Today, Crown Prince Haakon gave the opening lecture at the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration’s symposium for the Norwegian corporate sphere. The symposium is run by the students of the school, and is Norway’s biggest of its kind.
The Crown Prince started his lecture by playing parts of a song by Rage against the Machine, to wake the audience, and he also used lyrics from the group to make the points of his lecture.
His lecture covered how the massive disproportion of wealth in the world, between a rich minority and a large and poor majority is not good for stability, as is shown by how the financial crisis as well as an environmental crisis seem to hit the poor harder than the rich.
He focused on the UN millennium development goals, to end poverty by 2015. “These millennium development goals can look like big, nice numbers, and a bit surreal. But on the ground, the millennium development goals become concrete and useful tools.”
He encouraged the people present to engage in attempting to better the situation for the poor in the world today, and regarding the heritage for future generations. “The big challenge for us, as a generation, is to get sustainable development – and when we’re in the nursing home, our grandchildren will ask what we did to fight the climate change and the credit crunch.”
There was also a mention of how the cultural make-up of Norway has changed; Norwegians no longer have to leave the country to get an impression of other cultures, which can represent challenges. How to handle a multicultural society, is according to the Crown Prince, one of the central challenges in society today.