tobacco use impacts on youth. It’s called DaYTA, if you want to look it up. So, we’ve set up two expert groups, one in survey implementing presentation and the other in youth advisory. And we structured the program in this way because we’d learned in a pilot in DRC that we had a larger, one large expert group, and the youth voices and youth perspectives in that group kept getting lost. The expert group often went down some tangents that were quite highly technical, and we knew we were missing out on the insights we needed to shape the data use strategy for the program. We knew if we were missing it, that our government partners were as well. When we started up in Nigeria, we started set up in two structures so that there was a clear pathway in which we could repeatedly, recurrently receive and engage with youth perspectives on the data use strategy around how do we manage healthy outcomes for young Nigerians and then setting the research priorities. I share that example for two reasons. I think, one, overarchingly, if we want to change, if we want to transform how we manage, store, and use data, a.k.a., data governance, then we’ve got to be very clear about how we translate insights into structure. It’s great to collect lots of ideas and have space for that innovation, but it has to go somewhere. Otherwise, we spin our wheels and we’ll burn people out. Young people have a lot of energy, bring a lot of energy and fresh perspective, but I don’t want them to feel jaded that they’re putting all these ideas out into the world and they’re not translating into systemic change. For me, for us, what that means is we need to move away from, “Oh, yeah, there’s a young person on this committee” to, “Here’s the outcome document of this drafting committee,” and we can point in clear ways to show where a youth perspective or particular communities have been taken into account in X, Y, Z ways that now form the basis of that drafting strategy, that technical program, whatever it is. I think interoperability has three components, but we often get stuck on the first two. We talk a lot about data interoperability or data integration and connectedness. We talk about systems, maybe if you’re lucky, but we forget that it’s fundamentally about people. If we want digital infrastructures to expand upon the best of what humans have to offer, I think we need to be thinking in very tangible ways about how we transform the technical requirements, the policy committees, the oversight mechanisms, whatever the format is, and really think about how those venues, those avenues, can espouse nuanced perspectives. So, that’s a feature to have nuanced perspectives, not a bug or an inconvenience.

[Cynthia Mene]
Thank you. You asked if there’s any more questions, so I’m going to ask you one more question.

[Beverly Hatcher-Mbu]
Excellent.

[Cynthia Mene]
Yeah. Can you tell us more about what partnership models have you found most effective?

[Beverly Hatcher-Mbu]
I thought about this question for a long time, probably longer than I needed to. Again, I did mention at the top of the hour, I’m a lawyer. I sit on things for a long time. What I wanted to say on this topic, I think it’s easy to throw out, we just need more public-private partnerships, or we just need X group of people in the room, and that will fix everything. We’re all looking for a silver bullet that is going to make these technologies and these approaches work, but what we actually need to be thinking about is partnership models as a constellation in the same way that we need many stars simultaneously to see clearly at night or clearer at night. We need to think about partnership models in the same way, especially when we’re talking about inclusive digital public infrastructure. A model that DG is using in Ethiopia is engaging with universities outside of Addis to cascade a data standard around livestock, improving data and systems integration for livestock. Did you know that undergraduate and graduate students and their professors are some of the biggest users of livestock data in Ethiopia? I did not know this. Maybe you are not surprised. It was great for me to learn, but essentially, I learned from our embedded team that universities were often getting missed in a lot of these digital initiatives, these cascading and training opportunities because they play an often informal role in translating contemporary and up-to-date research in real-time in the communities where they lived and studied, and they weren’t getting caught in the traditional value chain in terms of training and thinking about how we expand scale. I think Sinead touched on this in her answer as well previously, but I think we really want digital public infrastructure and AI to be new, but we actually, I think there’s a lot of power in considering these new and emerging tools on a continuum of digital transformation. As part of that continuum, we have to talk about where we failed. We have to talk about where we have partnership blind spots. Which traditional and nontraditional partners are we not working with, but we should be? Are we thinking through where relationships are in communities and who people trust and working with trusted partners to improve data use, to improve digital engagement? Are we working with Imams and religious leaders? Are we working with trusted youth leaders to expand our idea of who should be in that model and how they drive scale and impact for digital initiatives? And lastly, I’ll end on this point. I think it’s really critical for DPI for Digital Public Infrastructure, to not get stuck at the payment and the ID level, divorced from services and experiences that all citizens, and especially young people, feel on a day-to-day basis. There’s a room for both. It doesn’t have to be an either or. It can be both and. We need to think about inclusive DPI. Addressing power asymmetries, not as an inconvenience, but as a necessity. We want technology to wish away the problems that we as humans have created, and it’s not going to do that, but we can face that head on by using DPI, whatever the next buzzword is going to be, as a new opportunity to restructure some of those partnership models and how they function.

[Cynthia Mene]
Thank you very much. Just like you said, I think Digital Impact Alliance also mentioned that a multi-stakeholder approach to digital initiative proves 3.4 times higher than a single sector project. We’ve seen several effective models like private, public, and people partnership. We’ve also seen academic, practitional collaboration, digital collaborations, as well as the cross-border tech alliance. But moving away from that, I have one last question for you, Sinead, before we take questions from the delegates. What role does storytelling and digital literacy play in empowering you to take control of their digital future and also advocate for their communities?

[Sinead Bovell]
Yeah, I’ll start with digital literacy, and I think I touched on it a little bit. Digital literacy gives you the hard skills to participate in the future. I think digital skills are the foundation. If you don’t have, whether it’s the know-how of how to use a tool, understanding how to navigate a tool, how to use this system safely, and are they optimal for you? Should you be there? You are essentially locked out not just of the future, but also of the present. I tend to see digital literacy the way I see reading and writing. I see it all interchangeable as the foundation for access and the foundation for building, and also for democratic participation in many regions throughout the world. But when you combine digital literacy with storytelling, it’s a really powerful intersection because storytelling gives people a way to make sense of the technology and the change around them. It helps to turn an abstract idea, whether that’s an algorithm, whether that’s data privacy, and whether that’s in genetic engineering, into real relatable narratives. And so, when you can craft shared stories, it actually really deepens your understanding of the technology and how it could affect you in your day-to-day life in ways that you would want it to, and then in ways that you wouldn’t. And you can start to build solutions and understand aspects of resilience and prevention when it comes to technological evolution. Even asking questions, who does this empower? Who does this disempower? That really enforces digital literacy by helping people to think about how tech works and how it benefits. But I also think, perhaps even most importantly, storytelling inspires people to want to participate in shaping the future because it gives people something to fight for. I think a lot of times the stories, and rightfully so, we tell about technology or stories what we maybe don’t want to happen or the fear of how things go wrong, but it is impossible to build towards the futures that you want if you’re only thinking about the futures that you don’t want. But it is great privilege to be able to have the time, the resources, to pontificate on futures you do want. And that is part of the gap. I mean, there’s profound power in who gets to pick the problems technology will solve. And that is part of... That’s somebody’s story. When we say AI is going to change this and it’s going to change that, that is somebody’s vision of the future, but what about everybody else? And I think storytelling is an accessible way to bring in tech literacy problem solving in ways that are inspiring, accessible, and helpful.

[Cynthia Mene]
Thank you very much. Now I’m going to open it up to questions, but I’ll take one question online from one of the online delegates. This one says, what practical steps can youth-led initiatives take to build meaningful partnerships with global institutions like the World Bank, like Development Gateway, especially when working at a local level with limited resources and reach? I think Johan and Beverly could speak to this.

[Johan Bjurman Bergman]
Do you go first?

[Beverly Hatcher-Mbu]
No, by all means.

[Johan Bjurman Bergman]
Excellent. Thank you, Beverly, for putting me on the spot. The World Bank has a country-based model, which means that in all the countries where we operate, we have local staff, whether they be from the country or internationally recruited and based there, who are in charge as task team leaders of the projects that operate in the country. I think for youth-led organizations, and specifically, since you asked on the community level and at the local level, I think it really starts there. Understanding who is the person or the people in that specific sector where you and your organization are trying to have an impact to change the narrative, and really work for inclusion. So understanding and finding out who those people may be. Then, I think for the Bank, understanding what projects are currently under implementation, what are we trying to achieve, what are those components and activities. This is available online on the World Bank portal, on the World Bank’s website. And then, seeing how might you, as a youth-led organization within that specific area, engage on those components or activities, or alternatively, strike up a conversation about if there is a next iteration of this project, of this technical assistance, of this analytical work, how might you engage with the people who are really taking these efforts forward? I think really understanding who the people are in your sector in the country, understanding what the current efforts are, and then through dialog with those people, seeing where is the Bank planning to go and affect change in the next 5 to 10 years, and seeing how you can really collaborate and bring those perspectives into the conversation. Thanks.

[Beverly Hatcher-Mbu]
I think Johan covered most of it. Development Gateway, I didn’t mention this, we’re a nonprofit. We are medium but mighty, small to medium but mighty, but we operate with the same approach and the same model. People who are living in those communities tend to know far more than we ever could, far more than I ever could sitting Washington, DC. I am Nigerian, but I don’t live in Nigeria, and I pay attention to that positionality as much as I can because there are always going to be people on the ground who know better than I do. My job is to help connect what they understand to other global conversations and resources as best as I can. I think in terms of partnership, it’s also about knowing your lane. I think sometimes people are afraid to say that. At DG, we’re often a little bit further up the value chain, generally often working directly with governments on government systems at a systems level. There aren’t always avenues because we have a very narrow scope that we’re building or building data governance or policy in particular ways. It’s a fine balance that we do. We’re building in particular ways with particular partners. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t work with youth groups or engage with young people, but there aren’t always opportunities to, but sometimes there are. So, I talked about that tobacco control program, and not because it’s a youth focus, but because in general, it’s about tobacco control, knowing that there are specific impacts on young people. I think it goes a little bit to what Johan was saying, which is that you need to know where your strategy is or where your position is, and then build relationships accordingly. Talk to everybody. Talk to everybody up, down, and sideways. It’s not only the people who sit on the stage, it’s just people who are sitting next to you or people who are online with you in the chat. I think that’s a part of how we build a more nuanced approach to partnerships, whether you’re a part of a youth group or elsewhere.

[Cynthia Mene]
Thank you. That’s some really exciting insights. I will open it up right now. If you have questions, I see… Let’s start with... We have one person here in the front.

[Abhisekh Rodricks]
Hi, and thank you so much for the insightful discussion that we just had. I’m Abhisekh Rodricks, and I am an operational risk manager at UBS. Now that we see that institutions are accepting AI into their day-to-day work and institutionalizing this concept, we see that most of the employees who are working in these institutions are either reluctant or very scared of this concept or the use of jargons and big terminologies like algorithm, AI data, and stuff like that. While creating institutional-level policies on AI, and its governance, how do you think we could bridge this gap and make these policies more accessible to the employees? Because any policy has to be understood by the people who are utilizing or are impacted by it. So, on an organizational basis, how do you think this gap can be breached out? Thank you.

[Cynthia Mene]
Thank you. I also want to take another question, then we can answer both. Okay. We have a young lady just right in front here. Please, make your question brief.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Okay. Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for this wonderful discussion. My name is

[Unintelligible]
. I’m a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. And my question is, how do you see some of these solutions that you’re seeing that are very digital-focused? For example, we talk about AI. How do you see that interacting with energy systems in some of the countries that you’re working with, especially since these technologies are very resource-intensive, and if nations are already struggling with energy insecurity, resource insecurity, like it was here as well, how does that…? Are there any challenges and opportunities there for these small companies to be sustainable from the get-go as they’re developing in these early stages?

[Cynthia Mene]
Thank you. Sinead, I would like to start with you if there’s a question that you could respond to.

[Sinead Bovell]
Sure. I can briefly respond to both. I’d say for the first question, how do you ensure that people who may be intimidated by technology want to adopt it in an organization, especially when policy and guidelines and best practices aren’t always interpretable by the average person? What I have found in my experience in going into different organizations is building champions within the company. So, whether it’s in a specific sector of the company or a specific team, having somebody that can be that bridge, that communicator between people who are building the policies, who have the in-depth knowledge about the tools. And then, they’re also very comfortable with the teams that they work on, and there’s already a system of trust and shared terminology, shared communication, and they know their team best. And so, they become this champion for how AI gets deployed and ensuring that nobody in the organization gets left behind. And then, the second question about energy and water systems. General purpose technologies, they build on each other, and so do the problems and the challenges. So, whoever doesn’t have access to electricity probably doesn’t have adequate access to the Internet and likely won’t have as much consistent access to artificial intelligence, and that is the reality. So, we still have to bridge and fix historical issues because people will then just continuously be systemically and structurally left out of the future. When it comes to energy with artificial intelligence, I believe we actually do have some of these solutions. I mean, clean energy solutions exist. They’re just more expensive, but that is a choice that companies are choosing to not make. I think that we don’t have to be in this AI energy crisis the way that we are. Water is a different story. We’re going to have to figure out where it makes sense to build certain data centers that are water intensive. And I know right now, most of the data centers are being built in deserts, which doesn’t make the most sense when we think about complex systems thinking. But when it comes to energy, there’s a company in Canada that uses solar panels for their data grid. So, there are ways around it. We just have to make different choices. And that’s really what the future comes down to. We have most of the solutions if it’s a technical problem, but some of the most challenging problems we face are actually human choices that we are choosing to not make.

[Cynthia Mene]
Thanks for sharing. I’ll take two more questions. Okay, so I have one lady down there putting on the blue. Yeah, please stand up. Yes.

[Amina Mustapha]
Hi, I’m Amina Mustapha, and thank you for talking to us about this. I have a question, particularly for Johan. He mentioned that basically the technology should be made accessible to the youths in general. But I’m just curious to know that, for instance, in youths who are in conflict-affected areas, how do you ensure that these technologies are made accessible to them, and especially in terms of funding infrastructure and policy gaps basically in youths affected area, basically?

[Cynthia Mene]
Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, some more hands over there.

[Amber Faizi]
Hi, my name is Amber Faizi. I work at United Nations Foundation. First of all, I just want to say thank you guys for talking today. It’s really inspiring to hear people who are not skeptical about youth’s views. My question is, I wrote my capstone in economics on artificial intelligence, so I’m really curious to see how the conversation evolves, but I think that many of us in this room, AI and digital futures are intuitive, in a sense. It shaped our cognitive frameworks. I’m curious. I know that there’s a lot of talk about tokenization of youth in their perspectives, but I’m curious about the reciprocal learning, intergenerational. How do we ensure that this is not just tokenization or an ideal we aim for, but it’s an actual institutional practice within the systems we work in and that youth voices aren’t always heard with skepticism? Thank you.

[Cynthia Mene]
Thank you. So, Johan, you could answer the first question, and then maybe Sinead and Beverly can take the second.

[Johan Bjurman Bergman]
Definitely. Thank you for this one. It’s a very difficult one, and I would really encourage you to continue thinking about it. I think the framework that I tried to lay out a bit when I made the first remarks, which really looks at AI for what are the specific gaps, and what is the specific context. It’s a useful one to really think about it from a policy and an investment side, but I think within these contexts that are affected by fragility, conflict, and violence, these are all more exacerbated, these challenges in many ways, because when we talk about the FCV context, it really also brings in resource constraints that are much, much more potent than those in many other countries. Any dollar invested in infrastructure towards unleashing AI technology or making it accessible to young people, maybe a dollar that’s deprioritised from something else like health or education, etcetera. The policy side, we have oftentimes very weak policy frameworks in key areas that we know that we need to responsibly deploy AI, data protection, data privacy, cybersecurity, etcetera. We also, on the other hand, have very low capacity within the public sector, often to strengthen and implement and enforce the policies that are there. That’s the second challenge. Then I think a third challenge is that often we see that the foundations for human capital, education, health, are also much, much weaker in this context. We start from a much lower position. In some sense, the approach that we may want to take is to look at what can we do that is both beneficial to addressing this human capital policy and infrastructure aspects as it relates to AI, but also as it relates to societal development more broadly. What we think about as no regrets investments. From the digital standpoint, we think about this in the framework of those four Cs, connectivity and energy, to Sinead’s point about really being able to provide sustainable energy and connectivity with that. The current M300 initiative that the World Bank and African Development Bank and partners are rolling out across Africa. I think it’s a really good example of this, which then is also paired with connectivity. The second one is on the compute. How do we ensure that we roll out devices that can be used for those small AI applications and then provide access to the cloud through the connectivity? How do we help countries think about data as in some sense, the new oil as an asset that they can develop to and also tailor AI solutions that work for them. Then third, providing those skills, which to Sinead’s point as well. At the very basic level, these are digital literacy skills with some tweaks to understand how do they apply around AI. I think if we can make those no regrets investments in a very intentional way that don’t. take away from other key investments, then that is a path that can be sustainable.

