It is a pleasure to come here and present this paper, which is building on the research conducted for my recent book, Poor Numbers, how we are misled by African Development Statistics and what to do about it, but also responding a bit further to the kind of ongoing discussions on arising from that debate on Africa Statistical Tragedy and concurrently debate on Africa Rising and some of the issues I'll be dealing with today is what kind of data do we have to interpret growth inequality and poverty living standards across the past two decades? Do we have any alternatives? And what can we do about it in terms of investing in better data for development in the future? First I should give a full disclosure that some people have recently drawn my character in considerable doubt. The directors of statistics in Zambia concludes in a public statement that it's clear from the asymmetric information that he had collected that Mr. Gervin had some hidden agenda which leaves us to conclude that he was probably a hired gun meant to discredit African National Accountants and eventually create work and room for more European based technical assistance missions. Now you can trust me or not, but I assure you this is not the case. I'm not a hired gun and for those who have read the book if there is one thing I do not advocate it is those policies that would create more room for per DMs for European consultants. I actually describe that as part of the very problem. And I should also say I think the director of statistics gives me way too much credit. I have not single handedly ruined African statistics. The credit is due elsewhere. Pauline Ola did also make a statement to the press yesterday saying that Morton Gervin will hijack the African statistical development program unless he stopped in his tracks. I was supposed to on Sunday I was supposed to board a plane to Addis Ababa to speak give the opening statement at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa to give to give the opening statement there in order to introduce the African working group on national accounts in order to see what we can do about investing in development statistics. My paper is why did we need to invest in economic statistics getting the diagnosis right before boarding the plane. I got a phone call from UNEKA ordering me not to board the plane and and also informing me that Pauline Ola had given a ultimatum that he would withdraw from all working groups unless my speech got cancelled. So it's a pleasure to come here and talk to you with change of plans. You'll find the news stories media out there and any kind of support can give me in this moment much appreciated unless you happen to think I am a hired gun from European powers. The book that has created all this commotion is poor numbers how we mislead by African development statistics and what to do about it. And for those of you who are intrigued by this debate I encourage you to read the book rather than the reviews by Pauline Ola and actually judge for yourself and you'll find out that this is a huge misunderstanding. My main contribution of the book as we'll talk about today as well is to first state that they do have a serious knowledge problem. We know less than we would like to think about economic growth in Africa. I do write a unique story in it's I'm an economic historian. So this is the the craft of a historian writing the history of the national statistical offices in the region. How were African economies measured since colonial times as an independence. The statistical offices are new new types of demands new kind of tasks new kind of administrative survey data available coming with development plans so far I trace what I where I think if there is an African statistical tragedy it goes parallel with the type of decline in economic growth. The economic shocks that face the African economies but also statistical offices in the 1980s where also the statistical office have faced new demands from the growing from from structural adjustment programs liberalization the challenge of recording informal markets. Finally I talk about how the poverty reduction agenda has put new demands for new types of data and the millennium development goal agenda which is our current agenda where we're asking statistical offices in the region to collect data on eight goals 18 targets and 48 indicators and thereby diverting resources but I'll talk about that my main my main contribution about this book is to to elevate the discussion we have about African development statistics and to get around doing better in investing in statistics. Today I'll talk about GDP in Africa diagnosing the knowledge problem look a little bit on proxies and I'll look into some kind of ways in which some very brave papers have tried to fill some data gaps and then thinking about what we should how how happy we are about that. As we know there has been there's been a very clear symptom of a problem expressed when gamma revised their GDP and in November 2010 overnight GDP almost doubled in the GDP per capita terms as the economy was accounted change their base year from 1993 to 2006 in in in 2010 they changed the base year. It also meant that Ghana before the revision they were a poor country after the revision they were a lower income a middle income country you know this is good news but there is a knowledge problem that does emerge where did this extra Ghanaian economy come from how do we now compare Ghana 2006 to Ghana 2005 where the series have not been backcasted how do we compare Nigeria to Ghana to other countries and it has spread a lot of reactions you know Todd Moss at the Center of Global Development exclaimed boy we really don't know anything before he moved on to to note that if this could happen in Ghana overnight without observers really knowing about it what then about other countries that are less closely observed and the Sumner and Charles County took the good news in this and said it proves that Ghana escaped the poverty trap there is no bottom billion they went out of it overnight United Nations Development Programme said this is a statistical illusion the millennium development goals indicator did not change overnight meanwhile Shanta Dravarjan after having heard about the revision and read my paper on this declared Africa's statistical tragedy so that's where we're getting at and it turns out news after this is pointing to the direction that Ghana is not a singular case the base year currently being used for accounting for economic growth in Nigeria is from 1990 that means that we do it's now approaching quarter of a century since we had reasonably accurate GDP statistics of what is probably the biggest economy in Sub-Saharan Africa and I'm saying probably because one of the big stakes that comes out of this is that if the rebasing is as big as they have announced it will be before it is ready I might add and it would imply that it might jump out jump South Africa GDP in Africa in total increases by at least 15 percent and it should be a bit striking that there is currently existing about 40 Malawi's inside of Nigeria which is not accounted for which I will talk about effects how we think about long-term trends in not only growth but also poverty and inequality so what do we know about income and growth in Sub-Saharan Africa while basing from from how we can download the data from the World Bank database you would think that you know quite a lot because there you find data from every year from every country from 1960 to 2012 all looking downloadable as functional equivalents now we know right now we know that we cannot possibly compare Ghana GDP per capita with Nigeria GDP per capita that would simply be misleading and tell us nothing about what is really going on and then this is also at stands with the fact that some countries have not in 2012 according to you NECA report the lag time is on average two years so it means that most countries are now working on their 2010 estimates so how come we are now already publishing estimates for 2012 another thing which I talked about when Ghana did publish a new series it base year new series in 2006 it was not backcast so we have a break series we don't know where this extra income come from we have reasonable accurate picture in 1993 we have reasonable picture of 2006 it's anyone's guess what went on in between and so how do they come up with these numbers or more specifically where does the international databases get their data from well some of you might know this but I hope at least now everybody knows if they come from statistical services for you have to go to the statistical offices so even though you download a GDP statistic from the World Bank the observation is not better than the one at the local level so we have to use this is a distinction between primary and secondary data you have to use the skills of a historian or the questions of a journalist who made this observation under what conditions was the observation made how good is that observation is there any reasons why I would think it is biased in any direction and I think we've forgotten to do so here's the Ghana statistical services where I conducted my interview with Duncan my head of macroeconomic statistics in Ghana before the revision here's the informal sector right here it's the peanut sales woman there where I used to buy my lunch I asked Duncan you know is she covered in the new estimates he said it's just peanuts but it turns out when you do adopt these new service sectors it does really make a quite a difference here's the Nigerian living standard survey still in bags in Abuja Nigeria they're still inputting in the data I mean still awaiting the new results so that's what I've been doing that's the basis of the book is to ask how are what kind of sources do you have what kind of data are do you have do you have labor data you have a survey