 Hello, my name is Peter Barlarin and I'm the Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs. Welcome to this interactive web chat jointly organized by my bureau and the Secretary's Office of Global Partnership. This is the third event in a series of Diplomats and Diaspora web chats. Thank you for joining us today. Please send us your questions on Twitter using the hashtag Diaspora Voices and we'll answer as many as we can. You can follow the conversation by using the widget next to the video player and the tweet button below it. The topic of today's discussion, entrepreneurship, is particularly important to the Department of State. The Bureau of African Affairs promotes entrepreneurship as one of the most effective ways to boost Africa's economic growth, spur development and reduce poverty. As we look toward the 16th African Growth and Opportunity Act Forum to be held in Togo this August, we want to think about how we can couple AGOA with our entrepreneurship efforts to further energize trade and development. AGOA is U.S. legislation that significantly enhances market access to the U.S. for qualifying Sub-Saharan African countries. As we see Africa continue to rise, we have the basis for very good discussion about leveraging partnerships with diaspora communities to keep up the momentum. Please let me make clear that today's subject is partnership. We are focused on identifying creative ways we can partner with the diaspora to advance diplomacy and development objectives. We will not be discussing U.S. policy at this time. So today's goal is to focus on the diaspora as a natural structure for linking the United States with Africa. And we want to let the diaspora community know that your influence on diplomacy and development is welcome. In fact, it is invaluable. We also want to highlight that this web chat is taking place during the State Department's Global Partnerships Week. The Secretary's Office of Global Partnerships has worked to expand our engagement with diaspora communities and build public-private partnerships that strengthen diplomacy and development outcomes. The Secretary's Office of Global Partnerships is working closely with USAID on IDEA, the International Diaspora Engagement Alliance, to leverage the global connections of the diaspora community in promoting sustainable development. Now to our panelists. Joining us from Kenya is Abisoye Ajayi. Abisoye is a social impact entrepreneur who facilitates opportunities for vulnerable young girls in Nigeria through her organization, Pearls Africa. Today is International Women's Day and we want to highlight the importance of women entrepreneurs in Africa by featuring one on the program. Abisoye is also a member of the Young African Leaders Initiative, or YALI Network. Tuning in from the U.S. Embassy in Togo, we have my friend and colleague, Ambassador David Gilmour. Joining with us from our Embassy in Zambia is Public Affairs Officer Janet Deutsch. Zambia hosted the AGOA Forum in 2011. To begin the discussion, I'll turn the floor over to our speakers for brief opening remarks. Let's start with Abisoye. Please introduce yourself and share your thoughts about deepening linkages between the African diaspora and regional audiences to advance entrepreneurship. One of the ways whereby partnerships and relationships can be deepened is Africans in diaspora forming groups, groups and thereby exploring crowdfunding opportunities to help entrepreneurship back home. And in doing this, investments, the investment needs to be protected, thereby having strong frameworks that helps in protecting the investments. So diaspora capital, which I call a medium and who knows and understand how the system works in Nigeria and in the U.S. Because this is very crucial in terms of entrepreneurs coming back home or Africans in diaspora coming back home, putting their money down to get things done. You need someone who knows the system, who understand the system and know how the culture works. Thank you. Thanks very much, Abisoye. Ambassador Gilmour, what is your perspective from Togo with the AGOA Forum taking place in Togo this summer? What are your thoughts on using AGOA as a tool to catalyze entrepreneurship? How can diaspora communities do more to connect the two? Thanks, Peter. It's great to see you today and great to be on the program. We're very excited about the AGOA Forum coming to Togo. It's a large event. It brings together government and the private sector and civil society, 38 African countries in the United States, several hundred participants in the forum. So it's going to be a big event for Togo that will put Togo in the spotlight as a leader across the continent in trade. AGOA, of course, was designed to increase trade between the United States and Africa and to help Africa lessen its dependence on foreign aid. And in particular, it was hoped that through AGOA, Africa could increase its manufactured exports. Now, Togo, like many countries across the continent, has struggled to take advantage of AGOA and to increase its manufactured exports. And I think we see here in Togo a couple of constraints, a couple of obstacles, and I think the diaspora can really play an important role in these. One of those is connections with the United States market, and the other is English language skills. I think one of the things that we look at a great advantage for diaspora is that the diaspora can help overcome these challenges, that diaspora know the U.S. market. They understand the preferences of Americans consumers. They know what Americans want to buy and what Africans can sell in the United States. So we look at diaspora as an enormous asset in terms of establishing these economic relationships and seeding start-ups in small business here in Togo. And in terms of English language ability, I mentioned, Togo is a Francophone country, of course, as many of the countries in West Africa are, but of course it sits in the middle of a region of Francophone and Anglophone