[Cynthia Mene]
Thanks. Okay. For the sake of time, we might not be able to take the last one. But I want you to... We’ve learned a lot about how to overcome challenges with AI, data, and skills gap. We’ve also learned a lot on how to drive innovations to ensure a more inclusive and resilient future. I would like to encourage you all to continue to innovate for a more inclusive and resilient future because your innovation matters, and we care about it, and we want to make sure that they continue to make the impact and drive more solutions that impact or help people, especially in marginalized communities. So, thank you all for listening to us, and thank you to our panelists for this session. We’re excited to have you once more. Thank you.

[Sinead Bovell]
Thanks, everybody.

[Applause]

[Shrey Addagatla]
Our next plenary session will be something that's very exciting. As you know, climate is one of our core pillars today in the Youth Summit. Despite a global aggregate surplus of food, we still face many issues in terms of starvation, malnutrition, and food insecurity. Our next plenary session will be about Seeds of Change: Youth-led Solutions for Resilient Agriculture and Food Security. I'm excited to hear what the panelists have to say, moderated by one of our committee members. At this point, I'd like to welcome the moderator and speakers to the stage.

[Audience Applauds]

[Laure Mouttapa]
Thank you. Thank you so much, Shrey, and welcome, everyone to this last session of our packed morning, hopefully exciting and very interesting. And thank you very much to our speakers joining today. I'm Laure Mouttapa, and I'm really honored to moderate this session. So as Shrey was mentioning, we are facing an enormous challenge as the food population is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050. The food demand is expected also to increase by more than 50%. Facing this challenge, we have resource scarcity, multifaceted crisis, and extreme weather events. So how do we respond to this challenge? Climate Smart Agriculture and innovating in the way we produce food is part of the solution, because it has this triple objective to increase productivity and growth, while reducing carbon emissions and also decrease vulnerability to external and physical risks. However, as Shrey was also pointing out, beyond the way we produce food is also the challenge of making it accessible for everyone everywhere. This is why we wanted to include this super important topic of food security as well. Because, despite food production having increased in the past years, food insecurity has actually increased, and 80% of the people affected by these are in fragile, in conflicted, affected areas. So once again, innovating will be part of the solution. For example, digitally tracing food could save up to 30 million tons of food every year. But one other reason why we wanted to include agriculture in those discussions today with you is not only because it feeds us, but also because it is one actually of the most powerful tool to end extreme poverty. Why? Because it's a key element to reach some of the most underserved segment of the population. As three-quarters of the world's poorest population live in rural areas where agriculture is often the first source of income. Not only because of that, Agriculture, and food in general, nowadays employ 1. 2 billion people, innovation can pave the way out of informality through digital tools, entrepreneurship, new financial business models, the industry could create up to 140 million jobs in the future. As we have heard from Ajay, from Axel, and in the past sessions, with almost two-thirds of the youth generation entering the job market without a clear path to employment, this is really an opportunity we cannot miss. How do we make sure that agriculture and food are really engine of sustainable growth and profitability for all? And, how do we seize the opportunity of data-driven and digital innovation, including in the most fragile context? To tackle those two ambitious questions, we have four exceptional panelists today. We have Dr. Shobha Shetty, who is the Global Director of Food and Agriculture at the World Bank. Thank you so much for joining us. We also have Philipp Zimmer, who is a data science consultant at the World Bank Development Impact Group. We have Nathan Hulley, who is a consultant at CGAP in the Fragile and also in Emerging Countries Project. And last but not least, joining online, we have Guadaluna Chaer. she's the CEO and cofounder of Luxeed Robotics, a high-tech company using AI and laser technology for sustainable weed removal. And she's also our proud winner of last year's World Bank Youth Summit pitch competition. Thank you so much for joining us today. With this brief introduction, I would like to kickstart the session with our first question, asking you to tell us a bit more about what you are doing in your jobs, what are the strategic priorities from your respective organizations connecting to this general objective? I would like to start with you, Shobha, by asking you, what are the key priorities that the World Bank is seeing to make agriculture more sustainable?

[Shobha Shetty]
Thank you very much, Laure, and good morning to everyone. Really excited to be here with all of you today. I think Laure has set the stage for us in terms of what the challenges are for food security in this world that's really seeing an existential crisis in terms of climate change. At the World Bank, I think we have been propelled by a vision to build a productive, resilient, and sustainable food system. But the sobering reality, as we all know, is very far from this vision. And hunger and malnutrition are surging, while the food system also generates a third of global greenhouse gas emissions, also contributing to widespread deforestation, biodiversity loss, excessive freshwater use, and as well as contributing to pandemics. But, the food system remains too big and too important to fail. It provides one in three jobs globally, and this rises to almost two-thirds in developing countries, and it contributes 10% of global GDP. Agriculture, as Laure mentioned, can contribute to poverty reduction three times faster than any other sector. It's also a huge untapped potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Recognizing the food system's importance for sustainable growth and jobs, the World Bank has provided almost $22.5 billion for food and agriculture investments over the last five years. We are now working to mobilize resources at scale, recognizing that this is not just a job for the public sector alone. It needs knowledge, it needs advice, it needs finance, and the right kind of instruments to really attract more private capital into the food sector. These financial tools work best when combined with public sector policies. For example, at the World Bank, we are working with over 40 countries to repurpose harmful agricultural subsidies and support, and instead redirect them into more sustainable and nutritious outcomes. We are also supporting innovations, such as crops that are more resistant to droughts, heat, floods as well, biofortified foods, along with digital technologies and clean energy solutions, which can really help drive a second green revolution and tackle hunger across the globe. Here, I think the partnership with science and research organizations, such as the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research is really critical for us. The good news is that I think there is a global momentum now that recognizes change is possible. At COP28 in Dubai, we had 160 countries that signed the COP28 Declaration, making transformation of food systems part of the climate agenda. And by 2050, we can sustainably feed 10 billion people by using technologies, better public spending, and unlocking private capital. And this all has a price tag of less than 0.5% of global GDP. So, it's both achievable and affordable. The time to act is now. The youth are the agents of change. We need your dynamism, your drive and dedication to radically transform food systems, to build our economies, but heal the planet as well. Thanks, Laure.

[Laure Mouttapa]
Thank you so much, Shobha. That was really insightful and inspiring. Now, I would like to give the floor to Nathan. Can you please tell us a bit more about what you're doing, and how this connects to building a more resilient and sustainable agriculture and food systems?

[Nathan Hulley]
Yes, thanks, Laure. And good morning again to everyone. It's an honor to be here. I have worn a series of hats over the years, including as a microfinance lender. I've worked as a donor; I've worked as a program implementer. And it's always energizing to hear how technology is being applied to respond to development challenges, including food insecurity. But, I also faced a challenge. I spent most of my career, so far, based in the DRC in Congo. And one of the challenges that I often found was –either as a donor, funding programs, or as an implementer, working on donor-funded programs- and finding that some of the innovation and most exciting technology that I was seeing emerging with youth was not able to access the funding that was there. And that's something that really has driven and inspired, and also frustrated me. I'm not sure if that resonates with anyone, but, over the course of my career, some of the solutions that we have used through different teams to address that is through partnerships with the private sector, big and small companies, and also through things like competitions, like hackathons, and ways to inspire young entrepreneurs to be able to explore how to bring their solutions and implement that. So, I think in addition to what Shobha was saying about the importance of the research, the question is, how does that research then make its way into implementation in farming communities? I'm looking forward to speaking a bit more in a minute on partnership models that we've implemented over the years. But, for me, what I get passionate about and what I think you are probably passionate about also Is finding ways to really use donor-funded programs to mobilize resources, to make connections between companies that are emerging and problems that need to be solved, and then getting out of the way and letting those solutions move forward. I’m looking forward to discussing that more. Thanks.

[Laure Mouttapa]
Thank you very much. Philipp, would you like to continue?

[Philipp Zimmer]
Yes, thank you so much, Laure. It's a pleasure to be here, joined by these amazing co-panelists in a room full of inspiring young leaders. As Laure already introduced, I'm working with the World Bank's Research Department, and particularly with the Development Impact Group, where we've actually had a long history on working on agriculture and food insecurity before the realm and the age of AI that I'm more involved with in the group. We really look back at two decades of work that's been happening in the group, working with local stakeholders across the globe with a big footprint, also in the Sahel region and in the Eastern Horn of Africa, where we've really been trying in the group to bridge this gap between research and implementation, How do you make sure that the things that you learn from the bird's eye perspective, but also in the field with programs that are being implemented and associated by research studies in the field, how do we leverage that knowledge and then turn it into action? Now, in the realm of the work that we've been doing in the group for these two decades, as you can tell, I've not been around for these two decades, the question arose as the news kept being flooded with more and more excitement around machine learning and AI, How can we potentially leverage some of these technologies in the day-to-day work on agriculture and on food insecurity? This is the type of things, the types of questions I spend a lot of my time with. Through a lot of the conversations we've had with stakeholders, both in the field, but also some of the humanitarian agencies have a long collaboration with the World Food Program, has been that there are a lot of data gaps when it actually comes to identifying which populations are at risk of becoming food insecure at what point in time. We have a pretty good understanding from decades of research and practical work of what are some of these risk factors and risk drivers that ultimately lead to food insecurity. If we had perfect information, perfect data on these known risk factors, think about rainfall, think about local food prices on different markets, if we had all that perfect information, we would have a pretty good idea of how we would set up predictive tools to tell us where to respond and when. Unfortunately, that's not the reality. In practice, these data sources are very often outdated or incomplete. I think about in times of crisis, particularly if civil war rages, countries are affected by climate shocks, like floods. The institutions that are in place to collect the data on these different risk factors have bigger fish to fry. That's not their order, their main priority anymore to go from market to market and collect information on what a kilogram of rice costs. So, we started thinking about how can we get creative on filling these data gaps. I'm happy to speak in a little bit more detail later on, but, we've been thinking about monitoring the news reporting, using remote sensing information to basically fill these data gaps that can then help us improve on some of the predictive forecasting that we then again strive to implement very much with programming, with implementation. The group has been doing a lot of work on anticipatory cash transfer programs. Also, I’d be very happy to dive in a little bit more detail later on this. I will stop here and back to you, Laure.

[Laure Mouttapa]
Thank you so much, Philipp. Definitely understanding the risks and filling those data gaps are really the key part of the solution. And Guadaluna, to finish with this first round of questions, could you also share a bit more on what your solution is and describe your journey? Thank you.

[Guadaluna Chaer]
Yes, hello. It's really nice to be back here online as it was last year. Thank you for having me. It's actually afternoon here, so good morning to everyone. What we're working on is a tangible real proof of AI working in the field. We are using AI to detect and to distinguish between the crops and the weeds, the bad herbs that grow with the crops. After that, the laser hits the weeds inhibiting its growth. It's a big problem in agriculture to have weeds around. The challenge now is that farmers cannot find manual labor, and it's too expensive, and anyway, it's too inefficient. But at the same time, farmers are highly on herbicides. And now we have even more herbicide-resistant weeds, and it's becoming more ineffective. Technologies such as ours can disrupt this whole thing. Imagine a set of farmers having to pay tens of millions for weeding, they can have this machine and can do the weeding for them and very hassle-free. We actually moved from Lebanon to the Netherlands to continue working on this. Now we're on the MVP level. We're showing farmers how it works, and we're getting really positive feedback. Not just this, but we feel like farmers really urgently need this solution. From a higher level, we don't need to genetically modify crops to be resistant to weeds. We don't need to continue researching on herbicides when such technologies with AI are now possible. Back to you.

[Laure Mouttapa]
Thank you so much, Guadaluna. This is such good news to see that innovations are actually changing the production in a more sustainable way. I would like to dive a bit more in some of the conversation we were having earlier on agriculture as a lever for jobs creation and use engagement. I would like to go back to you, Shobha, and ask you, specifically, how the World Bank is seeing this issue and what are the key the pillars of action in this field.

[Shobha Shetty]
Thanks very much, Laure. Really interesting to hear about Guadaluna's company and its impact on agriculture and using these new technologies. I think as far as job creation and youth are concerned, this is of particular importance to our sector. We are talking about creating jobs not just on the farm, but also off the farm. This is why we like to call it the Food System, because you need more jobs on the farm to be able to create more jobs off-farm in processing, in logistics, in warehousing, and in the food service industry as well. And this is where we have the challenge, also from on the World Bank side, to make this an attractive sector for youth to come into. We know that agriculture now can no longer be a single business enterprise. The 21st-century farms really need to consider incomes from multiple sources, and this is what we see globally as well. Production of food in combination with generation of renewables, solar, wind, biogas energy, providing environmental services while rural populations, diversifying their income sources through value addition to farm production, manufacturing, and services. What we are doing in the World Bank today is really working together with our sister organizations, IFC, as well as MIGA, to really generate new levels of investment, building the capacity of the public sector, but also tapping into different instruments, such as IFC's risk-sharing facility, the guarantees for the private sector from MICA, all of this will help overcome challenges that constrain agriculture business transformation. Let me give you two examples of the kind of work that we're doing today. In India, for example, we are now supporting the government of India to develop a new Rural Resilient Prosperity Program where we are building on decades long partnership. All of this takes many, many years and building up this trust with our client countries to really accelerate the creation of new jobs and businesses for almost 200 million young farmers and rural youth. Here, I think what we are finding is that these youth can really create and take on these new business opportunities, as Nathan just said, if they have the adequate access to finance, as well as have the access to the skills that they need. What we are developing in this Resilient Rural Prosperity Program is to really give opportunities to young people to engage in both on-farm as well as off-farm forward-looking activities, providing the training and educational opportunities to really enhance yields on the farm, but also labor productivity. This is in evidence in many of our state projects in India. I think I want to underline the fact that we really need to focus on agile, scaling, and training programs that can align with these technologies that are being developed, as Philipp also mentioned, because this is what is really going to transform these economies that still are very, very dependent on the agrifood sector for growth. Let me stop here. I have another example from an Uzbekistan Horticulture Development Project where we financed several horticulture investments and which fueled a 70% increase in horticulture sales and exports. But this was also done through training financial professionals in agriFinance and equipping farmers with real-time market intelligence. Automation and digital agriculture, and I hope we can talk to that a little bit more, really provide new opportunities to reduce costs and really further develop these value chains, creating more and better agrifood jobs. So, creating this generational renewal of the agrifood sector. How many of you know what the average age of a farmer is in the world?

[Inaudible]
Yes.

[Audience member]
58.

[Shobha Shetty]
Pretty close. If we want to bring in the younger generation, we need to leverage technology, finance, and really create this generational renewal, which will be critical for economic growth in rural areas. Thank you.

[Laure Mouttapa]
Thank you so much, Shobha. Definitely interesting to know what the World Bank is doing in terms of growing the skills and also the access to finance to empower the youth generation to see agriculture, as you were saying, as attractive and profitable. And I would like to go with Guadaluna. You are, I want to say, the best example as a young entrepreneur yourself in the agriculture sector. What motivated you to enter this field and how can more young people like you can be driven through this path?

[Guadaluna Chaer]
That's a long story, but I’ll keep it short. Since I was young, I always wanted to be like this, a female, Elon Musk. When Elon Musk had a good reputation as a name. Anyway, as a mechanical engineer, I wanted to build stuff and I wanted to solve problems. My father is an agricultural trader, and this is where it started, actually, at the university level. And I think this is the case with most of the youth: you either take the master's academia route, or you take the entrepreneurship route, or you go into career and corporate. If you want more ideas, you have to tell the youth about the challenges that exist and how with their skills, as engineers, for example, we can solve these problems. We were encouraged to join a program in Lebanon called Agrytech, and we were on first place in the

[inaudible]
for this problem, weeds. We saw how we can use our skills where there is an obvious gap in the farming industry, and weeds are a serious problem. You have farmers losing up to 50% of their yields because of weeds nowadays, Without the aid of AI and technology. I think what will motivate the youth is to see where they can make an impact, especially when it comes to climate change. We're this generation, my generation, that grew up being aware about climate change really early on. I think it's personal for every one of us. Having these opportunities at university level, whether it's programs, grants, competitions, I think more people will want to take that route, And we’re already seeing this shift happening.