of the informal sector I don't my legwork on this in Ghana Nigeria Kenya Uganda Tanzania Sambia what's one in Malawi in addition I did a survey of all these countries and my question has been how has these countries measured their economic growth and so forth now in the book I give also a historical thing so I'm using our archival work to tell how this is going on from 1950 onwards today I'll focus in on on the last two decades and particularly painting a accurate picture of how much do we know so the basic kind of things as you already started to realize is to think about how long you know this is a survey done me published in the book I did ask a couple of questions like when did you last publish an estimate so what's the lag time between and some countries in 2010 a Ghana had a 2009 date they were up to date yeah but other countries did not have some countries you simply have no information on it whatsoever that might have been because there is no GDP data like in Equatorial Guinea and or it might be that they were too busy doing other things like in Ivory Coast and Congo understandably with the civil unrest at the time and so forth the other important thing is of course the base year now we have learned that the reason why Ghana's economy was took so it's a big jump is that they have now a new base year for 2006 whereas you know Nigeria is at 1990 so they these data are not comparable and and there is other estimates which I rather not you can engage with that table as well and the good thing is I did my table in 2010 in response to the publication of the book not only is the book peer reviewed and fact checked and all possible ways but I also had the honor of having my book being replicated the study of the book has been replicated by both the IMF and the African Development Bank in recently released reports and this is the IMF data and the report by the African Development Bank is not called poor numbers it's called the reliability of African GDP estimates and so forth but we are there to summarize that the my survey is published I had the sample of 37 countries in comparison AFDB managed to secure the response from 34 countries probably were in a bit of a hurry IMF managed to get this kind of information from 45 countries the IMF recommendation was to have a base year every fifth year seven countries met this in 2011 according to my study according to the latest IMF only four meets this and what I have to be reports that nine do you can that means that they have different information the mean base year is 2000 in all the studies so means that we are 13 years behind according to the African Development Bank eight countries only according to IMF 13 countries have base years that are more than two decades old this is not only a problem then of comparable GDP data as you see there's also a problem of comparable metadata so it's manifesto a little bit about how little we know that we cannot AFDB and IMF cannot agree upon the sources and methods not even baseline estimates in the same reports published in the same month this year implications for the growth evidence as I detailed in my paper and my book and so any ranking of course according to GDP is going to be misleading any statement of growth over the short and medium term might be picking up statistical growth changes its methods as well as actual real real productivity growth which we would like to think so there's a mitch match between how we often interpret the GDP data and what is actually going on and very recent growth data for a different couple of reasons is likely to be very overestimated clearly in the case of Ghana although you try to smoothen this out you still have the revision effect with you and and it's also true that the GDP per capita of many countries are now underestimated as we saw Nigeria is richer than we think but that also means that currently Nigeria is growing faster than you think for a couple of reasons because you have a lot of statistical growth if your GDP measure is not exhaustive for instance so what are the alternatives which scholars have been using this is okay that is rainfall by Miguel et al to discuss in the paper one thing is to do is to try to control for GDP measures using rainfall for a lot I'm as I discuss I think that's a too narrow type of measure we are often interested in the stuff that is not fluctuating with rainfall but rather that which fluctuates with policy and therefore you get the very opposite kind of GDP measure than you would like and it's also this thing that it's kind of weird using GDP data and controlling from rainfall when you know that that's how they estimated the agricultural output in the first place if you know how crop forecasting works then you know that often rainfall data is the one that you use to estimate those very output data to begin with so you're kind of redoing what you already did but Miguel didn't know that assets young et al as young not at all he did this all by himself young in 2012 you journal political economy does yeah yeah yeah but still people are suggesting that maybe you could use trends in rainfall and so forth well okay that's fine I agree as well the instrumental process quite different yeah clearly but that's a way of getting along you know that you've they changes in GDP that are not explained by measurement you know so it's a way of so instrument is rather how to the thanks for the clarification assets data used by young and others also has different kinds of problems they are stocks not flow and other people have shown class net dollar shown that this is not really working out as a proxy luminosity many people are suggesting that we should measure economic growth from outer space yes that's has some types of advantages no bias perhaps except if there is legislation about light outside lighting that is but there is also the problem if you are an economic historian like me you have to you can't get data from the 1980s then because you don't have satellite imagery unless you're able to travel as fast as you can capture light recapture light which is a bit hard to do what I'm arguing in the paper here is that none of them give a predictable outcome and all science steps the issue of seeing like a state measurement is not only knowledge it's governance accountability and policy circles that's well displayed by I don't think a World Bank for instance will issue a which is the lightest country in the world kind of table at the time soon so filling the data gaps how is people dealing with we don't making brave assumptions between it so I'll just take a two minutes to go through one very much famous paper is African Party is falling much faster than you think they claim since 1995 African Party has been falling steadily they then use you know the wider data and the PVT data and calculate elasticities and transient equality on this the problem is that they have only 188 118 service so that there is you know a lot of the actual years in this data set is of course made up and not only that countries which they are actually claiming they even in the paper they have a figure of data on Angola and Nigeria but they do not have data of that invider as you would know the people who know it the same thing happens with when the rise of the middle class they think it increased from 11 to 15 percent again they have a method of using a synthetic panel and they only have 84 observations and the short story is that these 35 countries are not randomly picked and we are we are missing the big countries where we're missing the poor countries so therefore to go from these observations when you have as much as above thousand gaps from actually having annual series we're actually making very very bold guesswork indeed conclusion our current estimates are doubly biased we know less about poor countries and we know less about poor country poor people in those poor economies this knowledge problem stands in a striking contrast with the demand for numbers in development community everyone wants measurable impact of development policy the Africa rising debate has increased is even further there is even now a demand for statistics from from investment banks etc etc so there's an increasing demand for statistics I argued that numbers matter and evaluation of Africa's development must begin and then with a careful evaluation of the growth and income evidence without such analysis one runs the risk of reporting statistical fiction the poor numbers are too important to be dismissed as just that thank you very much thank you


