 Good afternoon. I'm Joseph Sunny, Vice President of the Africa Center at the United States Institute of Peace. In partnership with the United Nations program, a development program, USIP is pleased to welcome you to this conversation about how the war in Ukraine is affecting Africa and potential responses. We are glad to welcome you to USIP, a National Nonpartisan Independent Institute founded by Congress almost 40 years ago to help prevent, mitigate, and resolve conflict abroad. In October 2020, USIP Africa Center was established to deepen, elevate, and expand our commitment to stemming violent conflict in Africa. We work directly with African political and civic leaders, African government, and regional institutions, businesses, civil society, African citizens, including women and youth, to build the local capabilities to mitigate and resolve conflict peacefully to avoid further crises. Unfortunately, Africa has suffered from the impacts of climate change, COVID-19 pandemic, and now Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. This invasion has led a significant blow to the rules-based multilateral system. It also threatens human security, peace, and democracy in Africa. Spiking food, fertilizers, and food prices are provoking social unrest and increasing fragility and instability in many countries in Africa. Yet, the war and its disruption also represent a moment for Africa to pose and ask essential questions to help it become a more assertive, geopolitical, and economic player globally. After all, Africa possesses new catalyzers of growth. I'm thinking of the new African continental free trade area, for example, one of the largest in the world. It has a large entrepreneurial youth population and a growing middle class. Africa is home to abundant natural resources, including strategic minerals and also arable land, capable of sustaining important agricultural value chains. And African populations are increasingly demanding democratic governance, which must not be overlooked, particularly in these times. The critical question before us today is how can African countries and their partners leverage their abundant resources and human capabilities to address the short-term impact of the Russia's invasion in Ukraine and advance their long-term development and security needs? In other words, how can Africa make the best out of this very, very bad situation? We are pleased to be joined by two distinguished speakers who will help us think through some of these challenges and importantly, identify some key opportunities. We are honored to have with us today the United Nations Assistant Secretary General and Director of the UNDP Regional Bureau for Africa, Ms. Aruna Isiakonua and USIP Senior Advisor, Ambassador Johnny Carson. Thank you both for joining us today. We look forward to a productive conversation. I will now turn it over to Assistant Secretary General Mrs. Aruna Isiakonua who will give us some remarks and the remarks will be followed by a moderated discussion by USIP West Africa Director Oge Onuboku. Thank you. Thank you, my dear brother and vice president of the Africa Center here at USIP. Let me also extend warm greetings to Ambassador Johnny Carson who will be joining in this conversation and by extension to all the leadership and staff of the Institute. Especially, I want to recognize the president who is a former colleague and friend, Liz Grande. Sorry to miss her today. But thank you so much for the warm welcome. It's a great pleasure to be here. Our shared goals to promote the sustainable development goals to preserve human dignity, to prevent violent conflict, to leverage technology and to leave no one behind are the building blocks for what the UNDP administrator, Mr. Himstiner, described as a future smart development, future smart UNDP. It is really a great pleasure to be in this magnificent building which I'm visiting for the first time, which is widely recognized as a monument of global peace. It is aptly located in the National Mall of the United States. The buildings translucent fiberglass roof in the shape of a dove is quite compelling and it does signal to the world, UCIP's commitment to fostering peace and sustaining it across the world. Sadly, today, far too many are facing insecurity, facing uncertainty, instability and the consequences of violent conflict and violent extremism. This is particularly true in Africa where 1.4 billion people living across 55 countries are struggling to contend with the complex and compounding crisis that have really hit the world and the continent. In 2020 and 2021, due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, African countries saw decades of hard-won macroeconomic, socioeconomic and governance gains reversed. For the first time in almost three decades, the continent's human development index dropped, signaling that the pandemic was reversing development in Africa. Millions of Africans lost their jobs and means of livelihood. Global trade disruptions did constrain growth and many African countries suffered from a progressively shrinking fiscal space and they were unable to finance much-needed social protection initiatives. We will recall that before the pandemic, African countries were among the fastest growing in the world. I think at the time, 6 out of 10 African countries were among the fastest growing, top 10 fastest growing countries. And we were also starting to see growth that was somewhat job-rich and that was trying to be more inclusive. Overall, today, some 50 million Africans were pushed back into extreme poverty as a result of the events of the last couple of years. There were several and marginalised segments of the population, particularly the women and, of course, the continent's youth were hardest hit and had least access to support and this included also small, medium enterprises and most of the businesses that were classified as informal. It is therefore no surprise that COVID-19 caused a significant financial and societal inequalities in Africa. African countries worked with their development partners to respond to these wide-ranging effects of the pandemic. National socioeconomic response programmes contained a combination of prudent macroeconomic policies and also strategic investments in income generation, in social protection and in job creation. On the regional scale, we saw Africa taking steps to address vaccine inequity. Who can forget the scramble for vaccines last year and what it meant for regions like Africa to be pushed behind the line? For example, we saw the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust, EVAT, an initiative of the African Union that will provide 400 million doses of J&J Single Shot COVID-19 vaccines through the African Medical Supplies Platform over a period of 18 months. This has been made possible by the $2 billion dollar facility that was provided by an African financial institution, the African Export-Import Bank, AFREXIM Bank. EVAT will greatly increase the availability of life-saving vaccines across the continent, while also increasing jobs and facilitating technology transfers. In addition, countries like Senegal, South Africa and Rwanda are at the forefront of vaccine production locally on the continent. So while multilateralism appeared to be shrinking elsewhere in the world, it was expanding in Africa during this COVID period. By the end of 2021, Africa outperformed the anticipated 3.7% GDP growth and recorded an impressive 4.5%. Showing its resilience and its muscle to bounce back. The recovery was fragile, however, but the continent appeared to