 Hello and a special welcome to this special edition of Africa Business Report, we're coming to you from the World Economic Forum in Cape Town, South Africa. The broader theme for the forum this year is reimagining a future for Africa. It seems as though the conversations have moved beyond the euphoria around the African growth story and we're asking more meaty questions around how this growth can trickle down and impact and transform the lives of ordinary men and women. Right now we're discussing the theme, the informal is the new normal. This is giving cognizance to the fact that more Africans are employed and involved in the informal sector than in any other area of the economy. In fact the African Development Bank says nine in ten Africans is somehow employed in the informal sector. What this does do is it provides auxiliary incomes, it absorbs those who are unemployed and it allows people to unleash their creativity. On the plus side those are the issues. On the negative though it has many grey areas, it has very few protective forces for the labour industry and more than that it does create loopholes where you can see a black market emerge and there be criminality. So what we want to do today is elaborate on how the informal sector can be absorbed into the mainstream economy by taking the very best of the creative and enterprising aspects of Africans in this area of the economy and for governments to clamp down on the worst. Discussing the issue with us is His Excellency, the Vice President of the Republic of Ghana, Queci Amisar Arthur, thank you so much sir for your time. We also have the Executive Director of Oxfam International, Winibya Nyema, thank you very much for your time. A young entrepreneur and a World Economic Forum young global leader is the Chairman of Mine Online, Manla Sibergo, thank you and finally a view from the corporate sector, the global chairperson of KPMG International, John V. Meyer, thank you very much for your time. Let's start off with the Perceptions, Your Excellency. There is a view that governments in general see the informal sector as a nuisance. They see it as the street vendors, the unlicensed taxi drivers, the hawkers who just pollute the streets of African cities and aren't doing anything constructive. What's the Ghanaian interpretation of the informal sector? The typical person in Ghana is an informal operator. So for us it's more of the typical individual who is in the informal sector. It's only now that the formal sector is becoming very important in our country. So for us the topic is smooth really, it's that we are already the typical, the informal is already the typical economic operator in our country. So in Ghana the informal is normal? Substantial part of the country in agriculture, the farmers, 90% of them, the large contributors to the gross domestic product are farmers. They provide the foreign earnings which move this economy. And so that is the typical economic operator. Winnie, there is also a view that in the informal sector you find women, the youth and the poor. Is that all there is to it? The informal sector employs the majority of African people. I wonder if you can just hold on a minute, I think there's something wrong with your microphone there, it's not really picking up the sound. And whilst I ask a technician to come and sort that out, let's move to you, Mandla. There is also a view that when I talk about this creativity unleashed, I'm referring to entrepreneurship, but some people would say that actually in the informal sector people are survivalists, they're not enterprising, they're surviving. It is true, I think in South Africa I would say that the informal is definitely abnormal. If you look at our history, only really 21 years ago have we had this big population moving to informal. So we are an abnormal economy. I think there is huge potential. And I often say to people that the future of Africa is creation, the future of Africa is self-employment. So we have to make the informal sector normal. John, the other view is that there's seldom an interface between the formal economy and the informal economy. Corporate is corporate and the informal is the informal. There's never an opportunity for the two to meet. Well, I'm not sure that perception is accurate. I think there is a tremendous amount of overlap in many cases between the formal and informal sector. A number of people, particularly youth, who may be in the formal sector by day, are also participating in the informal sector by the evening, working second jobs, doing things in their villages and towns. So first of all, I don't think you can make a clear distinction in many cases between formal and informal. And like most things related to how do you get the economy moving, I don't think it's a question of either or. It's a question of lifting all boats and trying to focus on the things we can do to grow the formal sector. But we need to focus just as clearly on those things that we think will create opportunities in the informal sector as well. Winnie, I hope your microphone has been sorted out now. The women, the youth and the poor. Are those the only demographics we find in the informal sector? No, actually the majority of African people in the informal sector. When I think of the village where I live, more than 90% of the people in my village are working in the informal sector. For women, 80% of women are working there. And young people the same. But what is concerning is that work in the informal sector is characterized by vulnerability, low wages and no rights. So it's not the way that we lift people out of poverty in Africa. I think they're going to lift your microphone so that it comes closer to your scarf. I think it's the best way to do it. Okay. All right. Let's continue this discussion. So basically you are talking about the human rights aspect and the rights and