Hello everyone and welcome to the forum webinar series. My name is Shaw Sprague, Vice President for Government Relations for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. And I'll be moderating today's panel, which is titled advocacy during the first 100 days of the Biden administration and the 117th Congress. As a reminder, Preservation Leadership Forum is the professional membership program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. This webinar series is made possible by members of Preservation Leadership Forum, and we sincerely thank those of you who are with us today. Next slide please. We have a great panel with us today to talk about the changes in Washington and historic preservation advocacy in the 117th Congress. But before we begin, I have a few technical items to relay. First, we will attempt to take questions from the audience during the webinar. You can submit these questions via the Q&A function, and you are welcome to submit these questions at any point during the webinar. But we will wait until after our panelists have presented to pose questions and how many were able to get to will really depend on our timing constraints. So welcome to communicate to all participants through the chat function, which we encourage you to do. And secondly, following the program, we will send out a recording of today's webinar directly to the email that you use to register. And finally, all forum webinars are archived in our forum webinar library. So come back and visit those as well. Next slide please. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce our panelists and the topic areas for the webinar. As this slide lays out. Well first first we're very grateful to have our first two speakers with us today. John Bosworth, Senior Legislative Assistant in the Office of Representative Earl Blumenauer and Maggie Ward, Legislative Assistant and Representative Mike Turner's office. Representatives Blumenauer and Turner together chair the Historic Preservation Caucus in the House of Representatives. The Historic Preservation Caucus is a bipartisan group of roughly of roughly 100 members that support key historic preservation programs and legislation that helps preserve historic places. With the support of the Historic Preservation Caucus we are enjoying our fourth successive year of record funding for the Historic Preservation Fund. And we certainly would not be where we are today with the historic tax credit in place as a permanent part of our tax code without the leadership of Congressman Blumenauer and Congressman Turner, both of whom so clearly appreciate and understand the value that historic preservation brings to our nation and to our communities. So welcome John and Maggie, thank you for being here. If you didn't look too far to find historic preservation experts than those that you're privileged to work with on a regular basis. I'm grateful to welcome my colleague Sherrie Williamson, Senior Associate General Counsel with the National Trust who will describe several key preservation priorities for the first 100 days of the Biden administration. I'm very pleased to welcome Meryl Hoopengardner to the conversation today. Meryl is the President of the National Trust Community Investment Corporation, a for profit subsidiary of the National Trust that facilitates tax credit equity investments in support of sustainable heritage rich communities nationwide. Meryl is also the Chair of the Historic Tax Credit Coalition, and we're certainly grateful for her strong leadership and advocacy in support of the historic tax credit. So we could just back up one slide to organize the conversation. We've outlined several topic areas where historic preservation advocacy will be important as the Biden administration works to implement its agenda. Congress tackles key issues. On the legislative side we look forward to hearing about opportunities to make improvements. Looks like we're still few slides ahead if we can just back that up. Thank you. Key issues as the Biden administration works to implement its agenda and as Congress tackles key issues. And on the legislative side we look forward to hearing about opportunities to make improvements to the historic tax credit. Some of the challenges historic rehabilitation projects are facing. And some of the potential legislative vehicles where we might advance this legislation. We also look forward to hearing from John and Maggie about the current budget and appropriations environment on the hill and thoughts about reaching our goal of full funding for the historic preservation fund this year. We also look forward to hearing from our panelists input on climate change at top priority for the Biden Harris administration and how historic preservation might best support those objectives. And then finally on the regulatory side President Biden has taken several steps on his first days in office, which we look forward to hearing more about from Shari. In the broad framework let's first turn it over to John for his thoughts on where things stand at the outset, the 117th Congress, and how historic preservation, and our community should be positioning itself to have our message heard. I appreciate the opportunity to be here with you all and really have appreciated my time working with the National Trust and the broader historic preservation community in my time with Congressman Blumenauer. As Shaw mentioned I'm a senior legislative assistant for Mr. Blumenauer who represents Portland, Oregon handle his tax transportation housing and historic preservation issues putting me in the center of a lot of the items that we'll talk about today. I think it's helpful to level set a little bit that the Congressman is one of the co chairs of the historic preservation caucus as Shaw mentioned. Our other co chair, Congressman Mike Turner, you'll hear from his staff or Maggie in a minute, but that's an opportunity for us on a bipartisan basis to engage with our nearly 100 members of the caucus and educate them about the historic preservation programs at the federal level. The recent activities and developments in the space, and also continue to get a good list of supporters for legislative efforts that we have throughout the year. I think our first and kind of annual focus that we have as a caucus is really on the historic preservation fund. We have seen a market increase in funding for the historic preservation fund and the various programs that go into that fund, since, well really since 2015, nearly a tripling of the overall funding amounts and I think that's largely due in part to the work that a lot of the historic preservation community does in telling the stories of where this funding goes and making the local community impacts, illustrating that this funding is really impactful for communities large and small. This year 2020 and 2021 encompassing the last Congress were both record years for historic preservation funding. We got nearly up to the fully authorized amount of $150 million with 144 million last year I think we have a real opportunity to build on that. We also get to the fully authorized amount, but key to that is the preservation community, continuing to show up, connect with their members of Congress and tell the stories as I mentioned of what this funding goes toward, and how it benefits those communities. It was also a really good year for preservation through our work in historic tax credit Congressman Blumenauer is a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee which has jurisdiction over tax and revenue issues and has led the charge on the committee to expand the historic tax credit. We faced some real challenges in the spring with COVID and are continuing to face them today, but we're successful in working with the National Trust and the HTC Coalition in order to get an extension to the substantial rehab timeline which is really key for allowing for those projects to continue and not lose their ability to get to completion. But also we're able to work with our congressional leadership in the House to include not only our legislation the Historic Tax Credit Growth and Opportunity Act, but also a temporary bump up in the value of the credit in HR2 which was the House infrastructure bill that passed over the summer. I think we're really proud of the work that we did there we recognize that that legislation clearly has the votes to pass the House and we'll look to build on that going forward and see if we can, in a potentially friendlier administration and environment in the Senate, if we can take that and actually get it enacted into law this year. Again, just like the Historic Preservation Fund I think the key to this in the interim, while we wait for the next COVID relief package to come and then turn toward infrastructure. I think the key for each of us is really to engage with our local members of Congress, making the case and telling the story of what the historic tax credit has done for particular projects or particular areas or sections and communities. And tying that work federally and showing that there's legislation you can support to do more of these types of work and making the case there. So, I think that we're, we've really shown in the last Congress that there's a great deal of momentum and support behind preservation and hopeful that this year will be an opportunity to get to that fully authorized amount and also finally get this historic tax credit legislation across the finish line. And key to that I think is is our bipartisanship in our working with our co-chair Congressman Mike Turner from Ohio who's been a key supporter and key member of the Historic Preservation Caucus. So, with that, I'll turn it over to his staffer Maggie, who can speak a little bit about what the congressman's up to and how we'll work together to get this across the finish line. All right, hello everyone. Thanks John for turning it over to me. So just a brief introduction as Sean mentioned, I am the legislative assistant in Congressman Mike Turner's office. I handle a litany of issues, including energy commerce, the environment transportation and infrastructure and natural resources and historic preservation so not only do I focus on historic preservation but also a lot of issues that are kind of tangential to historic presentation and what it means and how it kind of fits into this policy equation that is Congress. So I thought John did a great job covering what has happened in recent years in terms of historic preservation, the historic preservation fund has grown in recent years and again last year was a record year for its funding. So, kind of moving forward with that momentum into this Congress even facing the obstacles of COVID and COVID relief will be really important. I think another important win for historic preservation last Congress was the passage of the Great American Outdoors Act. Some provisions in the Great American Outdoors Act allowed national parks and national heritage areas to address some major backlogs they have so Congressman Turner represents the Dayton Ohio area which although many people from North Carolina may dispute this is the birthplace of aviation. So the Wright brothers were born and raised in the Dayton Ohio area