Aid Cuts in Sub-Saharan Africa: What Happens Next

[00:00:00] Catherine Pattillo: Welcome, everyone. And thanks very much for joining this joint CGD-IMF event on aid cuts in sub-Saharan Africa. What next? The issue could really not be more important. The IMF report estimates that countries have seen bilateral aid cuts of 16 to 28 percent with much more to come. This has real consequences. You can read the work of colleagues Charles Kenney and Justin Sandefur on the distressing estimates of lives lost. It's really a hugely timely discussion that we're having today. We're all reading about the Ebola outbreak in DRC and concerns that aid cuts have weakened abilities to respond. On the Middle East, you know, hopefully the deal to end the war in Iran holds. But sub-Saharan African countries are already really heavily hit by sharply higher fuel prices, sometimes scarcities, and we can expect that there's going to be more persistence in these high food, fuel, fertilizer prices, with really worrying consequences for food insecurity, which is already high in a number of countries. So today, after an IMF presentation on where we are on aid cuts, today's panel is really going to focus on the what next, right? African governments, NGOs, civil and private sectors are looking forward. How do countries adapt? How can African countries and development partners be intentional about shaping the next era of development cooperation? How can African countries be more in the driver's seat of the what's next, setting priorities, taking advantage of opportunities? What's feasible? What's realistic? To discuss these issues, we're joined by really a fantastic panel, who I'll introduce shortly, but we'll start with a presentation from Amadou Sy, assistant director in the IMF's Africa Department and overseeing the IMF's Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Economic Outlook. Amadou, the floor is yours.

[00:02:57] Amadou Sy: All right, thanks, Cathy, and thank you, everybody, for taking the time, including virtual participants. I have to start by thanking my colleagues, some of them here, Athene, Maurizio, Chie, and Hamza, who did really a lot of the heavy lifting for this presentation, and actually have a blog on this issue, which has been out, I think, this week. So for decades, ODA has been a central pillar of financing in Sub-Saharan Africa. We do focus on Sub-Saharan Africa, unfortunately, but not the whole region, but that pillar is now really weakening quickly and broadly. As Cathy said, in 2025, early estimates point to cuts of bilateral aid of about 26% in a single year, and it was really almost like a sudden stop, if I could say. It was not anticipated. Multilateral support is also under pressure, with major institutions projecting sizable budget, and as a result, we really have a big, big policy challenge in the region. So IMF is not an aid agency, but we will try to focus more on the impact, using different tools, and let's go then. First, the data. Aid has been a critical resource for many of our countries. As a region, Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest aid dependency, with ODA accounting for about 3% of regional GDP, but that average hides really big, sharp differences. On the one hand, you would have some countries like up there, South Sudan, with almost 36% of GDP of ODA. You also have The Gambia-centric African Republic, not as high, but still very high. And then you have other countries, of course, more economically developed, that receive much, much less. But in low-income countries and fragile and conflict states, aid often reaches the equivalent of 6% of GDP, and this compares with just 0.4% for the region's emerging markets, African emerging markets, the South Africans of this world, and so on. So aid plays a critical role amid large needs and limited domestic resources, especially after the succession of shocks that the region has experienced, starting with COVID and etc. More than half of aid goes to health, education, and humanitarian assistance, and most of the remainder finances infrastructure and productive sectors, roads and energy and private sector. Only about a fifth of ODA is budget support, and the vast majority is delivered off-budget, often through NGOs, non-government organizations. So that brings us to another point, that it's not just about the money, it's also about delivery systems, about capacity, and about institutional support for key social services. And this will be critical to understand what will happen if aid stops, because aid cuts will also curtail the very systems that people rely on. So aid also, if you look at external financing flows to our countries, foreign direct investment, remittances, and compare ODA with those, I mean historically we can see that aid can serve as a stabilizing source of external financing, especially during downturns, right? So there's some research by some of our colleagues on this. It remains a key external inflow over the cycle, and if you just focus on the left-hand side, so here we're showing the GDP on the x-axis, it's the GDP per capita. So if you focus on the left-hand side, these are your low-income countries, and you can see that for that group of countries, ODA is exceeding remittances and FDI. And of course as you go to the right, as the countries get wealthier, aid declines in relative importance, with FDI taking the lead, right? So how about, where does the money come from? How about funding sources? So funding sources are gradually diversifying towards multilaterals and also non-traditional donors. So non-DAC contribution remain modest. We're using the OECD data, by the way, for most of these. And there will be some undercounting due to reporting gaps. But so far from what we see, Gulf states and China dominate the non-DAC flows in OECD data. The UAE is a key contributor with a significant country-level concentration. We use also other data, like the aid data from the College of William and Mary and the China Lending to Africa database to have a better picture. So we see, for example, that China's grant-based aid peaked in 2018 and since then has declined, focusing on low-income countries and social sectors like health, education, governance, and so on. And Chinese concessional lending mainly supports infrastructure, energy, transport, communications, and also peaked in 2018. And overall, China-Africa financial flows are declining, with net lending turning negative as repayments exceed new loans. So if we look at historically the aid dynamics, we see that the aid dynamics have shifted sharply in 2025. So after a gradual post-COVID decline, recent decisions from richer countries, the US, Europe, mark a clear turning point in the global aid landscape. Especially for fragile and conflict states and low-income countries. But the impact differs markedly across countries. It's important to really look at the granularity of the data. So for example, in absolute terms, just because of their size, you will have large losses in countries like Ethiopia, DRC, and Nigeria, in absolute terms. But if you look at it in relative terms, the biggest impact will be for low-income countries and fragile and conflict states. So for example, for South Sudan, again, Central African Republic, aid losses could exceed 10% of revenue government. The other concern is also that traditional shock absorbers are also weakening. We've seen multilateral institutions such as the World Food Programme, UNICEF, the World Health Organization, facing significant funding shortfalls too. So this will reduce their ability to offset bilateral cuts. And finally, so far from the data that we have, humanitarian assistance is being hit hardest. We see about a contraction of about 40% in humanitarian flows in 2025. Another concern is that the current cuts are likely only to be the first wave because aid is programmed on multi-year cycles and further reductions are expected as new budget periods begin. So that's something to watch also. Now if we look at historically, what we try to do is, with some colleagues, try to see, what has happened in the past in terms of aid shocks, in terms of sudden cuts in aid? So econometrically, it's just looking at structural break in the aid series. And then using that methodology, we've identified 149 episodes since 1960 where aid has been cut by about 50%, sorry, that aid has been cut drastically. And the average decline is about 40%. But one thing is that this is the first time I think that we're having such a shock for a whole region. Usually it would be one country at a time, it could be for geopolitical reasons, it could be because a country is growing much faster and then is receiving aid, or a country is discovering oil and suddenly receiving aid. But this is the first time that we're having a large cut for so many countries in our region. So although aid shocks are frequent and sizable, this time is really different, this time is really different. So we've looked at the impact of these aid shocks, the previous ones, on using local projection method on some macro variable, and we find that non-grant fiscal balance weakens over time. It's driven not just because aid is being cut, but it's all driven by falling revenues and governments have continued to keep their spending commitments, although aid has cut, and the growth and external impact are less consistent in the data. The nature of the shock also matters. The declines reflect diverse drivers, as I said. It could be a positive, like an income gain, the country becoming richer and aid going down, or it could be negative, because there's a conflict and aid suddenly has gone down because donors are waiting. Or it could be a one-off factor, like debt relief, because technically debt relief would reduce the aid. I can see that my time is up. So basically I will go then very quickly to the last slide I have, which is on what to do. So difficult choices lie ahead, and hopefully we'll have the opportunity to discuss that more during the panel, but we have basically three messages in this report. The first is to protect and target high-impact aid, with resources scarce, allocation matters more. The second one is you need to broaden the financing toolkit, and we'll discuss about maybe the promises of blending finance and the risk also. And the final one, which to us is really key, you need to strengthen domestic capacity. With aid being less predictable, resilience increasingly will depend on domestic institutions. I'll stop there, and I will elaborate, hopefully, during the panel. Thank you.

