 Good afternoon from Helsinki and welcome to this latest UNU wider webinar part of our continuing series on how COVID-19 is changing development. My name is Rachel Gisselquist and I'm a senior research fellow here at UNU wider. So I'm very pleased to be joined today by two very distinguished colleagues. Our first, the first speaker is having some difficulties in connecting so we might, he might become our second speaker, but our scheduled first speaker is his excellently Dr. Arkebe Okabe, who is delivering a presentation on COVID-19 crisis and implement and implications for economic development of developing countries. And then our second speaker and our discussant will be Professor Tony Addison. I think we should have a good amount of time for open discussion including questions, well I should say in particular questions from you the audience. And as possible I'll plan to unmute some of you to ask your questions so I'm really pleased to have all of you joining us here today. The current pandemic constitutes not only a public health emergency but also an economic crisis, including deepening economic disparities. As we've been exploring and research at UNU wider over the past year. COVID-19 has exposed the vulnerabilities of economies and developing countries, and is in his presentation. Dr. Okabe will focus on the effects of COVID-19 in developing and emerging economies, the lessons learned and policy implications. His analysis draws on extensive research into issues of economic development, and in particular three recent books published last year in 2020 by Oxford University Press. The first was released in June, entitled African Economic Development Evidence Theory and Policy by Christopher Cramer, John Sender and Dr. Okabe. The book has already received numerous accolades, been fine in the developing economies, notes that if this book were read and acted upon, prospects for development economics and for economic development for Africa would be significantly brighter. Not content with just one book in 2020, Dr. Okabe also published two Oxford Handbooks, the Oxford Handbook of Industrial Hubs and Economic Development, edited with Professor Justin Lin, and second the Oxford Handbook of Industrial Policy, edited with professors Christopher Cramer, John Sender, Dr. Okabe, and Dr. Cramer, John Sender, and Richard Kozolright. So in this webinar, we're also very pleased to help celebrate the publication of these three important volumes. Today, Dr. Okabe is a senior minister and special advisor to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia. He's also I'm pleased to say a UNU wider honorary research fellow. And he's been working at the center of policy making and government leadership for over 30 years. He's currently a candidate for the post of Director General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. He's been in leadership positions, including founding Chancellor of Addis Ababa Science and Technology University and Mayor of Addis Ababa. And he's currently Professor of Practice at the University of Johannesburg, visiting professor at Sciences Po, and Nanyang Technological University, and a distinguished visiting professor at Fudan University. Christine named him as one of the 100 most influential Africans in 2016, and a leading thinker on Africa's strategic development. Professor Tony Addison, who was previously the chief economist and deputy director here with us at UNU wider. We're very pleased to welcome him back with us today. And he is currently the professor. He's currently professor of economics in the University of Copenhagen's development economics research group, and an honorary non resident senior research fellow with you in UNU wider. He's also held a number of positions and he's written extensively on issues of economic policy and development. His latest book is extractive industries, the management of resources as a driver of sustainable development. And he is currently working on the outlook for the extractive industries in the light of climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. So with further ado, I'd like to turn over to our speakers. And I think Dr. Okabe has not yet been able to join us so we're going to start with with Tony's permission with Tony, with our discussant and then we'll, so we'll shift the order a little bit today. So please Tony. I'd like to make something of a change of plan here but never mind. This is the world of the digital economy and zoom that we all live in now. So, perhaps I could sort of set the scene for us by taking us back over a year now and I think probably you feel as I do that. It's just been quite an amazing period since January 2020 when we first learned of the COVID virus. I do hope you're all well out there and that, you know, I mean, I know some of us have suffered terribly through the loss of family and friends and this is a sort of deeply human tragedy. It's also obviously a massive economic event and the economics, the economic impact of COVID both both adds to the health crisis, because particularly in poorer countries you, you have people living on very little income who find it very difficult to cope you, you have to go out and work if you're a day, a day laborer in South Asia. If you're an African farmer, you have to feed your family, you just simply have to be out there in the economy and it's very hard for people to do what we do in the advanced economies, like I'm doing at the moment sitting here in Finland, in relative comfort and working, working online. So the economic impact of the COVID crisis is, is added to the health crisis. And also, obviously, the ability of governments to respond to the crisis varies considerably across the world. So here in the, in the advanced economies, we've had absolutely an unprecedented response. Every government now is pretty much a Keynesian government and the Keynesian government on a scale that would be an unimaginable just two years ago with the magnitude of public spending, and also the accumulation of sovereign debt of public debt to finance the shortfall in tax revenues because those economies have taken a big hit, so their revenues have taken a big hit. And of course, the unprecedented action in the advanced economies of the central banks, driving interest rates and the cost of borrowing to extremely low levels, unprecedentedly low levels. In order to allow governments in the advanced economies to finance that public debt. The actions of the policy makers in the advanced economies have implications for the middle income countries and the low income countries, which have far fewer possibilities of managing fiscal and monetary policy in a way to try and both keep their economies from undergoing deep recessions but also to provide room for the increased health spending, the increased social protection, and all of the measures which have been necessary