 The fastest growing continent in the world is Africa, also the youngest, and we have a great panel to discuss the opportunities, but also the challenges. To my left, Her Majesty, Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, then we also have the newly re-elected President of Botswana, President Massisi. Let's give them a warm applause and a welcome. We're also waiting for the President of Senegal. He's unfortunately stuck in traffic. You should maybe think that was not possible in Davos, but as we know, the safest thing is to walk in this small alpine village. As I already mentioned, Africa has huge opportunities. Seven out of the 10 fastest growing economies in the world is in Africa. In a few years, Africa will have the largest workforce in the world, and 60 percent of the population in Africa is under 25 years old. So imagine all the jobs and skills that have to be developed in the years to come. But we also know that the young workforce, entrepreneurial spirit, if you have access to education, if there's financial inclusion, it can also create necessary growth, and it can lead to prosperity. But there is also a fact that in Africa, you have pockets where you're very far from being on track on the sustainable development goals. And we know the overall goal by 2030 is to eradicate all extreme poverty. African leaders are taking new steps to also make Africa more competitive. One of them is to establish also a free trade area in Africa. It will be really, really quite remarkable. The combined GDP is more than 2.3 trillion already in Africa and a population of 1.2 billion. So let me start with you, Mr. President. This customs union or the free trade market in Africa, how powerful is it going to be? Is it also a reflection of a new leadership thinking in Africa that trade is more important than aid, and is there such a win-win thinking, and when will we see this, how big will it be, and what are the obstacles? Thank you very much, and I'm pleased to be here. But getting right into the subject matter, all you've said about Africa is true. What I would add to it is that we perceive, we, I mean the leadership of Africa, the people of Africa, we perceive these numbers as opportunities, and we want to turn around whatever challenges are associated with these into opportunities to propel growth and spread wealth and success. There is a new leadership emerging in a number of countries in Africa that have either to not been known for some of the stellar works that are being undertaken now. If you look what's happening in Ethiopia with President Abbey, and by extension his influence in the region, you know the peace deal he had with Eritrea and the net benefits that we derive out of that. We all hope that it would spread to Somalia and the Horn of Africa and the peace dividend would yield the growth that we want. Africa not only is it a young, vibrant continent, it has, it's a repository of most of the world's resources, natural resources. And those need to be exploited responsibly and with a prime intention of having the Africans benefit out of those. So there's some level of responsibility that we'd expect from venture capitalists who want to make a return on their investment in such countries. Generally, when you look at the fact that 60% of our population is under 25 years old, and generally fairly well educated or educated enough to be retooled and retrained with digitization going, the rate is going, and the governance ecosystems that support it, wow. This continent potentially presents the most powerful workforce there's been in our lifetime. And so if we take a very optimistic look at that, we feel a certain sense of urgency and come into WF and engaging with those who have the where and the means to help us unlock this wealth so we realize our global goals are stated in the SDGs, including our continental goals are stated in Agenda 2030. So I'm here to confirm, though I'm President of Botswana, on behalf of the other African countries including President Marquisal, we're here. We subscribe to the African continental free trade area, and we have full confidence that when we increase the intra-Africa trade, it would be a means by which we grow and reach the world. In the same way, we also want the world to reach us. So trade would be a means by which we grow our wealth and we improve the lot of our people. Thank you. Thank you. I think clarifications for Africa, also for your country that is one of the most successful ones when it comes to the economy coming back to that. Queen Maxima, in 2009, you were appointed the UN Secretary General's Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development. And I think we all know that if you don't have access to financial institutions and if you don't have access to banking, it is also very hard to see real developments happening. The past few years, we have seen also positive development in the African region when it comes to connecting people to formal financial services. In many ways, I have to say when I looked at the numbers last night, you have been extremely successful in your job. I have seen that Africa has almost doubled the amount that have been connected to financial services from 23% to 43% between 2011 and 2018. So what steps should be no taken to even accelerate this because we are on the right track? First of all, thank you for having us on this issue here at this panel and also talk about Africa because I think it is the continent we should be looking at going forward. The growth of financial