Simone, over to you. Thank you so very much. Excellencies, distinguished participants, and speakers, ladies and gentlemen, a very warm welcome to the event titled, Innovative Financing Schemes and Policies to Unlock Human Potential. The event is organized by the government of the Republic of Benin, alongside the 2023 High Level Political Forum, a body of the ECOSOC at the United Nations that reviews every year, as you know, progress that countries are making on the sustainable development goals. This is the time of the year when countries need to come to the truth to present their progress towards the 2030 agenda. Allow me to also thank the Sustainable Development Solutions Network of the United Nations for assisting with the organization of this event and for the documents that are going to be presented. As you could see through the agenda, our event is structured in three parts. We will have an opening segment to set the stage for a discussion that will look both into the progress that countries are making on the SDGs, as well as on the financing solutions to keep progress going. The introduction will be followed by the presentation of the Benin Sustainable Development Report 2023 that will be delivered by SDSM, after which we will have a panel discussion on Innovative Financing to Unlock Sustainable Human Development. We talk about how governments have taken the bold action towards mobilizing financing in capital markets. And we will talk to investors, to asset managers, to the International Monetary Fund as the institution monitoring financial markets globally. And I am also extremely grateful to all of the participants, speakers today, government representatives of the Republic of Benin, as well as of Uzbekistan, that will speak out their specific experience in raising ESG debt to fund national development plans and also financial institutions representatives experts, as I mentioned. I would like to give the floor to the opening address. I'm just checking if Mr. Erman Taku, Director of Cabinet Ministry of Economy and Finance of the Republic of Benin, is online for the opening address. Just waiting for a confirmation. If not, I'm going to invite Guillaume Lafortune, Vice President of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, to present the report and give the floor as soon as possible to the representative of the government of the Republic of Benin. So just testing, Mr. Taku, you have the floor. Not yet. So we will, with your permission, I will just invite SDSN to present the report. Maybe just a brief introduction as we are waiting for the government to also be present for the opening segment. SDSN produces for many years now sustainable development through reports, a global report that is always launched in June. This time around the Paris Summit, we had an opportunity to look at the progress globally, as well as country reports using SDG index and also six transformations. A very interesting approach, as the SDGs are so interlinked. So there is no progress towards any of them without making the same level of progress across. I would like to give the floor to Guillaume Lafortune, again, Vice President of SDSN for the presentation. Guillaume, the floor is yours. Yeah, thank you so much, Simona. And I do believe we do have the teams in Cotonou Benin connected, maybe not all the panelists, but we do have, I believe, a big team in Benin connected to the event. I mean, look, it's a great pleasure for me to be here. I'm connecting from New York from where the high level political forum just started. And as Simona mentioned, this event is an official side event of this year's HRPF. And I'm particularly happy to present in a moment the key findings and results of the second edition of this Benin Sustainable Development Report. Before diving into the results and sharing a few slides, I just wanted to give a little bit of background around this report and this partnership that SDSN has with Benin since 2021 now. So Simona mentioned that we just released a few weeks ago on the sidelines of the Paris Summit for a Global Financing Pact. The 2023 edition of the Sustainable Development Report, which includes the SDG index and dashboards. So every year we track SDSN the performance of all UN member states on the SDGs. And of course, this is no surprise. The main findings is that globally, we're not on track. Actually, we're not on track at all to achieve those goals by 2030. And what's quite worrying is when we look at the gap between high income countries and lower income and lower middle income countries on SDG outcomes, when we extrapolate the trends over the past two to three years, we see that by 2030, the gap might be even larger between rich and poor countries on SDG outcomes than where it was in 2015. So that would mean basically a complete loss of convergence in sustainable development outcomes over that period, which was of course not at all the objectives when we started this agenda. So HRPF, of course, is very important to recommit to this agenda. But of course, there's a very important SDG summit coming up in September followed, of course. I mean, there will be before that an important G20 meeting in India, a COP 28 in Dubai, and then a summit for the future also in September, 2024. But it's very important now that we double down on policies, but also on financing for this agenda. One of the challenges that a lot of the low income or middle income countries and emerging economies more