and absolutely essential to get us through the health crisis. I mean, if you turn to the middle income countries first you think about the Latin American countries where the COVID prevalence is extremely severe. Basically, we're seeing a very large scale accumulation of public debt in those countries. We're also seeing the accumulation of debt in Africa, and to a degree in Asia. And that's been facilitated by the low interest rates because the low interest rates these countries are still being attractive to lenders. But a great deal of this borrowing is actually on that floating interest rates. It's often dollar denominated and one consequence of the Federal Reserve action is the dollar has been quite weak. So there's a vulnerability that countries are borrowing extremely large sums in dollars, principally, with the dollar at quite a low exchange rate. And that's sort of working for the moment, but there's obviously a risk going forward, because the dollar can strengthen as the US economy strengthens as the US itself comes out of the COVID crisis and the US is doing better than we would have expected six months ago. And of course global interest rates will rise at some point. So there's a vulnerability in the global financial system. And a lot of warnings, a lot of red flags going up about debt, but but governments really have little alternative but to borrow if they can have this stage. So that's, that's a, that's a problem and indicates a sort of more of a structural problem that we've known about for years for decades really which is that the global financial system doesn't really work very well for developing countries we don't simply have enough concessional lending. We don't have effective mechanisms for debt workouts. And we simply don't have a international financial system that really works for middle income and low income countries, and to a degree, the ample liquidity that's flowing around the global economy at this point in time is sort of covering that systemic weakness but I do get worried as we get a year or two outward and forward. What really is going to happen with some of these countries and their very large commercial borrowing. And there's a big difference with the HIPAA the so-called HIPAA crisis of 20 years ago, when countries were largely borrowing from the donor community on concessional terms, and that crisis took a long time to work out but you know the donors were quite willing to write off the debt they didn't have actually much choice. But a lot of the borrowing of low income countries is actually on commercial terms as I said, and commercial creditors are people who want their money back they want the principal and the interest back they want to be repaid. And they're not really that concerned about how it's done so you know if you have to reduce your health spending in order to service your external debt. Well, a commercial creditor largely doesn't have a view on that whereas a donor creditor does. So that's a big problem and a weakness in the system. And we've already seen some countries in debt default Zambia last year. Some other countries you know had to go through debt restructuring and work outs Argentina and so forth. Now the next outcome is that even with the increased borrowing and middle income and low income countries. If you look at the IMF data on the size of the fiscal stimulus they've been able to put through. It's far less. It's about one quarter. And that's one of the fiscal stimulus that we've seen in the advanced economies. You know at Tanzania, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Liberia, it can't do what the Federal Reserve can do with interest rates can't do what the Bank of England can do. Borrowers will happily buy British Guilts US treasuries. So that's the scope, even though you can sell more debt at the stage in the cycle, as you do in the advanced economies. So their fiscal space is really very, very constrained. And that's a that's a real problem in responding to the crisis. Now, if we think about if we go back, you know, last year and I wrote a paper by canal, a rose a paper on the crisis with canal send director of wider and Finn Tarp previous director and Professor at Copenhagen. We wrote a paper on the macroeconomic dimensions of code it came out just about a year ago. And I was reviewing that paper the other day because it's, it's really quite interesting to look back, you know, at one's early impressions of the crisis. And last year I must admit I was deeply deeply pessimistic by March 2020 about how the prospects were really going to work out. In particular, we didn't know where China was going to be. And, you know, China now is such a big part of the global economy in a way that it wasn't say during the crisis of 20 years ago or even 10 years ago during the global financial crisis. That is really, really very, very important in terms of particularly commodities. So China was a big factor in this we just didn't know how China was going to evolve in the crisis. One of the upsides of the crisis has actually been China's recovery. China has been motoring quite strongly. Certainly it's demand for commodities. This has been extremely strong. And that demand for commodities has been actually one of the big surprises of the COVID crisis. Because normally when you get a macroeconomic shock of this dimension commodity prices collapse. And that initially happened. In February, March, April last year, particularly the oil price crashed to extremely low levels. Oil fell to about $20 on the international price and indeed on the American price it actually went negative, which meant the producers were paying people to take oil away. It was that bad. So for the oil price, for the oil producers, the crisis was extremely bad last year. The oil prices recovered. It's not where it was a couple of years ago, but it actually has recovered somewhat. And of course the dipping oil prices was good for countries that were importing large amounts of oil, particularly in Africa because they could get cheaper amounts of oil. And that would apply to India as well. It's got a boost from that because India is an extremely large oil importer. But they're really big surprise and this really did surprise me. And this is shows you why economists are not necessarily very good at predicting things, because my prediction was that the metals prices and indeed the prices of soft commodities like agricultural products would really fare very badly. Because that's typically what we've seen in previous macroeconomic shocks. But actually if you look now today, metals prices the price of copper is way above what it was at the start of the pandemic. And it's the more exotic metals like the cobalt and lithium, which you're going to go into those electric car batteries that you're going to be using to drive around in. They've just gone, you know, like a bonanza, you