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[00:00:00] Melissa Fleming

It's shocking to think how many people around the world have to live without housing, schools, hospitals, and energy. But my guest this week is working to change that. 

 

[00:00:12] Jorge Moreira da Silva

It's about providing social basic human needs. We have found a way to provide livelihoods to 15 million people in Afghanistan. How? We are rehabilitating roads, streets, water canals, paying men and women to do the job. 

 

[00:00:41] Melissa Fleming

Jorge Moreira da Silva is Executive Director of UNOPS, the United Nations Office for Project Services. From the United Nations, I'm Melissa Fleming. This is Awake at Night. Welcome, Jorge. 

 

[00:01:03] Jorge Moreira da Silva

Thank you, Melissa. It's a pleasure. 

 

[00:01:04] Melissa Fleming

It's great to have you here in New York. You know, usually you're based in Europe and... 

 

[00:01:10] Jorge Moreira da Silva

Copenhagen. 

 

[00:01:11] Melissa Fleming

Right. But I don't think you spend much time there either. 

 

[00:01:14] Jorge Moreira da Silva

No, I've been mainly on the ground and also coming to New York almost every month. So Copenhagen is home now, but not really the place where I stay most of the time. 

 

[00:01:26] Melissa Fleming

Well, I've seen you most recently in Gaza. And you've been to Ukraine. And you go to Africa. So we're going to talk about all that. But I'd first like to ask you about this job, leading Office for Project Services. What are you actually responsible for and what kind of projects are we talking about? 

 

[00:01:46] Jorge Moreira da Silva

I've been working on policy and also on politics all my life and also on development. But this is the first time where I'm leading an organization that is hands-on, getting things done. Doing infrastructure, building roads, hospitals, schools, energy systems. Procuring. Purchasing and procuring on behalf of our partners and also doing project management. 

In practical terms, what does that mean? It means that we have a partner country or a UN sister agency or an MDB [multilateral development bank] like World Bank that needs a project to be implemented. And they hire us to do so, and we operate in a way that is pretty frugal and agile. It's what we call fee-for-service. It's the closest to the private sector, but we are not private sector. We are UN. But the way we work is very agile, flexible. We do the job and then we move on. If we continue with new projects, we stay in that country. If there are no other projects, we go to another place. And this is UNOPS. 

So it's an organization that has almost 6,000 personnel working in 130 countries with a delivery of $3 billion per year. With a high concentration, as you know, Melissa, in highly fragile conflict and violent contexts. We are the largest UN agency in Myanmar. One of the largest in Afghanistan, in Mozambique, in Gaza, and in all the difficult places. 

 

[00:03:22] Melissa Fleming

Probably something that no private sector company could do.

 

[00:03:27] Jorge Moreira da Silva

Exactly. We take the risk. We are responsible for the time, the quality, the cost of the project. We take the risk, which means that then we go to the private sector and we, of course, hire most of the time locally - companies, people. So it's really a project management exercise. So the idea of de-risking the implementation is probably the DNA of the organization. 

 

[00:03:51] Melissa Fleming

Why is infrastructure so important, especially for the United Nations? 

 

[00:03:56] Jorge Moreira da Silva

We have some statistics from our research, for instance with Oxford University, that is pretty compelling. 92% of the Sustainable Development Goals, 92% depend on infrastructure. 80% of all greenhouse gas emissions are related to infrastructure. So if we don't get it right, we won't succeed on the SDGs and on climate action. So infrastructure is really a game changer for humanitarian development and peace, for social development and for climate action. 

And if we go to a country like Yemen, would the private sector be ready to go to Yemen or to Mali or to Somalia or to Sudan or to Gaza or to Myanmar? No. So unless the UN is ready to be there and to partner with the country, with the population, with the partners, and put in place the infrastructure, you wouldn't have the private sector going to those places. 

