 of the COVID series organized by the Social Economics Department and the Social Economics Forum. I'm Ehira Alexis-Rideen and I'll be a moderator for the session. As the session progresses, if you have any questions whilst the speaker is speaking, please put that in the chat box so that you can address them when he's done speaking and I will put the social media in case you want to follow up with what's happening for future events as well. And if you're going to tweet, please tweet with the hashtag economics of COVID. Today's speaker is Dr. Nongo Sambasila and he is a Senegalese Development Economist who's currently working as the program and research manager at the Rosa Luxembourg Foundation in Dakar. He is the co-author of the book along with French journalist Fanny Pigard, titled Africa's Last Colonial Currency, the CFA Farm Story, which is stipulated to be released in February 2021. He's also the four-time world champion of French-speaking scrabble. Along with that, he recently co-wrote an open letter with Amy Nyang of Wits University in Larno, the venue to African leaders regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and it has since been signed by over a hundred intellectuals from both Africa and the diaspora. So welcome Dr. Nongo, the story is all yours. Thank you very much. I would like to thank the organizers of this webinar for their invitation. I am particularly honoured to have such an opportunity to speak about a topic which could help us understand better what happened during the last two decades. I have chosen provocative title somehow with religious terms to, let's say, try to make people understand what has happened during the last two decades. And I tried to justify the provocative title I choose by proceeding in three steps. First, I'll give a short story of the African Rising narrative, which is also the narrative of emerging Africa. The second point will be a critical economic assessment of the Africa Rising era, and this era covers basically the last two decades. And my third point, I will draw some lessons about what the COVID-19 retrospectively allows us to learn about the African Rising era. So I start by my first point, the story of the African Rising narrative, brief story. The idea of the emergence of the African continent probably happened for the first time in 1957 in a report by Richard Nixon entitled The Emergence of Africa. Nixon then was the vice president of the United States, and he had just completed an African tour during which he met a dozen political leaders, including Presidents Swami Kumar of Ghana and Gamal Abdullah of Egypt. The issue of this basic report was where would Africa then emerging from colonialism would go? And this document betrayed the fear that the so-called Soviet propaganda and the worrying situation of blacks in the United States would tip post-colonial Africa towards communism. So in this report, Nixon made clear that we emerge from something, we emerge from somewhere Africa was emerging from colonialism. However, when the financial institutions says the concept of emergence, let's say two decades later, they try in fact to make it, let's say six years for investors because the term third world was not really attractive to potential investors because of the image of poverty which it was associated. And so the new and apparently more dynamic concept of emerging markets was preferred in the early 1980s to the concept of third world. Since then, the concept of emergence began a final destination for countries whose historicity now came down to the growth of profitability expectations of global finance. Between 1918 and 2000, African countries were caught under the strengthhold of the structural achievement plans of the international money reform, the IMF and the World Bank. And during this period, most of them did not belong to the category of emerging markets because the dominant narrative at that time revolved around the myth that Africa was marginalized by the high-speed trend of liberalization. But ironically, the same institutions and actors who were developing this tendency to justify greater economic trade and financial liberalization, they started organizing transition to raise emerging Africa, Africa rising, while the continent's economic fundamentals barely changed. I will show a slight illustrating this change of narrative. It's coming from the economist, the newspaper, and you can see in 2000 they were speaking about the hapless continent, and in 2011 they were now speaking about Africa rising. And I am an economist who was alone in that move. There was also a MacKinsey Global Institute which spoke of lines on the move. And there was also the French senate who published a report in 2013. The report was entitled, Africa is our feature. When he said Africa is our feature, Africa is a feature of French, that was the title of the report. And they were saying in this report I quote, today we must address ourselves to an Africa that is fully integrated into globalization. So the question of my task is what had changed to justify this change of narrative. In fact, after two decades of imposed austerity policies, economy growth was again under rise in the context of greater political stability due to a decline in political conflicts and a significant increase in prices of the continent's exports. The rapid expansion of trade and financial relations between African countries and China had also helped to shape the continent's image. The continent was suddenly seen as a pool of untapped resources and as a large and promising market for fine companies dreaming of providing goods, services and infrastructure to a young population that is expected to double every 25 to 30 years. The perception of an emerging Africa was first filled by rapid growth in the number of wealthy people. Between 2008 and 2012, the number of Africans able to invest at least one million dollars increased from 95,000 to 140,000. At