1
00:00:00,988 --> 00:00:04,045
I've been thinking a lot about the world recently

2
00:00:04,045 --> 00:00:07,732
and how it's changed over the last 20, 30, 40 years.

3
00:00:07,732 --> 00:00:10,151
Twenty or 30 years ago,

4
00:00:10,151 --> 00:00:12,681
if a chicken caught a cold and sneezed and died

5
00:00:12,681 --> 00:00:14,650
in a remote village in East Asia,

6
00:00:14,650 --> 00:00:17,020
it would have been a tragedy for the chicken

7
00:00:17,020 --> 00:00:18,217
and its closest relatives,

8
00:00:18,217 --> 00:00:20,425
but I don't think there was much possibility

9
00:00:20,425 --> 00:00:23,100
of us fearing a global pandemic

10
00:00:23,100 --> 00:00:25,093
and the deaths of millions.

11
00:00:25,093 --> 00:00:27,821
Twenty or 30 years ago, if a bank in North America

12
00:00:27,821 --> 00:00:29,966
lent too much money to some people

13
00:00:29,966 --> 00:00:31,987
who couldn't afford to pay it back

14
00:00:31,987 --> 00:00:33,719
and the bank went bust,

15
00:00:33,719 --> 00:00:34,736
that was bad for the lender

16
00:00:34,736 --> 00:00:36,368
and bad for the borrower,

17
00:00:36,368 --> 00:00:38,231
but we didn't imagine it would bring

18
00:00:38,231 --> 00:00:40,446
the global economic system to its knees

19
00:00:40,446 --> 00:00:43,248
for nearly a decade.

20
00:00:43,248 --> 00:00:44,834
This is globalization.

21
00:00:44,834 --> 00:00:47,320
This is the miracle that has enabled us

22
00:00:47,320 --> 00:00:50,414
to transship our bodies and our minds

23
00:00:50,414 --> 00:00:52,776
and our words and our pictures and our ideas

24
00:00:52,776 --> 00:00:55,961
and our teaching and our learning around the planet

25
00:00:55,961 --> 00:00:58,969
ever faster and ever cheaper.

26
00:00:58,969 --> 00:01:00,457
It's brought a lot of bad stuff,

27
00:01:00,457 --> 00:01:02,101
like the stuff that I just described,

28
00:01:02,101 --> 00:01:04,703
but it's also brought a lot of good stuff.

29
00:01:04,703 --> 00:01:06,293
A lot of us are not aware

30
00:01:06,293 --> 00:01:10,270
of the extraordinary successes of
the Millennium Development Goals,

31
00:01:10,270 --> 00:01:12,000
several of which have achieved their targets

32
00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:13,687
long before the due date.

33
00:01:13,687 --> 00:01:16,702
That proves that this species of humanity

34
00:01:16,702 --> 00:01:19,706
is capable of achieving extraordinary progress

35
00:01:19,706 --> 00:01:24,156
if it really acts together and it really tries hard.

36
00:01:24,156 --> 00:01:26,473
But if I had to put it in a nutshell these days,

37
00:01:26,473 --> 00:01:29,371
I sort of feel that globalization

38
00:01:29,371 --> 00:01:31,214
has taken us by surprise,

39
00:01:31,214 --> 00:01:33,994
and we've been slow to respond to it.

40
00:01:33,994 --> 00:01:36,225
If you look at the downside of globalization,

41
00:01:36,225 --> 00:01:39,177
it really does seem to be sometimes overwhelming.

42
00:01:39,177 --> 00:01:41,286
All of the grand challenges that we face today,

43
00:01:41,286 --> 00:01:44,443
like climate change and human rights

44
00:01:44,443 --> 00:01:48,741
and demographics and terrorism and pandemics

45
00:01:48,741 --> 00:01:51,384
and narco-trafficking and human slavery

46
00:01:51,384 --> 00:01:54,104
and species loss, I could go on,

47
00:01:54,104 --> 00:01:56,060
we're not making an awful lot of progress

48
00:01:56,060 --> 00:01:58,442
against an awful lot of those challenges.

49
00:01:58,442 --> 00:02:00,305
So in a nutshell, that's the challenge

50
00:02:00,305 --> 00:02:01,744
that we all face today

51
00:02:01,744 --> 00:02:04,242
at this interesting point in history.

52
00:02:04,242 --> 00:02:06,144
That's clearly what we've got to do next.

53
00:02:06,144 --> 00:02:09,190
We've somehow got to get our act together

54
00:02:09,190 --> 00:02:11,068
and we've got to figure out how to globalize

55
00:02:11,068 --> 00:02:13,003
the solutions better

56
00:02:13,003 --> 00:02:15,547
so that we don't simply become a species

57
00:02:15,547 --> 00:02:20,463
which is the victim of the globalization of problems.