And the tragic thing, as you know very well from your experience because you have been... If there is someone that has been on the ground, it's you. You know from your many years at UN, in some of these countries they are disproportionately affected by all types of crises. When I go to Myanmar they got hit by the massive earthquake, earthquake in Mandalay. A few months before they got a very strong cyclone. They have been in war and conflict for several years. So it's the kind of country where everything happens. You go to Mozambique, it's the same. Now affected by floods, the Idai cyclone some years ago. 

So you have some countries that are disproportionately affected by all types of crises, and those countries are very often the lowest on the hierarchy of funding. And that's why we are very committed to supporting everyone in the world, but particularly those that face somehow a market failure that the private sector wouldn't go there unless there is someone de-risking the investment and de-risking the implementation. 

 

 

[00:06:05] Melissa Fleming

Could you give us an example of a project that you have implemented and that you're particularly proud of? 

 

[00:06:11] Jorge Moreira da Silva

That's the difficult question because out of the 1,000 projects a year, we are very proud about those projects. But let me pick one example related to climate. The early warning systems in Timor-Leste to prevent the crisis, to assure that Timor-Leste is well equipped to anticipate when a storm is coming. Another example is mangrove protection in Kiribati, very much affected by climate impacts. But the other example on mitigation is in Sierra Leone where we have constructed mini grids and micro grids powered by solar energy to get access to hospitals and schools in remote areas. Because in some areas in Africa, as you know, big transmission lines, cross continental transmission lines are very expensive and not possible to implement. So if you are dealing with remote areas in Africa, you can do it with new technologies, which are mini grids. So, small grids, mini grids, micro grids with batteries, with solar energy. 

And this has been an excellent solution, namely in Sierra Leone, but also in many other countries in Africa. This is the kind of thing that shows that infrastructure is not like bricks or steel. It's about providing social basic human needs. And I could speak about Myanmar, how we run the health centres in Myanmar. Or in Afghanistan, where one of the most beautiful projects that we are running in one of most difficult countries in the world. And in Afghanistan we have found a way to support the people without supporting the regime. We have found a way to provide livelihoods to 15 million people in Afghanistan. How? 

 

[00:08:10] Melissa Fleming

15 million? 

 

[00:08:12] Jorge Moreira da Silva

Yes, 15 million people have benefited from a project called Community Resilience and Livelihoods. What is this project? We are rehabilitating roads, streets, water canals, paying men and women to do the job. So it's a cash for work project where we hire men and women to do this kind of light maintenance and infrastructure work and they get the job. 

And I spoke with the women and with the men there. When I went to Kabul, but also to Herat, and to all these villages where we are doing the job, many, many women told me, 'If it wouldn't be this project, the fact that you are paying us to do this job, we wouldn't have any conditions to give bread and food to the table because we have lost our husbands. Or unfortunately some of them got addicted to drugs or are injured.' And in many, many houses in Afghanistan, the only source of income are women. That's why it's so important, this kind of... 

 

[00:09:19] Melissa Fleming

And yet, often they are also not allowed to work. 

 

[00:09:23] Jorge Moreira da Silva

Exactly. But you can see that even in one of the most difficult places to work and to ensure that the women can work at UN and can benefit from the project, we still have found a way. It's based on the communities. My team at UNOPS, they go to small villages, and they spend hours with the communities. And it's the communities deciding what's the road, the street, that should be rehabilitated. The road that connects the market with the village and with the school. Or the water canal to be cleaned. 

So you can see how beautiful is this project, and in one of the most difficult places to operate. So when I hear some people saying that 'Oh, we can't work in this country because it's a de facto [inaudible]. We can't work in this county because of the regime.' I said, 'Yeah. It depends on the way you work.' 

 

[00:10:15] Melissa Fleming

Well, it is... Their concern is diversion. That's the biggest concern of donors in countries where they don't approve of the regime. 

 

[00:10:23] Jorge Moreira da Silva

But that's why we can't be silent. When I met the Taliban... And I met the Taliban, I said bluntly in Kabul, 'You will never get international community coming back to this country with the support you need, unless you bring girls back to the schools and you accept women to have the access to all the professions they want and they deserve.' So you can still be blunt and honor the principles of the UN and at the same time deliver on the ground. 

