 Good morning everyone. We've just been waiting for my colleague Dan Rundie to join us. I think he's one minute. Okay. Please be patient with us and we'll just, let's start then. My name's Jennifer Cook. I'm director of the Africa program here at CSIS. Welcome to everybody and a special welcome to our guest today, Dr. Abdelay Dukley. We're here today to talk about the common African position on the post-2015 development agenda. This is a set of agreements that was adopted in January of this year, launched in February of 2014 in Ingemena Chad. A set of principles that was developed in a broad and participatory process whose focus really was to give African voices, government leaders, citizens, private sector, legislatures and regional stakeholders, a greater voice in laying out a global development agenda. A global agenda but also an agenda for Africa. For over a decade, here's my colleague Dan Rundie. I'll introduce in a moment a no problem. For over a decade that global development agenda has been really shaped to a large degree by the millennium development goals, and I think most of you are familiar with them. Eight international development goals established at the Millennium Summit of the UN in 2000. All members of the UN at that time, all 189 of them agreed to those principles and I'll just run through them briefly. As I say, I think most of you know them, eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education to promote gender equality, reduce child mortality, to improve maternal health, to combat HIV AIDS, malaria and other diseases, to ensure environmental sustainability and to develop a global partnership for development. I think the MDGs have seen a lot of success in setting these big ambitious aspirational targets on some of the major human development challenges, kind of as a motivator and an incentive and something of a measurement. There's some critiques on that for progress. But they've also been criticized for being heavily focused on kind of the external element and external interventions and external funding and not focused more, let's say, on the needs of African citizens rather than on building their capacities and kind of working on their aspirations. So, we're going to hear today from Dr. Abdulai Dukley, who is the president of Liberia, Ellen Sirleaf Johnson's special envoy for the post-2015 agenda. He's also the head of the secretariat for the MDGs. He's here today to present the common African position, why it's different from the MDGs, what motivated it and kind of what are the next steps in bringing this to fruition. It's a real particular pleasure today to introduce Dr. Dukley. He's an old and very dear friend of mine. We met on a Voice of America program in the midst of the Liberian War. We're talking about Charles Taylor at the time. Abdulai is a man of many hats. He's a filmmaker, a writer, a journalist. He wrote some brilliant analysis and captured some of the stories of the Civil War and the aftermath in really a very poignant way. And it's just such a pleasure to see him now kind of working on building Africa and building Liberia towards the future and kind of on the recovery and reconstruction. So it's a real pleasure to see him again and see him doing this important work. I'm going to turn over briefly to my colleague, Dan, who's been doing more on the MDGs than I have, but I couldn't miss this opportunity to see Abdulai. So Dan, why don't we turn to you and then we'll turn to Dr. Dukley. I'll be brief and I apologize for being late. Mr. Dukley, thanks for being here. I'm a great admirer of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's. I had the pleasure of meeting her a couple years ago. I think that the high level panel of which she was one of the point people on, I suspect you had something to do with that as well. I think the report that came out a year ago is an excellent report. I think reflects obviously Liberia's experience and her experience and her aspirations for the future. I thought that what I think is particularly interesting about that report is the reflection on the changed world that the high level panel saw from the year 2000 in terms of the role of investment, the cost and impact of conflict on development, which is I'm sure quite well, but also the opportunities around the role of investment in trade as well as domestic resource mobilization which encompasses both local investment but also includes the ability of countries to pay for their own development through tax revenues as well. And I know that's something that's of great importance. I also think that what I took away from the high level panel report is that aid as serving as a catalyst as a supporting actor in other folks central act of development if you will. And I know that we're coming to a point soon on the post 2015 development agenda where there's been the high level panels sent their report in the secretary general sent their report back. There's been a whole series of conversations around what's called the open working group process. So a collaborative is you know is probably it's a collaborative in capital letters I think is and everyone's had a chance to weigh in but at some point there's going to have to be a small group that's going to go off into a room somewhere and have a real political process because you can't have 35 of these goals. I do think by U.N. standards I think the MDGs have been an excellent way a form of organizing principles. Though I would say that my sense as much of the progress that's been made on the MDGs has been because of growth in China or India or some specific targeted social program spending in places like Brazil. Though I think assistance has had a role in it. Though I think there have been these other factors that have been as are much more important frankly. And so I do think we don't want to screw up something that's been pretty good. You had eight simple organizing principles and so whether it's 12 or whether it's 13 I'm not sure the traffic can bear too many more than that. And so one of the questions I've been asking people and I hope you'll answer is when I've met with various folks whether it's the Japanese or whether it's the Canadians or whether it's the U.S. or the Brits. I've said what are your pet rocks. What are your pet rocks going into this process a very idiomatic American term. What are your what are you going to fight for. What are the things. What is Africa going to fight for in terms of whether it's what it's two or three additional things or what are the things it wants to keep in this process because there is going to be a political moment. And I know that's that's partially why I suspect you're in town is is we're coming to we're coming upon that political moment. So it's really a pleasure to have you. And I know I think the fact that the room is full and we've got so much interest I think reflects the the fact that this is Africa's moment as well. And so we're so pleased that you're here and I'm very nice to meet you. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning everyone. And I'm very pleased to be here to start with your first questions. I think the problem responding to what the MDG's did for Africa. I think it is very simple. It's galvanized and focused at our attention on major development issues. The downside of it was that it was externally driven. So by 2010 the head of state of Africa met at the African Union in Kampala and during that meeting they decided that well the MDG's will expire in four years or four or five years. We have to be prepared to know what we have to be prepared and then we have to have something to say in the success whatever happened after that. And they decided that well we'll set up a system. We'll set up a thinking group to start thinking about how do we go into the post 2015. How how does Africa goes into the post 2015. And first of all and how does Africa take care of what has changed on the continent because a lot of things have changed not only in Africa since the 2000 MDG's but around the world. So they started working through mytholaterals having consultations on the ground in every country on the continent. And last year finally in May they decided that well now has come the time to put all these ideas together reduce all these millions of priorities that every country had sent to the EU to UNICA to UNFPA and say how do we now put these things into a framework that will only not only reflect Africa's priority but also see how we can negotiate with the rest of the globe. Because the post 2015 whatever it is has to be participatory. And we're lucky as an envoy of the president to be part of that process to be part of the process of the UN development UN post 2015 consultations at a high level panel that had 24 members from different part of the world and also co-chair by Indonesia and Britain. Just the same week we handed over to the Secretary General of report on HLP the AU met and decided that well it's the time to create this group. Instead of creating a group of experts which was the case of the MDJs they say we'll give we start with a political process we will nominate few head of states so they've decided to pick two head of states from each of the economic regions of Africa two from West Africa Guinea and Liberia two from North Africa Mauritania and Algeria two from Central Africa Ethiopia and Mauritius. You had Eastern Africa Chad and Congo and Southern Africa we have South Africa and Namibia. And we set up a secretariat in at the head of the at the seat of the AU United States and the president was named to chair the process. And we have been having meetings and the big problem was to how do you reduce the 36 or 70 priorities that we thought people are coming into workable framework. After many meetings the first one of the HLP HLC the high level committee of head of states was held in New York in September in the margins of the UN. The first thing we did was to draw down the idea of priorities and let's see what are the issues that are cut crossing around the continent what are the main issues. So we came up with five pillars the five pillars that sort of will be the engine for the development in Africa but also serve as our entry into the world our part of the dialogue but split in the dialogue of on the development process. Where is the world going and it was not just about Africa's priorities but it was also looking at where the world is going. What kind of world do we want to live in and what kind of partnership do we want to create to establish. I think one of the biggest problem I won't say the problem but one of the downside of the MDs was that the partnership was not taking very where it was supposed to go. So therefore with partnership becomes an important aspect of the whole process. Among our five pillars we had structural economic transformation and inclusive growth. This was very important. It was important to the president. She said it during the HLP process. She kept repeating it that no matter what you do no matter how you want to deal with social issues if you don't deal with the economic factor you still have problems because that is the source of inclusion. That's the source of exclusion. That's where people are excluded. That's where people have that feel that they're not part of the process and therefore it was very important to have economic transformation not only in Liberia in Africa but also around the world. I think the global crisis that we all experienced in the last five years show clearly that we are all interlinked. Something happening in Iceland and then boomerang into housing and then from the housing to the banking system and some countries are still failing especially countries coming out of a complete like Liberia. The second issue is sense and technology and innovation that if you need to create a new sort of economic order you have to have people who are able to sit and think and say what are our natural capacities? What do we have on the ground in Africa and how do we transform Africa itself from within without expecting every day somebody coming from outside to tell you this is what you need to do. This is how you define development. This is how you define science but can we have homegrown science? Can we have homegrown innovations? Can we have homegrown technology that deal with our issues so we become participant in a global process from an African perspective but not simply sitting there and then be at the receiving end of issues. The third one was people-centered development that the means and ends of all development issues should be what human being. That includes health. I remember in the MDGs we were talking about education for all. I think in many countries in Africa we have had up to 80, 90% of achievement in that goal but the quality of education becomes an issue. How do we create quality education? Not just taking the case out of the street and put them in a classroom but providing quality education that allows them to be able to prepare for themselves for a decent life, get good jobs and be able to live as a human being. And also that human-centered development also takes another perspective. But 20 years ago when we were talking about development it was more like how many white elephants can you build? Like a big house, big hotels that nobody can stay in or highways into the desert. But now we're saying development is about simple little things. People being able to have clean water, mothers not dying by giving birth, children not dying of malaria after six months of life. Being able to have to go to school, people not having to work 10 miles to go to a primary school where there's no teacher or there's no classroom and that kind of thing. So you have to refocus development on those basic issues, basic healthcare, basic education and basic needs to take care of transportation. And that includes also migration. How do you start people from creating more gaiters and slums into the cities because there's nothing else and there's nothing to do in the village. So how do you urbanize, quote unquote, urbanize the village so that people don't have to rush into the city? Number four was environmental sustainability, natural resource management and disaster and risk management. And this is very important for Africa because we, if you look back into history, maybe going back to 400 years ago, that Africa has served as a place where things are taking from either human beings or resources, gold, diamonds, slavery, everything else. So how do we change that process? And we can do it alone. We have to work with other people to do it. But, and also climate change. We say that Africa has an issue with climate change. We have, we are facing the consequences of what is happening around the globe, but we have not created the problem that we face. Although we are part of the solution. We are part of the solution. We want to be part of the solution. We want to negotiate with people and how to mitigate climate change knowing pretty well that we are not the primary responsible of climate change. And that didn't happen before