Hope in Practice When Progress Is Hard – From Promises to Delivery

Ambition, optimism, or the next big commitment? In practice, real hope is what happens when people keep building, repairing, showing up – especially when systems fail. 

Jorge Moreira da Silva was 17 when he helped organise a grassroots campaign against pollution near his school in Portugal. Today, he leads the global operations of the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), working in some of the world’s most fragile and conflict-affected places. 

In this episode of UNCovering Hope, Jorge reflects on what it takes to keep building, repairing, and showing up when systems fail, progress is slow, expectations are high, and conditions are dangerous. 

We talk about COPs (UN annual climate change conferences) as moments of accountability and about what the work of UNOPS actually looks like – from managing risk, reducing costs, increasing transparency to rebuilding essential infrastructure in places where few other organisations can. 

We also discuss what’s needed from governments to unlock private investment in fragile contexts that urgently need it; where solidarity is not only a moral imperative but a matter of global security; the ceaseless courage of UN personnel in conflict-affected places like Gaza and Afghanistan; and the questions many youth movements are asking – and should keep asking – about accountability and delivery. 

From global climate negotiations to rebuilding hospitals, schools, energy and water systems in fragile and conflict-affected contexts, listen in to a conversation about accountability, promises and delivery, and what it means to keep working inside that gap. 

Read more about Jorge Moreira da Silva and UNOPS: https://www.unops.org/about/our-story/leadership/executive-director 

Recorded on: 11 December 2025

UNCovering Hope – UN City Copenhagen Podcast

Podcast host: Veronika Wilhelm, UN City Copenhagen

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 1:06 How delivery became Jorge’s focus
• 4:33 Why global cooperation is fraying and the role of politics
• 5:56 Accountability moments: What COP is and isn’t
• 11:30 What really helps to move the needle
• 14:07 What UNOPS’ delivery looks like on the ground
• 16:19 Humanitarian risks and what it takes to keep showing up
• 20:06 On rebuilding systems and on the value of the United Nations
• 24:43 Hope imagined by those living in fragile contexts
• 26:10 International solidarity beyond moral gestures
• 28:28 Acting before disasters strike
• 29:53 Achieving accountability
• 36:34 Hope right now – Jorge's outlook

Transcript

00:00 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

I saw it in Afghanistan, I saw it in Sudan, colleagues that have lost everything because of the war. They have lost everything, their houses, their families, but they are working. 

00:10 [Musical intro] 

00:21 Veronika Wilhelm 

Welcome to Uncovering Hope. My name is Veronika and I'm your host for this series. In this podcast, I sit down with the people inside the United Nations who spend their days trying to make cooperation work in a complicated world. At a time when the world is moving fast and it can feel hard to see where hope fits in among the many issues and headlines we're faced with, this podcast is about having honest conversations about the real, practical ways cooperation can lead to meaningful change in people's lives. About what it is that really fuels progress, the moments where hope leaves the realm of idealism and becomes a reason to keep going. Today, I'm speaking with a person who has been working at that crossroads for many years – Jorge Moreira da Silva. Welcome to UNCovering Hope, it's wonderful to have you. 

01:04 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

Thank you, Veronika. 

01:06 Veronika Wilhelm 

You grew up in Portugal. When you think back to your early beginnings, what do you think shaped the way you see the world? Was there a moment, a person, an experience? 

01:15 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

Well, Veronika, there were many moments in my pathway, which is not a career because as you can check, it's not really that traditional career. I've been mixing and intertwining, so there are many moments that has shaped this pathway. But, of course, at the very beginning, what really triggered my passion about public service and particularly trying to be one of the servant leaders was when I was at the high school at the age of 17, I was part of the Students Association in my school, and there was a massive pollution problem. A factory that was operating nearby the school with massive impact in our well-being, health, and environment. So I organised a grassroots movement to collect signatures and support from the students but also from the local community. There was a massive impact. We managed to fix the problem in a way that the company could continue operating but with better conditions, with much more accountability. And that was the moment where I realised that, you know, if we mobilise ourselves, if we bring the best of ourselves, but especially if we can do it together with others, with a specific purpose, there is no better reward than that. 