know, iron or even the most basic thing like iron or that's really good for those producers. So, you know, Xambia is in has been in debt default. It's a big copper producer. So, you know, it's getting assistance on that side of the balance of payments. And the other metals producers, including the Latin Americans, lithium from Chile, for example. The other thing though that's this happened. And this has come to the soft commodities is that the prices of agricultural commodities are now rising very strongly. And obviously that's good if you're an exporter of agricultural commodities like soybeans from Latin America and part this is a China story because China has been as it's recovered. It's opening up again Chinese are eating at restaurants where they're eating. They're eating some imported food in large volumes, right. So this is pretty good for the exporters of food commodities but one thing that we flagged up last year at the start of the crisis was really to watch food prices on the consumer side. And then this is still a really big worry for me. Because a lot of countries are actually net food importers, you know, a lot of countries actually in Africa, particularly West Africa and net food importers, they grow their own food crops but they import say, you know, a lot of rice. And we've weak currencies and currencies have generally weakened in those countries, the cost of imported food has been rising. It's been going up as strongly as we feared but there are pressures there, there are pressures in the system. Because one, one, you know, dimension that we know of shocks that really transmits very quickly to down to poor people is actually food prices and food costs. Back in 2008 2009, you'll recall we not only had a global financial crisis we actually had a global food price spike at the time. And wider has actually done some very interesting work. Here's a, here's an advert for why does research program pair pinstrap Anderson as a book you can download on that period and a very interesting book because it gives a lot of examples about how governments at the time had to respond to those food price shocks. So that's been a, that's been a really big concern I think that's a big concern going forward, because you know as the advanced economies open up. But for example in the UK Brits are all absolutely mad to get down to the restaurants they're going to the pubs again. They're, you know, they're eating out. All of this is going to be putting pressure on global food prices together with Chinese top piling, and so forth. And these food price shocks can transmit themselves very quickly through the system, particularly down to poor people. There's a big concern going forward and it'd be interesting to get the reactions of the audience on that. Because, you know, although we're all desperate for the recovery. And there's this wonderful phrase called build back better, which is almost sort of completely empty and devoid of content, but we all love it, because hey, you know who would want to build back any worse. Right, so we're going to build back better. We're going to achieve that. Well, you know, in the advanced economies, and to a degree in some of the middle income ones. We have social protection systems. We can expand those social protection systems quite readily. We have a fiscal constraint but as I've said we're all Keynesians now, at least for the moment. And of course, you know a lot of people will be going back to work. So they're not necessarily going to need to be on a furlough scheme. The advanced economies and some of the middle income economies that have developed social protection, you know a large part of the build back better will be an enhanced social protection system. And we need that because it's quite evident that Kobe it is with us. Well, perhaps perpetually, you know, like the annual influenza. And we're going to need to respond we might have to have future furloughs future lockdowns. So, you know, every advanced middle income country is going to be putting in some fiscal space to expand their social protection system as part of build back better. But the low income countries. Yeah. Some of them, you know, a pretty innovative on social protection. They're doing kind of okay with it. But, you know, they do not have the fiscal resources because ultimately, they're poor economies. They might be raising some of the taxes to fund their social protection expansion. And, you know, there's a lot of wider work on taxation for development and, you know, how we might expand the taxation system but unfortunately, you know a lot of taxes that you can quite easily expand the taxes that generally fall on the average citizen. High income individuals are quite good at escaping taxes. So there's a kind of tension there, right. The low income country is going to do a lot of social sorry a lot of international systems to really build those social protection systems in a way that they need. And if they don't have them, then they're going to just be stuck with what we have at the moment, which is very hard for them to protect themselves from the health crisis, but also to build back better. So, that's one dimension of the build back better story. But I think we've been joined by our main speaker now. So, having done the, the warm up act for you. I think probably Rachel want to hand over. And you know that. Thank you. Thank you, Tony. So we've covered a lot of ground and welcome. It's nice to see you. Thanks. I know you had some connectivity and computer problems and we're happy to have you here today so I've done a brief introduction and then Tony's given his discussant comments first, but there's a lot of issues to talk about. And we've also introduced your three books as well so we're celebrating the publication of the three books as well. So why don't I turn over to you without further ado. Thank you. Thank you, Rachel and thank you, Tony, and dear participants. Apology my sincere apology for my connection problems. And I'm very glad that I feel delighted to be part of this panel and discussion. I should also express my appreciation for any wider for being the lead organization in debates on on on development issues in development economics, and I believe participants will benefit from from this panel. Actually, we have seen the worst crisis incomparable in the last century I would say, and the three books, which Tony may have been referring. They were all published in the middle of COVID-19. That is, if there is any common factor. Also, these books were initiated earlier some years back. They are the outcome and the output of years of scholarly work by many lead researchers and thinkers, but all were released in 2020 in the middle of COVID-19. There are three fundamental box that focus on key issues. African economic development, a collaborative work with Professor Kramer and Professor