[Anthony Luvanda]
Your Excellency, Dr. Hussein Mwinyi, President of Zanzibar and the Chairman of Revolutionary Council.
Your Excellency, honorable Ajay Banga, President of World Bank.
Your Excellency, honorable Olavo Correia, Vice Prime Minister and Finance Minister of Cabo Verde.
Honorable Othman Masoud Othman [Sharif], First Vice President of Zanzibar.
Honorable Hemed Suleiman Abdulla, Second Vice President of Zanzibar.
Honorable Zubeir Ali Maulid speaker of Zanzibar house of representatives.
Honorable Dr. Mwigulu Nchemba, the Minister Finance, United Republic of Tanzania.
Honorable Dr. Saada Mkuya Salum, Minister of State for Finance and Planning.
Honorable Michel Patrick Boisvert, Minister of Economy and Finance, Republic of Haiti.
Honorable Ryadh Mohammed Alkhareif, Deputy Minister of International Affairs of Saudi Arabia.
IDA Donor borrower representatives who are here, members of parliament,
distinguished guests of international delegations, World Bank leadership who are here.
Good morning.
Once again, good morning.
I want to officially welcome you to IDA Mid-Term Review,
organized by the World Bank International Development Association
and hosted here by beautiful Zanzibar.
Please give yourself a big round of applause for showing up.
[Audience applauds]
I'm Anthony Luvanda.
I'm going to be guiding you through an exciting morning
and I believe that it's going to be exciting throughout the day.
It's a very special welcome.
We are joined by the global audience via World Bank Live and here locally by AzamTV.
This session will be translated simultaneously in Swahili and French as well.
The information can be found on the sign in the room or below the screen
for those who are watching through World Bank Live,
but it's very encouraging, wherever you are in the world, please feel free to join the conversation,
and we are going to use the hashtag #IDAworks, IDA in the capital, I-D-A, and also works in small letters.
Ladies and gentlemen, to officially begin this ceremony,
I will request all of us to raise on our feet so that we can sing the national anthem of Zanzibar
and thereafter of United Republic of Tanzania and finished by East Africa community anthem.
[Band plays anthem]
[Audience applauds]
[Anthony Luvanda]
Thank you very much.
You may take your seats please.
Ladies and gentlemen, this meeting is taking place when the world is facing urgent intertwined crises.
I would like to take these few minutes to invite you to watch a short video
highlighting the works of the International Development Association
addressing the complex development challenges globally.
[Video narrator]
Half of young people of working age in this country don't to have a job.
Pandemics conflicts, food insecurities, growing inequality, climate change.
Crisis on top of crisis, and more problems looming on the horizon.
The world is at an inflection point.
If we don't respond, we risk hard won development gains.
We risk the planet, we risk livelihoods, we risk the futures of millions.
Others would be daunted by such challenges and turn away.
This is where IDA is different.
IDA delivers results, improving the lives of millions of people for over six decades.
IDA is stepping up.
Now is the time to change the trajectory.
We can transform energy to clean and renewable sources.
Digitization can unlock the potential of people like never before.
Imagine if we can create jobs for millions of women and young people.
Our ambition must meet the challenge.
Our commitment must match our ambition.
Let's make the IDA21 replenishment the largest today.
It's time to make history.
[Anthony Luvanda]
A big round of applause, please.
[Audience applauds]
And now, ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the President of the World Bank, Ajay Banga.
[Audience applauds]
[Ajay Banga]
Your Excellency, Mr. President and all of you who have given us the privilege of being here with us today.
It's just a great honor to be with you.
Thank you for the warm welcome.
Thank you for the hospitality.
Your governments have been extremely, extremely constructive towards what we are trying to do here.
I want to make sure that all of us give a round of applause
to the government of Zanzibar and Tanzania for their efforts.
[Audience applauds]
Before I begin, I want to extend my condolences
to the communities impacted by the flood of a few days ago.
You should know that the World Bank will be by your side
during the recovery and the reconstruction.
At its founding, the International Development Association was charged with a simple yet noble mission
to raise standards of living and build momentum for growth in developing countries.
The landscape we face today is far more complex.
We have declining progress in our fight against poverty.
We have an existential climate crisis.
We have food insecurity, fragility, a fledgling pandemic recovery
and conflict that touches lives well beyond the front lines.
This is a perfect storm of intertwined challenges that actually exacerbate inequality.
Meanwhile, in the next ten years, 1.1 billion young people across the global south
will become working-age adults.
In that same period, and in the same countries,
we are only expected to create 325 million jobs.
The cost of inaction is unimaginable in those hundreds of millions of young people's hopes,
ambitions and desires for a better life.
How can we hope to make even adequate progress
with this 600 million people in Africa, 36 million of whom are here in Tanzania,
who still don't have access to reliable electrical connections and supply?
Put simply, we cannot.
Without electricity, there is no social, no economic development.
To confront these intertwined development challenges,
our only option is to respond aggressively, simultaneously and comprehensively.
That is why we have adopted a new vision at the Bank
to create a world free of poverty on a livable planet.
With this vision, what we are trying to do is to widen the aperture of the World Bank and our people,
and at the same time get the demand, get the motivation to demand that we expand the scope of IDA.
Many of you came with the same commitment to purpose.
It is what compelled me to be here and begin this journey of reimagining concessional finance together.
This will be difficult, but if we really want to incentivize change
and help countries with their development goals, we cannot just wish it.
We need to fight for it.
We need to move beyond projects to platforms.
We need to replicate and scale success.
We need to steal shamelessly and share seamlessly.
For example, not too long ago,
I visited a town in Nigeria where IDA had helped fund a mini grid system.
The electricity it generated allowed small farmers to do their work in half the time.
It enabled shopkeepers to accept digital payments
and gave diabetics regular access to climate-controlled insulin.
With the new revenue flowing into the community, the school got a new roof,
street lamps improved safety, and classroom enrollment increased.
That is the real power of electricity.
But this is just one example.
I want to see 100,000, 200,000, half a million more of these kinds of examples.
These benefits and opportunities shouldn't be for the well off or the lucky, or this community and not that.
It should be for everyone.
That is why, with 5 billion dollars from IDA,
we just announced we are on a mission to deliver reliable, affordable, renewable electricity
to 100 million Africans before 2030.
[Audience applauds]
Thank you.
But our ambition comes at a cost.
The truth is, we are pushing the limits of this important concessional resource.
No amount of creative financial engineering will compensate for the fact we just need more funding.
This must drive each of us to make the next replenishment of IDA the largest of all time.
We need everyone, donors, shareholders, philanthropies to step up, join us,
and bring their ambition to the fight.
Otherwise, the potential for IDA will never be realized.
But the change we aspire to achieve cannot just be bought.
We must reform to be faster and more efficient.
We must make good on the World Bank's evolution roadmap
and make IDA more approachable, accessible and understandable.
We have to keep focus on our goal to be better partners and deliver more impact outcomes.
That is more difficult when we require the governments we serve,
who often have limited capacity, to navigate an opaque web of bespoke funds,
each with a unique application process, individual standards and variable allocations.
This overwhelms countries, it makes planning difficult.
It drives attention away from impact and outcomes.
Ultimately, development delayed is development denied.
If we could create fewer funds with more flexibility, streamline standards,
or bring uniformity to the application process, we can give back time.
There are other common-sense reforms that we can pursue together
Over the last ten years, the number of items in IDA that we have been asked to measure
has grown from 120 to more than 1000.
As a result, our team and government spend more time trying to tick the box
than we should be doing to deliver outcomes and results.
That is why the World Bank Group is reconstructing our corporate scorecard from the ground up
with an eye toward impact.
How many girls went to school?
How many people got jobs, better jobs, because of skilling centers we helped to open?
How many greenhouse gas emissions we avoided?
How many private sector dollars we crowd in for every dollar we put in?
If we can extend our focus on outcomes to IDA, we can pull our attention away from paper
and focus on projects and people.
Achieving these reforms will require more from each of us.
Fortunately, responding to these challenges is embedded in our origin.
After Bretton Woods, US Treasury Secretary Morgenthau observed
that the World Bank was the solution to one of the naughtiest problems.
But he also said that solution was made possible because only the goodwill,
good sense and sincerity of all the nations could have found it.
That's the same spirit that is being asked of us now.
Over the next few days,
we will have the opportunity to reflect on IDA's journey and reaffirm ourselves to its founding principles.
Together, we will reimagine what IDA could become and what we could achieve as a result.
We will have the opportunity to commit ourselves to the vision that sparked the creation of IDA,
a vision of the world where poverty is not a barrier to human potential,
but a world where every individual has equal opportunity to thrive.
That's a journey I'm very glad to be on with you.
Thank you all very much.
[Audience applauds]
[Anthony Luvanda]
Thank you very much, Mr. President.
It's a warm welcome to Tanzania and specifically here in Zanzibar.
Ladies and gentlemen, this event is taking place whereby the world, as I said before,
is facing urgent and intertwined crises.
But the World Bank has been an outstanding partner with Tanzania,
investing in projects which transforms the lives and livelihoods of Tanzanians.
I request us to take few minutes once again to watch a video
which elaborates the depth and the breadth of the Tanzanian partnership with IDA
with some projects, some of them specifically in Zanzibar.
[Video on screen text]
Tanzania, a place of beauty and resilience.
A country where the priority… is people.
Tanzania invests in its people, their health, their education, their equality, their jobs, their safety nets.
In short, their human capital to drive country development.
The World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) is supporting these investments.
