In this new post 2015 political climate,

the most important thing in my view is the support in

civil society and activists in all corners of the world,

supporting them to hold their own governments to account,

not just to meet international aid obligations,

but also to meet the promises they've made to their own citizens.

Many of these young people are hungry to engage.

Many of them want to join movements such as ours, like Global Citizen.

It is a naive belief to think that a platform

such as ours is only for millennials in the western world,

especially when only 12 percent of millennials actually reside in western countries.

We are two billion strong.

Global citizen means global citizen.

And in fact, data on global citizenship shows that citizens in India, and Nigeria,

and other key emerging markets are arguably even more inclined towards

global citizenship than young people in countries like Germany and the US.

They know how well their work and situation are connected so

closely to the international community's decisions and perspectives.

Thanks to the growing availability of smartphones and the internet,

young people in these countries now have big aspirations.

Campaigners should find a way to engage these young people,

and give them a platform to ensure that their aspirations are understood,

and ultimately met by their leaders.

We've started to shift gears in our own campaigning to reach out to these young people.

Now, some of you might have heard of the Global Citizen Festival,

which we produce every year on the Great Lawn of Central Park.

We give away 60,000 tickets to people who take action on global citizen,

tweeting politicians, emailing their local members of Congress,

cool and elected officials.

Well, in 2016, we took

the Global Citizen Festival to India and what we saw was astonishing.

I've got to say, it was perhaps one of the most inspiring moments of my life.

I saw 100,000 Indian citizens come together,

young people who cared just as much about

taking action as those young people in Central Park.

And the event was in fact, far more impactful.

More than 500,000 young global citizens in India took

more than two million actions in the space of just a few weeks.

They called on political,

faith, and business leaders,

along with celebrities to be more accountable in education,

gender equality, water, and sanitation.

In response, political and business leaders made 25 announcements and

commitments at the Global Citizen Festival in Mumbai on World Toilet Day.

Those commitments are set to affect

503 million lives if politicians follow through on that promise,

an investment they pledged to make a 5.93 US billion dollars.

In January 2018, we launched a partnership with one championship in Manila.

An organization with a broadcast reach of

one billion people and 24 events throughout Southeast Asia,

East Asia in 2018 alone.

This partnership provides an ideal avenue to engage with citizens.

Citizens will be able to engage on issues such as education,

water and sanitation, gender equality.

In the long run, they'll be able to earn tickets to some of these shows,

whether you're in Indonesia,

Myanmar, Japan, or South Korea.

In the end, increasingly,

we see our role as global citizen not to project what we think the world should be doing,

but to provide a platform for young advocates and

communities around the world to project their own aspirations,

to project their own wishes and demands to leaders.

Now at Global Citizen, we do a lot with rock stars,

some of the world's most famous influencers and well-known personalities,

but we want to make these young people advocates in their community.

We want to make them the real rock stars.

Politicians shouldn't need a celebrity in order to engage on these issues.

We want to make it, so that they will meet with these young people.

We want these young people to have their stories heard.

There are young people everywhere willing to attack

the massive and urgent challenges confronting humanity.

Through my work at Global Citizen,

I've had the opportunity to meet many of them.

Davinia from Jamaica who is standing up for

girls' education and who has collected one and a half million pennies.

And with those pennies,

have sent 228 girls to school.

Shomi from Bangladesh who is standing up for access to

sanitation and has helped prevent over 15,000 people from getting sick.

Uzma from Pakistan, courageous young woman,

standing up for woman and girls in Pakistan even where it is unsafe to do so.

And Dennis from Uganda who is standing up and championed universal health coverage,

and who together with his family has brought vaccines to nearly 2,000 children.

These young people who are part of the biggest cohort

under 30 year olds the world has ever seen have big aspirations.

The question for our policymakers and all of us is will we reach them?

Military leaders and planners will tell you what happens

when aspirations rise and ultimately aren't met.

We at Global Citizen taken on this challenge.

We're redoubling our efforts.

We're confronting the way we work and we're

making the most of new technologies along the way.

We are invested in producing content in more languages to reach more people,

talk into telecommunication companies in countries like

South Africa on how to make our platform more accessible,

particularly in communities where the price of data is extremely high.

And we're constantly working to identify

the right social platforms to engage people in communities around the world,

we are platform neutral.

Since 2012, Global Citizens have taken over 13.3 million actions through our platform.

Petition, and call in,

and email and call in on world leaders to rally behind a world without extreme poverty.

And we've seen leaders respond,

pledging over $35 billion towards the Sustainable Development Goals.

And if delivered, over 1.3 billion

lives are set to be affected as a result of these pledges.

But I truly believe our work has only just begun.

The next few years will be challenging.

Every social movement that has gone before has never succeeded on the first try.

But I believe if we give young people,

mostly millennials around the world the tools and agencies to champion for themselves,

what they need to realize their aspirations,

what skills they need,

making sure that they have proper healthcare,

then I believe that we will achieve the SDGs.

Yes, hurdles remain, mass migration,

climate change, automation, all of these things remain,

which is why our political leaders need to hear from you today to invest in young people,

to invest in the health and education of their citizens,

to ensure we are equipped for the future.

And as you're sitting there listening to this lecture,

there's one thing you want to do coming out of this,

I mean, you can download the app,

Global Citizen Take Action,

but really, all you need to do is go online.

Find out who your local official is,

who represent you in Congress,

Parliament, local city council.

Take time to write a five minute email,

tell them about the world you want to see in 2030 and

what you want them to do about it and let's see what the response is.

Citizen-Led Accountability Part II

Sustainable Development in the 21st Century with Ban Ki-moon

Meet the Instructors