be back on track towards the attainment of DSDGs. The onset of the Russia-Ukraine crisis earlier this year set African countries even further back. Trade disruptions, the sharp increases in food and fuel prices and pervasive uncertainty have destabilized households once again. Communities and countries across the continent are once again in a very precarious situation. These impacts combined with the lingering effects of COVID-19 pandemic further retard development progress on the continent. The direct effects of the Ukraine war include inflation in the prices of food and fuel, disruptions in trade of goods and services, a further tightening of the fiscal space, constrained green transitions, and a reduced flow of development finance. While African countries foreign trade with Russia, Ukraine, and the Belarus in most of the cases is not that significant, there are some exceptions in products such as wheat, fertilizers, and steel that could have a direct impact on African nations. In 21, for example, Kenya imported almost 30% of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine, and the supply disruption would have a negative effect on bread production, which is the third most consumed food item in that country. Furthermore, the war has had a negative impact on Africa's critical imports. Since Russia and Ukraine control around 40% of the total global potash fertilizer shipments, African countries are experiencing supply disruptions in this area. For example, 44% of Cameroon's fertilizer, Joseph, in Cameroon came from Russia in 2020, 44%, and analysts fear that current disruptions in fertilizer supply, particularly in West Africa, where the planting season is just starting, could have a dire effect on yields, which would also further compromise food security in the coming months. Iron ore and steel from Ukraine account for about 60% of Ghana's iron ore and steel imports. As a result of the war, the construction industry in that country is likely to face severe hurdles because of the supply disruptions in steel and iron ore, as well as the higher import costs that the countries are now facing. As mentioned earlier, the combined effect of COVID-19 pandemic and Russia-Ukraine war has reduced the government's revenues from trade and from taxation, while government spending to address all of these, including social protection mechanisms have, at the same time, risen. So countries are being asked to spend more with less coming in. In addition, fiscal and monetary responses of sub-Saharan African countries increased public indebtedness across Africa. According to the IMF's regional economic outlook for sub-Saharan Africa, this is the one in April 2022, 20 African countries are currently in high risk or debt distress, compared to 8 in 2015. Mozambique and Zimbabwe, for instance, are already in debt distress, while Malawi, Zambia and Comoros are at high risk. Furthermore, downgraded credit ratings because of the pandemic in increasing the cost of debt servicing, ratings from credit ratings agencies increased the cost of borrowing for African countries. Some of these ratings we know are biased in some way. 56% of currently rated African countries were downgraded by ratings in the early months of COVID, compared with 31% globally. UNDP research suggests that biased credit ratings could be costing 6 African countries $13 billion in additional interest rate payments. So Africa is borrowing at a much higher cost than the rest of the world. Perhaps the most pernicious effects of the Russia-Ukraine war in Africa is imported inflation. Across Africa, many countries are recording sharp increases in food and fuel prices. For example, overall inflation spiked by 34% in Tanzania between February and April this year. In Namibia, transportation costs rose by 20% between February and April, and food prices increased by 26% between February and March in Cameroon. Food and fuel account for over half of household consumption, making important inflation particularly devastating with poorer households being affected disproportionately. Furthermore, our analysis indicates domestic inflationary trends in most African countries are positively correlated with global food and oil prices. In addition, development projects are being postponed and cancelled, as some development partners bulk at the higher domestic cost of projects, and other consider diverting funds to deal with growing humanitarian crisis in Europe. But again, we see some kind of a turning to the political lens to view development on the continent, which is a very warring trend. The Russia-Ukraine war is also a clear and present danger to multilateralism, which was already on a limping leg. This multilateralism we've seen in the past indicates has been a bulwark of robust development efforts since the end of the Second World War, and a welcome tendency towards unilateralism and a return to Cold War dynamics would be devastating for Africa and indeed for the world. A world that has invested already a lot in getting on track to shape the kind of civilization that future generations deserve. We recall with great concern the challenges to governance and accountability that characterized the Cold War decades in Africa. A Cold War redux will certainly exacerbate the recent retreat of democratization in parts of the continent, where we have witnessed disruptive and unconstitutional political transitions. It will also be quite discouraging for the countries that are trying to do the right thing and there are many of them. Countries like Zambia, which had very successful free elections, democratic elections that ushered in a new government, peaceful transition, with many promises to the population. If they have to face severe hostility that we are experiencing in the financial landscape, how will that government be able to stand up democracy and sustain it and sustain peace as well among its population if it cannot meet the promises that it gave, and if democracy cannot deliver the dividends of development. That's why we must value multilateralism, peace and security at all levels. Speaking at the Nelson Mandela lecture in July 2020, we were in the middle of COVID at the time. I recall the U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calling for renewed multilateralism that will be based on a new global new deal that will create equal opportunities for all and respect the rights and freedoms of all. He noted that this will be based on a fair globalization on the rights and dignity of every human being, on living in balance with nature, on taking account of the rights of future generations and on success that's measured in human rather than economic terms. At the end of quote, we must invest in robust and meaningful multilateralism if we're to make it in our generation. So these complex crises are a massive exogenous shock to the African continent. These uncommon times demand exceptional and extraordinary solutions. But they will not suffice. UNDP's analysis based on results from international futures modeling calls for what we call a big push. Strategic investments in governance, in economic growth, in environmental sustainability, in equity, in social services and in technology that could help African countries withstand the impacts of these countries back on track to attend the SDGs. The Secretary General calls it enlightened self-interest. This is not asking for charity for Africa. It is asking the world to invest in a more secure future. To kickstart a historic big push in Africa, countries and their partners must focus on three collectively reinforcing