the global level, following the financial crisis of 2008, the implementation of zero interest rates and counter-easing policies by northern central banks created an abundance of capital for so-called emerging markets which have become attractive because of the high returns they offer. Many African countries would take the bait through the issuance of Euro bonds that is bonds dominated in foreign currency. The adduction of African rising discourse by African countries themselves can be illustrated with the 14 countries using the CFA Frank, which is the last colonial currency still circulating in Africa. Of these 14 countries, only the Central African Republic, which is a country facing political instability, only that country missed the opportunity to develop a plan or document with the word emergence in it. Burkina Faso hoped to be more ambitious than the rest. His presence on Paraguay set 2015 as the horizon for the emergence of its country. And at the end of October 2014, he was overthrown by a popular uprising and he was evacuated by the French army to Cote d'Ivoire, a country supposed to emerge this year according to the promise made by its president, Alassane Watara. My own country, Senegal, also devised a plan emerging Senegal with the help of the Mackenzie consulting group. So this is, in short, the story of the Africa rising. Now, in this second part, I will try to critically assess what has been the achievements during this era, which we could date symbolically between 2020 and 2020. 2020 will be a year while Africa, according to the World Bank, will experience for the first time in 25 years a recession. So for me, this period's 2020, the pandemic, is the end of the Africa rising era. But what happened during this era? First, it is fair to say that during these two decades, there was significant progress made in the education and health sector as well as infrastructure building. Similarly, the minor class has expanded in some country. Also, this is controversial due to questionable definitions of what constitutes the minor class. But maybe the best argument for the Africa rising narrative is the high rates of economic growth observed during this period. The decade 2010 was particularly impressive. In a sample of 49 countries out of 55 African countries, 12 had an average annual GDP growth rate about 6%. And 18 countries had growth rates between 6% and 4%. Only 9 countries had a growth rate less than 3%. The decade 2010 was therefore the decade of Africa rising, the best decade ever so far for the continent. The commodity cycle explains why during this period, a country like Equatorial Guinea almost multiplied its real GDP by 5 in just a decade. But it does not explain everything. Countries such as Ethiopia and Rwanda, which are not hydrocarbon producers, were also able to double the real GDP over this decade. The following decade 2010 and now was less dynamic than the previous one due to the end of the primary product supply cycle. But growth rates were still high. Also, there were this narrative, growth in oil producing countries slowed down, but some non-oil producing countries such as Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania picked up the pace. Compared to other regions, especially rich countries that are still struggling to recover from the global financial crisis of 2008, Africa's performance in terms of economic growth during the last two decades seems minor. But the question might ask, should we do such kind of comparison? Is it heuristic to compare, can ask growth rate, for example, to that of the United Kingdom, should we compare Africa's average growth rate over a given period to that of other regions? I would tend to say that when it comes to measure economic progress, real GDP growth rate is a very imperfect or even misleading indicator. Beyond the statistical issue of the difficulties in measuring GDP, the fundamental issue is a theoretical one. GDP, a cross-dometer product, measures different things in different economic structures. Analysts and economists rarely make the crucial distinction between an economic growth within an economic structure that still bears the colonial legacy and an economic growth within a modern economic structure. I would say basically that economic growth in Africa during the Africa rising period was in most case a colonial style economic growth. And the colonial style economic growth has three specificities. The first is its volatility. In a context where countries are highly dependent on change in the terms of trade on the global liquidity cycle and sometimes countries are plagued by political conflicts, growth often has a dialectical nature. That means periods of contraction are followed by periods of sustainability and vice versa. For example, Chad, which is an oil country, recorded an economic growth rate of 10.7% per year between 2000 and 2010. Interestingly, this performance followed almost four lost decades. That means four decades in which real per capita income has been steadily declining. Another example, Zambia had achieved a growth rate of 7.4% per year between 2000 and 2010. And yet by 2010, it has still not regained the highest level of real GDP per capita it achieved in 1967. The type of economic growth that consists of catching up on past poor performance concerned at least more than a third of African countries in the first decade of the African rising period. But there is a second characteristic to this colonial style economic growth. It is its limited social economic impact. The manufacturing sector has rarely been the engine of economic growth in Africa over the past two decades. This observation is also valid for countries that are less dependent on raw materials such as Rwanda. More crucially, economic growth in Africa has been jobless. This means that jobs have been created mainly in the informal sector. If we take the case of Senegal, according to official sources, the informal