countries. And of course, its nearest neighbors are Ghana and Nigeria, very large Anglophone economies, which are the largest potential trading partners for the country. But we see because of that language difference, that tends to impede trade in many ways, and of course trade with the United States because of the language difference. And again, I think diaspora can play a very important role there. So thank you again for including me in the discussion today. Thanks a lot, Ambassador. Janet, turning to you and the U.S. Embassy in Zambia, the embassy has made entrepreneurship a focus of its mission strategy. Why is entrepreneurship so important to economic growth in the region, in your view? What are some of the things the embassy has been doing to promote entrepreneurship? Thank you very much. And first, before I get started, I wanted to say what an honor it is to serve on the same panel as Ambassador Gilmore, someone who's own public affairs career I've admired for a long time. So thank you very much. There has been a lot of talk over the past few years, as Ambassador Gilmore referenced as far as I go and trade. There's been a lot of talk over the past few years about the desire of many people and governments in Africa to shift the relationship with the West and in particular with the United States from aid to trade as part of a move for their economic development. Entrepreneurship is and will continue to be a large part of that shift. And the diaspora has a role to play. Many people, likely many people, many members of the diaspora who are taking part in this web chat today have heard other speakers encourage members of the diaspora to move from remittances and growing of wealth and holding of wealth and savings to investment and specifically to investing in Africa. We endorse that. In addition, we believe that members of the diaspora have a role to play in sharing knowledge that they've learned outside of Africa with books on the African continent and a mentor of entrepreneurs to further make that aid to trade shift happen. And our embassies in Africa are here to help members of the African diaspora connect. Two of the strengths that we have here at embassies abroad are convening power and our extensive entrepreneur networks that we've spent time building, both of which we encourage members of the diaspora to make use of. Our embassy in Zambia was invited to this web chat today because of some of the programs that we're undertaking. I just want to mention a few of those. The Zambia Entrepreneurship Summit is an activity that we hold in November as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week. Many members of the diaspora are probably aware that during Global Entrepreneurship Week, many of our embassies around the African continent hold activities with entrepreneurs for networking and other opportunities. Zambia Entrepreneurship Summit is one of those. Last year, this past our most recent entrepreneurship summit, we had more than 1,000 Zambian entrepreneur visitors with 100 exhibitors who were investors and lenders. And so clearly, there is a great interest among Zambian entrepreneurs to access financing and partnerships and investment. Next, I want to mention the United States government funded We Create Center here in Zambia. This is a center for women entrepreneurs to gain skills and access to mentorship to start up and scale up their businesses. And its first year of operating along, which was 2015, that We Create Center in Zambia had more than 3,500 women participate in three programs or more. So again, showing the interest in Zambian women entrepreneurs and accessing skills and building their businesses. That's another way through which the diaspora could be involved with entrepreneurs here in Zambia. Finally, I just want to mention that we have a series of entrepreneurship boot camp programs through which we brought a number of American experts on topics such as financing, management, and marketing that we link with Zambian entrepreneurs. And this would be another way again that members of the diaspora could get involved with entrepreneurship activities going on here in Zambia. So I look forward to this discussion. I'll turn it back over to our colleagues in Washington. Thank you. Thanks very much, Janet. Now let's take some questions from our online viewers. Please keep tweeting your questions using the hashtag diaspora voices. You can use the Twitter widget next to the video player. The first question we have comes from Martin on Twitter. How can African diaspora in the United States help shift the dial from aid to trade and work within job creation? Dave, do you want to take a whack at that? Well, I think that's where maybe to just build on what Janet was saying a few moments ago about the ability of our embassies to make connections. And this is something where we stand ready to do that. We have lots of connections here, certainly across the government in every country where there's an American embassy. And we have an American embassy in just about every country of sub-Saharan Africa. But we have a wide range of contexts. And then the business community, civil society, kind of all the major actors across society. And so if U.S.