and invented their flying machine and West Dayton, which is still in Congressman Turner's district so a lot of our national aviation heritage area sites for able to receive the funding that they need to address maintenance backlogs through the Great American Outdoors Act and this was not only a phenomenon that happened in Dayton, a lot of national heritage areas and parks. We're also able to move past those backlogs and hopefully into new projects and a better future for the next year. So kind of looking to what historic preservation and Congress looks like in the 2021 year. Again, covered will be a big one. Looking at COVID relief packages and how those can aid and historic preservation sites facing obstacles during the COVID pandemic will be really important. Any type of infrastructure proposals coming from the Biden administration. Those will definitely be important in molding the way we kind of legislate about historic preservation in the coming year. Another important point for historic preservation is a lot of national heritage areas are facing sunsets and expiration dates in the next two to three years so kind of looking at what heritage areas are coming up on their expiration dates. And what types of things can be done to reauthorize and ensure long term reauthorization for these heritage areas will definitely be something on the radar in this Congress. So I appreciate all of you taking the time to come today and listen and I believe that Shari has some remarks for everyone as well. Thank you. Thank you for that hand off. So my name is Shari Williamson, and I am a senior associate general counsel at the National Trust, and I'm responsible for litigation legal advocacy and also policy issues and so I'm going to talk about some policy issues that we expect to see both in the first 100 days, and just over the term of the new Congress and with the shift in the administration. Next slide. I thought I would get started by talking about something for us to celebrate. I know many folks have been following the proposal to revise the National Register of Historic Places regulations, and we are also pleased that those regulations were not finalized prior to the presidential transition. And in fact, we understand that the rule making is now dead. This is something that the National Trust and many, many others have worked hard to address since the regulations were first proposed in 2019. And just to sort of recap, the proposal would have made nominating federal properties to the National Register more difficult, would have potentially interfered with use of the federal historic tax credit in some instances, would have interfered with section 106 compliance, and also would have altered the owner objection process for designating new historic districts in a way that would favor large landowners. And it also was proposed without adequate tribal consultation so overall a rule with many issues. Last fall, we learned that the rulemaking was moving forward and it was actually submitted to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs or OIRA, which is within the Office of Management and Budget. OIRA was sent to OIRA for a 90 day interagency review process. And during that time, the National Trust and many others encouraged the preservation community to set up meetings with OIRA and share their concerns about the rule. And apparently OIRA was just inundated with requests from preservation organizations, state historic preservation offices, tribes, and tribal organizations expressing a range of serious concerns about the rule. And as a result, ultimately, this rule didn't make it over the finish line. It didn't get posted in the federal register. And when President Biden assumed office on January 20th, he issued a memo which is a pretty standard first day memo to the heads of all agencies that institutes a regulatory freeze on all new actions pending review by the new administration so that officially put the brakes on this rulemaking. And that's something to celebrate. I mean, this is a really a major preservation win that demonstrates the strength of the historic preservation movement when we work together on policy issues. Really want to express thanks to everyone that helped to turn the tide on this. Another issue related to the National Historic Preservation Act that I wanted to touch on is a secretarial order. It's order 3389 on offsite compensatory mitigation. This was an order that was issued just before Christmas. It was issued by Secretary Bernhardt and it places some severe or former Secretary Bernhardt and it places some really severe restrictions on consultation obligations through section 106. One of the other things the order restricts the use of offsite compensatory mitigation, which would prevent most forms of mitigation except for document and destroy so I think photos or report, maybe an onsite plaque would be the only mitigation measures available, even if a project was to destroy a historic site when it moved forward. The order also requires NEPA to be used as a substitute for section 106 consultation and set some really arbitrary and rigid compliance deadlines. That they're just one year for projects that weren't preparation of a full EIS and only 180 days for all other projects and the order also had some really negative implications for meaningful tribal consultation. This is all just a really troubling sort of last minute order coming through the Secretary of Interior's office in December. The National Trust has really highlighted this order as a priority for revocation by the incoming administration, and we remain hopeful that that will happen and will happen quickly, and that this won't have any lasting negative impacts on cultural resources in processes being managed by the Secretary of the Interior but stay tuned on that. Next slide. Another sort of good news item, not sort of another big good news item is an initial order on the Antiquities Act review. During the President Biden's first acts in office, he issued an order on January 20th directing the Secretary of the Interior to review the revocation of the Bears Ears National Monument, Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, and the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monument. The order requires the Secretary to complete the review and submit a report to the President within 60 days with recommendations on actions that would be consistent with the Antiquities Act. One thing to remember is that there is still litigation challenging the revocation of the Bears Ears National Monument which is still pending. The legal question in that case is whether a President has the legal authority under the Antiquities Act to revoke monument destinations. Article four of the US Constitution gives Congress the sole authority over real property held by the United States. Congress can delegate that authority. And so many different many different statutes, including the Antiquities Act, but the plain text of the law of the Antiquities Act provides that presidents can designate national monuments, but doesn't mention revoking national monuments and so the legal question is whether the President has only the authority to designate and not to revoke national monuments. I'm sure that this is an issue that's been a question that's been raised in the courts and it is pending before the DC district court system, and it's not been ruled on. It's quite possible, given this executive order from President Biden, that the litigation will be stayed while the Secretary of the Interior completes this review process that's been ordered. Subsequently, it's really it's widely anticipated that legal protections for these monuments will be restored, and it's really something to keep an eye on and watch for during the first 100 days. Next slide. President Biden has also come out with really a range of racial justice initiatives right off the gate. These initiatives are really touching all areas of government. But in the preservation world, one important one to watch is what happens with the NEPA rulemaking that was finalized last summer. So last summer, all the regulations under the National Environmental Policy Act or NEPA were replaced, and the rule changes were sweeping and quite troubling. And other things, the rule changes would place limits on the types of projects that are subject to NEPA review at all. It also restricts the scope of review. For example, federal agencies under the new rules are not able to consider the indirect and cumulative impacts of proposed projects, including how projects may contribute to the causes of climate change. The changes in the rules give more control to project applicants, private applicants during the review process, and there are also quite a few changes that make effective public participation more difficult. NEPA serves really an important role in ensuring that the federal agencies are able to consider environmental justice issues and have an opportunity to hear from the public that's impacted. Given the history of infrastructure siting in the country and the burden that minority communities have often felt from these projects, these public participation changes are particularly concerning. And as a result, these regulations are expected to be really a major target for the Biden administration to review, ultimately probably revoke and replace. Another issue that we wanted to highlight is a tribal consultation executive memorandum that was issued actually just earlier this week. President Biden issued the order to improve tribal consultation and really just reaffirmed the importance and commitment between the federal government and tribal governments to ensure meaningful government to government engagement. The memo orders agency heads to identify ways to improve consultation within 90 days and to report to OMB with suggestions. And the order also tasks OMB