sector was responsible for 99% of employment growth in the 2000s. Why real GDP grew at an annual average of 4% per year? Between 2012 and 2018, the pair that saw the launch of the plant emerging Senegal, the economy grew at an annual rate of 6%. The third net job creation was negative in the modern sector. In other words, the modern sector has destroyed more jobs than it has created. The third characteristic of colonial style economic growth is its high financial cost, which is the corollary of its extractive nature. The two decades of Africa rising, and especially the first one, have undoubtedly been decades for fried investors, especially those involved in the extractive industries. For example, the stock of inward-friended investment received by sub-Saharan Africa has risen from less than 10% of GDP in 1999 to 40% of GDP in 2017. In extroverted and dependent countries like the majority of African countries, GDP is generally higher than GNI gross national income. The difference between GDP gross domestic product and GNI gross national income is equal to the net transfer of income or the income balance. The difference is the income balance. And the income refers to profits and dividends transferred abroad to interest on debt and income of expatriate workers. Between 2012 and 2010, net income payment transferred in net terms by Africa to the rest of the world averaged 5% of its GDP, that is the highest proportion for all regions having a balance of income deficit. In comparative terms, over the same period, Africa's net income payments abroad totaled 406 billion, three times more than the eurozone, which also had a balance of income deficit. Maybe the African country that best illustrates the extractive nature of economic gross during this period is Equatorial Guinea, which is a former Spanish colony and also an oil exporting country. At the time, Equatorial Guinea was the richest African country. Also, its spare capital income but in pushes in power parity exceeded that of Greece at that time. Equatorial Guinea was still classified as a least developed country. The richest African country at that time was ranked as least developed country. How to explain that? These paradox may lie in the fact that Equatorial Guinea's net income payments to abroad averaged almost half of its GDP over the 2010 decade. That means its national income was on average less than half of its net income production. The difference between the net income payments transferred abroad. Such financial readings observable in most oil producing African countries included a significant share of illicit financial flows, which according to some estimates were equivalent to $205 billion in the period between 2005 and 2010 alone. The revenues transferred by Africa to the rest of the world over the two decades have mostly taken the form of profit repatriations by foreign investors. Progressive economies and civil society organizations often pay much more attention to the issue of public external debt to profit repatriations by multinational corporations. This is unfortunate because profit repatriations pleaded Africa far more than debt servicing. I'll show you a graph derived from an article I called forward with Ingrid Kavan-Graven from York University and Kai Kodenburg from Cotto University, Frankfurt. This graph showed that cumulative debt service payments between 2000 and 2016 amounted to nearly $100 billion for 28 African countries representing 85% of Africa's GDP. This sum, this $100 billion is five times less than the cumulative profits from foreign debt investment over the same period because the cumulative was $500 billion transferred as profit repatriation between 2000 and 2016. Five times the interest paid on external debt. So to complete this second part the question might ask what really emerged during the Africa rising period. I would say basically three things. First, Ethiopia, a very poor country, has fared very well with an average annual growth rate of almost 9% between 2000 and 2018. This has enabled it to increase its per capita income in net times to nearly $772 in 2018. So this is a very poor country despite the huge rates of economic growths. The second thing that emerged was that there has been an extractive boom from investor profits have reached record levels. I had done in the past some, let's say, some calculations about the profits in some countries, for example, in Angola during this Africa rising era, the first decade, you could see, for example, a rate of 40% of 100% in a given year. The third thing that emerged that rise was also the external public debt of African countries which has gone quickly during the last two decades. And especially after the 2008 financial crisis, the external debt of the continent has allowed the economic upturn to continue at a time when growth was slowing down. Most importantly, the debt owed to private creditors increased at an average annual rate of 10% between 2000 and 2008. And this is something really significant in the light of the discussions about the restitution of the Africa's debt. You can see here a table with the state of play regarding Africa's debt. We could see that in 2018, 42% of the debt, external public debt of Sub-Saharan Africa was held by private creditors and essentially Eurobound holders. And what the pandemic made clear in this circumstance is the unsustainability of this external debt-led growth model in the absence of any genuine structural transformation. The pandemic showed that Africa rising narrative was to some extent another name for African external debt rising. And that's what we are living currently. This will be the third part of my presentation, the last part of my presentation, what the COVID-19 revealed. At the beginning, I have to say that so far, Africa has apparently been less affected than other regions for reasons that are not yet clear. Yesterday, according to the Africa Center for Disease Control, the