Main Stage Agenda

Opening of the Inaugural Virtual World Humanitarian Forum New York 2020

Feraye Ozfescioglu, CEO World Humanitarian Forum
WHF Advisory Board

Speakers: 
Ms. Feraye Ozfescioglu                   Chief Executive Office
Rt Hon. Jack Straw                          Chair of WHF AB & Former Foreign Secretary
Mr. Richard Hawkes                        WHF Advisory Board Member & CEO, the British Asian Trust
Mr. Mark Astarita OBE                    WHF Advisory Board Member & Director, Astarita Aldrich & Ward
Ms. Fatima Gailani                          WHF Advisory Board Member & Member of the Board, Afghan Red Crescent Society
Mr. Neil Rodrigues                          WHF Advisory Board Member & Senior Director, Global Supply Chain Operations, International Rescue Committee
Mr. Jonathan Brooker                    WHF Advisory Board Member & Director, Global Head of Private Partnerships, Solidarites International UK
Ms. Charlie Bronks                         WHF Advisory Board Member & Head of Strategic Partnerships and Communications, Crown Agents Bank
Ms. Dianne Dain                              WHF Advisory Board Member & UN Reboot Accelerator Lead, Strategy, Policy & Governance Div., UN Secretariat Office of ICT
Ms. Tessy Antony de Nassau        WHF Advisory Board Member and Director & Founder, Finding Butterflies & Patron to UNA-UK
Mr. David Peppiatt                           WHF Advisory Board Member & Director of the Cash Hub, British Red Cross
Sir Anthony Ritossa                         WHF Advisory Board Member & Chairman Ritossa Family Office

 Address from Ms. Amina J Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations and Chair of the UN Sustainable Development Group.

A focus on the refugee crisis in times of Covid-19

This session will address the issue of displacement and forced migration. The discussion will cover government policies, the role of NGOs, PPPs, the role of media, and the multilateral organisations. Are we doing enough to help those who are fleeing war-torn nations? How can we change the narrative so that they are embraced and accepted, instead of being ill-treated and harmed? How can we engage the private sector to play a role in tackling this challenge?

Moderator: 
Ms. Alexandra Bilak, Director, IDMC

Speakers: 
Mr. Per Heggenes, Chief Executive Officer, IKEA Foundation
Ms. Sherrie Rollins Westin, President of Social Impact and Philanthropy, Sesame Workshop
Mr. Francesco Rocca, President, IFRC
Ms. Kelly Clements, Deputy High Commissioner, UNHCR

While global poverty levels have been cut by more than half since 2000, nearly 8% of workers around the world lived on less than $1.90 person per day. Ending poverty in all forms is a key objective of the SDGs and must remain a priority for the international community as we move into the decade of action. This will be the focus of this session as we examine leading ideas on how to tackle poverty. We cannot do this without looking at the challenges that maintain poverty despite humanitarian efforts.

Moderator:
Paul Knox Clarke, Co-founder, Climate and Humanitarian Crisis Initiative 

Speakers: 
Ms. Phyllis Costanza, Chief Executive Officer, UBS Optimus Foundation
Mr. David Wright, Chief Operating Officer, Save the Children
Mr. Jon Clifton, Global Managing Partner, Gallup

Nations United is a special, first of its kind film, created by the United Nations on its 75th Anniversary and to mark five years since the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Despite the progress made in reducing hunger levels for many decades, the world is not on track to reach SDG 2 of zero hunger by 2030. Whether it’s caused by man-made conflicts, economic grievances or the consequences of climate change, an estimated 135 million people suffer from acute hunger around the world. Radical change is required for the global food and agricultural systems if the world is to adequately feed populations. For this session, we shall discuss what reform is needed to create an equity of food distribution and lifting people out of malnourishment.

Moderator:
Laura Powers, Co-founder, the new Climate and Humanitarian Crisis Initiative

Speakers:
Mr. Lawrence Haddad, Executive Director, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN)
Mr. Andrew Rzepa, Partner, Gallup
Ms. Valerie Guarnieri, Assistant Executive Director, World Food Programme  (WFP)
Mr. Martienvan Nieuwkoop, Global Director for Agriculture and Food, World Bank
Mr. Donal Brown, Associate Vice-President in Programme Management Department, (IFAD) 

Supporting the UN SDGs requires wide-scale collaboration from a variety of sectors, from private and public to INGOs and international institutions. Therefore, leveraging the knowledge of the private sector into supporting the SDGs is vital for their future success. Whether this is expertise in telecommunications, sanitation, or financing, the private sector can bring unique capabilities for the global goals. This session will look at the biggest challenges to public and private partnerships while considering the role of trust, shared values and inclusive growth as business cannot thrive in a failing world. 