[00:16:44] Catherine Pattillo: Thank you. Thank you so much, Amadou. We now turn to the panel discussing these issues, where in addition to Amadou, we're honored and excited to be joined by some really fantastic panelists. Enoh Ebong is president of the Global Development Department at CSIS, and she previously served as director of U.S. Trade and Development Agency, where she led U.S. efforts to support sustainable infrastructure in emerging markets. British Robinson is the chair, the Africa chair at the Milken Institute, and a development finance expert, experience in blended finance, impact investment, private capital mobilization, and she led Prosper Africa under the Biden administration, coordinating U.S. efforts to expand trade and investment with African countries. We also are hoping to have Minister, the Honorable Sidi Keita. He's The Gambia's Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs. Unfortunately, he is on a plane which has been delayed, and so hopefully he will be able to join at some point remotely. So we'll see. We're playing it by ear ourselves here. The idea is we're going to have three rounds of panel discussion, first on thinking about the impact, second, thinking about what can be replaced when aid gets cut and what can't, and third, thinking about what next. And then we're going to open for questions from the audience. So, Amadou, let's actually come back to you. I know you weren't able to go through all of the information in your presentation, but it would be really interesting to hear you from the IMF talk to ministers all the time. What are you hearing from them about the impact on the ground and how it's affecting their fiscal plans first? And then what kind of advice are you giving to them? They're facing all these shocks and declining aid. How can they protect vulnerable populations while still trying to do all the investment that's needed for growth?

[00:19:47] Amadou Sy: Thanks, Cathy. Actually, it's the only slide I didn't show, so it's very, very handy. So we have four, basically, broad policy response. We did a survey of about 28 countries. We have 45 countries in sub-Saharan Africa that we cover. But for the 28 that we have talked to, we have four initial. I mean, I should flag that we are very early in the process, especially with the shock and with the war in Iran. But the first one is some governments are not replacing lost aids. They are just allowing program to lapse, and perhaps it's because they feel that they don't have the fiscal space to do it. But this will carry high social costs, of course. Others are reprioritizing spending, often cutting public investment. So it's easier politically, but the issue is as you cut investment, you're also having a dent on long-term growth. The third policy response we've seen is that some countries are borrowing more, including domestically. And then there are, of course, some risks, especially if your initial debt level is quite high compared to your GDP and so on. And finally, and that's maybe one response that we feel is more promising, is some are stepping up revenue mobilization. But unfortunately, it takes time. The results take time. And each option will have some trade-offs. So if you replace lost aid, you can protect services and growth, but it's at the cost of basically wider deficits and external imbalances. If you do not replace your lost aid, you are stabilizing your budgets and protecting that sustainability, but you will have an impact on human capital, on development, and so on. So it's a tough, tough place to be right now for our policymakers.

[00:21:56] Catherine Pattillo: Indeed. Yeah. Sounds really impossible. So Enoh, let's turn to you. So as you heard, governments are really scrambling now to provide needed essential services as aid declines. Where have you seen some of the most innovative kinds of responses, whether from firms, civil society, philanthropies, public-private partnerships? What are some of the innovative responses, and what lessons could we learn?

[00:22:27] Enoh T. Ebong: Thank you for that, and thank you for CDD for having us. And thank you, Amadou, for setting the stage with the data in your presentation. It's interesting because I actually want to start by sort of highlighting what we don't traditionally think of as innovative, but an institution. Because I think, as Amadou alluded to, and as we know, the ability of institutions to build trust, to impact, I think is very important. And so I want to particularly call out and highlight the work of the Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Africa CDC, because this is an institution that is actually meeting the moment extremely effectively. And it's not just turning on the dime. It has come of many years of planning and looking forward to how to protect and ensure the health security of African countries. So there are a couple of things that the Africa CDC has been focused on that I think have been very effective. One, they've come up with a financing plan for health, which has a range of approaches that call to accountability. For example, it asks countries to hearken back to the Abuja Declaration of having at least 15% of their national budgets devoted to health systems, health security. I think that their push to develop an Africa Epidemics Fund is an important development so that they look to ensuring that the least developed can also have some opportunity when there is an emergency to be covered. So that's very important. Just recently, they entered into a partnership with the WHO with respect to addressing the current pandemic that has broken out in the DRC. And that kind of partnership, which is one that is calculated to, it's time limited for the next six months, but again, it's effective in addressing the issues. I would also say that their commitment to turning sort of commitments into action and sort of resources into response is one that I think is going to be very one to look to. So I would say that an institution like that, looking across the continent, harnessing resources, it is well-led, well-connected, and it is showing what can be done on the continent itself, both long-term and in terms of pandemics and emergencies, how to react. I would also say that this moment offers an opportunity for, you mentioned philanthropies, for example, but to work differently. And I think that that is happening. Just switching to another sort of innovation, still to be tested, but the funders table is looking a little different. Philanthropies in the West are understanding that they need to connect more effectively with what is happening on the ground. Decisions have to be made closer to communities, civil society in countries that they work in have to be engaged in the conversations and can very much help to effectively determine where the most urgent assistance needs to be. And I think that there's an opportunity, and I'm sure British can speak much more knowledgeably on this, but to bring in the private sector as well in another sort of blended kind of way, so that in the midst of all the changes, countries of fragility, of high risk are not left out in the picture. And sometimes you need those combinations, and you need them going forward to affect that. I guess in short, lessons learned, pooled risk is good, where you can manage it. And I would also say that thinking about, and I didn't talk about the diaspora financing, but we'll come back to that, putting in a bit of accountability into your approach as well. Again, that 15% line item that is being tracked, and I think hopefully will make a difference. And I'll stop there.