58
00:02:20,463 --> 00:02:24,110
Why are we so slow at achieving these advances?

59
00:02:24,110 --> 00:02:26,267
What's the reason for it?

60
00:02:26,267 --> 00:02:28,211
Well, there are, of course, a number of reasons,

61
00:02:28,211 --> 00:02:30,722
but perhaps the primary reason

62
00:02:30,722 --> 00:02:34,176
is because we're still organized as a species

63
00:02:34,176 --> 00:02:35,778
in the same way that we were organized

64
00:02:35,778 --> 00:02:38,450
200 or 300 years ago.

65
00:02:38,450 --> 00:02:40,138
There's one superpower left on the planet

66
00:02:40,138 --> 00:02:42,210
and that is the seven billion people,

67
00:02:42,210 --> 00:02:44,600
the seven billion of us who cause all these problems,

68
00:02:44,600 --> 00:02:46,483
the same seven billion, by the way,

69
00:02:46,483 --> 00:02:48,323
who will resolve them all.

70
00:02:48,323 --> 00:02:50,762
But how are those seven billion organized?

71
00:02:50,762 --> 00:02:54,452
They're still organized in 200 or so nation-states,

72
00:02:54,452 --> 00:02:56,949
and the nations have governments

73
00:02:56,949 --> 00:02:58,764
that make rules

74
00:02:58,764 --> 00:03:01,696
and cause us to behave in certain ways.

75
00:03:01,696 --> 00:03:03,586
And that's a pretty efficient system,

76
00:03:03,586 --> 00:03:06,567
but the problem is that the
way that those laws are made

77
00:03:06,567 --> 00:03:09,132
and the way those governments think

78
00:03:09,132 --> 00:03:11,618
is absolutely wrong for the
solution of global problems,

79
00:03:11,618 --> 00:03:14,229
because it all looks inwards.

80
00:03:14,229 --> 00:03:15,818
The politicians that we elect

81
00:03:15,818 --> 00:03:18,210
and the politicians we don't elect, on the whole,

82
00:03:18,210 --> 00:03:19,709
have minds that microscope.

83
00:03:19,709 --> 00:03:22,409
They don't have minds that telescope.

84
00:03:22,409 --> 00:03:25,876
They look in. They pretend, they behave,

85
00:03:25,876 --> 00:03:30,270
as if they believed that every country was an island

86
00:03:30,270 --> 00:03:32,251
that existed quite happily, independently

87
00:03:32,251 --> 00:03:33,726
of all the others

88
00:03:33,726 --> 00:03:35,543
on its own little planet

89
00:03:35,543 --> 00:03:37,495
in its own little solar system.

90
00:03:37,495 --> 00:03:39,298
This is the problem:

91
00:03:39,298 --> 00:03:41,416
countries competing against each other,

92
00:03:41,416 --> 00:03:43,218
countries fighting against each other.

93
00:03:43,218 --> 00:03:44,949
This week, as any week you care to look at,

94
00:03:44,949 --> 00:03:48,382
you'll find people actually trying to kill
each other from country to country,

95
00:03:48,382 --> 00:03:50,203
but even when that's not going on,

96
00:03:50,203 --> 00:03:52,138
there's competition between countries,

97
00:03:52,138 --> 00:03:54,750
each one trying to shaft the next.

98
00:03:54,750 --> 00:03:56,829
This is clearly not a good arrangement.

99
00:03:56,829 --> 00:03:58,790
We clearly need to change it.

100
00:03:58,790 --> 00:04:00,768
We clearly need to find ways

101
00:04:00,768 --> 00:04:03,413
of encouraging countries to start working together

102
00:04:03,413 --> 00:04:05,024
a little bit better.

103
00:04:05,024 --> 00:04:07,294
And why won't they do that?

104
00:04:07,294 --> 00:04:11,422
Why is it that our leaders still persist in looking inwards?

105
00:04:11,422 --> 00:04:13,138
Well, the first and most obvious reason

106
00:04:13,138 --> 00:04:15,051
is because that's what we ask them to do.

107
00:04:15,051 --> 00:04:16,735
That's what we tell them to do.

108
00:04:16,735 --> 00:04:18,155
When we elect governments

109
00:04:18,155 --> 00:04:20,686
or when we tolerate unelected governments,

110
00:04:20,686 --> 00:04:23,162
we're effectively telling them that what we want

111
00:04:23,162 --> 00:04:25,845
is for them to deliver us in our country

112
00:04:25,845 --> 00:04:27,578
a certain number of things.

113
00:04:27,578 --> 00:04:30,533
We want them to deliver prosperity,

114
00:04:30,533 --> 00:04:35,299
growth, competitiveness, transparency, justice

115
00:04:35,299 --> 00:04:36,974
and all of those things.