Moderator: 
Mr. Jonathan Brooker, WHF Advisory Board Member & Global Partnerships Director, Solidarites International

Speakers:
Ms. Annemarie Hou, Acting Executive Director, United Nations Office for Partnerships
Mr. Gideon Maltz, Executive Director, Tent Partnership for Refugees Foundation
Ms. Rebecca Marmot, Chief Sustainability Officer, Unilever
Ms.Tara Nathan, Executive Vice President, Humanitarian & Development Sectors, Mastercard

The decade of action calls for a swift change in finding sustainable solutions to the world’s ongoing challenges. The UN Secretary-General Antonio Gueterres called for all sectors of society to mobilise around global action, local action, and people action. While the COVID-19 pandemic has halted much of the work done on the SDGs, it has also highlighted just how necessary they are to achieve. This keynote session will explore the impact of philanthropy and how it has risen to support the SDGs. Major foundations and philanthropic organisations gathered at the Tenth World Urban Forum to discuss innovative ways to achieve the SDGs.

Moderator: 
Mr. Richard Hawkes, WHF Advisory Board Member & CEO, the British Asian Trust

Speakers:
Dr. Marcia Balisciano, Global Head, RELX 
Mr. Patrick Dunne, Chair EY Foundation
Ms. Debbie Wall, Executive Vice President, Sage Foundation & Colleague Wellbeing
Dr. Valerie Nkamgang Bemo, Deputy Director of Emergency Response for Global Development, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation  

Guest:  Ms. Melissa Fleming, UN Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications

Introduction by Feraye Ozfescioglu, CEO World Humanitarian Forum

In the morning sessions, our panels will be discussing women and gender inequality, the challenges of inclusive and encompassing education, as well as other forms of inequality, from minority to LGBTQ+ rights and Black Lives Matter.

In 2014, 143 out of 195 countries guaranteed equality between men and women in their constitutions but to this day, full gender equality has not been realised. Gender-based stereotypes and social norms still are the basis for discrimination against women, even in societies with legal equality while many states still offer very few rights to women. This session will be looking at the modern obstacles to gender equality of today, and how Covid-19 has severely affected the rights of women around the world.

Moderator: 
Ms.Tessy Antony - de Nassau, WHF Advisory Board member and Director & Founder, Finding Butterflies & Patron to UNA-UK

Speakers:
Hon. Zuraida Kamaruddin, Minister of Housing and Local Government Malaysia
Ms. HH Sheikha Intisar Al Sabah, Founder, Intisar Foundation
Ms.Asahi Pompey, Global Head of Corporate Engagement and President, Goldman Sachs Foundation
Ambassador Melanne Verveer, Verveer Executive Director, Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security

Education enables development and makes all other SDGs possible, training future generations for the workforces that they will enter. But Covid-19 has changed the way in which learning happens around the world and many children, including young girls, still do not have access to quality education. This session will look at some of the crucial questions that surround education worldwide at the moment, including how we can be successful in providing every child on the globe with an education that will prepare them for future requirements and expectations across job industries. We will also look at some of the leading new developments and initiatives in the education sector, including some of the new online tools.

Moderator: 
Dr. Jon-Hans Coetzer, Team Leader Online Learning and Education, Division for Peace, UNITAR

Speakers:
Ms.Yasmine Sherif, Director, Education Cannot Wait
Mr.Nikhil Seth, Executive Director, UNITAR and Assistant Secretary-General, United Nations
Dr.Tariq Al Gurg, Chief Executive Officer, Dubai Cares
Ms. Breshna Musazai, OYW Peace Ambassador and member of the National Youth Consensus for Peace Movement in Afghanistan
Ambassador Khalid Fathalrahman, Director of Partnerships and International Cooperation Sector, ICESCO

The recent protests in the United States have reminded us that deeply entrenched inequalities remain throughout the world, even in developed countries while legal barriers to equality are still relevant in many other countries. It is not just massive inequalities in wealth and resources that persist, but also forms of social inequality for LGBTQ+ communities, women and minority social groups. This session wants to ask how the international community can better protect these social groups who continue to be denied the basic rights that others take for granted.