African continent as a whole had only 197,000 cases of infection, including less than 6,000 deaths. More than 1,000 Africa are the most affected regions. The fact that Africa was the last region to be affected, which gave it some time to prepare itself. The experience of the African health authorities in emerging pandemics, the usefulness of the populations and the climatic factor cannot explain partly why the health impact of COVID-19 has been minor so far. This being said, it should also be pointed out that mortality statistics are very unruly in Africa. According to the Economic Commission for Africa, only four African countries, Egypt, Mauritius, Seychelles, and South Africa have a statistical monitoring system for births and deaths that meets international standards. So we have to be cautious regarding, let's say, the figures sometimes. However, on the economic front, Africa has not been spared. According to the World Bank, the continent is expected to experience its first recession in 25 years, that means since 1995. And one of the first manifestations of the COVID-19 pandemic was a drastic drop in the prices of raw materials exported by African countries. Together with the closure of borders, this had led to a drop in export and tax revenues, the depreciation of currency values, and in some cases, such as in South Africa, a significant capital plight. Remittances from interests and migrants have also declined. As the capacity to service external debt declined, the markets became highly costly for self-informed issuers. So it comes as no surprise that most African countries have so far found it difficult to respond to the health and economic challenges. There are many economic lessons to be learned from the pandemic, but here I would like to draw attention to three major weaknesses that the pandemic revealed. The first is the unequal nature of the economic model of the Africa rising period. This economic model did not have lasting impact on the living conditions of the populations, especially those living in real areas and those working in the human informal sector. In Senegal, for example, which is not the most extreme case, official survey data showed that nearly 52% of real household had no access to soap and water in 2017. Also, human areas normally have access to same drinking water sources. There are African interactions. Few African countries have tried to implement total lockdown in that circumstances. In real areas, a lockdown strategy is often impractical because densities are low and the presence of the state is almost imperceptible. In human areas, a lockdown strategy is doomed to failure for financial and administrative reasons. States have neither the means to achieve this lockdown nor the appropriate instruments to help the most deprived. A lockdown in the case of the informal sector workers who often accounts for more than 70% of human employment exposes them to promise treaty and hunger. Between dying of hunger and dying of the coronavirus, the most quickly made in favor of the later dying of course. A recent study published by Univider entitled Africa's lockdown dilemma defined a lockdown readiness index and this index was based on five components. Access to safe drinking water, basic sanitation, a source of reliable energy, a means of information or communication and last but not least a form of employment that provides sufficient income not to go without cash on a frequent basis. For a sample of 30 African countries, the index revealed based on 2019 data that less than 2 in 10 urban households and less than 1 in 10 real households across South Africa are fully ready for a long lockdown. So African governments were aware of their financial limitations that why they have generally opted for curfews and selective bans on certain economic and social activities requiring gatherings such as bars, restaurants, schools, mosques and sometimes inter-regional transport. But even statutory sections are not financially and socially sustainable. In many African countries government have had to relax such restrictive measures following strict protest. The second witness revealed by the pandemic is that the Africa rising period did not significantly increase the fiscal capabilities of most African government. The tax GDP ratio is at low levels in many cases. I have a table there and it's a graph and in this graph you could see that the two champions of the Africa rising period Equatorial Guinea and Ethiopia have very low levels of tax GDP ratio for Equatorial Guinea it's 6.1% and it is 2.5% for Ethiopia. The data come from the World Bank and we could say that these figures are probably underestimated but the basic fact is that the tax GDP ratio is very low in most African countries and under such conditions even the implementation of unauthorized monetary policies would quickly find its limits in the inability of governments to tax the economy properly. Official development assistance and debt in foreign currency to pay for essential imports then become unavoidable alternatives as a demand for external debt restructuring. Since on the April 13th the IMF granted debt relief to 19 African countries and has so far lent 9.8 billion US dollars to 28 African countries. 