Sender is an amazing book and I should say that since it was released, as it is also open access it has been downloaded 100,000 times as the highest art university at Oxford University Press. And we are very delighted because the ultimate purpose of books is that readers will be able to look at them so I have I was telling Tony that because any wider has been leading the open access campaign, we have benefited from on this book as well. And as you could see, the image shows the messy process, the life in the world of policymakers, and I encourage everyone, every participant to download the book, the manuscript, and to read. Not all ideas you may be able to agree, but it's very provocative and it will stimulate you to do further research. The Oxford Handbook of Industrial Policy, a joint work with Hajun-Chan and Christopher Kramer and Richard Cosdride, primarily focuses on industrial policy. And what makes it unique is this is the first Oxford Handbook on industrial policy. This was a term prohibited in the 90s. Now industrial policy is coming back, and this book brings all the issues on industrial policies and debates, and all leading thinkers on industrial policy have contributed to this volume. The Oxford Handbook of Industrial Hubs and Economic Development, this was inspired, especially by efforts of policymakers in developing countries. Everyone talks about special economic zones, technology parks, but there is no much literature work on on the subject. And we all know that manufacturing sector cannot grow, cannot develop without an industrial ecosystem. So we worked on 57 chapters on the key regions of in developing countries, Latin America and Caribbean, Asia and Africa, to thoroughly study country case studies and bring back the theories bring back again issues on application of industrial hubs. And I believe this is a landmark project and I'm very proud and and honored to work on this one together with Justini Fulin. So these three volumes are quite, quite important books. My presentation will primarily focus on COVID-19 crisis, first the impact and then lessons and application to developing countries and I would also like to try to bring three important interrelated issues, especially the climate change, digital transformation and issue of global collaboration to the climate and try to finally bring the issues which have been highlighted in our in our volumes. So let's start. We know that in 1989, the Spanish flu is a well known pandemic. And what makes it different is also not all the data are captured, but according to estimates, one third of global population close to 500 million people have died during this during the Spanish flow. And so far, the COVID-19 pandemic global pandemic which started in 2000, early 2020. And we are in the middle of that crisis. So far, close to 165 people have been affected. And we have to remember that not all data is captured. And also 3.5 close to 3.5 million has been has our lives lost. And now daily, the current weekly status is 600,000 infections every day, this time. This is comparable to the Spanish blue time, despite the scientific advances we have made, despite this is happening after a century. So, this is a very serious pandemic and we also need to understand there are a lot we don't really know, because the data and the evidence are not impartial. Data are being manipulated because of political interests, because of business interests for instance on vaccines. How long does the vaccine serve? Eight months, six months, efficacy level. All these are manipulated by business interests. And also we have seen forecast after forecast that they are less reliable. And there is a lot of unknown. So this is a starting point we need to consider. What makes the COVID-19 crisis quite different is the complexity, the level of depth. First, it's global in nature. And when we compare it with Ebola, with SARS, with Mars, which were a bit regional. And now over 200 countries have reported this pandemic and all countries have been affected by economic crisis. So global in nature, unprecedented in the last one century, and very complicated because it's not only a public health issue. It's also an economic recession. It's also social and political crisis. But our schools, schools are closed. We are going to see the impact of closure of schools, maybe after two decades. We are going to see, we see the impact of this pandemic, the effects, not now, but after a lot of research is for instance in urban structure. So this is a key element we need to understand. And from a long-term perspective, looking beyond this pandemic, what we see is now crisis has become, volatility has become enormous. We have seen in a period of 10 years, we have faced 2008 financial crisis, and now 2020 economic crisis. Frequency of crisis has increased, and because of increased interconnectivity, the impact is also magnified, and the depth of vulnerability is quite significant. So this is an element we need to understand in terms of the long-term pattern. Another key element is unevenness. The cost of the pandemic, the cost of the economic recession have been uneven across countries, across regions, across industries, across different social groups. What we have learned is this is a pandemic, a crisis which has increased, which has aggravated inequalities. The poor have been affected, the women have been more affected, children have been more affected, developing countries have been more affected. And the recovery also is according to recent IMF data as well, we know that recovery is going to be uneven, and uncertainty looms, which is going to affect also productivity of economic growth. Another element we need to consider is the weak global response. This is the first instance beyond the imagination of anyone when crisis has been highly politicized, COVID has been politicized, and we have seen weak global response. On the public health front, on the economic recovery front as well. 16 trillion of risky package has been allocated for economic recovery, but there is no single coordination among countries, among OECD countries, among emerging economies, among G20. So this is where we see a very weak collaboration on the economic recovery side. Also, we see that the current international governance system does not match with the current realities in the 21st century. The existing international governance system was the one that was developed in the middle of 20th century. Now the environment, the situation has changed, and there is a significant mismatch. Let's bring back them to Africa. Africa, we have seen that the effect of the pandemic has been so far, 130 people have, 1000 have died, and close to 5 million has been infected. The data may not have been captured, but one thing is very clear. They infection coverage, and they just are for sure very low. And this is not without reason. People