we even got into this point of development. I'm passing on finance and partnership. Sometimes when we talk about Africa in terms of development, we think about somebody coming in with a bank book to write your check or somebody coming in with a factory and say, okay, if you do this, you may have to, you may do that. But we are saying, can we change that model? Can we have homegrown economies that take care first of all of African needs? And how do you do that? And how do you transform your own economy? And how do you finance that? And as you were saying, taxation, mobilization of local resources, that there are a lot of resources in Africa that have not been tapped. Maybe because we have always looked at outsiders to come with solutions. So therefore we pay a little attention to our own potentials. And that had to change. That will change also. I can give you an example. Africa receives somewhere between 50 to 60 billion dollars a year in ODA, what I call official development aid. But at the same time, three to four hundred billion dollars fly out legally or illegally. And I remember two, three days ago I was listening to NPR. The Secretary of Commerce of the US was talking about how do we stop companies from moving their headquarters into other countries so they don't pay taxes in the US? Well, so we have something in common. We both have to fight these things. How do we fight capital flight? To make sure that people working on new land or people who are exploiting new resources pay the new taxes so that they don't come up and say, oh, we need a tax break for five years. And at the end of the five years, they have made enough money to move out to the next country, next door, and start the same process. And this has been going on in Africa for long term. They have companies that work in Liberia. They get tax break for five, six years. At the end of the six years, they have enough money to go to CELA loan to say, hey, you know, we have new ideas. We can probably do this. So how do we stop doing that? And also the money that go from African economies are going to tax havens. Don't usually go to another African country. They go to Europe, they come to American banks, they go to the Caimans or whatever you know. They go around. So how do we create a new partnership where financing partnership really is partnership, not what we have this old concept of, you are my partner, but I decide what you do. I decide what is on the table. I decide what is, you know, feasible and what is not feasible. And here we're talking about next week, two weeks from now, the African presidents will be talking to the president of the US and I think Agua one, Agua two will be part of the discussions. But these are issues that we need to talk about. You know, if we talk about partnership, it's not about you deciding as a big brother what is good for your market and what is good for my market at the same time. That means that there's no partnership. It's a big brother, small brother thing. So that mentality has to change. And can we change that? And we think that, you know, it's possible to change. We think that Africa has changed in terms of governance, in terms of being able to know what the resources are, and in terms of the whole global outlook that economies that were powerful yesterday are no longer powerful. Russia is not the same Russia that was there 10, 15, 20 years ago. China is no longer the same China. Clean air is, you know, everybody's problem. And I think these are the issues. But I gave you five, but there's a sixth one that came in at the Africa summit in June. And that was peace and security. Before the head of state adopted the document, they said, we like what you have. We like what the committee has done. But there's one important aspect of issues in Africa that we need to tackle. That is peace and security. That if you don't have peace, if you don't have security, whatever you do is blown out of the window. And I'll give you a good example of Sudan. South Sudan, everybody was so excited by South Sudan being independent. The end of the world in Sudan, one of the longest war of all time in Africa. And the African Development Bank went and invested something like $400 million into infrastructure. But now what is left are probably the old cars, the burned-down cars. The $400 million investment that went in there is all gone through the window. So without peace, without security, you're not going to be able to do anything. Our problem with that was that, well, the problem we face is that there is a group of people at the UN of nations that control peace and security around the world. They shut down the peace and security discussion when we were talking about the HLP, when we were talking at a high-level panel under the UN's sponsorship. They said, no, you can talk about peace and security. This is part of the Security Council mandate. Therefore, whatever do you do, just stay away, talk about safety, human safety, talk about other things. But peace and security in the same sentence, no, you cannot use that. And in Africa, we say, well, we are 27 percent of the UN, so we'll talk about it. And we put in our mandate. We'll put in our agenda. How we negotiate around it, in what term, you will come up when the political discussions start. That's a different thing. But it's not, we don't also see peace in terms of boots on the ground, that you need to have jets flying over to square the conflict. But in terms of Security Council votes to send troops to any conflict, you already have thousands of thousands of dead people and mostly young people, women, children, the most vulnerable. The funny thing is that in most conflicts, the army always survived, but everybody else dies. So we're looking at peace in terms of peacebuilding, putting an end to inequalities, and driving something that will maintain a cohesive society where you don't have to fight. People don't have to fight for the rights. And I think most of the most part of the continent now you could say Africa has changed in that light. We had three generations of leaders in Africa. First, we have the founding fathers, the Wufed Buanyi, Sengar, Kwame Krumaw, who had great ideas, including Mandela, who just died, who had great ideas for the transformation of the continent. They're talking about integrating the continent economically, militarily, and financially. But they didn't have the means to do it. And all of a sudden, somehow, there was a transition in the 70s, 80s, and every day you had a new military leader running some country. And that gave, that crystallized this idea of Africa being unstable, insecure, and not worthy of investment. And that idea went on for almost 20 years. But now we have a new set of leadership. From Senegal to South Africa, I would say 90 percent of the leaders are elected. They are accountable to the people, not to the west or to the east, as it was in the 1980s. In the 1980s, if Washington liked you, you could be in power for 50 years. If Russia liked you, you could be in power for 50 years. But, you know, sometimes they tricked each other, and then you were going over there without knowing how you went out. But that has changed. Elections take place. Good or bad, elections are not perfect, but they take place. People respond to the need, the governments now respond to the needs of the people, and therefore we have a new Africa. And I think in that sense, Africa has changed and we are capable. We are able to look at our problems from within and say these are our issues, these are our