Munich Security Conference special edition: Navalny, Mottley, and WFP's robot vehicle aspirations

We were on the ground for Germany’s massive Munich Security Conference, where development issues may not have taken center stage, but made a strong showing nonetheless.

A new MSC? The conference is centered around, well, security, but that’s no longer the only focus of this three-day confab in the heart of Bavaria. It’s increasingly tackling issues in the globaldev space.

The Friday kickoff was rocked by news of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s death, a reflection of how geopolitics — and Vladimir Putin — still loom large over the proceedings. But that same day also featured sessions on sustainable development and water; climate finance; global refugee movements; sexual violence as a weapon; the pandemic treaty; food systems; U.N. Security Council reform; and conversations about Sudan and the Sahel.

The 60th iteration of MSC still attracts many establishment types (i.e., older men from the global north), but attendees from the global south were also among the hundreds of people — as were more women and young people, according to one longtime observer — milling about the opulent Hotel Bayerischer Hof, where the main action takes place.

The press wasn’t so lucky when it came to access. My colleague Rob Merrick tells me that in previous years, members of the media had been allowed into the main hall, but this year they had to watch from the press room or from outside the building altogether. Fortunately, it was unseasonably warm.

But that didn’t stop Rob from getting the scoop on all the drama and deliberations.

Tense moments: This year’s Munich Security Conference will be remembered for an extraordinarily brave speech by Navalny’s distraught widow, just hours after she learned of his death in an Arctic Russian prison — but there was another dramatic moment on the main stage.

Earlier this month, the Gaza building that housed Belgian development agency Enabel was flattened by an Israeli bomb, so there was tension in the air when Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo came face-to-face with Tzipi Livni, a former Israeli foreign affairs minister.

The pair shared a platform to discuss “Protecting International Humanitarian Law,” allowing De Croo to make clear his anger over the bombing and Israeli accusations that aid money is funding Hamas.

“I've heard that criticism time and time again — and I reject it. We do everything, everything, to control that and this is just about human decency,” the Belgian told Livni.

“Our development building in Gaza has been bombed. We still wonder why it has been bombed. We are only there to help civilians,” De Croo said, adding: “Please don't blame us for helping human lives.”

Livni stressed she did not blame Enabel for “helping human lives,” but also said, “I'm suggesting to be more cautious and to follow your money” — prompting De Croo to interrupt and insist: “We do, we do!”

Calm was restored by a cry of “hold it” by the moderator Mark Malloch-Brown, president of the Open Society Foundations. Livni then reached across to pat De Croo’s arm, in a gesture of conciliation.

Meanwhile, one senior MSC source told me there was no doubt Navalny’s death was “deliberately timed” by Putin to send a message of defiance to world leaders in Munich. Yulia Navalnaya’s request to speak from the stage had prompted astonishment outweighed only by admiration, the source said.

The kids are all right: Nisreen Elsaim, a young Sudanese activist forced into exile by the country’s civil war, lit up a debate about creating resilient food systems with her unshakeable belief that fearless Generation Z will not allow a failing system that leaves Africans as “beggars.”

A former chair of the U.N. Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change, the 29-year-old hit out at the “simple” unfairness of the global north’s stranglehold over her continent’s rich energy resources.

“The copper, all of the materials, get out, but the batteries don't come in. The silicon gets out, but the solar panels don't come in,” Elsaim protested.

“We don't want to keep being beggars. We shame our governments — when we have governments of course — asking, ‘Why do you go to summits and just ask for money and come back,’ because this is not what we want.”

It might be too late for her cohort of millennials to “create a new system,” Elsaim said, but she insisted: “Generation Z will definitely do it. These people, they break every wall, every rule. Everything for them is possible.”

Sudan is in the grip of a “stage five famine,” she told the event — even if the world has not acknowledged it — yet 70% of food is being lost after harvest. “Clearly, it is a problem of food security, not a problem of food productivity,” the activist said.

Speaking on the same panel, Kitty van der Heijden, a deputy executive director at UNICEF, said donors must embrace a “risk-taking appetite” to get aid through in conflicts such as Sudan, loosening rules requiring an audit of “every dollar down to the last cent.”

“What will it take for the international community to see this not as a crisis where people are dying, which is happening, but a crisis that we need to invest in to solve? That's not the energy that I see.”

Bridgetown to nowhere? Mia Mottley used her conference moment to warn high-income nations “frightened” of soaring migration that much worse lies ahead for them without changes to debt and insurance rules rigged against the global south.

The Barbados prime minister took aim at international financial institutions which demand a 60% debt-to-gross domestic product ratio from low-income countries when “every country in Europe is now, I think, on about 90%.”

“Countries like ours are kept on a trajectory that does not allow us to make the investments that are necessary to boost education, to boost health care, to reduce the chances of social implosion, and the lack of security that will take more than a generation to recover from,” Mottley argued.

Turning to insurance, she pointed out Americans facing wildfires in California and Florida could at least “move to a different state,” asking: “Tell me where in the Caribbean they are going to move to?”

The climate emergency will hit parts of the global south much harder and make them “uninsurable,” she warned, adding: “If they become uninsurable, they're going to become uninvestable. And therefore, we're going to see climate migration and more insecurity in a way that we have not bargained for.”