-based diaspora are interested in doing business in Africa, coming back to invest, certainly one of their first stops should be the embassy because we can help plug them into all kinds of connections. And we do that here in Togo. We do that all the time. And maybe the flip side of that is that we've made an active outreach to the Togo-Lease diaspora in the United States. Since we're dealing with Togo, we've limited to that audience. And we found that that's been a wonderful interchange. And they had never really thought about necessarily getting in contact with us. And so we have become a conduit, a kind of a channel for communication to connect them with people certainly in the Togo-Lease government, but with business people as well, with people in finance, you know, potential investors in businesses. And so I think we, the U.S. embassies across the continent can play a really important role that way. Thanks a lot, Dave. And that's really a great feather in the embassy, Lome's cap. And I think we should use that as a model for other embassies. And also it's a lesson to the diaspora communities from other countries that they get in touch with the U.S. embassies in their countries of origin. Next, we have a question for Abisoya, I think, would be best place to answer this one. You mentioned crowdfunding. How can an entrepreneur connect their crowdfunding campaign with the relevant diaspora group in the United States? I'm going to build on what Ambassador said. He made mention of the embassies. I believe the embassies have reliable resources. They have reliable sources. And they know who the real entrepreneurs are, who are making the change, who are actually making the difference, and who needs the money. So really going through the embassy is a first step. IRC, U.S. consulates of different countries in Africa, then being able to connect with specific groups in the U.S. So really the embassy is more or less the medium man in this, because the embassy knows both parties in the U.S. and Africa. So being a member of setting departments at the embassy, for instance, IRC, I joined IRC and I was able to learn so much from different parts of the world back in Nigeria. So I can imagine a lot of people being part of IRC or Yali network. You get to know who needs what, who is doing what, and who is making a difference, and who needs money, who needs investments. So really the embassy is a first point of call because they know everybody, they know all the groups who are relevant to what we need to get done. Thanks a lot, Abisoya. Just to clarify, Abisoya is from Nigeria, but she's currently in Kenya doing work for her group, Pearls Africa. So thank you very much for that response. Next, we have a question from Afro-Brit on Twitter. And maybe I'll ask Janet to answer this one. What are the best examples of diaspora mobilization and how best can they be scaled and replicated? Thank you for that question. We would in fact like to see more diaspora engagement here with entrepreneurs in Zambia. Again, I think opportunities to network with entrepreneurs here in Zambia and other African countries to share knowledge, to consider partnerships, to consider investments, to mentor those who are in African countries. We have yet to see much of it here in Zambia. However, I know there's a wide network of members of the African diaspora who are already involved, like I said, in things like remittances and things like communications with folks in their home country. So we would like to see this deepened. Again, that can be done through engagement with the State Department and with our embassies, contacting us through our Facebook page or other social media outlets are always great ways to do that. And we'd like to see that deepened. Thank you, Janet. The next question we have is, can you tell us how important it is to support and partner with startups for economic growth and job creation, both in the United States and Africa? Are there any examples you can provide? Maybe we could start with Ambassador Gilmore in Togo and then maybe Abisoye might have some views from the perspective of a woman entrepreneur. Well, it's certainly very important in terms of, we do a lot of supporting startups here on the ground. And we've got some really nice examples here in Lomé that we've managed to get through a number of ways, through Yali, the Young African Leaders Initiative, young people who have gone to the States and gotten entrepreneurship training, come back and started their own businesses, our self-help, the Ambassador's Health Help Fund, which is something that exists across the continent and all of our embassies give small grants. And as a matter of fact, today, Peter, you mentioned earlier that it's International Women's Day. We had a big celebration here this morning in our embassy. And one of the ways we celebrated was to bring in about a dozen women entrepreneurs who the embassy has supported. And I think almost 11 out of the 12 that were here were former grantees of our self-help program. And some of them are running really successful businesses now that are really going. So the point is it doesn't even take that much capital. The self-help grants are a few thousand dollars, not even that much. So a little bit of capital can make a big difference and really can get a business going. Where the diaspora certainly can come in, we heard earlier about the mention of crowdfunding and certainly access to capital is always the biggest challenge for business people, for startups, business people just getting started, not only in Africa, of course, but in the United States. I mean, that's the case as well. And most American entrepreneurs starting out have to fund their business by borrowing money from family members or friends. And most people can't get a bank loan right away. So America and Africa are not that different in that sense. But I think there's a great role to be played. And again, I think the embassies can help make some of those connections because we are already in the business of providing seed capital to entrepreneurs and are literally helping a lot of them get started. Yeah, that's fantastic. Abisoya, do you have anything to add? Sure, startups are creators of jobs. So when you have a startup who is employing 50, I mean, 50 people, 30 people, it's a big deal. We have a couple of them back in Nigeria. For instance, we have the CC Hub combines different startups in the building and they give mentoring advice, they give support. They even give grants. We have idea hub. We have budgets. Budget is a startup by itself. And what do they do? They break down the budgets of the country by infographics. So they make you understand this. And they have up to 30 employees and this is a startup that