02:30 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

So that's the moment where I started being more involved on politics. But I never wanted to be dependent on politics. So I was leader of this organisation of the party at the age of 24, same time that I was teaching at university. And I tried to do this all my life, which is not confusing the public service, being national or international, with a traditional career where you may become too much dependent on the next steps to make sure that you survive. So I don't know if this is going to last forever, I'm 54, but until now, I've never stayed too long in a job. The max I stayed was six years, precisely because I really want to focus on concrete results. And when I think that I'm no longer bringing anything new or sufficiently innovative, I just move and I take the next adventure. 

03:21 Veronika Wilhelm 

And in that beginning, you saw some concrete impact, I presume quite in a short-term moment. What did long-term impact mean to you back then? 

03:30 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

Interesting, because today at UNOPS, if I compare what I'm doing now and what I've done in previous roles, it's precisely that element that changes, is the timeline, or the time that it takes until you see the impact. In many places where I worked, shaping reforms, norms, standards, guidance, in most of those places, I was shaping reforms, enabling context, so that later things could happen. So it's enabling, not providing immediate relief or immediate support. Now at UNOPS, I'm doing something completely different, which is, it's getting the job done in very concrete terms and seeing the results immediately. I wouldn't say that one is right and the other is wrong, we need both. But I confess that after many, many years being involved in shaping reforms, enabling contexts, triggering behavioural changes, I really wanted, especially on the international level, I really wanted to see things happening concretely. 

04:32 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

I think that development cooperation now it’s at crossroads. We have never witnessed what we are witnessing now. I've worked at OECD and one of the things that OECD were doing was assessing the trends on ODA, Official Development Assistance, development cooperation, global solidarity, and in the last almost 70 years of ODA and development cooperation. 

04:54 Veronika Wilhelm 

That's the public funding. 

04:55 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

The public funding, the international funding, so it's the way that our taxpayers' money is used to support people in other locations that suffer the most. So it's about solidarity. There was only two moments in the history of ODA where you have significant drops on the amount of finance that the donors were providing to the developing countries. It was on the early 90s due to a significant recession. And then in 2005 to 2007, again because of a significant recession. This time is different. ODA is declining. It's declining severely. And it's the first time that it's not declining because of GDP contraction in donor countries. It's because of politics. 

05:38 [Musical transition] 

05:49 Veronika Wilhelm 

And politics we also see in terms of the climate crisis, and you've just returned from COP30. What emotional state are you coming back with from that particular negotiation? Is there a moment from COP this year that stayed with you personally? 

06:04 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

I'm a climate veteran. Since 1999, I attended almost all COPs. So I've been in all these COPs and, of course, I've seen massive progress, alignment. So I still remember when we started in 99, there was skepticism about science. Is it real? Then there was skepticism about economics. Will this generate just costs or will this generate some profits and jobs? Then there was a question about the feasibility on the short term. But then we realised that the cost of inaction was much higher than the cost of action. So at this COP, again, I witnessed this convergence, which is positive. What I have also witnessed is inconsistency between the path and the pace. It's true that on the path, we fixed the misalignment. So we are converging, but the pace is not consistent with what the planet and the people need. 

07:00 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

The second element is about solidarity. We have seen massive disruption, fantastic tech disruption on renewable energy, energy efficiency, electrical mobility, but it's pretty uneven the way that this technology is being shared globally. So we are witnessing a gap where, in the north,there is massive progress and even profits being generated by green tech, renewable energy, green transformation. But on the south, 700 million people without access to electricity, one third of population without access to clean cooking, 1 billion people without access to clean water, 2.4 billion without access to sanitation, and the point is, it doesn't matter if on the north we go green and we become neutral, if we are doing too little in supporting developing countries on the south to become climate resilient. So I also saw that in the last COP, which is more convergence, but not the level of solidarity that we need. So my point is, what did it stay with me from last COP? Big, big achievement on forest. The largest ever forest fund being created. And looking to forest not as a carbon sink, but tropical forest as a public good that needs to be protected, financed, regulated. This was a major achievement from the COP. However, I've not seen what in my opinion would be the most important achievement. It's getting Member States going back to the drawing board and redoing their targets. So let me be completely blunt and candid on this. This was not the deal 