the vulnerability that workers face. Let's elaborate on that point. Let me stay with you, Winnie. There is a view that within the informal sector you are dealing with a situation where people would take on workers because then they don't have to pay them a minimum wage. They would take on workers because then they're not protected by the law. That blurred line between the legal and the illegal. Is it really as complicated as it seems? It's very true. Oxfam has done studies in a number of countries on this question. And we find that African people are working, men and women are working a hard day, doing a hard job, but going home hungry. If you take a case like Malawi, tea growing, bringing millions to the coffers of the government, but you find workers they are earning less than half the extreme poverty line. And we've been working on strengthening their rights, negotiating with the tea estate owners to lift their wages and respect their rights. So it's critical that informality ends, that what we see as informal becomes more part of a normal economy with rights, with standards, with minimum wages. Mandela, I want to defer to you this question. There is another view that some people actually make the choice to work in the informal sector, because the costs will be lower, it will be cheaper to hire labor, and they can evade the law in the form of paying taxes. It's not entirely true. I think a lot of people in Africa are forced to be in the sector. There's a huge unemployment on the continent. If you look at South Africa, there's a lot of young people who are unemployed. And if you look at the future of the continent, there's this whole discussion around that 18 million people need, jobs need to be created, around 18 million jobs a year. That's a lot of jobs. I think the future is not industrialized. It's not your big monopolies that have supplied us with our soft drinks, that the future is self-creation. My big argument is that we need to ... There's almost two conversations that take place on the continent, which is a contradiction. The formalized sector is so monopolized that it actually stifling some of the growth for intra-panias. John, another perception, and this goes to fiscal management, is that people in the informal sector don't contribute to the broad economy. They don't pay their taxes. Yet other people would say, right, they don't pay income tax, capital gains tax, but they pay VAT. They pay customs duties for the suppliers of their small businesses. They're very much rolling stock in the mainstream economy. Well, I agree with that. I think if you wanted to just focus specifically on how to grow the formal sector, the formal part of the economy, you would also focus on growing the informal sector, because there's an evolution and a journey that takes place. And you're right, they may not be paying income tax in all cases, but there are excise taxes and other taxes that are being paid. And just as importantly, many individuals who are having success in the informal sector grow into participating in the formal. It's a way of, I think, growing the economy from an overall standpoint. Mr. Vice President, let's talk about policy makers. You've said that in Ghana, actually, the informal sector is the mainstream economy. And earlier on, we heard Winnie Banima saying, we need to get rid of this informal economy, formalize people so that they have their rights. Well, that's the impression she created. At a policymaking level, what is the bridge that needs to be introduced to allow people to cross over so that they have that security? I think the mistake that we make in the topic is to assume that informality means illegitimate. These are legitimate activities that people are engaging. What we have tried to do is to formalize them. They receive cash payments. It doesn't go through the banks. So it is not quantified in terms of taxes. But on the other side, these are people who face higher costs in terms of credit, in terms of access to credit and so on than people who receive payments through the banks. So what we have tried to do is to make those activities, those legitimate activities, quantifiable. And put it so that, for example, a largest group, the cocoa farmers, they get paid through a check through the banking system so that they can also earn a pension later. Through foreign exchange operators, the people who do bureau exchange on the streets, we formalized it, we made it a legitimate activity so they can be registered and they can pay the tax. So all we have tried to do is to bring them into the mainstream rather than leave them outside because those activities are the ones that keep the economy. When you want to clarify your point, you are shaking your head. I want to agree with the minister that the challenge is how to create opportunities for people in the informal sector to earn a good living, a good income. One way to do this is to bring them more into the supply chains of businesses that are big and that export that are in the global market. We do that. Oxfam does that. We bring people into the supply chains. For example, we've supported 20,000 women in Morocco to get into the business of exporting strawberries. They grow strawberries and export us, take them to Europe. But then once key there is that they get a fair deal, that they get a good price for their crop, that they have security in case the weather is not good, that they are cushioned and that they get a good income from that. But equally, small and medium enterprises that are working in that informal space need support from government. Credit is an issue for them. And often governments regulate the financial sector in such a way that small enterprises cannot access credit. So there are many things that governments can do that would empower small, medium, micro enterprises to thrive. You're introducing a very important