with the responsibility to review these plans and report on their implementation over time. And that's really just a great example of what is a major sort of broad policy change that's been dictated from the top of the executive branch directing all federal agencies to prioritize federal tribal relationships and to be more responsive to tribal needs and concerns. So on federal climate policy, I want to sort of mention NEPA just again and remind you that the new rules remove the requirement that federal agencies consider cumulative impacts of their decisions. And this change in the regulatory language is really widely understood to be targeting climate change reviews that have been ordered by courts in recent years, requiring federal agencies to consider the effects of their decisions on climate change under NEPA. And this has come up in the context of oil and gas leasing among other things like concerns about car fuel economy standards. So, again, keep your eye on NEPA as a priority for restoration under the Biden administration. Another thing I wanted to mention is the affordable clean energy rule. This is one of the major rules to address carbon emissions, and it's promulgated under the Clean Air Act, and it actually was struck down by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals the day before the presidential inauguration. The affordable clean energy rule or the ACE rule was actually put forward by the Trump administration to replace the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan. The ACE rule weakened the regulations in the Clean Power Plan and that govern carbon emissions in the power generating sector. The National Trust filed an amicus brief in this case with the goal of drawing attention to the impacts of climate change on historic resources. The brief focus particularly on impacts to historic coastal communities that are impacted by sea level rise. This Court of Appeals decision that, as I mentioned, came down just the day before the transition really sets the stage for the Biden administration to scrap the ACE rule in its entirety and reinstate stronger carbon emissions regulations under the Clean Air Act. So that is another area to keep an eye on. I also wanted to mention a major executive order that was issued on climate issues just yesterday. One of the highlights of that order is that it includes an oil and gas leasing moratorium on public lands. The orders DOI to review existing leases on public lands and to consider whether royalties that are being paid by companies to operate on public lands need to be adjusted to account for the climate costs caused by their activities. It was a major priority for many organizations to put this moratorium in place. And I think we can all expect that there's likely to be some litigation driven by the industry groups as a result of this moratorium. And the details of what that will look like will emerge in the coming weeks and months as the moratorium is enacted and decisions are made on implementing it. Another thing that was included in this executive order was the reestablishment of the Environmental Justice Interagency Council within the White House. This is another example of just a shift in priorities from to the new administration to really focus on racial justice and climate justice together and to set that council back up within the White House. Another issue included in the executive order was the establishment of a new climate task force. The new task force includes the new head of the council on environmental quality, as well as the heads of 21 other agencies. It orders agencies to prioritize climate concerns in all areas of decision making. Again, this is another example of a broad policy mandate that is coming down from the new administration. And it is setting the responsibility for addressing climate controls. I'm sorry, climate concerns really at the highest levels of the agencies. I, before I hand things off to my colleague Merrill, I thought I would end by noting that this broad approach that's indicated in this new climate executive order is really likely to touch all areas of federal policy. In fact, we will see changes to how new government funded housing projects are selected just as one example, and more focus on reducing the climate impacts of development. Just writ large. This is likely to present some opportunities for the historic preservation community, and for reuse of existing building stock, and also may focus more development funds and federal funding and support onto development and existing city and away from supporting sprawl. So, exactly what all of these policy shifts and changes mean, it's going to unfold over the next 100 days and during the next Congress, and during the Biden administration, but a lot of change and currently is already occurring just within just since the inauguration on the 20th. And with that, I will kick things over to Merrill. Great. Thank you, Shari. Now that we've had a broad look at preservation policy and how it could be impacted in the new administration, I wanted to bring us back a little bit and tease out some of what John introduced earlier in our conversation. We did a wearing two hats, as shall mentioned, I'm the president of NTC I see the tax credit investment arm of the National Trust. We've invested over our 20 year period, about $1.3 billion and historic tax credit projects nationwide, and have also included over $100 million in new markets tax credit financing, which ensures that the historic rehab where financing is also benefiting low income communities. So we're involved in advocacy both on historic preservation side and on the new market side to ensure equity in the way that the benefits are made available in the country. I also represent today the historic tax credit coalition, where a group of industry participants everything from lawyers and accountants and preservation consultants to investors and syndicators and who, again, work with the credit nationwide. And it's really been a pleasure to work with John and his colleagues in the house, particularly the ways a means committee as he mentioned has been shouldering a lot of the work that we've done together with their colleagues on the Senate side and the Senate Finance Committee, as we've been trying to move forward post tax reform to see where we can improve and enhance the historic tax credit. But first I'll start on the next slide with where we are today, as everyone knows we are still in many communities in the throes of economic challenges related to coven. We've been doing this across the historic tax credit industry. In March, we started seeing it immediately with existing operating properties that we had where hospitality facilities, schools, other educational facilities, office buildings were closed and so operating projects were already having challenges. And that in turn has actually created problems for people who want to start historic rehab projects, because now it's informing the underwriting criteria of any financing partners that you've had and so banks and other investors have had to revisit whether they want to invest in those kind of asset classes so a lot of projects have had to retool what their plans are. It's also been exacerbated by the fact that there are both labor shortages and increased costs for labor, especially to ensure that you can have people on site in a way that's safe for your construction workers. And then we're seeing a lot of issues with supplies, both the material cost has gone up, not unique to historic preservation that steel cost is going up across the country. And then specific to preservation we see issues with the specialty materials that are required. You know, you may be bringing in marble that you can only get from Italy now or you need a specific craftsman to come and do work on a piece of your building and that person's no longer able to travel or can't get the materials that they want. So we really are seeing widespread challenges that are increasing the cost of projects and extending the time. And the combination of those mean that projects are really struggling to get financing, because you're getting an imbalance between supply and demand of capital. So, what have we been doing about that if you look at the next slide, we first approached in the middle of the summer. What could we do to have immediate impact is john mentioned as part of our legislative strategy and also our regulatory strategy. We immediately were reaching out to the IRS to ensure that projects that were already underway. We're still going to be able to receive credits if there were delays. As many of you know there's a cliff test essentially you have to complete your rehab and spend enough money on what you're doing to pass the so called substantial rehab test in either a 24 or 60 month period. And you pick that period at the beginning of your rehab, you don't pick it in month 25, when you realize that you really needed 60 months. So we wanted to make sure that the IRS would give people a little bit more time. And we also worked with our friends on the hill to introduce that in legislation so we were asking the IRS we were getting letters from the hill to support that request and putting it in draft legislation, really trying to see which would move first. We were fortunate that the IRS moved quickly so we were able to get that relief in the summer and people now have until March to have an extension for projects that were underway at the COVID. We also have been trying to figure out this financing gap issue for projects that have faced these covert issues that I mentioned. So modeling our approach on what was successful and prior disaster relief. So in legislation, particularly the go zone, and then subsequently for Iowa flood disaster relief. We've asked for there to be a temporary bump up in the credit percentage from the 20% that we