45% of this amount has been pocketed by two countries Nigeria and Ghana. The IMF has also called for the suspension of the bilateral debt service. In April the Paris Club accepted to freeze debt services for 77 countries. As for now only 12 countries have received debt relief including lately HOPR the growth superstar Congo Republic and chat. However the only issue of public external debt or to private creditors remain unresolved. The third witness revealed by the pandemic is that for an increasing number of African countries the external debt left grows is no longer financially and socially sustainable. A recent report by the Jubilee campaigner gave very interesting figures about the share of spending dedicated to external debt servicing compared to the public spending in the health sector. In 2019 in Angola for example debt servicing accounted for 42.6% of its tax revenue compared to only 0.5% for public health expenditure and there are 32 countries currently for which debt service is higher than spending on health expenditure. So in light of these various facts it can be safely inferred that the continent's ability to successfully whether the COVID-19 pandemic will depend to a large extent on the treatment of its external debt on the short run it will be necessary to restructure it in a way that preserve output and employment on the lines advocated by former IMF economist Peter Doyle with his pre-emptive survival insolvency regime proposal. This will be a tough fight as private creditors will resist but African countries and their partners must go against the IMF's pro-carditor bias and demand the abolition of foreign debtors' prisons through proposals such as a pre-emptive survival insolvency regime. But more importantly it is time to realize that Africa's debt issue is a symptom of the inadequacy of its development model that same extroverted development model advocated for by the Bourdon Wood institutions and the rich countries. As long as this development model is maintained the external debt issue will come to suffer 15 to 20 years because there is no long-term financial fix for Africa's external debt problem. The real solutions require achievement of more economic and monetary sovereignty by African countries individually and collectively as well as a global economic system more favorable to developing countries which allow them more space to develop and to implement name and trail policies. I would say that the COVID-19 pandemic puts an end to the Africa rising era but it ushers in a period of transition from which it is difficult to say where it will lead. The only certainty is that the future is full of potential. This means that provided we are bold enough it is possible to save these crises as an opportunity to set Africa in the world on the trajectory of a new civilization of abundance equality and respect for ecological limits. Thank you for your attention. Thank you very much. We have a few questions but the first one is would it be possible for us to get like a list of resources so they can be made public for people who are wondering? The first question we get like a list of resources for people who are wondering that you use for the presentation. So people could read. Okay. Okay. Thank you. One of the questions that was raised was what you think would happen to major African major oil exporting African nations in implementation of green economics and the push for more sustainable sources of energy? I did not hear you. Sorry. What do you think would happen to major African oil exporting countries with the push for green economics and more sustainable sources of energy? Yeah. I think that African countries have to do their best to move from fossil fuels for more renewable source of energy. And we see that with the pandemic, they are strongly depreciated and their external debt level have also raised a lot and generally as I have tried to show in my presentation the oil income has not necessarily been beneficial to African populations so we have to find another type of model less dependent on extractive industries. Okay. So, then what do you welcome Richard. What solutions would you then suggest for African countries to disconnect from private capital funding? How do you think? Yeah. We even know of African economists we think that African needs more economic and monetary sovereignty when we say more economic sovereignty we mean more control on the economic resources of the continent and also on the policies implemented in the continent to delink from the type of neoliberal policy framework advocated by the World Bank and the IMF and so on. And at the same time we need also more monetary sovereignty. We know that monetary sovereignty is a spectrum but African countries have to do their best to finance their development in local currency. So, this is something really important because when you are undertaking foreign currency as a country you could not say that you are really independent at a political level. So foreign debt is always an issue. That's the same for foreign debt investment. It's not bad in itself but the type of foreign debt investment we have in Africa is strongly located in the expected sectors. So we have to try to have foreign debt investment which increases how domestic properties enlarge our domestic markets and also is associated with technological transfers in this condition foreign debt investment could be beneficial for African countries. I remember Ghana seeing something similar in a recent conversation. But would you think that the African continental free trade area would likely have any significant effect on development in Africa? Yeah, in that African continental free trade area would just increase the inequalities, the disparities we have because historically speaking free trade is doctrine for let's say in Africa you don't have NECL power houses maybe South Africa but you don't have NECL power houses. Most of them are publishers of raw materials. So how do they benefit from free trade? I'm not advocating the closure of borders but what I'm saying is that we could have alternative kinds of economic and trade integration. For example, in terms of putting agricultural producers we could try to have a common agricultural policy so that we guarantee them an income and we make sure that the agricultural productivity will rise. We could also make a mechanism such as Africa could have let's say continental payment systems help facilitate trade between African countries because they have, yeah, the fact that there is a priority of currencies that do not necessarily facilitate trade so there are many things we could do to