inclusion has been amazing. Since 2011, we have actually given more access to more than 1.2 billion people globally to financial services. This has, of course, been driven by mobile banking, the potential that you can actually with your handheld be able to have access to payments, savings, credit, microinsurance, even having budgeting systems when you have a little more of a smartphone. So that has been really revolutionary. This has not only created growth in GDP, but it also has been helping us to reduce inequality. So we know the financial inclusion is not only pro-growth, but also pro-pore. It gives people above all women agency and control, which I think is something that we need to say and we know we are investing women, we are going to be investing in the development of a continent. We had an analysis that in Ethiopia, if mobile money really takes off by 2025, we could increase GDP by 10% and create 3 million additional jobs if we have digital financial inclusion. And there's one thing if you tell me about all the figures of this new youth coming in into the workforce, the one thing I would be saying, oh my God, we have to create jobs, jobs, jobs. We will not be able to create those jobs if we do not have the infrastructure of an inclusive digital financial system. How do we build upon this? First of all, we've got many strides, but still from that 43% is the global financial inclusion. Now, if we look into the mobile money side, only 21% of adults actually have a mobile banking account in the total of Africa. So we really need to grow. We need to do a lot more work. And actually, the ones that are actually lagging behind are the poorest percentiles, women and the rural. So those are the three probably groups that will have to be looking a lot more in the future. What do I need? I need better connectivity because even if everybody thinks everybody has a mobile phone, well, it's not really true. The 4G coverage in Africa is 7% of total connections, 7%. Only one fourth of the whole African population uses mobile internet. And only 44% of the population has mobile subscriptions. So it's not only having that mobile phone and having the connectivity, but the reliability of the connectivity is also very important because I'm going to be sending money back to my mother in the rural areas. The moment I'm sending that money and the connection is gone, you know, the trust of that system is going to be gone. So the reliability needs also to be there. So connectivity is a very big issue. The other big issue is that we're working very close together with the World Bank in a system that's called ID4D, which is basically promoting national, unique, biometrical digital IDs. Without that, because of KYC issues, we cannot open bank accounts. We cannot facilitate for your governments to actually do proper government to people payments in the form of subsidies, in the form of sort of, you know, stipends. So we need to really have these national IDs. Today, 1 billion people around the world do not have any ID and half of them are in Africa. So if you look about sort of 1.2 billion people right now in Africa and 500 million do not have an ID. So these are types of, you know, public goods that we really need to have going forward for us to make this come true. And of course we need to have to make the regulatory changes for us to allow these innovations to happen. And for that, we'll be working very closely with many other central banks and ministers of finance to actually make those new innovations. Very important issue, we will need to invest a lot of women and focus a lot of women, what their needs are, and also on the small-holder farmers in Africa, which need at least $55 billion additional of financing yearly from now on. Thank you. Thank you. I think this is such a good progress that we need a great applause for that. I was thinking, listening to the Queen Her Majesty, Mr. President, where does Botswana stand on this financial inclusion? Are you happy where you stand? What is your, what are you going to deliver in the next period as president? Well, Botswana is progressing at a fairly rapid pace. We have a national broadband strategy that's in place. We have internet connectivity. The optic and the backbone is spread enough to cover the whole country. But we are lacking in covering the individual homes and businesses, which is the last mile. And that's what's going on now. We are committed to ensuring there is connectivity, irrespective of geography and gender. And we are also committed to making sure that we bring the price down, because there's no use in having all this, and people can't afford it and don't use it. We are also committed to the innovation and providing local solutions by the development of apps and that are relevant to what we do. But in terms of our progress, we are accelerating it by putting money in the right places. As of this financially, this is my first real term, you know, the last little bit I was inheriting. And we just went to an election. We have a manifesto. We have a mid-term review of our development plan. And we are re-aligning it because our quest and determination is to increasingly move away from the resource base of our economy to a knowledge-based economy. And so we're building the ecosystem to enable that. And connectivity, access, cost are major issues. Fortunately, there isn't such a big divide between men and women or male and female with respect to access to connectivity and or technology such as mobile telephony. But we do