 Welcome back to the news now to discuss the warning issues or the issues of Africa's dwindling GDP. We have economist Gospel Obele joining us to stand around. Good evening to you, Gospel. Good evening, Jay. Thank you for coming as always. All right. Now, Africa's GDP depleted by 165 billion in 2020 and made 30 million job losses. In real terms, what is the impact of all of this on the continent's economy? It just simply means that the state of the economy when it comes to economy doesn't seem as inclusive as the numbers may make it seem like, you know, or as political polarities actually make it seem like. It simply means that economic activities are not actually enough to create significant employment or productive employment for people. And that's also because businesses got frustrated within that recovery cycle. So there are cost implications coming along with recovery. Like we've never seen it before, increasing cost pressure, you know, coexisting with that recovery process. So it's a lot more difficult with the economy, especially in the face of the economic crisis. So it's a lot more difficult for businesses to catch up and until businesses can catch up or thrive at a significant level, there may not be any impact on employment. So we take the reverse of the case, which is what we saw in the GDP numbers as well as a drastic, a sharp decline in unemployment as it were. So it's a lot more expected in real terms. All right. There seems to be a challenge of infrastructure financing gap in the continent. How do you think Africa can wriggle out of this? Yes. The challenge exists. And to a very large extent, revenue, mobilization process, revenue size cannot form infrastructure programs. Quite honestly. I mean infrastructure could cost the whole lot. And the kind of infrastructure Africa needs, looking at its population as well, its population goes at almost 3%. We need some level of smart infrastructure. I mean infrastructure, I can take that population goal. So it's a lot of financing process, a lot of technical power that has to come. So the goal is to think of creative ways in terms of that fact, all right? No. Yeah. You may have issues borrowing, but that's a critical block of option as it were. Because infrastructures are a capital project, and it properly does, all right, has high returns on investment, and very productive returns on the population. So all of these things coming together would boost GDP in such a way that it can significantly create jobs, all right, for a critical mass of the population. So if a structural product is here as well, and as much as a critical chunk of your own, I won't do the process. All right, now, the AFDB president says to address the socioeconomic impact of the pandemic and support economic recovery. Africa will need some $484 billion over the next three years, and to eliminate extreme poverty by 2030, the continent will need $418 to $784 billion per year. How do you think the African continent can go about achieving this? Very honestly, I don't think the African continent can achieve or eliminate poverty by 2030. The conversations around poverty goes beyond just financing, all right? They're key structural and extractive institutional elements, all right, that creates the poverty trap to see today. All right, the poverty trap to see today is such that the African continent, let me use what David and Julia, all right, cannot aspire to become more because he or she is trapped with the daily reality of just trying to survive. And the elements of inflation, as it were, or the pressure point of inflation on the average African or average Nigerian, like they said, each country, each land, laden, all right, on the basic necessities of life, all right? So think of it that this way. Is it possible to eliminate or reduce poverty when the average city is increasingly experiencing the rising cost of living on a daily basis, on the core basic necessities of living? All right, so think about the bearer. So if you have that on the table, then it tells you that there is a trap and it's like a vicious cycle of poverty. That trap is due to be created by policies that come back to hurt the economy. By control and people, I tell us it comes back to hurt the economy. So no matter how much you want to do on the table, no matter how much of the development goes from the session, you talk about how you should have a know that, all right, it still boils down to dealing with the structural, institutional, financial, and cultural elements, all right, that have created and sort of created the cycle of that trap over the next. Until that trap is broken and until extracting institutions move to inclusive institutional governments and where an proper leadership sustained by a period of time, we may not see any significant improvement in poverty and levels. No more time to have money or financing made up of it.