priorities. First is that we must reframe development finance. We have to rethink the whole architecture of the global finance landscape. And this must start by enhancing domestic resource mobilization. Some have described Africa as a rich continent with poor people and weak institutions. We must prioritize actions that ensure that the continent retains a much greater share of the value of its strategic mineral, agricultural, and human resources. This can be accomplished in three ways by reducing the almost 90 billion dollar illicit financial flows from the continent. There is more money leaving Africa than coming in, ladies and gentlemen. This has to be rebalanced. It can be done by improving Africa's tax effort and raising average tax to GDP ratios from the current 17.5% to 24%. It can be done by eliminating unnecessary tax waivers, especially for big business. In addition, external priorities like sustaining levels of development assistance, re-channeling additional SDRs, this special drawing rights to finance strategic investments, particularly say for instance in the climate change area. And of course the whole development of innovative market based and blended options that must be prioritized. It is shocking that when SDRs were allocated out of 650 billion dollars of SDRs, Africa got only 34 billion. Most of it went to countries that didn't need it. The second aspect of the proposed big bush is the needs to consistently invest in resilience. We have to shock-proof development and democracy. There are too many shocks. It has become the new normal. If the SDGs have taught us anything, it is that development is not linear. Various shocks can undo reverse development gains and progress without resilience is not sustainable. So diverse shocks like the impact of planetary pressures and the end of the commodity boom, COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine all seem to affect Africa similarly due to its endemic structural vulnerabilities and dependent position in the global economic system. There are two words that hit Africans and Africa in the face in the last two years. Exclusion and dependency. Any approach that we have today must tackle both. To build resilience to the future, to these future shocks, African needs initiatives that enable it to fully utilize its natural resource wealth to direct and finance economic development that is more self-sufficient. We need to take advantage of planet-friendly financing mechanisms like blue carbon markets and green financing and we have to focus on climate risk-sensitive investment, de-risking and impact investment. Above all, Africa and its development partners need to invest in food and fuel security in greater productive capacity, easy for fertilizer and in higher value-added manufacturing and exports. The third is structural transformation and regional integration that must be prioritized. Africa needs to harness digital technologies and promote free and fair competition globally. Intensified support to regional integration and economic diversification and mobilize the resources to fill persistent critical gaps we have in technology, in skills and infrastructure, in energy that constrain currently in Africa's development. The African Union's Africa Continental Free Trade Area, AFCFTA arrangement provides an ideal framework for the continent to rationalize and harmonize tariffs, eliminate persistent non-tariff barriers and trade and prioritize the uninhibited flow of trade and people among the African countries. The AFCFTA could lift 30 million Africans out of extreme poverty. It could increase income by $450 billion and more than double the size of the single African market to $6.7 trillion by the next decade. As I close, I want to leave you with two Swahili words, Harambe to African words, Harambe and Ubuntu. Harambe means we are all together and Ubuntu means I am because you are. The African continent is facing uncommon and unprecedented exogenous shocks in the wake of COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine. It cannot deal with this alone. But these things also tell us, these events also tell us that our world has become so much more interconnected. Ensuring a speedy, inclusive and sustainable recovery across Africa needs all of us to come together to make it happen. This is certainly not the time to defund Africa's development which we are unfortunately seeing or to abandon multilateralism as the key instrument for equalizing our world or to undermine investor confidence. It's not the time to leave the continent behind. Africa still needs development assistance and will continue to do so in the coming years. However, we must look beyond aid and work towards eliminating the dependence of the aid framework. Africa needs significant investment flows, but this will not be realized unless we all work together to deal risk Africa's investment ecosystem and proactively explore the use of innovative financing mechanisms that are to deal with the challenges. Africa needs to improve domestic resource mobilization and it needs to tackle illicit financial flows. Ladies and gentlemen, since being in Washington, there's been a lot of talk about fragility. Most of my meetings in reference to Africa have been about fragility and how to deal with it. I want to challenge that notion that when we see Africa, there is nothing fragile about the people of Africa or about the continent itself. This is a place people with resilient, hard-working individuals. What is fragile are the systems that surround them, globally regionally and nationally. What is fragile is our multilateralism. What is fragile is the governance architecture that Africa is having to confront today and Africans are having to deal with. What is fragile is our compact to tackle climate change by fulfilling a climate promise which is unfulfilled. So as we think about a future smart Africa, let us remember that we are talking about the people that are resilient, that are hard working, that are determined, that are youthful and that want to make a meaningful contribution to our collective civilization. I thank you. Thank you so much for those remarks and good afternoon everyone who has joined us here today for this conversation. As well, greetings to all our virtual, to the members of our virtual audience who are joining us online on the continent and around the world. Thank you all for joining this conversation. My name is Oge Onobogo and I am the director for the West Africa program in the Africa Center here at USIP. As Joseph Sanny has already mentioned, here at the Africa Center we partner with those who are working to prevent, mitigate and resolve violent conflict by using analysis, training and in-country programming to achieve sustainable and inclusive peace. So therefore we are delighted to partner with UNDP today to host this very timely conversation on breaking away from economic dependency in Africa. Miss Ahuna, thank you so much for those wonderful remarks. And let me also introduce our co-panelists who has already been introduced but really needs introduction to those who follow US Africa policy discussions. So Ambassador Johnny Carson is a senior advisor here at USIP with the Africa Center. In 2009 he was the US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa and his distinguished 37-year Foreign Service career includes ambassadorships to Kenya, Zimbabwe and Uganda. So we look forward to a very engaging conversation today. And to our audience following us online, I encourage you to please follow the conversation via Twitter using the hashtag