 Ladies and gentlemen, I think we started late, we were 20 minutes late, but we've managed to finish, we have about 10-15 minutes for questions. But you can tell from the richness of the discussion, the presentation, that the organizers of this session actually needs commendation. So can we give them a round of applause for pulling together this excellent panel? Can we take questions, I think we take all at a go, then we try to respond. So three from my right and then three from my left. Thank you. I'm Donald Imari from Repo at Tanzania. I would like to just make one, maybe comment or question also to the presentation, particularly to the crisis related to oil price shock. Taking the reference of Nigeria. We know that Nigeria has actually produced oil for the last 60 years, over the last 60 years. So they have had experience in this industry, they have gone through these cycles of shocks, prices going down, prices going up. So something could have been done in terms of using the oil resources to diversify the economy over the last 60 years. If that didn't take place then, and this crisis which has been there for about two years, what reasons do we have to believe that Nigeria has the capacity to actually diversify its economy to the extent that it will address some of the consequences of this shock to its economy within the short span of the coming five to ten years, for example. And this question really relates to whether Nigeria in its own can do that or there is a need for broader support from the international community. And this case applies to many other developing countries which have find themselves in such a situation. Thanks. Thank you very much. Let's be straight to the point since you don't have a lot of time. My question is very similar to my friend Donald's, which is to Professor Ajayi. If you can't get things sorted out when the oil price is high, what chance do you stand of getting them sorted out when the oil price is low on the governance issues? And to wisdom, I'd be interested. This is a very interesting study that you've presented. I wonder if you also have some comments on diamonds, alluvial diamonds and artisanal diamonds, because the situation, say, in Sierra Leone where the diamonds are... People are just looking for them in the rivers, the artisanal alluvial diamonds are being sorted. It's much harder to control that sort of thing than it is, say, in Botswana where you have a diamond mine that you can really control. So what chance is there of controlling the informal sector in mining in terms of tax revenue, et cetera? Thank you. So I have a compliment to our last speaker who I thought was actually quite mindful in terms of thinking about long-term sustainability in relation to resource industries. And I guess my question would be to both our colleague from Nigeria and Alan. Why would the economic analyses not take into account the macro perspective of, frankly, the now recognized climate change constraints, shall we say, on resource extraction? And kind of similar to the first question, cannot economics advance the thinking among leaders by taking a much more sophisticated portfolio approach about diversification, even for extractive industries, much like the Saudis have announced, a long-term diversification of their economy from oil and gas, particularly for domestic use? Okay, thank you. I would like the speakers, perhaps Alan, to take the point of what role they see for building commodity stabilization funds or soaring wealth funds in low-income countries in which you have to build the fund, basically cut consumption, generate savings for a while, and then starting to use those funds. And also, if there is something in the experience about triggering, in some countries, for example, in my country in Chile, there is a clear rule for accumulating resources in the fund, but it's not clear when the funds can be used in times of declining, let's say, copper prices that are entirely left to the discretionary power of the Ministry of Finance or the fiscal authority. So basically, these two issues, how to build the funds in low-income countries and how to rule triggering rules for using the resources when they have been accumulated. And last point, whether there is a tendency for over-savings or over-insurance when you build up these funds? Thank you for the presentations. My name is Daniel Etungu from Helsinki University, and my question goes to our last presenter, Ooni. You mentioned clearly about the political economy at different levels, but now the issue is about natural resources, like under the ground, people have different interests. So what measures have been put in place that if the trees have been taken out to get the resource beneath, how can we try to manage the land in terms of the forest? And also to Professor Ajaye, you mentioned some very strong points on this aspect of attitude, which I think is very strong in most parts of Africa that we believe like things cannot really change. Talking to people in different parts of Africa, yeah, it will stay like that. But what measures do you think have been put in place with your experience to try to drive a change in attitude so that we can have this positive way of thinking in the way we manage our resources? Right, thank you very much. Before I invite the presenters, I just want to make a quick correction of information on Alan's presentation. GDP, the deficit figure you mentioned, the 12% of GDP figure you mentioned was mainly due to the elections. Yes, we borrowed. When we got oil, we borrowed, but we spent because of elections, the stakes were very high and therefore government had to spend to win elections. Thank you. Now, can I invite, I don't know how we'll do it. Should we go here? Okay, so maybe let me go first. So the question was about mining of diamond, aluvia mining and how the informal sector could be controlled. There is a study we did recently, I did with one of my PhD students on the impact of mining on health. And then it was very clear from that study that when you look at the mining areas, because of