aspect of the conversation and I'd like us to go there. Winnie, I've just been told that you no longer need to use the handheld mic. Your lapel mic should be okay. So you can do whatever is most comfortable for you. John, I want to bring you into this conversation. We heard about how people in the informal sector can be incorporated into the value chain of businesses. They've got manufacturing skills. Maybe they can be suppliers. They've got a few technical skills. Maybe they can be hired out. Is that plausible if many of them are not documented or regulated? You know, I think it's a mixed picture, but the reality is, as we said earlier, which I agree with wholeheartedly, that many, particularly youth, are just shut out of the formal economy. So it's not a question of which is better. The reality is because of rigid policies around wages and other labor restrictions, many youth don't have an opportunity to enter directly into the formal economy. This is a path. This is, you know, by focusing on how do we mainstream the informal sector? How do we bring more people more formally into that informal sector? That is a path toward having a broader portion of your workforce engaged in the formal sector, which is obviously the goal down the road. Mandela, I'd like to take this opportunity to ask you briefly to tell us your story, because today you are seen as a leading young entrepreneur, but it didn't quite start off that way for you. Yes, I grew up in a rural area. I often tell people that the first day of schooling was actually under a tree. And I think a couple of months later, we finally made into a classroom with cow down on the floor. I can still smell it till today from Malanga. So it hasn't always been easy. But I went to university and when I left, I went into, I started my first business. I have traded in an informal sector. And I have to say, though, that for a population like South Africa, where you have over 55 million people and the majority of them are unemployed, you have a very strong formalized sector. You still have four banks in the whole of South Africa that control the sector. You still have one pay TV, which controls the pay TV sector. So the challenges are enormous for South Africa around how do you get these young people into employment. The other thing is there was a mention of this, I guess, getting the informal sector into supply chain. It still hasn't worked in South Africa as an example. I think there's a lot of talk around it. These multinationals sit with big budgets, and those budgets are not going anyway. And I still think that we seem to be contradicting each other. We don't seem to be making real effort. And I feel that we've come to a point, especially for South Africa, it's 21 years later. I have been in business for 21 years and I've seen the challenges. I'd like you to just break those challenges down briefly, Mandela. You mentioned access to credit. What was the difficulty you encountered? First, the banks still use the same instruments that they used before we were liberated in South Africa. I think the type of investment that's coming on to the continent comes in the same fashion. That's one. So meaning that as an entrepreneur coming from the formal sector, you sit at the table and the formalized sector doesn't understand you. That's one. So meaning that you actually cannot set up. That's second. And the second thing is there seems to be, I mean, there are, there seems to, if you look at our consumption in Africa, I think more than 80 percent of what we consume is not, is not from here. So those are the value chains in terms of where the windows of opportunities are. And you said supply chain, everybody talks about it, but they only paying lip service to it. So when you go to a retailer and you say I've got a product made in the informal sector, what's their response? The reality is retailers, I can talk to South Africa, they still use the same methods. You still have to pay a hefty price just to list your product. Where is an entrepreneur that has created an amazing product going to be able to find this capital to list, just to list a product? And so those are some of the challenges is that the instruments that I used in the formalized sector and the retail sector, in the banking sector, don't necessarily communicate. And those are not the instruments that are going to create jobs, definitely. I'm going to break the discussion down into three main areas. Let's start with micro financing, Mr. Vice President, you actually referred to it earlier on. We need to make sure there's access to capital. We need to make sure the banks play ball. African banks already are faced with liquidity challenges. The last thing they need is to incur more risk, is to be learning to people who don't have steady incomes, can't register profits, and won't pay back those loans. So it's a catch-22. It's not that the banks don't want to, often they just can't take on that level of risk. And the international system also places on the requirements on them. Know your customer, requires an address, requires an employer, it requires for you to have utility bills and so on. And therefore, makes it difficult for that informal sector operator, who has regular income, small as it may be, even to be able to have a bank account is difficult. So those are the things that, the cost aspect of operating in the sector where they have to deal with money lenders, they have to have what we call in Ghana some microfinance, other operations, to operators who are informal, savings and loans, operators who run away with their money and so on. So they face significantly higher costs than people in the informal sector. So what can governments through their central banks, lenders of last resort, that can step in and try to create cash reserves, try to give the banks the security that they need to then open up the purse