Africa's Economic Future. So if we go into the conversation as has already been said, the war in Ukraine, the social economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, the impacts of climate change and the global economic downturn all present challenges that could derail Africa's development progress. Given the constrained physical space as you mentioned in your remarks, rising debt, rising inflation, how can African policy makers really position their economies on a path of sustainable discovery, sustainable recovery? In addition, how can the international development community, including multilateral organizations like the UN, IMF, World Bank and the rest of them, collaborate with the continent and policy makers on the continent to help Africans exit this turbulent period with a new found capacity of developing their own economic future? You've already touched on some of these points in your remarks, but I'll call on you again to elaborate even further on these. Thank you. Okay. I think perhaps there are three things I think will be important to look at on this in terms of how Africa positions. Africa needs to be more assertive in taking its position in the world geopolitically. There needs to be more assertiveness because I think Africa has been treated always as a problem child despite the fact that this is a continent that breeds promise and opportunity. So first of all, to really not apologize for being Africa, but to stand boldly to present where it makes a contribution to the world, where it is important, an important part of the global fabric. So if you position that way, then it's important for those institutions, those financial and global institutions to understand that investment in Africa is well-being and progress, is investment in the global well-being and progress. What's good for Africa is good for the world. Right now, Africa is being defunded in terms of its development. Financial flows drastically being reduced. African countries are being asked to do the impossible, which is invest in social protection and stimulus for recovery, but with no financial means coming through. We're seeing a reduction in consensual financing, consensual loan finances. Money is becoming more and more expensive for African countries. So I think there needs to be a repositioning and rethinking of Africa's relationship with the world in terms of understanding that it's a relationship of a partnership of purpose, not a relationship of charity. We can pick and choose when we support Africa. The climate, the future of the planet Africa has a lot to say on that and contribute to that because it holds the world's second lung in the Congo basin. But today, finance for climate adaptation is not there. The promised 100 billion a year is not coming forth. So how does the world expect Africa to play its part in protecting the planet if all of these finances are not flowing? So I think positioning to help the world understand the important place of Africa in the world is really important. Thank you so much for those comments. And Ambassador Carson, I want to turn to you, pulling on those two same questions. But in addition, as we pull on this thread of thinking about how we break away, breaking away from economic dependency in Africa, what are some specific U.S. citizen or U.S. government initiatives that could support long-term economic development in African countries, particularly at a time like this? Thank you very much for allowing me to be on this panel with the Assistant Secretary General of the U.N. It's a pleasure to be with you, Ms. Zakuna. I think that the United States has always looked at Africa as a partner, but sometimes it has not taken that partnership as seriously and as committedly as it should be. I think that Africa is indeed an important and integral part of the global community. And as Africa moves ahead, as Africa rises, so does the global community. What is good for Africa is good for the United States. It is good for Western Europe. It is good for Asia. Africa's economic progress contributes to our global progress, to our global economic movement ahead. And so one should look at the issues very, very importantly. Clearly over the last decade and particularly over the last few years, things like COVID, like climate change, like the conflict in Ukraine have challenged those partnerships, but they need to be forged and strengthened through something that you talked about, and that is multilateralism. I think that the U.S. government has a responsibility to listen more attentively and carefully to what Africa's best leaders are saying and wanting. And I start with one that's very important today, and that is the African free trade agreement. This is probably the most important Pan-African agreement of the last decade. It has the prospects and possibilities of really transforming economic relationships around the continent and transforming Africa's economic and commercial relationships with the world. What should happen here in the United States is to begin to look for and frame policies that help bring about Africa's successful economic integration. And that means working more effectively with the AU and with the REX with ECOLAS, with SATAC, with the East African community, helping to strengthen those sub-regional organizations as well as working more effectively with the AU itself. So strengthening those regional ties and connectivity looking for ways to more effectively integrate U.S. policies and activities with the best things that are happening in Africa and certainly the African free trade agreement is clearly one of those most important things. The other things that I might quickly mention in terms of partnerships beyond strengthening the regional effort is looking to strengthen the commercial and business ties with Africa. Those remain areas where we can do a lot more. One of the big things that's happened in the United States over the last two and a half or three years has been the creation of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation which has expanded the ability of the U.S. government to provide loan guarantees, political risk, and now the possibility of investment in African commercial business and development activities. This is important too as a partnership tool. It doesn't mean that we move away from development assistance. Clearly it is needed in dealing with climate change, dealing with some of the health pandemics, but we need to listen a little bit more carefully to Africa's needs, sort out those things where partnership can be developed, but strengthen our capacity to work with regional institutions, REX, and with the AU, especially on the Africa trade initiative, free trade initiative and also looking for ways to work more effectively on the global issues which tie us all together and we're one party fails, we all fail. If climate change undermines Africa, it undermines America. If global health pandemics undermine Africa, they undermine the rest of the world. We need to understand that we are all in this global community together and effectively by working together in partnership we can make more of a difference. Thank you very much Ambassador Carson. I also want to start encouraging members of the audience either online or in person here to start getting your questions ready as we go into the next question that I have for you Mr Ahuna. So you rightfully noted in your comments the consequences of the Russia-Ukraine war could transcend economic and social outcomes on the continent. And as you stated in your recent UNDP rapid assessment