[H.E. Dr. Samia Suluhu Hassan (in video)] [Speaking foreign language]
[Subtitle translation]
Africa is a commitment with many children and young people.
In demographic terms, this news is both good and bad for us.
The situation can only be good and productive for us if we invest in human resources
by ensuring good health, good education with life skills.
[Nathan Belete (in video)]
We commend the government for prioritizing education in their growth strategy.
Given the population number is increasing in Tanzania, this is absolutely critical.
[Video on screen text]
COVID-19 was a reminder of the importance of resilient systems,
and IDA has been a steadfast supporter of the health sector.
IDA projects also empower women.
[Dorice Msafiri (in video)] [Speaking foreign language]
[Subtitle translation]
I advise women who are interested in joining engineering courses to do so.
Yes, they can be difficult, but if men can pursue them, so can we.
[Video on screen text]
IDA projects expand access to electricity.
[Sophia Mkuya (in video)] [Speaking foreign language]
[Subtitle translation]
Since the arrival of electricity, I sew clothes at night, and I use an electric iron.
I do not use a charcoal iron anymore.
[Video on screen text]
IDA projects bring water to rural communities.
[Herman Mwendowasa (in video)] [Speaking foreign language]
[Subtitle translation]
We have overcome the challenges of dirty water, disease and many other problems.
[Video on screen text]
Tanzania is also on the frontlines of the climate crisis
as the government seeks to protect people and the planet.
IDA supports climate adaptation,
disaster risk management, protection of costal resources and food security with 23 national projects,
5 regional projects, health and nutrition services for 37 million people,
quality education for 8.4 million students, professional development for 180,000 teachers,
mobile broadband for 3 million people, improved sanitation for 6.6 million people,
an upgrade of the sea wall in historic stone town of Zanzibar,
infrastructure investments in 24 cities and towns, 207 kilometers of roads benefitting 4 million people,
and much more.
[H.E. Hussein Mwinyi (in video)]
This project which is called ZESTA (Zanzibar Energy Sector Transformation and Access),
involves putting in a transmission line,
changing from the 32 kV line to 132 kV line across the whole of the Unguja island.
On top of that, we have generation through solar power for about 18 megawatts.
Together with that, we have distribution to the local population
and most of the villages that are remaining without power.
So, for us, this is a big achievement.
[Video on screen text]
IDA is committed to bolstering Tanzania’s resilience.
Together we are creating a livable planet that is free of poverty, for all.
Welcome to the World Bank’s IDA20 Mid-Term Review in Zanzibar.
[Anthony Luvanda]
A big round of applause for the work, well done.
[Audience applauds]
Now ladies and gentlemen, it's my great honor to welcome on this stage for remarks
the ministers of State Finance and Planning of Zanzibar revolutionary government,
Dr. Saada Mkuya Salum, [welcome].
[Audience applauds]
[Saada Mkuya Salum]
Thank you very much.
Luvanda, Your Excellency.
Dr. Hussein Mwinyi, President of Zanzibar
and the Chairman of the Revolutionary Council.
Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank.
Your Excellency, Vice Deputy Prime Minister of Cabo Verde,
who is also chairman of Group 1 constituency of the World Bank,
First Vice President of Zanzibar and the second Vice president.
I have the honor also to recognize the presence of our Chief Justice
and our Chief Secretary of United Republic of Tanzania, but also our deputy minister,
minister of Foreign Affairs and East African cooperation.
But also, I might not forget our honorable Zubeir Ali Maulid,
speaker of the House of Representatives in Zanzibar.
And Your Excellency, I'm taking this special opportunity to actually recognize
the presence of our Regional Commissioner urban region in which this meeting is taking place,
Honorable Idris Kitwana.
Your Excellency, I was given just a few minutes just to put on remarks,
but I'll take a few minutes just to appreciate the good work that has been done to cooperate with others
to ensure that this meeting is a success here in Zanzibar.
Actually, the preparatory journey started back then in Marrakesh this October.
To me, when I was officially announced that this meeting was going to take place in Zanzibar,
it was a time that I could sleep less time compared to all other time.
Probably you might ask yourself, why?
Because under a very strong leadership of His Excellency Dr. Hussein Ali Mwinyi,
it was the time that I had to present the progress of preparation of this meeting.
It's just countless, many times he would ask, “What is the progress?”
Because he himself did not want this meeting to have any faults at all.
Your Excellency, I believe we have met your standard,
and for that actually we had to make some committees in which why I have to mention special efforts
that have been put in by our Regional Commissioner.
It is the very first time I've seen our Regional Commissioner attending meetings like every day.
He is very busy, but he managed to attend these meetings.
We do appreciate your effort and contribution and I would like also to make appreciation,
a special appreciation to the team, the Minister of Finance in Tanzania
and the Minister of Finance in Zanzibar.
We have worked together to ensure that this meeting is really successful,
but also I wouldn't forget the country directed team
who has been in Zanzibar more often like never before.
I appreciate and I'm sure that from now on our cooperation will become stronger than ever.
Your Excellency, during our meeting back in Marrakesh,
I invited all delegates to Tanzania and to Zanzibar and I had to use our national language, Kiswahili.
I'm pretty sure that now they have been very familiar with the word [Welcome to] Zanzibar.
Thank you very much. [Thank you].
[Audience applauds]
[Anthony Luvanda]
Thank you very much, Madam Minister.
Your Excellency, it’s a prime time now
to welcome the Minister of Finance from Tanzania, Dr. Mwigulu Nchemba,
who after delivering remarks will also welcome you on the stage to speak with an audience.
[Speaking foreign language] Welcome.
[Audience applauds]
[Mwigulu Nchemba]
Your Excellency.
Dr. Hussein Mwinyi, president of Zanzibar.
Your Excellency. Dr. Olavo Avelino Garcia [Correia],
Prime Minister and Minister for Finance from Cabo Verde.
Mr. Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank Group.
My colleagues, ministers, deputy ministers here present taking note of my sister,
Dr. Saada [Mkuya Salum], other dignitaries,
I take note of First Vice President, Second Vice President, senior officials,
I take note of CSEs from both mainland and Zanzibar.
My brother, the speaker and all other senior officials.
All the protocols observed, the World Bank officials, government officials,
ladies and gentlemen, a very warm welcome to you here in Zanzibar.
On behalf of everyone in attendance at the IDA20 Review Meetings,
I would like to extend our sincere gratitude and appreciation
for the remarkable words delivered by Mr. Ajay Banga, the President of the World Bank Group.
His insights into complex issues of development and finance,
alongside with forward looking strategies outlined for the International Development Association,
were truly inspiring and have set a tone of optimism and constructive engagement
for the duration of the meeting.
Dear Guests of honor,
we are gathered here today for an event of significant importance,
the Mid-Term Review of the International Development Association's 20th Replenishment,
commonly known as IDA20 Mid-Term Review.
This event marks a critical juncture in our journey towards sustainable development
and actualization of our collective inspiration for economic growth and poverty reduction.
IDA is a major resource of concessional resources that are vital for countries
that have few other means to fund their development.
By providing these resources, IDA enables developing countries to invest in areas
that can have transformative impact on their economies and population,
ultimately contributing to poverty reduction and sustainable development.
Since its establishment, IDA has provided
more than 530 billion U.S. dollars for investment in over 115 countries.
Given its strategic role, it is in most of our developing economies.
It is therefore vividly clear that discussions on the future of IDA
are a necessity in sustaining our hand in the success and increasing the impact of IDA in our countries.
I'm glad that this MTL provides us with an opportunity to reflect on the progress achieved,
reviewing and adjusting of our strategies and addressing emerging challenges
with which we are going to maintain overall effectiveness of IDA
in the mission to alleviate poverty in most vulnerable nations.
Ladies and gentlemen, in Tanzania IDA has over the years supported us
in various areas of equitable and sustainable growth.
To mention a few, energy, transport, education, health, social protection, water, urban resilience, housing,
ICT and good governance.
The IDA20 themes of driving sustainable economic growth,
building resilience and supporting the development of human capital
aligns perfectly with our national priorities.
Our government under Her Excellence,
Dr. Samia Suluhu Hassan, dedication to improving infrastructure,
investing in human capital and promoting good governance
has significantly contributed to our development trajectory.
Ladies and gentlemen, the brilliant guidance of High Excellence, Dr. Samia Suluhu Hassan,
the president of the United Republic of Tanzania,
is a testament to the crucial role that IDA plays in the regional and global development arena.
Her visionary leadership to our country and region has made sustainable trade in fostering inclusivity
and building resilience through various development activities.
The Bank now is a reliable and popular partner, not only in the corridors of the Minister of Finance,
but also in all streets and villages of Tanzania, as demonstrated by requests,
whenever there is a problem where you will see the message, “Minister,
why can't you tell the World Bank you'll hear from them every time there is any challenge,
where there is a bridge, where there is an availability of clean water?”
[speaking foreign language].
What is the idea here?
That is the level.
Thus, as I will definitely be ordered, having heard what has happened in Manyara,
they will tell me every time, “Why can't you tell the World Bank?”
Mr. President of the Bank, can this message save as a reminder and a request
on the ongoing climate change, which needs immediate action,
be a statement and a reminder to you on Tanzanian's request on accessing the climate funds?
Honorable Guests of honor, and before I invite you, allow me to register to the President Ajay Banga,
the maximum levels of engagement and cooperation we are getting from his team.
Let me mention specifically Dr. Victoria Kwakwa.
She has been really instrumental.