So what I'm telling the donors is: 'Let's not use as an excuse the fact that it's difficult to operate in a country, not to operate in the country.' It depends on the way we work and if, for instance, women are restricted... And we have done that when our colleagues couldn't go to work. We stopped the project. And this is the kind of principled approach that I think that we need to take. But always trying to find a solution because we can't punish the people. So we have to find a way. We always need to find a way to support people directly. 

 

[00:11:32] Melissa Fleming

I believe you recently visited Gaza. What did you see? 

 

[00:11:36] Jorge Moreira da Silva

It's my third time in Gaza since October the 7th. So in the last 27 months, I went to Gaza three times. This time I could see more food in the markets, in the streets, but that's the only good news. I was completely shocked, Melissa, by the devastation. Again, I visited Gaza six months ago. I visited at the beginning of the war. I've seen devastation. But the kind of devastation that I could witness two weeks ago is much higher than six months ago. Basically, Gaza now is rubble and tents. 

And it's not like going to a refugee camp. You know refugee camps. You have been working there. In the good refugee camps you have proper sheltering. You have tents that can stand. That's not Gaza. What I saw in Gaza is not really tents. I saw some tents, but most of the kind of things where people stay overnight are not really tents. I went to Gaza in the same week of the big storms and heavy rains. Children dying, freezing. I saw children walking with no shoes, 300,000 kids with no access to schools. They are floating around in Gaza. They have no place to go because the tents are not safe. So they are basically on the streets. And this is heartbreaking. 

The people that I saw in Gaza, with whom I engaged in Gaza, they are not waiting for reconstruction only. Reconstruction is key, but reconstruction requires planning, requires $52 billion, requires proper governance. My point is we can't wait for the reconstruction to bring what the people need immediately. And it's not rocket science. It's pretty easy. Rubble removal. We must remove the rubble, 60 million tonnes of rubble. It's equivalent to 30 tonnes per person in Gaza. Demining. Removal of unexploded ordnance. In that rubble, you have mines. You have unexploded ordnance. You have asbestos. You have human remains. So the kind of operation can't be amateur. It's crucial to immediately bring whatever is needed to remove the mines, the unexploded ordnance, to do waste management. 

 

 

Then you need fuel. UNOPS, as you know, is the agency that is bringing the fuel every day to Gaza and distributing the fuel inside Gaza. It's what helps bakeries, hospitals, the desalination, the sewage partially functioning. We need stable provision of fuel. And I've been exchanging with donors that we can't be in a situation where we don't know next month, so we forget the fuel. Or next week. This is key. 

The other thing that to be crucial and again, not rocket science, is repairing the power plant. The power plant in Gaza was responsible before the war for 50% of the electricity. The rest was the transmission lines. With our engineers we went to the power plant, and we saw that we can in three months repair 40 megawatts of the power plant, and in the remaining six months repairing 100 megawatts. Which means that in 10 months we can have the full functioning of the power plant. But in the next three months, we could already have one third of the power plant functioning. And the kind of money that is needed, it's $10 million. So, $10 million would help the people in Gaza have access to electricity. 

Then we need to do damage assessment of the buildings, to mark the buildings that are almost collapsing. And as you know, in the last few weeks, most of the deaths in Gaza were on the collapsing of the buildings. I can continue listing. Like repairing the networks - water, sewage, sanitation, electricity. 

 

[00:15:59] Melissa Fleming

Hospitals. 

 

[00:16:00] Jorge Moreira da Silva

Hospitals. Sheltering - prefabs. Rather than tents, we should bring prefabs to Gaza. So the UN knows what is needed and the UN can do it. 

 

[00:16:10] Melissa Fleming

What's preventing...? 