report, it says this crisis, the Russia-Ukraine crisis could present both direct and indirect impacts on the continent. These could include wider implications that could mean support for democracy and also worse in state-society relationships just to name a few. So given what we know now can you highlight some specific interventions that could be implemented or strengthened to help in preventing, mitigating or rebuilding what UNDP refers to in its report as the peace pillar on the continent. Alright. Well thanks okay for that but let me first say this is a distinguished ambassador that I really fully concur with your analysis of what it takes in terms of regional integration and support that's required for Africa's institutions. I think that's a very big part of it. Secondly I think you know Africa is a very young continent with a lot of young people who have no jobs. Many of them are educated now. Investment in development in the last decades has actually ensured that we also have healthier populations. But intelligent educated young people with no jobs, it's an invitation to intelligent crime or criminality. So very important to invest in creating jobs for young people. And I think this is a low hanging fruit because these young people are ready. They are ready to play their part. We're seeing this in the area of entrepreneurship and innovation. We published a magazine in the middle of COVID which we called Africa Innovates. For young people coming up with ideas on how to recover, how to actually respond to the issue of COVID through innovations that were hardly supported. They were coming up with all kinds of solutions to these hard core problems. Imagine if we invested in that. So you have a ready youthful population that wants to be part of the solution. Can the world come in and invest in youth entrepreneurship, in youth innovation that creates jobs for these young people? They want to be job creators. It's not just about creating jobs for them. They actually want to be facility. So they're not asking for aid. They're asking for equity. So the business community that you referred to, can come in and look at that opportunity and invest in it. That's one way to actually reduce the potential of crisis or conflict in some of these countries or the bad guys coming and stealing the minds of the youth. The second one is I think it's really important to support Africa to grow what it needs and to eat what it grows, what it produces. Africa's dependence to almost 60% to 70% of what it needs to sustain life on the outside world, it's going to create conflict because if people can no longer find sustenance, if they can't if they go hungry, they're going hungry and they're not able to meet daily needs. It's a recipe for disaster. So how does Africa deal with that? We talked about the Africa continental free trade area. The world could rally behind us because that's one facility that will help Africa boost its productivity but also increase its share of trade with itself but also with the world. Investment opportunities, the fact that fertilizer right now is not produced on the continent at the level that is needed can change. Strategic grain reserves could become a pan-African initiative that is backed by development partners to ensure that when shocks like this come, Africa is ready with the basics that it needs to sustain life. Medicines, the whole pharmaceutical issue was laid bare by COVID. The fact that Africa was not producing vaccines. Now there is production that is envisaged on the continent. Imagine if we could have financial support for that, investor support for that to ensure that Africa is able to locally produce what it needs to protect its people in times of pandemics, not just of the COVID time but of diseases that are endemic like malaria and other things. So these are I think common sense initiatives that could be taken that actually are possible. Energy, I think it's important to tackle energy poverty on the continent because it's not sustainable in terms of peace cannot be sustained if half the continent continues to have no access to sustainable energy, not just in terms of lamps in homes but power access, energy, access to power that allows more businesses to do business at an affordable cost rather than incurring so much cost of energy because it's not affordable, it's not available. So these are some of the areas that we're working on in UNDP, leveraging technology and digital to get there faster. We think it's also very important. Africa will lead and in fact it's leading the fourth industrial revolution. I think it's important for the world to be aware of this. What has happened, the revolution that's taking place in the area of mobile money, this is a fintech for instance. We have the poor who actually banked today, have access to inclusive financing because of the new technologies and digital footprint of the continent. So this is also an area where I think if the world could come together and assure that it's fully inclusive that we have fiber optics laid in many places so that no one is excluded in the digital revolution, it's going to make a difference on the peaceful. Thank you so much Ms. Ahuna, as you all have heard it here today, Africa is leading the revolution. So on that note as we see this changing geopolitical landscape in Basta Carson, I think it's fair for us to say that the United States needs to rethink and strengthen its strategic relationships with Africa. What opportunities for this type of engagement exists, there are opportunities to elaborate even further on what opportunities exist. And how should the United States engage with African policy makers, businesses, civil society both on the continent and with the US based diaspora and the African diaspora around the world, engage in them to ensure that this reimagined relationship or this relationship where we talk about threatening relationship doesn't only speak to US interest but to mutual benefits that can be gained by both the United States and Africa. Thanks Ogie, I think that the relationship should be more comprehensive, more consistent, more energetic and more engaged. And by comprehensive I would say that it's important not only to have a broad diplomatic relationship with Africa which is meaningful and intense and done seriously and in partnership, but it's also important for other communities to be engaged as well. I think the business community in the United States needs to take a much more comprehensive and broad based look at opportunities across the continent and not be as reluctant and fearful and sometimes misinformed about what is happening in Africa and where the opportunities exist. Yes there are challenges, serious challenges in a number of places around the continent but there are also serious opportunities as well for business engagement. More work in support of the work of the Corporate Council on Africa which does a great job more work by the US Chamber of Commerce but also it's important for some of the major sectors and their associations to take a more in depth look at the continent as well. I think there is also a real need to talk with, engage with Africa's diaspora which is increasingly large and important in the United States and also to leverage those strong ties and relationships where they can be leveraged to engage more fully in Africa not just in humanitarian activities but also in commercial and business activities and in activities that are going to strengthen and deepen the level of cooperation. I think equally one needs to look at different kinds of