00:12I want to introduce you
to an amazing woman.
00:15Her name is Davinia.
00:18Davinia was born in Jamaica,
emigrated to the US at the age of 18,
00:22and now lives just outside
of Washington, DC.
00:26She's not a high-powered
political staffer,
00:30She'd probably tell you
she's quite unremarkable,
00:33but she's having
the most remarkable impact.
00:36What's incredible about Davinia
00:38is that she's willing to spend
time every single week
00:40focused on people who are not her:
00:43people not her in her neighborhood,
her state, nor even in her country --
00:47people she'd likely never meet.
00:49Davinia's impact started a few years ago
00:51when she reached out
to all of her friends on Facebook,
00:54and asked them to donate their pennies
00:56so she could fund girls' education.
00:59She wasn't expecting a huge response,
01:01but 700,000 pennies later,
01:04she's now sent over 120 girls to school.
01:07When we spoke last week,
01:09she told me she's become
a little infamous at the local bank
01:12every time she rocks up
with a shopping cart full of pennies.
01:17Now -- Davinia is not alone.
01:21She's part of a growing movement.
01:24And there's a name
for people like Davinia:
01:28A global citizen is someone
who self-identifies first and foremost
01:33not as a member of a state,
a tribe or a nation,
01:37but as a member of the human race,
01:39and someone who is prepared
to act on that belief,
01:44to tackle our world's greatest challenges.
01:47Our work is focused on finding,
01:49supporting and activating global citizens.
01:52They exist in every country
01:54and among every demographic.
01:57I want to make the case to you today
01:58that the world's future depends
on global citizens.
02:01I'm convinced that if we had
more global citizens active in our world,
02:06then every single one
of the major challenges we face --
02:08from poverty, climate change,
gender inequality --
02:12these issues become solvable.
02:14They are ultimately global issues,
02:17and they can ultimately only be solved
02:19by global citizens demanding
global solutions from their leaders.
02:24Now, some people's immediate
reaction to this idea
02:27is that it's either a bit utopian
or even threatening.
02:31So I'd like to share with you
a little of my story today,
02:34how I ended up here,
02:36how it connects with Davinia
02:38and, hopefully, with you.
02:40Growing up in Melbourne, Australia,
02:42I was one of those seriously
irritating little kids
02:45that never, ever stopped asking, "Why?"
02:47You might have been one yourself.
02:49I used to ask my mum
the most annoying questions.
02:52I'd ask her questions like,
"Mum, why I can't I dress up
02:55and play with puppets all day?"
02:57"Why do you want fries with that?"
03:01and why do we have to keep
throwing them on the barbie?"
03:04"And mum -- this haircut.
03:10The worst haircut, I think.
03:14As a "why" kid, I thought
I could change the world,
03:17and it was impossible
to convince me otherwise.
03:19And when I was 12
and in my first year of high school,
03:22I started raising money
for communities in the developing world.
03:25We were a really
enthusiastic group of kids,
03:28and we raised more money
than any other school in Australia.
03:31And so I was awarded the chance
to go to the Philippines to learn more.
03:36We were taken into a slum
in the outskirts of Manila.
03:40It was there I became friends
with Sonny Boy,
03:44who lived on what was literally
a pile of steaming garbage.
03:48"Smoky Mountain" was what they called it.
03:50But don't let the romance
of that name fool you,
03:52because it was nothing more
than a rancid landfill
03:55that kids like Sonny Boy spent hours
rummaging through every single day
03:59to find something, anything of value.
04:03That night with Sonny Boy and his family
changed my life forever,
04:06because when it came time to go to sleep,
04:08we simply laid down on this concrete
slab the size of half my bedroom
04:12with myself, Sonny Boy,
and the rest of his family,
04:15seven of us in this long line,
04:16with the smell of rubbish all around us
04:19and cockroaches crawling all around.
04:21And I didn't sleep a wink,
04:23but I lay awake thinking to myself,
04:24"Why should anyone have to live like this
04:27when I have so much?
04:29Why should Sonny Boy's ability
to live out his dreams
04:32be determined by where he's born,
04:34or what Warren Buffett called
'the ovarian lottery?'"
04:37I just didn't get it,
04:38and I needed to understand why.
04:41Now, I only later came to understand
04:44that the poverty I'd seen
in the Philippines
04:46was the result of decisions made
or not made, man-made,
04:50by a succession of colonial powers
and corrupt governments
04:54who had anything but the interests
of Sonny Boy at heart.
04:57Sure, they didn't create Smoky Mountain,
but they may as well have.
05:01And if we're to try to help
kids like Sonny Boy,
05:03it wouldn't work just to try
to send him a few dollars
05:06or to try to clean up
the garbage dump on which he lived,
05:09because the core
of the problem lay elsewhere.