08:35 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

At the COP, there was an improvement, so the targets that Member States brought to the COP put us in the pathway to 2.3 to 2.5 degrees. But it's not 1.5. And then there was the announcement that we are overshooting. Announcing that, unfortunately, overshooting, it means going beyond 1.5 is unavoidable, and then we need to course correct the soonest. I can't agree with this. So my point is, we shall recognise that significant progress has been achieved. Without the Paris Agreement, we would be in a pathway to 4 degrees. Now we are in a path to 2.3 to 2.5. So this is positive. But at the same time, no room for complacency because the deal was not 2.5, the deal was 1.5. So what I hope is that we will not wait to the next stock-take exercise, because if we wait for the next stock-take exercise to fix the targets in time to 2030, it's too late. 

09:34 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

So I really hope that, from Brazil, we move quickly in redoing the national determined contributions. At the same time, we have to be very careful on particularly the way that UN is communicating. Why? Because people at home, they don't follow these things daily, the climate agenda or the negotiations. 

09:52 Veronika Wilhelm 

They get very tired, I think. Many people get very almost depressed from listening to COP. 

09:57 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

That was exactly my point. We can't give the impression that we still need any negotiation. Because people got so much used to the idea that every year, there is Christmas and COP. A nd that, you know, it's like a tradition. So you have Christmas in December and you have COP in November. And then the idea that there is a big drama during those two weeks and, at the end of the week, there was no agreement or no deal, and therefore we have a good excuse to delay action. No, that's not the case. We don't need any further negotiation. Everything that we need is known. The Paris Agreement provides all the information we need, all the mechanisms are clear, all the modalities are clear, we just need to get things done. So people shouldn't look into the COPs as the element that will fix something to enable action. No, the COP is now, for me, just an accountability moment. It's a moment for accountability to check whether we are on the path with a pace or we are off-road. So it's important that the citizens, rather than scrutinising the COP or scrutinising the Paris Agreement, they scrutinise the delivery or non-delivery of the Paris Agreement. So it's about politics at the national level. 

11:16 Veronika Wilhelm 

And that is also what you mentioned, a big part of the dialogue among the Global North and the Global South, where one of the loudest messages from Belém was that the global financial system is failing the countries most affected by the climate crisis. What did you feel at COP this year regarding this dialogue among the Global North, Global South? 

11:37 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

Sustainable finance is on the rise, but only 3% of sustainable finance is going to low-income countries. 97% is to high-income countries. So we are going greener, but less even, or with less equality dimension. 

11:55 Veronika Wilhelm 

And we're asking at the same time these developing countries countries to go green. 

11:58 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

Precisely. So the point is we need an international finance architecture that not only responds to the issue about the volume, but also about the alignment. Because we may make all the effort to go green, but we are still providing trillions every year on subsidies to fossil fuels. We are still going to the easiest, not to the neediest. So the point is we have some market failures. And that's why, even if the public sector can't do everything alone, because we need private finance, it's the role of the states and it's the role of the multilateral organisations to fix the market failures. Giving you two examples. Would you, if you are a private sector company, would you go to Somalia, to Afghanistan, Yemen, to Mali, to Haiti, to invest in renewable energy without the guarantee that your investments are safe? That there is regulation to ensure accountability. That's why it's important that the multilateral system and development cooperation provides the support to de-risk investment. 

13:07 Veronika Wilhelm 

So what does that support look like? How do you convince them? 

13:09 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

What I mean is ODA should create the capacity. So Official Development Assistance, development cooperation should create the capacity in partnership with the developing countries based on their aspirations, not Northern aspirations, but based on their aspirations to create the enabling context. I mean, technical assistance, capacity building, project design, project preparation, procurement. These elements is what makes the success or not success of a project. So we can't expect the private sector to invest in a country if we have not done our job supporting the developing country, enabling the context. And that's why the UN is so important. It's exactly why we operate. We operate in the countries to serve the neediest. not the easiest. 

13:54 [Musical transition] 

14:04 Veronika Wilhelm 

And I want to dive more into that because half of your work is precisely in these fragile and conflict-affected areas. You've traveled this year, last year, to Gaza, Syria, Sudan, Jamaica. You've witnessed firsthand what it looks like in Ukraine, Afghanistan. I'm curious, on a personal level, when you speak to the people there, listen to them, see their reality, what do they tell you that the world most often misunderstands? 