have now to 30% credit. You'll recall if you've been following our historic tax credit growth and opportunity act legislation for several years that we've been trying to get this as a permanent change for small projects. So we're essentially saying now we want that 30% to be available for all projects for at least five years, and then stay at that level for small projects and the larger ones would go back to the pre disaster related level. So we're trying to approach COVID as the natural national disaster that is occurring even if it's not the physical disaster and also look for opportunities where there've been physical disasters to with what widespread issues with flooding and hurricanes and wildfires and in 2020 on top of all the pandemic issues that we might be able to pursue that with future legislation as well. And then, as John mentioned, we're trying to ensure that when next vehicle leaves the station that is going to include tax provisions that will be able to get some of the permanent enhancements that we've been looking for for the historic tax credit for several years. So I'll dig into that just to touch on the next slide. The longest pass we've made down the field for a number of years now is the work that the house was able to do last summer in passing HR to the infrastructure bill which includes a number of community development priorities, including it's a mashup of our DECO bill and Congressman Evans bill that would support historic school redevelopment and a number of other priorities that members had. So as I mentioned that included both the request we had from the IRS that we were subsequently able to resolve on a regulatory side, but also included both these temporary and permanent enhancements to the credit. So as we think about what comes next I'll dig in just a second to what some of those permanent enhancements are that are on the next slide. Since tax reform. Most historic tax credit projects have already been trying to retool to ensure that there's sufficient value in the credit pre tax reform or 20% credit was given to you at the time that you completed the rehab of your project. The credit is taken over a five year period. So that reduces the value of the credit in the hands of either the developer who's claiming it themselves or the investor who's investing in the project and receiving the credits. So we've been looking for several ways to ensure that the value of the credit can be restored, and that the credit is simpler to use. So one of the provisions in addition to just straight up bumping up the amount of the credit is to fix some of the kind of glitchy tax things that reduce the value of the credit. One of those is the substantial is the basis adjustment, which essentially means that on one hand you're getting a credit but on the other hand you're losing another tax attribute that other real estate owners have in their properties. So a different approach than other tax credits have like the low income housing tax credit. So just eliminating the basis adjustment test would bring value to the credit and it would also simplify the transaction structuring on a number of transactions. We also want to make the credit available for more historic properties. And so we do that in a couple of ways. One is to lower the substantial rehab test threshold. So right now you have to spend at least $1 more than your building's worth at the beginning of construction to be able to claim the credit. So we want to drop that by half. So you don't have to spend so so much on your rehab to still be able to ensure that your historic building can stay in operation. We also want to make the credit more accessible to nonprofit sponsored projects. Today, the way the tax code is written, it's really a dream for tax lawyers, like I used to be, and accountants who have to do back flips to make sure that projects are equally accessible to nonprofit sponsors as they are to for profit sponsors. And so recognizing we want to be able to have our historic buildings used by people doing all sorts of work that benefit our communities we want to simplify those rules and make them more accessible to other people. Next slide. I'll talk about what we want to do next. I won't put John on the spot and ask him when the House Ways and Means Committee is going to introduce our new bill because we're still working with him and his colleagues, particularly Congressman LaHood, who's working with Congressman Blumenauer and the Ways and Means Committee to help us introduce our bill. And then we also expect Senators Cassidy and Cardin in the Senate Finance Committee to also work with us as they did last year on the introduction of the Go Bill. This year we do want to use the HR2 provisions as they're jumping off point, so we'll be able to refresh what we introduced pre-COVID in early 2020 to include some of the things I just mentioned where we could also have the bump up to 30% for projects that have been impacted by the pandemic. And we're also looking for opportunities to see if we could have essentially an automatic way that when a disaster is declared that those projects would automatically get the bump up in the credit. So we don't have to go back every time there is and try to get new legislation just for that thing. We have a model that works. We should just implement it broadly. And then as things happen folks can plug into that. So those will be some of our priorities coming up this year. I'll hand it off to Shaw to wrap us up and to talk about how you can get engaged with us in helping get our bill introduced. Get our bipartisan sponsors across the House and the Senate to work with us in the new administration to make improvements and enhancements to the historic tax credit in this new administration and then the 117th Congress. Shaw, back to you. Thank you, Merrill. Just waiting for this video to pop up. I think we're able now to turn to question and answer. Thank you for those of you who have submitted questions into the chat box. Some of those have already been answered, including a question about the temporary bump up which I believe Merrill you covered sufficiently. Another question about the national trust engagement on oak flats which is something that we have been involved with for a long time and put on our 11 most most list back in 2015. The question was, was answered on allows in courts and the need for funding. One of the ways that we are looking to support preservation funding for projects like this for bricks and mortar funding is through the emergency relief legislation that Congress is considering. Through the historic preservation fund there are a number of grant programs that do support bricks and mortar projects, and we have urged Congress with the support of hundreds of colleagues and organizations from throughout throughout the nation on increasing funding for those programs significantly and a covert relief bill which which we hope will will be considered in light of recent actions to do that. Another question came in about conservation easements. Certainly, the National Trust looks at conservation easements as a an important tool for permanently protecting historic places. And of course the hang up has been that the IRS has become very skeptical of easements and and audits almost all the easements moving through with on the conservation side but but also on the preservation side. The National Trust is supported legislation as 170 that would attempt to cap the amount of deductions that can be claimed from the value of the easements as a way forward. And I think that's an important policy step that will hopefully help change the culture at IRS to allow more of these easements to move through the process more efficiently so that that can become a better use tool for preservation community. Looking at some other questions. Thank you for Maggie Ward. Some what he was hoping to clarify your comment noting the national heritage areas as benefiting might have been answered. I actually as soon as you were talking about it, I was typing a private response to it. It is a little bit confusing because they are closely related, but they're still lands designated by Congress. So the national heritage areas. And we're still able to receive funding to address their backlogs under the GA away. Thank you, Maggie for that clarification. There's a question about the effect or advocacy on revisions to national register criteria to better address cultural considerations to help nominate more underrepresented sites. And that has been a subject that the trust. Addressed at the last pass forward conference on questions of integrity it's a question that we continue to engage with and we do indeed hope to continue to address that. And that creates a bit of an opening for a question for you, John, on other ways to protect some of these sites and communities and prior to 2017 that the 10% older building tax credit was something that could be used. The secretary standards did not apply it had its own set of wall retention requirements. But there have been efforts and discussions since the 10% credit was eliminated in tax reform to bring that back and modify that modernize that in a way to address some of the more current uses. And I'm thinking specifically about representative Blumenauer's rehab act and if you wanted to take a moment and just talk through the contours of that legislation that was introduced bipartisan legislation that was introduced in the last Congress. Thanks. Appreciate the. I think, you know, in addition to a lot of the work that the congressman's doing on the historic side there's also the recognition of a huge amount of value and interest in building stock that's older. Particularly within downtown or near transit, and that could be at risk of demolition or underuse or going vacant without some sort of infusion of a tax incentive available so the congressman in