 Okay, good afternoon everyone. Welcome to the presentation of the launch of the report of the International Monetary Fund on Africa. I am here, my name is Angelica Vaskera, I'm here representing the Center of African Studies that is hosting the launch of the report. I am bringing also the apologies of our director, Professor Adam Abib, who was supposed to launch, sorry, to do the welcome remark today. And unfortunately due to some emergency was not able to attend. But we are very pleased to be able to host here today, the Deputy Director of the Africa Department of the International Monetary Fund, Katrin Patilo on the right side. And also from the same team, Wen Jie Cheng, the Deputy Division of the Regional Study Division of the Africa Department of the International Monetary Fund. And also from SOAS, we have our global professor, Professor Archibald Kubai, who is the British Academy Global Professor in Base at SOAS Department of Development Studies. Professor Kubai is going to be our main discussant and moderator from SOAS. And now to say a few words about Patrin Patilo, the Deputy Director of the Africa Department. She oversees the work of a number of country teams capacity development among other roles. Prior to that she served in the fiscal affairs department, where she was chief of division responsible for the IMS fiscal monitor. Since joining the fund from a position of Oxford University, she has worked in the research department and on countries in Africa and the Caribbean, and the strategy policy and review department as well. She received a PhD in economics from Yale University. Welcome, Katrin. And a few more words also about our second representative from the IMF, Wen Jie Cheng. She is the Deputy Division Chief of the Regional Studies Division in the Africa Department, as well as the Mission Chief to Mali in particular. She started her career as an assistant professor of international business and international affairs at George Washington University. And then she joins the fund in 2014 in the African Department. And she worked on South Sudan, East Virginia and South Africa. So welcome as well. I mean, there is more to say. She's the, you know, but I will stop here. Welcome. Welcome Wen Jie. And we look forward. She will present the report with the PowerPoint so going in detail about the funding of the report. Finally, brief introduction to our own Professor Archive Okubai, British Academy Global Professor at SOAS, but I just want to say Professor Okubai also conducted his PhD at SOAS, and so he is part of the SOAS family for a long time. And he has been a groundbreaking academics and researcher on the African continent. He was also, if I may say, former mayor of Al Sabeba and he contributed a lot to the industrial development of his own country, Ethiopia, but not only because he's a very influential in industrial development across the continent through the African Union and other continental institution on the continent. So we are very lucky that he has chosen SOAS to be his home for his British Academy Professor Professorial role. And today also in particular, I would like to thank him personally and also from our director for taking the lead in this very important event, which we hope it will be one of many engagement with the International Monetary Fund. I will now finish my introduction. Thank you again to the on campus audience. And we know it's a time of exam and it's a time of many sorts of commitments. So thank you for those who made the time to come. And also, we are very pleased to say that we have a very large online audience today. So we have people from across the continent joining us in this event. And when it comes to the Q&A, we will also ask questions from the online audience. I will now pass it on to Catherine to make her presentation about the report. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. And welcome everyone. We're very happy to be here and to be able to interact with SOAS our first time here. And yeah, we hope this is the first of many. I love coming to universities because you get the most challenging comments and questions, which really help us to continue to think more deeply and think what are the different perspectives and different kind of questions that we need to look into going going forward. So please challenge us and push for how you see things. That's that's really what we're hoping for. So just a couple introductory points. So we're presenting the regional economic outlook for spring 2023. This is an analysis that we do every six months. And we then launch both during the annual and spring meetings in Washington, but then in the region. So we're just from Nigeria and colleagues are launching also in Abidjan and Paris. And the objective of the publication is to look deeply at the current developments at projections and at what are the analytic underpinnings of some key policy issues. So, again, prefaceing what we're going to talk about just a couple of points first, you know, Sub-Saharan Africa is currently facing a very difficult situation, but it's important to put in perspective also that this is now a series of shocks or we could really call them crises after crises after crises. Right. So the, the region based the really big impact of the COVID pandemic where we saw the largest recession in in history since the 70s. And then the impact of the Russia's war in Ukraine and the shooting up of fuel fertilizer food prices, subsequent impacts now of the tightening of global monetary conditions and high borrowing costs. And all of that in confluence leading to a really cost of living crisis with the very high prices. And now what Wenji is going to talk about this big funding squeeze. So, and this is for a region that has some of the lowest buffers going into this series of external shocks and some of the highest poverty levels in the world. Any single one of these crises is a once in, you know, very, very many number of years crises, but to see them piled one on top of each other in this short proximity is really, you know, an external pounding of, you know, kind of unfathomable dimensions. So, so that's one one point of context. Second, we're going to talk about debt. And, you know, there's a lot of interest in debt issues, big kind of sexy topic. But to put out there, right away that we don't see any widespread or systemic debt crisis in the region. There are liquidity issues and Wenji will will talk about that. But we also see that countries are very much facing what are, yes, increasing debt vulnerabilities, and very much head on addressing for those countries that, you know, need debt restructuring moving in that direction those select few, and otherwise very much confronting the challenge that's there from some increasing vulnerabilities. Third point from our side in the IMF. We are playing our part. We are really trying to be an important counter cyclical financing source in a time of very pro cyclical private flows and addressing then the deep shocks that that countries are facing. And we're also then cognizant that there's going to be a lot more need for support from the IMF and our concessional financing facility needs replenishment. And so, one message during our spring meetings was the need for support from the international community, including rechanneling of the special drawing rights for allowing us to continue to support countries with financing. But in addition to financing the the IMF has important interactions with African countries on our policy advice and on capacity development that's technical assistance and and training. And that technical assistance and training is kind of the unsung hero I think of what the the IMF does around the region but in in Africa, Africa's action Sub-Saharan Africa is the largest recipient of capacity development and the ways that