116
00:04:36,974 --> 00:04:39,244
So unless we start asking our governments

117
00:04:39,244 --> 00:04:41,525
to think outside a little bit,

118
00:04:41,525 --> 00:04:43,977
to consider the global problems that will finish us all

119
00:04:43,977 --> 00:04:45,936
if we don't start considering them,

120
00:04:45,936 --> 00:04:48,254
then we can hardly blame them

121
00:04:48,254 --> 00:04:50,969
if what they carry on doing is looking inwards,

122
00:04:50,969 --> 00:04:52,781
if they still have minds that microscope

123
00:04:52,781 --> 00:04:54,707
rather than minds that telescope.

124
00:04:54,707 --> 00:04:57,645
That's the first reason why
things tend not to change.

125
00:04:57,645 --> 00:05:00,899
The second reason is that these governments,

126
00:05:00,899 --> 00:05:02,725
just like all the rest of us,

127
00:05:02,725 --> 00:05:05,350
are cultural psychopaths.

128
00:05:05,350 --> 00:05:06,657
I don't mean to be rude,

129
00:05:06,657 --> 00:05:08,064
but you know what a psychopath is.

130
00:05:08,064 --> 00:05:09,792
A psychopath is a person who,

131
00:05:09,792 --> 00:05:11,329
unfortunately for him or her,

132
00:05:11,329 --> 00:05:13,368
lacks the ability to really empathize

133
00:05:13,368 --> 00:05:15,181
with other human beings.

134
00:05:15,181 --> 00:05:16,320
When they look around,

135
00:05:16,320 --> 00:05:17,982
they don't see other human beings

136
00:05:17,982 --> 00:05:21,096
with deep, rich, three-dimensional personal lives

137
00:05:21,096 --> 00:05:22,224
and aims and ambitions.

138
00:05:22,224 --> 00:05:25,221
What they see is cardboard cutouts,

139
00:05:25,221 --> 00:05:27,794
and it's very sad and it's very lonely,

140
00:05:27,794 --> 00:05:30,532
and it's very rare, fortunately.

141
00:05:30,532 --> 00:05:33,687
But actually, aren't most of us

142
00:05:33,687 --> 00:05:35,926
not really so very good at empathy?

143
00:05:35,926 --> 00:05:37,147
Oh sure, we're very good at empathy

144
00:05:37,147 --> 00:05:38,900
when it's a question of dealing with people

145
00:05:38,900 --> 00:05:40,327
who kind of look like us

146
00:05:40,327 --> 00:05:42,809
and kind of walk and talk and eat and pray

147
00:05:42,809 --> 00:05:44,491
and wear like us,

148
00:05:44,491 --> 00:05:46,512
but when it comes to people who don't do that,

149
00:05:46,512 --> 00:05:47,929
who don't quite dress like us

150
00:05:47,929 --> 00:05:49,776
and don't quite pray like us

151
00:05:49,776 --> 00:05:52,181
and don't quite talk like us,

152
00:05:52,181 --> 00:05:54,060
do we not also have a tendency to see them

153
00:05:54,060 --> 00:05:57,486
ever so slightly as cardboard cutouts too?

154
00:05:57,486 --> 00:05:59,194
And this is a question we need to ask ourselves.

155
00:05:59,194 --> 00:06:01,680
I think constantly we have to monitor it.

156
00:06:01,680 --> 00:06:04,774
Are we and our politicians to a degree

157
00:06:04,774 --> 00:06:07,160
cultural psychopaths?

158
00:06:07,160 --> 00:06:08,808
The third reason is hardly worth mentioning

159
00:06:08,808 --> 00:06:10,259
because it's so silly,

160
00:06:10,259 --> 00:06:12,199
but there's a belief amongst governments

161
00:06:12,199 --> 00:06:13,713
that the domestic agenda

162
00:06:13,713 --> 00:06:15,220
and the international agenda

163
00:06:15,220 --> 00:06:17,920
are incompatible and always will be.

164
00:06:17,920 --> 00:06:19,830
This is just nonsense.

165
00:06:19,830 --> 00:06:21,308
In my day job, I'm a policy adviser.

166
00:06:21,308 --> 00:06:23,767
I've spent the last 15 years or so

167
00:06:23,767 --> 00:06:25,577
advising governments around the world,

168
00:06:25,577 --> 00:06:28,631
and in all of that time I have never once seen

169
00:06:28,631 --> 00:06:30,995
a single domestic policy issue

170
00:06:30,995 --> 00:06:33,744
that could not be more imaginatively,

171
00:06:33,744 --> 00:06:36,128
effectively and rapidly resolved

172
00:06:36,128 --> 00:06:38,732
than by treating it as an international problem,

173
00:06:38,732 --> 00:06:40,523
looking at the international context,

174
00:06:40,523 --> 00:06:42,318
comparing what others have done,

175
00:06:42,318 --> 00:06:45,277
bringing in others, working externally

176
00:06:45,277 --> 00:06:48,644
instead of working internally.