[Laure Mouttapa]
Thank you so much, Guadaluna. It's interesting to see that you came to that field through a specific program that you were mentioning in Lebanon. I want to turn to Philipp. In your view, what similar skills, programs, systems are the most critical for those young people to drive innovation in agriculture and food security today?

[Philipp Zimmer]
Infrastructure, infrastructure, and infrastructure. This is maybe a little bit of a controversial take, but with a lot of these summits these days, we hear a lot of talk about how AI will transform the world and how it will solve all problems that exist out there. As somebody being in the field, I'm also an optimist, and I think there's a transformational potential of the technology in leapfrogging development gaps and really helping us push the needle. But I find it concerning when these conversations are detached from the very real infrastructure needs that need to be in place to enable that technology to have this transformational impact. Whether it is through academia and universities like the program that Guadaluna was mentioning, but also at larger scale. We cannot just assume that all these youth are suddenly going to open up an imaginary laptop with imaginary stable broadband access in the most remote parts of their country and have access to the perfect data with unlimited computer resources to transform the world. This is not the reality. I'm hopeful that the big institutions, such as the one that's hosting us here today, will think critically about how we can venture into this new area and making the most of this new transformational technology while tying it to these infrastructure investments that need to be in place to empower youth, not only in the context of agriculture, but also in other contexts. I think there's a lot of examples to give of where this is happening in reality. There's a lot of fantastic initiatives. We were just two weeks ago in Togo with the Africa West Leads initiative by the Development Impact Group. It was fantastic to see the work that the government is doing with the Togo Data Lab, an amazing initiative that does also a lot of work on agriculture, predicting soil fertility levels, monitoring different crop yields across very high resolution across the entire country, where the lab was set up with a coding competition. Basically, everybody from college student to experienced engineer, was invited to engage in this coding competition. I believe the top 50 candidates were then interviewed, and the top 20 candidates of this interview process, were offered full-time positions with this government initiative. I think this is such a simple yet effective way of bringing passionate people with diverse skill sets that really can push the needle together and giving them a platform of resources that they can drive innovation forward. Thank you.

[Laure Mouttapa]
Thank you very much, Philipp, for reminding us that indeed, infrastructure is a key element that is the basis needed for any type of innovation, whether in agriculture and other sectors. And I want to turn to Nathan, what type of partnerships, systems are needed to encourage also the young people to work in this sector?

[Nathan Hulley]
Yes, thanks, Laure. I want to piggyback a bit on other speakers in my response to that. I was mentioning earlier the model of partnerships. When I think of the word partnership, the concept that most frequently comes to mind is partnerships between private sector companies, partnerships between donor programs and private sector companies to fund new innovations. And that often comes through things like challenge funds and competitions and hackathons, and connectivity does become a big challenge there. I've run a couple of hackathons in Kinshasa that yielded really interesting ideas, but then you find that across the broader country of Congo, you have still under 50% access to Internet connectivity. There's a lot of work to do around access to be able to even implement some of these solutions that we're talking about. Shobha mentioned access to finance, and that's really, I think, a core to this partnership model. I think one of the frustration points I mentioned earlier. I think one of these frustration points that sometimes companies find is programs coming in where ticket size is to be able to access the financing is at a level above where these SMEs are falling. You might have smallholder farmers or very small micro enterprises that are operating at maybe $5,000 or less. And then you have these bigger huge companies, but who's financing that missing middle for SMEs? And I think that's the partnership model that continues to be needed. I'm really intrigued by Luxeed Robotics. Actually, I think I need it at home for big weed problems. So, I'm looking forward to doing some research there. But I think looking at companies that have emerging technologies that are really promising, but where the risk is high, where even if the company is very strong, the pathway towards scale is slow at a current level of capitalization where you need more funding to be able to scale the solution more quickly or to be able to perhaps bring up other elements of a market system that that company needs to move forward so that they can move forward if they're facing barriers in that way. I think a few of the interesting partnership models that I've deployed for our partnerships with private sector companies ranging from six month to two-year partnerships, anywhere from $10,000 to millions of dollars. And short-term results often look like increased sales, new jobs, higher household income. But really one of the keys in the medium term is making that connection where companies are able to grow through a pilot partnership and be able to attract impact investors or finance from local banks that can then push them forward to grow. I think that's a really important element to the discussion, that's maybe less about the particular technology solution, but more about the ecosystem of being able to attract financing to move forward. Thanks.

[Laure Mouttapa]
Thank you so much. It's very interesting to highlight that we will be needing those public-private partnerships to increase innovation in this space, and especially this missing middle that you're mentioning. I think this is absolutely key. I want you to go further with this last question. From your different perspectives, what are some of the most promising data-driven digital innovations that are transforming agriculture and food security? We've touched on a few, but if you could dive a little bit more, give maybe a few examples. I would like to start actually this round with Nathan.

[Nathan Hulley]
Sure, yes, thanks. I'll just give a couple of quick examples. In the most recent project that I've been running, which is called Market Systems and Partnerships under Feed the Future, a couple of types of technology, technology related to processing, and this should increase the viability of certain crops. I'm thinking particularly here around areas that are impacted by climate change, where perhaps crops are shifting from predominantly being grown in one area towards another area. I'm thinking about coffee and cocoa in particular there, and interesting drying techniques and different technology. In Cambodia, under this program, we had successful partnerships using drone technology for crop monitoring and crop protection. And another area that I wanted to just raise is around food loss. I think it came up earlier, but I think the estimate is around 30 to 40% of food being lost somewhere along the chain from production to post-consumption. We were under this program, we were running a food loss and waste reduction accelerator, which supported SMEs that were focused on that issue. And I just wanted to highlight a couple examples from East Africa, in particular, where there are a number of really promising companies growing quickly in the upcycling business. Just throwing out a couple of names. BioBuu was one, Best Tropical Fruits is another that are operating out of Kenya and Tanzania, processing organic waste to produce animal feed, fertilizer, edible oils. Another area of technology that's really important is around cold storage as well to support that reduction in food loss. Those are just a couple of areas that we've supported. Thanks.

[Laure Mouttapa]
Thank you so much. And going back to you, Guadaluna, you yourself are a leader of an innovative solution. How do you see this evolving and maybe some of the future solutions that could exist?

[Guadaluna Chaer]
Yes. Well, I'm biased towards AI. For the past, I don't know, 15 years, agriculture took over. Everyone was excited about it. You have these sensors and you have this data. But now we can use this data and our AI systems to actually make decisions better. What's needed now, the innovation is equal to the severity of the problem. I think water is a big problem in agriculture. You need like 80% fresh water. There are a lot of drought-prone areas. I remember from 2023, there was a big problem in Spain, for example. I think the water reservoir was at 30%. It was a catastrophe, and I remember half of the season was depleted of many crops and many that are dependent on Spain for production. And I remember back then even I read the statistic that AI can help save 50% of the water usage. But the question is, how can you put that model in all these third-world countries where, as you guys mentioned in the infrastructure, there's a problem in the infrastructure, whereas financing the youth, even getting that AI to an offline level. What we do at Luxeed is that the AI is not run on the cloud because you don't have this connectivity on the farm. It has to be run offline. How do you get that data for the talent that can actually make the AI happen? And how do you get the financing for these people in third-world countries? We moved to the Netherlands because we couldn't get that opportunity at Lebanon. No one wants to invest in an unstable country. There are financing opportunities in the Netherlands for startups that are just starting up and you get a salary on the side that can help you actually move forward with your innovation. How can you have these students only focus on their innovation, on their business, help scale it up, and at the same time, finance their innovation? There's a lot of money that needs to go into AI, not just the model. You have the GPUs, you have the data. It's easier said than done.

[Laure Mouttapa]
Thank you, Guadaluna. Over to you, Philipp. And please keep the answer short as we want to give the chance to the audience to interact as well. Thank you so much.

[Philipp Zimmer]
It's nice to see, I guess, Guadaluna's reinforcement bias pointing out a couple of things I also have in mind. Maybe in response to my own past comment, not only pointing fingers of the things we need to solve, but maybe also from a more pragmatic standpoint, what are some things that can be done already or that have been done already? I think it's a very interesting research field which is called Tiny Machine Learning, TinyML, that's been picking up more and more now, which is basically thinking about ways in which we can make a lot of these models that are being built these days smaller in a simplified manner, so that can actually run on the device itself, so that you can think about ways in which young innovators can carry forward the work without being too constrained by some of these resource limitations that we pointed out. I think there's a lot of powerful movement in that direction that has to happen for a variety of reasons that we don't have the time to dive into. I also wanted to point out something else a little bit more tailored to crop resistance in agriculture. A couple of the points that Nathan and Dr. Shobha earlier mentioned, I think there's a lot of interesting stuff coming out now from the research domain around how we can extrapolate some of the learnings around human health and using machine learning in those contexts towards crop health, so to say. In the same ways in which you can apply machine learning techniques to identify marker genes that are indicative of certain rare diseases, you can also use the very same technology in the very same methodology to identify the parts of the plant genome that are particularly climate resistant, and basically, being able to artificially then strengthen those streams, and therefore, being able to combat this rapid climate change that we're experiencing that is also causing this problem that many crops are simply not growing anymore in regions that they used to grow.

[Laure Mouttapa]
Thank you so much, Philipp. We've heard about innovations for food loss, for combating food loss in AI and combining human health expertise applying it to crop health. Shobha, would you like to close this round of questions with sharing other inspiring innovations?

[Shobha Shetty]
Thanks, Laure. No, I did want to actually reinforce what Philipp just said. I think the infrastructure is really critical if we are to leverage any of these technologies today, and especially through, as Nathan also mentioned, these partnerships with the private sector and also with the humanitarian sector. I mean, Philipp mentioned the World Food Programme. I think for us in the agriculture and food global practice in the World Bank today, we actually have a separate thematic area on data and digital agriculture, which is a team that supports our operational colleagues. And now we've invested over the last six years over a billion dollars in data-driven digital agriculture. This includes financing for digital public infrastructure, which is critical if we want to make AI work, big data platforms, and agritech innovations in 56 countries, a lot of them in Africa and Asia. Let me give you a couple of examples. For example, in Kenya, we have supported the development of a data sharing infrastructure that has created now farm registries for six and a half million farmers and has now geo-tagged all these farms. Now, about 5 million farmers are getting precision advisories on weather, climate smart practices, application of farm inputs, which are all helping improve productivity and income. We have also, and Nathan mentioned this as well, we have found these hackathons and these innovation challenges to be a great way to bring youth entrepreneurs into some of the projects that we support with the clients. In Kenya, where I wish to manage the agriculture program, we've supported and invested in about 25 disruptive agritech startups through innovation challenges under the government's One Million Farmer Platform. These dynamic youth-led startups are providing farmers services ranging from the Uber for tractors to solar irrigation and AI-powered agricultural advisory chatbots. We also launched the Kenya Soil Health Accelerator Programme, which is a data challenge where the startups will apply AI to soil diagnostics and sustainable land management, sort of what Guadaluna is working on. Again, the Kenyan youth are really leading this charge to deploy AI for good. There's a huge amount potential. And I think the new technologies like the one that Philipp just mentioned in terms of the tinyML as well as using gene editing to really support more productivity, I think these are all really exciting things that we can bring into our programmes that are supported by the World Bank Group. Thank you.

[Laure Mouttapa]
Thank you so much. We will now open the floor to questions. Yeah, I see Marco has his hands raised.

[Marco]
Thank you. Sorry for hijacking this. I had a question for Nate and Shobha, you both have a lot of multi-country experiences. I was wondering, do the lessons that you've come across, do they apply across the board, or do you find you have to adapt them to the local cultural setting? Thank you.

[Nathan Hulley]
Yeah, you have to adapt it to the cultural setting. I can just say even within the same country, sometimes. I'm thinking about a hackathon in Kinshasa, and then I'm thinking about a design sprint in Goma across the country, even within the same country sometimes. And so, yeah, within a region between countries, between languages and cultures, there's always going to be differences. But it's really a huge opportunity, I think, when we're talking about youth engagement, because one of the things that I found is that the way that youth are organized in each different place you go to has really interesting characteristics and a history of how it got set up and an interesting way of approaching problems. If you can be open to figuring out where that particular community is at as you go in and adopt solutions there, that can be really a powerful way to engage, I think, in Fragile context. I’m thinking about Eastern DRC, where I spent a lot of time working and they faced decades of instability. You have communities of youth that have not known stable years of going to school or stable consecutive years of being involved in coding programs, but have somehow

[inaudible]
out of the way through online systems, to teach themselves different things and have a certain level of pride about finding those solutions. And if you can come alongside that, that's going to be very different and unique from another setting in another country. Thanks.

[Shobha Shetty]
I think Nathan has said it all, but just to add and reinforce the message that there is no cookie cutter approach, right? I mean, you have to contextualize solutions whether it's even within the same country and across countries, for sure. But I would just like to add one thing. There are always lessons that can be drawn, principles that can be built on, and systems that we can support across countries and across cultures. I am a big believer in the digital agriculture space, especially once you have the digital public infrastructure investments. The key here really is to help establish the trust between farmers and the youth and the state. This is something that's always lacking. Here's where we find that we had eVoucher systems that were introduced in DRC to supply a hype of high-quality seeds to farmers. This really helps, and we've done the same in Nigeria as well. You can use similar systems of eVouchers to really promote transparency, reduce corruption and leakages. This helps build a trust with the farming community and with youth enterprises as well. And of course, this is also in terms of saving the government money really, really helps that as well, because then you have a much more targeted approach. So, yes, I think as a summary, definitely you need to contextualize your intervention to the different country contexts, but, there are always principles and lessons that we can draw on from the global knowledge that we have in this institution and elsewhere. Thanks.

[Laure Mouttapa]
Thank you so much, Shobha. Okay, can we take a question on this side, maybe, Shrey, if you want to give them a... I see a girl in the middle.

[Vanessa – audience member]
Hello. Thank you for this panel. I really appreciate us connecting the dots between youth and agriculture. I am Vanessa. I'm based in Washington, DC, and work for the National Young Farmers Coalition. My question for you all is, what are some of the best indicators or measures or guidelines that we can put to make sure that our public-private partnerships actually deliver and focus on youth empowerment? Because we know, especially for capital access, it's still a huge barrier for farmers, young farmers, and food and agricultural entrepreneurs.

[

[Panel members discussing among themselves before the speaker continues.]
]

[Laure Mouttapa]
Oh, no. Go ahead.

[Nathan Hulley]
Well, I can jump in, I guess. Thanks for the question. I almost want to put the question back to you. What do you think? It sounds like you might have some expertise in that. I would say that most of the partnerships that I've worked on, they are typically set up as a pay for results type of partnership, where you're laying out very clear criteria. And if you have design considerations, for example, you're trying to work with youth, then that would be built into the design. And that might be built in, for example, at the call for application stage for a window of companies that might be interested. I think something that's really important in that design process is making sure that the way that you design and release the conditions that are in place are achievable. I saw some note about youth-led agriculture organizations that are implementing some type of grant or subsidy often spend more than 40% of their time just trying to meet the requirements of reporting and sharing information about what they're doing, which I've seen in the worst-case situation can actually distract the company away from its core mission. And the funding that seemed so necessary and so helpful actually ends up damaging the company. And so I think there's a real responsibility that must be taken into account there to set the conditions right. It can be everything from the number of pages and the language of the call for applications to the experience that's required and making sure that it's tailored to the youth, whatever type of age or experience is being targeted there. Thanks.

[Laure Mouttapa]
Thank you very much. And maybe just to close the session with an online question from our online delegates. How can we encourage investment in smart agriculture, especially in Fragile context, such as in Africa? Maybe I don't know if Shobha, you want to take this question.