relationships that are more prominent in America's relations with Europe and with Latin America and Asia for example more city to city relationships more state to state relationships more ties at the local levels and the regional levels and not simply concentrate at the national levels. I think these kinds of engagements also are critical to strengthening the fiber of relationships and connectivity and also looking at various sectors that can tie countries together. I think of Nigeria for example in its incredible film and television and communication sector it needs to be more broadly adopted integrated into the global community. You mentioned Madam Secretary the FinTech and the enormous amount of work that's being done in the digital and technical communication space and I look at places like Kenya for example and there's always been a pioneer in FinTech pioneer in mobile money, a pioneer in the kinds of electronic transfers of financial data and see how they can be more linked in with the digital and technical community not only in the United States but globally to expand those out and make those more meaningful of relationships. All of these things are important. I'm going to swing back to a quick comment on the issue of the African free trade agreement and why it is so important for Africa and the United States. The United States has been one of the strongest supporters of one of the best known free trade areas in the world and that's the European Union. The success of the European Union has been propelled essentially by the countries 26, 27 that are there but also by the support of countries like the United States and recognizing their importance in building relationships that are meaningful. That should be the same kind of activity with respect to Africa because I'll go a step further Madam Secretary and say that when I look at the importance and the possibilities of this they're enormous. Africa is the region in the world that trades less with itself than any other region globally. Latin America trades more with itself. The Americas including Mexico and Canada trade more with itself. The European Union trades more with itself. The Asian nations do the same but that's not the case with Africa. Africa doesn't trade well with itself. It has too many tariff and non-tariff barriers that prevent the movement. The strength of Europe's economy is in Europe. The strength of America's economy is with Mexico and Canada and Canada with United States and Mexico and the same is true of much of South America as well. It has to trade more with itself to build its economy to create jobs and the outside of the world can be a partner because your economic growth and the economic growth in Africa strengthens so many elements that are important to the United States. So it's a critical time and a critical juncture for the African trade agreement. The second thing I'll mention too that is important is something that you alluded to and that is for Africa to add essential value to the things that it exports abroad. It needs to be able to do to add value, employment export earnings to many of the things that are exported without value. More needs to be manufactured at home and it needs to be a part of the effort to expand Africa's regional and global trade because far too much of it still regrettably hinges in oil and gas and mineral production and not enough in manufactured items that help to expand the prospects for jobs. The United States and the business community both in government and in the private sector can and should be a part of this effort and I think of two or three areas where it's important and people are making a difference. I think the US International Development Finance Corporation is trying to make a real difference especially in its capacity to put money into projects and be an investor in them and I think MCC, the Millennial Challenge Corporation, helping to be able to put money into serious infrastructure projects. Thank you very much Ambassador Carson. Before I open it up for questions, Mr. Honette, did you want to respond or add any additional comments? I saw you nodding man, I was wondering if you wanted to add anything to that. No, I mean I was only just agreeing especially when Ambassador Carson spoke about structural economic transformation and adding value to Africa's raw commodities. I think this is really where the magic will happen that for decades Africa still sort of presides over colonial economy which basically serves the development of other nations by supply and be the main supply of raw materials and we actually have seen this in the case of fertilizer actually. It's one area where a lot of the raw materials that comes to the input for fertilizer production are produced in some African countries and they are all exported out for production elsewhere and then Africa buys back at a higher cost so it is such a critical point and I think your emphasis on the African continental free trade area is quite apt because that is also what is going to help with the productivity side. You can't trade with what you don't produce what you don't have so hopefully the market will be a big push for expanding productivity but it needs support. Thank you. So do we have any questions in the audience? I'll ask you a question. I see Dr. Richard Joseph. Yes it is. Okay, very good. Thank you very much Secretary General for coming and making these. Unfortunately I've been involved in this business too long and as I'm looking at that title there, 20 years ago we could have been having a meeting with that same title in a time of great optimism about the African agenda. I just want to deal with aspirations and realities and so if we take some of the points that you've emphasized first of all the youthful population and what they represent but we're also dealing with what is happening in terms of education of that young population. When you mention agricultural productivity and once again as you know that has been high on the African agenda for a long time including fertilizer production and use if we take power those of us who work on Nigeria know that Nigeria has had continued to produce but has had declining capacity to refine its own crude oil and therefore imports it so this moment of increased challenges how can the response be different from a repetition of aspirations that have not been met? I'll stop there. Thank you so much. Do we have another question? So why don't we tackle that question first? It's a loaded question. So in this moment how can the response be different? Richard I think your question is a very serious question and a very significant question at the same time this is a period of enormous challenge for Africa because of the COVID crisis because of climate because of conflict in Ukraine and also because of conflict in Africa in the Horn for example but it's also an opportunity for Africa to recognize that it is a real time to move forward and that leadership democratically elected leadership, good governance are all a part of this process as well and that it is absolutely critical that leaders in power recognize the challenges that they have before them, the need to do things differently and to make the kinds of decisions that are going to have some meaningful impact on society. It has to rest with leaders doing the right thing and also finding good partners regionally and good partners globally to work with. The challenges are there but the opportunities exist to do things differently and I think it starts with good leadership good governance and recognition that weak institutions