177
00:06:48,644 --> 00:06:51,866
And so you may say, well, given all of that,

178
00:06:51,866 --> 00:06:53,535
why then doesn't it work?

179
00:06:53,535 --> 00:06:55,916
Why can we not make our politicians change?

180
00:06:55,916 --> 00:06:58,238
Why can't we demand them?

181
00:06:58,238 --> 00:07:01,116
Well I, like a lot of us, spend
a lot of time complaining

182
00:07:01,116 --> 00:07:03,469
about how hard it is to make people change,

183
00:07:03,469 --> 00:07:05,248
and I don't think we should fuss about it.

184
00:07:05,248 --> 00:07:06,844
I think we should just accept

185
00:07:06,844 --> 00:07:09,615
that we are an inherently conservative species.

186
00:07:09,615 --> 00:07:11,408
We don't like to change.

187
00:07:11,408 --> 00:07:14,352
It exists for very sensible evolutionary reasons.

188
00:07:14,352 --> 00:07:17,119
We probably wouldn't still be here today

189
00:07:17,119 --> 00:07:19,189
if we weren't so resistant to change.

190
00:07:19,189 --> 00:07:21,742
It's very simple: Many thousands of years ago,

191
00:07:21,742 --> 00:07:23,688
we discovered that if we carried on

192
00:07:23,688 --> 00:07:26,118
doing the same things, we wouldn't die,

193
00:07:26,118 --> 00:07:27,960
because the things that we've done before

194
00:07:27,960 --> 00:07:29,538
by definition didn't kill us,

195
00:07:29,538 --> 00:07:31,615
and therefore as long as we carry on doing them,

196
00:07:31,615 --> 00:07:33,022
we'll be okay,

197
00:07:33,022 --> 00:07:34,690
and it's very sensible not to do anything new,

198
00:07:34,690 --> 00:07:37,150
because it might kill you.

199
00:07:37,150 --> 00:07:39,432
But of course, there are exceptions to that.

200
00:07:39,432 --> 00:07:41,934
Otherwise, we'd never get anywhere.

201
00:07:41,934 --> 00:07:43,700
And one of the exceptions, the interesting exception,

202
00:07:43,700 --> 00:07:45,414
is when you can show to people

203
00:07:45,414 --> 00:07:47,762
that there might be some self-interest

204
00:07:47,762 --> 00:07:49,449
in them making that leap of faith

205
00:07:49,449 --> 00:07:51,716
and changing a little bit.

206
00:07:51,716 --> 00:07:54,118
So I've spent a lot of the last 10 or 15 years

207
00:07:54,118 --> 00:07:57,256
trying to find out what could be that self-interest

208
00:07:57,256 --> 00:07:59,405
that would encourage not just politicians

209
00:07:59,405 --> 00:08:01,958
but also businesses and general populations,

210
00:08:01,958 --> 00:08:04,973
all of us, to start to think a little more outwardly,

211
00:08:04,973 --> 00:08:07,212
to think in a bigger picture,

212
00:08:07,212 --> 00:08:10,554
not always to look inwards,
sometimes to look outwards.

213
00:08:10,554 --> 00:08:12,645
And this is where I discovered

214
00:08:12,645 --> 00:08:15,120
something quite important.

215
00:08:15,120 --> 00:08:18,680
In 2005, I launched a study

216
00:08:18,680 --> 00:08:21,270
called the Nation Brands Index.

217
00:08:21,270 --> 00:08:23,778
What it is, it's a very large-scale study that polls

218
00:08:23,778 --> 00:08:25,865
a very large sample of the world's population,

219
00:08:25,865 --> 00:08:28,362
a sample that represents about 70 percent

220
00:08:28,362 --> 00:08:31,591
of the planet's population,

221
00:08:31,591 --> 00:08:33,627
and I started asking them a series of questions

222
00:08:33,627 --> 00:08:36,511
about how they perceive other countries.

223
00:08:36,511 --> 00:08:38,155
And the Nation Brands Index over the years

224
00:08:38,155 --> 00:08:40,658
has grown to be a very, very large database.

225
00:08:40,658 --> 00:08:43,090
It's about 200 billion data points

226
00:08:43,090 --> 00:08:45,666
tracking what ordinary people
think about other countries

227
00:08:45,666 --> 00:08:47,649
and why.

228
00:08:47,649 --> 00:08:50,411
Why did I do this? Well, because
the governments that I advise

229
00:08:50,411 --> 00:08:51,716
are very, very keen on knowing

230
00:08:51,716 --> 00:08:53,331
how they are regarded.