taking that knowledge and understanding has worked to the rehab act, which was HR 6175 last Congress which would reinstate the 10% credit bump it up to 15% and then include some additional criteria to make it a little bit more targeted of a credit and those criteria would be that the old building would have to first be go through the part one process to certify that it's not a historic building or located within a historic district. Second, it would have to be located within a half mile ring of a public transportation center. This is largely focused I think on the hope of revitalizing dense transit oriented development areas and contributing to those public transit downtown or suburban places that have access to transit. And then would also include bonus credits that are available up to 25% of the qres for expenses related to public infrastructure that's mandated by local government, or, and or the provision of affordable housing. So those two bonus credits at 25% would also be tacked on to the historic rehab credit. So as not to sort of put our thumb on the scale and in one way or the other, but respect that a lot of times the requirement for public infrastructure development or the desire to fold in affordable housing could also include some cost considerations and wanting to be mindful of that to provide the incentive to do it. That's a bill we also I think intend to reintroduce this Congress and hope can make a play to go along with the historic rehab credit and and try to have something that match up well together. Thank you for that john, and we appreciate your work to think about how the 10% credit might be brought back and brought back in a way that really addresses current needs. So I, I think we've gotten through most of the questions that have been raised. I will double check. There was a question about us EPA brownfield grants, which is something that we are do keep an eye on Merrill I don't know if if you might comment on on integrating those types of grants into historic rehab projects, or if that's something that NTC I see has looked into. Sure, I will say that the word grant often means you have to pay more money to your tax lawyers and accountants because you cannot finance qualified rehabilitation expenditures that are eligible for credits with grants, without doing some more sophisticated financing structures now most historic properties and include a lot of needs for capital that aren't actually tied to qres. So we've seen brownfield related programs, especially at the state level used very effectively in tandem with the HTC, because it's usually financing site work that's not HTC eligible anyway. So this seems like a great opportunity for us to see more capital come into projects. One thing that we like about the HTC is a financing tool is it really is helping you focus on the building itself. And so it pairs pretty well with all other financing incentives. If you can get them to layer properly. One additional thing I would say about combining incentives is, is part of congressman bloom an hour's approach to ensuring more affordable housing that's one of the features of eliminating the basis adjustment and our HTC go bill. You have to make the HTC pair better with the loan come housing tax credit, because today light tech does not have the same basis adjustment HTC does, but you have to use the HTC one if you're combining them together so we're providing a drag on that, where you can use the HTC dollars to go to the historic rehab costs that make rehab expensive and ensure that whatever your use is going to be is still being financed by its incentives whether it's light tech or EPA grant funds or others. Thank you, Meryl. So I think we're on to, yes, the next slide. Thanks for the opportunity panelists to respond to a few questions. We did have a few announcements to make before the end of our session here. First, we do hope you'll save the date for our webinar on March 4, where we'll look ahead at the preservation community specific asks of Congress, ahead of preservation advocacy week. So please mark that one down so to the next slide if you wouldn't mind. So with regard to preservation advocacy week we want to thanks, thank our partners at preservation action for all their work to host what will be a virtual historic preservation advocacy week from March 8 through March 11. Please take note of the link on your screen to participate that's preservation action.org backslash advocacy week. Typically, we will have advocacy materials ready to go in advance of that and we look forward to working with our partners at preservation action and Nick Schpo on that, and hope you'll you'll all participate. It's easier to get to Washington virtually so so please join us there. Next slide please. I also wanted to remind you to keep talking. Keep the discussion going on our form connect. This is our online community for people in the business of saving places. We have active conversations happening all week around topics from section 106 women's history at historic sites. So if you have not joined connect yet, I would encourage you to do so. It's a great place to keep up with conversations and start conversations so please use that tool. Next slide please. And just as important as talking, keep learning. Don't forget to take advantage of additional resources on preservation leadership forum. I believe it's our next webinar is on February 18 where we will host a webinar on Brown the board and shell Brown Henderson, and the legacy of the 1954 Supreme Court case which will no doubt be very interesting session. Next slide please. You got it already. Thank you. Well, this is our thank you and wrap up so we want to thank our panelists to john and Maggie and sherry and Merrill for their, their expertise and their experience we appreciate john and Maggie's work on the hill it's a slog so we really do appreciate you're taking a few minutes with us today. And for anybody that is has questions following the webinar please as always don't hesitate to contact us. Our email is forum at saving places.org noted on the screen below. I think we're we come to the end of our hour so thank you to everyone and have a great day.


We're back with the breakfast and plus TV Africa is time for us to look at the issue of the National Cash Transfer and the fact that it will be ending. Shagun Shopito joins us this morning. Shagun, it's good to have you join us. All right, then the National Cash Transfer Programme, also known as Household of Lifting Programme, is one of the social safety nets programs anchored by the federal government. The National Cash Transfer Programme was also initiated. It's that program that has for social investment, like I rightly mentioned, with the federal government's presence and supported by the World Bank. The program commenced in September 2016 and it was conceived as part of the government's larger growth and social inclusion strategy aimed at addressing key social concerns in the country. And so with all of the financial support from the World Bank is also targeted at poor and vulnerable Nigerians household. Now the beneficiaries of the program are mined from the National Social Register, comprising state social register of poor and vulnerable household. And that's what it is because we know that a lot of people have constantly queried and asked how do we identify the poor, you know, in our society. Meanwhile, the National Bureau of Statistics, MBS has revealed that 63% of peasants living in Nigeria, 133 million people actually are multi-dimensionally poor. Also, according to the 2022 multi-dimensional poverty index survey, over half of the population of Nigeria is living in that poverty. And so we're looking at rates which is high, especially in the rural areas, where 72% of the people are poor compared to 42% of the people in urban communities. And that's why we have Shegu Shokpiton who joins us this morning. He's the chairman of ACT Network, that's the ACT Network right here in Lagos. Thank you for joining us, Shegu. Thanks for having me. Well, so but quickly, what do you make of this? First of all, what's your thoughts about, you know, social intervention program or net programs in our country? And secondly, do you think that this exact program has lead up to high expectation? This program has been on for about six years now. And the government, by its own admission, has said that the primary objective of this program is poverty reduction. So if you want to answer the question about that in the last six years, if poverty statistics to determine whether it's successful or not, and if the information available from the government agency itself is anything to go by, clearly this is not the case. The poverty ratio has increased in the last six years in the country by the latest reports from around 2% of Nigerians living in multi-dimensional poverty, according to them. We don't have, we have a positive of data, we don't have enough data to sometimes analyze our situation and perhaps make decisions regarding policy making and all of that. So it's difficult to speak very categorically, but I think the general data is that poverty rate on the average over the last six years has been increasing from around 60% six years ago to about 72% from the latest reports of the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics. So which means that poverty has gotten worse. And I think that if you then even disaggregate that the statistics further, you find that the irony is that the conditional cash transfer project was targeted deliberately at rural dwellings. At rural dwelling Nigerians. And from the poverty statistics released by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, poverty has gotten worse in the rural areas. So urban poverty ratio in Nigeria from that report is 42% in the rural areas is 72%. So the program clearly hasn't achieved its objectives