[00:27:46] Catherine Pattillo: Great points and really great examples about, it's not just money, but it's the institutions and the implementation capacity and delivery systems and how those are being developed in your examples about needing to get closer. So thank you. So, Anish, when you think about then these aid cuts and governments needing to be more selective on public resources, how are you seeing African countries confront this? And is it countries or the development partners who are still deciding which sectors are going to require continued public support versus those that are really maybe better suited for these public-private partnerships?

[00:28:34] British A. Robinson: So thank you, and good morning to everyone. It's a pleasure to be here. And again, Amadou, thank you for setting the stage, and it's always wonderful to be with my former colleague and appointee. So I want to contextualize something before we get into the shocks and the news that Amadou laid out. And it's just to contextualize this situation, and it's a point of information that many of us do not recognize when we talk about Africa or whether we talk about sub-Saharan Africa or the whole of the continent. And first and foremost is to recognize the place of ODA. ODA to Africa was only 1% of its domestic financial assets. Amadou talked about domestic mobilization. That is going to be absolutely critical. But the good news in the midst of this shock, in the midst of this sort of unsettling situation that we're in, is that Africa sits on $4 trillion in domestic assets. When we think about ODA, it was approximately $40 billion about a year and a half ago compared to $4 trillion. So we do have to put this in perspective. So the question is, how do we mobilize that $4 trillion? I was blessed and graced to be a part of PEPFAR, the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. To this day, it has saved 26 million lives across the world and, more importantly, across the continent. ODA matters. Twenty-six million people would not be alive today had President Bush in the U.S. Congress, a bipartisan vote, took that leap of faith, took that risk, and said, we're not going to let humanity die. So ODA plays a critical role, but we do have to put it in perspective. As Amadou said, we're looking at anywhere between 25 and 35 percent cuts. They're real, and they will be painful, and they are painful. That said, this larger pool of capital, $4 trillion in sub-Saharan Africa, is rapidly growing. Why? Because we have the gift of the young dividend, of the population growth, and you guys all know the numbers. I won't repeat them. But we're seeing rapid growth in pension funds, insurance funds, sovereign wealth funds, and even, as Anon was saying, different engagement by African commercial banks. Those assets can shift to be deployed now to the needs, to the development needs that Africa is facing. So that's number one. Number two, you should know that that process is already underway. It's not for us in the West to say, oh, by the way, you've got $4 trillion, go use that. It's actually happening, and there's some real stars, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, I'll mention more later, but they're already looking at alternative ways to use their capital. We're seeing things like Nigeria investing particularly around infrastructure, but investing in health infrastructure. Oncology centers, the entire oncology portfolio in Nigeria is undergirded by its sovereign wealth fund. We're seeing energy generation projects, climate change projects, affordable housing. Rwanda is playing a LP role, which is very exciting, and raising capital on their own to fund many of their critical initiatives. Sovereign wealth funds are co-investing, for example, with the sovereign wealth fund of Ethiopia. You've all heard about Dangote, the Dangote refinery. Thank goodness. Talk about saving Africa again. Africa is finding the solution to what Africa needs, right? Ethiopia has invested in the single largest multi-billion dollar fertilizer plant with the government of Ethiopia. That is the good news in all of this. So where do we see and find and look for the gift and grace? In the midst of the shock. So we firmly believe that Africa is not sitting around waiting to be rescued again by ODA. That is the gift and grace. And so we're also seeing policy reforms that are necessary to make this pivot to use that local funding, those local assets that are only going to grow. If you have a population growing all the way to 1.5 billion, even though we know the informal sector is very large, you still are going to start to see growing sovereign wealth funds, growing pension funds, and now we're seeing commercial credit engage more. So that's, I do want us to look at the question as good news, and how do we support this infrastructure? And there's actually a way for the DFIs, who are doing actually a pretty good job, which I'll talk about in a minute, again, I don't think folks know about it, of how we support increasing, doubling, tripling, quadrupling those local, the local assets, which are significant. I'll stop there.

[00:33:54] Catherine Pattillo: Thanks so much. Yeah. Let's continue that. I know it's still thinking forward. So as aid is cut, we're seeing the US, you know, EU, everybody emphasize, okay, trade and investment now. It's trade and investment, not aid. So, you know, British started talking about some of the investment parts, but this is, I mean, also thinking about from the US and Europe and partners, you know, where is this model, you know, represent lots of opportunity, and where can it fall short?

[00:34:34] Enoh T. Ebong: Thank you for that. And I think, and I'll focus a little bit on the US side of that. I think you used the word partnership. It's critically important. Two of the examples that you gave actually, both in terms of the Dangote refinery and Nigeria's oncology practice, was actually originated in partnership with tiny US trade and development agency that did the early feasibility study work and project preparation work with both of those areas. But again, it was in partnership, and there is, you know, understanding what the priorities were of the time and, you know, meeting them. And so I think that, you know, our phraseology of trade over aid is, I think, very binary and does not, it completely belies what is actually necessary to have true partnership for the DFIs to be effective and to really attain what our partners want, and also what the US and other countries are looking for as well. So, you know, on the, I think, positive side of things, our development finance institution, DFC, has been modernized and expanded. And in the process, there was due attention given to maintaining its development focus, right? Certain things that were put into the act to make sure that, you know, if they're going to work in high-income countries, there has to be a development outcome that has to be demonstrated. You know, you can't use more than 10% of the cap on high-income countries. No more than 25% of any one project, for example, in a high-income country can be applied. So there are guardrails there to the expansion. I think the question, oh, and other opportunities, of course, the markets, if you think about the African continental free trade area, of course, there's going to be a massive potential market. So there has to be outlaid all of the positive movement forward that makes it very inviting for, again, US companies and others. I think where we have to be careful from a US perspective is, in fact, not seeing everything purely in a transactional sense because the field is kind of different. It's moving. You know, DFIs are not just about financing. It's also about, you know, risk mitigation, about, you know, capacity building, about support system building. So again, in partnership, it's not solely about the transaction. And I think, you know, we have to make sure that we are well engaged on that basis. I also think that, you know, it's important to—how should I say this? I think there's a real risk of marginalizing fragile states and conflict—you know, countries in conflict—if we're thinking about scale and returns solely. And I think that that's another area where we'll have to make sure that as we are building out new systems, as we're leveraging capabilities, that there is a way—and I'm sure there's already working through that—but a way to ensure that fragile states are addressed. So I think that, you know, there is tremendous opportunity. I think that the DFC is working to act in obviously strategic interest, but the development function of it should not be forgotten. And other development finance institutions, as I'm sure we'll hear, are working in a way that you—you know, that exemplifies both.