231
00:08:53,331 --> 00:08:54,776
They've known, partly because

232
00:08:54,776 --> 00:08:56,654
I've encouraged them to realize it,

233
00:08:56,654 --> 00:08:58,252
that countries depend

234
00:08:58,252 --> 00:08:59,808
enormously on their reputations

235
00:08:59,808 --> 00:09:02,755
in order to survive and prosper in the world.

236
00:09:02,755 --> 00:09:05,004
If a country has a great, positive image,

237
00:09:05,004 --> 00:09:07,521
like Germany has or Sweden or Switzerland,

238
00:09:07,521 --> 00:09:09,616
everything is easy and everything is cheap.

239
00:09:09,616 --> 00:09:11,852
You get more tourists. You get more investors.

240
00:09:11,852 --> 00:09:13,899
You sell your products more expensively.

241
00:09:13,899 --> 00:09:15,857
If, on the other hand, you have a country

242
00:09:15,857 --> 00:09:17,870
with a very weak or a very negative image,

243
00:09:17,870 --> 00:09:20,300
everything is difficult and everything is expensive.

244
00:09:20,300 --> 00:09:22,201
So governments care desperately

245
00:09:22,201 --> 00:09:23,466
about the image of their country,

246
00:09:23,466 --> 00:09:25,600
because it makes a direct difference

247
00:09:25,600 --> 00:09:27,241
to how much money they can make,

248
00:09:27,241 --> 00:09:28,950
and that's what they've promised their populations

249
00:09:28,950 --> 00:09:31,307
they're going to deliver.

250
00:09:31,307 --> 00:09:33,270
So a couple of years ago, I thought I would take

251
00:09:33,270 --> 00:09:36,499
some time out and speak to that gigantic database

252
00:09:36,499 --> 00:09:38,706
and ask it,

253
00:09:38,706 --> 00:09:40,598
why do some people prefer one country

254
00:09:40,598 --> 00:09:42,361
more than another?

255
00:09:42,361 --> 00:09:43,900
And the answer that the database gave me

256
00:09:43,900 --> 00:09:45,596
completely staggered me.

257
00:09:45,596 --> 00:09:47,785
It was 6.8.

258
00:09:47,785 --> 00:09:49,874
I haven't got time to explain in detail.

259
00:09:49,874 --> 00:09:52,230
Basically what it told me was —

260
00:09:52,230 --> 00:09:56,452
(Laughter) (Applause) —

261
00:09:56,452 --> 00:10:00,684
the kinds of countries we prefer are good countries.

262
00:10:00,684 --> 00:10:03,505
We don't admire countries
primarily because they're rich,

263
00:10:03,505 --> 00:10:05,529
because they're powerful,
because they're successful,

264
00:10:05,529 --> 00:10:08,893
because they're modern, because
they're technologically advanced.

265
00:10:08,893 --> 00:10:11,746
We primarily admire countries that are good.

266
00:10:11,746 --> 00:10:13,109
What do we mean by good?

267
00:10:13,109 --> 00:10:14,780
We mean countries that seem to contribute

268
00:10:14,780 --> 00:10:17,349
something to the world in which we live,

269
00:10:17,349 --> 00:10:19,908
countries that actually make the world safer

270
00:10:19,908 --> 00:10:22,485
or better or richer or fairer.

271
00:10:22,485 --> 00:10:23,950
Those are the countries we like.

272
00:10:23,950 --> 00:10:26,471
This is a discovery of significant importance —

273
00:10:26,471 --> 00:10:27,824
you see where I'm going —

274
00:10:27,824 --> 00:10:29,691
because it squares the circle.

275
00:10:29,691 --> 00:10:32,563
I can now say, and often do, to any government,

276
00:10:32,563 --> 00:10:35,421
in order to do well, you need to do good.

277
00:10:35,421 --> 00:10:36,916
If you want to sell more products,

278
00:10:36,916 --> 00:10:38,452
if you want to get more investment,

279
00:10:38,452 --> 00:10:41,450
if you want to become more competitive,

280
00:10:41,450 --> 00:10:43,115
then you need to start behaving,

281
00:10:43,115 --> 00:10:44,758
because that's why people will respect you

282
00:10:44,758 --> 00:10:46,827
and do business with you,

283
00:10:46,827 --> 00:10:49,910
and therefore, the more you collaborate,

284
00:10:49,910 --> 00:10:52,755
the more competitive you become.

285
00:10:52,755 --> 00:10:54,533
This is quite an important discovery,

286
00:10:54,533 --> 00:10:55,613
and as soon as I discovered this,

287
00:10:55,613 --> 00:10:57,858
I felt another index coming on.

288
00:10:57,858 --> 00:11:00,204
I swear that as I get older, my ideas become simpler

289
00:11:00,204 --> 00:11:01,500
and more and more childish.