generally are facing is the fiscal space issue. And one of the problems is that some countries managed to mobilize 17 trillion and plus on COVID-19 recovery packages. This is not the case for many countries around the world that face major challenges when it comes to borrowing to invest into the human capital and the physical infrastructure needed to achieve the SDGs. Also there's two major problems, the cost of borrowing, the interest rates paid that often exceed 8, 9, 10% in many of those countries, but also the length of the borrowing, the maturity, which is often very short. So in that context, it's very interesting to look at some of those innovative financing instruments that have been developed over the past couple of years, especially at the sovereign side to try to address some of those issues. And then in one of those countries, and when we will have the interventions from the government, they will speak about the process and the background for the issuance back in July, 2021 of the first African SDG bond. But this is an instrument where that allowed to address some of those issues that allowed them to borrow at a lower cost than it usually borrows, but also that has an average maturity of 12.5 years, which is of course, very important to have these kinds of maturity when you want to invest into infrastructure type of projects that take years to materialize and human capital also. So at SDSN from the very beginning, we were extremely happy to work with Benin on monitoring the implementation of SDG policies in the country. And so what we do in this context is each year we take stock of the progress made by Benin, both in terms of the outcomes that are being achieved and also in terms of the development of the policies. So as such, it's part of the broader, let's say governance framework of the bond that there's an independent monitoring each year of the progress towards the goals that Benin is making. And this is what I'll be presenting over the next around a minute. I'll be sharing my screens because there's a lot of great visuals. I just want to again thank the team that is leading the development of this report. I'm doing the presentation here, but there's a whole team that are really doing the work. So in particular, the team of the government of Benin, but also my colleague at the SDSN, Samori Pore, who's the lead analyst on this assessment. So you see it here, this, and I hope you can all see my slide, maybe Simone, you can give me a thumbs up if that's the case, yeah, good. So this is part of a broader series of assessments that the SDSN has been doing now since 2016. We do this at the global level, but we also do this at the regional level. So each year we also work with European partners on a European edition. We have also, we're doing work with Latin America and also we track what's going on within countries as well. So when I say what those reports do is they take a number of indicators in the case of the global edition, it's around 100 that are then grouped across the SDGs. We define what represents SDG achievement on all the indicators. We aggregate this at the goal level and then it creates an assessment of where we're standing on the SDGs. And then we can calculate whether countries are on track or off track to achieve the goals. And I'm not spending too long on the methodology because a lot has been said and a lot is also available online, but we've been peer reviewed by Nature Geoscience, Cambridge University present. This methodology has been also statistically audited the 2019 edition by the European Commission Joint Research Center. So we've done all the steps necessary to make sure that this was as scientific as it can be. So this is, I mean, what the first slide is showing is the overall situation at midpoint on the SDGs in Benin. And what this assessment, the assessment this year is doing is comparing the results of Benin versus other countries in the CDAO region, which includes, of course, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. So a lot of the assessments is based on, I mean, we compare it to what's going on globally, but also specifically against the region. And you see here that at midpoint, basically, we evaluate that Benin has a score and SDG index for 50.4%, which is now slightly above the population-weighted regional average. But then what's even more interesting is to look across the goals of the various challenges and trajectories and progress that the country is making. And we see here that there are important challenges, but there's also some signs of progress on many of the goals, including, and I'll be sharing a few slides in a moment, but on reducing extreme poverty, for instance, on decent work, on industry and innovation as well. And of course, as many low-income and lower-middle-income countries Benin performs much better than many of the high-income countries on SDG 12 and 13 related to responsible consumption, production, and climate action, even though here also, we need to look at the trends over time as well, but in terms of performance, those goals are, Benin performs fairly well right now on those goals. I think when we look at the trends, it's actually quite interesting to see where Benin started back in 2015, compared with neighboring countries and where it stands right now. So when we look at trends over time, we see that in 2015, our estimate was below, Benin was below the city owl region, and in 2022, Benin is now above the average