problems. But we are not doing that in isolation. We know that the UN process is going to be a global process. You're taking about 200 in some countries who have their own interests. Even ourselves, in developing the common African position, we had those issues. Some people had, well, some people talked about blue economy. Some talked about sub-cooperation would be more important. Some talked about how do you deal with any other regions came to us with their interests. Consumption patterns, climate issues, human security. We say, yes, these are all beautiful ideas when we get to you for negotiation. We'll see them talk about this. But for the time being, we'll focus on what Africa wants to do, what Africa wants to go, and what world we want to live in 20 years from now. And we have some comparative advantages as Africans. Besides being 27 percent of the UN Africa would be the youngest continent in 20 years. Maybe, say, five out of seven young person capable, you know, of working age will be living in Africa. Africa will still have tremendous natural resources. Africa will be more than a billion and a half consumers of goods. So these are issues that we need to think, we think about and we think seriously and we would like to be able to discuss with the rest of the world. So we have copies of the cab that we brought. I would like to pass them around and then open up the discussion for the rest of the time. Dan and Jennifer, thank you. Thanks very much, Dr. Ducle. Really excellent. I think there'll be lots of questions as well. Kind of what's interesting to me about this set of pillars is that it opens up a whole new range of players in kind of the development agenda. I think the MDGs were very much focused on, you know, government to government and or philanthropy to government. Whereas this one, if you talk about structural economic transformation, it's very much investors, banks, private equity, and so forth. If you talk about science and technology, it brings a whole new community, you know, and I think science and tech partnerships from the United States and other countries has been, you know, a promising area of growth and expansion, whether it's agricultural, whether it's health, on a whole range of issues. On the natural resource management, obviously that's a big one. We've been doing some work recently on the new energy producers and kind of the big new flows of oil and gas coming out of east Africa. How will that get managed? Interesting on the capital flight issue, Kofi Annan a couple of years ago through the eminent, what is it, the Africa Progress Panel put out that excellent report talking about kind of the shell companies in Congo, tax evasion, tax havens, tax avoidance, and I think that at the same time the G8 in the UK, at the UK summit, was very much focused on setting global standards for transparency, for tax enforcement, for rules on beneficiary ownership of these various companies. So, I think this agenda blends very well with that one on the natural resource management. I'm going to turn to Dan to see if he wants to take the first question and then we'll open up, we'll take a couple at a time. I don't think we're going, we'll not go, I don't think for the full hour but we'll see how the question is. Thank you, I thought that was very interesting. Thanks for your time. I would be curious about this issue of the role of China in Africa and how you think about it as a driver of development. When I was in Liberia, I asked every public leader I met how they saw China and I got a variety of very thoughtful answers and interesting answers and you'll have a view about China as a development actor in Africa. I'd be curious about that. Yes, I have my idea about China as a driver of development and I think I have also my idea about the U.S. as a driver of development and I have my idea of China being the new kid on the block in terms of development investment in Africa. They have a lot of cash, one time I think somebody asked the president here what do you think about China? She said well they promise and usually they deliver so and Africa has a lot of needs and there's a downside of course is that you know you don't want to be dependent. It's still the same cycle of dependency that you know you don't want to fall into, you don't want to fall into the China being the factory and Africa being the consumer and on the other hand Africa is supporting the natural resources to China because that's really what's happening. If you go to the market of Dakar where 10 years ago you could buy your handmade things by women in the markets, they're made in China if you are a few years back when I was in Accra also all these flags because of the African Cup of Nation, the flag, the balloons and I asked let me see and I looked at it, it was made in China, it's a winery in Ghana so you know I'm aware of China, we are aware of China and I think people are starting to think about okay okay China we have the money, you have the money, you have resources but Africa has its own agenda and it should not be driven by the interests of China, it should not be driven because simply because China has money because easy money is also easy problem. Thank you. Good morning. Thank you Dr. Dukule. I'm Barbara Simmons Dean of International Education at Tubman University. One of the things you mentioned was a new Africa. We just had our first commencement at which President Sirleaf was the keynote speaker. Earlier that day someone had said we were producing a new breed of student. Can you talk more about the new Africa? Hi, I'm Alina Jaskofsky with Global Development Network and we build research capacity in developing countries and I'm wondering in how does your this process working on the MDGs work with Agenda 2063 and the African Union vision for the future of Africa and is the process overlapping and how's that working? Yeah, new breed of students. I think the emphasis is on the quality of education. Tubman University I know I've been I was there when it was first opened by the president and we talked about it and at the fact for example that Tubman University is now talking about creating science labs, agricultural labs and to deal with products that are coming from Maryland like rubber and palm oil. Maryland, Liberia. Maryland, Liberia, yes. Product such as you know rubber, palm oil and sugarcane that are all producing in Liberia in Maryland, Liberia and how to transform those to change the economy and make sure that the kids don't get up in the morning and say okay I have to go to Monrovia after graduation to get a job but I can work in the factory, I can work in an office and I can work as a scientist in my own county to do something. I think that's what we call a new breed of students and I think that's a big another president's agenda and I think it's also part of an essential part of the cup as creating a new sort of education a new curriculum that is based on Africa's needs as based on where Africa wants to go and also based on Africa's resources. On the conclusion of 2063 2063 is a long-term vision that is being developed by the EU African Union and that is a 50-year plan. It goes hand in hand with the cap, takes something from the cap but what he says is essentially that the 2063 agenda is African agenda. It's not something that we're negotiating. Cap is primary for negotiation to have our voice into the post-2015 development agenda but the 2063 agenda the long-term vision of where Africa wants to be in 50 years in 20 years in 30 years etc is purely basically an African