290
00:11:01,500 --> 00:11:05,468
This one is called the Good Country Index,

291
00:11:05,468 --> 00:11:09,521
and it does exactly what it says on the tin.

292
00:11:09,521 --> 00:11:11,875
It measures, or at least it tries to measure,

293
00:11:11,875 --> 00:11:14,638
exactly how much each country on Earth contributes

294
00:11:14,638 --> 00:11:17,793
not to its own population but to the rest of humanity.

295
00:11:17,793 --> 00:11:19,060
Bizarrely, nobody had ever thought

296
00:11:19,060 --> 00:11:20,749
of measuring this before.

297
00:11:20,749 --> 00:11:22,796
So my colleague Dr. Robert Govers and I have spent

298
00:11:22,796 --> 00:11:24,539
the best part of the last two years,

299
00:11:24,539 --> 00:11:28,193
with the help of a large number
of very serious and clever people,

300
00:11:28,193 --> 00:11:30,879
cramming together all the reliable data in the world

301
00:11:30,879 --> 00:11:33,522
we could find about what countries give

302
00:11:33,522 --> 00:11:35,115
to the world.

303
00:11:35,115 --> 00:11:37,493
And you're waiting for me to
tell you which one comes top.

304
00:11:37,493 --> 00:11:39,221
And I'm going to tell you,

305
00:11:39,221 --> 00:11:40,751
but first of all I want to tell you

306
00:11:40,751 --> 00:11:43,456
precisely what I mean

307
00:11:43,456 --> 00:11:45,515
when I say a good country.

308
00:11:45,515 --> 00:11:47,739
I do not mean morally good.

309
00:11:47,739 --> 00:11:49,701
When I say that Country X

310
00:11:49,701 --> 00:11:51,714
is the goodest country on Earth,

311
00:11:51,714 --> 00:11:53,023
and I mean goodest, I don't mean best.

312
00:11:53,023 --> 00:11:54,476
Best is something different.

313
00:11:54,476 --> 00:11:55,770
When you're talking about a good country,

314
00:11:55,770 --> 00:11:57,904
you can be good, gooder and goodest.

315
00:11:57,904 --> 00:12:01,376
It's not the same thing as good, better and best.

316
00:12:01,376 --> 00:12:03,877
This is a country which simply gives more

317
00:12:03,877 --> 00:12:06,203
to humanity than any other country.

318
00:12:06,203 --> 00:12:07,945
I don't talk about how they behave at home

319
00:12:07,945 --> 00:12:10,345
because that's measured elsewhere.

320
00:12:10,345 --> 00:12:12,405
And the winner is

321
00:12:12,405 --> 00:12:14,216
Ireland.

322
00:12:14,216 --> 00:12:19,890
(Applause)

323
00:12:19,890 --> 00:12:21,795
According to the data here,

324
00:12:21,795 --> 00:12:24,685
no country on Earth, per head of population,

325
00:12:24,685 --> 00:12:27,610
per dollar of GDP, contributes more

326
00:12:27,610 --> 00:12:29,246
to the world that we live in than Ireland.

327
00:12:29,246 --> 00:12:30,341
What does this mean?

328
00:12:30,341 --> 00:12:32,563
This means that as we go to sleep at night,

329
00:12:32,563 --> 00:12:35,631
all of us in the last 15 seconds
before we drift off to sleep,

330
00:12:35,631 --> 00:12:37,626
our final thought should be,

331
00:12:37,626 --> 00:12:39,943
godammit, I'm glad that Ireland exists.

332
00:12:39,943 --> 00:12:42,141
(Laughter)

333
00:12:42,141 --> 00:12:49,238
And that — (Applause) —

334
00:12:49,238 --> 00:12:52,238
In the depths of a very severe economic recession,

335
00:12:52,238 --> 00:12:54,756
I think that there's a really important lesson there,

336
00:12:54,756 --> 00:12:56,872
that if you can remember
your international obligations

337
00:12:56,872 --> 00:12:58,842
whilst you are trying to rebuild your own economy,

338
00:12:58,842 --> 00:12:59,880
that's really something.

339
00:12:59,880 --> 00:13:01,535
Finland ranks pretty much the same.

340
00:13:01,535 --> 00:13:02,800
The only reason why it's below Ireland

341
00:13:02,800 --> 00:13:05,883
is because its lowest score is
lower than Ireland's lowest score.

342
00:13:05,883 --> 00:13:07,680
Now the other thing you'll
notice about the top 10 there

343
00:13:07,680 --> 00:13:10,540
is, of course, they're all, apart from New Zealand,

344
00:13:10,540 --> 00:13:12,250
Western European nations.

345
00:13:12,250 --> 00:13:13,930
They're also all rich.