We are very happy every time to engage with her on issues concerning our programs
and other economic issues, together with other vice presidents of her level.
Thanks also to the country team led by my brother Belete.
Seriously, these are servants of God, every time value development and the needs of our country,
and they have done perfectly their role.
Ladies and gentlemen, my role today was simply to extend a heartfelt welcome
for esteemed guest and then invite the Guest of honor to officially open our event.
Now, with all respect, allow me with the great honor to invite the Guest of honor
to officially open our event.
[Speaking foreign language].
[Audience applauds]
[Hussein Mwinyi]
Mr. Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank.
Honorable Othman Masoud Othman, First Vice President of Zanzibar.
Honorable Hemed Suleiman Abdalla, Second Vice President of Zanzibar.
Deputy Prime Minister of Cape Verde.
Honorable Zubeir Ali Maulid, speaker of the House of Representatives.
Honorable ministers here present, high commissioners,
ambassadors and members of the diplomatic corps.
IDA deputies, IDA representatives, invited guests, ladies and gentlemen.
On behalf of her excellency Dr. Samia Suluhu Hassan, President of the United Republic of Tanzania,
it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to Tanzania.
Our gratitude goes to the World Bank for accepting Tanzania's offer to host this important meeting.
It is my hope that Zanzibar will provide a conducive environment
for the important work you will undertake during the next three days.
Distinguished delegates, I'm happy to join you for this opening of the IDA20 Mid-Term Review,
whose theme “Building Back Better from the Crisis: Toward a Green, Resilient and Inclusive Future”
resonates well with our recovery efforts.
The global community stands at a critical juncture, faced with a task of not only recovering from crises,
but also reshaping our path forward in a sustainable, resilient and inclusive way.
It is my hope that the discussion during this meeting will be centered on practical strategies
for a resilient and sustainable future.
To build back better, Tanzania has prioritized increased investments in education,
health and other social services, as well as climate-smart agriculture.
We believe with sustainable practices and inclusive policies,
we can build a more robust and equitable foundation for people and the environment.
Distinguished delegates, we appreciate IDA's support
to transforming Tanzania's socioeconomic landscape.
IDA's portfolio has grown substantially
and covers every sector and region in Tanzania, including Zanzibar.
While here, you will also have a unique opportunity
to witness how Tanzania's partnership with IDA is delivering on the ground
by lifting millions out of poverty and driving transformative changes.
To illustrate, IDA's 200 million U.S. dollars support to our rural electrification program
helped Tanzania to achieve one of the fastest access expansion rates in Africa over the past decade.
Though initially targeting 2.5 million people since 2017,
we have ensured access to electricity for more than 4.5 million people,
as well as rural hospitals and schools.
This access has created employment and business opportunities
and improved outcomes for students in remote areas.
This program was so impactful that it attracted additional fund financing of 335 million U.S. dollars
to help realize even better outcomes for rural communities.
In the water sector in less than five years, the 300 million U.S. dollar support package
or the Sustainable Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Program
facilitated accessibility of water to over 4.7 million people, around half of whom are women.
The program further improved access to sanitation facilities for around 6.6 million people,
1,904 healthcare facilities, and 1,095 primary schools.
To ensure sustainability, this program supported
the creation of the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency
and strengthening of community-based water supply organizations.
These were critical steps to improving the coverage,
quality and sustainability of rural water supply services.
Distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen,
Zanzibar is highly urbanized and its economy benefits greatly from cultural tourism.
The Center of Cultural Tourism is the Stone Town, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Zanzibar Urban Service Project received support from IDA amounting to 93 million U.S. dollars
to improve access to urban services and conserve this physical cultural heritage.
Among other things, the project rehabilitated a 340-meter stretch of the sea wall at Stone Town,
which was then at risk of collapse and disrupting ferry transport for trade and tourists.
The project also upgraded Stone Town's main road
and created a lively and vibrant public space for residents and visitors alike.
In doing so, the public seafront, which I hope you will visit,
was conserved and historic structures in Stone Town were protected.
Distinguished delegates, these are some of the projects among many,
including the social safety net support that was provided to Tanzania Social Action Fund.
I've highlighted these few examples to illustrate IDA's contribution
to improving livelihoods of millions of people in Tanzania.
We look forward to our continued cooperation and collaborative efforts going forward.
Distinguished delegates, Tanzania has continued to take measures
to promote economic growth and reduce poverty.
Guided by a philosophy, Her Excellency Dr. Samia Suluhu Hassan refers to as four R's,
namely Reconciliation, Resilience, Reform and Rebuilding.
We have consolidated the political and economic stability that Tanzania is known for.
Given its importance, we are investing to raise the agriculture sector's growth rate
from the current 5% to 10% by 2030 and by extension, increase productivity and uplift communities.
We have launched a program called “Building a Better Tomorrow,”
where the government has supported women and youth
with training and access to land for modern farming and has facilitated the private sector
to contribute finance inputs and value addition of the agricultural outputs.
We thank the World Bank and other partners for their support to this program.
Distinguished delegates, while we celebrate these achievements,
the magnitude of the work that lies ahead is not lost on us.
From climate change, pandemics to economic shocks,
the demands on IDA are as substantial as they have ever been.
IDA20 cycle was the largest replenishment in IDA's history.
As such, it is critical that we forge an ambitious path ahead to complete the current cycle.
However, the success of this Mid-Term Review
lies not just in effectively implementing the remainder of IDA20,
but crucially in laying the foundation for an equally ambitious IDA21 Replenishment
with additional contribution to increased support to IDA countries.
Let's remind ourselves that while Sub-Saharan Africa has experienced periods of economic growth,
contributing to increase per capita income and poverty reduction,
these achievements have not been sufficient.
Due to the recent global shocks,
the growth has fallen short of making a substantial dent in extreme poverty and boosting prosperity.
As it stands, the poverty level in the region remains alarmingly high, hovering at 37.6% in 2023.
Furthermore, the number of people living in deprivation has also increased.
Distinguished delegates, I would like to recognize IDA's model of efficiency,
which minimizes transaction costs through the scale,
concession and predictability of its financing and leveraging on each dollar of donor contribution.
As such, our plea to the World Bank Group and partners is to strengthen support
to better ensure IDA countries achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
As we roll out the African Continental Free Trade Area
to enhance competitiveness and job creation through regional integration and trade,
we believe IDA and IFC need to increase support to foster a thriving private sector.
Central to this is integrating African business into global value chains and attracting FDIs.
This approach demands a blend of finance and risk mitigation,
particularly crucial for derisking investments in IDA economies.
To this end, we are convinced that the private sector window
will serve as a critical catalyst for private investments.
Distinguished delegates, finding and supporting innovative solution
in response to the climate crisis is key towards a greener future.
For instance, during the COP28 in Dubai,
Tanzania spearheaded the launch of the African Women Clean Cooking Support Program,
a gender responsive energy transition approach in Africa.
The program seeks to empower women across Africa
through the transition to clean fuels and technologies.
It will also help us reduce emissions and reduce use of biomass fuels which impact on our environment.
Her Excellency Samia Suluhu Hassan has committed to champion this agenda
along with other heads of states and partners.
I believe we need to continue advocating for innovative solutions
to guide us towards a more environmentally sustainable future.
Distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen,
to conclude my remarks on behalf of Her Excellency Dr. Samia Suluhu Hassan,
President of the United Republic of Tanzania, once again,
I wish to welcome you all to Zanzibar and to Tanzania.
Rest assured of our government's unwavering commitment and support
to the important work that IDA is undertaking to ensure that we can build back better.
With these words, I wish you fruitful deliberations.
It is my honor now to declare this meeting officially open.
Thank you.
[Audience applauds]
[Anthony Luvanda]
Thank you very much.
Mr. President.
Can I request that you remain on this stage?
Mr. President, can I request you men on this stage and request the President of the World Bank
and the two ministers, Dr. Saada and Dr. Mwigulu to be ready for the photo?
The rest of us may be seated, please.
Members of the press, you are free now to take the group photo, please.
Thank you very much.
Can I now request the two presidents to remain,
President Mwinyi and President Banga, please stay.
And it is encouraged all of us to remain seated and President Banga, please remain on this stage.
We can give the biggest round of applause for Mr. President.
[Audience applauds]
Thank you, you may all be seated, please.
Ladies and gentlemen, as the president exits, as I recommended, you are requested to remain seated.
Now it's my great pleasure to welcome on this stage to join President Banga
is Lord Mark Malloch-Brown in the conversation on fireside chat.
Please, welcome.
[Mark Malloch-Brown]
Good morning to everybody.
While I was traveling here yesterday,
I ran into a Northern European IDA delegate who I think asked me with good cause,
“Why are you having something called a fireside chat
in the middle of the Tanzanian summer in the morning?”
Perhaps the only good explanation is it allows an informality
in contrast with the very important formal opening we've just had.
I feel I carry a great burden on behalf of all of you because I have the opportunity
to put the questions to Ajay that many of you, I suspect, will want to hear his answers to.
Let me just say, as somebody who is a former World Bank Vice President myself,
I do feel very, very strongly that you carry a burden of history in this room today.
When an IDA is successfully relaunched, when big development priorities announced,
whether it is now the SDGs or formerly the MDGs, if we are successful in mobilizing resources,
hundreds of millions of lives are affected.
In many cases saved, in other cases improved.
It all seems very anonymous out there, but it really matters, let me tell you this.
Thank you all for coming to Zanzibar and joining Ajay and his team here.