the use of heavy metals, arsenic, cyanide, and the way the tailings are processed, individuals who are closer to the tailings sites were more likely to suffer some diseases, especially upper respiratory disorders, and we were able to even put some monetary values on that. So it is true that those activities have to be controlled or regulated, but there is some, to some extent some political economy argument to it. Governments have come to believe that those within the mining communities largely depend on that for employment and livelihood. And if you try to control them or regulate them, you might lose some political capital, they might not vote for you. So especially during the periods of elections, they actually go haywire, they go around mining even concession areas, destroying the water bodies, and the consequences are there to see. So it's very difficult, it's because of the political capital or the political cause of regulating them, the governments are not able to do what they are supposed to be doing. So it's an area that needs to be looked at. Thank you. Okay, I'd like to go next in the attack. Well, look, let me say this. I think the Nigerian issue is a case of really not following the rules and trying to look at mainfalls as if they were permanent income and try to consider them as they come. Now, during the global crisis 2008 to 2009, we had problems too. But at that time, there was an excellent crude account from which Gomez could draw. Just like in the example that Alan was giving the case of Chile trying to do, he did that meaningfully. But again, you know, with development of political class and so on, Governors are more interested in sharing whatever it is that's accumulated. Instead of maintaining the rules, keeping the rules and regulations that when the price of oil is above a particular benchmark, you save the surplus. So when the rainy season comes, rainy periods do come, then of course you can go ahead and benefit from it and use it to make the necessary adjustments for the economy until things get better again. That's the problem. So in each of these situations, the rules and regulations are there that all these excess funds should be saved. But then with the multiplicity of political class and people are trying to argue amongst themselves, there have never been a very well thought out position of maintaining rigidity on the maintenance of these funds. And that's what happened. Similarly through, Nigeria was carrying what are called excess burden in terms of trying to subsidize petroleum. Of course, at the end of the day, that has to be removed instead of paying 87 naira per litre. We are now paying 145 per litre because there was need for government to stop up this subsidy, which it was carrying for a very long time. Those are the problems. Through those ones that have been taken care of, there will have been enough room at every time to make adjustments when you have a good time and when you have a bad time and be able to make a proper adjustment in terms of government spending. Now, attitudinal changes, that's a big one. Now, over the years, there have been developments in terms of the oversized bureaucracy equation Nigeria is carrying. And the toll now is so great in terms of how many people do you pay and so on. And also this attitude of, you know, cake sharing as opposed to cake baking. You know, state governments are interested in going to the federation account, share whatever it is there. I look at them to states and then use them in a very reckless way that I should be. So the kind of attitudinal changes I'm talking about then is for the political class to realize the need to eliminate waste, to eliminate fraudulent practices, to also eliminate wastefulness in spending. In other words, efficiency in government spending, it should be the rule of the game so that whatever resources you do have can go a lot further than have been in the past. And of course, if you do a lot of that, that requires a lot of attitudinal changes. As I said, making people realize the need to, it's not the citizens that should touch in their belts. Those are the political class have to touch in their belts too. By, you know, stopping to buy exotic cars or senators or senators having facilities both at home and the village and so on. Those are the kind of attitudinal changes I'm talking about. And it did a lot of, you know, here and now I'm talking about this need for attitudinal changes, need for us to start again as it was going to the drawing board in terms of the right perspective to governance and right perspective to government spending. Thank you. I think there are two questions directed at me. The first was about the need to build in the sort of climate change and the diversification issues into strategy. And I think that's absolutely perfectly sensible comment. And of course it doesn't happen to anything like the extent that it should do. On diversification, I've worked a little in Botswana. I've worked a little in Zambia. And I'm pretty conscious at my age that for the last 50 years, both of those countries have been talking about diversification of their economies. But if you look at my data on export dependence, they haven't really made terribly much progress in that direction. I think the advice to the newer countries in Africa, like including Tanzania, for example, which is beginning to develop substantial gas resources that they should almost have it on the walls of every minister. You know that your task in running the gas industry is to think of ways of diversifying away from gas over the next 40, 50 years because you have a resource is there for a finite period of time. It's not going to be there forever. And when it's gone, you don't have that resource in terms of exports or government revenue. You need something else. This is your opportunity and take the opportunity while you can. There are ways to do that. Governments tend not to put those labels on the offices of their ministers when they find these resources. I think in terms of the climate change story, I personally find this