[00:39:20] Catherine Pattillo: Yeah. Yeah. Although there are criticisms then of some of the, you know, linking of health aid with, you know, critical minerals access, et cetera. So yes—

[00:39:35] Enoh T. Ebong: It's not just—it can't be transactional in that sense.

[00:39:38] Catherine Pattillo: Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. British, you know, back on private capital mobilization, are we risking, you know, jumping in too much and thinking this is going to solve everything? What are the misperceptions about, you know, how much this can really solve? And aren't there going to be sectors too where, you know—and NFCS countries where you're not going to be able to replace it with the blended finance and the private capital? Yeah.

[00:40:09] British A. Robinson: Sure. Yeah. That's right. It's not here to solve every single problem, right? So we have to be very clear-eyed about what can blended finance and private capital do. And in our former roles, that was a huge part of Prosper Africa, de-risking deals, doing first loss, providing instruments and tools around loan guarantees or political risk insurance, et cetera. We can still do that and plays a role, but it's not the sole role. We will always have humanitarian crises and responses that we have to deal with. We have to deal with primary education in rural schools and rural areas. But there are some tools and instruments that can help us in certain cases, whether it's fragile states or lower-income countries, things like debt swaps, debt conversion. We've seen real success of that around education, around some health. Some of the reducing the debts and using the swaps for education to bring money back into the treasury for these countries are absolutely critical. So those types of tools when we're talking about fragile states and low-income countries are a little bit better placed than sort of the general typical finance that you would do where we're looking at, you know, a handful, more than a handful, you know, 15, 20 countries that are receiving GDP 6, 7, 8 percent year over year. Those countries are going to eventually attract that sort of traditional capital or it's going to allow for the DFIs to essentially guarantee some of the blended finance programs. But DFIs still can't do it alone. Some are really exceptional at the moment. So when you talk about low- and middle-income countries and fragile states, the British government, BII, their version of DFC, is actually a part of their brand-new strategy is investing in fragile states in small- and medium-sizes enterprise because they saw the market failure. They're going to continue to do that, but the market itself is not going to come alongside. But that's a great role for us to see the funds that DFIs do have is how they use their funds in a very strategic way as opposed to worrying about kind of what the private sector is going to do. There's going to be enough of that, enough money left for the private sector to make and for us to see sort of large, large deals. So private capital alone can't sort of fix these problems, but I think where we can see philanthropy come in is to be a part of the senior tranches supporting DFIs once they've done the first loss or the guarantees. And that's where, to Anil's point, is where we need to see philanthropy look at itself in different ways. I have a saying, and some people get a little uncomfortable, but that's the point. Africa cannot grant its way to prosperity. I'm going to say that again. Africa cannot grant its way to prosperity. So no matter how big our hearts are, no matter how much we love doing our work in the Peace Corps or myself working in refugee camps in Kakuma and Dadaab, it's not enough. It's not enough. So we're asking now philanthropy, endowments, mission investments to look at themselves differently. Sure, we're going to have humanitarian crises. We're going to have food crises. We need you to provide those grants. I'm not saying get rid of grants, but grants can't be the sole solution either. And how do you look at revocable grants, returning money? How do you look at using your endowment that's just sitting there earning all this money? How do you use it to actually invest? Maybe alongside BII or alongside NORFUN or alongside our own DFC that's doing an incredible job around large infrastructure projects. So again, it's the reframe that we have to think about kind of as we move forward.

[00:43:53] Enoh T. Ebong: Stop there. Can I just add to that that I do think absolutely grants are still a place for grants. I still think that there's a place for grants even in the public context. So an agency like U.S. Trade and Development Agency provided grants and still does for the early project planning, a place where actually it would be good to come in alongside with philanthropy for infrastructure projects. So I think we do have to think carefully about how we're applying what. There are many tools. And there's still a place, I think, in the public space for well-applied, catalytic public funding. As you mentioned, there are different tranches and different levels. But I think that that can still be used.

[00:44:39] Catherine Pattillo: Sure. Amadou, how do you see these issues? What are the conditions where this is going to work, the risks?

[00:44:48] Amadou Sy: Yes. So first, I would like to take a step back and go a bit into like trends in this environment. I had the pleasure to discuss with Akehi Konishio, who is the vice president at the World Bank. And so we're talking about philanthropy, DFIs, and so on. But if you look at the trends and developments, we've seen that the number of donor countries has doubled in 20 years. The number of development agencies has tripled in 20 years. You see like Ethiopian or Nigerian authorities having to deal with 240, 250 counterparts. That's one. The proliferation, that's one trend. A second trend we've seen also is aid fragmentation. The pie is being cut in smaller, smaller, smaller pieces with more and more and more people. So the average size of finance activities has gone down. And for grants, it has sometimes like $800,000 for a grant. So as a government, with scarce capacity, this is also an issue. And the third one, we've seen the increase in vertical funds. So there's a volume of vertical funds, funds that has to be climate change. It has to be a green finance. It has to be, you know, that has also been multiplied by 17 in the past 20 years. And then on the other hand, we have multilateral agencies, which can leverage like IDA, can I think leverage four times, and which maybe hopefully has less operational costs than vertical funds. So there's this bigger issue of the optimal allocation of ODA, right? We have so many sources, including new ones that we are pushing. And of course, we've even blended finance and so on. But you know, I think there's more thinking on that. You know, on the one hand, do you diversify the financing sources, or, you know, some are led by geopolitical or strategic priorities, critical minerals and so on. So in any case, what to do? So definitely, I think you've mentioned in coordination, transparency, data disclosure, and so on. And then on top of that, I forgot the non-traditional funding, like from GCC, from China, and so on. Right? So I'm just throwing it out there. I think there's something that to think a bit more. When we come to blended finance, I think definitely, you know, what is blended finance trying? What is the problem that it's trying to solve? It's just that we don't have sufficient financing for all these huge development needs that the region has. So the idea is, as Richard says, you know, how about using guarantees, concessional loans, junior equity, first loss, and so on, improve the risk return profiles and crowd in private resources and expand the overall envelope. But coming from the IMF, I have to come back to the importance of enabling conditions. And then I have to talk about the boring stuff of macro is needed. You know, public budget, your budget has to be, you know, transparent, efficient, public financial management, public investment management. You know, when you select a project, it has to be the best that you can, and so on, procurement, and so on. Anyways, so we give a lot of TA on that, and it's just I'm throwing it out there because we should not forget that basically stability, low inflation, sustainable debt, and so on, is also important. It's not just the money, but it's also how you use the money, including your macro policies.

[00:49:00] Catherine Pattillo: Thank you. I'm told that Minister Keta is joining us on Zoom. Yes. Minister, welcome. Are you able to hear me?