[Shobha Shetty]
I think we all recognize that the challenges, and Nathan knows this better than most, having lived in the DRC for many, many years, it's a country that I covered in my previous job as well. What is it going to take? I think we still have a lot of scope for deploying technologies in a very effective way, even in Fragile context. For example, in Somalia, actually, this is a Fragile context, but the penetration of mobile telephony and Internet is really high, and farmers are able to use and leverage this technology very effectively. I'm sure Philipp also has examples of how we are partnering with humanitarian partners, private sector partners like the World Food Programme and others, to really deliver cash transfers through mobile phones, to be able to really address safety concerns and the unstable country environments that many of these farmers work in. So, yes, I think it's hugely challenging, but I think it's something that we can also leverage technology to help deliver services to farmers. But at the end of the day, you do need to have the institutional capacity and the systems that will really support the youth and the enterprises moving forward. Maybe I'm sure Guadaluna who moved from Lebanon to the Netherlands may also have views on this. But I think the key is really for us, for international financial institutions like the World Bank, is to stay the course and to provide the necessary support for institution building and capacity building, so that these systems can deliver services to agriculture communities and the rural youth and enterprises.

[Laure Mouttapa]
Thank you. Thank you so much, Shobha, and I would love to spend more time, but unfortunately, we have come close to our session. I don't know about you guys, but I'm living with a very positive sentiment, with a very positive outlook. Thank you so much for highlighting the solutions from seeds quality, weed control, food loss reduction, AI, data, mobile money. We have heard of so many solutions from the policy, SMEs and private sector side as well. Thank you for giving very concrete examples each time that help us to translate those very ambitious ideas into actually concrete project that you've worked on. Thank you so much. And with that, we are free to close the session. Thank you very much.

[Laure Mouttapa]
Hi, everyone. Thank you for being here. Now, I would like to introduce Maryam Bukar Hassan, also known as Alhanislam. She’s an award-winning poet, a strategic communicator, and global advocate who wills the power of storytelling to advance peace, gender equality, justice, and youth empowerment. Born in Borno State, Nigeria, Maryam has captivated audiences at the United Nations, African Union, COP28, and other audiences globally with her poetic prose to inspire, hope, and mobilize change. As founder of True My Voice, Maryam has equipped more than 500,000 young Africans to tell their own stories and drive social change. She has championed Peace Begins with Me, the global UN peacekeeping campaign that uses poetic narrative for conflict resolution and has led creative storytelling partnerships with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. A 2024 UN SDG Action Awards finalist and a passionate maternal health advocate, Alhanislam has led high-level campaigns and spoken at key global health forums, including the World Health Assembly in Geneva. In 2025, she was named one of the 100 most reputable Africans for her impactful work across the continent. Maryam’s work now reaches over 10 million people across the world, merging lyrical artistry with strategic advocacy to inspire lasting change and mobilize communities and policymakers alike. Please, welcome Alhanislam.

[Applause]

[Maryam Bukar Hassan]
Good morning, everyone. I’m so happy to be here and seeing all your beautiful faces. I was born with a poem in my mouth, sketching the world whilst maintaining color. But the world handed me statistics, told me that inequality is a graph, and I’ve seen it in the eyes of the boy standing under a cracked billboard that reads, “Digital futures begin here,” but he cannot log on. He’s just selling SIM registrations and charging phones for a fee. I’ve been told that the world is so full of opportunities. But I say, only if your passport is stamped by peace, by privilege, by proximity. Where I come from, talent is currency, but the market does not recognize our faces. Dreams are overqualified for jobs available, and every young person is a thesis in survival economics. I have seen girls that speak six languages but silenced by location. Boys that build empires in code but cannot afford the device to realize their mission. We have ambition in abundance, but inequality where the suit and gate keeps the entrance. They do not teach us how to grieve the version of ourselves we had to bury in order to survive systems designed to exclude us. And peace? Peace is not a dove in the sky. It’s a mother not having to choose between food and school fees. It’s a youth not axed to trade dignity for documentation. It’s the silence after the sound of a drone in a place that once sang, “Oh, they call us the future.” But the future does not come with health insurance. It doesn’t knock on broken doors. Hell, it doesn’t wait for the girl who missed school because peace was postponed in her village. But you know what? We are not waiting. Despite it all, even when the world calls us late, even when policy forgets our names, we, the undocumented miracles, are crafting possibilities out of what’s left. Thank you very much.

[Applause]

[Vic Callahan]
Good morning, everyone. I hope this performance inspired you. Let’s give Maryam another round of applause, please.

[Applause]

[Vic Callahan]
My name is Vic Callahan, and I’m the Design Lead for the summit this year. As a young person who’s doing creative work in the development field, I’m super thrilled to announce our next plenary session on how the youth is innovating and creative industries to drive economic resilience. Without further ado, let’s welcome our panelists. I wish you all a great second day at the World Bank Group Youth Summit 2025.

[Applause]

[Piyusha Khot]
Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to all our delegates who are here in person and also to those who have joined us online. Let’s start the day 2 of World Bank Group Youth Summit 2025 by talking about creative industries and the creative sector. It’s a sector which generates 2.25 trillion dollars annually and employs 30 million people globally, significantly impacting women and youth. But beyond its economic contributions, the creative industry serves as a powerful tool for cultural expression, advocacy, and resilience in the face of global challenges. We are very fortunate to have this stellar panel of speakers with us today, each bringing unique expertise and perspectives to this conversation. Let me start by introducing our Germán Cufré, who’s a Global Manager of Digital Infrastructure Investments and Creative Industries at IFC. Germán leads IFC’s 1.4 billion annual investment program in emerging markets, focusing on telecommunication infrastructure and creative industries, including investments in audiovisual verticals, fashion design, sports and entertainment, and banking to the creative sector, amongst others. He also has wide experience in private sector and strategy consulting. Then we have Farida Raafat. With Egyptian roots, she is a trailblazing entrepreneur and a visionary in fashion and creative design space. She has over a decade of experience working with iconic brands like Tom Ford and Donna Karan. She is also the CEO and founder of DALYA NYC, a women’s customized clothing brand that empowers women to express themselves authentically. She also founded a boutique creative agency called Two Eighty-Four Agency. Then we have Jacqueline Suowari. She is an award-winning, multidisciplinary artist and an art advocate from Nigeria. She’s known as the Queen of Ballpoint Pen. Her work has been exhibited globally across major cities and has also featured in media like CNN and Forbes Africa. She founded the Passion of Art Initiative, which has mentored over 800 young creatives, fostering youth development and driving social impact. In March 2025, she received the Most Influential People of African Descent Award for activism and humanitarian work. Today, her artworks are widely collected and sought after. And of course, we have Alhanislam. She, at this point, needs no introduction. Together, we’ll all explore how creative industries can open accessible pathways for underserved youth, foster resilience in a fragile context, and build partnerships that amplify youth voices and innovation. Thank you all for joining this conversation. Let’s get started. So, my first question would be to Germán, can you share with us how IFC views creative industries and why is it important for sustainable development? Could you please share some examples of IFC’s investments in emerging markets, which is fostering inclusivity for youth and marginalized groups?

[Germán Cufré]
Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here with you today. I was really motivated. I have 23-year-old and 18-year-old sons. One of them is an animator by profession and very engaged by your call to action. Thank you for that. Please, keep it up. My name is Germán. How did we get involved in creative industries? I’d say it started about two years ago. Makhtar

[Diop]
, our Managing Director, aside from being a very passionate jazz listener, and he came to us with a challenge, and he said, “Look, what you’re doing on telecom infrastructure, on digital is all very good and nice, we need to build from that. How do we convert that opportunity that digital is generating into jobs?” The topic of creative industries was much at the center of that conversation. Why? For some of the stats that you already mentioned. I’ll share an anecdote, which was

[that]
I was with the Minister of a West African country, and he’s a Minister of Security and Defense. He was sitting across a large table with a large delegation on talking about creative industries. At some point, we finished a conversation. I approach him, I say, “Why are you here? What is driving a Minister of Defense to sit

[in]
on a conversation on creative industries?” He said, “Look, I’ll be very candid with you. Our country is growing, our GDP annual rate of 3%, our population is going slightly above that, we need to keep people employed, motivated, engaged, productive, particularly our young people. It is a matter of key economic and even social security that we find the areas that can propel this, and creative industries is one of them.” We are on our journey of about 18 months to two years now. I’m a finance guy. I’ll talk a lot about money. We have hit some very relevant milestones. It’s all about the doing and not the talking. Here today, we’re about 850 million dollars of investments in creative sectors. This includes fashion companies like Kari out of Pakistan, which if you’re in DC and you would like to visit the Tysons Corner Mall, you can see one of the stores that was opened by this very successful Pakistani fashion design company and manufacturing company in Tysons Corner. We’re supporting the audiovisual sector, we have a very large investment with DNEG. For those of you that are not familiar with DNEG, it’s one of the largest visual effects companies in the world. They have to their credit something like 13 Oscars. If you like Interstellar or Tenet and you go to the credits, you’ll see that DNEG, an Indian company, was involved in the special effects. I can cite many other examples. It’s a fascinating sector. It’s very difficult to harmonize the creative channels with the financial and commercial sustainability, and this is where we’re trying to play a role.

[Piyusha Khot]
Thank you so much, Germán. That is very good to know that IFC is making such an effort to promote investments in creative industries. My next question is for Germán and Farida. Sorry, my bad. How can creative industries create more economic opportunities for underserved youth, especially young women, and marginalized groups? What interventions have you found most effective in addressing the unique barriers to creative careers and entrepreneurship? Maybe we start with Farida, and then, Germán, you can follow.

[Farida Raafat]
Hi. Nice to be here with everybody. I’m really excited. This is very different from what I get to do every day, so I’m excited to be here with you guys. To answer your question, just from the fashion perspective, I think, I don’t know if anyone’s involved in the fashion space, there’s a lot happening with fashion tech and how do we adapt AI to help with the fashion industry, and there’s a lot happening, and that’s what’s sexy in our industry right now, especially I see a lot of youth and younger people coming out of design school going into that field. And while that’s important and we need to find ways to help utilize AI to progress our industry, I think what’s lacking when I talk with new hires and people coming out of school is really going back to the craft and why the industry exists in the first place. There’s a big gap in the market when it comes to skilled craftsmanship. When it comes to pattern making, people who really understand textiles, we can thank fast fashion for the reason we all lost this knowledge of textiles. But I think for a way for youth, especially to have an edge on my industry is really not going to this shiny tech AI space, but really, if you want to stand out and make yourself different in a world where you’re trying to look for a job, I really look for people who understand the craft of what they’re involved in. So, people who know how to make things, people who maybe have a creative edge on embroidery or a point of view on how clothes are made, a designer or someone who wants to get involved in design who has no idea how to make a garment, which you’ll be surprised how many there are, they’re beautiful drawings, but no idea how garments put together, really doesn’t help me much. I think going back to the basics and focusing on what we’ve been doing for decades is really what I think that you should be focusing on right now. It’s really going to be a lost skill. Especially for women, I think not to generalize or be sexist, but I think that that’s something that women just culturally take on from their grandmothers or maybe pass down from family. I think just lean into those things because it will give you a competitive edge.

[Germán Cufré]
I’d say that for us, the premise of investing in established companies, like the ones I mentioned earlier, is the easy part. Where we are really struggling is how do we support the self-employed, how do you support the micro and small and medium enterprise. We’re struggling because one of our own constraints, we are a large institution, so we tend to work very efficiently with large institutions. It’s very difficult for us to give loans or make investments in small enterprises. We address those through intermediaries, through venture capital, through private equity, through commercial lending. When they come to us and we tell them, “Look, you need to support more the creative sector. We’re here to de-risk your investments.” They come to us with, “Well, it’s a sector that lacks, in many respects, professionalism. There’s a high degree of informality. There’s no security to our loans. How can we do that?” This is where we’re developing tools to minimize those risks. Countries that have critical mass, like India, Nigeria, and so on, it’s easier to support the ecosystem because there is business opportunity there. Then, it’s a matter of amplifying those opportunities. In smaller markets, and we’re having conversations in Benin, in Togo, in Senegal, it’s tricky because you’re also designing the ecosystem, and that involves regulation, involves IP management, involves just a lack of understanding of how the sector operates. I think this is where we are struggling. For me, economic opportunity, especially to people in fragile situations, a lot of fragile countries, starts with economic opportunity, period. You’re in a better position to support people that disproportionately have fewer opportunities if you create those opportunities in the first place. We cannot be talking about helping more women engage in the creative industries or displaced people or refugees and so on if they are not the business to start with, that create those job opportunities. My strong recommendation, when I come across artists or fashion designers and people that are extremely talented, and they come to us and they complain and they say, “Look, I’m bootstrapped. I’m struggling just to get my crafts or my ideas out there”. You need to understand, you need to speak the language of business as well. My first recommendation is, understand how businesses operate. Creative industries is one of the few sectors where we operate, where the creative talent doesn’t want to let go of the business aspect of the business. Sometimes they will say, “No, I want to own this. I want to drive this.” That’s perfectly fine if you know what you’re doing from a business perspective. if you don’t, then please bring somebody that can help you or train yourself in that area. Because investors, and you go from small incubators to a bank to a venture capital, they will want to see that because they’re trusting you with their money and they want it back. It is not only about the talent, it is about the talent and taking that opportunity to give investors and just generally a community the opportunity to back you up. And happy to engage more on this conversation offline. Thanks.

[Piyusha Khot]
Thank you so much Farida and Germán. For the next questions, I’ll include Jacqueline and Alhanislam in the conversation. In your respective art expression, how have creative industries and arts helped build resilience, recovery, and social unity in fragile, conflict-affected, and violence-prone areas? What approaches have been most effective in supporting youth to use creative expression and enterprise as tools for both personal resilience and community building? We could start with you, Jacqueline, and then Alhanislam. Thanks.

[Jacqueline Suowari]
Hello, everyone. Good morning. I’m very happy to be here. When it comes to the creative industries and the art sector, something that is often ignored is the ability or the transformative power of art. People often just think art is something that is decorative or something that should just hang on a wall. But even me in my own professional practice, it took me just recently before I realized that art has more power than just something that is hanging off a beautification. Art has the ability to transform lives, to move just from the medium of expression to actual influencing people’s decisions. I often say that art is something that influences you without your own content. Alhanislam just did a marvelous presentation just now, and I’m sure a lot of people were moved by that, but the thing about art is art needs to be in your face for it to influence you. And a lot of artists need visibility. The creative sector needs enough visibility. People need to see more people that look like them doing things that are important and of impact in the world, especially young people. With the work that I do with my studio work and mentoring sessions, also with my foundation, Passion for Art Initiative, we’ve been able to go into displaced communities and mentor young people. We’ve seen firsthand how people’s lives have changed, how the ability to make decisions gets better just by indulging or performing just simple basic art exercises, or how we’ve been able to build community and technical support for young people. Also, I recently just joined the Global Arts in Medicine Fellowship, which gave me more insights into what people are actually doing around the world. Global Arts in Health Medicine and Global Arts in Health Fellowship, what they do is that they merge arts and medical interventions together. I have seen firsthand how art can restore communities, how art can heal trauma and help youth build resilience. So, if I were to talk about ways in which this can be promoted, it’s by visibility, it’s by encouraging people to actually participate in creativity. Creativity doesn’t just only have to be streamlined to people in the arts. We’ve seen firsthand that people who are creative and are also scientists make better breakthroughs in their research because artists or creative people don’t see the world in ones and zeros. We see the world in multiple solutions. Creative people have the ability to think outside of the box. I will charge you today in the audience, think about how you can explore your inner child and your creativity, that will make you better at what you’re already doing. Thank you.