result in weak economies bad governance and potential conflict. You know Richard I've been also in this business for a long time and to some extent I share some of your words there but you know having been in it for a long time has also led me to a place where now I want to invest in the opportunity and I think if only half of us invested in what's going right we will get much more mileage because the orientation, the normal for Africa is to look at it from a lens of the negative of the weakness of the challenges and this is many PhDs have been written on the impossibility of Africa, the problem of Africa. So we are now in a position where we're saying we've actually witnessed enough good governance, we've witnessed enough strength and resilience for people and systems of Africa to invest in and if we just did that, if we just recognized that Zambia as a country, people government systems went to the polls and in some cases we actually have better governance than the rest of the world in some of these context but no one is investing in that if we just agree that a country like Botswana has done everything right by its resources and its people most things right that they know, nobody gets it 100% right but that we can invest in that track record and not allow it to be reversed but rather continue on the path of strength, if we just invested in political transitions that we see opportunities created where long serving leaders step down, die or are taking out and a country has an opportunity to reset its clock, where are we when a country like Chad happens, where are we when something like what we saw in Burkina Faso post Kampaore happens, it was a youth movement that took out a long serving maybe not so good governance system and created an opportunity for a new start for the country where were we, were we there in an intentional ready way to accompany that transition that is in most cases not so easy, it's quite complex and you can continue to count so from where I sit right now I think that there is enough to give us confidence that we can invest in what's going right on the continent and the rest will follow, the more we can expand the space of the good the more we can make the negative and the challenges the minority, they will always be there but what we need to do is make that the exception and I want to make that the exception by investing in that which is just now considered marginal there is progress on the continent, let's invest in the progress there's a promise in the youth, let's invest in the youth Thank you very much Madam Secretary and we got two questions online so I'll go ahead and read through the first question and this is addressed to both of you so how do you think international trade can be reformed because as the WTO rules are now it seems that only developed countries can benefit from it, from the rules of the WTO so this question is addressed to both of you how do you think international trade can be reformed let me just say that we've discussed earlier where some of the shortcomings in pitfalls are Africa needs first of all to trade more with its neighboring countries it needs to bring down both tariff and non-tariff barriers that inhibit trade they need to improve infrastructure regionally in between and among regions and countries they need to look for larger regional markets and they need to work on improving key infrastructure and access to electricity and water which are the drivers behind much of what's going on Africa also needs and we only touched a little bit on agriculture here but Africa needs to substantially improve its local and regional agriculture there's really no need in many instances for Africa to be importing large amounts of food whether it's grains and wheat or whether it's rice and other commodities and so there's a need to do some of these structural things to improve the situation I'm again recalling that only 6 or 7% of all farmland in Africa is based on irrigation very low rates of irrigation across the continent moving away from rain-fed agriculture also helps to increase food production increases rural and farm livelihoods increases the prospects of trading across borders between countries so all of these things are there but it's the regional framework and then it's the whole issue of value added adding value to products and manufacturing much much more I think that the WTO rules do cause some impediments but they aren't the primary causes for the lack of economic growth and the lack of economic trade regionally and internationally because again as I pointed out I think that the level of inter-Africa trade is the lowest of any other region and although Africa exports a lot of minerals and oil and other products it's contribution to global trade is actually pretty low and so adding value to both agricultural products to manufactured products there's a capacity I think the solution shouldn't be looked at as a WTO issue it should be looked at more systemically and internally WTO rules shouldn't be the reason that people say that trade and economic development it becomes an easy excuse I think one needs to go beyond that one needs to go beyond the WTO reasons for the lack of trade I think that I would agree with I think it's the WTO but it's also beyond the WTO I think that reform is needed and it requires political will I think that the world knows what to do we're not here going to make prescriptions I think this has been studied extensively and we know where the fault lines are we know exactly where the inequalities and the economic injustice reside within the trade system the international trade system we lack the political will to push for change in those areas I'll just give one example you were talking about adding value to products you take a country like Côte d'Ivoire which produces cocoa it wants to produce chocolate not just export cocoa beans and it has started but in order to be able to export it's chocolate to other countries the tariff that will be slapped on the finished product it's almost impossible to make any profit from it and that's intentional because the trading partners want the cocoa beans they don't want the chocolate because the cocoa is going to help create their own industry and their own jobs but guess what if the world doesn't wake up Côte d'Ivoire needs to have those manufacturing firms and create jobs for its young population they should not be surprised when those young people go after the jobs wherever they are created because now migration becomes an issue because the jobs are not where people live their ambitions are the ambitions of these young people wherever they sit in Africa becoming a lot bigger than the opportunities they have at home so we need to create those opportunities at home and one way to do it it's not to have the high tariff standards for finished products which then removes the incentive for countries to add value to their products whether that's a WTO issue or not is another matter but that's a reality when we get sort of practical on this Thank you so much a second question we have here is on the concern and I think Madam Secretary this is directed to you the Ambassador Carson you can chime into as well so on the concern of fragility as you mentioned in your remarks this question here was wasn't the term fragility initiated by the G7 countries and conflict affected states and isn't the GFA which is a new Global Fragility Act isn't it supportive of the G7 member goals so I think the question here as it's written it's just the concern about the term fragility and the way the term