[00:49:13] Hon. Seedy Keita: Thank you.

[00:49:14] Catherine Pattillo: Okay.

[00:49:15] Hon. Seedy Keita: I can hear you very clearly.

[00:49:16] Catherine Pattillo: We are improvised.

[00:49:17] Hon. Seedy Keita: I've just landed in Mali.

[00:49:18] Catherine Pattillo: Okay. Thank you so much for...

[00:49:20] Hon. Seedy Keita: I'm in... Yeah, but I can... Thank you. Okay. You're breaking up a little bit, but we will try to persevere. And I'm going to ask you to come back to the podium. Okay.

[00:49:27] Catherine Pattillo: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[00:49:30] Speaker 6: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[00:49:35] Catherine Pattillo: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to send a question your way right away. We've been discussing aid cuts in the region, and we really would benefit from hearing from you on The Gambia's experience, how you are seeing this impact, and what it has meant then for your fiscal priorities and how you're adjusting. And then also sort of looking forward, has this meant that you've focused more on domestic revenue mobilization? Over to you, Minister.

[00:50:20] Hon. Seedy Keita: Thank you very much for having me, and apologies for the inconvenience. But this topic is very apt, and the timing could not be better. We are witnessing significant reduction in overseas development assistance, particularly from bilateral agencies and partners. And of course, overall, there is fiscal pressures globally, and the traditional donors are also having issues, and as such, this is translated into a reduction in ODAs. And this reduction is not only expected inflows and outages, but it has affected ongoing programs, as for Gambia, we have certain transactions and certain projects that were already afoot, but because of the crisis globally, there has been a cessation of some of those ODA transactions. This left the government with no option but to pick the taps and actually try to fill that void being left by the departure of the ODAs. So in a nutshell, the poli-crisis is actually further accentuated by, as we know, we have been living with COVID, we've been living with COVID, we've been living with the Russia-Ukraine war, and now the hostilities in the Middle East. So these challenges are abound. We believe that the East is going to be a sustained path, and as such, the only way is to look at how we can build internal resilience and build our own internal domestic resource mobilization. That's why in The Gambia, we have created a special strategy on domestic resource mobilization in the last three years. Our domestic tax collection has increased from 11 billion in 2022 to 25 billion in 2025. This jump was not on the basis of increasing tax rates, but with a view to increasing the efficiency and the compliance rate of the tax collection. This, we believe, is more sustainable and is a reaction to the aid cuts. And while this is a challenge physically in the short term, I think in the long haul, we should not allow these aid cuts crisis to go to waste. We should look at our internal system, build our governance, build our institutions, and build our tax collection efficiently so that our domestic resource mobilization, which is more resilient and lasting, can be able to come in and close those gaps. Meanwhile, we also have to be selective in which intervention areas the remaining OTAs are going into so that they go to very important, mission-critical areas of intervention. In order to help ameliorate the sharp reduction in the OTAs. Thank you.

[00:53:26] Catherine Pattillo: Thank you, Minister. Can I also ask, looking forward now, how would you like the collaboration with development partners to evolve? And how would you like that to, what would you like that to focus on? And if there, is there one area, you mentioned domestic revenue mobilization, is there any other area beside domestic revenue mobilization where in The Gambia you want to seize the opportunity to do things differently rather than just replacing the aid that has been cut?

[00:54:07] Hon. Seedy Keita: Yes, I think the engagement with the partners should really be retuned, because with the cut in the OTAs, certainly no partner can give us enough money to take care of our development. So we want to see the partners help us build our capacity, help us digitalize our economy, help us build our institution, help us increase public transparency and proper financial management. That will go a long way towards building in the systems and the processes that will ensure resilience. Partners have wider convening power, greater resources in terms of capacity, technical assistance, and skill base and knowledge base to help us introduce reforms that we hope to function. I think if there is going to be any windfall out of this crisis, it's for us to look inward and reform our procedures and processes as a government and be more resilient. That can be only through better resource mobilization, and not only resource mobilization but better public expenditure efficiency. To ensure that there is value for money in public procurement, value for money in public expenditure, and that the public service is the right size and the wage bills are appropriate to the living conditions and fiscal situation of our countries. So certainly.

[00:55:45] Catherine Pattillo: Okay. Okay, Minister, you've frozen, but thank you so much. Hopefully you can stay with us. Maybe we will have some questions.

[00:55:55] Hon. Seedy Keita I believe in reforms of the state and not just to leave it to the central government. Thank you.

[00:56:02] Catherine Pattillo: Excellent. Thank you. Please stay with us. We're going to turn to questions from the audience in a minute, but final questions for my panelists here. Enoh, again, a consequence is countries are looking to maybe build this domestic production capacity, pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, digital services, as the Minister mentioned, agribusiness. Where do you see these opportunities for African firms to maybe capture activities that were previously imported or donor driven?

[00:56:35] Enoh T. Ebong: I think in all those areas that you mentioned, there are vast opportunities and already action going forward to try and leverage them. So there is, through the Partnership for African Vaccine Manufacturing, a framework for action, and they have a goal of manufacturing 60% of Africa's vaccines on the continent by 2040. There are already movements towards that, manufacturers being able to build facilities. However, there is a very extensive process with respect to WHO accreditation and all of the sort of steps along the way to get there. So I think the opportunities are there, but there's going to have to be addressing the regulatory issues, procurement, how to make sure that the environment is such that the opportunities can be leveraged. I think it's a similar story in digital, but of course there's a whole lot more when you think of countries like Kenya and in Nigeria, there's been a lot of advancement in those spaces. Again, with the ramping up and the presence of AFCFTA, I think there's going to be a lot of opportunities in payment infrastructure, cross-border payments, e-commerce. There's absolutely, I think, a lot of opportunity. But what I will say is that underlying all of this is the attention that does have to be paid to the infrastructure around that, not just the enabling environment, but physically sort of access to broadband for digital infrastructure really to take off. Energy, where we talk about agribusiness and, you know, even health care. So I think there's a great deal of opportunity in those sectors. It is already being leveraged, but there's an attendant need to attend to infrastructure, regulatory harmonization and all of the things that will help to really leverage the opportunity.

[00:59:12] Catherine Pattillo: Thanks so much. So, British, you've been very positive about the benefits and the possibility for more private capital mobilization. So tell us, what is going to need to change? What's the one thing that's going to need to change to really make this happen for development priorities? And what's going to need to change in the international financial architecture to again make this happen? You know, you've mentioned it's happening to some degree, but I think not yet on the scale that's needed and not the market building. So what's going to need to change to really have the vision that you're outlining succeed?