have a problem with rural urban. Particularly that Botswana is quite vast and sparsely populated. But these are challenges that we're quite determined to face head-on and watch the space. So your Majesty, Harry, know also what the President said about his vision. It's his first full term. Looking at also the fact that, as you said, 1.2 billion people have during the last years been connected. And they're included in also being financially connected. But there are still big challenges moving forward. I think there's only 7% in Africa that are connected. I think mobile internet users. Mobile internet users, which is a classification. That is then also prerequisite for doing financial transactions and et cetera. Well, you can still do the USSD, I mean an analog phone. But then the variety of things that you can do is much more limited. So my point is if you're going to reach the ambitious goals and the sustainable development goals, we can mobilize governments. But I guess we also have to have the powerful private sector on board here. So I wonder, Your Majesty, how much are you relying on the private sector to really also meet the goals in deepening financial inclusion? First of all, my title is Financial Inclusion for Development. And when I say development, this is something that I need to empower people to increase their income for themselves. So it's not only the big private sector that is sitting here in Davos. When we are actually giving people, or we financially include them, it's good for their own businesses, though all small sort of little sector. So for example, in Tanzania, farmers when they've actually given mobile money-based insurance, they increase their income by 16% by reducing a lot of the financial losses they actually had. The same thing, we've actually seen a mobile health provision. I mean, right now in Nigeria and in Kenya, we've been able to give health insurance to people that before never had it. Most then also SME credit to a lot of clinics. They were very small by increasing their efficiencies. So in the whole continent, we need to have this as a way of increasing efficiencies of small businesses. And that also I call the private sector. Because those are going to be the ones that are going to be creating the jobs and the employment that I know in your country of birth and in my country of birth in the Netherlands, 70% of employment is created by the SMEs. It's not created by the very big firms. So that is one thing. We need to increase efficiency and the potential to productivity of all the firms in the future in Africa. That's one thing. At the same time, there's a big role for the very big firms to play. Because they're key to improve the use cases. There's no, in the sense that, for example, a very big bank or a telecom mobile operator are a very good ally for me to actually start learning. And what does a woman need from a bank account? They don't need the same saving services that I need in the Netherlands. They will need a completely different saving services. Or the same thing goes for insurances or the same thing for credit. So we need to really look at the customer needs to be much more customer centric. So I need private sector to be very observant about, you know, whichever their customers and actually try to translate that in good services. Two years ago, here in Davos, we formed a group of 10 CEOs or 10 big companies, mobile telecom operators, consumer companies, banks, internet companies. And what we did is, you know, none of them could actually do it by themselves. And all of them have presence in Africa, in Asia, et cetera. So we said, you know, how can we actually team up and partner to really do the things at the scale that we need? Because each one was doing something and, you know, one reached 20,000 farmers here, the other one reached 10,000 merchants here. But actually, that's really not going to make the change. So a company, for example, Rabobank, which is a Dutch corporate farming bank, together with MasterCard are now teaming up together to basically bank rise the whole value chain in six different countries in Africa. I mean, reaching a million farmers. In November, I was in Pakistan, and there's Unilever and PepsiCo with Tel-Enor, from your home country. And what they're going to be doing is they're going to be digitizing all the merchants in which PepsiCo and Unilever touches upon. Of course, for Unilever and PepsiCo, that means, you know, better income, because that means they will actually have better inventory management with all these merchants that actually have to sell to. But at the same time, and one these micro merchants have access to these transactional digital accounts, you can actually see how much they're actually transacting, and they will actually have access to credit. Well, in turn, will actually mean it's more capacity of buying their product. So it has to be commercially viable. This is not a CSR issue anymore. We really need to bring the insights to these big firms and also for them to lead by example and by partnering, being able to help each other to really make these customer-centered products that actually would actually deliver the, you know, or actually cater for people's needs, change their lives, and actually increase, of course, the business potential of these firms. So I would say it's extremely important. We need a lot of the leadership of the CEOs and the local CEOs, because sometimes they get to the countries, yes, that's what my global CEO sort of said that I should do, for