05:12And as I worked on community
development projects over the coming years
05:15trying to help build schools,
05:17train teachers, and tackle HIV and AIDS,
05:20I came to see that community development
05:23should be driven
by communities themselves,
05:25and that although charity is necessary,
it's not sufficient.
05:29We need to confront these challenges
05:31on a global scale and in a systemic way.
05:34And the best thing I could do
05:35is try to mobilize a large group
of citizens back home
05:39to insist that our leaders engage
in that systemic change.
05:43That's why, a few years later,
05:45I joined with a group of college friends
05:47in bringing the Make Poverty History
campaign to Australia.
05:51We had this dream of staging
this small concert
05:54around the time of the G20
with local Aussie artists,
05:58and it suddenly exploded one day
06:00when we got a phone call from Bono,
the Edge and Pearl Jam,
06:04who all agreed to headline our concert.
06:07I got a little bit excited
that day, as you can see.
06:11But to our amazement,
06:13the Australian government
heard our collective voices,
06:16and they agreed to double investment
into global health and development --
06:20an additional 6.2 billion dollars.
06:28It felt like this incredible validation.
06:31By rallying citizens together,
we helped persuade our government
06:34to do the unthinkable,
06:36and act to fix a problem
miles outside of our borders.
06:40But here's the thing:
06:44See, there was a change in government,
06:46and six years later, all that new money
06:53We learned that one-off spikes
are not enough.
06:57We needed a sustainable movement,
06:59not one that is susceptible
to the fluctuating moods of a politician
07:03or the hint of an economic downturn.
07:06And it needed to happen everywhere;
07:08otherwise, every individual government
would have this built-in excuse mechanism
07:12that they couldn't possibly carry
the burden of global action alone.
07:17And so this is what we embarked upon.
07:20And as we embarked upon
this challenge, we asked ourselves,
07:23how do we gain enough pressure
and build a broad enough army
07:26to win these fights for the long term?
07:29We could only think of one way.
07:32We needed to somehow turn
that short-term excitement
07:34of people involved with
the Make Poverty History campaign
07:37into long-term passion.
07:39It had to be part of their identity.
07:42So in 2012, we cofounded an organization
that had exactly that as its goal.
07:47And there was only one name for it:
07:52But this is not about
any one organization.
07:55This is about citizens taking action.
07:58And research data tells us
07:59that of the total population
who even care about global issues,
08:04only 18 percent have done
anything about it.
08:08It's not that people don't want to act.
08:10It's often that they don't
know how to take action,
08:13or that they believe that their actions
will have no effect.
08:16So we had to somehow recruit
and activate millions of citizens
08:19in dozens of countries
08:21to put pressure on their leaders
to behave altruistically.
08:24And as we did so, we discovered
something really thrilling,
08:28that when you make
global citizenship your mission,
08:31you suddenly find yourself
with some extraordinary allies.
08:34See, extreme poverty isn't the only issue
that's fundamentally global.
08:38So, too, is climate change,
08:40human rights, gender equality,
08:44We found ourselves shoulder to shoulder
08:47with people who are passionate about
targeting all these interrelated issues.
08:51But how did we actually
go about recruiting
08:53and engaging those global citizens?
08:55Well, we used the universal language:
09:00We launched the Global Citizen Festival
09:02in the heart of New York City
in Central Park,
09:05and we persuaded some of the world's
biggest artists to participate.
09:09We made sure that
these festivals coincided
09:11with the UN General Assembly meeting,
09:13so that leaders who need
to hear our voices
09:16couldn't possible ignore them.
09:18But there was a twist:
09:20you couldn't buy a ticket.
09:24You had to take action
on behalf of a global cause,
09:27and only once you'd done that
could you earn enough points to qualify.
09:31Activism is the currency.
09:34I had no interest in citizenship
purely as some sort of feel-good thing.
09:38For me, citizenship means you have to act,
and that's what we required.
09:42And amazingly, it worked.
09:44Last year, more than 155,000 citizens
in the New York area alone
09:49earned enough points to qualify.
09:51Globally, we've now signed up citizens
in over 150 countries around the world.
09:55And last year, we signed up
more than 100,000 new members
09:59each and every week of the whole year.
10:01See, we don't need to create
global citizens from nothing.
10:05We're already everywhere.
10:07We just need to be organized
10:09and motivated to start acting.
10:12And this is where I believe
we can learn a lot from Davinia,
10:15who started taking action
as a global citizen back in 2012.
10:19Here's what she did.
10:21It wasn't rocket science.
10:23She started writing letters,
10:25emailing politicians' offices.
10:28She volunteered her time
in her local community.
10:31That's when she got active on social media
10:33and started to collect pennies --
10:38Now, maybe that doesn't sound
like a lot to you.
10:42How will that achieve anything?
10:44Well, it achieved a lot
because she wasn't alone.
10:48Her actions, alongside 142,000
other global citizens',
10:52led the US government
to double their investment
10:55into Global Partnership for Education.