14:31 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

I’ve been learning a lot from that journey. My colleagues know, here in Copenhagen, that they see me more on the ground rather than here in Copenhagen. I spend more than half of my time precisely with my team on the ground, engaging with the partners, with the population. We operate in 130 countries, but half of it is highly fragile, conflict and violent contexts. And it's precisely where I go. And I always witness something that, for me, is very important and it marks me, and it shapes me and it shapes my leadership, I hope for the best, is the reality. It's always worse than what you see on the TV or on the media. The conflicts, the fragility, the poverty, the inequality, the climate impacts. There is nothing like seeing it on the ground. The second thing is witnessing and learning from the people about the results of our projects on their lives. So the very concrete results. So the family that managed to have access to health because we built an hospital, the kids that have for the first time access to education, particularly girls, knowing that there is a correlation between education and women's empowerment. The solarisation that allows people to have for the first time access to clean cooking. The procurement of medicines. So all these concrete results, every time I go to a country, I want to spend time with people, so those that we serve. We don't serve the governments. We serve the people in partnership with the government. 

16:13 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

And the third thing that I always get very impressed is about my team. Their courage, their ability to be on the worst contexts and serving. A colleague that was affected by a strike in Gaza. So I went to the funeral of our colleague Marin when he was hit by a strike from Israel in Gaza. He lost his life and six other colleagues got injured. I saw one of the colleagues in the funeral and then I learned that, three weeks later, he was back to Gaza, to serve exactly doing the same thing that he was doing before, even if he was injured by the strike. So these kind of examples, the colleagues in Afghanistan, the women in Afghanistan that work at UN, telling me that they go every day to the premises, even if they are forbidden. Risking their own lives every day, literally every day. 

17:06 Veronika Wilhelm 

So what did they tell you that drives them? 

17:10 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

I think it's what drives everyone that works at UN. The idea of serving the people. The idea that there are some people in the world where the market alone won't fix the problems. And therefore, you have to bring your solidarity and your service. The idea of, I always like to talk about leadership models. For me, the leadership model is still the servant leadership. The leadership that is not about the alpha male charisma, the egocentric approach, those that scream more, or that shout louder or that show some kind of eagerness to win. No. In modern life, the good leadership is the one that sees its success on the results it provides on others. And that's the UN. So what I've witnessed in my colleagues, you know, people living in compounds. And I don't live there. I visit. And when I visit, I stay in the compounds. They live in the compounds. I learned from a colleague in Afghanistan that she only left the compound in three years twice. One to go to the airport to visit the family in Europe, and the other to go to one operation in Kabul to see a project. Again, colleagues, for instance, Somalia, telling me that they can’t tell their families that they work for the UN because working in Somalia, being for the UN, is a target for the terror attacks. So colleagues telling me that not even to my family I say that I work for the UN. 

18:41 Veronika Wilhelm 

How do they hide their work? 

18:43 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

They think that I'm a cooker, a chef, or am I a gardener, or I'm a construction repairing person. I saw it in Afghanistan. I saw it in Sudan, colleagues that have lost everything because of the war. They have lost everything, their houses, their families, but they are working. I saw in the refugee camps, UNHCR doing an amazing work in a school, operating a refugee camp, at the same time that the school was working with excellent results from an academic point of view. So my point is the UN makes a difference. We don't see this in our conversations, in the big conversations in New York, or in Copenhagen, or in Geneva.  But really, on the ground, the people are really thankful for the role that the UN plays. So that's what keeps me awake at night, but I would say also happy with my job. So the idea that I can see the immediate result. 

19:38 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

But of course, each agency has its own culture and identity. And at UNOPS, there is something that I'm every day getting surprised for the good is the idea of the can-do job, the very practical solutions. WHO, they are the doctors of the system. We are the engineers. 

19:56 [Musical transition] 

20:06 Veronika Wilhelm 

UNOPS really does have this reputation of advancing solutions metre by metre with those engineers. I'm curious, what would you say is so unique about the UNOPS model that allows you to bring people together on the ground to then deliver so very tangibly? And how do you think others can learn from that approach and maybe even replicate it? 