very complex. I mean, for oil, clearly, the climate change agendas that are now agreed internationally are going to significantly reduce over time the use of oil. But I'm not entirely clear what's going to happen to metals. Indeed, some of the metals will be increased in demand by virtue of climate change agendas. The sort of metals that are required for wind turbines and so on are going to be different types of metals, but they will be demanded in increasing amounts. So I would have thought that that needs to be factored into strategies in countries that are endowed with these respective resources. On the question of the stabilization funds from Andre Solomano, this is a very, very important question, I believe. I mean, if you look at the countries in Africa in particular where I'm more familiar, I'm not so familiar with ones in Latin America that have entered the ranks of being resource rich relatively recently, or countries like Nigeria indeed that entered a long while ago, they almost all have legislation about sovereign wealth funds or stabilization funds. And if you look at the IMF, you know, they've done papers on fiscal rules. More and more countries, including low and middle income countries, have fiscal rules which are designed to prevent these cyclical swings from turning into fiscal disasters. These rules exist. Ghana has very, very good legislation, the PRMA, which I understand it learned from copying Nigeria's legislation. The problem is it's not implemented, you know, said the election was the reason why those fiscal deficits, I know it was the election, of course it was the election, but the rules were nonetheless there, the politicians, you know, they were out of line when they forgot their own laws. So, but Andre makes a very serious point. Chile has a per capita income of $24,000. If it sets aside five or six percent of GDP, the Minister of Finance gets a bit of a beating up in the newspapers, but he doesn't get fired. But if you've got a per capita income of $750,000, I don't know what the figure in Tanzania is currently, but Donald will tell me, can you really put aside one or two percent of GDP annually into a so-called sovereign wealth fund for the benefit of future generations? Politically, it's so, so difficult to do that. So, I think there's a big distance between the quite sensible thinking and advice that has gone in about these stabilisation funds, and I say the passing of laws and rules. And the practice on the ground, politicians, when they have an election, they need money and they get money from whatever source they can find it. I think that's it. Thank you. Right. So, it's actually pretty difficult to stand here and defend the entire ecology and the tribal communities of all the countries of this, sitting in this room. But yeah, the managing natural resources is something we talk about. How about managing the mining companies and some of these contracts which are being written out and so on? It's for each country to think of it, think of it, think through it clearly. He was giving the example of the new countries which have found oil. If you look at the Gulf countries which had oil and are exploiting it, have exploited it to such an extent, one fine day they're all going to be wiped out because they don't have anything else. They have not developed any other industry. They really have to think through what they're going to do. So, in countries where you really don't require that, but obviously there is an external thing. But you don't extract this to the extent that you wipe out various communities. You're only adding to another problem. You wipe out the biodiversity here, not just here in every other place where they're extracting. You cannot replace that. You will figure that out in that day. It's the same for GM plants and so on. You will figure out that all the indigenous rice varieties that you had, all the indigenous millet varieties that you had in a country like India, which I know best. If you don't preserve them, tomorrow when this disease comes, that disease comes, you will not have anything to fight it. You will not have any of those genes left to be able to, which actually are resistant to those things, which can actually live in that place. It's the same thing applies here. You extract this, you get rid of this biodiversity, you get rid of those people. That's fine. They'll move away. You find them a place. They'll move away. But basically you have destroyed something which you cannot replace. So is there some fashion in which something can be controlled so that extraction is also done in a slightly more, if it needs to be done? Because these things are not going to come back. Once you've taken out the oxite or the iron ore, it's not going to come in another million years. So it's just something that has to be accounted for. We are today taking away all this. Tomorrow, so far we have always been dependent on science. We are absolutely certain that science will discover some other source of metal, some other source of building your airplanes, some other source of travelling, some other source of energy. We are absolutely convinced. But the fact remains that what you have, if one can preserve it to some fashion, and that's the only thing I can say. I mean, there is a path, but it's the more difficult path. Once you have opened up your economy, as long as India was not opened up, all these issues didn't arise. The mining companies could not come. So whatever was extracted here was extracted. The Tata's who have these steel companies, they were extracting the coal. They were extracting the iron ore. They were using it in India. It was building the infrastructure in India and they might also have displaced communities. But at least it was here. The whole thing is just flowing out. All that the government is getting is some little bit of tax and royalty revenues, which is pittance for the amount of GDP growth that they already have. So I have no answer. Thank you. Thank you very much. Panelists, thank you so much for this. I think we deserve a round of applause.