to the informal sector to go through microcredit. First of all, if I completed it, I'm saying that in Ghana, the central bank created a biometric verification system that allows people to have a bank account without having all those requirements. So that's the first step that makes it. Yes, there's an insurance mechanism that ensures that these informal sector operators will be able then to also access credit. So those are the things that we're doing very small but significant steps consistently achieving the results that we want. That's progressive in Ghana. It's not necessarily the case when in the rest of Africa. And yet there are examples. If we take the Grumian Bank in Bangladesh, you can loan to the poor and have those loans repaid and grow businesses. Absolutely. It's a myth that poor people are a risk to lend to. In fact, they pay back, especially women. But what we don't have are the products that will be right for people working at that level and in those conditions of work. So it's a combination of factors that they need to be productive. There's credit that they can access with the kinds of assets that they have or lack of assets. Lacking collateral. There is risk ensuring themselves from risks such as changing weather patterns, such as economic shocks. They don't have products that will ensure them from risks. There's rights, low wages characterise this sector. The lack of a minimum wage that will give them a good income in order to stay productive. So it's a whole host of policy issues that are not there for them. And the reason is clear. It's really because the policy process is dominated by the rich. By those who are in the former economy. So it's about really policy not working for the poor. It's political capture. If we can have them having a real voice on the decision table, then we might get decisions that will make their lives better, that will give them a chance to be productive. Is it political capital, the politicians, the rich, they don't care or care enough? I wouldn't say they don't care. They definitely care. But I think the big thing is around who sits at the table. The policy makers sit with big monopolies. And the big monopolies are the ones that run this continent. So we need to change that. The reality is if we are going to face the hard truth around how we're going to create these jobs is around making sure that we bring in sort of the informal sector onto the table to sort of have real meaning. If you look at a perfect example, in Soweto, which is the biggest township in South Africa, 3 million people live there. It's a city. There's a big stock fell, which is very informal, where people buy for each other and put money and save. It's worth billions in South Africa, yet it's still not recognized. Again, if you look at what they're consuming, they're buying it from the formalized sector. So, yeah, it is really around who sits at the table. John, is it about who sits at the table? You guys in big offices, you don't care enough? Well, again, at least my experience is not about not caring. It's about collaborating, getting all the parties at the table, and working through practical solutions and not just talking about easy rhetoric. And, you know, we've been up here a long time and nobody has mentioned education yet. And education is at the heart of what we need to deal with here. And that can't be solely a government challenge. It's got to be business working closely with government. I think we see that happening in a number of places very effectively. But it's like everything else. There's some great things happening, but they're not happening at the scale, and they're not happening at the pace that we need to really solve the problem, given the pace of the employment problem, particularly in the youth and the demographics around that in Africa particularly. I want to stay with you, John, because I still want to focus on this question of financing. The financial systems in Africa, as you see them, can they absorb the kind of credit that needs to be offered to traders in the informal sector without thinking the banks? You know, I think it's got to be a combination of things. I agree with your points earlier about the banking challenges. I think there are opportunities for microfinance. There are opportunities for village lending that we're seeing in certain places. Pulling resources to provide credit to folks as they're trying to, either in the agricultural sector or other sectors, begin to build a business, begin to build a livelihood. There have got to be more creative solutions than just relying on traditional bank financing. I think that we keep talking about the issue of finance and credit. Yes, there's a huge credit gap for people who need to access finance, particularly those in agriculture. There's a huge gap there. But there are also other challenges, such as wages. Many of our countries don't have a minimum wage, so you have situations where people work hard and actually are productive, but don't earn from what they produce. In 2010, I'll give you an example. The chief executives of supermarkets in the UK who have dropped their income from 1 million dollars to 4.2 million pounds, rather. In the same year, the real wages of government manufacturers, mostly women, went down in the same year. So unless there are also ways to ensure that the labor of poor people is paid fairly, you cannot have... Work does not become a root out of poverty, it becomes a trap. And it's not just wages, it's also security of tenure, the land, the rents and so on. So I'll give you an example. In the UK, I'd like to introduce a secondary issue and an important one that John has referred to, youth unemployment. This is a young continent. This is a continent where for all sorts of reasons young people can't find themselves entering the formal economy. And so by default, they find