facilitate trade but I don't think that the type of free trade logic behind African continental free trade area will not work and I would say that there is one basic study which has been done about the African continental free trade area and you know that generally two basic assumptions behind these free trade models is that you have full employment and all the exchange rates are flexible. So you make a study simulating the effects, probable effects of the African continental free trade area and you assume all the relevant problems by saying that there is no employment problem Africa is on full employment there is no under employment etc and from there trade will increase so I think this is not the best approach. Thank you. We have another question from Lee saying is there a way to limit net income transfers during the next resource boom while still retaining investment and business given the weak governance institutions in countries in African countries? Yeah In fact to limit that at least there are three things to do first the debt external debt the growth of the external debt should be slowed down because among the net income transfer there are the interest payment on external debt so we have to slow down the debt service the second thing is that when you do not have enough economic sovereignty on your resources you do not really benefit from your resources so Africa needs more sovereignty on its resources and the third thing is that we need to tax more let's say foreign companies and there are many civil society organizations like tax justice network in Africa working so that there is a greater accountability by transnationals because we know that the bulk of the lucid financial flows goes through let's say trade mispricing of multinationals so those are three let's say things we have to try to do if we want to limit to some extent the net income payments to a growth Thank you Speaking of sovereignty I was just asking from Fatima how we would prescribe that African countries set up their currencies without facing any backlash from Bretton Woods institutions and the international community I did not understand that I'm sorry how do you think African countries can set up their currencies without facing backlash from Bretton Woods institutions and the international community Yeah But for the CAF countries which are still using European currency most of the countries use freely their currency and their exchange rate yeah evolves depending on the economic cycle for example with the pandemics we have seen that for most oil-experting countries exchange rates have depreciated a lot I think somehow the value of the currency is linked also to the economic performances of countries We have another question they're asking the price of rice broke through the $20 level for the first time since 2008 how do you think this will affect Senegal's poorest households especially in rural areas has the structure created a class capitalists who benefit from having exclusives in both licenses coming from their friends in government like in Nigeria with Dangote for example yeah we think we are very for most households not only real households but also urban households because Senegalese are really dependent on rice for their daily consumption and we produce local rice but it comes from Asia and now it's beginning to be very difficult I just give one example we are in the pandemic and our foreign exchange reserves are limited our government want to help the poorest and what did our government do Senegalese government he took the limited foreign exchange we have to import rice from Asia and took that rice to the poor households whereas we have local producers able to produce rice so you see we are losing on production and we are losing on foreign exchange rate so when the price of rice will go up it will be very difficult for us on financial terms for the state but also for the households rural and urban thank you we have a question from Danila asking what kind of developmental model would you like to see for African countries and what national political shifts are necessary to generate ideological purchase amongst domestically yeah I will say we need selective delinquent delinquent in the sense of going more towards economic and monetary sovereignty when I say delinquent I am not for otaki delinquent is a middle ground between otaki and also a strong integration in the world economy for me we have to have a middle ground middle ground means that we are prioritizing the interests of the populations but we know that in economic development that often the problem is not technical it's not the solutions because even if we don't have the solutions at least we know what we should not do but the issue is sometimes you have powerful vested interests which are against genuine change which could benefit the masses so I think that the basic issue is how to change the type of political structures we have in our countries in Africa that is a basic thing we need somehow a kind of democratic revolution that will be the basis of any genuine economic change in the continent I think but then along with that do you believe that there is a real south south development model for African countries and if you do what do you think it looks like this could be done for example we could have monetary agreement between African countries we could also have trade agreements and investment agreements which will not be based on the logic of competition but mostly on emulation and complementarity but for now this is not the kind of south south development model we have our cooperation is China maybe in Africa give us let's say some alternative vis-à-vis the western type of partnership but it is more or less the same old patterns maintaining Africa in primary specialization and that's not good for Africa because we are saying that within the framework of the free trade area is the powerful countries the powerful companies which