we're able to support countries and look for then the synergies between this capacity development the lending and the and the policy advice is really a core part of of how we we work. And it's very much together with the countries also I think sometimes there's this image that the IMF comes in and says this is this is this. But we work, you know, very closely with with the authorities in developing what our policy packages that can help, you know, support strong inclusive and increasingly now green growth we have the same objectives. We're, we aim to be a trusted advisor that means there's a need for tough messages. Sometimes, but our partners in the countries tell us that this role of trusted advisor of trying to, you know, help them with some of these tough issues where countries are right now is is very much valued. And we are, you know, an institution that is always changing and growing and developing and that's again why we like to come and talk to people. You know, a number of the issues that we currently look deeply into our things that the IMF would not have focused on, you know, some years ago. So, the importance of understanding, you know, inequality, because and and how policies and how equality and then how if you don't have more, you know, attention to equality then again you're not going to get strong growth and robust sustainable development gender and some another dimension of inequality that again is is there and needed more strong sustainable growth governance supporting countries then as they tackle governance challenges and increasingly now climate, the existential crisis of the of the of the world and therefore critical for for us as we interact with with other countries. So, yeah, I'm hoping that we're able if there are any questions more more generally about the the fund role to engage in that as part of our discussion. So with that background, let me turn over to to win G. Thank you. Thank you so much for the warm welcome and very delighted to be here in my past life before the IMF I was a professor and I always really enjoyed talking to students and teaching and so this is an excellent opportunity to revisit that. I think the slides are up. Can you see and so Kathy gave really the main highlights of the report, but let me delve a little bit deeper into the various components on what we mean by funding squeeze and what the implications are for the countries in the region. And then lastly, let me elaborate a little bit on the policy recommendations that we have zeroed in on this chapter. And just to keep in mind when we mean by Sub-Saharan Africa we have a subset of 45 countries that we talk about that are really in the in the sub-Saharan region of the country so sometimes you know there are different compositions so let me dive right in here in terms of what we mean by this recent funding squeeze and the three main manifestations the really big one is the rise in borrowing costs. What we mean by that as you see on the upper right hand side chart in terms of the sovereign spreads of the rates in fact for Sub-Saharan Africa excluding Zambia and in the lead up to most the most recent data here highlighted and March 2023 the husband the steady rises you can see here and this is the spread what we call it over the US Treasury yields and so virtually all of the frontier markets since spring 2022 have been shut out of the Eurobond market as a result which you can see on the left hand side graph. So there has been steady funding coming from the Eurobond markets the broad issuances by these frontier markets but since spring of last year that avenue of financing has not been an option anymore. So those two are the main manifestations in terms of higher borrowing costs shutting out of the Eurobond market and then the third one was the appreciation in the US dollar to a 20 year high as of last year. What that meant is that for many of the countries in the region that have external debt that's denominated in US US dollars in particular which the majority of the external debt components are that meant that the debt service for those countries again paying back the interest rate paying back the principal payments in dollars then would also rise in terms of their their local currency values. So those are the three manifestations why do we observe that well it's because of the main factor is the global monetary policy type. That's a fancy term really for raising interest rates by major central banks in advanced economies and why did they do that that was in reaction to persistently high inflation partly triggered by the Russian war in Ukraine but also because of supply chain issues remnants from the COVID pandemic. And, and as a reaction to that as the interest rates rising, we could see the dollar going back in value, and then capital flows flowing out of emerging markets back into the US. And also as a result the sovereign spreads for many of the emerging markets in particular for sub-Saharan African countries because already of lower credit ratings and the risk re pricing in the market, those sovereign spreads then increased as a result of those. And this, these, what we call conjunctural factors so these, you know, very, very recent phenomenon of these interest rate hikes of this, this barring cost rises comes on top of structural developments and what do I mean by that. A few confluence of factors the one is the decrease in overseas development assistance and aid, in other words, from advanced economies and those have been declining over the last 20 years you see on the upper left hand side chart you had about 4% of recipient GDP. In terms of ODA flows back in the 2000s, and then more recently although there was an increase during the pandemic year on average in terms of trend wise it's only at around 2.5% of recipient GDP which is quite significant in terms of the external funds flows that comes into the region. The other structural factors that we have seen is the decline and loading disbursement influence in fact from China, and it peaked in around 2016. And now it's only really a 10th of what was before in more recent years and given the more geoeconomic fragmented worlds and the trends that we see this trend might persist also in the near future. And lastly, we have seen also a change in the composition of the debt profile and many Sub-Saharan African countries and you see that on the right hand side chart when the HIPPIC area happened you see towards the beginning of the 2000s domestic and the Euro bond type of debt was less than 50% of total debt, and now it's almost three fourth of the portfolio. And why is that significant? It's significant because generally domestic debt and the Euro bond type of debt are privately subscribed debt and that comes with higher servicing costs, higher interest builds that then eat up on the government funds and the revenues of those authorities. Now, going forward to give you a little bit of preview in terms of the right hand side chart. In fact, they are maturing Euro bonds of payments that are coming due starting this year which is smaller in terms of proportion, but really next year about $6 billion US and then the following in 2025 for about $7 billion. So that money alone, these governments have to set aside in terms of repayment of what's coming due or have a plan in order to roll over some of that coming due payments. Essentially, that will be at the cost of financing towards other things and needs are still very high. And also on top of that, the current external environment as I mentioned before your economic fragmentation there's also China's change and policies but other needs are coming in terms of climate change risks. For instance, as Kathy mentioned before, the region is disproportionately impacted by the negative impacts of climate change. And in addition to the developmental needs