[Applause]

[Maryam Bukar Hassan]
Hello, everyone. Hello, again. Jacqueline, thank you for that. When we talk about art as a tool for recovery or how it influences conflict regions, for me, I would say that art is definitely a tool for healing and for transformation, as Jacqueline has said. But also, when we talk about recovery, I have seen it through the work that I do, which is also in designing campaigns and engaging these communities. I come from Borno State, which is also drowning in conflict because of the Boko Haram and their resurgence now. One of the things that we did during, for instance, the campaign that we did run on bringing back Nigerian students from Sudan, we partnered with change.org, my initiative, True My Voice. We partnered with change.org to actually run a poetry campaign in order to create awareness about what was happening because the students were stuck, the Nigerian students were stuck in Sudan and the government was not responding to evacuating them out of Sudan. We had some of the students sending us a DM on Instagram through the initiative on my page, and we tried to reach the Minister, but he wasn’t responding. And so, in the community, we are about 563 people. Then, we decided to run this campaign called Bring Back Nigerian Students from Sudan. We also then collaborated with the students that were there in order to have real-time information about what was going on and that went viral on social media. And we had a call. The Foreign Minister at the time, Sir Geoffrey Onyeama, he reached out and he wanted to know what was happening because the information he was getting was that the students were being evacuated. Now, because of that campaign, we were able to have that conversation with him, and he was able to hold people accountable. And to cut the long story short, we were able to get the students evacuated. So, I have seen it. I have lived it. I’ve seen how art can actually save people, how art can influence decision making, and can also push that policy shift. And when we talk about then the most effective approaches that I have seen in my work, it lies in three interconnected strategies, one of which Jacqueline has already spoken about. One is storytelling for empowerment. The second is platforms for visibility. And the third is systems for support. Now, when we talk about storytelling for empowerment, what we’ve also been able to do with True My Voice is creating safe spaces for young storytellers to actually articulate their reality communities because it’s in the hardest part in taking that journey to healing is actually talking about your truth and sharing. We’ve been able to create that space. What that does is it creates that emotional resilience. And in turn, not just the emotional resilience, but the process in itself also helps communities to hear themselves differently and to see themselves differently. The second point, which is also platforms for visibility, whether it is giving young people the space to perform at global events, whether UNGA, or even if it’s grassroots engagement, performing at workshops and helping people simplify that complex truth through art, for them to see themselves in that art. What we have seen when young people are actually celebrated, or seen, or heard is that they move into leadership. When they move into leadership, then a creative enterprise in itself then becomes not just a vehicle for survival, but that of innovation, of dignity, and of economic empowerment. And finally, when we talk about systems of support, like she said, mentorship, but also access to market, access to digital tools, to be seen, to be heard, and to also just shift that conversation from just heavy policy jargons to lived and visual experiences. So yeah, that’s what I have to say. Thank you.

[Piyusha Khot]
Thank you so much for these insightful answers. Art has power, and it can heal trauma. Thank you. My next question is, again, for both of you, Jacqueline and Maryam. How can art be used to promote a different and creative means of youth advocacy? I do know you’ve both talked about your initiatives, but would you have more to add to it in terms of how you can use it for advocacy?

[Maryam Bukar Hassan]
Okay, to that, I will say first, when you can use, when personal stories are translated into a “we” story because there are a lot of people who are going through the same thing. When we talk about using art for social change in itself, I like to advise and I like to say, use your personal story. What is your lived experience? How can that be visual? How can we even integrate multimedia cross-pollination into the art so other people can see their own story? So, turning that personal story into a “we” story is definitely one. Secondly, like I stated earlier, moving from policy-heavy jargons to actually emotional evocative language is what can give that charge for you to want to take action. Again, I always say that a lot of times people can question that, “Can poetry really make a change?” Poetry can lead the way in making the change. But one of the most powerful things is that it can change the hearts of people, and then the people can then change the world. This can also apply to policymakers because a lot of the things that we’re looking for, a lot of the opportunities are also somewhat tied to government or policy decisions. And so, that kind of interaction with art can actually solve that problem. Thank you.

[Jacqueline Suowari]
I’m just nodding my head because I agree with all the points. I would like to say that art should always be part of the conversation. It’s very rare that you see that an organization like the World Bank Group would invite visual artists like myself to come and talk about stuff like this, which is very commendable, by the way. I was speaking last year at a social norms conference, and I was invited to talk about… A lot of organizations were there and they were brainstorming on how to make the impact of social interventions in communities and underserved areas more lasting, because what they were finding was that when they would go to do campaigns in certain areas, once they leave and the resources they provided have been exhausted, the areas go back like they were never there. I was brought in to talk about how we can use art as a tool to ensure that the campaigns move from just being campaigns to actual people’s lifestyles. And I was talking about the fact that people often neglect the role of the artist or the creative when it comes to implementing policies, when it comes to implementing strategy. Art needs to be looked at as a strategy. For instance, how about, and Alhanislam has just said a lot of those things, how about instead of telling people “Don’t practice domestic violence. Don’t practice certain social norms that are harmful to people.” How about we orchestrate art festivals or events targeted at specific problems, and then we use different mediums of art. I, for one, am a multidisciplinary artist. I do short film, I do performance, I draw and I paint. I do poetry as well. How about we now utilize these forms of art and use them to provoke, just like Maryam said, provoke emotional responses. People cannot make decisions. People cannot influence change if they are not influenced themselves to think in that direction. I’m sure a lot of you came here to this panel discussion wondering, what does art have to do with the World Bank and this conversation? But I’m sure you think differently right now. The thing about art is that, like I said earlier, it influences you without your permission. How many people in this audience have heard a song before? You know you hated that song, but you know the lyrics of that song. That is the power of art. Art has that power. You can go to a community of people who are completely against the message you’re trying to preach, but once you use different mediums of art and just subtly introduce those things into the community, you find that behavioral patterns begin to change because like Maryam said, people begin to make decisions, and those decisions in turn influence policies or influence their ways of life. I think I’ve said enough. Thank you.

[Farida Raafat]
No, I was just going to say that’s so true because what I always tell women also in my line of work is what you put on your body, and we live in a shallow world, so it’s just true, but what you put on your body, and we’ve actually done a lot of scientific studies about this, really influences the way you’re perceived. And within the first three seconds, that person you’re talking to already made their mind up about you, whether it’s conscious or unconscious. So, really taking pride into what you’re putting on your body is a vehicle to communicate to the world and to the people that you want to influence or whatever you want from that person. You’re already talking to them before you open their mouth, which I’m assuming it’s the same thing with your art, too. That’s how you want to communicate with the world. You already all made up your minds about us before we get up on here based on what we’re all wearing. So, whether that’s positive or negative, that already happened. Just always keep that in mind when it comes to that art piece as well.

[Piyusha Khot]
Thank you so much for sharing these insights. It’s a very interesting conversation that we’re having. I, for one, am learning a lot. My one more question, and this is for everyone on the panel. From your respective perspectives, whether it’s multilateral investment, entrepreneurship, or as an artist, what are the remaining barriers for young people to innovate, create, and enter the young industries? How can respective organizations work together to remove these barriers for the young people? I’ll let anyone start and then--

[Germán Cufré]
I covered this on my last question, so I’m happy to go last. Thank you.

[Piyusha Khot]
Okay.

[Farida Raafat]
I think just similar to what you actually said, I think it’s very difficult as creatives, it’s very rare that you have a right and a left brain. I think if you can partner or find people to do what you can’t do and do it well, whether that’s if you’re an extreme creative and somebody else is really good at the numbers and they really believe in your vision, then partner with that person. It doesn’t mean anything negative about you. If you’re like, “I just can’t balance profit and loss sheet, and I don’t want to do it.” That’s fine. I think that one of the big barriers is just getting your business off the ground. I think, like you said, a lot of creatives are bootstrapped. They don’t know how to get started. Get advisors, get other people who know how to do what you don’t know how to do. The second thing I would say is we have this magical vehicle. I don’t have it with me right now, but the phone. That’s such a tool for progress. You can get virality, social media, there’s a whole ecosystem and world and access that you have to the world that people didn’t have before. Spend time working on your personal brand. Spend time with what your story is. Like you said, make it a “we” story. Spend time telling that, people really want authentic connections to businesses and companies, especially artistic ones that they didn’t before. They want to know who’s the founder, who’s the artist, what do they stand for, what’s their story, what do they do day to day. So, I would say spend time creating that story and creating your community digitally, and then the prosperity and the progress of your business will come after that.

[Jacqueline Suowari]
Okay. I think one of the things that are really lacking is information. People need to know the power of the arts sector and the creative economy. It’s something that has been sleeping. People have been sleeping on this for a very long time. It’s only through information that people will be vast enough in the knowledge to be able to make policies that influence the growth of the creative sector and the art economy. A lot of times people just, like she said, through jargons around plenty English about what can be done. But these people don’t even have the understanding on how the creative sector works. They don’t have the understanding on what it actually means to participate in an economy or in building an economy that doesn’t have government backing or support. Every creative that I know, I have met or even myself, everybody started on their own without policies from the government supporting them, but they’re resilient. Creative people are very resilient. If people in high levels of authority and people that can make and implement policy begin to realize that it can harness this for economic growth. I guess that I think that people in the creative sector will benefit off of that and the world at large. Secondly, visibility. I keep hammering on the importance of visibility because you cannot inspire people if they cannot see you. You cannot inspire people if they don’t have access to you. Back in Nigeria, we have a lot of people that talk about Tolani Alli, the photographer, that talk about Alhanislam, the poet because they can see them. Young people aspire to be like them. People need to make sure that as much as you can, economies need to push forward young people who are working, who are doing the work, who are getting solutions out there. People need to see them so that they can want to be like them. They need to talk about... Also, creatives need to talk about their struggles. Nobody got successful overnight. Nobody arrived at where they got to overnight. We need to talk about our struggles so that Instagram and social media doesn’t glorify where we are and make it look like we came there overnight. People need to realize that you have to put in the work. Like she said, you have to know your onions. People need to know the work that they’re participating in. You can’t want the glory of something without working through the story of that thing. And lastly, I would say people need to be taught resilience. I think I just said that again. Resilience. Nothing, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and nothing good comes easy. For something to work, you have to put in a lot of work, a lot of sleepless nights. You have to keep pushing, even in the face of challenges, even in the face of impossibilities. That’s one of the reasons why the creative economy flourishes even without government support because we know that. We’re passionate about what we’re doing. We love what we’re doing. So come rain, come shine, we will do it. We’re not going to stop doing it because we don’t get paid. We’re not going to stop doing it because we don’t get money. We’re going to do it because the messages in our heart are burning in our chest and we have to let them out. Whatever medium you’re expressing yourself with. And I like to say that it is all inclusive. Don’t think because you cannot draw, you cannot write, you’re not a creative person. There are other things that are in you that are creative. So far as you’re a human being, you have creative tendencies. You just need to lean into them and explore them better. And lastly, Germán already talked about it, funding. We need to educate people to understand that the creative economy is something that your money needs to go into. The only difference between the creative economy in the art sector and other sectors is it’s long term. It’s not something that you see immediate results from. People who invest need to be patient and need to be willing to go the long run with artists, with producers, with poets. They need to be patient and go the long run because changing people happens one thought at a time. It doesn’t happen by the click of a finger. Thank you.

[Maryam Bukar Hassan]
Okay, hi. The barriers that I see, the first one is definitely learning the business of art. I think it is so important that we, young creatives, we actually task ourselves with learning the business of art, even if you’re not going to lead your own business, but have an idea because it also gives you agency and autonomy. And when you’re speaking in the room, they listen. And then, secondly, I would say that to policymakers, bring us to the table because creatives are emotionally intelligent. I believe that emotional intelligence is a primary requirement for leadership. And so, if we’re able to shrink all that that is happening in the world in a painting or in two minutes or five minutes’ poetry, we should be able to contribute to the discussion on policy and how you can put some emotional resonance to it. And then, Jacqueline said something about Rome was not built in a day, so I’m going to complete that. Rome was not built in a day, but Rome was built together. Each laborer had at work at the end of their own fence is how we will create this monument for now and generations to come. And so, while we deliberate on building the things that will outlive us, let us not neglect the things that will help us live. A lot of collaboration, because sometimes there is also resistance between artists to collaborate. As opposed to the spirit of competitiveness in that particular space, perhaps we should explore more in terms of the spirit of collaboration, because this room, we have to build it together. Thank you very much.

[Piyusha Khot]
Thank you.

[Applause]

[Piyusha Khot]
The last 10 minutes were for audience Q&A. I don’t know if anyone in the room has a question, but I also have an online question. I see a hand there. Maybe you can get the mic to her and you can introduce yourself. In the meantime, I’ll take an online question. So, this question says, what are the successful models for partnerships between creative entrepreneurs and sectors like agriculture, health, or climate action to spark innovation and storytelling for change? Anybody? Yeah.

[Jacqueline Suowari]
Like what I earlier said about involving artists in the conversation and making sure that you have long-lasting implementation of strategies in communities. Let’s use farming, for instance. Let’s assume that we want to educate people in communities about farming, the benefits of farming, food, food literacy, and all of these things. We can use mediums of art to actually influence them. We can actually, for instance, off the top of my head, I’m thinking of campaigns where maybe cartoon leaflets or a little short film about agriculture and the benefits of agriculture and how people can be prosperous or how these things have been done other communities and they had successful results, or a dance drama about agriculture, different things to make it fun, make it interesting, to spark, especially with younger people, to make them realize or make them want or aspire to be farmers. The way the world looks, especially in Africa, a lot of people look down on farming. It looks like, especially young people, it’s not a fancy job, but there’s a lot in farming. There’s a lot of pride and dignity that can be gotten from farming. And I believe that if that sector were to pair, for instance, with the creative economy, people can begin to see these things as something that they aspire to become. Thank you.

[Farida Raafat]
I think it’s hard because fashion and clothing is a business. We’re selling clothes. I think it’s different when you’re doing poetry or a movie. So, there’s this line that gets blurred a lot about how much do you want to profit and how much is it really about your art? I think when it comes to initiatives like this, it’s really about authenticity and intention. A lot of fashion brands will say, “Oh, we’re sustainable, we do X, X, Y, Z,” but then they’re shipping their things all around the world and they’re not using sustainable packaging. There are all types of things and buzzwords companies will use now in my industry to get the youth interest to be like, “Look, Gen Z, we’re doing what you want us to do.” But when you really look under the carpet, they’re not doing any of that. I think it really comes to authenticity and what your intention is. I believe that as a company, if you authentically stand for those things, you can speak to it without fear, without any fear that anybody is going to uncover the truth underneath the curtain. I think it’s just about really finding those brands and it comes to the storytelling of the brands and how the brand is telling the story and the authenticity, the connection to the founder and how much they’re weaving that into their personal story. But it’s just really about authentically, what do you want to do as a company?

[Germán Cufré]
I was hesitating whether to intervene or not, but since I have the mic. I will. On the topic of... I think art is particularly good at connecting us with any topic at an emotional, intellectual level. On agri, the moment that the question was asked, something came to mind, which was an advertising, which I saw scrolling a year ago or so, maybe even more, which was probably like a one-minute video that said… It had different images of daily life. So, people are going to work and then the farmer will wake up and feed the world. A doctor will be helping out, and then the farmer will wake up and feed the world. Through these intercalated messages of things happening and the constancy and the importance of you getting fed, as basic as that is, it really gave an appreciation for farming. And this is, I guess, a value of art.

[Piyusha Khot]
Thank you so much. And then we had an audience question. Please start with introducing yourself.

[Vritti]
Hi, I’m Vritti. I worked as a corporate debt investor for over a decade. My question is for Germán, but before that, thank you all so much for sharing your experiences and thoughts today. I guess I come from a for private investing background, so my brain is wired as such. When I was listening to you speak, I immediately thought of valuations sounded super hard in this space. To that extent, my question is, how does IFC go about selecting projects that you want to fund in this space, and how do you measure success of those projects? Thank you.

[Germán Cufré]
Well, we intervene at different stages. Through specific departments, we engage at the incubator stage, SME, venture capital. I’m just going through up the value chain. From the very early stage, if a company or if an artist is not yet bankable, we help them, put them in touch with people that can help him bring the project to a bankability stage. Those are our incubator programs, SME ventures programs, and so on. Once they’ve reached institution the investor phase, then we typically put them in touch with the venture capitalists. We’re the largest limited partner investor in emerging markets. We invest through something like 350 funds, venture capital and private equity. We inject capital through these funds. These funds themselves invest in companies that perhaps are too small for us, and we reserve a right to co-invest alongside them. Then we do this with private equity, and at some point in time, we invest directly. The DNEGs of the world, the

[unintelligible]
of the world, these are large established companies, and we provide direct lending, equity, and everything in between. Success is measured, and this is not just on creative. It doesn’t apply only for the creative industries. We have a double bottom line. We need to make money and we need to promote private sector development through the investments that we’re making. In the case of a loan to a company like DNEG, it’s about getting the loan back, but also have we achieved the metrics that we were set out to achieve in terms of employment outside of developed markets. We wanted to support this company in India because we wanted to migrate people up the value chain to be more exposed to generative AI tools and everything that is impacting visual effects. Did we achieve this objective? We measured actually how many people get involved, what type of skills that they have developed and so on. If they have achieved, then it comes up. If not, then we’re going to fail in that dimension. This is an iterative process. Different standards are set for different stages of where we invest at.