me it's a little bit more difficult. Well, we need a lot of long-term vision, and I think we need to know this is not CSR, this has to be commercially sustainable. Otherwise, we will not be able to reach the scalability we need. Thank you. Mr. President, I will let you comment on what your Majesty just said, but I would also add a question to you because we know that national resource mobilization is also very important. We have to mobilize the private sector more, but it has to also be commercial, interesting, but we know that if you look at the taxes and the VAT that is collected in Africa and you look at the amount compared to GDP, it's pretty low. Any reflections from your side, because now you're constructing this African internal market, but are you looking at also how you can mobilize more resources locally in different countries that can then be invested in making Africa more ready on the skills, better education, and also better infrastructure? You know, there's a whole raft of things that we need to do and do better. One of them I'll really admit is to maximize on our efficiencies of revenue management and generation. Aside the obvious, I mean, there are some cases where there's obvious leakages that take place. Those are given. They've got to stop. Tax collection, you know, the determination of the amount of tax, the type of tax, public education so that people are willing to pay tax and people appreciate the benefits of paying tax because they actually see the benefits that accrue out of resources raised through tax by the road being built, the infrastructure being put up. And so there are a whole lot of variables of efficiency that we need to get to, including on the delivery side and the part of government. I mean, when you cut out a whole lot of challenges that many countries face, we would yield better and faster development. Now, with respect to our commitment to the African continental free trade system, the first thing we've demonstrated and which I hope we would stick to is the political resolve and leadership required to attain that. The next would be the political will and resolve to create the ecosystem for it to occur. You know, the legislative government governance required, including the relations between countries in terms of, you know, permitting and enabling such trade. Many of our borders are totally artificial. And if many of us perceive tariffs as a means to generate your own development without being creative and innovative, it will fall flat. Africa hardly trades with itself, and yet there's so many goods and services required. We also need to ensure that we utilize digital technology, digitization to promote efficiencies within firms which will raise their revenue base and they would use to invest in doing other things. And so I can completely align with what the queen is saying and can confirm that, at least speaking for my government, you will not find as wanting in terms of our commitment to use our tax revenue to create the infrastructure necessary to attain the SDGs. I think I very much agree on what the president said, but we've been always talking about the resource, national resource mobilizations and certainly from a physical perspective, I think one of the most difficult conversations I've been having with a lot of ministers of finance around the world is just that, is the process of formalization, of merchants, of businesses, of doctors. I mean, it's really a very tough nut to crack and I don't wanna say this lightly, we've actually just written a report from the World Bank for one of the G20 meetings and these process, first of all, you have to give them manners for them to pay that are actually formal, right? So in that sense, having a backbone of a digital financial system is key. Without that, we will not be able to have a good process of formalization. Number two, there has to be something in it for them. I'm not gonna pay those taxes if I don't have anything in return because maybe they brought it and passed right through his area. So he needs to have some kind of access to credit by formalizing of some kind of other attractive thing for him to have for him to say, yes, I want to be formalized or he basically, he gets much better sales to a big company because he's been able to produce that and if he doesn't do it formally, he will not be able to access that market. I think we have to start thinking in the sort of, what does a micro, micro of a farmer or micro merchant or a small industry need, finds it attractive to be formalized? And the other big issue is, and this is something that has been also very tough in my whole work, I have to say, is that whatever saying digital financial services and it seems so technical, so sexy, we have to compete with cash. And competing with cash is quite a difficult thing. You have to be extremely seemingly cheap even though we know that cash is not cheap for people and does have a cost, but they don't realize it. We need to be fearless. We need to be extremely private. You have the cash, nobody sees it, so it needs to be pretty private. So there's a lot of characteristics that actually cash has been having. So also all the regulatory and all the laws have to facilitate digital financial services in a way that we can compete with cash. I think these are the issues that, if you have governments that actually have a vision on this front, we can really come up with ways of actually doing that. But if we do not have that holistic approach, it would be very difficult to have a