started five years ago. So having support of the US, having support of people giving grants or partnering with this startup goes a long way because you are indirectly giving people jobs and you giving people jobs is affecting the economy at large positively. So it's a good thing, yeah. Thank you very much. May I add to that as well, please? Yeah, please. Thank you. I just wanted to add also some of the most successful efforts we've seen in helping entrepreneurs start up, our scale up if they already have small businesses, our mentorship opportunities and intensive build of business type sessions. Our Recreate Center in Zambia here does a lot of that. We've seen some great success stories on scale ups and startups because of the mentorship that is linking more experienced people in business with people who are just getting started. So there's a Zambian potato lady, for example, who had an idea, she grew some produce, she wasn't making much money just enough to get by. She collectivized with a group of women and organized them to agree to grow potatoes in a large scale, did not have any capacity to do that. They had an idea, they wanted then to, they thought, how can we process this food and have some value added to this? They had this vision to freeze and sell chopped potatoes as french fries, frozen french fries in grocery stores. So all they had was an idea and the willpower. They went through sessions, they had a lot of mentoring and the Recreate Center also helped these women partner and find partners. So they were able to find partners in agro-processing and people who owned farmland that they could rent at low cost and in farm equipment. And now they're already cultivating, I don't recall how many hectares, but a huge expanse of potatoes. They have an agreement already with the largest grocery store in Zambia to provide these frozen chips once they get this first harvest and produce and have the production of these frozen chips. So again, what's made the difference in this startup and scale up is mentorship and finding and connecting and networking for opportunities for partnership. And again, the diaspora has a role to play in that through connecting to some of these activities that are going on in countries around Africa. There's an opportunity to be part of that mentorship. There's an opportunity to be part of those partnerships. There's an opportunity to get in on investments. And so I just wanted to add that, again, mentorship and partnership are great. Have been very successful here in Zambia, particularly. Thanks, Janet. We are very pleased and proud to be able to support the We Create Center in Lusaka. And there's another one in Nairobi. I think they've been extremely successful. And we're also, we're very pleased to partner with Caterpillar Foundation on delivering this excellent model for helping women entrepreneurs. The next, we have a question from Corey on Twitter. Where are there opportunities for mutually beneficial trade between the United States and Africa? Does AGOA provide any opportunities? Dave, I think that this is a good question for you because you're going to be the host of the next AGOA forum in Lomay this late summer, early fall. So what would you suggest would be a good response to this question from Corey? Well, I think there are a lot of opportunities. When you look at a market like West Africa where we are, it's 300 million consumers. That's almost the size of the United States in terms of population. And you have some real giants like Nigeria, close by the largest economy on the continent. And what we're seeing here is an increased ties and connections within the sub-regional West Africa. It's becoming easier and easier in terms of air transport and that sort of thing. And with reforms going on and telecommunication in different countries. So we're seeing more and more trade over the borders. It's still a tough challenge for sure. But if somebody is looking to come in for opportunities from the outside, I think they're definitely there. In terms of AGOA, one thing that we're hoping to encourage for the AGOA here in Togo is a lot of dialogue between government and private sector because that's one thing that I see that's a big challenge. Certainly here in West Africa, but across the continent as well, that there's not enough dialogue between private sector and government in that quite often governments will make reforms, but then they don't necessarily always listen very well to what the private sector has to say. Or there isn't kind of a feedback loop the way there needs to be to give the government feedback on those reforms and to see how effective they are. Or indeed, are those even the reforms that business needs to advance? So I think that aspect of dialogue is something that we're gonna be working on and try to build into the AGOA forum here this summer. That would be an excellent addition to the forum and I'm really looking forward to coming out and participating in the forum. I note that Lome has a new airport and a great port facility, so I think that will help facilitate expanded two-way trade with the United States. I've got a question from a member of the African diaspora in Minnesota. How can the United States-based entrepreneurs doing business in Africa use local expertise to facilitate business in Africa? Can the US embassies help? Maybe I'll turn to Janet for answering that question. I think, again, part of what, as I've said before, part of what US-based entrepreneurs can bring to African countries are expertise that they've learned outside of African countries and also investment opportunities, partnership opportunities. But I also want to mention, when we're talking about mutually beneficial trade and trade going both ways, there are great examples of African entrepreneurs, leaders in entrepreneurship in Africa who are already seeking opportunities to partner with folks in the United States for this mutually beneficial trade. I related a couple of examples