[01:00:03] British A. Robinson: Yeah, so there's not one thing. OK. That's a loaded question. Thank you. Sort of like solve world peace. Right. But we'll take a stab at it. So I think I'm going to maybe tick and tie a couple of things together and really appreciate what the minister had to say. I think around policy reform and regulation and things like that, that's important. But you can get pretty granular. That can be very esoteric. And so to tie it back to where I kind of started is we think about Africans, Africa's assets. So whether it's sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, commercial banks, et cetera, insurance. One of the things that needs to happen or where we're seeing daylight but also needs to be scaled up is, for example, pension funds. There's trillions of dollars, about $2.2 trillion just in African pension funds alone. Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya are really leading the way. And very specifically, they've gone to their trustees to allow them to make policy changes. This can get very boring, but it's very important. The policy changes that some of these countries are making is to allow them to put anywhere between 5% to 15% in alternative investments. If they really go to market and fully utilize the global capital markets, that's what it means to invest in alternative investments. They're going to see more return, and then that return can then be used as revenue for the treasury to pay for schools, pay for roads, pay for whatever it is. So it's very concrete, but I offer that one thing that I think is very important. The second thing we need to happen, because it's not just one thing, is U.S. institutional investors, so our pension funds, our folks that are sitting on large endowments, trillions and trillions of dollars, they have basically no exposure to Africa and very little exposure to emerging markets. U.S. institutional investors have 1% exposure to Africa. We'd like to see them have more. Currently, institutional investors are what we call very overweight in the U.S., and at some point, we're at a moment where we're having this shock, but there may be gift in grace. They're so overweight, they almost have to start to invest in emerging markets, and we hope that a percent of that EM investment will be actually in Africa. The second thing is, I think, is that we want U.S. investors to actually see the opportunities on the ground. It's something we did as part of the U.S. government, using U.S. taxpayer dollars, was to actually bring institutional investors, large U.S. institutional investors to the continent so they could look at opportunities to invest in. We were able to do nine trips, and we raised $1.7 billion for the continent, investing across all of the key areas, whether it's ag, climate change, infrastructure, et cetera. We want to see that tenfold going forward. So that is the opportunity, but that's also reform on our side, right? So looking at Africa beyond charity, looking at it beyond aid, and it is binary, and so taking that sort of broader view. The other piece is the African—I know we're almost at time—the African countries that are going to kind of survive or do well are the ones that are going to look at their own assets and figure out how to leverage them and how to partner and to collaborate, et cetera, and do risk pools, is they're going to use their natural resources in a smart way. We even talked about critical minerals, the elephant in the room, which we all know about. But how you own that and you do processing and local beneficiation in your country and not just send out raw materials, those are the countries we're going to see rise. The second piece that I would add to that is AFCTA. The African countries that start to work together regionally are going to see more impact together collectively than if they go it alone one by one by one. So I think that's where some of the opportunity lies. Those are just starting points of where we can go, but I just want to underscore what the minister said around financial management, regulatory reform, technical assistance, and capacity building. One last thing, and I would be remiss if I didn't say this, but our chairman, Mike Milken, 10 years ago knew exactly what he was saying. And he created something called the Mike Milken World Bank Group. We're very proud of this, the World Bank Group and the Milken Global Financial Scholars Program, where we take scholars that work for the minister, that are embedded in the central banks, stock exchanges, the treasury, the finance minister, you get the point, and do exactly what he said to do, is build their capacity. So they come to the United States, to Georgetown University, McDonough School of Business, or Bay School of Business in London, and they essentially get like an LLM, and they get expertise in global capital markets. That is one of the best things we can do, one of our best bets. It's fully funded by the World Bank Group and the Milken Institute. We're very proud of it. And we haven't had a scholar from Zambia, Mr. Minister, Gambia, oh my gosh, excuse me, from The Gambia. We'd love to have a scholar from The Gambia. We can take more than one, but it's to do exactly what you're going to do. So as a global finance think tank, we're not just talking about the capital markets, but we firmly believe the capital markets have to work for everybody. And in order to do that, you have to capacitate the governments themselves.

[01:05:16] Catherine Pattillo: Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay, it's now time for a panel. Sorry, for the audience, so let's take some questions here. The lady here in the blue and white dress, please.

[01:05:33] Audience Member: My name is Martine Leni. I'm the president of Alliance for Sustainable Development Foundation. It's a local organization in Cameroon dealing with HIV care and treatment. I have two questions. The first one is for the entire panel. Do you think it would be important to separate development goals and humanitarian assistance needs? Because I feel like the needs that are urgent and right now sometimes get lost in our quest to think long term. Why we think long term is good, but right now people have dire need and people are dying. Can we separate the conversations so we can better address each one of them? And the second question is for Amadou. You talked about domestic mobilization being one of the promising tools that African countries have right now. But how do you work with countries to balance some of those aggressive measures with the threat of actually choking foreign investment because of the nature of the aggressiveness and also even disrupting the enabling business environment? Thank you.

[01:06:50] Catherine Pattillo: Thanks. Let's maybe take a couple and then, okay, the gentleman here in the blue.

[01:06:57] Audience Member: Good morning, I still believe. My name is Luciano. I'm with CARES Global Advocacy Team. I think today's conversation extends a lot from last week's fragility forums. And I'm curious to hear from the panel something that we haven't discussed but was hinted at is how health aid and minerals are hand in hand. And I'm curious to see how we view the US government GDG health agreements that I'm sure many of us are tracking. Should we view those agreements as a model for how we are looking at future partnerships or how do we see those agreements reshaping aid in Africa?

[01:07:37] Catherine Pattillo: Thanks. Maybe one more and then we'll come back to the panel, the lady here. Thank you.

[01:07:44] Audience Member: Hi, I'm Jeanne Smoot with UNHCR's Washington office. And I was grateful to you, British, for mentioning refugee camps in Kakumu and Dadaab. But otherwise, I didn't hear mention of the impact of displacement. And yet, it's a significant factor across this region, as you know. So I'd like to take your gift of grace comment and turn it into a gift of graciousness for the host countries in the region where most of the refugees in the region go to nearby neighboring countries. And ask you about how unlocking the tremendous potential of refugees to contribute economically and ultimately reduce aid dependency through inclusive government policies, freedom of movement, freedom of right to work, IDs, access. And many countries in this region have significant and novel initiatives for that, but require not only good host country policies, but thoughtful donor country policies to invest in bolstering those national systems for the good of all. So if you would, please comment a bit on the kinds of mechanisms that exist among IFIs, like the IWHR and GCFF. But also, in the routine engagement of IFIs and MDBs with host countries and with the private sector through like the IFC, not just DFC, to see those forced displacement contexts as market opportunities for the private sector and see governments able to unlock that potential that refugees have to contribute and contribute to their own self-reliance in countries' lack of aid dependency.