for the region. So we estimate that Benin was progressing at the rate of one percentage points per year on average over the period, versus 0.2 points for the city owl region. So essentially five times faster. And a lot of the progress is driven by significant reduction in extreme poverty rates, reduction in income inequalities, and also a sharp increase in access to HIV treatment among others. So of course here, I'm not going into all the details. This is described in the report, but those are some of the drivers. Another way to look at it, because the SDG score might not be speaking to those that don't know the methodology, but we can also assess the percentage of SDG targets that are on track to be achieved, or where there's limited progress for those that are moving backwards. And here we see that Benin is at about 20% of the target that are either achieved or on track, which is also above the average for the city owl region. Of course, there's more than a quarter of the target that are also not necessarily going in the right direction, so those require some attention as well. So I mentioned that one of the interesting finding is to see the reduction in extreme poverty in Benin since the adoption of the SDGs. These are people that live with less than $2.15 USD per day and $3.65 per day. And you see here that there's been a really significant reduction which exceeded the average reduction in extreme poverty observed in countries of the city owl region. Of course, here I'm going quite quickly over those results, but all of this indicator by indicator go by goal is available in the report and accompanied, of course, by a much more detailed analysis of the key result and finding. But of course, this is one data point per country, and one data point per country, as we know, might hide some disparities in SDG outcomes within countries. So we have also a methodology to track what is happening also at the subnational level. So we've worked with many, many countries around the world and we've applied this also to the case of Benin. And we see here that there are indeed some disparities across the 12 departments in Benin. Quite often the littoral region around Cotonou is at the higher level of SDG performance or outcomes than some of the northern departments, including Atacora or Alibori, for instance. And what you see here is, and this year's report has a strong focus on education, gender, and inequality. What in SDSN is the first transformation out of six transformations that we call for the SDGs. This is transformation one and the transformation two is on health, well-being, and demography. And this is the focus of this year's edition. The other six transformation are related to energy, decarbonization, the fourth one is on sustainable land use, oceans, and biodiversity preservation. The fifth one is on sustainable cities and the sixth one is on harnessing the digital revolution. So this year's assessment focuses a lot of this Benin report on transformation one and two on education, gender, and equality, and health, well-being, and demography. And so here you have the scores of a leave no one behind index that we prepared for this report. And there's, you see here two of the pillars of this leave no one behind index, one on the accessibility of services on the left-hand side and the other one is on extreme poverty and material deprivation. And these are the gaps across subregions. So this is for the outcomes, the performance, the results in terms of SDG progress and targets. But it's also interesting to look at the development of institutional leadership and policies to achieve the SDGs because that might actually send a strong signal around the willingness of a country to move towards the SDGs and whether a country is on track when it comes to its policy framework and investment frameworks to achieve the SDGs. And so at this DSN, we've been doing work on this since 2016, also including with the OECD and we published a lot of working papers and research outputs. And we work with a conceptual framework that looks at countries' political leadership and institutional coordination for the SDGs, the integration of the SDGs into sectoral policies and pathways and countries' commitment to multilateralism under the UN Charter because the SDGs are global responsibility whether it's for climate action, cybersecurity, peace, all of those challenges require cooperation. So we also integrate the commitment of countries to work with others as an important component of countries' efforts and commitments to the SDGs. And we take a number of key proxy indicators across all those three pillars and we aggregate this as a score of government efforts and commitments. And in the case of the Benin Report, we dive into some of the latest developments in terms of policies and integration of SDGs into public management practices and procedures. So I'm going quite fast, but these are some of the proxy measures, right? So on political leadership and institutional coordination, SDSN has its own primary data collection collected from our global network of researchers and scientists from all over the world. So we look at whether countries have done at the midpoint of voluntary national review, whether there's a coordination unit in government for the SDGs, whether there's a monitoring system, a set of national indicator sets, whether we see references to the SDGs in the national budget. And then we also look at the integration of the