that's already facing these governments also have to make room to address these natural disasters and making plans for adaptation, as well as mitigation changes. So those are some of the immediate and longer term concerns that I just mentioned. Let me go into more detail what I mean by those immediate term what we see in terms of how this funding squeeze is going to impact these countries is one in terms of the food insecurity that's very prevalent in the region. This was really at the height of the last year, given the war in Ukraine and the supply chain issues that came from that the increase in food prices in grains, particularly in fertilizers that that impacted also local production on food. And we saw really increase international food prices but also the incidence of food insecurity increase significantly for 2022 we estimate that 132 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are either experiencing acute food insecurity or under high risk of food insecurity. And given the funding squeeze there will be fewer resources at the government's disposal in order to address those vulnerable people in terms of those that face food insecurity. The other impact that we see in terms of the funding squeezes on growth directly and so for this current year 2023 we estimate overall growth for the region to be at 3.6%. And it's noteworthy that this is the second year in terms of the decline in growth compared to the previous year so for 2022 we had 20, sorry we had to 3.9%. And so this is really compared to our projection in 2021, which was at 4.1%. And so in this particular case, it's also contributed by South Africa in terms of its growth slow down which would project at 0.1% only for this year but many smaller countries or other countries in the region have of course various different growth but overall as the region we see this downward trend which is quite worrisome. For 2024 we do see a rebound to 4.2% of GDP for the region but that's really predicated on many factors in particular on the global recovery. In particular there we expect that inflation will be more moderate in particular in terms of energy prices, food prices, which then therefore would only require smaller interest rate hikes or very moderate interest rate hikes which then will not slow down the economy as much. We describe this growth rebound as a two-speed recovery and that's because we see mostly that this growth is supported by non-resource intensive countries, so countries that don't rely on commodities in terms of exports. Those are the ones that are really going to take off. You can see on the right-hand side chart in the bottom there whereas oil exports, particularly Nigeria for instance, those don't tend to actually grow as much or contribute as much to the growth increase and rebound. Now shifting from these shorter term implications to longer term implications, we see that debt vulnerabilities is going to be on the rise and you can see on the left-hand side charts. It's interesting for the median country you see this in the dotted or in the orange line when it bottomed out in 2010 at about 30% of GDP. Now debt is twice as high in the most recent accounting here around 60% of GDP, so again debt has increased considerably. It's not quite as high as during the HIPPIC era but it's much closer to that than what we had in the early 2010s. So again as Kathy mentioned before, some of these issues of the funding squeeze if they don't get resolved, we could potentially see how those could turn into solvency issues when countries actually cannot repay the debt. But so far we do not see that yet. Those are longer term issues that are potentially at risk. So let me go into then some of our policy implications and there are many. Then they're very country specific and in our daily work when we work with countries directly on a bilateral basis we have really country specific recommendations but for the report because we write about these 45 countries as a whole. We really highlight something top and key for policies and let me start here with the fiscal policy. And there the number one priority for us is to reduce debt vulnerabilities and you can see here. I mentioned before, many countries have now higher public debts and you see in the left hand side chart, 19 of our 35 low income countries in the region are experiencing high risk of debt distress or already under debt distress. And on the right hand side chart we did an analysis of which countries are actually in need of fiscal adjustment really meaning to tighten their, their fiscal deficit that they're running versus those countries in the black bubbles, which has still have some fiscal space to maneuver and you can unfortunately see here on the right, you have many more countries in the orange bubbles that are in need of fiscal adjustment. And one of the reasons here that we point out in the report also is that tax revenue so the ability for countries to raise revenues in terms of taxes is remains somewhat low in certain African country actually significantly lower compared to other emerging markets in the left hand side chart so the median tax revenue to GDP is only a little bit above 10% for the sub-Saharan African country whereas it's closer to 20% and then when you go to advanced economies a little even closer to 30%. And there's a lot of room to improve what we call domestic revenue mobilization this can be done through increases in the tax base. So in terms of expanding the number of firms expanding the number of people that could be taxed. And also on the spending side be very careful in terms of how these revenues these precious few revenues that are left are being spent and really look at the efficiency of the spending to also limit the leakage just the wastages, and in terms of I know off budgetary commitments on SOEs and any below the line what we call unaccounted for spending, those should be really minimized. Let me then turn to the second priority in terms of the policies and there we look into inflation monetary policy to interest those. And in the chart on the right you can see we looked into the details in terms of which countries in sub-Saharan Africa are still experiencing a positive and upward trajectory in terms of their inflation we see about half of those countries in the region, whereas the other half you can see in the orange line have already experienced a clear peak in their inflation it's already on a downward path so therefore our monetary policy here is quite nuanced for those countries that we see still very high inflation, we really caution them in terms of not letting off the foot off the gas pedal to quickly and in this case they really need to be vigilant and to raise interest rates so that it come these inflation trends come down significantly in order to avoid any type of secondary round impact so they're called entrenched inflation that then translate into higher wages and then become really really costly to address. Now, in terms of other countries that already experience a downward trend in inflation, those can therefore be more thoughtful about the trade off between addressing inflation versus dealing with their still recovery and weak recovery in those countries, and in particular we see is that Pag countries generally have faced lower inflation because partly of the Pag and also because some many of them actually had in terms of their invoices in trade, so how they treat with other countries would rather be in in euros rather than US dollars and so there they had lesser impact of the inflation coming through, which brings me then to the third priority in terms of the policy recommendations and that's on how to manage exchange rate pressures as I mentioned before the 20 year high of the US dollar last year it has come down since then but we do expect that the value of the dollar