 Let me begin by thanking you all for honoring our invitation to be part of this momentous event, the presentation of the strategy documents of the Human Capital Development Program for both ECOWAS and Nigeria. The sum and substance of what has been said here today is that people, our people, are central to all that governments and their private sector and civil society partners do. The most important pieces of work that we can do are on planning and investing in human capital development, healthcare, nutrition, quality education, skills and jobs. Our most important targets and objectives, nationally and regionally, must be on the improvement of the quality of lives, living standards and livelihoods of our people. The happiness, security and general welfare of our populations. Clearly, nothing else is as important. Now we have our strategy documents, but we are in a race against time. We are locked in a mortal battle with difficult local and global macroeconomic and fiscal circumstances. Even as states, regions face deadly civil conflicts and terrorism. Our continent, which is the youngest and growing at double the rate of the rest of the world, and the youngest country, Niger, is in our sub-region with an average age of 15.4 years. By 2050, West Africa will have 650 million people. Almost 400 million will be young people, and we will have to provide quality basic education and healthcare for them and nutrition. This is because inadequate nourishment, for example, results in suboptimal learning outcomes and a lifetime of disadvantage, especially in what is becoming a fiercely competitive knowledge economy. And also because idle youthful populations pretend an increased risk of social instability. We must invest in relevant skills as we provide good-paying jobs and opportunities. All these mean that our governments face huge public expenditures, and these expenditures grow as our populations increase daily. But in these massive challenges also lie the incredible opportunities of being the most profitable investment frontier in the world, of becoming the global food basket, of becoming the greatest source of highly trained human resources in technology, in engineering, and in the sciences, and in the creative sectors, among others. But all of these great hopes and aspirations stand or fall around governments and governance. It is the commitment of the national and subnational leaders that will determine whether these strategy documents will gather dust or gather momentum. And the Oni of Ife has already indicated that we've done enough talking. Our will and political action is what stand between rising poverty and the misery of our people. On the one hand, and good governance and judicious use, the effective judicious use of scarce resources is a thin line between demographic dividends, and we've talked a lot about this, and demographic disaster. It's a thin line whether we use those resources judiciously, whether we use them in a manner that best benefits our people, or whether those resources are squandered is what will mean the difference between the dividends we expect from our populations or just misery and disaster. I think the federal government of Nigeria and the National Economic Council have started very well. The National Economic Council, as you know, is the body comprising of the governors of the 36 states and the minister of the federal capital territory, along with the ministers of finance, the central bank governor, and some other federal government functionaries, the minister of state for finance and budget and national planning, and have the privilege of chairing the National Economic Council. The president in 2018, President Mohammed Buhari, initiated the National Human Capital Development Program and charged the National Economic Council with the task of addressing the critical issues of citizens' well-being holistically and in an enduring manner. The National Economic Council then set up the HCD, or the Human Capital Development Staring Committee, as well as a core working group on human capital development, and we've heard from the leadership of that core working group, Ms. Yasola Akimbi. The core working group conducted the landscape analysis and baseline studies, and perhaps one of the best developments in that journey was the complete buy-in and commitment of all our 36 states, 36 states governors, to the process and to the implementation of the strategy. So the future looks very good indeed. So let me conclude by commending and thanking you all, first our development partners, including Echoes, the World Bank, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Aliko Dangoti Foundation, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office of the United Kingdom, United Nations Children's Fund, Africa Development Bank, the Nigerian Economic Summit group, and of course the Nigerian Governors Forum, who are members of the core working group for their generous donation of not just their resources but their time, towards the crafting and finalization of the report. The core line ministries, the ministries of health, education, labor and productivity, who have oversight functions for human capital development, all of them have worked very hard, especially on the program's thematic areas, as well as the National Bureau of Statistics. They all deserve our commendation for their great support. My brother is the Prime Minister of Guinea-Bissau and the President, the Vice President of Sierra Lone, of Senegal and Cape Verde, and some who have sent representations. Thank you very much for your invaluable support and your presence here. Also thanks very much to my dear sister and our faithful and diligent collaborator in this work, the Vice President of the Echoes Commission, Ms. Finda Koroma. Thank you all very much for being here.