346
00:13:13,930 --> 00:13:15,670
This depressed me,

347
00:13:15,670 --> 00:13:17,182
because one of the things that I did not want

348
00:13:17,182 --> 00:13:18,760
to discover with this index

349
00:13:18,760 --> 00:13:21,116
is that it's purely the province of rich countries

350
00:13:21,116 --> 00:13:22,141
to help poor countries.

351
00:13:22,141 --> 00:13:24,197
This is not what it's all about.

352
00:13:24,197 --> 00:13:25,773
And indeed, if you look further down the list,

353
00:13:25,773 --> 00:13:28,099
I don't have the slide here, you will see

354
00:13:28,099 --> 00:13:30,388
something that made me very happy indeed,

355
00:13:30,388 --> 00:13:32,919
that Kenya is in the top 30,

356
00:13:32,919 --> 00:13:35,804
and that demonstrates one
very, very important thing.

357
00:13:35,804 --> 00:13:37,667
This is not about money.

358
00:13:37,667 --> 00:13:39,064
This is about attitude.

359
00:13:39,064 --> 00:13:40,530
This is about culture.

360
00:13:40,530 --> 00:13:43,977
This is about a government and a people that care

361
00:13:43,977 --> 00:13:45,171
about the rest of the world

362
00:13:45,171 --> 00:13:47,163
and have the imagination and the courage

363
00:13:47,163 --> 00:13:50,400
to think outwards instead of only thinking selfishly.

364
00:13:50,400 --> 00:13:52,180
I'm going to whip through the other slides

365
00:13:52,180 --> 00:13:55,128
just so you can see some
of the lower-lying countries.

366
00:13:55,128 --> 00:13:58,410
There's Germany at 13th, the U.S. comes 21st,

367
00:13:58,410 --> 00:14:00,151
Mexico comes 66th,

368
00:14:00,151 --> 00:14:02,269
and then we have some of
the big developing countries,

369
00:14:02,269 --> 00:14:05,409
like Russia at 95th, China at 107th.

370
00:14:05,409 --> 00:14:08,413
Countries like China and Russia and India,

371
00:14:08,413 --> 00:14:10,966
which is down in the same part of the index,

372
00:14:10,966 --> 00:14:13,319
well, in some ways, it's not surprising.

373
00:14:13,319 --> 00:14:14,858
They've spent a great deal of time

374
00:14:14,858 --> 00:14:17,021
over the last decades building their own economy,

375
00:14:17,021 --> 00:14:19,707
building their own society and their own polity,

376
00:14:19,707 --> 00:14:21,373
but it is to be hoped

377
00:14:21,373 --> 00:14:22,740
that the second phase of their growth

378
00:14:22,740 --> 00:14:24,725
will be somewhat more outward-looking

379
00:14:24,725 --> 00:14:27,252
than the first phase has been so far.

380
00:14:27,252 --> 00:14:29,360
And then you can break down each country

381
00:14:29,360 --> 00:14:32,716
in terms of the actual datasets that build into it.

382
00:14:32,716 --> 00:14:33,565
I'll allow you to do that.

383
00:14:33,565 --> 00:14:36,227
From midnight tonight it's going
to be on goodcountry.org,

384
00:14:36,227 --> 00:14:37,410
and you can look at the country.

385
00:14:37,410 --> 00:14:41,278
You can look right down to the
level of the individual datasets.

386
00:14:41,278 --> 00:14:43,496
Now that's the Good Country Index.

387
00:14:43,496 --> 00:14:44,865
What's it there for?

388
00:14:44,865 --> 00:14:47,150
Well, it's there really because I want to try

389
00:14:47,150 --> 00:14:49,601
to introduce this word,

390
00:14:49,601 --> 00:14:53,924
or reintroduce this word, into the discourse.

391
00:14:53,924 --> 00:14:56,113
I've had enough hearing about competitive countries.

392
00:14:56,113 --> 00:14:57,908
I've had enough hearing about

393
00:14:57,908 --> 00:15:01,694
prosperous, wealthy, fast-growing countries.

394
00:15:01,694 --> 00:15:04,942
I've even had enough hearing about happy countries

395
00:15:04,942 --> 00:15:06,983
because in the end that's still selfish.

396
00:15:06,983 --> 00:15:08,487
That's still about us,

397
00:15:08,487 --> 00:15:10,355
and if we carry on thinking about us,

398
00:15:10,355 --> 00:15:12,897
we are in deep, deep trouble.

399
00:15:12,897 --> 00:15:14,528
I think we all know what it is

400
00:15:14,528 --> 00:15:15,651
that we want to hear about.

401
00:15:15,651 --> 00:15:18,696
We want to hear about good countries,

402
00:15:18,696 --> 00:15:22,326
and so I want to ask you all a favor.

403
00:15:22,326 --> 00:15:23,922
I'm not asking a lot.