agenda and that's being developed by Africans for Africa and that is not really looking at outsiders and say what outsiders can do for us but rather what Africa can do for itself and I think what Africa can do for itself has really started. I think the fact that we are able to do the cap to come up with a common position after four years of negotiation and discussions is something that you know pointed to in a direction of what Krumah was talking about that as long as we have 10,000 different solutions we will never have one tangible solution so we have to have one and Africa has come up with one. I think this is the only region in the world where 54 countries are growing on the same development agenda and I think we can sell it. I think you know we have enough good will out of the inside out of the world there to be working with us. Hello my name is Wendy I'm with the American Red Cross. You mentioned that disaster risk management is one of the priority pillars for Africa and the network of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies in Africa they're very strong with disaster risk reduction in kind of cooperation with their communities that's where the real strength lies these thousands of branches in Africa working with families and people. Do you feel like disaster risk reduction is being adequately addressed in discussions within the open working group right now? Thank you. Yes I think we as I said at the beginning we think that transformation of our development processes through economic transformation thinking care of basic issues you know can address all these issues I think we try not to the MDGs were more focused on social issues and sort of emphasized the social aspect of problems that we will face on the continent and we're trying to move away from that not that we don't think we think that social issues are not important but we think that they are linked to bigger problems they link to economic issues, economic exclusion economic separation between the you know the gap the widening gap between the rich and the poor and all of these things so therefore I think those issues are taking care of and if you look into the document you can also find it on au.org we have all of those issues underline but as goals and as you know goals and targets in the document but I think you know we and we also say this whole thing is about giving the African person his or her place in the world as an actor not just somebody who's standing on the sideline to watch the train go by yeah let's take a question there I have a question where I'll throw into the mix and maybe it goes to Dan and to you Abdelay in terms of you talked about the peace and security element probably getting some pushback from from the UN because it's kind of not considered so development oriented let's say or it's a different set of people but I wonder where do you think this will face kind of the biggest challenges and Dan you've done a lot of work on the UN you've worked you just had a dinner with the UN special envoy on this where do you where do you see the kind of gaps between this set of pillars and what's being proposed by other actors which I followed less clearly I would just say that I think these are very interesting pillars I do think that they do reflect much of what's in the high-level panel report I do note that there's sort of less discussion perhaps it's in the economic pillar around rule of law and governance per se I'm also interested in how the African position is thinking about things like corruption and how I mean because I do think if if this is about Africa's taking matters into their own hands which you know I think as you said 90% of the countries are now democratically elected and think it's a very different Africa than 20 or 30 years ago and I think you certainly I do think that the brand is I do think that the perceptions are catching up to the reality of that there's a lot of significant amount of progress made in Africa and I think certainly people are saying it and now people are thinking and doing things differently in addition to just saying it so I'd be curious about how you the issues of rule of law governance and specifically how if corruption is one of the most important things that in many of the if you look at the polling I suspect in many African countries it's one of the most important pressing issues how do you think about that as part of your your development agenda so that that's sweet of issues in particular because I know that did come up the governance agenda itself does come up in the high level panel report and and as I think is is it's no question whether it'll it'll make the final final cut I hope it does I think governance is the overriding issue in all of this is governance good governance because we know that without good governance you cannot do any of these things so it's there is in the back of our mind and he's also on the table without every discussion we talk about good governance how do you implement good governance but we look at governance thank you for raising the issue because we look at governance not only at the level of the nation inside the nation but we also look at governance as a global issue she asked a question about the security council who say okay if we are if you ask me to be to create a democracy at home and I create democracy at home and I'm working with you how can we work as partners how do we connect as people who are not big and small but all you know they say they're working at on the same level so the security council issue will come up we say why do five countries have the right to with veto a single issue or any issue that affect 200 other countries in the world so that for us governance at that level is also a problem it's not just corruption yes as Obasanjo said when there is a corrupt man maybe somebody's corrupting him so you got to look at it both way if there are corrupt people in Africa they're exporting money that are taking the funds from the corpus and then sending them to other banks maybe the banks are also corrupt and those banks who are who's responsible for those banks and what who benefit from those funds that are taking out of Africa so we have to look at that process so that's that's also partnership partnership to fight corruption not just looking at Africa and say yes Africa is corrupt corruption comes with money it comes with anywhere there's money there's potential for corruption then we say why don't we sit down and have a forum on corruption in two weeks or two weeks from now we'll have a meeting on the HFC or the HFC meeting in Monrovia on accountability the forum of on accountability what is accountability how do we do it how do we account to the people and how do we account to the rest of the nations around us that we have doing everything right what do we get out of it so we talk about accountability we talk about corruption we talk about governance but as first inside issues but also we look at a at a global issue you know accountability if you promise to do in the MDH there are a lot of promises made it's 0.7 percent GDP will go to the development it has never happened and we grown enough to know that it will never happen in fact we didn't even put in a cap we say okay if people want to help yes they will help but it's not the issue so accountability is a problem that you somebody promise we could build you a highway in the middle of the highway they say oh we have budgetary problem at home so we can finish the highway the government is trying to do with a highway that