Valerie Hickey
World Bank Global Director for Environment, Natural Resources and Blue Economy (ENB)
Happy birthday, CITES. Thank you for always reminding us that nature and natural capital, wildlife and wilderness is not a nice to have, but an absolute must-have. It's already so important in global trade, just as it is important for global food security, for global good governance, and for jobs and GDP. Wildlife and wilderness, nature and natural capital is a development agenda, and that agenda moves at the speed of partnership, and we have no better partner than CITES in helping us connect environmental action at the country level to global agreements, global trade, and global good governance.
Whether it's through the Global Wildlife Program that the GEF supports in 31 countries across three regions, whether it's in the GEF-8 Supported Wildlife Conservation for Development program that we're currently designing together, or whether it's one of my own personal favorites, ICCWC the International Consortium for Combating Wildlife crime. CITES, happy birthday. Here's to the next 50 years of successful partnership with the World Bank.