is being used the question here is phrased as wasn't that a term that was developed in collaboration between the G7 countries and conflict affected countries I don't have a problem with the term fragility being coined and used I just have a problem with it being always associated with Africa Africa is synonymous with fragility there is a certain hijacking of the development space where you give agencies to the people where they are in charge of their own development agenda where they are seeking to be seen as people with a dream and people who want to have prosperity and yet they keep getting boxed into a fragility kind of space where and it's a different mindset you know that's what we need to tackle when you are defined in the fragility terms it means actually you're not ready for prosperity it means that the set of goals and initiatives that are being applied to you are sort of marginal to what you need in terms of investments in the drivers of development and prosperity so it's a mindset issue and I'm sure that those who are using the term may not mean it in that way but that's the impression that is created and we can have a debate about this it doesn't mean that there aren't countries and systems that are fragile it just means that does Africa become again the poster child for all things fragility and I think that it's a negative trend because on the contrary we have a continent despite despite all the odds that is trying to rise and do better for its people is to see this Africa rather than just the fragile Africa it does not mean we shouldn't invest in sort of overcoming fragility where it exists and there are many parts of the world where that is I think what I'm up against is the identity of Africa and the whole conversation around Africa being only and mostly fragility because we see other dynamics that are happening on the continent and we need to invest in those dynamics and we should not offset the mind or the track by just sort of bringing everything back to a box of crisis the crisis the predominance of the crisis mentality is hurtful to Africa's development and you see even in the way resources are channeled the way the energy is channeled yes of course you have to deal with crisis but if you just reduce the continent to a crisis situation it will not move forward Thank you very much Madam Secretary Ambassador Carson did you want to add any point to that? Not really I think there is a debate about whether the word fragility is used too broadly and sometimes too loosely and instead of identifying one country you begin to identify a region a continent and so it has to be looked at carefully no doubt that there are degrees of fragility in Africa but there is fragility as well in other parts of the world there is fragility in Central America and parts of Latin America if you are looking at Nicaragua and Venezuela and places like that and there is also fragility in parts of Asia as well but one should be very careful about assigning the word to one region one group of people and be careful about how it is defined and used Thank you Ambassador Carson and we are almost coming to the end of our conversation today but Madam Secretary I would like to invite you to give a few closing thoughts or remarks in this Thank you Oge I think as we look at the impact of this war in Ukraine on the continent and in the world and as we look at recovery from the impact of COVID pandemic I think it is a strong message a wake up call to African this is really for African Africans that it is time Richard was asking the question why are we still here it is really time for Africa to own the development space and agenda I think part of what makes Africa slower in its journey to develop it is the I would say this is lack of ownership actually and leadership of that agenda and the space that is created for many factors I mean there are so many multiple agendas on the continent and everyone comes with their own piece of it and Africa has to sort of run after it and I think it is time to consolidate on the continent what is right for Africa its development and for that agenda to be owned by the people by the people of the continent this is really important and that they are in the driver's seat in terms of determining where the future holds and where the continent goes I think there needs to be a reduction in dependency for the things that African needs to sustain life basic things that is another wake up call to begin to fashion those policies that allow the continent to have greater independence greater autonomy in its in the commodities and productivity that it needs to stay to absorb these shocks it is important to shock proof the development pathways whether we are talking about climate shocks or conflict shocks or pandemic shocks and I think it is important for Africa to invest in integration the continent because of the way it is divided in the sort of colonial construct cannot survive without being regionally integrated without the sort of one African market construct and so anyone who wants to accompany Africa's development successfully needs to invest in all of this including investing in Africa's youth for me that is where the hope lies we cannot continue to bypass this dynamic young population in our development practice we need to put them at the center they need to become the spine of our development assistance and practice and if we did that I think that the health of this continent will be secured and finally I think we go back to where we started which is that what is good for Africa is good for the world this continent cannot be separated from the global aspirations to attain higher levels of civilization it is part and parcel of that journey and therefore needs to be treated with equal respect and economic justice I think it's been a great conversation I think it's important to recognize that there are numerous challenges as a result of the things that have occurred over the last couple of years and decade climate change conflict in Africa conflict in Ukraine but there are serious opportunities that should be taken by African leaders countries I'll use your words Madam Secretary the current global environment is a wake up call for Africa to do something important about agriculture, about trade about regional integration about urbanization it's a wake up call for greater progress and that progress is really desired by African citizens as reflected in a lot of the polling data that's done around Africa by such groups as Afrobarometer the desire for people to have more democratic governance to be a part of more inclusive societies to realize greater economic growth opportunity to have better health conditions and even to support regional integration are all out there it's important for I think Africa's leaders to seize the opportunities they're out there develop the strong partnerships globally that are available to surge and move ahead it's a period of enormous challenge but also significant opportunity Thank you very much Ambassador Carson Thank you Madam Secretary Thank you for a very engaging conversation today for those who are still online to continue this conversation using the hashtag Africa's economic future please join me in giving a warm thank you round of applause to our panelists today and as we lose I think in summary it's been said there are challenges but there are a lot of opportunities and there are opportunities to invest in what is going right I also want to invite everyone to join us outside as we tour the imagine live exhibit so thank you so much everyone thank you again