10:57And here's Dr. Raj Shah,
10:58the head of USAID,
making that announcement.
11:01See, when thousands of global citizens
find inspiration from each other,
11:05it's amazing to see
their collective power.
11:07Global citizens like Davinia
helped persuade the World Bank
11:11to boost their investment
into water and sanitation.
11:13Here's the Bank's president Jim Kim
announcing 15 billion dollars onstage
11:19and Prime Minister Modi of India
affirmed his commitment
11:22to put a toilet in every household
and school across India by 2019.
11:28Global citizens encouraged
by the late-night host Stephen Colbert
11:32launched a Twitter invasion on Norway.
11:35Erna Solberg, the country's
Prime Minister, got the message,
11:38committing to double investment
into girls' education.
11:42Global citizens together with Rotarians
called on the Canadian, UK,
11:46and Australian governments
11:47to boost their investment
into polio eradication.
11:50They got together and committed
665 million dollars.
11:56But despite all of this momentum,
11:59we face some huge challenges.
12:02See, you might be thinking to yourself,
12:03how can we possibly persuade world leaders
12:06to sustain a focus on global issues?
12:09Indeed, the powerful American
politician Tip O'Neill once said,
12:14"All politics is local."
12:17That's what always
got politicians elected:
12:20to seek, gain and hold onto power
12:23through the pursuit of local
or at very best national interests.
12:28I experienced this for the first time
when I was 21 years old.
12:34with a then-Australian Foreign Minister
who shall remain nameless --
12:43And behind closed doors,
12:44I shared with him my passion
to end extreme poverty.
12:47I said, "Minister -- Australia
has this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
12:51to help achieve the Millennium
Development Goals.
12:57looked down on me
with cold, dismissive eyes,
13:01no one gives a funk about foreign aid."
13:04Except he didn't use the word "funk."
13:08He said we need to look after
our own backyard first.
13:13outdated, even dangerous thinking.
13:16Or as my late grandfather would say,
13:19Parochialism offers this false dichotomy
13:22because it pits the poor in one country
against the poor in another.
13:26It pretends we can isolate ourselves
and our nations from one another.
13:30The whole world is our backyard,
13:32and we ignore it at our peril.
13:34See, look what happened
when we ignored Rwanda,
13:36when we ignore Syria,
13:38when we ignore climate change.
13:40Political leaders ought to give a "funk"
13:42because the impact of climate change
and extreme poverty
13:45comes right to our shore.
13:47Now, global citizens --
they understand this.
13:49We live in a time that favors
the global citizen,
13:53in an age where every
single voice can be heard.
13:55See, do you remember
13:57when the Millennium Development Goals
were signed back in the year 2000?
14:00The most we could do in those days
was fire off a letter
14:03and wait for the next election.
14:05There was no social media.
14:07Today, billions of citizens
have more tools,
14:11more access to information,
14:13more capacity to influence
than ever before.
14:16Both the problems and the tools
to solve them are right before us.
14:20The world has changed,
14:22and those of us who look
beyond our borders
14:24are on the right side of history.
14:29So we run this amazing festival,
14:32we've scored some big policy wins,
14:34and citizens are signing up
all over the world.
14:37But have we achieved our mission?
14:42We have such a long way to go.
14:44But this is the opportunity that I see.
14:48The concept of global citizenship,
14:51self-evident in its logic but until now
impractical in many ways,
14:57has coincided with this particular moment
in which we are privileged to live.
15:02We, as global citizens,
15:03now have a unique opportunity
to accelerate large-scale positive change
15:09So in the months and years ahead,
15:11global citizens will hold
world leaders accountable
15:14to ensure that the new Global Goals
for Sustainable Development
15:17are tracked and implemented.
15:20Global citizens will partner
with the world's leading NGOs
15:22to end diseases like polio and malaria.
15:26Global citizens will sign up
in every corner of this globe,
15:29increasing the frequency, quality
15:32and impact of their actions.
15:34These dreams are within reach.
15:37Imagine an army of millions
15:40growing into tens of millions,
15:42connected, informed, engaged
15:46and unwilling to take no for an answer.
15:50Over all these years,
15:53I've tried to reconnect with Sonny Boy.
15:56Sadly, I've been unable to.
16:00We met long before social media,
16:03and his address has now
been relocated by the authorities,
16:06as often happens with slums.
16:09I'd love to sit down with him,
16:13and share with him how much the time
I spent on Smoky Mountain inspired me.
16:18Thanks to him and so many others,
16:20I came to understand the importance
of being part of a movement of people --
16:24the kids willing to look up
from their screens and out to the world,
16:28the global citizens.
16:31Global citizens who stand together,
16:33who ask the question "Why?,"
16:36who reject the naysayers,
16:38and embrace the amazing possibilities
of the world we share.
16:43I'm a global citizen.