20:20 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

I think that each organisation has a mission, a business model, and of course a structure. In our case, our mission is expanding our partners' capacity for implementation. So the point is about implementation. We implement, but we also enable others to implement. So we, on infrastructure, for instance, our role is key as 92% of the SDGs depend on infrastructure and 82% of the greenhouse gas emissions are related with infrastructure. Without infrastructure, there is no access to education, to health, to electricity, to water, to sanitation. And if there is no access to these goods, including the digital, there is no access to justice, and to sustainability. The same on procurement. So the way we purchase, the way we buy, changes the way we consume and also reducing costs. In Latin America, for instance, we have several projects where the fact that governments asked us to procure medicines on their behalf reduced the cost by 50%. So the procurement is not just about sustainability, it’s about transparency, fairness, and accountability. 

21:38 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

And the other element is project management. Very often, I go to a country and I think, why is this country coming to us and not going directly to the private sector? Because what we do, in many cases the private sector could do it. Why are they choosing UNOPS? If you are building a road, or an hospital, or a school, or an energy transmission line, why do you need UNOPS? You could go to the private sector. Because they need someone that takes care of the project, gets results, go to the private sector because we go to the private sector, we hire locally, we procure locally, but we take the risk. So basically what the governments want is someone that is the project manager. So they transfer the risk to UNOPS, not only the risk, but the responsibility of managing the contract, managing the operation, getting the things done, and the government takes the ownership. They take all the pride for the project, but they don't take the risk of managing a project when the expertise is recognised on UNOPS. So this is the kind of elements, very practical elements that I see in our operation. 

22:43 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

And then finally, there is an important element, it's about finance. We are a self-financed organisation. What I mean is we don't take assessed contributions from the system, or voluntary contributions, or core contributions. We are a fee-for-service organisation. What means is we get a project, we charge the fee to recover our costs, and at the end of the year, we are obliged to operate in a net zero. What does it mean? It means that if we get profits that go beyond the minimum reserve that we need to retain in case something goes wrong, we have to give the money back to those that have hired us to do the project. At the same time, we can't operate in a deficit. So in terms of management, and I'm the CEO of this organisation, 6,000 people in 130 countries, from a management point of view, it's a very exciting and challenging endeavour. Because you just get a project, you don't get a programme. Nobody financed us for several years, they just finance us for a project. You need to deliver the project within the timeline. If you don't deliver, it's your loss, because you took the risk and if you don't plan things well, you are incurring costs that are not covered by the project. And that's why our talent force is based not in the traditional UN contracts. Most of them are project-based contracts. And I always try to explain that it's not about precarity or on purpose having contracts that do not reflect stability. It's because it's the nature of the organisation. We may have a project one day and the other day we may have no longer that project because we ended the project. So this is the way that allows the organisation to contract and expand depending on the demand. But by the way, there is a career. In most, most cases colleagues stay in the organisation for 10, 15, 20 years. So I'm not saying that this is the model for other UN agencies. Of course, this is not the model for organisations that requires core funding to do policy and programmes. 

24:43 Veronika Wilhelm 

Is there something you wish UNOPS was more given the opportunity to do that you really think would help people on the ground? 

24:51 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

What I would really like is to ensure that we can do even more on the ground on early recovery and reconstruction. Today, it's again about hope. We have never witnessed a level of destruction and conflict in the world as we witness today. Only World War II. So it's unprecedented. So how can we, we collectively, the whole world, how can we support the recovery and reconstruction? How can we support the recovery in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, in Myanmar, in Gaza, in Ukraine? We can't fail the people. I visit those places. And I know that what they expect is more than humanitarian. It's more than the short-term life-saving. Life-saving and short-term life-saving is very important. But what the people now want is more than the water, or the food, or the medicaments, or the shelters, or the tents. Now what they want is hope. 

25:50 Veronika Wilhelm 

Rebuilding their lives. 

25:51 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

And hope is about rebuilding their lives. Access to education, access to school, access to energy, access to water, to sanitation. 

26:00 Veronika Wilhelm 

Dignity. 