leads nowhere and who is the who is to be blamed so who is accountable so the new global framework has to have an issue of accountability not just as receiving aid as to be accountable but those who also promising aid to be accountable to fulfill their promises just on this issue I think this is a very important point I do think both with technology and civil society in more increasing democratic governance that you're having more accountable society I see a lot more language about this and things accountable governance I think it's sort of UN speak for I think aspirational democratic governance but I also think your point about accountability for donors is a good one I do think my what I've said here in Washington is the rise of China as a donor means that there are other games in town and so if we drop the ball on things like not building a road in Africa well as your president said when the Chinese say they're going to do something they generally do it so I do think it's going to my argument has been that China in Africa is something that we can bemoan or we can learn from and my thought is we ought to become more agile as a donor think about how we bring trade and aid to the conversation I don't think we should sell out our principles so you know necessarily but I don't think so in general but I do think that things like being able to bring aid and trade together more more agilely or if we say we're going to build a road we better do it because if we don't you know if I'm Liberia I'll take my problem down the street to the Chinese and I actually think that's so I do think it's a sobering exercise for the donor world to realize that there are other there are other players in globalization that can help solve these problems so I think that's it's an interesting point about accountability going both ways and if not if not the corruption aspect tackled at least kind of transparency as a principle in in all of this both at the global level and at the at domestic level and I think that's what the G8 tax transparency and beneficiary ownership Dan do you want to make a just I think your point about corruption I think is a good one too I do think the U.S. 30 or 40 years it was very alone in the conversation I'm not saying we're clean or perfect but I do think we're idealistic as a country and we push something called the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act which I know you're aware of Dr. Dugule I do think that you've seen it through the OECD process a raising of the bar and expectations around the world that Brazil is just passed a law Mexico is just passed a law the multilateral development banks have a much higher level of integrity standards so I do think the world the standards are improving and I do agree corruption is a two-way street and so absolutely President Obasanjo is right that and so there are enablers in the developed world and we have to we have to take a look at that too so we don't but I do think that this is a it's a terrible cancer on development corruption and it's also a terrible cancer on the success of democracies it poisons the well of democratic leaders and the chance to make hard reforms if you're a corrupt government it poisons the ability to sell to publics the ability to make hard choices so I know many countries it's one of the top three issues I'm sure it's in many African countries so I take your point that it's a two-way street but the accountability is a two-way street and corruption is a two-way street and so actors in the developed countries have to you know have to be held accountable as well so thank you for that that's an important insight and China is a two-way street too China is a two-way street right no I I think that as well but thank you for putting that out there we're at 11 I think we had scheduled to go to 11 30 but I think we'll go 15 more minutes if we can I'm Mitzi Worth I'm with the Naval Postgraduate School I just want to recommend a book for everyone to read called fragile by design written by faculty member from Harvard and Stanford and it's all about the link between banking and power and it starts in the 1500s and said they're absolutely intertwined have always been and it's always been corrupt so the question is what degree of corruption are you willing to tolerate I'm impressed by your 50 year project because we are so short-term in our thinking in the United States if the stock market doesn't go up in the next quarter or you over project or under project you failed and so we're often in the fact that you're thinking long-term and recognize all of these piece parts have to learn how to work together in order to get there I want to congratulate you for that we have a set of incentives and metrics in this country that I think are a great disservice today and I watch all these systems I would argue for example in both economics and political science or international relations in our universities most of the top faculty learned what they're teaching in the 60s and their thinking has not changed they're still teaching what they because they're no incentives to learn new things they just have to have whatever they write cited by their friends who are all educated at the same time anyway all I'm suggesting is well it's true it's a real problem for what we're dealing with today I was in Liberia in 1960 things have changed a lot and it's I think really impressive and I feel good about that thank you yeah thank you so much my name is Joe Marie Griebsgraber I'm with new rules for global finance and I wanted to pick up on the tax issues and I note that in the G20 when they talk about tax and the context of development they say well we really have to do capacity building and I'm wondering if the African finance ministers and central central bank governors and so on and tax administrators if on a continental basis you have been able to get together and say here is the capacity building we want and here are our preferred instructors if not I'll work with you hi my name is Molly McGregor and I'm with the center for global development here in DC and my question is I was hoping that you would touch on the measurability of some of these targets I know one of the greatest strengths about the MDGs was that they had these specific percentages and numbers that people could actually tangibly measure you know to varying degrees obviously there's some discussion about the measurability of them but looking forward to the new framework what has been your experience with the discussions about how we go about measuring these and comparing progress from year to year because I think that has been a huge strength and also you know development nowadays is very much focused on the ability to measure impact and so I'm curious what your thoughts on that are hi I'm Allison DeMail from Pixar Global I have a question also relating to financing I want to know what you consider the role and impact of the new BRICS Development Bank will be going forward as it starts in South Africa and then other countries can then apply to be a part of this new Development Bank thank you I'll let them talk about the BRICS Bank because I'm not you know I heard about it they were supposed to set it up a few months ago and what it is I'm not sure measurability and data now we talk a lot about data revolution in Africa that we don't know the problem has been that a lot of things has happened in during the MDGs but we are not capable of we don't have the instrument what we have not developed the instrument to measure them we don't know people