have difficulty to trust that Africa is coping with COVID-19. I have to tell you that it's because every African government acted on time, took bold measures, took swift measures. This was a key element. Secondly, African governments cooperated to work together. African CDC did an excellent job for experience sharing because Ebola has taught us serious lessons. In addition to this, African leaders have put their voice up, demanding what G20 should do, what IMF should do, what World Bank should do. So we have seen unmatched cooperation and international voice of Africa during this time. And what we understand on the responses is that also every government has second responses. The responses are quite diverse. They are different from country to country, and also the level of infection, and these are different across regions, across countries. My country, Ethiopia, the approach my government has followed is not to adopt national lockdown. It can be debatable whether it's proper or not, but the logic behind it was that this crisis is going to stay with us longer. And we cannot shut down the economy where people are living from their daily incomes. So one key has been because the capacity of the government for providing safety net and the possibility the fiscal space is limited. The approach has been to ensure that production continues, daily life continues. That has been the key element. And we have also focused on a targeted support, especially to manufacturers in industrial parks and exporters to give them special support. I should also mention that one of the most significantly affected industry, the aviation industry or airline industry. My API is a key player here with its European Airlines, the largest airlines in the continent, that these airlines also showed resilience and one key element was it had to readjust with the environment, it had to diversify its business to cargo. It converted close 30 aircrafts to cargo, it doubled productivity of cargo planes twice and and without receiving any rescue package. The only airlines perhaps that did not receive any rescue package from government, the airlines in 2020 ended that fiscal year without any loss, without any layoff workers without cutting any benefit. And we are hopeful that in 2021, the same trend will continue. So it was a year to prove resilience of each panel. This is an example that this crisis is also a source of opportunity to improve competitiveness of firms, competitiveness industries, and to live in a new environment. So this has been the approach and also the government acted that PPE personal protection equipment is produced sufficiently for local and for export sector and also PCR testing kits were locally manufactured in last September. These are the efforts that have been made to benefit from the opportunities. Lessons for developing countries is the next point I would like to highlight three points. First, the effect of COVID-19 on developing countries has been twice of what of the effect on developed countries. According to current research, developing countries have been affected twice. But the levels that developed countries have been affected. We have seen 16 trillion assigned for economic stimulus in advanced economies, but developing countries didn't have this luxury and over 125 million people have been pushed below poverty line. And recovery is going to be an appeal process. It's quite clear now that agenda 2030 is already off track. So the lessons for developing countries. First, we have seen that countries economies that have more diversified economies were able to resist this crisis in a better way. Oil producing countries which were depending on oil petroleum face difficulties. These that hadn't diversified with the ones that were worth it. This is a killer. This brings us back to the subject of economic transformation, which is a subject of our these three books. Economic diversification is absolutely important. Also, to respond to global trade such as pandemic. Second, productive jobs. There are more to be less affected than let's say informal jobs. We have also seen that firms have been significantly affected in developing countries, because of the size. Because of the value chain, which is global and which has been disrupted. We have also seen that economies that have major macro economy balance of payment issues with the ones that has been affected. No export earnings, debt, limited fiscal space all indicate that economic transformation is the only pathway for developing countries and they must focus on it. The second important lesson has been industrial capacity matters. We have seen economies that can produce sufficiently. Vaccines PCR kids were able to combat this pandemic in a better way. We have seen governments who have a very clear active industrial policy, we're able to cope with this with this crisis. As the head of IMF said, COVID policy is economic policy that was what she said. Even improvised the same. I will say, vaccine policy is industrial policy, not just economic policy. So this brings us back to the issue of industrial policy and we have seen that governments matter, governments that are developmental. That are growth oriented have been able to cope with this crisis in a much more effective way. So what we have learned is industrial capacity matters, industrial policy matters, government matters. But we have also seen that public leadership or business leadership needs also to be changed. We have seen resilience becoming central. We have seen learning becomes critical in time of uncertainty in a rapidly changing environment. We have seen that adaptive leadership is going to be critical. We have also seen digital transformation is useful even to fight this pandemic, but we have also seen that digital transformation is not only what they as it's in the hype that all the romantic the beautiful things happening, but it also brings significant inequalities and also increased power of firms over government and over consumers. And this is the second pillar I would like to highlight in addition to economic information. The second one crisis could always be opportunities. And this is an opportunity for developing countries to develop productive capacity and build resilience and an opportunity to strengthen regional cooperation because African countries for instance, launched African continental free trade area. On July on January 1st, they didn't postpone during this crisis. Actually, the disruption in global value chain, the weak resilience was an impetus also to focus on building regional supply chains and strengthen the process of regional cooperation. We have also seen it's an opportunity for global collaboration on multiple fronts. The next point I would like to briefly highlight in two, three minutes is that we have seen three important trend is about interwining, intertwined with this