from Zambia. So we have a young African leadership initiative fellow who is an entrepreneur in biofuels in Zambia. He's amazing, he's very successful, has great ideas, has challenges. Again, as Ambassador Gilmore mentioned, always access to capital challenges, partnership challenges, marketing and increasing his profile in the region and internationally. He has reached out to folks in the United States for help in obtaining the enzymes that he needs to process his product. So an opportunity for businesses in the United States to also enter the market in Zambia. Also, there's a company called Dotcom Zambia, another one of my favorite companies by a young Zambian entrepreneur that has undertaken online shopping here in Zambia. It's great and this company brings in products from the United States and around the world as part of this online shopping experience. And so there again, an opportunity to link with a Zambian entrepreneur who is looking for partners to buy products from the United States for sale here in Zambia. And I also wanna make a plug for embassy commercial services because not only do our commercial services at embassies help American businesses connect with markets overseas but also provide services to African business people who are seeking partners in the United States or goods and services in the United States. So I wanted to mention that as well, thank you. Thanks, thanks Janet. So the next question is, what is the mission of US embassies and why would they care about entrepreneurship? Maybe I'll take a whack at that and then ask Ambassador Gilmour if he has anything to add. I think the US embassies overseas are there to explain US policy and US culture to host country governments and also the people of the country. And then to understand better what the policies of the host country government and what's going on in the country to be able to explain it back to the United States. Why is entrepreneurship important to us? Because we view entrepreneurship as being a fundamental part of economic growth and development. Without entrepreneurship, it's very, very difficult to achieve the higher levels of growth that will eventually lead to a reduction in poverty and it's a fundamental part of all economies but those economies that are able to capture the spirit of entrepreneurship are much, much better able to have a successful dynamic economy. Dave, do you have anything to add in that respect? Thanks Peter. I think the way we talk about it here, I get the same kind of question even from local business people. Why is the embassy involved in some of these kind of activities? And what I always say is that the United States interests here in Togo and of course indeed across the continent is that we want African countries to be secure, prosperous and democratic. And the way that we achieve those goals in one of the important ways is to ensure the prosperity and to increase the prosperity and as you say, reduce poverty and the best way to reduce poverty of course is to get people a job. And you get people a job by creating the conditions so the business can flourish. And so that's our national interest and it's as simple as that I think. Well said. Abisoye, maybe you can answer this next question. How can entrepreneurship tackle social problems in Africa? This is effectively what you're doing. Entrepreneurship empowers people obviously and when entrepreneurship empowers people they're able to explore talent and resources around them. There are problems everywhere and entrepreneurs are there to actually identify what these problems are. Some are making money because they've identified problems and they are creating jobs because they've identified problems. So they've been able to create solutions to certain problems because they've been able to identify them. And from the social entrepreneurship experts when we see problems we are moved to solve them. So in essence we're investing in the lives of people by what we do when we invest in people when we invest in the life of young girls and women. So really entrepreneurship goes a long way. Opportunities are unests and they are also there to solve challenges really. Thank you very much. So Wisdom Akari on Twitter asks how do you aid of African small to medium size enterprises and startups for inclusive growth and sustainable development? Janet maybe you could answer that question from the perspective of we create centers and what you're doing in Lusaka. Thank you for that. So inclusive growth can only happen if we have folks at the SME level the small business level growing into the middle class. And so this training for example that and mentorship and partnership that's built by the We Create Zambia Center provides skills, provides these connections for Zambian women, business owners, small business owners, many of them, the market traders and farming women teaches them and works with them to help take their business idea and make it a reality turn it into an actual SME that's formalized in the economy and that builds this inclusive growth. And so they're moving again Zambia into growing the middle class in Zambia which is great. Thank you very much, Janet. Next question, we're just a small startup. Would an embassy even take my call? I think Janet, do you wanna answer that one? Thank you, contact us. First step would be to contact us for example through our Facebook page. Let us know your interests. We would love to connect you to a resource such as We Create Zambia Center for those African countries where no We Create Center exists. Most of our embassies around the continent have wide, expansive networks with entrepreneurs. We've worked with them. We love to see them succeed and for most of us here at embassies too it gives us great pleasure to see these partnerships made and so we very much would like to connect more with folks who are interested at small scale level. People who have a great idea, people who've been doing this for a while. We'd love to connect