New Thinking for a New World

Today's world is short of a lot of things—sustainable environment, peace, prosperity, equality—but what we lack most is innovative, global, values-based leadership. If we can find and nurture that kind of leadership, the rest will follow.

The Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize named in honor of Jan Eliasson, one of the most accomplished global diplomats of our era. In this special episode, Jan and Alan Stoga, chairman of the Tällberg Foundation discuss how great leaders can change everything.

What can you do? Take Jan’s call to action seriously and, then, nominate someone who deserves to win the leadership prize this year. Nominate your candidate here: https://tallberg-snf-eliasson-prize.org/nominate/

Music: "Without You" by Oxime © 2021. Permissions granted courtesy of Oxime Audio https://www.oxime-audio.com/

It wasn't that long ago that globalization was almost universally perceived as a good thing, when policymakers celebrated free trade agreements, and when countries competed to lower barriers to the free flow of goods, technology, and money. But something in the global zeitgeist seems to have shifted from free trade and open markets to decoupling, national champions, re-shoring, industrial policy.

We seem to be moving from a world where markets ruled to one where politics rules: the politics of nationalism and confrontation, of East versus West instead of East and West.

In this week’s New Thinking for a New World podcast, Weijian Shan, economist, businessman, investor, and author based in Hong Kong, shares his unique perspective, not just on global markets, but on how the world really works. He is chairman and CEO of PAG, one of Asia's leading investment firms, and author of two books, Money Games: The Inside Story of How American Deal makers Saved Korea's Most Iconic Bank, and Out of the Gobi: My Story of China and America.

A shape-shifting event like the global pandemic affects almost everyone on the planet— but it especially affects children. They have seen their education, social, mental, and physical health development, and nutrition badly— perhaps permanently— damaged. And what’s bad for kids is worse for girls because in too many countries, especially in low- and middle-income countries, girls don’t have anywhere near adequate access to schools, health care, or even food.

The Malala Fund, launched by Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, is dedicated to a simple proposition: all girls, everywhere should have free, safe, quality education. In this episode of the New Thinking for a New World Podcast, Dr. Maliha Khan, one of the leaders of the Malala Fund, talks about how the pandemic has made that goal even more difficult to achieve.

Today’s world is short of a lot of things—sustainable environment, peace, prosperity, equality—but what we lack most is innovative, global, values-based leadership. If we can find and nurture that kind of leadership, the rest will follow.

In this special episode you will meet Nithya Ramanathan, one of the three 2020 Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership prize winners. Nithya is an engineer and social entrepreneur, saving lives through the innovative application of technology, creating and applying data-driven solutions to global challenges. Listen, as she is interviewed by Cecilia Weckstrom, Sr Director, Diversity, Inclusion & People Innovation at Lego in the UK and a member of the 2020 prize jury.

What can you do? Take Nithya’s call to action seriously and, then, nominate someone who deserves to win the leadership prize this year.

Music: “Without You” by Oxime © 2021. Permissions granted courtesy of Oxime Audio https://www.oxime-audio.com/

What does China—or, more particularly China’s leadership and the Chinese Communist Party— want from the rest of the world?  Domination or collaboration? Allies or subjects? War or peace?

Jonathan Ward, an American who is rapidly becoming one of that country's leading China experts, thinks they want victory. Dr. Ward, who has lived and worked in China and has a deep affinity for the Chinese people, recently published a new provocative book, China's Vision of Victory. Listen as he shares his perspective on the issue that could literally change the course of history.

Early in 2020, when the global pandemic was still gathering force, UNICEF published a prophetic, deeply disturbing document "All children of all ages and in all countries are being effected in particular by the socioeconomic impacts and in some cases, by mitigation measures that may inadvertently do more harm than good. This is a universal crisis. And for some children, the impact will be lifelong.” If anything, what actually has happened—and continues to happen—to children everywhere is, if anything, probably worse than UNICEF imagined. Not just schooling, but human and social development interrupted. Children cut off from the meals that come with school attendance. Surging levels of abuse, trafficking and child labor. Perhaps, a lost generation, but almost certainly a damaged one.

Robert Jenkins sits at the epicenter of this crisis. He is leading UNICEF's global education response to the pandemic and brings decades of experience and a global perspective to what might easily be the most important and longest lasting impact of COVID. How worried is he? What needs to be done? How can societies around the world, ameliorate the worst impacts of the pandemic on their children?

Who do you think deserves to be recognized as a global leader? Nominate someone today at www.tallbergprize.org

Today’s world is short of a lot of things—sustainable environment, peace, prosperity, equality—but what we lack most is innovative, global, values-based leadership. If we can find and nurture that kind of leadership, the rest will follow.

In this special episode you will meet Jared Genser, one of the three 2020 Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership prize winners. Jared is an international human rights lawyer who has spent his career practicing law, engaging in serious scholarship, and teaching and mentoring the next generation of human rights lawyers.

Listen, as he is interviewed by Shahidul Alam, photographer, writer, curator and activist and a member of the 2020 prize jury. What can you do? Take Jared’s call to action seriously and, then, nominate someone who deserves to win the leadership prize this year.

Music: “Without You” by Oxime © 2021. Permissions granted courtesy of Oxime Audio https://www.oxime-audio.com/

Even as the pandemic, like some giant glacier, slowly and unevenly recedes, the world seems frozen in place as it deals with the mess left behind. Increased poverty and malnutrition; greater inequality; damaged and depleted health care systems; rising social and political tensions. But is this crisis or opportunity? Or, rather, are we smart enough and driven enough to turn what threatens to be a period of enormous strife—of the kind that often follows pandemics—into a new era of positive, life affirming change?

This week’s guests on the New Thinking for a New World podcast are dedicated to the latter proposition. They both are trying to make the world the kind of place it could and should be. Vidhya Ramalingam is a recognized expert on the use of technology to disrupt violent extremism online. Sarah Durieux focuses on mobilizing citizens online, to help them achieve policies they care about. They both also recently completed the Obama Foundation’s inaugural Emerging Leaders in Europe Program

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Europe is increasingly divided: between the frugal North and the Club Med South; between the illiberal East and the progressive West. In many ways, the latter is more profound at a time when democracy is under pressure almost everywhere. Leaders like President Orban of Hungary and Poland’s Jarosław Kaczyński, who founded the ruling Law and Justice Party, are trying to change not only their own countries' laws and institutions, but to shift the center of European social and political gravity to the right.

How likely are they to succeed? Will they change only their national realities or will they make changes on the larger European or even global stages? Do Hungary and Poland really belong to the Europe of the early 21st century?

Today's world is short of a lot of things—sustainable environment, peace, prosperity, equality—but what we lack most is innovative, global, values-based leadership. If we can find and nurture that kind of leadership, the rest will follow.

In this special episode of the New thinking for a New World podcast, you will meet Sylvia Earle, one of the three 2020 Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership prize winners. Sylvia is a world-class oceanographer and educator. Listen, as she is interviewed by Ashok Mirpuri, Singapore's ambassador to the United States and a member of the 2020 prize jury.

What can you do? Take Sylvia’s call to action seriously and, then, nominate someone who deserves to win the leadership prize this year. Nominate your candidate here: https://tallberg-snf-eliasson-prize.org/nominate/

Music: "Without You" by Oxime © 2021. Permissions granted courtesy of Oxime Audio https://www.oxime-audio.com/