pandemic and the economic recession. The first is climate change. The pandemic is inseparable. It has partly been caused by climate change. And here, an important lesson for developing countries, including Africa is that green transformation is a pathway to the future. It's not an option only for advanced economies, but it's also even more important in developing countries. We know that Africa contributed 3% to global carbon emission, only 3%. But Africa is the most affected. Actually, Africa's agriculture is the most affected by that. So industrialization at the price of environment is no more feasible in 21st century. So it destroys the environment as it has been the case for three, four centuries since the first industrial revolution. We have to follow carbon neutral industrialization, green industrialization, and this is a key lesson also we need to link with the COVID crisis. Second one is digital transformation. We have seen that during this pandemic, the big five whose revenue is close to one trillion. These are Amazon, Alphabet, which owns Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, a combined revenue of one trillion, capitalized over six trillion. They were able to grow between 14% and 27% during the crisis. The inequalities is unimaginable. We have seen that access to vaccine patent is an impossible topic, an impossible where there is no consensus. So we have seen that digital transformation, while important and every government in developing countries should develop its basic research capability, improve its education system, develop its technological capability. It also needs to develop its regulatory capability. It also needs to be aware of this digital divide and a policy is required that we benefit from the positive things from digital transformation, but we also cartel or contain the damages. The third issue is a global collaboration. We cannot live in the current arrangement without collaboration. We cannot live, we are not living in isolated silos, we are in a very interconnected world. So here, the global collaboration has to focus or to base on the principle of multilateralism and multilateralism is not a formula. It's an arrangement whereby independence and interdependence are negotiated and agreed. We have also we need a new form of governance that is suitable for 21st century. We also need this global collaboration to focus on international inequalities, narrowing international inequalities, supporting the weak should be a critical element in this process. This global collaboration should also focus on responding to global traits, and also sustaining a much more accelerated and a more stable world economy. This should be the objective, and this is not, this is easy to say, but with the current populism, with the current posturing of all issues. This is going to be a big challenge in developing countries should work hand in hand with those forces who are championing multilateralism. So the three areas climate change digital transformation global collaboration become an important and inseparable elements in this process. My final point will be the implication for these three books. The key element in our book is the approach, the fresh approach on research methodology and development perspective. Here, our focus have been focusing building on evidence. Evidence is not neutral. Evidence are manipulated. And we have to check we have to use multiple sorts of evidence. We have to encourage and build on pluralism. We have to question every conventional thinking. We have also focus on interdisciplinary. And in our book we have said, we have to end the hegemony or the imperialism of only economics. All different disciplines are critical to understand the key basic social economic issues. The point we have emphasized as an approach in our book is unevenness unevenness is a key source of policy learning unevenness would demand us to study different countries so that we get the best lessons from understanding the diversity. I want to emphasize the point of possibilities, which is a concept coined by Albert Hirschman, whereby pessimism and euphoria are not a key element, and that a realistic element of optimism is needed. So balance rather than I mean in balance rather than a balanced approach as a key growth drivers in balance is a key dynamism, taking development to the next level. So this is a key element we have highlighted in our book the second one on industrial policy, the emphasis have been, it helps us to build high productivity activities and sectors. We know that technologies are shifting and changing and boundaries among sectors are blurred. We have to be selective and targeted. This approach is still going to be even more important in post COVID time. We have also seen the importance of learning and late camera advantage, especially critical for emerging and developing countries. The focus has been also to address issues linked with middle income trap issues of gender. In industrial policy literature, gender is not covered. And in our handbook, we have given a serious thought in both handbooks. And we try to understand the link between gender and industrial policy and industrial hubs and green industrial policy in now the feature and the must for everyone. The book on industrial hubs real essence, especially economic zones or industrial parks must be a part and should be understood within the broader framework of industrial policy and industrial development strategy. This industrialization and manufacturing sector requires an industrial ecosystem. And this has also to be linked with also building productive cities or building a wider ecosystem. And the third element is that sustainability become innovation become, and also building global value chain and upgrading with this global fight, global value chain become a critical issues within the industrial hubs approach. This is what I would like to reflect. Wonderful. Thank you so much. So I know I have a lot of questions. There's a number of questions here in the Q&A box. I don't think we'll be able to get to all the questions but we'll try to get to many of them. I wanted to give Tony a chance first, if you would like to to respond and or raise some questions for discussion, or if you would prefer to reserve your, your questions and responses to later it's up to you Tony. So at some point at this stage which I think very neatly connects the diversification dimension, which I can be raised of the recovery, the need for diversification which of course reduces the vulnerability of economies to shocks and increases their resilience. And there is a very profound connection to the climate policy agenda, and that is through the energy systems, which supply the manufacturing and agriculture and service sectors of low income and middle income countries. And unfortunately, a lot of those countries are still on the trajectory