say well we have 80 percent of kids in schools we have 90 percent of less this or that but how did we measure them sometimes we rely on numbers given by multinationals multilaterals but also sometimes given by NGOs who have an interest in keeping numbers as they are so because that's where they get their funding from we have to be aware of that so now the finance ministers had a meeting that's actually when the president first talked about the cap he was in Abuja he was at a meeting of the minister of finance and development and they talked about this issue of capacity building capacity building at the lowest level and at the highest level and be able to be if you cannot be accountable if you don't have the capacity sometimes it's not just corruption is not it's mismanagement sometimes sometimes it's just not knowing what you're doing sometimes money goes through the window because some instead of buying this they buy that and that what they bought is not what you need to to resolve your problem for corruption what level of corruption you want to tolerate a zero level but that's the dream because wherever there's money somebody's going to try to steal it if they can't get it honestly so I think that you know it's the reality is measurability yeah I think that's okay yeah so just just a couple of self-promotion self-promotion things in here we did a report on governance and economic growth at CSIS and I recommend if you're interested in that make sure it gets you one Dr. Dukalei before you leave and then we've also did something on the size and rolling scope of corruption as well so we did something that I just want to reference but yeah up ahead on the issue of domestic resource mobilization taxes if you look at just in Africa if I understand it correctly the UN had statistics that said in the year 2000 something like a hundred billion dollars was mobilized through taxes and fees through domestic resource mobilization and by the year 2010 it was 400 billion dollars not all that's some of that's oil gas and mining revenues then some of that's increased formality and people paying their taxes some of that is a rising middle class that does does excludes all the large amount of leakage and that Dr. Dukalei was talking about that's a lot of money that is being generated though by taxes even even you know even though it's not what it should be because there continues to be tax evasion and other challenges but are people not paying their taxes so so the you know if you look at ODA as Dr. Dukalei was saying it's about 50 60 billion after I don't think we're getting much higher than that I think we've hit the high water mark so if it's 400 billion of domestic resource mobilization and ODA four and eight is about 60 that's about you know there's a lot more of this than there is of this and so it's you know it's four five or six times or seven times seven times the amount of four and eight and so I think you're going to see that that will continue rise as you have an increasing middle class developing African countries that have discovered oil, gas and mining in the last five years as Jen has this report on new energy producers in Africa there's going to be a lot more government money and government coffers I'm not saying it's going to be a panacea but I do think it's it's going to be a challenge for a number of countries so the problem though on this DRM tax stuff is this is not a very sexy or compelling topic there are no political constituencies in developed countries that are going to get a congressional earmark to use the American parlance for this to pay for tax inspectors OECD is something called tax inspectors without borders I mean that really gets the heart of flutter right tax inspectors without borders it's darn important because that's where the money is but it's very difficult in the American system to find money or force money because the foreign aid dollars are spoken for so everybody agrees this is important but the bureaucratic politics and the interest group politics in Washington to how to allocate those monies go somewhere else so not saying they're not valid and important projects and everybody who fights and dies on that hill for their important piece of that pie I'm sure we'll tell you why their slice is the most important but I do think if that's where the money is and there's a lot of leverage there we ought to be thinking a little bit about how we do we'll be having a report on specifically this issue of domestic research mobilization if you have trouble sleeping at night I hope you'll read it but I do want to talk about the brick bank be briefly I think we need to look at the brick bank as a purely political exercise let me repeat that the brick bank as a purely political exercise I know that there's a lot of news stories about this a lot of froth and sizzle I have I'm highly skeptical that this is gonna go this is gonna I think this will ultimately die with a whimper however to the extent that we're not tended tending to our knitting in the United States and other participants in the international system to the extent that countries don't feel that they're fully participating I think Dr. Duglai has talked about some of these some of these issues I'm not gonna agree with all of them but I think he's put a number of interesting issues on the table that to the extent that the shareholdings don't necessarily match the size of the economy especially in Bretton Woods institutions like the World Bank and the IMF there's gonna be defections from let's call it the Bretton Woods system people exiting out of it there's been a series of crypto IMFs when Egypt had problems that golfies played IMF when Cyprus had a problem the Russians said hey we'll bail out your banking system if you give us an able base playing IMF there's something called the Chang Mai Initiative which is basically an Asian sort of self-insurance IMF and so there's both a World Bank side to this Brick Bank and an IMF side to this this new Brick Bank a lot of problems the first is what currency they say they want to create some sort of new currency good luck I'm really I'm not going to hold my breath I don't think they're going to use yen given the participants of all don't think they're going to use euros hard time imagine they're going to use the dollar so so if they're not using the dollar I'll be really curious to see if they're going to do this in rubles don't believe it and so I'm not holding my breath I know there's lots of press releases about this I don't think it's real I would say that the other interesting things are the Fortaleza agreement talked a lot about human rights it's really interesting lots of words about human rights in that declaration I don't know I mean maybe it's just me but I'm thinking Russia China human rights so you you know figure that one out I'm highly skeptical so it's great but I'm not going to hold my breath and then finally on things like what happens as Dr. Ducley was talking about you know relations are a two-way street what happens when this new development bank provides a loan to XYZ country and they decide they're kicking China out as the as the mining investor and say Zambia right the Zambian election swung I think on Chinese engagement are they going to pull out or not and do I really believe the Indians are going to play are going to bail out the Chinese if there's a mega financial crisis in China I doubt it so very interesting but I think to the extent that we don't take care of things like IMF quota reform which is a highly nichey topic