Mottley betrayed her frustration over slow progress toward her Bridgetown Initiative — a bid to turbocharge public and private sector lending to low-income nations while providing debt relief — noting it had been discussed “for the longest time.”

Global afterthought? Back to the Sudan crisis, and a debate titled “Averting the Abyss” dominated by frustration at the world’s lack of interest in ending the deadly conflict, while aid efforts are focused on Gaza and Ukraine instead.

Kitty van der Heijden, a deputy executive director at UNICEF, said donors must embrace a “risk-taking appetite” to get aid through, loosening rules requiring an audit of “every dollar down to the last cent.”

“We work mostly with local actors. Why? Because they have much more access, they are much better in tune with what is needed,” van der Heijden explained. “You have to take risks if you want to deliver life-saving supplies of aid where it's needed most.”

Rejecting a prediction of a 20-year war as “unacceptable,” she criticized a failure by world leaders to recognise that a war in Sudan affects “Europe and beyond,” hence their lack of effort to end it.

“You cannot make a deal, whether it's a peace deal or a ceasefire, if you do not engage young people. If you just talk to warring parties and politicians, and not the people, peace will not emerge,” van der Heijden said.

“What will it take for the international community to see this not as a crisis where people are dying, which is happening, but a crisis that we need to invest in to solve? That's not the energy that I see.”

AHEAD of the curve: The vehicle is as tall as a tank, with wheels that could crush a small car, and was designed to explore the planet Mars. Now the World Food Programme wants to use it to deliver emergency aid in war zones.

The beast of a car was parked on a quiet street, where WFP invited guests to admire the AHEAD vehicle — or autonomous humanitarian emergency aid device.

Dreamt up by the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics at the German Aerospace Center, the idea is to use it to get aid through when roads are impassable or under armed attack.

WFP has already driven such vehicles in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Mozambique, but hopes ongoing trials will allow it to use an autonomous version as the latest project for its Innovation Accelerator.

Professor Alin Albu-Schäffer, from the German Aerospace Center, explained how AHEAD was built with Mars in mind before Bernard Kowatsch, head of the WFP Innovation Accelerator, told him: “We could use that for the World Food Programme in South Sudan.”

WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain hailed “thinking outside the box” in places where “we need to keep our people safe” and agreed that, if the plan is to take the AHEAD to Mars, “it can get to South Sudan for sure.”

She also told staff members: “As anyone who knows me knows, I’m into all kinds of vehicles so this is a real treat for me.”

It was also probably a welcome reprieve for McCain, who’s had to deal with an agency battered by depleted funding and a staff revolt over Gaza.

Incidentally, her agency had the best swag at MSC: little WFP trucks.

No cheating: Perhaps it’s not surprising that a conference known for security would be strict. That's how it was with MSC, which approved all side events, so if you tried to “double dip” and sign up for two dinners, you received a notification that you’d be canceled for the other one. Ouch.

And for everyone who relies on name badges to remember names — and who doesn’t? — MSC badges only had last names and the affiliated delegation, so that old trick went out the window. At least it meant more actual eye contact rather than the awkward glancing down at people’s shirts.

Spotted and overheard: After the AHEAD presentation, McCain’s chief of staff saying, ‘OK, now if we can just stay on schedule…” as her own (far less intimidating) car pulled up — a relatable feeling for anyone rushing around with a principal.

Gates Foundation’s Alaa Murabit, Bayer’s Matthias Berninger, and EY’s Julie Teigland, among many others, at the Goals House nightcap held at the Rosewood Hotel bar with the theme “Securing SDG5” to advance gender equality. Our chief of staff Meg Richardson tells me this Goals House was different from previous iterations at the U.N. General Assembly and Davos. As an official side event, the evening was run through the conference, so no traditional nightcap decor of SDG-scented candles, plants, artwork and low-lighting. Sadly not a ton of talk about gender aside from the planned remarks — unsurprisingly, the appearance of Navalny’s wife dominated the discussion.

Meg also saw Melanne Verveer, Keren Yarhi-Milo of SIPA, and Ertharin Cousin going strong at 10 p.m. at the public square watching Hillary Clinton moderate a discussion with Nobel laureate Maria Ressa, Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Azin Mar Asing of Myanmar, and Iranian activist Masih Alinejad at the MSC nightcap “Rebels with a Cause: Voices of Civil Resistance.” Cousin, the former head of WFP, noted there were four panels on food security this year, whereas in the past those discussions would’ve been outside the main conference.

Saturday night ended with a party at Literaturhaus where you could find corporate execs, members of the military, MSC staffers, and everyone in between playing foosball — an annual MSC tradition.

Earlier in the day at the bilateral meeting space, former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon flanked by two security guards, with former Irish Prime Minister and U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson leaving after him — sans security. Also leaving the area: Børge Brende, president of the World Economic Forum (perhaps taking notes on what some dub the Davos of Defense?).

Overheard in the bilateral meeting space: “If staffers can eat and find a place to sit, you know that the conference is winding down.”

On that note, farewell MSC — see you next year!

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