26:01 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

Dignity. Ensuring that we have gender equality, that we address equality broadly. So I would really like UNOPS to have the conditions to support the recovery and the reconstruction in those conflict-affected countries. There is one area that, of course, if you want to pick one area where I think that we shall all prioritise efforts, it's precisely on climate. Climate is the big challenge of our lives. Climate and peace. On climate, we need to do more, much more on resilience and sustainability. We tend to talk a lot about climate mitigation, which is key. It's driven by tech. So I'm quite optimistic about climate mitigation. Because with renewable energy, energy efficiency, electrical mobility, you know, the technology is changing and with the right policies, carbon pricing, carbon taxation, you will get more and more private sector on the supply to provide the right technologies at the service of the people and the communities. I'm less optimistic about adaptation. Because on adaptation you have a market failure. Because it's not about market. Adaptation is about protecting communities, protecting people, protecting the territories for unavoidable climate. So it's not about mitigating future events, it's about adapting to unavoidable events that are triggered by things that we have done in the past. And here the private sector is not there. Because its role of the states. All the most affected countries by climate, they are all under conflict. You take the top 14 countries most affected by climate, the top 14, they are all under war. And if you go through the hotspots of hunger and starvation, it's exactly the same countries. So the point is, how can we ask countries that are under war and conflict, poverty and inequality, that are the most affected by climate, that are highly indebted, to invest on resilience, on preparedness, on early recovery. That's where solidarity is needed. So if there is a priority that the international community must make, it's on the areas where the private sector won't be there, which is precisely on risk management, on adaptation, loss and damage. It's about resilience. So I think that we need to make the case for resilience, not just about sustainability. Maybe it's not so interesting from a discussion point of view, except when things happen. 

28:28 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

I went to Jamaica. Precisely when the COP was starting, I missed the Leaders Summit and I went to Jamaica. The Secretary General received a call from the Prime Minister saying that we need your help. We need the help of the UN. We have faced this Melissa Hurricane impact in unprecedented manners. So we need the UN help. I went immediately to Jamaica after a call with the Secretary General, and I could witness, even if I've been in many of these contexts, I've never seen anything like that. Which is an hurricane, category 5, that in a few hours, wiped out a significant part of the territory. So in one night, Jamaica lost one third of their GDP. 

29:11 Veronika Wilhelm 

So how can they fight back? 

28:12 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

And they've done lots of things on adaptation and preparedness. But how can they be able now to reconstruct, to rebuild without solidarity? Because the number of people that lost their their homes, the infrastructure that was destroyed, we can't ask Jamaica, with their own resources, to do it alone. So we need solidarity. So again, the point is about ensuring that the climate and development are intertwined. And this is a massive journey for all UN agencies, including UNOPS. 

29:42 [Musical transition] 

29:53 Veronika Wilhelm 

And stepping outside of this need and responsibility of the Member States and then that's what the UN then carries out on the ground. As an average person, what can I do? Because we see this devastation, as you said, we have depression from COP, then we have Christmas. So what's a door I can walk through that would actually bring some change as an individual? And how much change is even, is even realistic for me to enable? 

30:26 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

Interesting, because I don't want to enter into any kind of patronising or condescending, so I don't dare to tell you what you should do or people from your generation. But very often I hear that question. I think that one important element is as voter, as taxpayer, and as consumer. I always tell leaders that the consumers and the voters are changing faster than the legislation. So if you, as a company or you as a government, only want to do what you are supposed to do within the regulatory framework that you have created, it's not good enough. Because you will lose your voters and you will lose your consumers. Because people are ahead of the curve in terms of request for change. I saw it in Portugal, for instance, when I was minister and I launched the green taxation reform, which was taxing more what you burn to tax less what you earn, which was carbon taxes, taxes on light plastic bags, taxes on disposal of waste in landfills, and using the money to generate subsidies on energy efficiency. The results were faster and better than ever expected. In one week, the plastic bags disappeared from the supermarket. So they were there, but the people didn't want to take it just because they had to pay 10 cents of Euro. Was it the money? I don't think so. It's because we created the incentive for change and the mutual accountability. I still remember when I was in the supermarket, people looking to someone if someone forgot to bring the bag from home and was buying the bag. So people were looking to the person and saying, that person is not doing the right thing. 

32:06 Veronika Wilhelm 

So it's being corrected by the community itself. 