Ajay, if I may, you talk of a perfect storm of intertwined challenges and geopolitical complexity.
You did, again, in your opening remarks today, [audio cuts out] a little bit more, perhaps,
about what IDA can do to respond to that and where you see IDA's place in that.
[Ajay Banga]
First of all, Mark, thank you for your years of being such an active voice
in so many different ways in the world of development.
I have known you for some years.
I've seen you in many different [unintelligible].
But the one that strikes me always is the one that brings out the best in you
is the advocacy for development, so thank you.
My issue with the intertwined challenges is very simple.
I believe that the idea of segregating the fight on poverty and sharing prosperity,
essentially the idea of fighting inequality cannot be taken separately
from the challenges of nature and climate, from the challenges of fragility, conflict and violence,
from the challenges of food insecurity, or from any of these issues, like pandemics.
They are all intertwined.
I've said this many times,
but having grown up in India and having been a part of what now is called, unfortunately,
the Global South, a term that I don't like, but let's say the emerging or developing world,
is that when you rely on rainfall for agriculture,
and if you get two to three crops in a year because of abundant rain,
the moment you have three to four years, like in Kenya right now, it's the fifth year of low rainfall.
Basically, what that means is a farmer with two crops is down to one.
If you're down to one, you no longer can afford the cattle.
That dairy income goes off.
You no longer have the farming labor, and you get your children out of school.
Typically, you start with your girl child.
All the effort made in the theory of evolution of poverty fighting,
which said, let's get the girl out of the farm into school,
because then it gives her the opportunities for an equal life,
that gets setback by four to five years of climate-related challenges.
We cannot segregate these.
The problem is that in the Global South, that term,
people are frustrated with those of us who they feel have caused this to happen to them.
They're at the receiving end of this problem in terms of climate and challenges.
Therefore, their requirement and their desire to be able to find a way to grow is as strong as ever.
But the reality is we cannot afford the same kind of emissions-heavy growth
that we've already been through.
The air is fungible.
We're all breathing it.
It's a shared planet.
The only way to get past this is to not just say that we will all go to renewable energy.
That's just one aspect of climate.
There are all these other aspects, from agriculture and methane,
to heavy construction materials, to heavy transportation, to carbon capture,
to the points that really matter to the Global South are irrigation water, rainfall, soil degradation,
lack of biodiversity, all that.
We have to find a way to get these two things together.
You cannot do this for the Global South that is already challenged
with economic growth challenges post COVID-19,
with debt that currently reduces their ability to focus on developmental agendas.
All those consequences.
You cannot fix this without the right kind of capital at the right price.
That's where IDA plays the single most important role.
[Mark Malloch-Brown]
Thank you for that.
I want to pick up right where you ended there,
because one of the aspects of a perfect storm is perfect demands on resources.
Two wars roiling our world at the moment in the Middle East and in Ukraine.
Massive debt distress.
50%, I think, of IDA countries risk debt distress, rising costs of borrowing, which affect, by the way,
even the way the Bank stretches itself to fund IDA.
The cost of those bond issuances is going up sharply.
In this context, where perhaps for many of the delegates here,
the most important is one I've not even mentioned,
which is their own domestic financial situation with very compressed aid budgets, et cetera.
In that context, what is the compelling case about money for IDA
versus all these other demands on them?
[Ajay Banga]
I don't think you can ever tell a donor country
that you shouldn't be concerned about your domestic populations.
That would be far from what I'm saying.
What I am saying is that if you give a dollar to IDA,
every dollar you give ends up being four in the case of IDA's outlays.
That is a multiplier factor that is very, very unique and very helpful.
First.
Second, the Bank is not just a money bank, it is a knowledge bank.
The knowledge bank is the value that a lot of countries seek from us,
the ability to understand how to deal with human capital, planetary issues, prosperity issues,
infrastructure issues, and digital issues.
I think those two factors put together make IDA quite unique.
I will tell you, while you were talking about debt for a minute, in the G20 Common Framework on Debt,
four countries volunteered to come into it to have their debt addressed.
Now, it's taken a lot of time for them to come through the pipe, and the first country took the longest,
the second one's a little better.
It's still too long.
But the four that went in were Zambia, Ghana, Chad and Ethiopia.
In the last three years since they entered the Global Framework,
the World Bank has given them 12 billion dollars of financing.
Six grants, six deeply concessional, seven of the twelve is net positive flows.
That is IDA at work for the most challenged countries.
It's not just about climate, it's also about being there
when you have no other resource to count upon to keep going.
I think the idea of leverage, the idea of the knowledge bank,
the idea of years of experience can be shared.
The kind of people in the Bank whose subject matter expertise
and whose experience in the most complicated markets is an invaluable asset
to countries with limited capacity to implement things on their own.
These are all the factors put together that create what IDA is.
It's magic of partnership and quality and funding at the right price, with leverage is the secret sauce.
[Mark Malloch-Brown]
That is the word, isn't it?
Secret sauce, because there is something special about IDA.
A lot of my colleagues asked me why I wasn't going to COP and coming to Zanzibar instead.
I said to them, “Because the road to a successful COP in Dubai lies through Zanzibar.”
It really is that the success of an IDA Replenishment is absolutely key
to holding together the coalition at COP in favor of climate change.
If poor countries feel that either their own climate needs,
but more particularly their interrelated poverty needs, are being left unaddressed at the end of the queue,
behind COP, behind Ukraine, behind all the other demands on the public purse,
the political consequences, I think, will be huge.
But if I may, Ajay, this room represents in some ways
the most interesting development coalition there is out there, because you've got,
I think it's 74 IDA borrowing, grant-receiving countries.
But now you've got 58 donor countries,
including a number who are themselves ex-IDA beneficiaries.
In that sense, it is, I think, the most significant development cooperative in the world
because they sit in the same room together as partners, not as donors and recipients.
I wonder, in a way, what your message to your IDA partners here is about how they can,
in a sense, project on your behalf a vision of a kind of new, if you like,
cooperative coalition of donors and beneficiaries to sort of transform development finance
into the kind of partnership rather than the sort of, if you like, post-colonial relationship
that it's often been for so many countries.
[Ajay Banga]
26, actually, out of the 54 donor countries were prior IDA recipients.
That just tells you that that's IDA at work.
It's what the donors wanted, it's what they're getting.
Let me step back for a second and talk about two different things.
We are on the continent of Africa where 70% of IDA money goes.
The reality is, while there are challenges in Latin America and Asia,
a number of those countries have developed and grown over the years.
Africa is still the continent where a lot of this effort has been put in.
I speak of Africa with great respect because I've been coming here for a long time
and I believe that Africa's young population, combined with rich mineral resources,
sun, water, air, arable land, you know, the whole, everybody talks about that story.
It's here.
The thing is those young people must have quality of life when they're growing up.
They must have health and education; they must have clean air and clean water.
When they grow up, they must have jobs.
If they don't have these two things,
this is not a demographic dividend.
It will become a very serious demographic challenge.
Time is not on our side for that effort.
As donors and recipients,
this sense of urgency that I feel from the optimism of the young,
which is dying to be converted to a positive force,
while it could well be the opposite if we don't put our shoulders to the wheel as hard as we can,
is going to be quite important.
In Africa, to me, if we were to dissipate our efforts
into small programs of different sizes, doing the right things in every country,
irrespective of trying to find prioritizing to move the needle the most forward,
then we are doing ourselves a disservice.
If you think about Africa, the first thing it needs is power, electricity.
If you cannot connect people to power,
there is no form of social and economic development that can deliver results.
600 million people on this continent without power.
I've been hearing these numbers for years.
We need to change that.
You heard me talk about 100 million by 2030 that we're going to go with,
and Anna and her team have come up with this plan with a large slug of funding from IDA,
but also from public and private sectors.
The question really is why not 200, why not 300?
How much time do you think we have to get to the other 500 billion young people
before their foiled aspirations lead to fractures in society?
That's one issue, power.
The second one is jobs.
Now, that requires lots of investments in different kinds of human capital,
skilling institutes, entrepreneurial institutes.
I visited when I was a candidate an entrepreneurial innovation institute with climate-related innovation
in Nairobi, founded by the World Bank and the EU, among others.
Outstanding.
3000 businesses had been through it, 60% of them led by women.
Great success stories.
Employment has been created.
My question is, why the one?
Why not 30 of those?
Where is the scalability and replicability of prioritizing ideas that we all should be doing?
Jobs require focus on a few things, but also prioritizing them.
The third one has to do with trade.
Africa gets 20% of its trade from within African trade.
Asia is 60%, Europe is 70%.
This is not a new issue, it's not a secret to people in the room.
It can be fixed.
But it's going to require ambition to chase down the big ideas that could convert internal trade to happen.
If you grow food in this continent and the best way to send it to another country is via Shanghai,
there is something wrong with the way we are doing the trade.
That's the third issue.
The fourth one is Africa's richness of mineral resources.
If all that is done is they are extracted and sent elsewhere, that's not good enough.
Value added manufacturing on the ground in Africa of those minerals,
which are critical to the energy transition is a key part of this future.
In the same way, medicines and devices must be made in Africa, for Africa.
We cannot be the continent that waits for one and a half years to get access to vaccines.
These are four or five priority things if you talk to local people, between power, jobs,
trade and the ability to be masters of their own resources.
I believe these are things we have to deliver on.
Digitization is an enabler of a unique type.
But Mark, to me, these are priorities we cannot take our eyes off.
[Mark Malloch-Brown]
I'm sure everybody in the room would concur with that.