will remain volatile and rather elevated in the foreseeable future. Many countries have tried to counter the depreciation in their own currency against the dollar we've seen many various ways in terms of monetary policy but and reserves, but also administrative measures which have been very distortionary and by that is, they have been ways of limiting currency on export import restrictions in terms of the change and in the availability of the effects. And in many of those cases as a consequence they had been a parallel market, and that parallel market rate reacted out of bounds and and in the end these countries did end up suffering higher inflation because of these measures anyway so therefore it's very costly to implement and rather, our advice here is because of these external circumstances rather let the exchange rate adjust, but use your policy measures to really address the negative impacts to mitigate some of these negative impacts of higher prices. For instance, in terms of helping the most vulnerable that are bearing the most burden of those price increases, but also to use monetary policy and fiscal policy responsibly in order to address and contain these pressures. And in relation to that many countries do not have the reserves actually available we see very low reserve coverage for the region in general, and they're the room for really defending their currency not letting adjust that room is running out on as well. So, lastly, in terms of priorities we have structural reforms which are front and center and necessary in order for the countries to get back on the growth trend that they have been before the pandemic. So, for the region in general we see actually that they are growing much on a lower trend and not growing in terms of the actual number is still high but they have a lot of catch up to do in terms of getting back on trend in terms of their growth from before the pandemic and their structural reforms are really needed in terms of building the resilience, since they've been experiencing the shocks upon shocks that are mostly external but yet because of these macro existing macro economic vulnerabilities these countries were not able as to cope with those external shocks as well as many of the advanced economies that have much bigger buffers that were that were able than to counter those shocks. So there's structural reforms will be necessary in order to build resilience, and that includes to broaden the revenue, the base to diversify funding sources, if the external routes are more limited, it's now time to look domestically to look into ways to unlock some of the fun funding sources and that also includes catalyzing private financing catalyzing entrepreneurs and building and facilitating the environment for for domestic business growth and within the structural reforms we also include the need to address climate needs in terms of climate financing, and and Sub-Saharan Africa's needs in that area are huge so we estimate about $20 billion are coming in terms of climate funding each year, but the needs for adaptation alone are over $50 billion per year and then even more for mitigation of climate change and here we have actually one of the analytical notes the three of those and one of them squarely looks into ways of how countries can actually increase the likelihood of receiving international concessional funding, but also maneuver within existing funds and climate funds, many of which have been remaining untouched so there's a lot of funds that still needs remain to be unlocked but for that the countries need to have the right projects need to have the right capacity, and need to identify really the acute ways of how these countries can use that fund those those funding and so the IMF again stands ready in that regard as well to help we have a new facility, the resilience and sustainability facility where we can help these countries in terms of longer long term to help them to attract those funds to unlock some of the funding potential and to diagnose with them as well or the needs are for each particular country to to address to to use those funds. And here with the international call for assistance, which in this case is so much needed given these very very difficult times and as I showed you in one of the first slides before overall development assistance really has been declining and that is a detriment to the region in terms of the counter cyclical financing that there's so much in need of right now and the IMF of course has been helping we have deployed about $50 billion in funds between 2020 and 2022 can see the existing programs on the right hand side chart is one more. There are 22 ongoing lending programs right now in the region of 45. And so that's very substantial and we continue also to provide technical assistance capacity development and stay engaged and help the countries where we can. Let me stop here, and look forward to your questions and also discussions with water. Thank you. Thank you, Cathy. And Wenji for the excellent presentation. Allow me to tank source and Center for African Studies for organizing this workshop. I would like to thank IMF colleagues for your time and for your excellent presentation, and I should also thank the audience for participating on this important conversation. My, what I would like to reflect will be primarily based on the presentation to give also an additional perspective. That was a long term perspective of Sub-Saharan Africa. By the way, Cathy, I don't like the word Sub-Saharan Africa. We have a continent which is Africa with 55 member countries. And when it comes to UN World Bank IMF, then we have a division Sub-Saharan Africa, then North Africa is with Middle East. It doesn't make sense, but it's not a problem of IMF. But we prefer to talk and myself, as an African policymaker, I prefer to say, Africa's continent. But I don't think there will be much fundamental change between the broader continent, including the North African region, and also in particular Sub-Saharan Africa. We have huge economy, South Africa, which is even more industrialized than Northern region. So my focus will be on three critical issues. But this topic is so important because we are in the middle of multiple crises, as Cathy and Wenji mentioned. We had COVID-19 pandemic and then recession, then the geopolitical crisis, and then the commodity prices crash before seven years in 2014, which afflicted the majority of commodity exports. And the interventions done during this crisis was too little and too late. Africa received less than 10% vaccination coverage, while the wealthy nations had almost 100% coverage. Africa is lagged behind when more than $18 trillion was used to simulate the economy or economic recovery. So by the end of this crisis, the continent has been left behind and is in a much worse situation than before the crisis. So this should be the bigger picture because the issue is not about the fiscal stability or monetary stability or correcting the macroeconomic balance this year or next year. It's about the basic fundamental vulnerability of the African economy. What COVID-19 had shown us and also the other crisis showed us where the vulnerability of the continent. With the Ukraine war, food inflation became a major issue and Africa was most affected. Why? We haven't been able to transform agriculture. We have not been able to make investment in food security. When it comes to energy, inflation or cost of living was affected a big part by energy. It's also linked with the green transition, with the climate change transition process as well. My first point is we need to link with this critical structural issue. And also, as the report indicates, the heterogeneity element is quite critical. Each country, the economic structure is different. It's vulnerability to a global crisis is