of coal and coal fire power with his very high carbon emissions. It's a vulnerability, it's a vulnerability not only in meeting your own commitments under the Paris Agreement, you know the national obligations under the Paris Agreement to reduce emissions. There's also a vulnerability actually going forward in the global economy, as we know that consumers increasingly want to buy products and services with low emissions. And this border is manufacturing sector, indeed your agriculture rests on high emissions coming from coal fire power stations. And I'd watch out, you know, three years, four years, five years down the line, you might be losing your market position to countries that are saying hey, buy from us we're using increasing proportions of renewable power and other types of low carbon or net zero energy. I think there's a big connection there and that's a massive part of a massive part of the challenge of the recovery agenda. Thank you. Thanks. Why don't I, if I may, I'll just collect a few questions and then if with the audience's permission help keep us a few minutes. The audience and the speakers permission if I can keep us 10 minutes more to so that we have a chance to have a bit more of a connection given that the rocky start with connection problems. Is that okay for both of you, Tony and our Kevin. Yeah, okay. So that's one question, and then I was going to unmute Carlos, oh yeah if he's there. But let me start with another question here first from the q amp a box from an anonymous attendee. He says, you mentioned that the quality of data capturing is an issue when it comes to developing countries. Carlos I'll I'll go to you in one second. Your opinion, how good is the level of data capturing on covert numbers and developing countries and in Africa in particular. So the next question from Carlos oh yeah. The question that you and I thought you were going to read it. Yeah. So, thanks. Thank you, RK before for an excellent presentation. I wanted to build on on a number of points you've made on on inequalities and how the covert 19 crisis has really exacerbated and made many of the inequalities that we leave within and this is very open. And I think there's a number of contradictions that are emerging from the pandemic on the one hand, the high visibility of what we call now key workers, those working in health systems, farm workers and so on. And how, on the other hand, these key workers are not really getting a decent pay, both in rich and low income countries. At the same time as very big business like Amazon have been doing absolutely great from the crisis and some of the biggest fortunes in the world have seen their fortune actually increase. I think the key question here is, again, you know, what can we do about it, because we keep talking about these issues we keep talking about inequality I think there's a consensus, even among big organ large international organizations that these needs to be curbed. But the doesn't seem to be a clear consensus on on the key mechanisms. So I was thinking of two key mechanisms that are often mentioned one is taxation. What would require I mean you've talked about global collaboration, this is clearly an issue that requires global collaboration can. How can we make businesses like Amazon pay their due taxes once and for all. And the secondly, the issue of the labor the decline in the labor share in income GDP. What can be done to make sure that in different countries rich and poorer countries wages actually increase and increase faster than profits. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to ask for one final question and then I'll give our two speakers a chance to respond and give some some closing remarks. One question is from Sadak Mohammed. I think the Carlos's question leads well into this one as well. Yes, thank you, Rachel. Do you hear me. Yes, I do I hear you. Thank you very much. And thank you for Tony for the nice presentation. I just want to ask you one simple. It was really indeed a nice procedure for both of you. And this pandemic has seriously affected under different especially under different countries for money obvious causes way. I think for the inequalities of getting fascination and other tools to mitigate the effect of the pandemic has made the situation more serious than what we thought. How such countries such country like Somalia who are struggling and maybe some other countries like Somalia who are struggling to get or book some taxis to fix in their nation in order to mitigate the effect. How can they overcome such while they they they have a barrier to this pandemic they have some obstacles in the in recovering or increasing internal revenues to cover their expenditure. And this pandemic has came and make the situation more serious, more worse than it was. And what are the what it means for the world. The rest of the world for such countries and what are the regulations that you think it will come this challenge cost by this pandemic. Thank you. Good. Thank you very much. So we have a wide range of questions, you know on from climate change and green growth and data and inequalities and taxation and international support. There also I know Tony's been already answering some of the questions in the Q amp a box so feel free to respond to these also if you if you want to but I'll give the last, the last words to our two speakers. I think we're going to start with our Kebay respond to the questions you'd like and some final remarks and then we turn to Tony. Thank you I think Carlos and start a crazy very important questions and also in the Q amp the ISO some of the questions. One question links with data in Africa. data in Africa it's even worse than we usually find data in in advanced economies for many many reasons because the economy is significantly as an informal component the agencies of statistics are not strong enough and not much research is conducted and and this was a key element we have been emphasizing in all our publications and then many scholars including Carlos and those that saw us have been working on this issue Chris and and John Center and and improving data and evidence starts from recognizing the importance of evidence without evidence you cannot have policies that can be implemented and can be effective because the very very foundation is based on wrong data and outdated data so it requires a continuous improvement secondly it also requires an institutional approach and I should emphasize universities can play important role in narrowing this gap and they should strengthen the research units that work on on researchers international organizations such as UNI wider can play an important role in strengthening the research capability and and and also strengthening the capacity of statistical agencies and of course I am not missing politics is also an important element in this process so