SDGs into sectoral pathways. So across the six transformations and then the commitment to multilateralism, the percentage of treaties that countries have ratified the UN membership and UN organizations and other measures to promote the militarization piece and so on. And so here also it's actually quite interesting. So this is not from the Benin Report from our global assessment that was just released, but the bottom line here, and we have results for 74 countries, the bottom line here is that Benin ranks actually number five. So it is in the top five this year of our assessment of government efforts and commitments for the SDGs. The other countries at the top are European countries, including Sweden, Switzerland, Netherlands and Finland. And at the very bottom, there's three countries that stand out with, as countries that talk very little about SDGs and have less a lower level of commitment, those are the Russian Federation Israel and the United States. And at one example, at the midpoint, we've got 188 countries that have taken part in the VNR process. Five countries have not taken part in VNR process. These are Haiti, Yemen, South Sudan, Myanmar and the United States. Benin has presented three VNRs already to the United Nations. And so to conclude, and because I think other speakers will do a much better job, but there's very clearly in Benin a strong commitment and this is part of the report, a snapshot of the institutional governance framework, let's say, or institutional arrangements for SDG implementation in Benin, which is very advanced and ambitious. And we track also inside the report, some of the key metrics and look at the policy development in Benin in terms of integration of gender in the law. So this is a World Bank metrics, whether there's efforts to reduce inequalities. This is a NOxFAM assessment for instance and other metrics on the number of free and compulsory year of education in the law. For instance, so you see, these are more inputs and process measures. So we track this also every year in this assessment. I'll stop here. I've been a bit longer than expected, but I hope I paid justice to the great work that's been done as part of this report from the government of Benin, but also from at the SDSN, the team of researchers that are involved. The report is accessible online since this morning, you have the web link here. I invite all of you to also take a look at the data visualization tool that has been produced alongside the report. And finally, just to say that the rest of our brother work on SDG pathways policies and financing is available in our flagship platform that was also released a few weeks ago to this new SDG transformation center. And I'll stop here and end it back to you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Guillaume. Remarkable progress, great commitment, a good success story for other countries to follow. We look forward to an analysis as to how the SDG that, so that that raised for investments that observe environmental, social and governance standards and safeguards have contributed to this great progress. We will hear from two countries, from Benin and from Uzbekistan. So I'm very pleased to introduce a distinguished panel that will take this topic of SDG progress to link it to financing. In the panel on the podium this morning, this afternoon with me, Professor Alastair Alinsato, Chief of Staff at the Ministry of Development in the government of the Republic of Benin, Mr. Roderick Shaou, Director General of the Budget Ministry of Economy and Finance Republic of Benin, Mr. Obidjon Kakimov, Director of Center for Economic Research and Reform under the administration of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Uzbekistan in Central Asia, the first SDG bond issuer after Benin. And then Mr. Cedric Merle, Head of Center of Expertise and Innovation and ESG coverage for sovereign supranational agency that at Natixis, Green and Sustainable Hub, Ms. Kami Barre, who is a socially responsible investment analyst at MIROBA, and Ms. Kei Chang, Senior Research Officer at the International Monetary Fund. Again, it is all about expanding space, identifying ways to mobilise resources in a capital market that likes trust when it's about developing countries, a topic that has been since 2022 from the launch of the Bridgetown Initiative on the table, then reflected into the SDG stimulus of the United Nations and followed by an interesting outcome of the Paris Summit. So it's all about raising sustainable debt, debt that is linked to sustainable development goals to more inclusive sustainable human development. And we will hear how this is possible. Professor Alastair Alinsato, I will start with you. You are a highly knowledgeable professional in the field of sustainable development goals in Benin. Following the interesting process of mobilising, financing for the SDGs, we would like to understand what the recent developments are regarding the monitoring and the implementation framework of the 2030 agenda in Benin. You mentioned your organisation of voluntary local reviews and the National Forum on SDGs mentioned that Guillaume to your presentation as well. What are the upcoming steps and other prospects for the countries? Benin, a good story for other countries to follow. We look forward to your words, Professor Alinsato. It's called the word. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much, Madam, for this very good introduction and also energy that shows that we are in the middle of the ODD. I would like to answer your question before the SDSN and all the organisers of this panel that allow us to celebrate Benin in the context of high-level political chaos. And to answer the question, I will, for each course, also I will simply feel on the most recent developments, especially those intervened between the panel of the last year and today. So what has changed over the last year in terms of governmental engagement in the ODD? So as you mentioned in the introductory word, we have done an analysis after the ODD's prioritisation. We have proceeded to the spatialisation, that is to say that we have sought to see what are the priorities in terms of the ODD that take off for each community of Benin. And after we have done this ODD, we have a map, a category of ODDs that are more permanent than common in Benin. And we have, over the last year, realized that more than 60% of the ODDs have had a much more pronounced local impact. That is to say that, following the principle of subsidiarity, the efficiency of the ODDs will improve more than 60% if local governments, the Prime Minister governments, invest more in the ODDs. So, just to engage the leaders of this dynamic, the ODDs, we have organized over the last year the volunteer local exams. The idea of volunteer local exams is to bring each community to produce a report of volunteer local exams instead of what the countries are doing in the Polynesian political forum. And so, for this first experience, we have 77 ODDs in Benin, more than 40 in terms of volunteer local exams. That is to say that more than 40 communities have the choice to submit to the general public and submit to the evaluation of the general public and of the ODDs. And we have selected four communities for this first experience, just based on the logistical constraints that we have. But we have to say that all of these seven communities were indeed present at the national forum on the ODDs, which are the four that we have put in place to allow each community to be selected, so the four communities that we have selected are more than 40 candidates to submit their local exam reports. So that allowed us to identify the gaps that still exist in the communities. And that also allowed us to record the success stories, the good practices at the local community level that allow us to boost the ODDs. And so the volunteer local exams allowed us to produce the reports and the national forum on the ODDs that allowed us to present these reports, to submit to the evaluation of the ODDs in a way that brings together all the Benin's mothers, all the Benin's teachers, the ministers who are on the question of the ODDs during a week. That has been a major change, a new innovation in the ODDs' implementation process. Secondly, if I have one more minute, I will complete and say that we also have, in terms of innovation, the government, after having evaluated the environment of the ODDs in the year, and after realizing that 60% of the ODDs are much more efficient when they are implemented in a local level, to identify what we have called ODD accelerators. And we have, in the ODDs, identified around five to six accelerators. The government decided to put in place a special program for the development of the ODD. Today, we are at the pilot committee. So we have finalized this program for a first ODD of three years and it turns around five to six accelerators. We have primary schools. You can see very well in the report presented by Guillaume that the benefit is very good in terms of primary school rates. We have health centers. We have market infrastructure, that is to say the markets, where the farmers, the peasants, the men, the women have just changed their goods. We have the disengagement of the municipalities. We have sometimes these municipalities that are very involved, difficult to do. It is also difficult to move the production of fields towards the end of the field. So we have a program of disengagement. We have a program of doing in the local level and we have electricity. So here are the six accelerators around which a mini program of three years is put in place for the municipalities. And at this stage, the only municipality of this experience is 500 million dollars, so they are mobilized for this municipality to make important advances in these areas that I mentioned. I remind you to finish the primary schools, the health centers, the open water, electricity, the market infrastructure and the disengagement of the municipalities. So that's what has fundamentally changed since the last 12 months, since the last year in the Benin, and which here still shows the government's commitment, the will of the government to lead the country on the path that will lead here in 2030, indeed, to reach the development goals of the RAR. Thank you. Professor Aline Sato, I would like to thank you. Incredible, incredible analysis as to what works in the implementation of the SDGs. Development is fundamentally local. Localizing the agenda creates more ownership at the village level, at the community level, which in the case of Benin played such an important role in generating progress. I think if I may, Professor Benin is educating investors as to how taking that particular avenue, providing, showing confidence in governments that are capable of putting forward such policies and such interesting projects could achieve progress and provide higher returns on investment. So