quite different. And even the political commitment and the political economy factors are quite different. So the recommendations, the policy recommendations are not going to work equally and are not going to have a similar impact among African member countries. And I should try also to highlight that this is linked with the broader debate in the US or advancing economies, emerging economies. We have seen many countries too, unlike 2018, rather than following austerity measures, they were able to put major investment to stimulate the economy, which many of them are also using for green transformation and also for effective recovery process. So one of the bigger debates is that central governments starting from Fed are all raising interest rates, with the assumption that the source of the current financial difficulty or inflation is linked with circulation of money, and a tighter monetary policy is required. So what we have seen is that central European bank, as well as over 80 central banks, all added interest rate, which is also slowing down the economy, is increasing interest rate, investment is going to be slowed, cost of living is going to be affected, the foreign exchange supply is going to be to decrease. So it's the response to inflation is one of the major drivers of this ongoing crisis. And I understand that this is an ongoing debate in the US or Europe, whether increasing interest rate is going to fix the issue. So we need to put this as within this perspective. The second point I would like to highlight is, how do we ensure this continent moves to a new trajectory is going to be a central issue. One of the major observations that we saw during COVID crisis was the financial and monetary space of many African countries was limited, which is linked with the economic growth of many African countries. So, from this perspective, if we look the trajectory side, and in view of the global context, we have seen prices, the frequency of prices and volatility of global economy is not diminishing it's increasing. Since 2000, we have seen almost two major global crisis. 2020, the worst one. So the global economy is now with the volatility, the uncertainty, and the simultaneous and overlapping crisis is an inherent situation that we need to cope. The world's country beat Africa. So within this holy crisis, within this slowing down of the global economy between 2000 and 2020 or 2022, the global economy grows has slowed from 4% to about 1.9%. So this is an ongoing trend, and we have to bear this in mind when we design the policies in Africa. From this perspective, I want to highlight is African policymakers, African governments have now to refocus on the path of economic transformation. If we have to tackle this challenge, not next year, but in the coming years, because that is the only way we can we can manage. What is in our hands is not global assistance, but what is in our hands is the policy instruments that governments can use. So I would strongly recommend and African countries should be government should be advised that it's economic diversification and growth is going to be the focus. One interesting observation in the report which I find very interesting from economic transformation point of view was in relative terms, higher growth rate is going to be recorded by those which are not exporters of natural resources and the least excluding South Africa, which is quite a different type of economic structure is mainly the oil producers are going to record a slow economic growth. And with the green transformation coming and energy costs now diminishing and being equal to the price of fossil oil. Oil producing countries. The most urgent agenda has to be how do they diversify from oil export and oil production for a more diversified economy. This is going to be necessary also with countries which are primarily commodity exporters. So I would like to emphasize. So urgent so critical that if we have to reduce the vulnerability of economies of many African countries, we need to diversify the economy and we need to record higher growth. And actually the root of the cause of this crisis, which we face the last two or three years and be traced back to the decade following the new millennia. Since the continent was only growing about 2.4% between 2000 and 2009 2010 African economies were growing by about 5.5%. And then it has slowed down. About half of this threat. What I would like to argue is the root causes the sources of this slow economic growth starts from the early decade of 5.5%. Because if we refer to the Jennifer per capita, considering the population grows, actually, many African countries are growing at about net 1 to 2%. And this is much slower than what we observe in Asia. And this is not going to help us catch up with the much more rapid economic growth. So this is one one key element I would like to emphasize. The second point is the Ukraine war should be a good should be an impulse should be a trigger for African governments to take seriously the transformation of agriculture. And food security. How can the continent be an importer of corn and wheat from Ukraine. From Russia. And the very reason that food inflation was much higher. And it made the continent vulnerable was that African governments have neglected agriculture, have not invested in the sector. And we need this sector for food security. We need this sector for boosting the export, generating export revenues. And one of the key, one of the key recommendations that should come from the simultaneous crisis we are facing is the need for refocusing on transformation of agriculture. And the sub aspect is the shift from the commodity exports towards a much more diversified exports and also increasing the amount of export earnings that can be generated. Again here. African governments have to work on the policy side. As Wenji earlier highlighted, the US dollar is still going to be stronger and central banks is highly probable will be increasing interest rate. And this is going to diminish the reserve of foreign exchange of many African countries in the coming years. The critical focus has to be how do we address the shortage of foreign exchange. How do we create a policy environment policy instruments to boost export sector should be one one one additional dimension. The fourth element. And with cutting the carbon neutral and green transformation is a critical way of addressing the vulnerability of this continent. Climate change is affecting Africa in the worst level. It's the most vulnerable, while it only contributes about 4% to greenhouse emission. Earlier we move towards this direction to carbon neutral pass, the better we'll be able to catch up and come up with the, with the challenges of climate change. And one of the biggest benefits of the Ukraine crisis has been it has accelerated the shift from the fossil oil. economy towards a green energy driven economy. The move in the last two or three years is quite quite dramatic. Beyond what we see some countries importing corn. The biggest way we are observing is a green transformation and the move towards this carbon neutrality. So this need to be brought in in this process. And as we are talking on the aftermath of COVID crisis, because WHO announced last week that it's no more an international crisis, but we need to prepare for the coming pandemic as well. And the pandemic has had the continent quite significantly. And it's time that we focus on building the primary healthcare systems, and also the early warning systems, while we focus on on the economic transformation agendas. From this perspective, what we need to focus is to ensure that the government could play a strategic role that we also will be able to use industrial policy as an important instrument and strategy to address these challenges and one one. Important policy space