[01:09:19] Catherine Pattillo: Thank you. Thank you all so much. So refugees, G2G, health and critical minerals, and short-term and long-term issues. Maybe I'll just turn to whoever in the panel wants to jump in. Maybe I'll start with you, Amadou, and then others can come in on the points they want.

[01:09:40] Amadou Sy: Yes, thanks. I mean, before I get into the domestic revenue mobilization question, I mean, this is a good question. Should we separate development goals versus humanitarian needs, I think. But when I was thinking about this question, I was like, it's not just about the money. We talked about the institution, the processes. Like, think about a country which had over the years let NGOs, for example, take care of delivering aid to some refugee camp 300 kilometers from the capital. And suddenly these NGOs are not there. Well, it's important for the countries to have its own resources, its own institution, its own service delivery systems too. So and then that would be on the budget. So it's a bit difficult, but we'll see what my co-panelists have to say. On the domestic revenue mobilization, I think, so it's not just about increasing taxes. I think the minister from The Gambia had said that they did not increase taxes. They just collected taxes in a more efficient way. For example, digitalization is very promising. I worked on Mauritius, and in Mauritius you can literally file your tax form in 30 minutes, let's say. It's pretty impressive. And they have been doing it for a long time. And then you have just the tax administration of what you have. Of course, there are pockets also like property tax doesn't exist in many of our African countries and for other reasons. But if I may very quickly, I think we've talked about very good solutions and so on. But I mean, recently we've been very influenced by this thinking of it's not just about the what, but the how, right? And politicians like our minister here are the ones making the decisions. You have different stakeholders. Certain decisions will have some winners and some losers. Should you compensate the losers, how, and so on. Should you just forget about your first best solution and move to your second best solution, right? Incidentally, the LSE London School has this London Consensus, which I would recommend to read, at least chapter one, which is really going a lot into those things. And we've also have been thinking about these issues, yeah.

[01:12:20] Enoh T. Ebong: Okay, thanks. I'll just jump in. I think on the MOU questions, I think we've touched on it quite a bit here where, you know, it's not, the subject matter does not lend itself to a simple transaction or a deal in that sense. And I think that countries have stated this, there should not be a quid pro quo over minerals and that just does not bode well for the future of actually developing your health systems. So I think what's going to be key here is the ability to really negotiate and, you know, build capacity for doing so in a way that takes recognition of the resource that, and the leverage that African countries have. I think that's really critical here. You know, it's not really totally clear what's in all of these agreements. I think that's going to be the number one piece of this, understanding what they are and how then they can be addressed. But I don't think it's necessarily going to be a model for the future because like a lot of the way we talk today, or at least the administration talks about commercial diplomacy, it's very narrow. It does not take into account everything that you need to be able even to attain the goals that you're trying to establish there, the enabling environment that we've talked about. On the separation of development and humanitarian response, I do get concerned about the loss of focus on some of the humanitarian emergencies. I do think that, you know, a separation is happening, but I think that in order to respond to some of what is going on, it is necessary so that we're seeing the administration provide funding to UN OCHA, to the World Food Program, you know, in ways that do not give-do not really address the whole picture. And I don't think that is-it's helpful in the long-in the short term to add track to get to your issue, but not in the long term for a holistic approach. So I think that still has to be worked through. Thanks.

[01:14:48] Catherine Pattillo: British? Nothing to add. I think that was well said. Okay. Other questions in the room? Okay. Young woman here. Yes. Good morning. Thank you guys so much for the panel.

[01:15:00] Audience Member: I had a question about the development of Africa's digital economy, which I know is something you guys talked about as an area of opportunity. I'm curious, like, in the current age, we're seeing a decline in dominance of the U.S. dollar and the rise of a lot of regional currencies, especially digital currencies, so I'm curious if you think there's a potential for something like that to develop in Africa? And if so, like, maybe how would these aid cuts affect or accelerate that process? Thank you.

[01:15:30] Catherine Pattillo: Great. Thanks. I see a question way in the back there.

[01:15:39] Audience Member: Thank you all so much. This has been super interesting. Holly Stevens, McLarty Associates. I was previously at USAID and was on the team that was launching the Economic Resilience Initiative under Administrator Power. It was covering a lot of the issues that have popped up today, especially trying to support countries as they try to deal with macroeconomic risk and instability, particularly it was great to hear the minister talking about the importance of public financial management through ODA and through development cooperation and how much building out the capacity for domestic resource mobilization can really help, obviously, on all of these issues we're talking about. ERI, the Economic Resilience Initiative, was also trying to focus on economic transformation and how the U.S. government can actually support countries as they're thinking through their own industrial policies and other economic policies to kind of support, for example, manufacturing and all of the things we know that countries need in order to actually economically develop in the long term. But we'd love to hear just how the panelists think about, rather than kind of these one-off transactions that are interesting to this administration, what should U.S. economic development assistance and cooperation actually look like as we go forward? We're seeing the State Department build out foreign assistance kind of in the dark right now. And so we'd just love to hear what kind of the blue sky looks like from your perspective.

[01:17:17] Catherine Pattillo: Thank you. And we do have the minister online for anyone who has a specific question to the minister. There was one that came, minister, from online, which perhaps you could address, which is relating to debt. And the question was that, how are you going to be able to have your fiscal priorities for protecting vulnerable populations, investing in growth, when there's a debt servicing crisis where a lot of countries are spending a lot of money on interest and debt service compared to being able to spend on health and education? So maybe we could go first to the minister and then to the panel for some of the other questions.