Let me press you a bit, Ajay, on how IDA works.
I mean, we're getting towards IDA21.
It is a sort of feature of development finance now over many, many years.
I'm old enough to remember early IDAs, and in a way it's like our favorite aunt.
We take it for granted and it's a familiar feature of the family.
But I think it's time that we give the aunt some high heels and some new clothes, actually.
The reason I say that we talk about the debt situation in Africa.
Let me just take the case of Tanzania's neighbor Kenya.
Kenya now has a debt problem, but at a critical moment like Ghana,
because of access to the Eurobond market,
it preferred to borrow money at three times the points and a much steeper repayment period
from Eurobonds than it did from IDA.
The reason it got that money quickly,
it didn't have heavy conditionality.
It responded to the government's immediate democratic needs
within the lifetime of that democratic government before it faced elections again.
One of the frustrations many have with IDA is its relative slowness from project to disbursement.
A second, if I may, I think difficulty has been the sort of projectization of a lot of what it does,
rather than working with countries on their program and their leadership of the program.
I know that IDA's team really want to change that.
A third problem is perhaps around the allocation,
where it's kind of easy and safer to give it to the countries with strong governance.
Yet increasingly you've got fragile and failing states.
That clearly is going to be a central part of IDA21 and how you operate in that environment.
My point really is I think there's some refashioning, relaunching, reengineering issues,
which I'm sure will get brought up in these two days discussion.
But I wonder whether you could sort of give a sense of your views about those issues.
[Ajay Banga]
I kind of mentioned this in my opening remarks,
but as an outsider coming in some months ago into the Bank,
what surprised me was the multiplicity of things we were trying to measure ourselves to,
and the unfortunate part that most of those were inputs rather than outcomes.
At the World Bank level as a whole, our corporate scorecard has 150 something items.
We've ended up that way for good intentions.
Donor countries, donors have said, this is important for me, and I need to have this measure.
“This is important for me.”
I understand the logic.
The problem is, at the end of the day,
we've ended up with a complex web which creates the slowness of getting things through
and the different challenges for transparency and understanding
of how to get access to those funds by anybody outside of the community.
That is not our friend, that is our enemy in this kind of a fight.
If these countries had the capacity to deal with the complexity that we are creating for them,
they would probably not be in the situation they are.
I think we have to step back a little bit, struggle with this issue.
It's not going to be easy, but struggle with it and find ways to simplify
what we are trying to do to make it easier and more transparent.
Nobody, no one can find a way to be successful when you're measured at 153 different inputs.
It is not possible.
By the way, it also dilutes the ability to hold people to task, because with 153,
I'm talking about the World Bank level, at the IDA level, it's 1000.
At the World Bank level, it's 153.
No one can be held to task with 153.
In my prior private sector life, we used to joke that if I give you so many objectives,
you will always be successful because you will find at least 20, 30 of them where you've done well.
We have to change this together.
That is a sincere request.
It's not just the funding, it's the need to be more efficient.
It starts with this, but it's also inside the institution.
Some of our processes, some of our ways of dealing with the kinds of things we are trying to do,
have to change and evolve to the concept that speed is of the essence.
Across the Bank as a whole, it takes us 27 months from the time to start conceiving a product
for the first dollar to go out.
Some of that we can fix.
Some of that we have to work with countries and their systems to fix.
But the answer of 27 months is the wrong answer.
It's just not okay.
To me, the efficiency call is as important as the funding call.
[Mark Malloch-Brown]
There's always an element of poker when it comes to IDA in that I've seen over many rounds of IDA,
nobody quite puts their cards on the table about how big an IDA they want next, what the number is.
It's a moment when you've put it out there, you're pinned to it forever.
Anything less isn't a success.
I'm sure it's premature in that sense to show that card, to show a number.
But I think what we can say is this IDA is different from the last couple of IDAs, by which I mean IDA21
because the acceleration of IDA 20, the ambition it had 19 and 20 over the COVID-19 period
and the beginning of the polycrises period means that there's no way around it.
IDA21 has to have increased donor resources.
The Bank simply can't stretch the arithmetic to do it on its own.
It's maybe been its own worst enemy by being too successful
in getting that four to one leverage or three to one, because now it really is time for the donors to step up.
What is your message to the donors in this room?
What do they need to think about in terms of proportionate increases
would you anticipate for the next IDA?
[Ajay Banga]
Let me add one more thing before I get to that point.
Let's remember that we all thought that by 2030 we would have solved the world's problems.
We also should remember we're not going to do it.
That is clear.
That concept of 2030 was inbuilt in the way we were allowing the discretionary capital in IDA to run down.
But guess what?
It's time to realize that's not happening.
If we want this to continue, in a way,
this is the time as well to rethink that trajectory.
We've actually got two challenges.
It's the challenge of keeping the volume scale grant concessionality framework of IDA
at the level of being able to compete with the perfect storm of challenges
that we spoke about at the beginning.
Then there's the issue that we had factored in some kind of thinking
about when the world would be in a better place.
The reality is, if anything, the world's complexities have taken us in the wrong direction.
The G20 Expert Framework laid out a number that said we should triple the size of IDA.
I think that is interesting and useful.
I don't think that's a practical thing to expect
given the competing demands on everyone's fiscal headroom.
However, the fact is that IDA funding from donor countries
has gone down or been flat for the last 20 years.
The only reason IDA looks bigger than it did 20 years ago is because of that four to one leverage.
That is reaching the limits of its creativity.
One needs to keep in mind, therefore,
that just coming back to the level of prior IDAs has many challenges,
including leveragability, but also the issue of the decline that we were seeing, the 2030 idea.
Where I am is that if I could turn the tide on donor contributions
such that they were up instead of being flat or down,
if they began to go back up by 20% to 25% over where they were going down,
the leverage of four-to-one allows you, and I don't mean this to happen only in this meeting,
but the idea of the ambition is to turn the tide on that decline upward,
and then use the four-to-one and work even harder to make it something more than four-to-one
without going past the high-water mark.
What will be acceptable?
That is where we have to go.
[Mark Malloch-Brown]
That's, I think very helpful.
Look, in a closing remark and question,
IDA for many years was very much the World Bank's thing.
I use the analogy of the aunt.
You're now our favorite aunt to all of us, the global family.
You've become the central function and feature of concessionary finance for the poorest countries.
There's no other show in town, and yet the G7 donor countries and others keep on finding
new, fashionable places to put their money and don't do that 25% ratcheting up
that you hope for and anticipate.
Somehow my suggestion is IDA needs to become owned by all of us.
Everybody in this room has to think of this as not just the World Bank's IDA, but our IDA.
A common global goal that all of us share in, like an SDG or an MDG, something which is ours, not yours.
I wonder how people like myself and the philanthropic community, the wider civil society,
as well as the official representatives, the private sector,
what your message to all of us is about how we can come join you
to make IDA that democratic property of all of us.
[Ajay Banga]
I believe that we shouldn't get disheartened by this perfect storm of challenges.
I believe we are capable of stepping up to them and solving for them.
I believe that that optimism is what must permeate the way we approach IDA together.
It is about solving for the world we want our children to enjoy because that's what we're all here for.
I know everyone's got a tough job to do to balance competing demands on their needs and money.
Know that you know that no World Bank President has come to a Mid-Term Review of IDA.
None.
I am here, and I've only been in the job six months.
You will see me again.
Because to me, IDA is absolutely the foundation of lifting nations
who have no other opportunity and take them to a new level.
We can bring and expect private sector money,
which is finally where money has to come from in large numbers,
but they cannot come unless the infrastructure and foundations, the rail tracks,
so to say, for the railroad, are laid properly.
IDA is the rail track.
IDA is the foundation.
IDA is what we all can stand on together.
It's important to all of us.
It's important to philanthropies.
Your voice counts.
Your generosity counts.
Your willingness to take a hard decision to help us simplify and improve the efficiency of IDA counts.
Everything you do counts.
You should know we will always be grateful for that, not just we in the Bank, but we as people.
Thank you very much.
[Mark Malloch-Brown]
Ajay, look, thank you for being the first World Bank President to come to a Mid-Term Review like this
and show your leadership and support for this.
I think my closing observation to all of you,
as somebody who's worked on your sides of the table as well as now on the civil society side,
is widen the table.
Make room for all the actors at the table.
Make this our IDA.
Because I think that is a huge opportunity.
We have to have a global movement to say if we don't fund development for the poorest countries,
then in a sense we're undermining all of our ambitions
from over the water there in Dubai at the moment at COP to the wider ambitions
for a peaceful world for all of us.
Thank you for your leadership, Ajay.
As someone who's at the end of his trajectory of leadership in these circles,
I envy you that you've only got six months under your belt
and I hope many more years ahead of you as President of the World Bank.
We all look forward to the leadership and vision you're going to offer us.
Thank you.
[Audience applauds]
[Anthony Luvanda]
We thank you both for exciting insight that you've given us.
We are going to have a 45 minutes break, a networking break,
and we'll come back here at 10:45 East African time.
Thank you.
Welcome back and I believe you had a [unintelligible] time.
For those also joining us all over the world through World Bank Live and locally.
The vision that we have heard about this morning discussion takes a village to realize
that partnerships are the key to the ending poverty on a livable planet.
On that note, it is my great honor now to welcome the moderator and the panelists
led by Dr. Victoria Kwakwa, Vice President of Eastern and Southern Africa at the World Bank.
Ladies and gentlemen, the biggest round of applause for them, please.
[Audience applauds]
[Victoria Kwakwa]
Good morning, everybody.