Moderator: 
Ms.Fatiha Serour, Co-founder, Justice Impact Lab  

Speakers:
Mr. Antonio Zappulla, Chief Executive Officer, Thomson Reuters Foundation
Mr. Simon Rodgers, People Director One Young World
Ms.Sara Vaughan, Global Chief Purpose & Sustainability Advisor, Marie Claire
Ms.Vivian Lopez, Executive Coordinator Every Woman Every Child EWEC Secretariat/UN
Dr. Marty Casey, Founder, UN-Gun Institute

This session will look at broad themes surrounding how we can pursue policies to the SDGs that are financially sound and affordable. From impact investing to corporate philanthropy, ways of funding large scale humanitarian projects have achieved great successes in the past but now face new challenges in the light of Covid-19 and questions over where limited resources should be diverted to when all sectors have been struck by the pandemic. This roundtable will look at new initiatives from leading financial institutions to help create financially feasible and sustainable programmes that will push the international community forward in its commitment to fulfill the SDGs.

Moderator: 
Ms. Charlie Bronks, WHF Advisory Board Member & Head of Strategic Partnerships, Marketing, Branding and Communications, Crown Agents Bank

Speakers:
Mr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, United Nations Special Envoy on Financing the 2030 Agenda
Mr. Jürgen Rigterink, Acting President, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)
Ms. Marisa Drew, Chief Sustainability Officer & Global Head Sustainability Strategy, Credit Suisse
Mr. Axel van Trotsenburg, Managing Director of Operations, World Bank
Mr. Ambroise Fayolle, Vice-President, European Investment Bank (EIB)

Address from Heads of States, Ministers and UN Missions. WHF’s keynote addresses will be a series of town hall-style conversations with the world’s leaders and luminaries around how to leverage this moment of global transition to “build forward”.

Speakers:

• H.E. Katalin Annamária Bogyay, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and Permanent Representative of Hungary
• H.E Dr Michal Mlyná​​​​r, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and Permanent Representative of the Slovak Republic to the United Nations
• H.E Sheikha Alya Ahmed Saif Al-Thani, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and Permanent Representative of Qatar
• H.E Feridun H. Sinirlioglu, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and Permanent Representative of Turkey

Despite progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals, Africa continues to lag behind most of the world when it comes to socio-economic development. More than half of the global poor (those who earn under $1.90 per day) are found in Africa. One in three Africans is at the risk of food insecurity. It requires poverty alleviation, ending starvation and malnutrition, implementing sustainable development and harnessing the demographic dividend. Government representatives will outline their vision and challenges, discuss policies that worked. Multilateral institutions will highlight the work they do to address the challenges and NGOs will share their case studies. Can the African Free Trade agreement do the trick?

Moderator:
Ms.Ghana Harb Conord, Editor-in-chief, Today’s Outlook

Speakers:
Ms. Elena Bonometti, Chief Executive Officer, Tostan
Mr. Richard Blewitt, Head of Delegation and Permanent Representative to the United Nations
Ms. Noella Coursaris Musunka, Founder, Malaika Foundation
Mr. Andrew Wilson, Global Head of Policy and External Affairs, International Chamber of Commerce

The eyes of the world are on global leaders. Citizens all over are counting on them to exercise not only effective leadership but also ethical leadership, leadership that shows compassion and care for people affected by the crisis. The success of such leadership can be seen in countries like New Zealand where Covid-19 was successfully beaten and so now the international community needs to consider how such successes can be applied to all levels of governance. But states must also not forget the importance of multilateralism even as borders remain closed and regulations continue. 

Speakers:
Ms. Mary Robinson, Chair of The Elders and First Women President of Ireland
Mr. Jorge Moreira da Silva, Director of the Development Co-operation Directorate, OECD

The pandemic has radically altered much of our lives. The consequences that have unfolded serve as a reminder that efforts to reduce poverty, fight climate change and create an economy that works for all require bold change. The announcement of the 'Global Reset', by the World Economic Forum, provides an opportunity to connect key government and business leaders with the youth. This final keynote session will address the themes of the Global Reset while considering important decisions that need to be made ahead of Davos 2021. How can this reset be made into a reality and what exactly will a ‘Global Reset’ look like?

Moderator:
Mr. Raj Kumar, President and Editor in Chief, Devex

Speakers:
Ms. Sara Pantuliano, Chief Executive Officer, Overseas Development Insitute (ODI)
Mr. Blair Sheppard, Global Leader Strategy and Leadership, PwC
Ms. Maria Kozloski, Senior Vice President of Innovative Finance, The Rockefeller Foundation
Dr. Ahmed Al Meraikhi, The Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General
Mr.Jagan Chapagain, Secretary-General, IFRC