 

[00:16:11] Jorge Moreira da Silva

What is preventing is first, the political will and then the funding. The second thing is the dual use. My team and other teams can't do rubble removal if heavy machinery is forbidden. We can't repair the power plant in Gaza if the spare parts are forbidden. We can't bring solar systems with mini grids and with batteries if the solar panels and the batteries are forbidden. And this requires political will. So it's important that Israel agrees that early recovery is a basic human need to the people, and therefore restrictions must be lifted. So this is the kind of practical thing that we need to fix. It's not just the funding. 

 

[00:17:02] Melissa Fleming

You sound a bit frustrated. How do you...? 

 

[00:17:03] Jorge Moreira da Silva

I'm very frustrated. I'm deeply frustrated. 

 

[00:17:07] Melissa Fleming

How do you deal with that feeling of frustration? 

 

[00:17:09] Jorge Moreira da Silva

Well, I try to channel the frustration to reformism and to find a solution. So I don't channel the frustrations to nostalgia. I don't tend to get nostalgic. I try to channel my frustration, which is the reason, which is what keeps me awake at night since I started my public service. Channel this frustration about injustice to solutions. I wouldn't say that I'm utopian, but I think that there is always a way if you find the right solutions and the right arguments. Because when you engage with people with intelligent arguments, with compassion, but at the same time with rational arguments, you engage in a conversation that delivers always something. 

So I'm quite hopeful that we will find a way in the short term to bring more aid to Gaza. The reactions that I'm getting from Member States, from these kinds of practical ideas that I am sharing with you, Melissa, gives me hope because everyone gets surprised about how much could be done with so little money. Now it's up to the Member States to engage among themselves. We are not here to do politics, but at the same time we are the UN and therefore we have to serve the people and address the bottlenecks. And when things are wrong, we say that they are wrong. When we see impunity, we have to say that there is impunity. When we see that there is lack of political will, we have to say there is a lack of will. 

 

[00:18:52] Melissa Fleming

Or obstruction. 

 

[00:18:52] Jorge Moreira da Silva

Or obstruction. But look, Melissa...

 

[00:18:56] Melissa Fleming

When you see the lives...I mean, in a way, what you're describing is infrastructure that I wouldn't say necessarily saves lives, but in many ways it does. What it does do is it delivers human dignity. 

 

[00:19:14] Jorge Moreira da Silva

Yes, and human dignity... The Sustain Development Goals are not a technocratic construction with 17 goals and 169 targets and 232 indicators. It's all about human dignity and the idea of interdependence. And I think this element of fairness, of human dignity is the conversation that we need to bring. 

So for me one of the big challenges we face now on multilateralism at the UN is how can we bring these conversations to taxpayers and to voters. So that I understand that there are costs of inaction, that what we don't invest in solidarity is negative not only for those we should support and help, but also for ourselves. This is the kind of conversation that we need to bring to the national level. 

And I have lots of hope in the youth. And I think that the Pact for the Future, the fact that the Secretary-General brought the youth to the cockpit, literally to the cockpit. The fact that the UN is so much engaging with the youth is giving me hope that some of the injustice that we are seeing in the world could be, if not overcome, at least mitigated with joint solutions. And the UN is still the best place to find these kinds of joint solutions 

 

[00:20:39] Melissa Fleming

Absolutely. I think we're seeing a kind of... You know, in a way when everything is under threat and the world is in crisis, it is the time when people pull together who believe in global cooperation and believe in investing, in making big investments in humanity and peace. 

 

[00:21:00] Jorge Moreira da Silva

And I think it's also important... Melissa, again, in your podcast, you often bring colleagues that tell amazing stories, particularly those that come from the ground. But I think it's also important that Members States know the kind of risks that UN colleagues face when they serve the people. 2025 was awful. It was the worst year for the UN in terms of the negative impact on the people that work at UN, the number of humanitarians that lost their lives. The number of people that were detained. 

And I'm going to tell you one story that is inspirational from one of these cases. In Gaza, as you know, March last year, we got a strike in the UNOPS guesthouse that killed a colleague, Marin, and it injured six other colleagues. The year before we got our colleague, Loai, that also lost his life with 20 other members of his family, except the daughter of nine years that survived. What I couldn't believe was when I went to Gaza two weeks ago, I saw one of the colleagues that was severely injured in March. He was again in Gaza. Joel Fournet was severely injured in Gaza. He's 62. Almost retiring. Working at UN for many years. He was severely injured when Marin was killed. And the first thing that he did after healing was go back to Gaza. 