themselves in the informal economy. We have a youth employment initiative that provides entrepreneurial training for the youth. We also have some innovative credit systems that allow for young people to access credit to start their businesses. We have training programs that provide them with employable skills. So there are quite a number of these initiatives, but as I said, it's just the skill of this. This is a government initiative. We are taking tax money in order to provide these initiatives. If we can scale up this, we could be first in the group of African nations that able to then finally make an impact on minimizing or reducing youth unemployment. John, what interventions are necessary? In some countries we are talking about subsidizing a youth wage that will give an incentive to businesses to hire young people because the government will pay those salaries and the business will offer the training. Well, again, it seems to me the role of government is to create an environment from a policy standpoint that allows business to create the jobs. The jobs are going to be created by the business sector, not the business sector, but the business sector. The business sector has to create an environment that is conducive to that. I think in a number of African economies right now, we are seeing businesses feeling like the policies are anything but conducive to creating additional jobs and additional employment. Again, there are some great examples, but we need to do more in working together. As they would like to expand employment and they are running into policies, regulations that are seemingly making that difficult. How do young Africans feel? Once again, if I use South Africa, financing the skills and education is not a big challenge. I think government has made that finance available for skills. Again, the multinationals have colluded and it hasn't worked. So I'm just putting it out there so that we know that I know that our challenges are very different in all parts of the continent, but I do think that we give too much power. Young people are feeling that I can't talk on behalf of all of them, but I can talk about the ones that I interact with. They are feeling alienated from participating in their own economies. If you look at examples like other countries like New York, as I travel the continent, I see there is a lot of talk around economic growth, but I think the economies are not transforming and those economies are not absorbing these young people. If you look at Angola, five years ago I went to Angola. It was a completely different country to when I went recently and again, most Angolans didn't participate in this creation of this new Lusaka. I think my question is simpler. What do people feel? You say they feel alienated. What else are they feeling? Well, they are feeling that they cannot create. They can't create and that's a big thing. They can't be innovative. They have to take their ideas elsewhere. Well, they are also feeling that the system is not recognizing their innovation as well. If you look at Kenya, Pesach was created. If you look at South Africa, please call me. It was created by cell phone companies. Out of 55 million population and over 40 million population, it's two creations that have come out of the continent. I think the big, not the whole continent, but of those two nations. I think there is a feeling that they are not recognized. The silicon values of the US exist. Why can't we create similar things in our part? So we need two issues here. You need the room to be innovative. Capital needs to sit alongside incubators of thought like you have in Silicon Valley. But for that to happen, John says you need education and we talk about education but the outputs don't really support the commitment that politicians say they have. I think it's touched on a very important point that Africa's young population is really our great resource. In 2025, in 25 years from now we will have one billion working age people in Africa surpassing China and India put together. This is a huge asset but it has to be skilled. It has to be able to be productive, to be innovative. We are not making those investments in these people, in these young people. We want to build infrastructure for example, which we must. We want to invest in agriculture, which can create jobs, in tourism, in manufacturing but we have to do all that keeping in mind that we must be creating jobs. We are growing, but we are growing without the majority out of poverty giving young people jobs. There's a real question that Africa is rising but rising for who? The strategies for growing are not creating jobs. This young man is right. We have to be conscious of job creation in our growth strategies. So Mr Vice President, I'm sorry to hold you up to account for the failures of all of Africa. But here we go. The word creation was a word that's used. Young people are creative. All that they're looking for is an environment where they can thrive. Young people are looking for jobs. Business says create the environment and we will unleash the investments that lead to those jobs. So at the end, government just needs to be an enabler and we're told government is not enabling creativity, investments, just an opportunity for people to do for these economies to be more dynamic. I thought that's exactly what the governments are doing. In education, in Africa, governments have provided more education than ever. Maybe it's not just in literacy. You also have to be vocational and technical. We have to convert educational facilities to give people those skills that they require. That is the transformation that I'm hearing around this debate, that not more of the same but a different type of education that provides them with a skill. We have new oil industry that requires technical people. We have trained many people in accounting and so on who cannot