32:09 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

And it went faster than expected. So I still remember some of the companies were telling me, you are going to destroy jobs. And I said, no, I'm sure that around this table in one week, several of you have changed to different kind of bags because you want to win the market. And this happened. The way we consume, more responsible consumption has a powerful effect. Because companies cannot operate without profit. The other element, it's as electors, as voters. We have to be more able to scrutinise the politicians and the political projects for their alignment with solidarity, development, and climate. But, of course, there are many other elements as entrepreneurs. Lots of the change is coming from the youth. I think that the role of each of us, but particularly the youth, as voters, as consumers, as entrepreneurs, but also in the civic movements. We still have an issue about perception. Some of the movements that I'm seeing very carefully, they are using the ICJ decision. So the International Court of Justice has issued a statement saying that the 1.5 degrees is legally binding and Member States can be held to account for the non-fulfillment of that. And now I'm seeing lots of youth movements using that precisely to scrutinise the government. Saying that, okay, you have the Paris Agreement, you may have not changed your targets, but it doesn't matter because the ICJ says that this is legally binding. So I want you to change. 

33:40 Veronika Wilhelm 

So there's power in that. 

33:42 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

And this is happening. I even saw today in the news, youth movement doing that in Portugal and doing that in many countries, saying that the countries that supposedly have done so much have not done enough. Nobody has done enough. So this is the kind of thing that I'm seeing coming from the youth. I have lots of hope on that because we saw that with Gaza, we saw that about Sudan. So clearly the youth movements are more about sustainable development now. But I think that where we are still missing the boat is not on the environment awareness, is on the development awareness. I don't think that people have yet come to the real perception of the interdependence. I used to say that we should have learned something with COVID. And what COVID has told us is nobody is safe until everyone is safe. It doesn't matter if you have everyone on the North vaccinated if you are not doing vaccination on the South. Because the virus would continue. And it will reach you again. I thought that we have learned something about COVID, about the idea of interdependence, about investment on prevention, investment on resilience. Climate is COVID in steroids. So what I hope is that people, with the information that we have today, would understand that what we do not invest on climate resilience, on climate pathways in the Global South is not only a lack of solidarity and moral imperative, it's also pretty stupid. Because, at the end of the day, we will all pay the price. If you go to the streets of Copenhagen, Lisbon, or London, and Paris, I'm not sure if the people already realised that what matters is not only what we do at home, but what we support others to be able to do at their homes. So it's not only a moral imperative, it's also about global security and global sustainable development. And this element is not yet there. 

35:34 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

So I'm very optimistic about the ability of the multilateral system to cope with the needs, but at the same time, I'm pretty uncomfortable with the fact that we are not understanding the consequences of the drop on solidarity, not only on other people's lives, particularly on the South, but also in our own lives in the North. So I would say the more you can do to bring development cooperation to the national level, the better. I tell very often to the climate activists when they go to demonstrations in front of Environment Ministers' buildings, I say, maybe it's the next door. Maybe it's about development cooperation. Because the point is not just about here, in this country, specific country, how much is this country reducing emissions, but it's all about how much support are you providing to developing countries for climate action. So bringing development cooperation back to the top agenda, I think it's something that the youth sees clearly embracing. 

36:29 Veronika Wilhelm 

So you're going to paint the banners with us. 

35:32 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

I can say those things. 

36:34 Veronika Wilhelm 

Thank you so much, Jorge. I want to wrap up with what brings you hope this week? 

35:40 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

This week, we had very good news about Jamaica. The fact that we brought almost 40 engineers to Jamaica to support with the satellite image tools to do the damage assessment of the buildings after the earthquake. So it's a concrete thing about responding to the Melissa hurricane. 

36:58 Veronika Wilhelm 

And what question about hope would you leave for our next guest? 

37:03 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

How can the UN80 reform, which is all about making UN agencies work better together, how can the UN80 be a real trigger to get UN delivering at scale. Not to do less, but to do more. 

37:19 Veronika Wilhelm 

Thank you so much, Jorge. It's been a pleasure to have you. 

37:22 Jorge Moreira da Silva 

Thank you, Veronika. 

37:23 Veronika Wilhelm 

Thank you, everyone, for listening. This is UNCovering Hope. And see you next time! 

37:28 [Musical outro]