data in Africa is even much lower quality the other element I would like to emphasize is the issue of this big power big companies is the the required interventions are multiple if you look at taxation issue I am aware about the recent initiative taken by Biden administration supported by some European governments on the minimum level of taxation percentage but I believe this is only part of the solution from perspective of developing countries one key constraint is the price the transfer of pricing is a major issue they don't pay what they deserve to pay when the for products they see in developing countries so it's not about the minimum percentage but even that they have multiple ways to avoid taxes and they don't usually pay in developing countries so we need a much more different approach that will benefit developing countries and then this is one one key element the other issue we need to look at is in the in the inequality side let me give you one figure so far vaccines that have been uh uh produced is over 1.3 billion vaccine units from this Africa's share is only 2 percent the debate has been there but everyone says or talks about it but when it comes in real action we have seen less commitment we have seen much hypocrisy and the the path for way I mean the path forward is going to be to include three areas one is we have to manage our expectation it's quite clear that developing countries especially those who are low-income countries are not going to be assisted at difficult times and we have to think of a solution at local level at national level and regional level so we have to manage our expectation the same principle applies also to let's say the issuing of SDR which has been a subject of contention up to now and then the G7 countries could not agree on this especially the United States so this is managing expectations the second one is developing countries should voice should collaborate should cooperate in presenting their voice when they are more united when they present their voice it can be heard so this is the second point because they have to earn it uh and they are not going to uh to be rewarded easily uh uh this is part of the wider politics so second one is there must be a collaboration among uh developing regions third one is uh the international governance should in a way be uh that accommodates concern that narrows inequalities that addresses the basic the underlying course of international inequalities uh so this is going to be a long journey but I believe this three areas could be where uh some improvements could be uh recorded uh other element I would like to emphasize on the issue of leveries especially from the perspective of developing countries as competition becomes much more difficult productivity increasingly becomes a critical element and as they primarily rely on lever and lever intensive industries they show skill upgrading up and and also uh uh retraining and and improving productivity becomes central as far as we are not able to improve and as far as we are not focused on uh productivity increment it will always be difficult uh that the workers revenue will improve or income will improve but it also becomes for our industries to be competitive so one thing we need to be in mind in our industries is the uh issue of improving especially labor productivity uh on the other side I should highlight that we are not yet back to the growth dynamics even to uh pre-20011 2007 level if we look at fdi uh in 2007 it was two trillion and 2009 it came down to 1.5 trillion before covid crisis and during covid crisis 2020 it even decreased to uh 860 million or 0.9 billion 0.9 uh eight point 860 million or 0.86 uh uh trillion so we could see that it is shrinking so we are not even yet back to 2007 level uh let alone that the global economy grows uh uh uh is improving so uh this is a critical element and this is also combined with the uncertainty and also weak uh productivity and as far as especially productive the investment that will help to improve productivity and and also uh green investments are not increasing this will limit our job creation capabilities as well so this requires also a collaboration at global level thank you thank you very much so just uh we're in our closing minutes and I'll give Tony the final words the closing words well I could just return to a point I was making earlier about the importance as we build back better of building back social protection and making it very strong including in the low income countries but also in some of the high inequality middle income countries of latin america that need to make more progress and there's a link there to the diversification agenda that arkeby in his his three books has very eloquently expressed and outlined which is that societies that have social protection are actually much better at adjusting over time to the dynamics of economic change because people are less fearful of what economic change means for them if you have no social protection you become unemployed you're likely to starve along with your family if the social protection system is reasonably generous and if it's combined with an education system that retrains you then labor is much more willing and able to move into the new sectors of higher value added which connects to the productivity theme that arkeby expressed and indeed if you look at the nordic societies one feature of the nordic societies is that they have higher levels of social mobility than some of the pure market economies such as the united states and certainly social protection has been no hindrance to those economies in developing new sectors over time so you know the building back agenda is both a strategy of building more resilience through diversified economies building more humanity into the economic system through social protection but also embedding the climate change agenda in ways that really do mean something and it's to be hoped that the leaders of the g7 when they meet meter later in the summer might take some of the messages from arkeby's work but also the work of you know wider on board because the advanced economies really cannot ignore what is happening now in the developing world it affects them if we have covered in india we have covered in brazil we have covered in south africa then we have covered in europe and united states you know it's one world system is one health system thank you thank you uh so it's a lot of food for thought here and um thank you to arkeby and to tony for for your contributions um i will just uh refer us to tony for the closing remarks which i i think it's hard to to beat closing remarks from tony but thank you both and thank you to our audience for uh for their questions and engagement there's still some questions here uh if the the two speakers might like to answer have some time to stay on and answer some of them thank you all