we have of zero days, almost all countries starting from the US European Union, all are now bodily saying that following and pursuing industrial policy. And this is a positive element because it has been a major constraint. So on the policy recommendations, we need to primarily focus on these issues, while also implementing the recommendations by the IMF, which will primarily focus on the macroeconomic aspect. Lastly, while how can the global community, or how can a supportive global architecture be created is the last point that is critical to raise. This is not Africa has its own homework, and garments have not been able to implement and design and implement the required policies. But also the global dimension the global crisis is beyond the ratio of many low income developing countries. And we need to address the existing international governance systems that are not favorable for many low income developing countries. Here I would like to put reforming the WTO architecture in a way that favors developing countries in terms of threat investment and technology transfer. The continent also needs to engage more with South South and also emerging economies. And if I'm the report I saw in 2022 I think Asia was the contributor 70% to growth of world economy and 50% came from China and India. So, we need to diversify we need to strengthen the engagement also with the emerging economies. And also, we need to advocate for this global compact for just transition, which was also mentioned by Katie and Wengie on the depth stress and the depth vulnerability. Some of the interventions that have been done by IMF G20 in the last two years were not advocate 50 billion is not going to bring much difference is a coming years. It's a major issue how do we create a sustainable depth mechanism that is conducive to low income developing countries. In this formula it also needs to be brought the issue of depth cancellation and debt restructuring. First, as it was earlier mentioned by Wengie on the last conclusion, the international community should be able to come up together, how to ensure that developing countries are not left behind. And this is important, not because of generosity, but because there needs to be a mutual benefit. So these are the points I would like to highlight. And I will first invite Katie and Wengie if they want to share the remarks and then we'll have a few and a from audience and online. Thank you so much, Professor. I mean, there's so much of what you said that we totally totally agree with most of what you you put forward on the issue of diversification. The important question is how and what are those policies. And one point to note is that we think there's a lot of potential in regional trade integration and the Africa for continental free trade area offers a real potential that could then spur more cross-border production linkages that would help with diversification. So the agenda is there for countries that they've committed to this free trade area to reducing tariff barriers, non-tariff barriers behind the border. And that could bring, I think, quite a bit of the diversification, as well as as you were highlighting the need in this fragmented world to connect to new partners, but also recognize the need for resilience internally. But maybe we stop there and see we can pick up on some of the other themes with questions. Yes, absolutely. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for your presentation. Very interesting. I'm sorry we're running a little bit out of time, but it's fine. Yeah, so we have like three or four questions from the online and also from the audience, I think there are. So what I'll do, I'll pick three questions from the audience, and then three online. Would that be okay? Try to keep them brief, please. So we have a microphone. Yeah. So who is, there is this lady, okay, ladies first up there. Yeah, it was so quickly. There is a selfie for our students. Thank you. I'm a layperson. I don't actually attend so I'm just on the Royal Africa Society website. There are a lot of things I want to say, but for the sake of time, I will try and reduce or make it more concise. But the reason why I came is I was quite a lack of a better word tickled by the concept of this. I was interested, I was intrigued to hear the perspective of the IMF representatives. But to me, if you allow me a facetious analogy, it's akin to going to a loan shark being beaten and robbed and hospitalised by the loan shark, and then the loan shark being told to come and comment on your progress while you're in hospital. So, there are lots of things that are raised in the presentation that I wanted to basically address but also ask. So tax revenues were mentioned. And I thought, actually, I think it's quite telling what wasn't said so tax revenues are mentioned in the, and the, and the lack of, and proportionate how there isn't much raised from tax revenue without mentioning how much of is down to capital flight. So there are populations not paying their due in these countries. And billions lost that could be invested in the public sector. And also during Wenji's. I'm a layperson I'm not an economist so this is you know, I apologize if I don't have the technical Savoy for Savoy fair, but from what I do understand. And you spoke about some kind of a fiscal prudence when it came to weathering these shocks, which I found quite euphemistic I know you didn't use a word prudence but I'm just using that as a summary what you said. I think I didn't know I would have liked you to expand on what you in regards to this tightening that you that you recommended. And just looking at the history of the IMF in terms of structural adjustments. And the encouragement not to invest in public sector or to basically austerity as being pushed by the IMF historically on these countries. I find that quite worrying when I hear about tightening and to speak to the chair's point about the agriculture. This is a no way to undermine the agency of African states and the leaders they do have their responsibility. But again, the investment in agriculture was severely undermined by structural adjust adjustment as conditions for receiving loans. So the subsidies that government African states would give to their own farmers were meant to be removed at the advantage of overseas in overseas investment. And lastly in regards to the climate change and funding and resilience. I think I would use the word reparations here in terms of the lack of development funding development is very colonial neo colonial model. I think it's really payback. But basically a lot of industrialized nations making their money and their contribution to the climate crisis from the times of colonization. So I think we need to look if you don't want to use the word reparations we need to look at some kind of maybe compensation I'm trying to remember the name of the word that's used for. It's gone out my head. Sorry to interrupt you but thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks a lot. Okay, so yeah. And we had one at the front. And then there's the lady at the back. And then yeah you came for sorry after. Are you an economist. All right. I am and have been the top rated private sector frontier economist for a few years with Renaissance capital. When I was looking at Reinhart and Rogoff's book about debt distress and ran the numbers of the 20th century 90% of the countries that defaulted were high fertility countries. High fertility countries like high fertility families don't have cash, don't have savings. They can borrow from abroad and go bankrupt and that's what we've forgotten in the last 10 years because of Chinese money, your presentation was excellent by the way. Fantastic so there's Chinese money in the debt forgiveness and then cheap global borrowing meant we didn't have to worry about who could borrow not everyone could borrow cheaply. And that's unless the Fed slashes rates to very low levels very quickly I think we are in a systemic crisis, you're suggesting we weren't and I think the systemic crisis is because of this high fertility countries have taken on too much debt. We're not seeing this problem in most of Asia, low fertility Asia. So it is a systemic problem the private sector isn't going to catalyze. No funding is going to come to the private sector because of these defaults that are going to grow in size. And then it comes to what can be done in terms of special drawing right increase. So we've we've only seen what 37 billion out of the 650 billion last year, I think being reallocated to the RSF. Is that right. And it could have been 150 was what Gordie ever was talking about my wrong. We're talking about a year and a half ago. I was just wondering why we're not seeing 100 150 billion, because I agree with your point sir. There just isn't enough 50 billion is, it's brilliant the IMF has found 50 billion but it's not enough, given the systemic problems. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay, very good. Yeah, thank you. Okay, so I thought you had a question. Hi. My name is in to do is I am a student here at so as, but I also run a business in South Africa. That's the reason I'm interested in this topic. So, the IMF provided some dead funding to South Africa in this was for the covert 19 dead funding. I'm interested to find out the conditions of that loan. And with respect to the growth requirements that you put forward as a suggestion suggestion going forward. The reason being is that South Africa's growth is mean on a macro basis is it's, it's being said that it's low because of its, you know, whatever reforms and energy and other factors but what's silent, what's never been spoken about is the issues around inequality in the country and their contribution to slow growth. And the sister lady spoke about the issues around the tech space, the tech space in South Africa is so skewed towards the rich. And we're not seeing that expanding. And I'm not to show if the IMF is considering those conditions as part of providing the debt to African countries as what are those countries doing around inequality issues for them to be providing the so called fiscal gap. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay, so these are the three questions we pick from the audience. So if you would like to respond briefly, and then I'll pick given the time I probably picked two from the online. Okay. Thank you so. More comments than than questions. Yes, largely. So, a couple of of reactions and then I'll ask when she also. And Professor, you know, your reactions to would be would be good. But on, you know, tax revenues, and the fact that, you know, corporations are not paying. Yes, the push for domestic revenue mobilization has to be about progressive taxation. And again, in each country, that's going to be different. And taxation is a very deeply domestic political topic. And so each country is looking to see within its political space and its social contract, how it can develop the best plan for for building taxes which then can help the citizens be able to hold government accountable to by saying we have a stake in this. We're providing our money and you then provide good government and good services. And so our discussion with countries on these on these deeply political issues is about how to build a tax structure that is progressive and where you know those who paid their fair shares. And the last the last point about thinking about climate that the advanced economies very much have a duty. I think this is the global discussion now, the loss and damage fund that was instituted in the last cop. The recognition that the developing countries in Africa are going to need climate finance the bulk of the issue was created by advanced economies and low income countries in Africa are some of the most vulnerable. And they don't have the space themselves. It's an important role to play, but there will need to be this this partnership. One of our messages is that the push also for climate finance needs to be additional than to other aid for basic needs for education health and infrastructure so it should be on top, and not replace existing support. On the relationship between you know high fertility countries and and debt defaults and what that this will mean. I'm sure your analysis, you know covers a lot of history, but there I would guess that there are, you know, lots and lots of factors associated then with the variation in debt defaults and we have in general, you know a lot of utility countries in the region and the, the, their experience with respect to both what, you know, internally policies fiscal, you know other policies have have driven increased that and the external is quite varied so I would guess there's not, you know, kind of a monocausal relationship here. Okay, but but I, but the point that in this difficult world, we're going to need to really see whether it's going to be possible to address debt vulnerabilities and still then have new private inflows. So I think the question that's been raised is an important question, we were able to do that post tip it right so it's not it's not clear to me that again in the discussion right now which is looking at individual countries who are at that point and then saying, you know there's a cut off here. And let's address this debt difficulty and then and then move on, but that's not possible that's also been the history of a lot of debt restructurings that countries have gotten out and then been able to come, you know, come back. And then on on South Africa. I mean, in general, the emergency financing during the pandemic was provided to countries, exactly in because of the emergency nature. So these were not programs with conditionality. The emphasis then was helping countries that needed to be able to support their populations, because of the dire impacts of COVID, but with an emphasis then on spend the money well and keep the receipts. And so an important push in terms of governance then of encouraging countries to continue to do audits to look at how that that money was being spent to ensure everyone that that it, it was being well spent. Your other point on on inequality I think is very well, well taken the long standing issues on on inequality and in South Africa are issues that yeah our team is has is very much engaged and I think people recognize the structural issues in in South Africa. And the need for more private investment dressing governance, creating jobs that'll help reduce inequality is really important for for the South African growth agenda. Can I just just know in terms of to the first speaker thank you very much for the comments and I think one of the things to note and I always encourage students in particular to check out some of our work at the I'm at the recent work and my belief is that the I'm has really changed significantly in the last several decades and I think there's still these myths, not myths but the earlier work that that you know has been done in the 1980s and the 1990s but really today's IMF in terms of, you know, on the ground work that we do. We have three main pillars, we have lending which is actually a smaller portion that's significant for Sub-Saharan Africa but among our 190 member countries. What we actually mostly do is surveillance what we call so we have the article for staff reports that we issue. Each country team engages really actively with the member country, and we go into the country will learn about the economy from 10,000 feet but yet in terms of the macro linkages of these countries in terms of all the various sectors that are critical to the overall economic well being of the countries and you know our