work in that sector. Now, so it takes time for us to be able to convert these people who are educated who can read, who can do everything to give them those skills that they can use their hands to. I think that is the challenge that we face. The education budgets are very, very high. They are significant in Africa. In Ghana, for example, education takes about half of the national budget. So it is not that we are not providing education. Can I come in to respond very briefly because I just want to introduce another topic and then throw questions to the floor. I think we must acknowledge that African governments are making a big effort to close some gaps. The gap in primary education has been closing. It is not closed completely but there is a huge gap at the secondary school level and at the skill level. What is concerning is that the pace at which we are moving towards killing our young people is too slow. It will not match the growing population and the aspirations of these young people. It is the pace. We need to do this at a larger scale. Mr. Vice President your turn again. Let's introduce the issue of infrastructure. Businesses across the spectrum, formal or informal need the infrastructure. They need electricity across Africa. That's a big challenge. They need the roads for networks of trade. They need the broadband for innovation, as Mandela is referring to. We hear about these big infrastructure projects. We see the pledges made at the European Union. South Africa, the lights are out. Ghana, the lights are out. It's not happening. It's happening but slowly. The positive thing that I see is there is a certain policy convergence. Previously everybody expected the governments to invest in these infrastructure projects. Now there is an understanding that the governments alone cannot do it. That in partnership with the private sector they are able to provide the power, the roads, the schools and so on. So we are starting a process in which we are inviting the private sector to partner the governments to provide it. So long as the understanding is that there will be user fees that we use to reimburse them for the cost of investment, it will be done. And I'm saying that that understanding has slowly also come that it doesn't have to be done by government but so long as it is done it is available to people to use. What sort of capital John is needed to really frost-track infrastructure investments? A lot of it as we're hearing is public-private partnerships. Lots of time cobbling together the deals just build the bridge already. Well, I think public-private partnerships are a big part of the answer. And in the economies around the world that you see actually taking advantage of the youth employment opportunity. If you don't look at it from the negative side and you view it as this is our opportunity for growth, they're doing it by solving the infrastructure challenge, broadband and particularly electricity. Access to power is the most critical inhibitor right now to employment of any infrastructure need I think in Africa and I think it takes all the parties working together. Myla, what infrastructure do you need, not you personally but to those young people running their businesses? Well, they need electricity definitely electricity we need good water supply we need roads that work we need broadband, all of that is required. So all the sectors that are working in the infrastructure areas need to it's all the things that we need. When we traded in Soweto when I had a retail store we had issues with electricity cuts already in Soweto five years ago. So that really dampened our business. So I think the effect of energy we don't really take it seriously enough. It has a huge impact in terms of your profits in terms of trading in your business. Those are some of the tools or things that are required to make sure that. What should the priorities be in the infrastructure space? The infrastructure that Africa needs agrees roads, bridges, connecting the continent, broadband power today 620 Africans cannot switch on the light but when you see the investment that we are making in energy it is mainly for industry and it is in the greed whereas the majority of our people what they need are off-grid sources of energy or small grid sources of energy reaching, penetrating rural areas so that they can light up and they can be productive. So there is sometimes a mismatch the kind of infrastructure that we are emphasizing is infrastructure that may benefit some big companies to extract and take out and not even pay their share of taxes but not infrastructure that will empower ordinary people to be productive. We need to do that matching properly. I would like to open questions from the floor. As I said earlier on please your name, your organization and a short question if you will. Could I get an indication of who would like to ask a question? Yes ma'am. Okay so a question from the lady and the gentleman. My name is Nagla El-Ahwani I am the Minister of International Cooperation in Egypt. Originally I'm a Labour Economist so that's why I'm interested in this topic. I have two quick issues. The first one what we are hearing now we hear about the formal informal employment and what are the policies to mainstream informal economy as if we do really know what is the informal employment in our countries. I think that in all African countries we don't have exact figures of the size of informality. There is an overlapping between formal informal and semi-formal as you mentioned correctly and also there is an overlapping between unemployment and informality because people who are employed are usually part of them working in informal sector. Also we don't know what are the segments of the informal economy. We have some activities which are promising and which can grow in a healthy way but there are other survival activities