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The Energy To Create Change
By Sean Davidson
During the four years José María Figueres
held the office of President of Costa Rica,
his interaction with the Middle East was
minimal. His foreign policy focused mainly
on stronger alignment with Central America,
and he had never visited this region.
So when he says: "There are two regions of
the world that are dear to my heart – Latin
America and the Middle East", it sound
somewhat, and wrongly, disingenuous.
The Middle East? "Yes. I love this region. A
year after my presidency, in 1999, Kofi
Annan, then secretary general of the United
Nations, asked me to chair a UN group on
Information, Communications and Technology,"
he said.
"At the time, Talala Abu Ghazaleh was my
vice-chairman and he brought me to this
region. Since then I average six to eight
visits a year and am actively involved with
different groups and organisations here,"
Figueres told Emirates Business. Among these
are Abraaj Capital, Dubai Recycling Park,
and the Arab Society for Intellectual
Property.
"I find this region one with tremendous
potential but one that is also often
misunderstood by the rest of the world," he
said.
"In my coming here, I always find that there
are additional opportunities that can be
leveraged in the region. This region is
known the world over as a strategic exporter
of oil. I see a tremendous opportunity for
this part of the world to become an exporter
of energy and energy technology which is
much more than just oil," he said.
For a decade, Figueres has championed a link
between technology and sustainable
development. It is an emerging necessity and
one that offers lucrative business
opportunities for those already in the race.
A race he wants the Middle East to lead.
"Imagine a Middle East where we would put
together the most cutting-edge technologies
in solar technology because of all the sun
we have. Where we can put together
programmes that make desalination plants
much more efficient because we have them and
operate them and the world is going to need
much more desalination in the future," said
Figueres.
"Imagine a region where we become an example
of adequate waste management and
re-conversion of much of that into energy.
Imagine, furthermore, a region that in the
context of climate change – which will take
humanity to reinvent the way we live,
transport ourselves, work, interrelate – we
redefine the way society lives in the
future.
"I'm referring to Masdar [a planned
environmental-friendly city in Abu Dhabi, an
initiative by the Government of Abu Dhabi
through Mubadala Development Company].
There's a tremendous opportunity there to
learn about becoming a society with zero
emissions, extrapolating that and exporting
the Masdar experience.
"So what I would love to see in the future
is that the Middle East has gone from
exporting oil to investing wisely in its
resources, into different types of energy
and energy technologies and takes the
lessons it has learnt at Masdar, which is
unique to the world as nothing of its kind
exists, and is exporting that to different
parts of the world so that we can also have
other cities and societies that become
carbon neutral. Can all this be done?
Absolutely."
Speaking as Dubai's business elite trickle
into the Capital Club ahead of his keynote
address, Figueres lets his passion fill the
room. He's animated now and nothing will
throw him off. Not the curious stares, not
the camera flashes and certainly not the
fidgeting band waiting for us to finish our
conversation.
"While I was in office I had very few
interactions with the Middle East," he said.
"But today I'm doing all I can to bring the
two regions together.
"There's so much we can do in terms of
tourism, co-investments, transfer of
technologies, even in terms of resources. I
would love to have 48 hours a day to
concentrate on that and my other
commitments," he said.
Of the local effects of the global crises,
Figueres said the UAE would come out
stronger, better and faster and that the
crisis had helped bring the region together.
"There was a lot of internal competition in
the past," he said. "Now we are thinking of
ourselves as whole, which is a very
important development. It is like Costa Rica
not focusing only on itself but also
becoming a part of Central America. In this
way you are stronger, more agile and have
more resources to leverage.
"This region continues to have very strong
capital inflows and if we learnt some
lessons in this crisis, which I believe we
have, towards the future we will be much
more discriminating with respect to what
gets financed.
"The abundance of capital was allowing for
everything to get financed and not
everything was positive. So now we're going
to be much more careful and more strategic,"
he said.
Now based in Spain, where he is the CEO of
the social investment initiative Concordia
21, Figueres wastes little time in
introducing this unique programme.
"At Concordia, we use parameters for
investment that will be used in the private
sector, in the business world but we're not
necessarily looking for a return on
investment that is financial, we look for a
societal return on investment," he said.
"The investments that are made should
produce societal benefits, well-being and
opportunities for development around the
world. We've stayed away from having a
geographic or thematic focus with respect to
our investments. What we like to say is that
we invest in projects that are
transformative rather than incremental," he
said.
One of Concordia's biggest successes to date
has been the Humanitarian Response Index (HRI).
It was developed to assess donor performance
in relation to the Principles of Good
Humanitarian Donorship signed by 22
countries in 2003. The HRI was built for
Development Assistance Research Associates (Dara),
at a project cost of €1.5 million (Dh7.75m).
"Countries go around signing agreements then
they forget about them and move on. Dara
felt it would be great if we could measure
the countries in their donorship role," he
said.
"So we put together an index that does just
that and ranks countries. On this index, the
Nordic countries are in the first few
places. The US is around 17 or 18 in the 23.
By investing approximately €1.5m in the
production of the ranking we achieved an
improvement of €8bn in the annual donation
by these countries to humanitarian causes.
"If we had taken our €1.5m and given to a
country in any kind of crisis it would've
been a drop in the ocean. But we take this
money and produce an index which sparks
countries to improve their humanitarian
efforts and therefore we move an additional
€8bn. This is the kind of transformation we
will look for," said Figueres.
Comprising 12 hand-picked individuals, the
organisation will look to increase that
number to around 40 in the next 30 months.
His belief in the organisation took Figueres
back to Kofi Annan's door.
"I have the highest degree of respect for
him," he said. "Throughout his tenure at the
UN, I observed him as a person who was
deeply committed, completely motivated and
gave all of himself to pursuing an agenda of
creating well-being and opportunities.
"So when he left the UN, which was around
the time we were beginning to think about
the establishment of Concordia 21, we shared
our concept with him and invited him to
become our chairman, which he accepted. We
are delighted with his leadership and role
within the organisation," he said.
Out in the cold
In the last week of February this year, José
María Figueres led the first National
Projects Climate Fellowship team on an
expedition to the Arctic Circle to study the
effects of climate change.
His blog, combined with media attention,
helped him get his point across – "the
rapidly depleting cap is undeniable evidence
that the problem is here, real and
humanity's biggest challenge ever."
"What are the conditions like? The -56C
(21F) reminded me of some of the loneliest
and coldest days of my political career," he
said. "Because when you are in politics, you
often spend cold, lonely days, even if you
come from a tropical country. One of the
memorable events of our excursion to the
Arctic was the night we cooked falafel. I
guarantee you it is the first and only time
falafel has been cooked in the Arctic
Circle.
"How did it turn out? If you're coming in
from -56C having been on the ice and snow
all day long, falafel in any texture is the
best falafel in the world."
Born into politics
José María Figueres is the son of the famous
thinker and three-time President of Costa
Rica, José Figueres Ferrer, and Karen Olsen
Beck, born in the United States to Danish
immigrants.
He studied at Colegio Humboldt and later
Lincoln High School, both in the Costa Rican
capital, San José. He later was accepted
into the Corps of Cadets at the United
States Military Academy (West Point), where
he graduated with the Class of 1979, having
majored in engineering.
Upon returning to Costa Rica, he worked and
later led the restructuring process of the
deeply indebted family businesses, Sociedad
Agroindustrial San Cristobal (SAISC),
towards profitability and professional
management.
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