Good morning, everybody.
Good, that's much better.
Okay, as you've heard the MC say, my name is Victoria Kwakwa.
I'm the Regional Vice President for Eastern and Southern Africa at the World Bank.
I'm really pleased to welcome all of you to this very important IDA Mid-Term Review.
Every IDA Mid-Term Review is really important.
We review the first half of the particular cycle and we launch the next.
In this one, we'll be reviewing the first half of IDA20 and launching IDA21.
As I said, each one is important, but this one is super important.
It's super important as you've heard in the opening remarks by both the president of Zanzibar,
the president of the World Bank, of the multiple crises that we need to find solutions to,
and also the bigger ambition that we need to have and indeed we have,
the countries have, the World Bank has, the partners have.
All that we're doing here is so important and I really want to thank all of you for being here,
for making the time, recognizing the critical importance of this Mid-Term Review.
A warm welcome and thank you very much for being here.
I also want to share our condolences to the government and people of Tanzania
for the floods and the loss of life and property, the damage.
This is evidence of the real importance of building resilience,
which is a part of the theme for this Mid-Term Review.
We're talking about the right things, and we're trying to do the right things in IDA.
On our side, our team, headed by country director Nathan Belete,
are really looking at the needs coming out of these floods
and working closely with our government counterparts to see how the existing portfolio
can support a robust response for this unfortunate situation.
Let's come to the panel, and I'm really honored, I'm happy to be leading, sorry, moderating this panel.
As you've seen in the program, this is a panel on partnerships.
Partnerships are at the core of IDA.
IDA is about partnerships.
IDA has been successful to date because we've had strong partnerships,
strong partnerships between all the stakeholders,
the World Bank and the developing countries that benefit from IDA, the World Bank
and countries that are supporting developing countries by giving contributions to IDA,
other players, other UN agencies or other partners, the civil society groups.
All of us are a partnership, and we have a strong partnership.
But as I said, this is a critical moment for development.
We have so much to achieve, to fight, to address, and we want a bigger ambition as well.
These partnerships must work even better, must be even stronger to achieve what we want to achieve.
We can't be complacent.
It's good that we're discussing partnerships today.
I really welcome our panelists.
I want to thank you all for agreeing to be part of this panel.
We welcome your different perspectives on this particular important topic.
Let me first just formally introduce you.
Your Excellency, Olavo Correia,
Vice Prime Minister and Finance Minister of Cabo Verde and head of the Small States Forum.
Vice Prime Minister, thank you so much for being here.
Dr. Monique Nsanzabaganwa, Deputy Chairperson of the Africa Union, who is joining us by zoom.
Dr. Monique, thank you so much for being here.
Really appreciate you taking the time out of a busy schedule.
Then Your Excellency, Ryadh Mohammed Alkhareif,
the Deputy Minister of International Affairs of Saudi Arabia.
Thank you for being here.
And Mark Malloch-Brown, president of the Open Society Foundation.
Thank you.
A warm welcome to all of you.
We'll get into our discussions shortly.
I wanted to say that this is being broadcast publicly and welcome all of you to tweet
using the hashtag #IDAworks.
Thank you.
I'll start with you, Vice Prime Minister
and ask you the question about why you're such a passionate advocate of IDA.
In Marrakesh, for example, you spoke about the fact that the African continent
is poised or primed for economic transformation and IDA is the support,
IDA is driving and IDA is positioning countries to move in this direction.
We welcome your strong advocacy for IDA.
You're an important partner.
If you could share with us a little bit of why you're such a strong advocate
and what makes you speak so credibly and so passionately about IDA.
[Olavo Correia]
Let me speak French.
Thank you, Victoria.
[unintelligible] translation.
[Speaking French]
[Interpreter]
Thank you very much for this invitation.
I would like to salute the organization of this event, the World Bank.
I'd like to salute the government of Tanzania to convene this meeting.
Also, I'd like to address my condolences to the Tanzanian people.
Our president, the World Bank President,
asked how much time do we have to solve these challenges that we have?
The answer is clear, we do not have time.
We do not have time.
It's urgent because when we try to see the figure,
we are many and we have more than 900 million people in Africa that do not have power
and 3 billion in the world.
They do not have access to power for their kitchens.
Billions of people do not have water.
They do not have safe water.
Water is life.
2 billion people do not have access to water.
And 4.5 billion people in the world, they do not have sanitization.
It's about 5 billion of people.
You see, it's 1.7 billion in the world.
They do not have a funding.
The World Bank President said we have the case in Africa.
The power, trades and employment and the industrializations of Africa are the keys.
We have these challenges.
We have to see the figures in Africa.
It's about 6 billion U.S. dollars of resources in Africa.
It’s 50% of arable growth.
We have 5 billion dollars with Africa.
The point is the challenge that we have in Africa and the world, it's not only about money.
The main question to my viewpoint, it's the governance.
We need to change the governance.
We need to change the types of the skills.
We need to change the impact to the population.
If we do not touch the governance, even if we have resources,
we cannot solve the challenges that we have.
It's not just a small improvement every year.
No, we cannot say to reduce, we need to eradicate poverty and we need to change.
I think another concern is the emergency that we have.
We need to act urgently to the government side and also in African countries and other countries.
We also need the funding to be based on the result, the impact on the population.
We need that difference, even the small countries, even the island.
We need to change the skill and the velocity,
and the creation of employment for youth and women in Africa and in the world.
I think that is the message of the President of the World Bank.
It must be the music for us, creation of employment, because the employment and climate,
these are the major terms in the future.
If we are not able to create employment in Africa,
if we create 1.7 million jobs every year, I think we can solve it.
If we do not, it will be an atomic bomb for Africa.
It's very important for us and we need to use the energy of youth, women in Africa.
We need to change the approach and institutions and we need to put the funding and before all,
we need to change the governance because it does not come from outside.
It's something that must come from within our country to develop.
We need the support of other people.
If we do not change, we cannot meet the goals that we have set.
As the President of the World Bank said,
I hope that all of us are going to work together in partnership so that we can solve it.
I think the emergency and the velocity and the governance must be better.
We have to base result on this approach and the specificity of countries.
Thank you very much.
[Victoria Kwakwa]
Thank you very much, Vice Prime Minister.
What I heard you say is that as African governments,
partners and central to IDA, you need to bring in even better governance,
strong governance in the partnership and in your implementation of the support of IDA.
And bring in a sense of urgency, speed and all of us work in a partnership
that considers scale and results in our work.
Thank you very much.
Now let me go to you, Dr. Monique Nsanzabaganwa.
We all know that the AU is the major political institution for the region, for the continent,
and IDA is working closely with the AU on several issues
and trying to bring this as a basis for some of the regional integration and other development objectives.
Dr. Nsanzabaganwa, as Deputy Chairperson for the African Union Commission,
how does IDA's mission align with yours as a regional organization?
Thank you.
Over to you.
[Monique Nsanzabaganwa]
Thank you so much, my dear sister Victoria.
Nice to see you again.
And thank you for accommodating me to participate in the panel.
I must start by standing on all protocols in the interest of time
and also thank the President of Zanzibar, the President of the World Bank
for their leadership and the strong message that was put across in earlier sessions.
We were blessed at the African Union Commission to host the President,
which I think was one of the first trips he made outside World Bank headquarters after assuming office.
It was indeed a very strong signal.
The chairperson of the African Union Commission,
his Excellency Moussa Faki Mahamat, welcomed him and his delegation
and the meeting was focusing on opportunities to strengthen the partnership, keyword being partnership.
I like it so much.
Of course, we already have a strong partnership with the World Bank,
which now has grown tenfold over the last ten years to 250 million
and ranging from areas such as regional integration,
agriculture and food resilience systems support the implementation
of the statistics strategy for the continent, for instance.
Health and support to the African citizens for our health of the range of the continent,
The issues of women empowerment and youth and institutional capacity,
including supporting us in digital transformation as an institution or an organization.
I would say that there is already that alignment,
especially that the two organizations look at issues of eradicating poverty,
supporting sustainable economic development, regional integration and cooperation,
infrastructure development and so on and so forth.
But my submission will be that of course, the biggest room ever is the room for improvement.
We are here in the IDA20 Mid-Term Review
to see what could be done to even make this partnership stronger.
You know that we have Agenda 2063
and we are about to launch the second Ten Year Implementation Plan of this agenda,
which will be adopted at the summit that is coming up in February, next year, 2024.
This agenda clarifies the seven main shocks.
What we want to see we want to see every nation,
every nation of the continent to achieve at least the middle-income status.
Some countries are already there and even beyond,
but we want at least all of the 55 member states to be in that status at least.
We need to see more integration, which is also physical integration, infrastructure, energy,
transport of all modes, including air transport and so on and so forth.
Digital transformation, connectivity, that's what we need, electricity to be implemented.
We need also our public institutions to be more responsive, more well governed
and responsive to the citizens’ needs.
We need issues of Africa resolving its conflict more amicably,
the nexus between security, peace, development, environment.
We want to tighten it even more and see results from the ground.
In this second Ten Year Implementation Plan,
we needed to touch on issues of our culture as our identities as a country,
our creative industry, how are we harnessing diaspora and the people of African descent?
We need also to see more citizens empowered and resourced,
including access to education, health care, issues of inclusion for women, youths,
disabled and other demographics, issues of skill development for residents.
Then we need a strong and influential Africa which claims its role on the global arena,
where we need to see issues of reform of international financial institutions,
issues of debt, issues of how we are even reforming the governance of the World Bank
and how the World Bank, for instance, is responsive to development issues.
