Davos 2023 day 4 – Radio Davos: war in Ukraine and the voice of refugees

On the day 4 Davos 2023 episode, UN Secretary-General warns of a ‘great fracture’ in the world and Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis tells us the war in Ukraine affects the whole world. We also talk to Caroline Casey of the disability inclusion campaign Valuable 500 and tour the art exhibition bringing the voice of refugees to Davos. The episode is co-hosted by ‘Exponential View’ writer, author and podcaster Azeem Azhar.

Antonio Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General

"We risk what I have called the great fracture, the decoupling of the world's two largest economies. Tectonic drift that would create two different sets of trade rules two dominance currencies, two Internets, and two conflicting strategies artificial intelligence. This is the last thing we need. The IMF reported that dividing the global economy into two. Two blocks could cut global GDP by a whopping 1.4 trillion U.S. dollars.

"Now, there are many aspects in which the US and China relations will inevitably diverge, particularly on questions of human rights and on some areas of regional security. But despite that, it is possible, and I would say it is essential for the two countries to have meaningful engagement on climate trade and technology to avoid the decoupling of economies and even the possibility of future confrontation."

Gabrielius Landsbergis, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania

"It is clear that war in Ukraine is not a regional issue. It touches every region in the world. It touches every country one way or another. Therefore, I'm still hopeful. And some votes in the UN have show that it's possible to have a global, global answer to what's happening in Ukraine."

Max Frieder, Chief Creative Officer and Co-Founder of Artolution

"We are an international community-based public arts and education organization. What that means is we teach artists and educators in different. camps, conflict zones, conflict affected communities, how to do public art with children who've been through trauma

"We do a lot of behavioural studies looking at pre and post evaluations, to figure out what does this mean? Like what's the actual impact of this work? We look at scales of psychosocial well-being and social and emotional health. So what we've really found is that self-esteem really rises. The idea of social connectivity that you connect with others, relationship building and this idea that you have a voice, this idea of efficacy and agency, that identity can actually find measurable indicators to find that in pre and post evaluations. It rises over 20%."

Vik Muniz, Artist, Vik Muniz Studio

"It's interesting when you think about refugees. They were talking about lines, lines of escape. They're always perpendicular to the lines of the map.

"They're just people who are crossing these lines and they're sort of like taking in the difficult situation for no reason at all. Having these two things together make you think about, you know, how we look at the world and how we should be looking at it a little bit more careful."