Heroes in Business - Mogens Lykketoft President of the United Nations is interviewed by David Cogan of Eliances Heroes

Episode Date: August 2, 2024

Mogens Lykketoft President of the United Nations is interviewed by David Cogan of Eliances Heroes radio show amfm. They discuss the pressures of politics on the world stage, and he shares his advice for the people of the United States (6:00) heading into an election. "If you invest yourself and engage time in what you hear and see you sense where the truth lies."

Welcome back to Alliances Heroes, where heroes in business align. To be part of our super community and find out more about Alliances, visit www.alliances.com. Now, back to our super host, David Kogan, founder of Alliances. David Kogan, founder of Alliances. I can't hold my excitement any longer because you see, this is a historical moment for Alliances Hero Show. We have brought you many well-recognized names, some of the CEOs who run the largest companies in the world. But our next guest is what some may consider as the highest political position in the world. Yes, very high. We have the President of the United Nations General Assembly's 70th session, Mosh Ligatov.

Good morning to you. My first question to you, though, is how does someone become the president of the United Nations? It's a rotation position going between five different regional groups. For one year, you are there, and I'm in the Western Regional Group, being a Dane. And what you do when you come up as a regional group is you try, one country try, to get their candidate elected within the group. And if there's a consensus around that, that will be the president for the coming year. And that's what happened this year. There was no other candidates from the Western group, so I was elected without any opponent.

Incredible. Can there ever be complete world peace in your view? Can there ever be complete world peace, in your view? I'm afraid not, but I'm quite sure that we can do much more to contain conflicts and avoid conflicts than we are actually doing. And one of the most serious shortcomings of the United Nations, of course, is that the Security Council, whose role it is to take care of peace and security, have not got their acts together in very serious conflicts than the one in Syria, for instance, but also a number of other conflicts. And that has created humanitarian catastrophes unprecedented since World War II that these conflicts have continued

for years. Now, Mr. Likatov, you are as President of the United Nations. You're also a family man. You have two daughters, five grandsons. What is the most important lesson in life? What is the most important lesson in life we could teach children so they can become contributors to the world and to make it better like you have and continue to try and do? I think the most important is to realize, to face the existential challenges we as a common humanity are facing. I mean, the need for a much more sustainable way of providing energy, producing and consuming, that was exactly what the United Nations joined together on with the Sustainable Development Goals, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals last September. And in addition to that, the very, very deep transformations in the way we produce and consume. And that this is an urgent call because, for instance, and not least, climate, is there already. And if we are not able to stop it, it will for sure accelerate. If it accelerates, it will mean that not 65 million people as we have right now displaced from their homes,

but hundreds of millions of people will be displaced because of rising sea levels, because of desertification of large areas, because of melting glaciers. And that will also soak up resources to an unprecedented extent, resources that we need to eradicate hunger, create education and health for all human rights, these resources will simply not be there if we should face hundreds and hundreds of millions of people that have to move away from where they are and the conflicts that we're connected with, with them trying to move somewhere else so we are in very very very great time pressure here we had to act now and that's what the understand makes the

United Nations even more relevant than ever before understand and you're listening to Alliance's Heroes. Be a hero with David Kogan. Go to where entrepreneurs align. Be part of the community. Alliances.com. That's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com. We have the president of the United Nations,

Moshe Liketov. In one minute, what's the most important thing you would like to address to the people of the United States of America? Don't do it against yourself and all the rest of us in personality like Donald Trump would be elected president of the United States of America. What did you learn from your first job that helped you throughout your career, including now serving as the president of the UN? So what was the first job that you had, and what did you learn from that that you carry over? I had some small holiday jobs very early.

I don't think I learned a lot about how to change the world there, but my first real job as a student part-time was in what is called the Economic Council of the English Labour Movement, where I worked with a lot of national and international issues from a very early stage, at the same time being a political activist, student leader at the time. So that's where I got the fundament, so to say, to have all the knowledge about the world and the economy and whatever is necessary to be in this position. Now, we had a number of people ask questions, and one that got asked a few times is,

they would like to ask the President of the United Nations, what is the meaning of life to you? Well, that's a very difficult question to answer without being banal. without being banal. But I have, through all my life, I have tried to do the things I was appointed to or asked to do as good I could to take care of the voter humanity that I was responsible for. I remember from a couple of months ago, here in the UN, we had a science location for the students from the United Nations International School

where Secretary of State Kerry was there. He said something very, very good that I aligned myself very much with. He said to these very advanced students, you have had one of the best educations in this world. Now go out not just to earn money for yourself, but to do something good for your country and for this world. Excellent, excellent.

Last question here. There's so much news and so many people writing and interpreting things about so much that's going out there. What do you find as the best way to find truth? Well, I think most times if you engage yourself and use time on what you hear and see, you sense where the truth lies. But you have not only to use five minutes every day on politics if you want to find the truth. Then you will be an easy victim for demagogues and loud-speaking populists. Excellent. Well, someone who looks at the world and sees an opportunity for bringing separate nations together and impacting positive change is our hero.

And thank you so much, President of the United Nations, Moshe Liketov. Thank you, too, to our producer, loopydocs.com, for all your editing needs. Go to lupidocs.com. Thank you again, David Kogan with Eliance's.