We are talking of this reallocation of SDRs and many other issues.
Issues of debt, issues of rating, how are we measuring progress on our continent?
How can we be having really issues of climate finance resolved?
And so on and so forth.
There is already alignment for the programs that support the African Union in general
and also our Member States, issues of also how we monitor and gather, collect knowledge,
where statistics comes in as a key component of such.
I would say that there is already alignment,
but I wish to seek more deliberate alignment and also some strategic coherence at the continental level.
Because IDA supports membership, but the value added of the African Union
is also to bring that continental coherence so that the value for money is increased,
the efficiency and effectiveness of IDA is maximized, and the Agenda 2063 is offering that framework
so that we see how we push this continental agenda,
which is domesticated within member states in a coherent manner.
We need to see the governance around the continental level.
I like the fact that you have involved the African Union in this Mid-Term Review,
which is to my knowledge maybe the first time we are engaging with the IDA
and the Member States and the World Bank and all the stakeholders in this platform.
Because we need to harness that strategic coherence at the continental level and then at the regional,
what we call regional within the AU is the race, the regional blocks,
the eight of the regional blocks that are building blocks of the African Union.
How do we build that from member states to regional blocks then to the continental?
We are having frameworks like division of labor, how we are supporting our member states,
but also how are we harnessing those cross-border issues and continental issues?
I think we need to strengthen that alignment at the strategic, continental and regional level.
But I already like that the alignment, especially also the vision of our leadership,
which is really 100% aligned.
I wish to thank you.
Maybe I may come back if needed.
Thank you, Victoria.
[Victoria Kwakwa]
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Monique.
Thank you for confirming the alignment between what IDA is doing
and the AU Commission's Strategic Vision Agenda 2063.
Thank you for the suggestions that you've made for an approach that perhaps is more integrated,
coordinated and more coherent from country, regional to continental level.
Thank you.
Now let me turn to another valued member of the partner community,
Deputy Minister Alkhareif of Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia works with many development organizations
and you've been increasing your support to IDA, for which we're truly grateful and we're looking for more.
I'm keen to hear from you why you're increasing, what drives this increase
and I guess also the future increases that you're going to give.
What's behind this?
[Ryadh Mohammed Alkhareif]
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Victoria.
At the outset, let me join all of you in expressing our condolences for Tanzanian government
and people for the loss caused by the natural disaster.
You raised an excellent question and I have a very simple answer for that.
We basically support IDA for three reasons.
Number one, we fully support the financial resources of IDA.
You have the wallet, you are having the best world class support to a lot of countries in the region.
I think the Minister raised a lot of concerns
and I think institutions like IDA will provide and deploy capital efficiently.
Every dollar that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia supports IDA, it is multiplied by more than four times.
This is a smart investment for development assistance.
Number two, you have the knowledge and the brains.
Talking to a lot of IDA colleagues,
we see a deep expertise in providing high quality infrastructure investments.
You have more colleagues on the ground dealing with locals, understanding their needs.
I think the Minister raised a lot of excellent and super inclusive comments
on the basic needs of water, electricity, energy, clean cooking and the list goes on.
having the World Bank colleagues on the ground interacting with governments and locals
is very unique and this is very inclusive.
The last but not least, I think IDA has the heart.
Looking at Ajay coming here today for the Mid-Term Review,
looking at the senior management around the table,
it is sending the right message for a lot of countries and their recipients
that management are really keen to drive change.
When we see management of the IDA and the World Bank in general,
we can feel the bright future for the recipient countries.
Don't take my word,
you have a good track record of countries that used to be recipients and now they are a donor.
This is a real success story that we see value.
When we look at the Kingdom, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a long-standing supporter
to the World Bank and other NDBs.
We are by far the largest Arab donor
as well as in the MENA region we provide a lot of support.
We are considered to be agile for countries affected by conflicts,
natural disasters and other humanitarian crises.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will be always in the forefront of support.
For the World Bank, we have provided more than 8 billion dollars.
More than 40% of that is allocated to IDA.
If you look at the last replenishment of IDA,
we contributed 700 million dollars.
This is almost twice as much as we provided in the previous one.
But also, if you look at the 19 IDA replenishment,
that amount used to be as much as quadruple of the previous ones.
The Kingdom Saudi Arab’s support to IDA, you can say it's exponential.
We are putting a lot of money, a lot of resources for the benefit of countries of the membership.
I would like just to conclude with one example from the creditor point of view,
and I think this is very important, and other speakers have mentioned this.
A lot of countries during crisis, including the COVID-19 crisis, they have faced constrained fiscal space.
They have competing internal priorities.
But in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, if you look at the Kingdom during the COVID-19 crisis,
we more than doubled our support to the foreign aid.
This is a global crisis that needs a global commitment.
We have spearheaded the Common Framework and the DSSI and the G20 presidency of Saudi Arabia.
We have been the world's top donor after the COVID-19
given the human and development needs that's facing the global economy.
We expect the World Bank and other development institutions to use their financial innovation
to multiply the effect of these resources to make sure
that it has the best outcome for the benefit of countries.
I fully associate myself with the comments made by the Minister.
Thank you.
[Victoria Kwakwa]
Thank you.
Thank you very much for sharing very clearly the top reasons why you give.
One big takeaway is really the IDA's financial model and the efficiency,
how money is received and multiplied several times over in support of the critical challenges
that the Vice Prime Minister has made reference to.
We want to thank the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the commitment
to development and to what IDA is doing.
Now I'll come to you, Mr. Malloch-Brown.
You've been in different parts of this partnership,
including as UNDP Administrator and also as a Foreign Minister of the UK
and now leading a respected civil society outfit like the Open Society,
which also partners with IDA.
We've had a lot of support among civil society
for a strong IDA replenishment, much more in the past, and we appreciate this.
From your perspective in civil society,
can you tell us why there's this strong push by civil society for a strong replenishment of IDA?
[Mark Malloch-Brown]
Thank you, Victoria.
Look, I think very clearly, civil society recognizes,
despite a historically sort of bumpy, at times, relationship with the World Bank,
that IDA is the central funding mechanism to get finance to poor countries
in a way which gives them ownership and the ability to set their own priorities for spending.
I think civil society is very behind and the foundations are very behind a strengthened IDA,
if that is possible.
There is now a civil society formal partnership with IDA,
a couple of meetings a year, a number of our grantees are pushing for deeper engagement.
I think probably the next level of that engagement
is actually at the country level with the move towards localization.
I think it really behooves countries, not just the Bank Group,
to invite in local civil society participation around setting the human development agenda,
setting the priorities for the development strategy.
But I think to step back to the wider dimension of this
and to the phrase I used in conversation earlier with President Banga.
There is this issue of taking IDA from being this sort of private instrument of the World Bank
and its donors to making it that universal instrument,
that vehicle for achieving the SDGs and global development ambitions.
There I think the civil society role is critical because in a sense,
IDA has always been this sort of comfortable establishment mechanism
which has supported the big campaigns for debt relief, the big campaigns for climate over the years.
But now we need to step in and help IDA be recognized for that role as the core financing tool
for the world's ambitions for development for poorer countries.
To get it beyond this room and make it the kind of global cause I think it needs to be.
[Victoria Kwakwa]
Thank you.
Thank you very much for affirming the importance of IDA
and the centrality of IDA to the global development agenda.
Your points about civil society wanting to be stronger partners,
including through localization and being involved more at the country level as well are points well noted.
Thank you.
I think we have about ten minutes to go in this panel.
What I said at the beginning was that we can't be complacent.
Clearly, we have strong partnerships affirmed by all of you, but we can do better.
What can we do more in this partnership for greater impact?
If everybody took about three minutes, three minutes, Vice Prime Minister,
what would you say to another IDA country leader like yourself?
What can they do to be better and bolder IDA partners?
[Olavo Correia] [Speaking French] [Interpreter]
Thank you very much.
I think that IDA has been always an important ally.
IDA has helped a lot of economies a difficult context
and especially in [unintelligible].
I think in the other side we still have a lot to do as African countries
and also underdeveloped countries, but I do believe that what we need to change is the approach.
I talk on a daily basis with the youth of Cabo Verde.
I tell them do not ask for assistance or help, ask for opportunities.
What the youth needs in Africa is not to see employment, it is opportunities to get employments.
It is up to us as leaders with the assistance of leaders of to create opportunities.
We have to think about aids through opportunities
and opportunities at the level of climate change, employment
to support the private sector and create employment for the youth.
I think this is very, very important.
We have to prioritize the job creation aspect.
We have also to prioritize youth and women in Africa
because the future of Africa depends on the youth and the women mobilization.
If all of us with the assistance of IDA, we try to harness the youth in Africa, we can achieve our solutions.
And finally, we do not have time.
It is very urgent to think about the figures talk about today.
We don’t have time to waste.
We have to eliminate the bureaucracy, be it in our countries,
but also at the level of the Bank.
It's not necessary to say that only we have money,
but that money has to be available better and that money should be used efficiently,
so that means we have to change the principle of bureaucracy.
The time to implement our projects is now.
We don’t have time.
The time is now.
We have also to have guarantee that money judiciously.
So, we need to have proper governance, we need to have transparency,
we have to prioritize priorities for countries and for Africa.
That’s what we have to do with the support of IDA.
Now, to conclude my message to you, one, there is urgency.
Two, rapidity or velocity.
The third, [unintelligible] to deal with climate change and a job creation for the youth and women in Africa.