and I think that the reason for that is very simple. From the very onset when this program was announced a few months into the program after looking at the components and how the government had laid it out and what they intended to do with it. It became clear that this was nothing but a tokenistic effort to pander to the public sentiment about poverty reduction and poverty alleviation. This was never a very well thought out and well implemented or well orchestrated poverty reduction process. If you remember a couple of years ago, I think it was about two years ago, Nigeria became what we now call the poverty capital of the world. Over taking India in terms of the number of people, the absolute numbers of people in poverty and in terms of the speed with which people fall into poverty across those countries. India has been able to reduce its poverty prevalence significantly. And if you stop what we are doing in Nigeria, you find that we're just clouding around to be honest with all due regard to the people that are behind this program. So no, this program hasn't achieved its objectives. No, the government hasn't gone about this the right way. And in fact, there are other initiatives and other social safety net issues that the government has not even started to address at all. So then stopping it now, I think it's a welcome development. I think we're just taking all of the hundreds of billions of Naira that have been thrown at this project and we basically wasted it in quotes. Remember that truism that says that it is far better to teach a man how to fish rather than giving them fish to eat. What this program has been doing in the last six years is giving people fish to eat. Even though they claim that there has been a capacity development element to this as well, but there is no evidence of that on ground. And if there is, maybe the government should show us. Shaku, interesting. But you've talked about some of how this conditional cash transfer in Nigeria has worked. I mean, I'm sure you agree with expert who say that conditional cash transfer programs have been an effective way to reconcile the social safety nets. In other words, to reconcile and bring in general acceptance or assistance policies rather. They're talking about investment in human development and they're also looking at the fact that these social safety, these are conditional cash transfers target the extremely poor. Would it be fair for us to say, oh, because they didn't teach them how to fish, you know, as you put it. Therefore, this was not successful. Would it be fair? You also talked about the fact that it targeted the raw areas. I mean, if we're talking about looking at those in the extremely poor bracket in society, I'm sure you have to go to the raw areas to find them. We have 2 million people who have been reached by the conditional cash transfer. Nigeria is a country of more than 150 million people. Even if the poverty rate is increasing in the country, especially in the raw areas, we call it multidimensional poverty. Can we confidently assess the success of this program simply because the overall poverty rate has gone up? Yes, Kofi, we can because at the end of the day, keeping it very simple, you know, that simple acronym K-I-S-S-K, keep it simple and, you know, I mean, there are all sorts of variations of that. Keeping things very simple is always a good way to ensure that you make progress. The more complex and complicated your analysis is in regards to an issue, the more likely it is that you may end up conflating issues and generally mixing things up. The primary objective of this program was poverty reduction. This is the government's own self-admitted program objective that has not been achieved. And unfortunately, we do not have enough data to disaggregate that and look at that component, you know, like you say, for example, as a part of the process of implementing this program, the government has built a social register, which is fantastic, you know. But where is that social register? Who are the people on it? According to the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs in the last two or three years, they've added, if I am not mistaken, I don't have the correct number, so pardon me on that. I think they've added about six million households, six million households, something like that to that register, right? So this ought to be a good thing, because that will then give governments, you know, information about Nigerians that need help, and then you can target the type of help they need to them to bring them out of not just multidimensional poverty, but to actually help them with wealth-creating initiatives that can, you know, grow the capacity of Nigerians. So the question I was asking you, sorry to interject at this point. The question I was asking was, if we're hearing from the MBS that 133 million people in Nigeria are living in poverty, this program has targeted and has been able to reach two million people. Is it easy to say, because 133 Nigerians or people in Nigeria are living in poverty, it therefore means, and that the poverty rate has increased, it therefore means that the conditional cash transfer as implemented by the government has been a failure. If you want to take into context statistics and look at how many people are outside that 133 million, is it possible that you can find two million people or maybe one million people to say this one million have started their journey out of poverty? It's a journey. Is it also possible to pass a verdict in one year of receiving this money? No, but Kofi, when you juxtapose that with the context of the duration of time that this program has been run for, we're talking six years, Kofi, six years. This government has been in office for seven years and this was one of the first things that they started doing. The various poverty alleviation, various social intervention programs, the conditional cash transfer program, the various trader money, market money, all of those different programs all fell under the umbrella of social intervention. In six years, you have reached two million people. In those six years, the number of people living in poverty has increased to 133. A whopping 60 to 70% of the entire population. I don't think there is any other definition for failure.  So you can say maybe you can decide to look at it from a glass one over eight full or one quarter full rather than three over four or three quarters empty. It's a matter of perspective. So you can say, yes, the journey has started. But then how can you be talking about a journey commencing at the end of the journey? I mean, for goodness sake, this government is going out of office in months, in just a matter of five, six, seven, eight months, they're out. So in the eight years that they've been there, they've set themselves an objective of reducing poverty. They have been unable to do it. I don't know what other way you want to define failure. This program has failed spectacularly. And the reason for that, Kofi, and that's where I was going is very simple. You do not alleviate poverty by giving handouts. I would have thought that this was just simple common sense. You don't need to be an economist. You don't need to be some sage, wisdom, blessed with supernatural wisdom to know that you cannot alleviate poverty by dashing people money. You alleviate poverty by giving people the capacity to create money. So let's even further talk about this choc piton because I don't know if you think that this is an irony when we talk about these programs and the fact that if you look at the rural communities, there's nothing to write them about. You talk about infrastructure. The standard of living is poor. No road infrastructure. I mean basic infrastructure not available in this community. So how do we say that these programs or social net programs of government has helped the people out of poverty? Yeah, you know, so that's a different angle to the conversation. Very clearly the process of reducing poverty in a society is let me borrow there what is a multi-dimensional process. There are many facets to it. There are many elements that need to be addressed. There's no way you can create wealth. There's no way you can have economic development and progress without setting issues within that society being addressed. Infrastructure is a fundamental one. Availability of social services is another fundamental one. Availability of the appropriate, enabling, and conducive regulatory policy environment and framework is another one. All of these things have been, you know, this government has been trying to address, I guess we can give them that in their own way. But, you know, the jury is out as to how well they've done, you know, in terms of infrastructure, in terms of any of these things that I've mentioned. Where were we in 2015? Where are we now? And if you don't deal with those things, you can't bring people out of poverty. You need power to bring people out of poverty. Where were we on power supply in 2015? Where are we now? We are stagnated. And saying we're stagnated is being charitable. Some would argue that we've regressed, you know. So, yes, if those things are not dealt with, you can't even fix poverty. All right. Chairman ACT Network, it's been a thrill having you on the breakfast this morning. And hope to have you in the studio live next time. Thank you very much for joining us. Thanks for having me. Have a good day. All right. And that's the size of our package on the breakfast this morning. It's going to be quite interesting. We're looking forward to having you here tomorrow. Well, that said, it's OK to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can also subscribe to our YouTube channel where plus TV Africa and plus TV Africa lifestyle. My name is Messia Bukbo. Have a fantastic Monday morning. And my name is Kofi Bartels.  Join us for the news at nine.