This is the kind of unique profile that you get at UN. He could be in a very safe place. He could work in many other places. But the first thing that he wanted was to go back to Gaza. So this is the kind of thing that shows how unique is the UN. And I really hope that the Member States understand that funding the UN is not funding fat or luxury. It's getting these colleagues of mine and many other colleagues to be at the service of those who need it most. Without UN, people wouldn't have access to basic things in those difficult places. 

 

[00:23:33] Melissa Fleming

I really get from you that you are seeing the images of these people - not only our colleagues who are serving on the front lines often at great danger to themselves - but also the images of the people they're helping. And I recall that you recently also visited Ukraine. 

 

 

[00:23:51] Jorge Moreira da Silva

Yes. 

 

[00:23:51] Melissa Fleming

And I'm just wondering what you saw there and what struck you from that visit. 

 

[00:23:57] Jorge Moreira da Silva

Again, in Ukraine the devastation is awful. One example - the schools. When I went to Odessa and then Mykolaiv, I saw the schools totally destroyed. And the headmaster, she told me that, 'My kids, the students, they have not had access to education coming to the school during COVID and now during war.' So we have kids in Ukraine that for six years they have been having access to education remotely but not going to the school. So we are...

 

[00:24:39] Melissa Fleming

How does that make you feel when you see that a school is a target? 

 

[00:24:45] Jorge Moreira da Silva

It's completely shocking and it's against all international humanitarian laws, which is another thing that we are witnessing. This time it's different. Because this time we see in Gaza, in Ukraine, in Sudan, we see that even civilians are a target. And even if civilian infrastructure is a target... And even as the Secretary-General often says, even war has rules. And this time we are witnessing wars and conflicts that are not fulfilling the basic rules, namely don't target civilians. Don't target civilian infrastructure. Don't block access of aid. 

 

[00:25:33] Melissa Fleming

What is keeping you awake at night? 

 

[00:25:34] Jorge Moreira da Silva

What keeps me awake at night is injustice, all kinds of injustices. The climate injustice of the impact that we are creating today, but also for our children and grandchildren. The injustice within countries and between countries. The injustice of those that live under conflict. The injustice of kids that don't take the social elevator. And if they are born poor, they remain poor themselves, their grandchildren, and then great grandchildren for generations. This is what keeps me awake at night. 

Which means that it doesn't matter if it is the UN or at the national level or local level, it's always the same topic. I often... I change jobs often. I've been on national politics, on international level, academia. But the topic is always the same - sustainable development and climate action. So what keeps me awake at night is, on the one hand, how to address injustice, not just social ones. But especially what keeps me awake at night is how to overcome that. I'm still highly motivated and excited about the can-do job. So I'm in the perfect organization. UNOPS, we tend to say that we have the can-do attitude. And I think that that's the UN. It's not UNOPS. It's the UN, which is an amazing organization. 

 

[00:27:05] Melissa Fleming

Jorge, you kind of mentioned this throughout our conversation, that you have had roles as a politician. You were even an academic in your home country of Portugal. I'm curious actually what led you from these roles to the United Nations. 

 

[00:27:24] Jorge Moreira da Silva

As I mentioned, I've been always on the topic of sustainable development, climate action. I started my public service... Well, I wouldn't say public service but at least my civic activities at school, mobilizing colleagues against pollution from a company, steel production near our school. So, I started my civic activities, trying to fix a problem, at the time on environment. Then I engaged in national politics. I became the leader of the youth organization of my party at the national level. I've been Secretary of State, a minister. 

 

[00:28:07] Melissa Fleming

Weren't you in politics the same time as Ant¨®nio Guterres was Prime Minister? 