but has to do with slight tweaks in the share holdings of the IMF then people are going to take their bat and ball and go somewhere else that's the that's the fancy think tank term for this but just the thing to remember here is this is a political political exercise in my view but to the extent that the United States doesn't tend to its garden and this is both partially a Republican problem and partially a problem for the administration for not selling this we're the only one of 20 IMG 20 countries to not approve something called IMF quota reform and like I said there's lots of technical stuff around this but basically it's a it's a rejiggering slightly of the share holdings of the IMF then people are going to take their bat and ball and play crypto IMF and try and do things like this so I'm I think if we were to fix some things make some tweaks this would kind of go away quietly and people ask in a couple of years whatever happened to that brick bank now you can quote me on that and if if 10 years from now this is the biggest things in sliced bread you can all throw it in my face and say you were totally wrong but I'm I'm going to you know I'd I'd bet folks a sandwich and and a club soda that I think this is this isn't going to go be be anything of any seriousness in three years time maybe I would just add that I think you touch something very important which is the reform at the IMF and World Bank I think that's the key issue once that is done you will not need a break you will not need the bridge banks and all these crypto IMF that pops around so you know like Ellen like God said like two weeks ago three weeks ago said how can we get the U.S. to agree to this one little reform that requires presidential leadership and requires responsibility and part of my party the republican party but it was going to require presidential leadership on behalf of President Obama he's cut a deal with Republicans and I think things so I agree you know I think he should cut a deal and he should send Vice President Biden up there but they need to find somebody who they can who can make a deal they've not spent a lot of political capital on this frankly and they've got other things in their in their inbox they have tried but I don't believe they you know so it doesn't excuse Republican in action on this but I do think there are a number of things I could list for you that that you could get an easy deal with the Republicans on but I so I think it's it's going it's a political conversation it's not it's not a question of the arguments of the merits I think the merits are there it's a political thing and so it requires presidential leadership and then Republican responsibility yeah okay we're going to take just a couple more questions and I'm going to go to that very back room because yes sir and then I think yes so let's take these it's the last two questions Mark Harrison with the United Methodist Church office and I thank you Mr. Ambassador you didn't mention electricity we have this whole power Africa initiative and the ambassador from Botswana said she wished that power Africa had come before Agoa so I just thought that was an interesting enough perspective and then you didn't say anything about agriculture at all so there's two two questions electricity for poor people and agriculture hello everyone thank you so much Dr. Ocule for your wonderful presentation I wanted to ask if you could speak a bit more about infrastructural development as it's significantly contributes to the ability to accomplish the goals listed under the five pillars thank you a good way to end particularly with the summit coming up so and maybe you can just say a little bit about kind of the next steps for this as you wrap up and and and the president's presence of the summit and what she's hoping to accomplish there what what the gentleman but Agoa before electricity yes definitely I think electricity should have been you know I think Agoa was part of those dreaming things that we had back you know in this you know coming out of the cold war process okay we're going to open our market but with conditionalities and there were so many conditions that the market the US market was not very really open to Africa I don't think so I think but if there was electricity and that links you as to the issue of infrastructure I think infrastructure still this biggest concept biggest problem in Africa be transport to being electricity roads road network between countries and all of that I think you know this we still have big issues with infrastructure and I think if we can come up with something from if this summit what the president aspect the president aspect that I think she thinks that this is a historic moment that for the first time the US is saying okay we can deal with all Africa at one point at some point we can deal with the whole continent not in piece meet but sit and run the table with the whole continent and start a dialogue what will come out of this come this meeting I think it's symbolic I think the first meeting such meeting is always symbolic it's you know saying we start a dialogue let's start a dialogue and then let's follow up with the real tangible issues let's set up committees let's set up a group of think tanks between Africa and the US let the partnership be at the level of not only academia not only at the level of the politicians but also between the private sector on both continent good transformation when we talk about transformation we talk about economic transformation is basically and first of all an issue that goes with the private sector and the private sector is part of our conversation one of the issue high level panel meetings hopefully in South Africa will be about partnership with the private sector what is how do we build a private public partnership and how what is the role of the private sector in the 2015 post development agenda and I think we have that what do we expect from the summit I think a dialogue on all these issues on transformation on new way of dealing with Africa and getting out of the cluster of importing oil and gas from Africa to go to different you know into other sectors of the market and also be more aggressive and I think the US has been very shy in approaching Africa I don't know maybe it has to do with our history the history of the two continents how you know we relate to each other for the last 500 years but US has been very shy but Africa I think there is a time to now to change around and then say okay there is an opportunity there is a market there is a a rule of law in many countries and there are possibilities on the continent that can be tackled so thank you thank you excuse me thank you very much Dr. Ducle and thanks to Dan thank you all for for joining us I do think you know there's mixed feelings about this summit coming up but I think the point is right that it's beginning of a dialogue and maybe getting over some of our phobias about Africa and our notion that somehow making money and investing in Africa making money is kind of unseemly for the United States in fact investment and trade are the things that are eventually going to kind of drive the transformation you've got structural transformation as the number one pillar structural economic transformation and inclusive growth that that puts the electricity issue that you mentioned the agricultural issue that you mentioned and the and the infrastructure issue right at the center of that so please join me in thanking Dr. Ducle and we'll look forward to Ellen's presence at the summit