dialogue with these countries has shifted quite a bit over the years and we care as Kathy was highlighting in terms of the areas that we cover we have really expanded beyond just the pure economics we have now also gone into climate for instance, into structural reforms that was somewhat of a new thing even for us as coming in. You know when I was a young economist during my internship in the early 2000s and that was really a new avenue at the time and now it's part of the core work that we do as well and in the programs when we go. Keep in mind something has gone awfully wrong for us to step in in terms of a program that we do with the country in terms of blending that reply. We are the lender of last resort and somewhere along the line this country has run into problems in terms of financing its expenditure so somewhere there, the, the spending has has been above its means what it's being able to raise. So, we do go in to help the country in terms of finding a way out of this but in nowadays we do have a floor, in fact, on social spending that we need to protect the most vulnerable, and that we need to strengthen the social safety net, and the well being of those people that are most affected so those are all elements that we take into account and it's, you know, country by country in particular and this report again and I stress there before I started it's for 45 countries so we cannot go into all the immediate gritty details for each individual country otherwise I would still be sitting here and writing, but really I encourage you to look at the individual reports that that we we put out on the various different countries in South African countries in particular you know I cover Molly for instance that the report will be coming up beginning of June. And there we go into a host of different issues that I think, you know, back in the day so to speak. We're not necessarily there even at that point but also that that we care more about now in our daily work today. Thank you. Perhaps because time is very ticking unfortunately especially for the online audience thank you so much for everybody for coming. There were some comments online which I'm trying to summarize very briefly all asking about yes the issue of the interest rates, and why in Africa interest rates are higher, are so much high and people are concerned about that and again, some are concerned around the fact of sort of like this kind of blanket over all African economies, as I said but you already answered that you already answered that by saying that you are, you know, today, it's the overall report but people should really more looking at individual reports per country, and because yes this sort of stereotype of the IMF being, you know, looking at Africa as a whole has changed over time and so we should perhaps looking more in details. But I think those were the questions from the audience pretty much looking at so I think they match the on campus so thank you very much everybody. A big round of applause to our speakers. So thank you so much if RKB you want to say a few words of closure. Thank you Angelica. I just want to thank Cathy and Wenji for their elaborations and giving satisfactory answers to the audience I want to highlight the report from the IMF will provide one perspective. It's an institution, and it has mandates, its focus is also quite different, and all reports, the World Bank report or UNCTAD report, and Economic Commission for Africa report or ADB, they all provided a different shade of assessing the economic outlook of the continent. So it's good to be this in mind. On the issue of structural reform, Wenji has tried to highlight some of the reforms and changes, and I should acknowledge for instance at the time of COVID, I think IMF managing director was quite born to come up with some good initiative. Before World Bank started to move, so it was a bit of a reverse. But I'm just, it was so important the issues were raised, but the problem is the intervention that can be made is too little and too late. If vaccines could not be provided to the developing countries 100%, with all the wealth, with all the resource. If the wealthy countries allocating 18 trillion for stimulus and recovery, then there is a big, big problem in the international governance system. So IMF has tried to move and has been raising the issues, but the problem is much more fundamental. And we need to look at this in mind. The economic system that's now vulnerable has now a key aspect, a key characteristics of increased financialization. This is a big element that with the banking crisis also now we see that we'll have a significant negative impact across developing countries. So we see the vulnerability of the global economy, we need to build that in mind. For Africans, despite the intervention and support coming from the international community or international system, I think we need to focus on what our governments should be, should do. We need to put more pressure on that. We need to work on the policy side. We can't, without making investment in agriculture, we can't blame IMF or any other external body to help us. So my emphasis is less make our state apparatus, state capacities, garments to make a difference because all economies were able to catch up and to transform. Because they put maximum effort on the policy side that would transform their economies for a longer period. That's how China transformed itself in 40, 45 years. That's how South Korea was able to become top 10. Now I fully understand in supporting the agriculture transformation in the structural trans in the structural adjustment period. There was a pressure from IMF on ending subsidy on diminishing the state's role on pushing privatization. We know that. But I just want to give you a quote what a Bassangio former Nigerian president said some 15 years back in an interview on New York Times magazine. He said, in the 70s Nigeria, we had started to transform our agriculture. But when we got abundant oil, and we moved oil, we dumped agriculture. And agriculture is an area that is so important for job creation. One aspect that we haven't been able to raise now is the demography issue. Our friend has raised about high fertility. The theory I don't think works because in Africa, I can tell you in one of the countries in urban fertility is 1.6%. And in some cases, it's the fertility is about 56%. So it's, there is a lot of variation, we can't conclude. So on the demography issue, a critical element we need to see is about the creation of jobs. Creation of jobs is an imperative for economic transformation and also political stability. Every year we are adding more than 20 million in the working force that requires urban based jobs by after 25 years or 27 years. Africa will double in population 2.5 billion. We are not creating jobs. This is the biggest issue. If we have to create jobs, we have to focus on economic growth. We have to focus on production. We have to put in place economic policies relevant to boost this growth and transformation. That is where we are failing. And that is where some significant achievers like South Korea or China were able to invest their tickets, putting working hard on that aspect. I want to emphasize for colleagues coming from my continent, that is where we need to work. Thank you so much. Excellent. Fantastic closing remark I think really gave a nice overall picture. Thank you so much everybody. I mean you can still hang around a little bit if you want to speak to our speaker but I think some of them have to leave. So unfortunately, we have to close this event, although there was like so much more that we could have actually talked about. So that's really the start for further conversation. Thank you everybody for coming. And I hope you really enjoyed the discussion. Thank you. Thank you so much.