 

[00:28:10] Jorge Moreira da Silva

I was in a totally different party. And by the way, I was leading the opposition at the time against Ant¨®nio Guterres, the Prime Minister. So I was organizing demonstrations of students against, at the time, the Prime Minister, Ant¨®nio Guterres. So he was Prime Minister and I was the leader of the youth organization of my party that was very different, another party. And which is interesting from a historical point of view. 

 

[00:28:43] Melissa Fleming

I guess he's forgiven you because he hired you. 

 

[00:28:43] Jorge Moreira da Silva

I guess so but also shows that life really goes fast. It looks like yesterday and it was 30 years ago. But as I said, I was Member of the European Parliament, Member of National Parliament, Secretary of State, minister in four different cabinets. I went to the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development]. 

And then I ran to the UN, to UNOPS for two reasons. One was helping on implementation because I was at OECD designing policies, standards, norms. And I wanted to be on the other side, which was really doing the job on the ground, getting the job done, not designing policies. Just getting the job done. 

The second reason was helping rescuing [inaudible] organization. UNOPS faced a massive crisis four years ago, one of the most known crises in the UN system. And I have... In my time at the government as minister, I was part also of a rescue operation when we had the bailout of Portugal. I really like to engage in operations of helping rescue an organization, reforming an organization. So that attracts me a lot from a managerial point of view. 

And indeed, I think in the last three years I've been on the job, we succeeded in rescuing and concluding the reforms. We have now more contracts with partners than before. I didn't fix the organization. I helped fix the organization with my team and it's very rewarding. When you look back and you see that now we are in a different... We turned the page. It's one of the reasons why I came to the UN. 

 

 

[00:30:38] Melissa Fleming

Did your family encourage you to go into this kind of public service line of work? 

 

[00:30:46] Jorge Moreira da Silva

We are a very politicized family. My wife, my kids, we talk a lot about politics. By the way, nobody is aligned with my previous political ideology, so which shows how diverse is my home. But I don't have politicians in family. My father was involved once we had the revolution... After the revolution he was involved at the local level in politics, but I don't have any, I would say, impetus from a family point of view. But everyone always encouraged me very much to do the service and to be on the public service. I'm very fortunate because my family, they have been living well with the fact that I'm not with them. So this is quite difficult...

 

[00:31:43] Melissa Fleming

How old are your kids? 

 

[00:31:45] Jorge Moreira da Silva

I have... My son Jo?o is 27. My daughter Maria is 22. And my daughter Madalena is 17. My wife Mariana is in Lisbon. I'm not in Lisbon. The family is split, but I think that when they see the result of what we are doing at UN, we all are doing it at UN, I think that they are all happy with the fact that there is one of the members of the family that is contributing. 

 

[00:32:22] Melissa Fleming

Well, they're contributing too by supporting you doing this work. 

 

[00:32:24] Jorge Moreira da Silva

Yes. So that's the point. I wouldn't be able... I know how difficult it is. I know other colleagues that have more difficulties than I have because fortunately I've had always this support from the family to operate in this way that is not very common, which is I live basically in a plane or in Copenhagen while they are in another part of the world. But we have some routines which make my life a bit more difficult, which is I go almost every weekend to see the family. It's my cost and it's my pleasure. But you can see that as always happens with the families, we always find a way to... When there is love, we always find a way to remain connected. 

 

[00:33:23] Melissa Fleming

When you are not with your family, you have to decompress at some point and I'm just wondering what do you do to relax? 

 

[00:33:30] Jorge Moreira da Silva

I'm going to tell you something that will surprise you. I fly. I'm almost finishing... Well, I run. I play tennis. I do those kinds of things that are normal. But then I do something that has been my dream since I was a kid. And I decided to take flight lessons. So I'm finishing... I just miss three hours of... I fly ultralight. And I already fly alone. So I was [inaudible] as a solo flight some months ago. So I took these flight lessons over weekends and online, the theory, for one year. And it's where I decompress. 