that cannot continue. So I think that my idea is that we cannot talk about a whole informal economy as if it is one economy. Yes. The second point also is about policies. We have been hearing policies how to formalize the informal employment but I think here also again we cannot have special policies for informal workers because sometimes the informal workers themselves are resisting to be transformed into formal economy because they are afraid of taxes. They are looking at governments as if they are chasing them to pay taxes. So I think that it is a little bit risky or dangerous to talk about special policies for formalization and I think that the best way as you have point correctly that it should be a macroeconomic framework that create growth and jobs not jobless growth. Growth with jobs, with skills with training, vocational training and more importantly policies to alleviate poverty. This will help a lot in formalizing the informal economy. Thank you. Yes sir. Yes. My name is Victor Ochien I'm from Uganda. I come from the northern part of the region from Lera district and I'm not so old yet I'm 33 years. Why I said my age is because I grew up in conflict. I spent 20 years of my life as a child in conflict. So when I had at the discussion around young people not being able to be employed in formal processes or setups but the fact is they can be employed in the informal setups. We look at the role young people are playing in the conflicts in the continent. They are frustrated, angry young men who probably did not get opportunity to study and they may never get opportunity to reach universities but why I'm saying this is often time we tend to react more we have quite reactionary in our programming we react more to the young people when we see them in the streets demonstrating but we don't pick up the positive success stories of the young people to inspire the generations to be different. And then one last point I also wanted to make is this applies not only in the government sectors but also international only those who are committing crimes and then they focus on them and how can you inspire them when you cannot empower them. Thank you. In our work we talk about sort of win-wins rather than trade-offs like better growth, better development, better climate. In this context there are some of the win-wins in Africa where you don't have polarizing issues of multilaterals versus decentralized systems and if I can use an example of that you talked about energy there's an ability to look at decentralized off-grid technologies where there's significant changes in the last 5-10 years on technology and costs that can also increase more medium enterprises are there other practices you see in Africa happening? And one last question at the back Thank you very much. Good morning. My name is Rosalind. I'm from Kumase Gana. I'm a global shaper. I want to pose a general question to all of us here and to our panelists. It's 25 years we've been discussing the issue of Africa innovation informal sector, formal sector, everything but what do we do after forums like this? Are we really implementing things we gain here? Because I see my vice president there and thank you very much. We gain a lot from such forums but when we go home let's ask ourselves do we really implement all that we gain here? There are a lot of ideas driven, solutions driven can we stick to them because me being a global shaper like yesterday we promised to something after our forum we started working on it I know when it comes to the government side it's very difficult for you because it has to go through process but 25 years Africa, I think we can do better and let's do it Thank you. Because we need to wrap up the show there's one more question we can take at the back there sir and then we'll just get the answers and say our goodbyes. Hi, my name is Veli Mtiane from SAVC my question is simple how can we then make sure that Africa's economic growth correlate with the improved standard of living because there's a tendency to look at job creation as government's duty but there is little call from the private sector to say let's also partner with the government they can come as investors but it appears that every time we speak about unemployment we look at governments how about the private sector? Thank you. Let's start with the question of I'll give it to you, Winnie quantifying the private sector the information that helps you come up with proper interventions know the size of the informal sector know which segments of the informal sector that can be modernized broad mainstream how about just gathering the right information? Well, collecting data on the informal sector has not always been easy and it will remain difficult because it's informal they are not registered it's difficult to record but there are many tools for finding out economic activity finding out the challenges and we are in a better state of understanding the informal sector than say we were 20 years ago but what I want to flag here is that sometimes in discussions like this we tend to indeed polarize informal sector comes out as the good people versus the bad people who are in the formal sector that's not the case actually small, medium and micro enterprises are full of oppressors too you know land grabbers violators of the rights of women they pay poverty wages they also have there are real challenges there and it's very much about policies and regulations that will protect rights and protect everyone and that's why international standards like ILO standards are very important to apply across the board I agree with you it's not just about the formal sector a minimum wage in Brazil a minimum wage in the formal economy resulted in really a minimum wage being applied across the informal sector too so it's so important not to polarize Mr. Vice President the win-win that was posed to us