[Piyusha Khot]
Thank you, everyone. I think we’re right on time to finish the panel. I’ll try to summarize a few things I learned and thought left a mark on me and hopefully, for the rest of our delegates as well. First of all, bridging the gap between the business aspect and the creative industries and the creative personnels. That’s how we’ll get more money flowing into the economies, which are maybe fragile, conflicted, and violence-prone. To have their stories be heard, create platforms so that they can express themselves and find a way to heal through a community that supports them. Along with other things, there is a policy aspect to make policies easier to understand and to make them with the creative industry’s experts making the policies as well, instead of just the economist thinking about the people. Thank you so much, everyone. We really appreciated your time. I really enjoyed the session. I know all the delegates did, too. All the clapping and hooting was definitely a sign of that. Hope you have a good day. And thank you, everyone. Thank you, the delegates, online as well.

[Applause]

[Marco Fayet]
Thank you very much. Jorge, you are a valued supporter of the Youth Summit. I think you’re coming here for the third or fourth time. I feel like every time people get more and more excited. I know a lot of people in the room are here for the first time. We also have an online audience who may not be familiar with yourself, with the World Bank, with the Treasury. I think it’d be great to go over some basic concepts. But just as a brief summary of your role and your history in the World Bank Group, you are the VP and Treasurer of the World Bank and the Pension Finance Administrator of the World Bank Group. I believe you have almost 20 years of experience across various parts of the World Bank Group. You’ve worked as an Executive Director for eight countries on the Board of Directors. You’ve been VP and Corporate Secretary of the World Bank Group. You’ve been VP for the Latin American and Caribbean region, and you’ve been the VP for Finance. I know that a lot of people won’t even know what that actually means, and maybe you can walk us through this in a little bit. But just to give some numbers, you manage 40 billion dollars of assets under management for the pension fund. You oversee 70 billion dollars’ worth of bonds issued by the World Bank, 200 billion dollars in asset portfolios, 300 billion dollars in debt portfolios, and 600 billion dollars in transactions for risk management. Those are mind-boggling numbers, I think, for most people. It would be great if you could tell us a little bit about what the World Bank Group is, how it’s structured, and how the Treasury fits into this, and how do you think about managing all of those numbers and all of this money. Thank you.

[Jorge Familiar]
Thank you so much. It’s great to be here this morning with you. I mean, it’s day two, so I’m assuming that you have an idea of what the World Bank is. Our mission, as you know, is to eradicate poverty, to boost your prosperity, and to do so in a sustainable way in a livable planet, as we call it. In order to achieve that mission, what we do is we grant loans in the case of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which is the original World Bank, and also very concessional loans and grants when it comes to the International Development Association. We also have IFC, which is an investment bank, and MIGA, which is an insurance company. This is the Group, but let me define the World Bank in a very unconventional way, one which I can guarantee you have not heard. The World Bank, the original IBRD, is the most efficient private capital mobilization engine ever created in the history of the world. When you think about the World Bank, from 1945 to today, we have received from our shareholders 20 billion dollars as paid in capital. That is the amount of money that has come in from our shareholders. With that money, we have gone to financial markets, we have issued bonds, we have issued debt for 1 trillion dollars, and we have given loans to emerging and developing countries for 830 billion dollars throughout our history. With this, we have increased our capital. We have generated certain reserves that, of course, have allowed us to reach these amounts that I described. We have transferred, IBRD has transferred to IDA 20 billion dollars. If you think about it, it’s as if the countries of the world came together, gave 20 billion dollars to the poorest countries of the world, and created this engine out of thin air. It’s actually quite impressive. In order to achieve this, we are AAA rated. Our AAA rating comes from many things. AAA rating, for those that don’t know, it means our credit quality, we have the highest credit quality possible. It comes from the support of our shareholders, our capital base, and our prudent financial management. The combination of a spectacular mission, poverty reduction, our AAA rating, and this enormous experience in financial markets throughout the decades, equals innovation. This is also an engine for innovation. Let me leave it here and go back to you.

[Marco Fayet]
What an intro. You mentioned innovation. This is the theme, the overarching theme of this year’s World Bank Group Youth Summit. Young people are almost by nature innovators. They come in; they want to change the status quo. We’d love to hear a little bit about how the Treasury thinks about this concept of innovation. If you could tell us some more about the digitalization journey that you’ve undertaken and how it’s translated to your operations.

[Jorge Familiar]
I’ll talk about digitalization, but let me maybe go a few years back. Just to give you a sense of what I mean by innovation, which is the combination of these three things or comes from these three things that I described. The World Bank was the very first counterpart on the very first currency swap in the world. IBM on one side, we were on the other, Swiss francs, Deutsche Marks. Today, that market that comes from that transaction is a trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars market. That gives you an idea. This happened in the ‘80s. We issued the very first global bond. The very first institution to issue a bond in multiple countries around the world was the World Bank. Today, it’s something that happens every single day. In fact, we are about to close one of those for IDA this morning. It’s going to be a 2 billion dollars transaction. Well, maybe I am saying something that I shouldn’t because we are... Okay, let’s scratch that last part.

[Marco Fayet]
There’s only a couple of million people watching.

[Jorge Familiar]
Okay, it’s okay. We will survive. My lawyers will bail me out. Well, these are a couple of examples. In 2008, issued the very first Green Bond. This is an interesting story, and I will tell you the story later on, but we issued the very first Green Bond. Again, it’s a market that has grown enormously. More recent innovations. In 2018, we issued the very first digital a native bond, the very first blockchain-based bond. What we did at that time is we created a bond on the blockchain. This is the document side of the transaction, not the money side of the transaction. It was cleared and settled using traditional ways, so traditional fiat money and traditional financial institutions, but the bond was digitally native. Last year, we did the two next innovations in this field. We issued the very first digitally native bond in Euroclear’s digital platform, and for that one, we used a token for the clearing and settlement. A few months later, we issued the very first digitally native bond to clear and settle using central bank digital currency, in this case, Swiss francs. These Swiss francs were made available for more than one issuer, which is what makes it innovative. There have been some, let’s say, exercises where a central bank created digital currency for one deal, but it was closer to a token than actual CBDC. This was the first, let’s say, real CBDC transaction. Again, lots of innovation. Another recent area of innovation is something that we call outcome bonds, which is like the second derivative on sustainable bonds, the second derivative on the Green Bonds. You see, we noticed that investors wanted to have exposure to specific projects. One of the teams in the Treasury came up with this idea. What about taking the coupon, the coupon is the interest that we pay on a bond, and instead of sending the coupon to investors, we send it to another development project, fund that other development project, and make the payment to investors of their coupon, of their interest, contingent to the success of that project? The first one was what we called the “Rhino Bond.” The coupon went to fund two parks in South Africa, conducting a black rhino conservation project. If at the end of the life of the bond, which is the end of the life of the project, we have more black rhinos than a certain number, a donor will come in, pay the interest to investors, plus a premium depending on the level of success. That was the first one, but then we thought, this story of getting a donor is really tough. What if we were to apply this structure to a project that generates carbon credits and we get a buyer for the carbon credits upfront? We started doing this as well. The latest bond that we issued is a 225 million dollars bond. It’s not an insignificant bond, I would say, which funds a company in Brazil that is buying land or leasing land to plant native species. And once the vegetation reaches a certain level, that generates carbon credits, which are going to be bought by an off-taker. In this case, it’s Microsoft at a given price, and the payout to investors is going to come from this transaction. So again, as you can see, quite a bit of innovation.

[Marco Fayet]
I’m sure very few people came in here expecting to hear about rhinos and carbon credits. I’d love to double click on this idea of Green Bonds. Why does it matter for the Treasury to focus on this idea of sustainability? How do you think about sustainable development finance, and how do you incorporate this in what you’re doing?

[Jorge Familiar]
I would say two things. One of the things that I want to say relates to the topic of this conference, which is innovation. Innovation, in my opinion, comes not from someone that has a huge idea that changes the world out of the blue. It rather comes from putting together things that are out there, that in many cases are extremely simple, that are known, but putting them together in a way in which you propel something that matters. That, in my opinion, is innovation. The Green Bond is like that. The story of the Green Bond is actually quite exciting. There were a group of Swedish investors that cared about the environment, and they wanted to have a safe investment with a safe return that also created a positive impact on the environment. As they were searching for that, we thought, “Hey, we actually have that, right?” On the other side, we need funding. We have a market here. We need to sell debt, and they are interested in investing in debt. On the other side of our balance sheet, we have a bunch of projects that do exactly what they want. Can we put these two things together? We came up with a framework, a framework that creates a bridge between our funding and our projects. It’s not ring fencing, but it’s basically reporting. You gave me these resources, these are the things that we are delivering with your resources. This framework that we created for these investors, which was reflected in a 150-million-dollar bond, created the framework that is now used for the issuance of any labeled bond out there. So, this 150-million-dollar transaction, which was very humble and which was not, let’s say, intended to create a huge market, ended up creating today a billions and billions and dollars market out there. So again, it’s a great story and a great example of how a simple idea of putting simple concepts together can transform markets.

[Marco Fayet]
I love that. Thank you. The next session after this one focuses on blockchain, on Web3 concepts, tokenization. Now, we’re going to be focusing on digital assets, but I know that Treasury has a project that you came up with recently, the Promissa project, where you are tokenizing promissory notes. Could you please explain to us what is a promissory note? What was the problem that you were trying to solve and how did you go about solving it?

[Jorge Familiar]
Well, so we actually have... I mentioned the bond, which is the digitally native bond, but we have quite a few interesting projects related to blockchain. The one you mentioned, Promissa, as we were working with the Swiss Central Bank on our digitally native bond that clears in Swiss francs, CBDC, we also thought, “Look, we have these promissory notes which are securities or contracts, let’s say, between donors and IDA that reflect, let’s say, the donations that they commit to every time that we have an IDA replenished.” The countries around the world come together, pledge certain donations, and those get reflected in these promissory notes. The promissory notes are pieces of paper that say this country commutes to give IDA this amount of money over this period of time. These pieces of paper go to central banks around the world and they go into drawers. Whenever the country pays a certain amount, these pieces of paper come out of the drawer and someone scratches with a pen the amount and writes the new amount and signs the new amount and signs the thing. Like in the 1600s or maybe 1500s. In fact, there’s one case in which the drawer happens to be in one city, and whenever there is a payment, the promissory note comes out of the drawer, gets into a briefcase. It’s transferred by train 140 kilometers. The amount is scratch, signed and whatever, and then it goes back. One thing that in the 21st century, there are better ways of doing this. We came up with the idea, why not use blockchain? Single source of truth, automatic. No one needs to worry if they forgot which drawer they put the thing on. It’s not a huge project because it’s not a project that’s going to, let’s say, affect millions of investors, but it’s an important project because of who the counterparts are, which are, again, a relevant global institution and central banks on the other side. I do believe that this has potential to be catalytic.

[Marco Fayet]
I very much appreciate there seems to be a trend of creativity in everything that you’ve mentioned. You have problems and you try to think about them creatively using technology, using digital tools. I would love it if you could reflect a little bit on your own career. You’ve spanned multiple parts of the World Bank Group. You’ve spanned multiple regions as well. What lessons have you gathered along the way? What would you tell your 20-year-old self if you could?

[Jorge Familiar]
Several things come to mind. My career has been very eclectic. I started as a securities regulator in Mexico, ended up here by chance as a Consultant for a month, ended up at the Board of the World Bank, went back to Mexico, and I was CEO of a consumer lending bank, government-owned, came back as Corporate Secretary, then Development, then Controller, then Treasurer. It has been actually quite eclectic. A few things. The first one is you need to be passionate about what you’re doing. This doesn’t mean that you do what you’re passionate about. It means that you become passionate of what you’re doing because at times you will do things that are not the things necessarily that you choose, but you can always be passionate about the things that you end up having to do. If you cannot do that, pick up your things and do something else.

[Applause]

[Jorge Familiar]
The second one is, for me, meaning matters. Doing something which is meaningful is something that makes my life worth living. From my perspective, a job that has meaning where you can positively impact people’s lives is extremely important. That is why I work for the World Bank. That is why I started my career in public service and not somewhere else. I didn’t know it at the time. I learned it along the way. The third one is on luck. People say, you are lucky. Let me tell you, opportunities will cross your path, but look, “it only materializes” if you show up, if you take advantage of the opportunities that you have in front of you. This means risk. And this takes me to the next one. Success is something which has to be self-defined. It cannot be defined by others or by the expectations of a group or society. It has to be self-defined. It is what meets your portfolio in terms of what you want to do and how you’re going to feel happy. The institution you work for, the company you work for, the sector you’re in, the position you have in a company, for all of those things, there are tradeoffs. You need to feel comfortable with the balance of the different elements of what you’re doing. That is what should define your success. Then the very last one is, again, on innovation. Innovation is very much about putting simple things together. Listen to others. The baggage you develop and the experience you develop as you go through your professional career, bring it to things that are not obvious. Again, I was Corporate Secretary, Regional Vice President, and then Treasurer. I bring what I learned in those other positions to the new thing I’m doing. Be open to learn, be open to listen, be open to put things together.

[Marco Fayet]
I love that. Thank you. Let’s give him a round of applause.

[Applause]
[Marco Fayet]
I think those will be particularly topical, especially because we have a whole career development session in the afternoon, including with a representation from the Treasury, so I’m sure that you’ve picked up a few people who will now show up for this. We’re going to move on to Q&A. If anybody in the room has questions, I see some hands up. Shrey will get to pick them and a mic will come to you. Maybe we can start with one from our online audience. One person is asking how the World Bank is ensuring that digital finance innovations are inclusive and accessible to young people and entrepreneurs in underserved communities? How do you think about inclusion in your role as Treasurer?

[Jorge Familiar]
The question refers more to the front office side of the World Bank, the development part of the World Bank. Digitalization, financial inclusion are key to development. In terms of our development operations, it starts from creating the appropriate environment, the supporting countries in putting in place the appropriate regulation and the appropriate conditions for investments to take place and for opportunities for financial inclusion to materialize. Now, going to the Treasury front. Look, one of my dreams would be to be able to... First of all, I think that being able to reach retail investors is important. It’s not something that we do too often because of the nature. You talked about the amounts that we need to finance every year. You do that through very large offerings which are usually, let’s say, focused on or targeted to institutional investors. But we do try to do some retail. My dream would be to merge digitalization and retail. It would be great to be able to do public offerings that can reach Gen Zers that are trading using their phones and buying World Bank bonds. Then, they also know what is the linkage between that bond and the set of very important development projects on the other side.

[Marco Fayet]
I know that even from an HR perspective, at the Treasury, you work with people fresh out of undergrad, and I think that’s a rarity in the World Bank Group. We have three of them in our Steering Committee, and they’re high-quality individuals. I would like to congratulate you on this as well. A question from the room, maybe?

[Audience Member 1]
Hi, Mr. Familiar. It’s nice to meet you. Thank you so much for the tips that you gave. I have a question directly speaking about the practicality of getting passionate about what you’re doing, not necessarily about what you love. Washington, DC, is a very difficult city, and I feel like it’s very cutthroat. If you’re working in a toxic work environment, what are some practical steps that you had throughout your career that you have done to be passionate about that, to maintain the job as well as excellence in the job? Thank you.

[Jorge Familiar]
Well, I haven’t really had a toxic work environment in Washington, DC. Maybe I’ve worked in toxic work environments, but not particularly here. Look, maybe it goes to another piece of advice that maybe comes from family, which is treat everyone like you like to be treated yourself. When I have been in toxic work environments, and I have also been in leadership positions, I have tended to act as a buffer. I think that that is important. At times, it takes a toll and it’s not easy, but being a buffer is important because the way in which teams excel is when you have the right conditions for people to speak freely, to exchange views, to say things. Not all of the things that people share, not all of the questions that people ask are maybe meaningful or will be used or are the best. But if you create an environment where people don’t feel safe sharing what they think or the ideas that they have, then you are missing out on a bunch of great pieces that can turn into the next big innovation that you’re going to put together. Also in this sense, one of the things that I have always tried to do when leading a team is creating the right environment for people to feel comfortable to share ideas and always speak truth to power. Because in the end, it’s better to hear from someone if there is a concern, if there is something that maybe you are not seeing, and it’s better to know it beforehand than finding out when it is too late.