successful criminalization process. No worry, good points. When I was Foreign Minister in the country you mentioned Norway, we launched a development program that was called Tax for Development. So we put some of the smartest tax lawyers and tax developers in Norway to do deals in developing countries, especially in Africa, and build a better tax collecting system. And what you saw is when people start, even with small taxes, they're also much more conscious about how the government uses the money. Because this is your money that you're paying and then of course you want also good education, you want good health care for your children. And what we also saw, and this was one of the paradoxes, is that in many places you see that there are exceptions from paying taxes. And for example, big landowners didn't have to pay tax on their land, but small farmers had to do. And these are also paradoxes that of course have to be addressed. Another topic that is of course a critical one is related to better governance. Because if you see the World Bank's numbers, we see that in many African countries, and also in many developing countries, and some developed countries even, we see that corruption and bad governance is really stealing money from the people. In some countries its numbers are like 10, 20%. So Mr. President, do you feel that Africa is on the right course here? I think also with more financial inclusion, less cash, and more money that are wired through the system. Its corruption is also harder. How big do you think corruption is, you is? And is there a real willingness to deal with this upfront? Because it's really about stealing money from people. Yes, I can speak best for Botswana, but even in the interactions that one has with their colleagues, at a rhetorical level there is absolute commitment to have no corruption. But in reality we do know that it persists, and I couldn't agree with you more that corruption is basically thuggery. It's stealing, I mean that's what it is. And there's an opportunity cost to it. But there's also a very real risk of making it endemic. Because if people lose faith in the system and they know the only way out is to pay or be paid, they will do it. So the hopelessness that people feel and loss of faith in the system of governance will promote and sustain corruption. Now because we are developing continent, I think it's important that we take responsibility for our actions and ensure that we eliminate corruption and promote transparency. Democracy, as in the case of Botswana, is viewed very positively because with all its attributes together, democracy abhors corruption. The more you make things transparent, the more the population enrolls, and if you don't listen, they react and they boot you out. A good thing. But because we're developing and we dependent on others, we would hope that systems and opportunities like we would have at the WEF and the UN, and other international bodies and institutions would help us to also ensure that the big corporates that engage with us are also committed to not promoting corruption. Because the two way stream, some of the most documented case of corruption have certainly been a pain to note that a number of very, very big firms were involved in that. I've been intrigued in my time as president, which is just under two years. Way upon when I visit some developed countries, the expectation is that every CEO or senior executive or some big company has to see me. And in seeing me, everything is done. I'm totally shocked by that behavior. And I'm at pains to try and be polite and decline and ask them to go and see the minister or the ministry or some official because we really want to make sure we stick to a transparent route. So corruption is a problem. Corruption needs to be dealt with effectively. In Botswana and my country, we're doing our very best. It's not that we don't have corruption. It's there, but we're committed to dealing with it effectively. Thank you. This is a warm applause on your commitment there, Mr. President. Just two reflections, and then we're going to go into wrapping up. I think the traffic jam has to be very bad. So, but we're also very privileged to have the two of you and you delivered amazingly well. So I think also the audience agree with that. I was two things, Mr. President. One, you mentioned this in your first answer related to the peace dividend. Because even if we see a lot of positive developments in Africa, we still have conflicts and we have wars. But then we also have very ambitious and leaders that also go for peace. And you mentioned Prime Minister of Ethiopia, where there was no deal with Eritrea. There's also big transformation going on in Sudan. Do you feel that the international community really is conscious enough and have a proactive policy when it comes to also creating then a peace dividend? When there is peace, there should also see results of this. So we don't get back into conflict. And I think many of us are now following Ethiopia, this large, very important country, if you can reflect on that. And then second question, last time we met, and that was before your elections, we met in Cape Town, South Africa. And we also see that, of course, there's increased inter-regional and intra-African trade. We also see that our people from different African countries that do work in other African countries. And we have been quite surprised with xenophobia even happening in Africa. If you can reflect shortly on that, it would be appreciated. Thank you very