will benefit from this area and not necessarily the powers countries which lacks the basics to be able to benefit from such an initiative do you think from this experience of the COVID-19 do you think that it would encourage African countries to importing excessive amounts from our burden yeah now many many African governments realize the need to de-link a bit that means producing domestically what could be police including even health health products so many African countries realize that but the issue is that will they have fiscal space will they have let's say the financial space to do that because we are living in a period of transition and we know that this external debt issue will may hamper any prospect of genuine recovery so depending on how we handle this heart external debt issue maybe this could let's say help African countries take another direction trying to promote what could be produced domestically we have also to say that most African countries are not integrated let's say nationally for example in Senegal there are things that are agricultural products that are produced in the south yeah but they get in the south because there is not enough infrastructures to bring those agricultural products to the regions like Dakar etc so before talking of free trade of content integration countries in themselves have to be integrated thank you another one from Lee do you think defaulting on privately held debt is a viable solution for African countries facing a top fiscal environment as a result of the pandemic I think what the pandemic has revealed is that this is not sustainable at all we could not rely on private debt because when you have some difficulties due to the economic cycle you see that this is a debt which a form of debt which is not easy to restructure because we know that the private creditors would not be let's say cooperative to that end if it's debt towards partners or institutions things might be done let's say provide some relief to African countries so I think that we have to do our best to limit our exposure to financial markets and given also the fact that generally the type of debt the euro bonds we issue generally have served to finance infrastructures that have not been useful for the majority of populations so in some way it's just a form of taking debt to enrich some corporations and a minority among the African elites that has been more or less the basic story of Africa rising many infrastructures have been built but in fact infrastructures which have been over-chrised and infrastructures which do not benefit the majority of populations. You mentioned earlier on that a lot of African countries couldn't afford to have lockdowns because of the very poor communities and very heavily informal economy how do you think that moving on from this the informal economy can be included in future models and be taking into account? Yeah generally people tend to have a romantic idea about the informal sector the vibrant sector yeah this was full sector but it is also the product of it is the size of the informal sector is illustrative of the disarticulated nature of let's say countries of the global south there is no you don't find the intersexual linkages between the sector and this has been a legacy of colonialism which to some extent the size of the informal sector yes during the 1980s with the sector adjustment plan the informal sector boom because we know there was a context of austerity and also layoffs in the public sector and this also accounted for the boom of the informal sector so I think what we need is to develop the agricultural sector peasant agriculture because most of the workers in the urban informal sector they have been released from the agricultural sector and normally the agricultural sector yeah before releasing such kind of manpower should have attained a certain level of development this is not the case in Africa those are let's say absorbed by the urban sector because the agricultural sector is declining or is still in a low productivity trap so I think we must develop the agricultural sector and at the same time try to have policies which are designed to create jobs in labour intensive sectors so basically manufacture and that is important to have such kind of a perspective but this has not been the perspective of African states with these free trade policies etc this neoliberal agenda okay, does anyone just want to ask, does anyone have any question just to squeeze in for the last minute could you Dr. Ndongo, could you please just give us a quick brief like a wrap up or a final statement or comment yeah the Asuka writing narrative was initially built from about to say that now Africa is the last frontier of capital expansion, there are markets there is economic dynamism and we could make profit and we achieved high rates of economic close but those economic close did not benefit the majority of the population those economic close did not improve the fiscal capabilities of the states but those relied to some extent especially after the great financial crisis on private debt and that trend is not sustainable so the end of the Africa rising brought by the pandemic could be an opportunity to think about other type of heterodox policies towards delinking selectively from the global economy when I say delinking it's not otaki it's the middle ground between otaki and the type of let's say neoliberal integration we had towards the global economy so basically thank you very much for that Dr. Ndongo we really appreciate you coming on here to talk about the African rising narrative for everyone who's still on thank you for coming in I hope you enjoyed the session as much as I did on the 15th of June we have the next session on inequalities in the fiscal stance in the COVID-19 era and on the 17th we have the COVID-19 and the great lockdown same time same place thank you for tuning in and I hope you have a lovely day thank you everyone