[Applause]

[Marco Fayet]
We have a question from the online audience about the kinds of profiles you’re looking for to work with you at the Treasury. How do you think about upskilling? We have AI, we have new tools, potentially technology that you’re using. What are the qualities that you’re looking for in the people that you recruit?

[Jorge Familiar]
Well, it’s a combination of things. People with strong technical backgrounds that have shown that they are committed to excellence. We are lucky because we are in high demand. You mentioned the undergrads. We have an internship program. It’s like 20 positions. We get like 3,000 applicants. It’s super competitive to get in, but what we’re looking for is people that are passionate, that want to move the frontier, that want to learn, that want to innovate. Then, in terms of upskilling, as I mentioned, there’s quite a bit of innovation going on. Innovation comes from being curious, from learning new things, from exploring with new things. On the AI front, for example, we have put together a bunch of recent innovations that have even won international awards. Just to give you an idea, one of the challenges we have or one of the issues that we have to deal with is we invest substantial amounts of money in bonds. Our systems take the information on those bonds from commercial vendors. Go to databases, take information that goes into our system, and that is how our systems, let’s say, calculate when we’re going to get coupon payments or on where we’re going to get principal paid, etcetera. But what comes from the vendors is not always right. You have to go and compare with the source, and the source happens to be a PDF file. We used to have a bunch of people looking at the PDF file and looking at our database and comparing, and at times finding mistakes. This was important. It was costly, but it was important because mistakes were costlier. Well, we are now doing that through AI, optical character recognition, AI, a robot. Something that used to take 90 days now takes a minute. This is the kind of innovation, and this is the kind of thing that comes from people that really want to move the frontier. I was told 30 seconds, like two minutes ago, so I guess [laughs].

[Marco Fayet]
Thank you very much. We really appreciate the primary on the World Bank Group, the life lessons. I know that they definitely resonated with me, and it’s a pleasure to have you here at the Youth Summit, as always. Thank you, Jorge.

[Jorge Familiar]
Thank you so much.

[Applause]

[Shwetha Grace Eapen]
Good morning from Washington D.C. it’s a cold January morning here in D.C., but we extend you all our warmest welcome.Thank you for tuning in today for the launch of the 2025 World Bank Group Youth Summit Pitch Competition.My name is Shwetha Grace Eapen and I will be your host for today.Today’s event will feature a series of engaging sessions, starting with an overview of the Pitch Competition where it will be a walkthrough of the application process.We’ll then hear from a panel of young entrepreneurs and sector experts who will discuss how technology and creativity are being harnessed to address global challenges.We’ll also have a brief Q&A session, so feel free to submit your questions in the chat throughout the event.To close, we’ll be joined by Robin Mearns, the Global Director of Social Development at the World Bank who will share some of his closing remarks.To kick things off, I would like to invite the Manager of this year’s Summit, Raaga Akkineni, to introduce the 12th edition of the World Bank Youth Summit and the theme for this year.To introduce Raaga briefly, her journey with the Summit began as a volunteer and quickly advanced to the Pitch Competition Co-Lead in 2023 and Deputy Manager in 2024.She’s a Research Analyst at the IFC specializing in data driven impact evaluations for private sector investments.Raaga, over to you.

[Raaga Akkineni]
Thank you Shwetha.Good morning, good afternoon and good evening to everyone joining us from across the globe.It is my absolute privilege to welcome you to the Pitch Competition launch event of the 2025 World Bank Group Youth Summit.The Youth Summit is a platform that embodies the energy, the creativity and the resilience of youth.This year we are gathering under the banner of “New Horizons: Youth-Led Innovation for a Sustainable World”.A theme that reflects not just our aspirations, but our unwavering belief in the transformative power of youth to shape the future.In today’s rapidly evolving world, youth are not just participating, but are trailblazers of innovation.Innovation, as OECD defines it, is the process of creating and implementing new solutions to solve challenges and seize opportunities.And as we know it, innovation is not just a concept, it is a catalyst for economic growth, job creation and inclusive development.A truth that is echoed by World Bank’s own innovative and competitiveness practice.This Summit highlights three critical focus areas where youth are already driving change, be it digital transformation and data, where youth are harnessing cutting edge technologies like Artificial Intelligence, big data and digital platforms to revolutionize industries and create opportunities, or climate action and resilience from green technologies to data driven agriculture, young leaders are crafting innovative solutions to tackle climate change while building sustainable communities, or creative industries, be it arts, media or fashion, young visionaries are not just creating jobs, but also shaping cultural narratives, promoting inclusivity and driving social change.These themes are deeply interwoven with perspectives that prioritize underserved population, address challenges in regions affected by fragility, conflict and violence, and emphasize the importance of partnerships to scale sustainable solutions.The world is at a tipping point.More than 85% of the global youth population lives in low or middle-income countries, and nearly 800 million young people are at the risk of being excluded from the job markets over the next decade.Yet despite these challenges, youth are turning adversity into opportunity.They’re using real time data to improve agricultural resilience, create digital platforms for financial inclusion, and preserving cultural heritage through creative expressions.These are the stories of innovation we want to celebrate at the Summit this year because they’re not just solutions, they’re lifelines to a better, more sustainable and inclusive world.This is where you come in.To every young entrepreneur, innovator and changemaker listening today, we need your ideas, and your courage, and your ambition, and your determination.I urge you to apply for the Pitch Competition where your ideas can take center stage.And join us in May 19th and 20th, 2025 here in Washington D.C.for an unforgettable experience of learning, collaboration and inspiration.Together, let’s push the boundaries of what is possible.See you at the World Bank Group Youth Summit 2025.Thank you.Back to you, Shwetha.

[Shwetha Grace Eapen]
Thank you, Raaga for introducing the theme of the Summit this year.Very exciting.Now let’s dive into learning more about this year’s Pitch Competition.To briefly introduce our Competition Co-Leads, Alla Ilanov is a Knowledge Management Specialist at the World Bank, and Nabeel Siddiqui provides consulting expertise at IFC focused on policy initiatives aimed at sustainable development and innovation.They have prepared a comprehensive video outlining the application process and qualification criteria and what to expect from the competition this year.So, please pay close attention as we now play the video.

[Video playing]
1, 2, 3, 4.

[Lively music playing]

[Alla Ilanov]
Hi everyone.Welcome.We are excited to tell you all about an amazing opportunity to showcase your innovative ideas and solutions at the World Bank Group Youth Summit 2025 Pitch Competition.

[Nabeel Siddiqui]
If you’re between the ages of 18 and 35 and if you’ve got a great idea to tackle some of the world’s most pressing challenges, this competition is for you.The Summit’s theme for 2025 is “New Horizons: Youth-Led Innovation for a Sustainable World” and we want you to be a part of it.

[Alla Ilanov]
The competition focuses on three exciting and impactful themes, digital transformation and data, climate action and resilience, and creative industries and cultural innovation.Whether you’re passionate about AI, climate resilience or art for social change, there is a place for your idea here.

[Nabeel Siddiqui]
Exactly.Now, you may be wondering, how do you apply?Let’s break it down for you.To enter, you need to create an account on the F6S platform and submit your application online.Here, you’ll have to fill in a questionnaire, upload a pitch deck, and submit a video pitch of your project.Don’t worry, we’ll explain each of these in detail.Starting with the video pitch, it’s simple.You get one minute to introduce yourself, explain the problem you’re solving, and showcase your innovative solutions.Remember, this is your chance to impress, so make it count.

[Alla Ilanov]
Next, the pitch deck.This is your opportunity to dive deeper into your idea.You’ll need to explain the problem you are trying to solve, your solution, who your target audience is, and how your unique solution could make an impact.You can even use the pre-designed template we’ve provided or design your own.

[Nabeel Siddiqui]
And don’t forget about the questionnaire, it will ask you about your project, your team, and your goals for the future.Submit everything together on the F6S application.

[Alla Ilanov]
So when can you submit all of this?The competition officially opened on December 18, 2024.Applications close on January 26, 2025.After that, a panel of experts will review your submissions and mid-February 2025 the top candidates will be invited for interviews.

[Nabeel Siddiqui]
Then, the finalists, that six projects, will get a chance to pitch live at the World Bank Group Youth Summit from May 19th to 20th this year.This is a hybrid event, so if you’re one of the finalists, you might even get travel support for the trip.How cool is that?

[Alla Ilanov]
Before we wrap up, here are a few quick tips.Be innovative, think outside the box.Be impactful, your solution should address real world problems.Be scalable, show how your idea can grow and make a wider impact.And last, but not least, be clear, your pitch video and deck should highlight your idea in the simplest and most compelling way.

[Nabeel Siddiqui]
Remember, the competition is for individuals as well as for teams for up to five people from around the world.We encourage diverse and gender balanced teams.So, bring your passion and creativity to the table.

[Alla Ilanov]
So, what are you waiting for?Apply now.Get your ideas out there and maybe you’ll be one of the finalists presenting at the World Bank Group Youth Summit 2025.This is your chance to make a difference and connect with experts, innovators, and thought leaders from across the globe.

[Nabeel Siddiqui]
If you have any questions or need more information, feel free to reach out to at youthsummit@worldbank.org.We can’t wait to see what you come up with.Good luck everyone and remember the world needs your ideas.Let’s shape the future together!

[Video ends]

[Shwetha Grace Eapen]
Thank you, Alla, Nabeel for that comprehensive and detailed video overview.If you have any questions, please use the chat function to ask them.Later on, in the Q&A session, Alla and Nabeel will be joining us to answer some additional questions as well.All right, we now have an exciting panel discussion ahead and I’m thrilled to introduce three distinguished guests who will explore the topic of youth-led innovation.We have joining us today, Sara Berkai, who is the founder of Ambessa Play, an innovative company creating educational DIY tools.A first-generation student with a Master’s in Child Development from Oxford University, Sara has been recognized with numerous accolades such as Forbes 30 Under 30, UN’s ITU Young ICT Leader, and Innovate UK’s 2023 Women in Innovation.Also joining us is Alexandre Laure, a Senior Private Sector Specialist in the FCI Global Practice at the World Bank Group.Based in Jakarta, he leads private sector initiatives in Indonesia and Timor-Leste.Previously, he was a climate entrepreneur in East Africa, founding Green Bio Energy, Uganda’s leading waste to energy business.I’m also happy to welcome, or I should say welcome back.Guadaluna Chaer, Cofounder and CEO of Luxeed Robotics, an ag-tech startup revolutionizing the herbicide industry through innovative weed removal technologies using laser and AI.Her innovative solution earned her the Jury Choice award at the 2024 Youth Summit Pitch Competition.We are delighted to have you all join us today.I would like to kickstart the conversation with a question for our young entrepreneurs here, Sara and Guadaluna, to learn about your journey as a young entrepreneur.You both have ventured into innovative fields at a young age, Guadaluna with Luxeed Robotics and Sara with Ambessa Play.You each identified a pressing issue and created solutions that are making a tangible impact.Could you share the moment when you first realized the potential of your idea and the process that you went through in framing it, and also some of the initial challenges that you faced as a young entrepreneur?Sara, if we could start with you, and then go to Guadaluna.

[Sara Berkai]
Yes.Hi.Thank you for having me.So, Ambessa was born out of a direct request from the displaced children that I was working with saying, “Can you build this?”We spent a lot of time co-designing it, and then we launched on Kickstarter.So, for anyone unfamiliar, that’s a crowdfunding platform.And it took off, and so that was our first, or my first understanding of this can build traction and this can be something that’s maybe more scalable.

[Shwetha Grace Eapen]
Thank you.What were some of the challenges you faced when you were starting Ambessa Play?

[Sara Berkai]
A lot of it was trying to figure out the structure.So, do we exist as a charity?Do we exist as a for-profit social enterprise?There is a huge…Social entrepreneurship in of itself.There are so many different types and models.Obviously, the main focus for us was the impact was delivering education to displaced children out of school.So, figuring out what vehicle we did that, I think took us at least a year or so of trying to understand what makes sense.But we kept the users, the displaced children at the forefront, and at the moment it exists as a for-profit social enterprise.

[Shwetha Grace Eapen]
Thank you.Guadaluna, how about you?What was the process like and when you found the potential for your idea?

[Guadaluna Chaer]
As a young engineer, actually engineering student at the time even, we were obsessed with the idea that we can use our skills, the skills that we learn at university, to solve real life problems with the technological advancement.So, for me, I always thought about it, “How can we be a young Elon Musk?”, and in Lebanon, where this started, for me, there was the budding ecosystem and entrepreneurship that tell you, hey, even if you’re young, you can apply for, if you have a good problem, a good solution for it, you can apply and get funding and work on your idea instead of…You don’t want to take the traditional route of Master’s or even employment.So, in my case, I wanted a real-life problem.And now we’re working on the laser weeding.So, we’re burning weeds with lasers instead of using herbicides.I’m actually now on the field, I’ll show.Before this, it was actually a tomato sorting machine that I wanted to work with, but then we focused on the weeding problem because it’s a problem everywhere, not just in Lebanon.It’s also a problem in the US, it’s a huge agricultural problem and without technology we cannot replace herbicides at all.So, we were excited about the problem, and we got more excited when you spoke to farmers who are facing this problem, just like every farmer.This is how it started and the main challenge.There are so many challenges, especially when it comes to a technologically advanced system.We’re not just talking about robotics, we’re also talking about AI and integrating the two together and agri-machinery.The challenge was for us at the time all the crises that we were facing in Lebanon, whether banking crisis, financial crisis, government at the time, even.Even with this, we were able to bootstrap out of there and come to the Netherlands and get funding here.And that’s where we’re working now.

[Shwetha Grace Eapen]
Thank you.Thank you, Sara and Guadaluna for sharing that.I’m sure a lot of the listeners here are also young entrepreneurs who can relate with a lot of issues and challenges in kickstarting this and it’s very inspiring the work that you do.So, building on this, I would like to also include Alexandre on my next question.From your experience as a Senior Private Sector Specialist at the Bank, you have supported various policy initiatives that have been targeted at digital transformation and sustainable businesses.How do you see the World Bank?How does the World Bank help businesses in developing countries, especially youth-led ventures?And why do you believe that it’s important to include young voices in shaping the future for global development?

[Alexandre Laure]
So, let me start by saying that for the World Bank, innovation is a key ingredient for economic growth, especially in an emerging country.You can have a look at our latest World Development Report 2024 which is on escaping the middle-income trap where we highlight the importance of innovation for economy to grow.We do provide a range of support to the governments around the world.Usually, we come in more from a statistic capacity providing support through the World Bank enterprise survey.We also have a survey focusing on fostering the adoption of technology, AKA the FAT survey.We also provide support on doing public expenditure review especially focusing on innovation.Usually on the basis of this technical assistance program we try to generate knowledge pieces, and those knowledge pieces can be through report policy notes and very often they actually guide some of the key reforms that we see in our country.For example, if you look at most of the startup acts that were passed in West Africa about six, seven years ago, that was through World Bank support where we brought together the civil society youth group business associations through policy action to help policymakers understand what were the needs of the young people and the enterprising people in their respective countries.Such support also helps us to rally, at the continental level, folks at the African Union.We have one of our flagship initiatives that that is called “Digital Economy for Africa,” DE4A, where we look more at the digital transformation through five pillars on infrastructure, platform, financial services, digital businesses, and also digital skills.Now, usually that work, which we call at the World Bank more the analytical, technical assistance work for reform, we translate it through projects or programs.So, if we have an understanding with a government that they would require financing for public policy, we would actually be supporting by co-financing those programs.We have many of those programs around the world.The region where we were the most innovative and initiated such programs was in the Middle East and North Africa region where we typically supported governments in establishing what we call “fund of funds” or like a financing vehicle to support innovative entrepreneur startups and SMEs.Our trademark project is actually in Jordan for those that are interested, it’s called the ISSF, the Innovative Startup and SME Fund, and what it does it’s actually providing financial support for enterprising youth.That financial support can be in the form of what we call equity investment, but it can also be grant-based support.Many of those projects, usually, we have what we call a non-financial component, which very often is a business plan competition.And a business plan competition, we have done a lot of them around the world.We also have a lot of research on how to design and implement such a program.I’m pretty sure that at almost any given time we would have active World Bank business plan competition in at least 20 or 30 countries around the world.Maybe I’ll start by saying that the importance for the World Bank supporting a new, and potentially high growth businesses, is on the competition agenda because we want to stimulate the entry of new ideas, new business models which can challenge the incumbents, and usually by doing that, we can actually provide products and services at a cheaper price or that address some of the key constraints in the country that we are supporting.I think sometimes it’s a misconception about who are the entrepreneurs.I think globally they are not actually young people, but those that in terms of volume, or try the most starting a business, obviously young people.It is very important for young people to actually take a risk because usually, and I’ve seen that even in the most difficult places that are in conflict or countries, like in Lebanon, that were financially collapsing, usually young entrepreneurs are the only ones that are optimistic about the outlook of their countries.If you don’t have those fresh ideas, young ideas, there is no specific reason why the older generation should actually care because the only reason you would care as a senior, as a parent, is actually to leave a better planet, or at least a livable planet to the next generation.The best way to do that is actually to be able to start your own idea and not take, not be afraid of actually failing because it’s not a loss for the economy.That idea may be revived or maybe tested by other teams.I’ll stop there and sorry for being a bit, a bit long.