And you can't imagine the number of metaphors that I've been developing based on flights, and I bring it to the UN80 reform. So the idea that we need a new layout of the plane to get a better lift, to have more reach, to climb to higher altitude. And you can't do it unless you have a new layout of the plane. So that's the kind of thing that unfortunately my colleagues are getting too often, which is now that I fly, which is an amazing sensation. When you fly a plane alone, it's something unbelievable. Now I tend to bring these metaphors to change management, but I hope that they forgive me. 

 

[00:34:51] Melissa Fleming

I'm sure that they'll forgive you. That's a good metaphor, and it's probably a place where, you know, no one can reach you on the phone and you're not listening to news. 

 

[00:35:02] Jorge Moreira da Silva

I literally clean my mind when I am up there. 

 

[00:35:06] Melissa Fleming

And thinking about how you can change the world or the UN. 

 

[00:35:10] Jorge Moreira da Silva

I still have that utopian... I'm a bit utopian. 

 

[00:35:14] Melissa Fleming

Utopian. And if you could create your utopian vision of the world, what would you see? 

 

[00:35:20] Jorge Moreira da Silva

Okay, I see a world where the 17 SDGs have been addressed, starting with peace. I think that peace... There is nothing more important than peace. Peace and no poverty and 1.5 ¡ãC. So that's my, I wouldn't say my utopian, but my sustained dream is a world with no war, no poverty, and on track to 1.5 ¡ãC. 

 

[00:35:50] Melissa Fleming

And 1.5 ¡ãC looks like? 

 

[00:35:54] Jorge Moreira da Silva

And 1.5 ¡ãC looks like a balanced world where nature and human beings relate to each other in a balanced manner. And we don't look to nature as our property. And through the respect to nature, respect to the next generations. 

 

[00:36:16] Melissa Fleming

Does that link to the story I read about that you once released an Iberian lynx into the wild, which was an endangered species? 

 

[00:36:23] Jorge Moreira da Silva

Yes, it's one of the things that I'm most proud of is the Iberian lynx was extinct. It was declared under extinction and with a new project funded by the European Union, Portugal and Spain started the process of recovering the Iberian lynx. And it took maybe 15 years to recover with the lynx being incubated first in a facility. And then finally there was a day where we have to feel sufficiently comfortable to release the first lynx and then to have the normal reproductive path in the environment. And it worked. Can you imagine? Even a species can be recovered. So, if there is a will, there is the way. You see why I remain optimist because, you know, if you can recover the lynx, maybe you can get 1.5¡ãC and even get peace in Gaza and in Afghanistan. Whatever, but... 

 

[00:37:37] Melissa Fleming

I think that is a wonderful metaphor for the way you mobilize to recover the most devastated parts of the world and show that how when we all come together, we can create beauty and hope. So thank you so much, Jorge. 

 

 

[00:37:59] Jorge Moreira da Silva

Thank you, Melissa. 

 

[00:38:00] Melissa Fleming

And wishing you all the best in this work. 

 

[00:38:03] Jorge Moreira da Silva

Thank you. 

 

[00:38:04] Melissa Fleming

And all the best for everything that you do in building the infrastructure that is so needed in the most fragile places on earth. 

 

[00:38:18] Jorge Moreira da Silva

Thank you. 

 

[00:38:18] Melissa Fleming

Thank you for listening to Awake at Night. We'll be back soon with more incredible and inspiring stories from people working against huge challenges to make this world a better and safer place.

To find out more about the series and the extraordinary people featured, do visit . Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and please take the time to review us. It helps more people to find the show. 

Thanks to my editor Bethany Bell and to my colleagues at the UN: Katerina Kitidi, Roberta Politi, Geneva Damayanti, Abby Vardeleon, Alison Corbet, Laura Rodriguez de Castro, Eric Balgley, Jason Candler, Benji Candelario, Anzhelika Devis, Tulin Battikhi, Bissera Kostova, Brianna Rowe, Joon Park, and Taeyoung Lee. The original music for this podcast was written and performed by Nadine Shah and produced by Ben Hillier.