404
00:15:23,922 --> 00:15:25,875
It's something that you might find easy to do

405
00:15:25,875 --> 00:15:26,900
and you might even find enjoyable

406
00:15:26,900 --> 00:15:28,503
and even helpful to do,

407
00:15:28,503 --> 00:15:31,785
and that's simply to start using the word "good"

408
00:15:31,785 --> 00:15:33,467
in this context.

409
00:15:33,467 --> 00:15:35,654
When you think about your own country,

410
00:15:35,654 --> 00:15:37,783
when you think about other people's countries,

411
00:15:37,783 --> 00:15:39,566
when you think about companies,

412
00:15:39,566 --> 00:15:41,777
when you talk about the world that we live in today,

413
00:15:41,777 --> 00:15:43,675
start using that word

414
00:15:43,675 --> 00:15:46,443
in the way that I've talked about this evening.

415
00:15:46,443 --> 00:15:48,347
Not good, the opposite of bad,

416
00:15:48,347 --> 00:15:50,623
because that's an argument that never finishes.

417
00:15:50,623 --> 00:15:52,967
Good, the opposite of selfish,

418
00:15:52,967 --> 00:15:56,150
good being a country that thinks about all of us.

419
00:15:56,150 --> 00:15:57,560
That's what I would like you to do,

420
00:15:57,560 --> 00:15:58,945
and I'd like you to use it as a stick

421
00:15:58,945 --> 00:16:01,588
with which to beat your politicians.

422
00:16:01,588 --> 00:16:03,895
When you elect them, when you reelect them,

423
00:16:03,895 --> 00:16:05,307
when you vote for them, when you listen

424
00:16:05,307 --> 00:16:07,842
to what they're offering you,

425
00:16:07,842 --> 00:16:09,554
use that word, "good,"

426
00:16:09,554 --> 00:16:11,038
and ask yourself,

427
00:16:11,038 --> 00:16:13,111
"Is that what a good country would do?"

428
00:16:13,111 --> 00:16:16,404
And if the answer is no, be very suspicious.

429
00:16:16,404 --> 00:16:18,829
Ask yourself, is that the behavior

430
00:16:18,829 --> 00:16:20,265
of my country?

431
00:16:20,265 --> 00:16:22,397
Do I want to come from a country

432
00:16:22,397 --> 00:16:23,964
where the government, in my name,

433
00:16:23,964 --> 00:16:25,826
is doing things like that?

434
00:16:25,826 --> 00:16:27,582
Or do I, on the other hand,

435
00:16:27,582 --> 00:16:29,210
prefer the idea of walking around the world

436
00:16:29,210 --> 00:16:31,364
with my head held high thinking, "Yeah,

437
00:16:31,364 --> 00:16:33,855
I'm proud to come from a good country"?

438
00:16:33,855 --> 00:16:35,843
And everybody will welcome you.

439
00:16:35,843 --> 00:16:37,467
And everybody in the last 15 seconds

440
00:16:37,467 --> 00:16:40,137
before they drift off to sleep at night will say,

441
00:16:40,137 --> 00:16:43,018
"Gosh, I'm glad that person's country exists."

442
00:16:43,018 --> 00:16:45,205
Ultimately, that, I think,

443
00:16:45,205 --> 00:16:46,959
is what will make the change.

444
00:16:46,959 --> 00:16:48,676
That word, "good,"

445
00:16:48,676 --> 00:16:50,323
and the number 6.8

446
00:16:50,323 --> 00:16:52,581
and the discovery that's behind it

447
00:16:52,581 --> 00:16:54,249
have changed my life.

448
00:16:54,249 --> 00:16:56,136
I think they can change your life,

449
00:16:56,136 --> 00:16:57,995
and I think we can use it to change

450
00:16:57,995 --> 00:17:00,415
the way that our politicians
and our companies behave,

451
00:17:00,415 --> 00:17:04,280
and in doing so, we can change the world.

452
00:17:04,280 --> 00:17:05,830
I've started thinking very differently about

453
00:17:05,830 --> 00:17:08,523
my own country since I've been
thinking about these things.

454
00:17:08,523 --> 00:17:10,610
I used to think that I wanted to live in a rich country,

455
00:17:10,610 --> 00:17:13,010
and then I started thinking I
wanted to live in a happy country,

456
00:17:13,010 --> 00:17:15,624
but I began to realize, it's not enough.

457
00:17:15,624 --> 00:17:17,669
I don't want to live in a rich country.

458
00:17:17,669 --> 00:17:19,602
I don't want to live in a fast-growing

459
00:17:19,602 --> 00:17:22,285
or competitive country.

460
00:17:22,285 --> 00:17:25,403
I want to live in a good country,

461
00:17:25,403 --> 00:17:28,896
and I so, so hope that you do too.

462
00:17:28,896 --> 00:17:31,480
Thank you.

463
00:17:31,480 --> 00:17:35,480
(Applause)