[Shwetha Grace Eapen]
No, thank you very much for that very insightful answer.So, I would like to bring in the conversation of climate innovation as well.It’s one of our pillars for this year.Climate change is one of the global challenges and youth innovators have been very active and have been playing a very pivotal role in these solutions.I would like to bring back Alexandre and Guadaluna.Guadaluna, your work, Luxeed Robotics, also involves climate conscious technology.And Alexandre, you’ve also, apart from your role at the Bank, you’ve also co-founded several companies in Europe and Africa that are focused on environmental and tech startups.How do you see young contributors in this, young innovators contributing in this green transition?And what do you think are some of the key opportunities and challenges that they have?Guadaluna, if we could start with your perspective on it.

[Guadaluna Chaer]
Yes, the perspective of a young person.I can tell you, my generation woke up to this world with this warning that we’re all gonna die.Global warming, climate change is gonna kill us all.There’s nothing, there’s no future.That’s how we were raised, at least in school.So, we were all growing with the screen consciousness, we all wanted to be part of this change.And now the infrastructure is there, whether the finances.Everyone’s aware that with the SDGs and everything.And so, as young people, we have these fresh ideas, and we have the skills to implement them, but we still need the wisdom and the financial structure to be able to do this.And me, and now, okay, I’m 27, but I have young engineers working with me and they have the fresh ideas on a technical level, whether it’s AI or robotics, to implement and even optimize the system further.So, we all need each other.Our technology mainly focuses on disrupting herbicides, completely eliminating it, whether it’s as a whole supply chain or even from the soil and the environment as residues because there’s nothing that the herbicides don’t harm whether biodiversity or the soil of the crops, but not just these.Lasers, we don’t even disrupt the soil, which means we also push not only organic farming, but also regenerative farming.This is important.The soil can store a huge number of CO2 through CO2 sequestration, just like the ocean and everything.We help in a way in global warming.And that’s the thing.All these startups that are growing now in Europe or Africa or Middle East, we’re all contributing somewhat.We are like a small piece in this big puzzle of climate change.The more this infrastructure pushes for these ideas, the more we’re going to thrive and be successful.Like, I can tell you a comparison between Lebanon and Netherlands.So, for Lebanon it’s a really good idea ecosystem.We were able to transition into a prototype, a proof of concept very well, but there wasn’t the infrastructure or the money to move forward and that’s why we moved to the Netherlands.The support on the technology aspect is here, and the early-stage financing is here.So yeah, that’s it.

[Shwetha Grace Eapen]
Thank you.And Alexandre, I know you touched a lot about opportunities for young entrepreneurs as well.Any final words and some of the opportunities they have in this space in green transition.

[Alexandre Laure]
So, maybe I think it’s important as a young entrepreneur.I mean, obviously you have your business idea and you’re trying to bring about a new business model in the market, but I think you should not underestimate as well the relationship building that is needed to convey key messages to the government.The reason I’m saying that is when I started my businesses in Uganda and in East Africa, at the beginning I was shying away from meeting these people in the embassy or trying to meet with government people because the whole point of me starting a business was to try to generate revenue outside of public money.Like, to me, I would even say a business that relies on a government contract is a fake business.It’s not a real value that you are creating to the market.So, I was staying away from those people, but then I realized that a lot of the binding constraints, especially on climate, is related to the legal and regulatory framework.For example, my key business was on waste to energy.So, solid waste, liquid waste, and for Breen Bio Energy it was solid waste, which was basically recycling initially banana peeling, but then any type of solid waste that could be carbonized, turned into briquettes and we had a complementary product, which was energy saving stone.And then, you technically try to innovate which at the time was a very important part of our business.We did everything in Uganda so with the engineers, with the university, the energy lab, we did a lot of reverse engineering, and so it took us a lot of time to get our machinery and product right.We had a beautiful product and you said it was done that people will just buy it because it was cheaper than charcoal.It lasted longer, it didn’t produce any smoke.So, you basically have a…No, it’s a no brainer.But then when you hit the market, you see that a lot of the work to be able to convince a customer to buy the product is also about raising awareness.And when you’re a business, you’re not an NGO, and so you don’t have unlimited funding to raise awareness and give free product and try to get your product out there.So, also working with civil society organizations is very important.So, my point is if you have a business idea, just go for it.It doesn’t matter whether you’re going to fail or succeed, but do not underestimate policymakers because they can actually help you with your bottom line.And also, do not underestimate the challenge of getting your product out there because the most beautiful products, they end up crashing in the reality of the market.I’ll just give a specific example so that people understand.On the climate space, unless you have a price on carbon, basically you’re operating at the margin.Like, if you’re in a country that does not value CO2 pricing, that there is no regulatory framework that classifies such and such waste, and how to bring them back in the market.Yes, you’re going to be able to make money and provide a climate friendly solution, but you’re going to be basically fighting against almost all odds.While if you’re in a country that has a pricing on carbon, that has a legislation on waste etc., you are actually riding a positive wave.So, you need to send those messages to the politicians, and then the civil society, why it’s important.I got my idea because I was going around slums in Kampala.It was actually an NGO that basically introduced to me the idea and I thought the idea was so great that it should be turned into a business.And that knowledge, as a business you cannot do everything.That knowledge of the community, that knowledge of walking at the bottom of the pyramid is a knowledge that you can nurture most of the time through those civil society organizations.I’ll stop there.Thank you.

[Shwetha Grace Eapen]
Thank you very much, Alexandre and Guadaluna, for your insightful examples and advice to young innovators.It’s been wonderful listening to your stories and your insights.As we wrap up this panel discussion, I do have one final question for Sara, is what advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs, particularly those that are starting businesses with a social mission?

[Sara Berkai]
I’d say I benefited a lot and still do from mentorship, but from both, mentorship and just reaching out to other social entrepreneurs who are way further along the journey than we were and asking them everything from legal structures to fundraising.And even in that, there’s grant funding, there’s venture capital, what makes sense?So, one is talking to other social entrepreneurs along the journey, but also a network of social entrepreneurs who are starting off just as with you.Even with this program, I think one of the main benefits might be meeting other finalists.And it’s, as I’m sure any social entrepreneur can attest to, it is an extreme rollercoaster.And so, having a network or a group of friends that you can talk to about that, from legals, to finances, to marketing, to storytelling, who understand that sort of unique perspective of impact and sustainability in the long term can help.So, mentorship and a network of social entrepreneurs, I’d say.

[Shwetha Grace Eapen]
Wonderful.Thank you so much.Guadaluna, any advice for young entrepreneurs who are starting out with their social mission?

[Guadaluna Chaer]
Social mission, but well, unfortunately I’m for profit, but it’s fine.I would say I would highlight the idea of Alexandre, relationship management.People can make your business happen.People are the best leverage.You know who you need to meet, your stakeholders or people who empower you.I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for so many people that played an important role in getting us to where we are now.So, if it’s about drafting a PowerPoint or perfecting it, and going and meeting people at an exhibition, I rather say go meet people at the exhibition to make more friends in your ecosystem, but focus on the stakeholders of your business.

[Shwetha Grace Eapen]
Thank you so much, Guadaluna.Thank you so much, Sara and Alexandre, for that very insightful conversation.Sorry.Thank you so much.And I hope today’s discussion has inspired all the young entrepreneurs who are tuning in today and thinking about how to contribute to tackling global challenges.So, we will now be moving on to our Q&A session where you can ask questions to both our panelists today, as well as our Pitch Competition Co-Leads, they will be joining in as well, Alla and Nabeel.So, due to our limited time, we will only be able to address few questions live, but then our team will also field the questions on in the chat as well.So, to start with, we have a question for our Pitch Competition Co-Lead.Maybe Nabeel, you could take this one.The question is any tips on how participants can demonstrate the scalability and sustainability of their idea?Nabeel?

[Nabeel Siddiqui]
Yeah, thank you for the question.I think it’s very important because scalability and sustainability are among the key metrics we consider when evaluating our applications.So, scalability.One way to highlight that would be to show market potential.If you’re for-profit, you could show the total addressable markets and markets you’re willing to cater to within during the roadmap of your journey.That’s one key way of demonstrating that.You could also show the replicability, and show what other regions and industries and demographics can your product or solution work with.Similarly, you could also demonstrate efficiency.How can you scale effectively without proportionally increasing the cost?One key way of doing that would be through better use of technology.An app, perhaps thousands of people versus a door-to-door service that can cater to hundreds of people.So, how can you leverage technology scale and provide impact amongst a larger population?And also, you can show partnerships and a clear growth plan is something that would be very valuable.What kind of distribution channels you’re using, how will you market your solution is also very relevant here.When we’re talking about sustainability, environmental impact and how you can quantify that would be key.What kind of resource efficiency you’re creating, whether that’s savings in carbon emissions, or water savings and energy savings, if you can quantify that and show exactly how much you’re saving versus conventional solutions, and what addition and benefits your solutions are bringing, that would be very relevant to the application.And how well you can align them with global sustainable targets and NDCs and nationally determined contributions.So, that would be one great way of showing scalability and sustainability in the application.

[Shwetha Grace Eapen]
My apologies for the audio.Another question for the Pitch Competition Co-Leads is what kind of mentorship or support can participants expect through the competition process?Either Nabeel or Alla?You could take this question.

[Alla Ilanov]
I can take this one.Can you hear me all right?

[Shwetha Grace Eapen]
Yes.

[Alla Ilanov]
So, I think every year it’s a bit different depending on how we organize the Pitch Competition.So, for example, in the past, finalists and winners have been provided with multiple mentorship opportunities by our academic and private sector partners.This included Pitch Competition mentorship accelerator programs and long-term mentorship opportunities customized to the needs of the Pitch Competition winners.Additionally, last year’s winners also had the opportunity to pitch in front of the social development venture capitalists.I hope this answered the question.Thank you.

[Shwetha Grace Eapen]
Okay, so we have a question for the panelists and this is open, anyone can take it, Sara, Guadaluna or Alexandre.The question is, how would you communicate to the rest of the world the actions to improve our particular environment, to improve the global environment where you work hand in hand with senior citizens and adults?Alexandre, would you like to take this?

[Alexandre Laure]
Yeah, I mean it’s a very tough, tough question.I think yes.Young people are more fluent in climate related issues, and I think there is a difficulty to socialize such an issue to senior citizens and people from the older generation.I think that’s what is very important, I mean you have several ways you can actually socialize that to senior citizens.I mean, first of all is the intergenerational relationship, so why you are doing this.And I think any senior citizens would actually relate to it, being parent or grant a grandparent, but one thing that I found was quite powerful.When you look at issues such as pollution, flooding, etc., senior citizens can relate to the time where you didn’t see plastic bottles all over the beaches of Indonesia.I mean, people will remember how it used to be.And so, one of the ways of reaching out and pitching, I think, to such a demographic is also to tell them that you want to restore somehow the natural capital that they used to know.I’ll stop there, but it was a very tough question.

[Shwetha Grace Eapen]
But thank you for so much for your answer to that question.Yeah, it definitely is a thought provoking one.We do seem to be getting a few more questions for our panelists, as well as for our Pitch Competition Co-Leads.Unfortunately, we wouldn’t be able to answer them all in the live session, but our team will be getting back to you in the chat.So, to conclude this exciting session, we are joined by Robin Mearns, who is the Global Director of the Social Sustainability and Inclusion Global Practice at the World Bank.He has led operations, policy, dialogue, and analytics in community and local development, as well as land and natural resources.We are very excited to hear his insights today.Please, over to you, Robin.

[Robin Mearns]
Thank you very much indeed, Shwetha, and I would really like to thank all of the panelists, Guadaluna, Sara and Alexandre for sharing your incredibly inspiring examples and experiences.I think this is really the power of example.The demonstration effect is incredibly inspiring, I think, for everyone who’s tuned in today, and I want to extend enormous thanks to everyone who has tuned in today for this very exciting launch of the Pitch Competition organized by the World Bank Group’s Youth Summit.As we heard from the outset, I think Raaga highlighted this quite alarming statistic that within the next decade, 800 million young people around the world are at risk of not being able to participate in global job markets, in labor markets.These young people are concentrated particularly in low and lower middle-income countries.And that really is an alarming statistic.And so, the question is, what do we do about it?I think that’s the whole point of this Pitch Competition and, in fact, the drive of the Youth Summit that it’s really a question of harnessing the passion, the creativity, and the energy of young people themselves to try to identify solutions, to act as catalysts for job creation, for economic prosperity, and for social inclusion in ways that are scalable, in ways that are sustainable, and that actually reach many underserved populations which face particular barriers in accessing job opportunities.Really, congratulations to all of those who’ve been involved in crafting this particular Pitch Competition.I really like the themes that have been selected this year around digital transformation, around climate action, and climate resilience, and then finally the power of creative industries, arts for social change.I think all of these are areas where young people can show the way, can show what is an exciting, chart an exciting path forward.We’re really, really looking forward to seeing what comes from the Pitch Competition this year.Now, the World Bank is absolutely committed to supporting youth innovation, and in particular youth access to jobs and economic opportunities, and empowering young leaders to be able to shape the future.And in fact, from the Social Development department, from our group, we’ve just come up with a new report which is called “Change-Makers” including youth in finding solutions, “Empowering Youth for Inclusive Societies.”Look out for this on social media.The core message of this is that, of course jobs and economic opportunities are critically needed, but more than that, it’s also how do you engage, how do you actually engage to make it happen?What youth are looking for, what young people are looking for is for their voices to be heard, for opportunities to engage, and to join, and to help shape the global conversation, and to shape and chart the way forward.So, I think organizations like the World Bank, there are many other organizations who are keen to support in this space, I think providing the tools, the resources, and the networks to help young leaders such as those that we’ve heard from today to succeed is absolutely fundamental and critically needed.Not all youth are equal and some face particular barriers because of poverty status or where they happen to live, others face barriers because of, of who they are.Those with diverse gender identities, for example, people with disabilities, young people with disabilities of various kinds.So, there’s an essential need to find tailored solutions that meet the needs of all youth and paying attention to all of these kinds of intersectionalities.So, let me just end with, really, the whole point of this Pitch Competition is, that it’s a call to action for future collaboration.The future lies in the hands of young innovators who are not afraid to challenge the status quo and to envision new solutions.The whole point of this is that we want to encourage continued support, learning and collaboration, and for us all to work together towards a more sustainable, equitable and prosperous world.let me end there, but I do want to give a special shout out to Raaga, Shwetha, Alla, Nabeel and everybody involved in the World Bank Group Youth Summit.We need your leadership, we’re benefiting from your leadership and I’d like to congratulate you.This is now the 12th year of the Youth Summit, and so this is a super important Pitch Competition.With that, let me end and pass it back to you.Shwetha.

[Shwetha Grace Eapen]
Thank you so much, Robin, that was an inspiring way to conclude our pre-event information session.I want to thank you all for joining us today.This wraps up our live event.A very special thank you to all our guests who have joined us for this launch event, we sincerely appreciate your participation.And to all tuning in, we hope you found this session valuable.We look forward to seeing you either in person or online at the Youth Summit in May.If you have any other further questions about the Pitch Competition or other further queries, reach out to us at youthsummit@worldbank.org with the title “Pitch Competition”with your questions, and we’ll be sure to get back to you.Thank you so much for tuning in.Have a great day.