you with resources, with mentors, skills opportunities. So please do get in touch with us out of posts. Thanks a lot. Given that it's International Women's Day here's a relevant question. What is the importance of women's entrepreneurship in Africa? Maybe again, Abisoya could answer that question. Using Africa as a case study, majority of producers are women and being able to transform their lives economically goes a long way. The community benefits from this. The economy benefits from this. The country benefits from this. So it's a mistake when you don't empower women and you don't believe in entrepreneurship for women because women bring a big and great perspective to businesses. They have different perspective to where they see things. Where we see things, right? It's different. And kind of passion we have towards things. We are here for progress. And looking at it from this angle, women are managers. We manage resources differently and permit me to use this example. When you give a woman money, she looks at the family first. Oh, my children needs to be okay. The entire family needs to be good. I have a feeling when you give a man money, you probably need to get a car for social status. Because so when you don't empower women and you don't have women in places of businesses, it's a mistake because the communities are lost as a result. Thank you. Well, thank you very much. I acknowledge the criticism. We're our final question from Twitter is, I guess this is to me, how is the State Department leveling the playing field with respect to working with the African diaspora? I suppose that means how are we leveling the playing field with governments in Africa and making sure that the diaspora gets fair and equitable treatment in countries. And I think as Ambassador Gilmour can attest, we do a lot with trying to improve the ease of doing business in countries because it's a good thing for the countries and the economies to attract US investment and trade, but also from other countries. So in that respect, I think that that's the way we level the playing field. And we look forward to working with the diaspora community and getting ideas from you, as I said in my opening remarks. We've come to the end of the program now, but before we close it out, I'd like to each of you to share some brief parting thoughts with our audience. Please just keep it short, no more than a minute. Let's start with Abisoye, if we could. Also being part of International Women's Day, I would say an empowered woman educates the family. And when you educate your family, the entire community benefits from this. So when a woman is not empowered, meaning when she's disempowered, everybody suffers from this. Thank you. Thank you very much. Ambassador Gilmour? Thanks, Peter. Maybe I'll just mention a couple of things. One, I think an important role for, or an important issue with diaspora is getting over mistrust. We have a situation here in Togo, and I think it exists with a lot of countries where people have left the country over the years, perhaps because of political instability or other difficulties. And maybe they're overseas, they're in the diaspora now and they wanna come back, but there's mistrust on both sides. And I think both sides have a role and a responsibility in the sense that African governments need to reach out to their diaspora in an active way. And that's something we certainly encourage here on this end. But then also people in the diaspora also have to realize and maybe consider that aspect, if they are looking to come home and do business, to keep the focus on aspects that are not political in order to try to raise that trust level. I also just wanna give a big pitch for US-based diaspora because I think diaspora who live in America, who worked and been educated in the United States, bring something very special that other diaspora who live in Europe, maybe in other places don't have. I think Americans have a special attitude toward free enterprise and entrepreneurship and a kind of natural optimism in the way that we do business. And I think that that's something that's greatly needed. And so I think they bring an important kind of business culture that other countries don't have. And I think, and that's why we certainly wanna encourage more and more US-based diaspora to come back and invest. Totally agree on that point. I mean, they have a foot in both worlds. So it's extremely important that we work with them and they work with us. Lastly, but not leastly, Janet. Thank you. I just wanna build on the first point that Ambassador Gilmour just made. And that is, there are a lot of reasons why a business person or someone in the United States could give an excuse for not coming to an African country to involve themselves with entrepreneurs here. So access to credit, we talked about infrastructure for power, for water, distribution systems and other business needs are expensive or make doing business difficult and expensive. Regulation can make registering businesses, owning businesses, operating businesses difficult. But you know what, entrepreneurs here in Africa are already getting past these challenges. They're already out here doing great things. And it's amazing to see and to cheer on. And we really recommend and encourage members of the diaspora to come out and get all of us to the embassy and check and see what's going on here. Because they're already a lot of great opportunities to invest, partner, and we welcome that. So thank you so much for your questions and ideas on diaspora engagement and partnerships. Thank you to our live viewing groups including US Embassy Abuja, Nigeria. Check out the ideas webpage, www.diasporaalliance.org, diaspora alliance all one word and sign up to receive updates to stay informed on future events. Keep the discussion going on hashtag diaspora voices. I think I can speak for all of us here that this was a very productive conversation. Thank you and have a very good day. Bye bye now.