[01:18:18] Hon. Seedy Keita: Thank you very much. That's a very important and timely question. Because in our economic management, debt is almost as important as any priority, if not the most important, as we speak now. Most of the African countries are going through debt vulnerabilities. This is on the onslaught of a number of factors. One is the recent crisis the world has been going through with the on-cross of COVID. Most African countries, particularly in the West African zone, have been advised by the partner institutions to go with a debt service suspension initiative, whereby the principal component was deferred and the only service in the interest component. These left the debt stock almost unaddressed. Meanwhile, 60 to 65% of our domestic, of our international debt, of our debt stock is denominated in foreign exchange. With the decline in the foreign exchange rate, the same debt stock has actually increased by 15% on exchange rate movement alone. In the case of The Gambia, while the debt stock overall has increased in Dalasi time, this increase has been supported on the backdrop of the depreciation of the Dalasi. So the fact that we were not servicing our debt during the last four years following onslaught of COVID, this has kept the foreign currency components constant, while the deterioration of the exchange rate has made the debt servicing costs elevated. And as a result, with the lapse of the debt service suspension initiative in 2024-25, the debt servicing component has jumped from less than 7% of our budget to almost 13-12% of our budget. In fact, in the last budget, it has gone up almost close to 18%. So what we are doing in this area is to ensure that we are only taking concessional borrowing, that is highly concessional debt with a grant element of not less than 35%, ensuring that we borrow as much as we can for our medium-term fiscal operations in the domestic market, and the foreign currency borrowings are only going into productive sectors of the economy, such as road, infrastructure, energy, that will expand the economic base so that the ability to service those debts increase in the future. So these are some of the measures we have been taking on the debt side, but going forward, it is also important that we develop our local capital market. So as to enhance our ability to borrow more in the domestic market for our long-term growth and investment opportunities that we have as a government. Because debts denominated in foreign currency is quite expensive in the medium to long-term because some of these debts are over an extended period of 20 to 30 years. And by the time the principal service component kicks in, the exchange rate would have depreciated by a large chunk. So that is one of the issues on the debt. And how we are trying to balance that debt service burden with the social implication of those challenges is to ensure that our social safety net is kicked in. We have developed and mapped out a social register whereby targeted intervention to the vulnerable communities are paid directly from the budget. We have introduced in our own budget, previously, the vulnerable communities have been supported through donor funds, particularly a grant from the World Bank. But right now, of late, in the last two or three years, we have introduced in our own budget direct transfer, cash transfer from our own domestic budget to the vulnerable community so that our growth and our economic development leaves no one behind. We have also had in the course of the discussion, what are we doing with our assets? We have now looked at some of our revenue generating assets and have shifted the management of those into private sector. We have partnered with Africa 50 to manage the revenue collection and management of the Senegambia Bridge, which has been able to unleash about $100 million without any interest expense and without any debt. As such, that 100 will now be used to further invest in our infrastructural space, while Africa 50 will be managing the bridge and efficiently collecting the toll fees from the bridge. Since we've introduced these services, we have realized that the revenue collection has gone up tremendously, and digital solutions have been deployed. And now we are able to reconcile the revenue collected against the traffic count. Previously, when this was not the case, the revenue collection was less than optimal. So these are some of the measures we are using to tackle the debt pressures that we are going through.

[01:23:57] Catherine Pattillo: Thank you. Thank you. Those panelists are super, super valuable. We're coming to the end of our session, but I wanted to give the panelists opportunity. There was a question about digital currency, in case anyone wanted to pick that up. And then any final thoughts from panelists, kind of, again, what next? Looking forward, you know, if you're looking ahead, what do you think, by 2035, is going to distinguish African countries that are going to really have successfully dealt with the aid shock and adapted? What do you think are the characteristics of countries that are going to stand out in that regard? Let's go through. Yes.

[01:24:43] Amadou Sy: So very quickly on stable coins, so one issue is that it's this tension between innovation and regulation. Innovators are very fast and regulators, we're scrambling behind trying to understand. But for example, the U.S. has moved very quickly with this big, beautiful bill, right? So you have the stable coins now. But from, let's say, our country's perspective, this also means there's the potential for more cross-border flows, right? For more money coming. So on the one hand, people are using it because they could not, you know, there are all this sand in the wheels when you want to try to send dollars in Africa and so on. So with the stable coins, that would be probably faster. But on the other hand, it can also bring some kind of almost dollarization, which will complicate the central bank governor's job, right? When suddenly, let's say it's an extreme case where 80 percent of your country is suddenly everybody's using stable coins and not using your own currency. So these are issues that we are looking at. And I think we have a few papers that were issued on stable coins and also on other issues like crypto, CBDCs, and so on.

[01:25:55] Catherine Pattillo: Thank you. Briefly to Enoh then British.

[01:25:58] Enoh T. Ebong: Very, very quickly, just to blend the blue sky and the countries that will float to the top. On blue sky, just development should be targeted. It should be effective. The way it is effective is by actually understanding what is working and what is being done by recipient countries and those that use their leverage and, as British said earlier, do it in a regional way, I think will be very successful. Successful.

[01:26:29] British A. Robinson: British? A couple of things. One is laser-focusing on your productive sectors, as the minister said, so in particular infrastructure and ag. And the reason why it's infrastructure is, number one, infrastructure is the flywheel for everything, whether you go all the way from ports, rails, road, water, power, all the way to schools and hospitals. So why infrastructure? And then agriculture. Huge opportunity. The continent has 65 percent of the world's arable land that's left for commercial farming, and that hasn't been fully realized yet. We've been doing a lot of work at Smallholder, but there's an opportunity to do commercial farming. The second point is mobilizing those local assets and looking at the policy reform, so the sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, insurance funds, and tapping into commercial banks. The last piece is the regional piece, really working together around AFCTA. The last piece is actually using your natural capital in a more efficient way. That goes back to critical minerals and the point that I made earlier. But just to underscore, I think those are the four key points for opportunity and for to moving these countries towards prosperity. Thanks.

[01:27:37] Catherine Pattillo: Yeah. Thank you. Minister, we'll give you the last word, please, on the critical factors for success looking forward for resilience and opportunities. Yeah.

[01:27:49] Hon. Seedy Keita: Thank you very much. I think the way forward is for government to become more accountable and build the governance architecture, proper public financial management, enhanced domestic resource mobilization, building the digital footprint and the digital economy to ensure that public expenditure efficiencies is asynchronous across all government transactions. And I think also we should change our interaction with the development partners. Instead of them as institutions coming in and helping the government, it's important now they are like companies come and invest in Africa. When they come to invest in Africa, they will show the demonstration effect. It will boost the private sector, which should be the engine of growth. And that way, all the African companies can leverage on that, skills transfer happen, and the wider benefits and efficiency of the private sector can be demonstrated and adopted accordingly. So it's not just enough for the partners and the institutions, but we should also encourage business-to-business interaction between African countries and the developed world, such as companies in the U.S., because the perceived risk in Africa is not a reality. There are more funds to be made in Africa than elsewhere. As we all know, the stage of our development is at a level where the delta of any investment in Africa is higher than the developed world. But this cannot all be done by governments, rather the individual private sector member in the developed world should also come and participate in the process. Not only will they get good return, but it also shows the demonstration effect of what the private sector can do. When we look at the developed world, it's the private sector that is running the economy, and Africa should be no exception. The role of the market is very central to any economic development, and figuring out developments structurally only on government and government policies will not cut it out. We need to introduce the role of the market, the role of the insurance industry, the role of the capital market, debt market, so as the private sector's full force of economic empowerment can be displayed. Before I close, I will take the opportunity to say that Gambia is ready to send a nomination for the Milking Institute training, and I think we can take that offline from this call. We will be happy to send lists of nominations to build our capacity.

[01:30:28] British A. Robinson: Thank you. Excellent. We look forward to it, Mr. Minister.

[01:30:31] Catherine Pattillo: So we've got some really concrete outcomes of this panel. So now we're closing now. I wanted everyone here and online to thank our really, really tremendous panelists, the Honorable Minister Keita, British, Enoh, and Amadou, and thank you all for joining. Thank you.