And last, not least, governance government has to be transparent.
Governments should try to guide all of us for the benefit of women and the youth in Africa
so that we can have a positive Africa ready to produce.
[Victoria Kwakwa]
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Vice Prime Minister.
I think you've come back to the issues that you emphasized earlier
on the African side of stronger governance.
You've also added the importance of really creating the right opportunities,
particularly for youth and for women.
Thank you.
Dr. Nsanzabaganwa, in two minutes, can you tell us
what you think can be done new or differently to increase shared impact?
I think you already started in your earlier response.
Is there anything that you'd like to add?
Thank you.
[Monique Nsanzabaganwa]
Yes, thank you so much.
I would like to reiterate that we need to devise ways
of having that strategic coherence at the continental level.
Agenda 63 offers a golden framework.
For instance, we have structures where we need to have that conversation between Africa and the Bank,
but with the African Union as a communion around the Agenda 2063.
I know that you engage Minister of Finance, for instance, through the African Caucus,
but that's [unintelligible] structure.
We need to bring the conversation at the core of the African Union
because this is a platform that members have created to make sure that we have that alignment.
We needed to also account on the outcome of the engagement
at the member states level and regional and continental.
That accountability to the African citizens at the level of the outcome.
It's even what President Ajay actually mentioned and stressed
that we needed to take the partnership with IDA at that level.
I would like to see more maybe new ideas around the governance
where we can harvest all that information and bring it at the apex, when for instance,
the World Bank presidency and the African Union presidency, when they need to evaluate partnerships,
then we have something to show other continents.
That governance where the AU is also having a place to make sure
that there is not steering of what is happening on the continent
to achieve that strategic coherence at the continental level.
Integrated planning and implementation, agile and adaptive programming,
capacity building and knowledge transfer, result-based monitoring and evaluation
and inclusive stakeholder engagement.
Those will be the key parameters we need to look
at in that governance, that is also giving agency to the African Union in whatever is happening
as far as IDA work, and IDA indeed works in Africa.
But we need to see more of that level where the African Union is also adding the value
by bringing that strategic deliverance at the continental and regional level
in alignment with our policymakers, who are the ministers, including the ministers of finance.
We are trying to build that with our NEPAD which is also our development implementing agency,
how it's going to be supporting ministries of finance within countries
and how we can implement the agenda in a more coherent and accountable manner.
Those are the few words I wish to add.
Thank you.
[Victoria Kwakwa]
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Monique.
I think in the forthcoming MoU
that the World Bank is preparing for, the World Bank and the EU Commission
are preparing for our work together in our partnership.
We can and should indeed reflect on some of the suggestions that you've just made.
Thanks again.
Deputy Minister Alkhareif, where does Saudi Arabia see opportunities
for greater impact through partnerships on the development partner side?
[Ryadh Mohammed Alkhareif]
Thank you very much, Victoria.
Let me start with a general remark and then I'll go into details.
First, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia commends the World Bank for the excellent work.
We believe that the World Bank and IDA in particular are doing very good job
in terms of using the scarce resources from the members,
donors into real high-quality projects on the ground.
As the Minister mentioned, creating high-quality jobs, creating high-resilient infrastructure.
As a donor, we hope to see and we are confident that the Bank will go from a very good institution
to an excellent institution in being a provider of development.
When it comes to cooperation, we have maybe three priorities.
Given the rising debt issues in a lot of countries, especially in this region,
when you see a big portion of the fiscal budget goes to paying interest and paying debt payments,
while you have competing social priorities,
health care, education and social protection is really very weak.
We hope to see more support from the Bank and the membership
in terms of cooperating under the Common Framework.
I think we heard the President Ajay has mentioned this in his opening remark.
We commend the Bank for the work it has provided
for the four countries who applied for the Common Framework.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a co-chair with France, the Paris Club
and with the support from China and India that we succeeded.
Chad is doing a good job in terms of the Common Framework
and we are working with others in terms of supporting the rest.
More work is needed to institutionalize the Common Framework,
to make it more efficient and more supportive, given the high priorities for a lot of countries.
Number two, on climate change, we have seen the recent announcement by the Bank
in the COP 28 to provide 40 billion support for climate change.
This is indeed very commendable.
We would like to see more country specific circumstances are reflected.
I think the Minister has mentioned it.
Island countries and small state countries
have contributed nothing to climate change, but they are bearing the most cost of climate change.
We need the Bank to pay more attention to adaptation, to build high-quality infrastructure,
more climate-resilient infrastructure, and not to put more emphasis on mitigation policies
that are more suited to the countries who contributed a lot to the climate shock.
Very important to draw lessons learned
and to draw a conclusion from the Circular Carbon Economy Framework
that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia launched in 2020 during our G20 presidency.
We have seen endorsements by all of the G20 members to this Framework,
and we are keen to see the World Bank adopting such Framework because it's very inclusive,
it is very specific to each country's circumstances,
and it takes into account the emissions that we need to tackle, not the sources of the emissions.
I think this is a recipe of success.
Finally, and I think Mark has mentioned this on the localization.
You rightly mentioned a very important topic for a lot of countries.
When you see high quality jobs,
you cannot have growth that is not driven by localization and integration to the global economy.
I think the World Bank could do more in terms of enhancing localization within the country,
but then enhance regional trade, given that a lot of countries in the region and around this place,
they don't have a lot of intra trade cooperation.
And this is easy,
a low hanging fruit to enhance trade and relationship and then move to the global value chain
when it comes to trade and linking this continent with more productive sectors.
It is endowed by good demographic dividend, very young population,
very natural resources that are very rich in the ground that we need to see more production of that.
I would like to conclude by commending the World Bank of recently signing an agreement
with the Islamic Development Bank in terms of co-financing and enhancing cooperation
in the region worth 6 billion dollars.
That will be deploying financing to water that is,
to provide clean water for citizens electricity, education, health care and the list goes on.
This is a good example of the World Bank regional cooperation,
and we need to see more success stories like this.
Thank you, Victoria.
[Victoria Kwakwa]
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Deputy Minister,
for highlighting these areas where we could do more together and the partnership could be stronger.
I think these are all very consistent with what's in the evolution roadmap that we're implementing.
Thank you.
You have the final word, Mark.
in two minutes, if you can say where you think the opportunities are for a stronger partnership.
[Mark Malloch-Brown]
Thank you, Victoria.
I spent my life trying to have the final word, so I'm glad today to do it.
I think the endorsement we've just heard from Saudi Arabia there is extraordinary.
Ryadh, you'll forgive me if I say it, everybody wants Saudi money, and yet here you are saying,
“Given our own choice where we want to invest, IDA is a big priority for us.”
I think we should all reflect on that.
You're not one of the original donors.
You have lots of other calls on your funds.
This is a priority for you,
and I think that's really important to hear.
First for all of us, what can we do?
We can just put aside any sort of lingering belief that this is a business-as-usual moment.
As Ajay told us today, this is a moment of profound crises in all our societies,
of the polycrises, of the perfect storm.
Call it what you will.
We mustn't, in this room, act as though it's business as usual.
We all need to go home thinking, where are we going to get the extra resources from?
For the different groups, first donors.
I think Ajay and I gave you a slightly hard time in the opening fireside chat.
You'd have probably dropped us in the fire if it had been there.
By not acknowledging that during the COVID-19 period you guys did crowd in,
you reduced the period of funding and yet locked in at that high annual amount.
You can do it, you can find extra resources, and you need to,
because my additional point is the one I made earlier,
which is you can't have a successful COP with its focus on climate mitigation and inevitably,
often on middle-income countries and rich countries.
You can't have a successful COP without a successful IDA.
It's what holds the whole thing together.
IDA as a development financing tool, but IDA also as a climate adaptation financing tool.
Third, and to the World Bank leadership,
I would say you've rightly gotten a lot of praise from this stage today,
but don't forget, there's a huge obligation on you also to make IDA more user friendly,
more consumer friendly, better locally owned.
That, I think, is two things.
It's finding mechanisms to be much quicker, as Ajay acknowledged,
in the speed with which loans are agreed and disbursed, and grants, obviously, too.
Secondly, to really move to this more programmatic, locally-owned strategic model
from still what is a little bit of a project by project-based model.
I think my final point is the partnership point.
Reading the document for this meeting,
it's a very good document, but there's always that implication in World Bank documents
that the purpose of partnerships is to help the World Bank to do its job.
The purpose of partnerships is to help us all do our jobs.
I think a certain sort of inclusivity and democracy in your partnership model
would be profoundly helping to arrive at my ambition here, which is that your IDA becomes our IDA.
Thank you.
[Victoria Kwakwa]
Thank you.
I think we've come to the end of the panel.
It's been such a rich conversation, and I won't do justice to it if I try and summarize.
But I like the point that this is not business as usual.
The Vice Prime Minister has said we need urgency,
we need speed, we need scale.
We've also said that IDA is important, not just as a private fund,
but as a global financing tool, and we have to see it as such and make it happen.
We've all said we're committed to this partnership, each and every one of us.
There are things that each and every one of us need to do, whether it's governments,
our regional partners, bilateral partners, our civil society partners.
And partnerships.
This partnership is about how each and every stakeholder does its job better.
It's not just about IDA or just about the World Bank.
It's about facilitating all of us to be an effective part of the solving the global challenge of development.
This is very energizing.
I think this is a great way to start our conversations for the next three days.
Thank you so very much.
Let's give a big round of applause to the panel.
[Audience applauds]
Thank you.