much. Well, you know, the positives coming out of Africa and its leadership are slightly broader than just Ethiopia. I mean, there's some laudable work taking place in Kenya and Nigeria. I mean, part of the Nigeria magic was the re-election of President Buhari and the expression of confidence by his own people, most of whom, a bore corruption, you know? And the opportunities that are in there are incredible, but we are convinced that Africa can do much more with much more help, not in the financial sense of giving aid, like we traditionally do, but the world can step up and tolerate less the indiscretions that take place in Africa, whether by Africans themselves or by Africans assisted by others. I mean, I find it totally bamboozling that the problems of the DRC continue to this day in such a civilized world. And yet, those who reap from the DRC are able to succeed through that maze of trouble to extract what they want from the DRC and use it. I think we need to address these things head-on. It's important that we do that, because the DRC's resources alone are more than enough for a lot of the world, certainly more than enough for Africa. I mean, talk of clean water. The DRC could be a solution provided to more than half of Africa with its clean water, because when you look out from the sky, the clean water going to the ocean, draining from the Congo River, is about 70 kilometers in depth, length. You know, that's a huge amount. And associated with that would be the par generation from, you know, the hydro generation that we would get out of the DRC. Now, we have a number of worlds in Africa. And the country you mentioned, which is my neighbor in South Africa, is no exception. Part of it may be historical, but it's still a development challenge that you'll find anywhere else. There are many people who have migrated to the urban centers of South Africa. And it's a mixture of both South Africans and non-South Africans. And as desperation sets in, particularly for locals, it's so much easier to be motivated to believe, sometimes falsely, that it's the foreigners who are taking your jobs. And South Africa being such a diverse society, you have a whole mix of people who hold opinions and sway the beliefs of people into promoting what has been called xenophobia. And I don't know if it really is xenophobia or criminality. And so we need to step back and really look at this very carefully to make sure that it is properly analyzed and understood. But yes, we do have people who migrate from a not-so-well-off country to a better country in search of a better quality of life. And that's a phenomenon that occurs everywhere in the world. We have to make sure that we promote equitable distribution of opportunity, a bottom line. And it's all about governance. And we need the support of small businesses, big businesses, governments, NGOs. And a real commitment to ensuring that even if we disagreed with the policies of some countries, let us not harm the economy to the extent that that will be so. In this case, I speak of my neighbor Zimbabwe. I mean, it's been going through debilitating sanctions as a country state for many years. We in the neighborhood believe sincerely the region, the country would be held better if those sanctions were lifted. Because we are the first to witness the experiences and ferocity of the effects of sanctions on ordinary people, women and girls. Now, if you have a situation like that, what hope do you have of accessing financial inclusion at the very least? Thank you, Mr. President. I see the conversation has been flowing so well that we're really coming to the close. But at the end, your Majesty, financial inclusion, you have had this role now for 11 years, listening to the president, listening to also the prospects now with the SDGs. Any reflections at the end from your side? I guess you will keep on doing this until we have reached all the SDGs in 2030? Not all of them. Nobody, as I said before, nobody can do it alone. It's just to say financial inclusion is a means to an end. It's not an end in itself. It's just one of the railways, I would say, public goods that we need to have. And if I'm hearing everything that's been saying today, but also in all my visits, the potential is there. I mean, we having all this youth coming in, this huge amount of talent, they're all going to be having some kind of access to digital means. And we can actually turn around things. I've actually seen countries that, you know, not knowing what a bank was, all of a sudden, you know, banking through mobile phones, they don't call it a bank. So we can leapfrog in many countries and use them because I think you talk about resources in terms of mining. I want to talk about the resources of all these youth girls and boys actually being entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial, and having themselves a solution for their countries. But they need to have the space and their regulatory space and to have some kind of backbone and infrastructure they can rely on. I think that if we have the leadership from these African countries to permit this, and, you know, myself and all the partners will be helping and assisting to make those changes and to really bring in the private sector to help accordingly, I think that, you know, we might actually have a very good success story. Wow. On that optimistic note, thank you so much to our Majesty, Mr. President. I'm very thankful for your contributions. I think also everyone really enjoyed listening to you. Thank you so much.