what can be done where it's not trade-offs for industries across the spectrum but everybody can benefit studying economics I don't know I think that it's all about trade-offs so win-win let me try and contextualize this discussion we have an international system that provides more information to us so there's quite a bit of information around about what is going on in other places so standards have risen and expectations have been enhanced because we see very easily what has happened or what is happening in other places so in effect the targets that we seek have gone higher so we are chasing higher targets and that is important because in both the Ghana and the South Africa cases you refer to the power outages and so on those are the two countries in Africa that have the highest penetration of power for the rural population South Africa in the 90% Ghana in the 80% and so on we are the best in terms of achieving it but that means that the targets that we are supposed to then achieve higher standards of the power penetration so there are more frustrated people because now they have the power but they don't have access to it so a win-win situation for me it's a summary of what we've been discussing here that let's provide employable skills let's provide access to formal systems for people let's provide the legitimate ways in which they can end their living livelihood and that will make it a win-win situation for them because then the governments will benefit from improved taxes the formal system will benefit and the structures will be there to protect them in terms of their incomes, the security and so on for people so that's a win-win situation that I see John yes, government can be an enabler but the private sector must provide those jobs and where progressive governments are coming up with policies why can't those investments be unleashed? well again I think we've got to look at this over somewhat of a long term and be impatient but be realizing I think that these are deep-seated issues that have existed for many years and we're not going to solve them overnight but what we have to be doing is working together to make that sustainable progress and again I don't view it as the business community simply in the business sector simply taking from that environment created by the government I think the business community has a responsibility to create some of that environment itself when we talk about education creating entrepreneurship models and I think the Vice President talked about skills training earlier so yes, the government has a big role to play in education but businesses can create those apprenticeship models that working with the literacy programs of the government I think can over the long term change the equation for Africa and a final point Mandela, something to inspire the youth they're frustrated sometimes they're just seen as a nuisance what examples are their role models what messages do the youth need to hear to feel like they can be part of their own solution I think one is African youth need to realize that they have a stake in their own countries they have a stake in the continent one and the second thing I think it's to also make African youth realize that the focus at the moment is on Africa and the big window of opportunity for them is now and that's the second thing and the third thing I would say that they also need to be aware that the future for Africa is really creation they have to have to create they have to take a stake they have to take ownership of this continent and create because those 18 million jobs that I spoke about earlier on are definitely not going to be created by the formal sector the future of self employment alright ladies and gentlemen final comments from you 30 seconds each the reality is that 55% of economic activity in Africa is derived within the informal sector what can we do to make the informal normal John I think education I've said before is the key number one staying optimistic that sense of hope and aspiring for greater things you know the reality is Africa is going to hold one third of the youth's population of the world by 2050 we have to solve this problem on the African continent and I think a combination of education initiatives that are geared to what is the challenge faced by Africa it's not the same as the challenge faced everywhere else in the world that's how by 2050 I think we'll have made a big change let's educate ourselves as Africans around what we are consuming every day and see windows of opportunity in our consumption because if we're consuming more than 80% of products from all over the world surely we can consume African and the future is African creation Winnie we must invest in our young people their education skills and also invest in the sectors that create jobs particularly agriculture past president let's continue to tell the story of a success that other people have made many young people, enterprising people who have made a fantastic story we need to tell that story to encourage the others to follow but governments will continue to provide the infrastructure and the skills to let them achieve let me thank you very much for your contribution on this televised BVC debate on the informal sector becoming normal thank you for your views Vice President Queci thank you very much for your views Winnie Biannima Executive Director of Oxfam International thank you Mandla Sibego Chairman of mine online and thank you very much to you John V. Meyer person of KPMG International you've been watching a special broadcast coming to you from the World Economic Forum 2015 here in South Africa it's been the BVC debate informal, the new, normal and what we heard it boils down to political will educating the youth removing vulnerabilities for labour in the informal sector but more importantly recognizing that the informal is already normal