great, great example. We look forward to learning more of the results moving forward. And in my capacity, I have not had an opportunity to introduce myself. As a senior advisor covering small island developing states, I will definitely showcase Benin for our countries to follow as well. Local ownership development is fundamentally local. Thank you so much indeed. We have another country example to compare and to learn more in this case is about Uzbekistan that in 2021 was the first country in the region, as I mentioned, to raise sovereign bonds, as the G bonds, 235 million US dollars, with a 14% coupon rate for a period of three years. So we have today a representative. I'm very grateful and pleased to introduce Mr. Obi-Jon Kakeymov. As mentioned at the beginning, he's the director of Center for Economic Research and Reform under the administration of the president of the Republic of Uzbekistan, and my question, Mr. Kakeymov, was it easy? Can we convince investors to put their resources into ESG sovereign bonds and allow countries to build economies that are more conducive to human development as well? So what's the experience of Uzbekistan over to you, Mr. Kakeymov? Good afternoon, everyone. So as I was introduced already, I represent the Center for Economic Research and Reforms. And for those who doesn't know where is Uzbekistan, what country is it? Uzbekistan is located in the Central Asia. It's right above the Afghanistan, so it's kind of middle of the Eurasian continent. And it has about like a 36 million population and the GDP per capita by the nominal US dollar exchange rate is about like 2,300. So Uzbekistan got its independence in 1991 and since 2018, the new president of Uzbekistan start like in the Swift reforms. And if you may, I will demonstrate my screen right now, so that I have small presentation. So if I talk about, can you see my presentation? Okay, great, great. If I talk a little bit about SDG history of Uzbekistan, so yes, we committed to implement the global 2030 agenda for sustainable development, but the real works in Uzbekistan started in 2018, October, so that the new president of Uzbekistan, the Shaukat Mirzai, when he came to the presidency in 2017, we started the real implementation of this, the global agenda. So in 2018, 16 national sustainable development goals and 125 targets were approved and interagency coordination council created and the road mobs for implementation of all these SDGs are adopted. So since 2017, Uzbekistan, so if you talk about like, you know, development side, so that we almost finished like, you know, the two strategies. So the one, the strategy was like 2017 and 2021 strategy. So this is the five-year strategy and the 2022-2026 strategy was kind of in the middle. So all these strategies were kind of aligned when we developed all these strategies. So our center was kind of coordinating office. So all these, you know, the 16 national sustainable development goals and 125 targets were kind of, you know, the part of these strategies. So as one of the main components of this SDG, you know, the policies Uzbekistan since 2020 said that one of the main economic policy or the priority Uzbekistan, it will be, you know, the poverty reduction strategy. So in Uzbekistan, we first adopted in 2020 national poverty line and in 2021 and the 22. So what we did is like we reduced in one year by implementing these, you know, the policies. So the poverty rate were reduced from 17% to 14%. So as you can see that by the implementation of this new poverty reduction strategies of Uzbekistan policies of those Uzbekistan only in one year, one million people were lifted. So as my colleagues already told that, you know, that Uzbekistan, when it comes to the poverty reduction shifted towards to the what not the government level or the local government level was shifted towards the working at the community level. So the poverty reduction strategies or implementation of these strategies are kind of, you know, the performed by the at the community level. So in Uzbekistan, as I said already, we have 36 million population but 10,000 what, you know, the communities. So in 10,000 communities, we implemented the special person who will be responsible for the poverty reduction policies of those Uzbekistan and plus entrepreneurship programs. So that these communities are called the Mahalas. So that's why we call the system. So that we call this new innovation of the poverty reduction innovation as like, you know the Mahalapa system of the Uzbekistan. So as you can see that, you know the allocation of the public expenditure increased significantly.  So here is the numbers just to show that what is happening in Uzbekistan by the implementation of all these SDGs. So in 2019, if the coverage with the centralized water supply was 67%. So right now in 2022, we increased the 74.4%. So that now we are kind of forming new strategy. Strategy is called like 2023, 30. So this is seven years strategy. According to the seven year strategy we want to achieve 91% of, you know the coverage of the centralized water supply. So the coverage of the centralized sewer system also kind of compared to the 2019 which was about like 15%, people would like to make it about like 31%. So the efficiency of the wastewater system if it was like in 2019, like 55% who would like to achieve this one, 80%. So the Uzbekistan allocates, you know the high amount of, you know the improvement in like, you know the water efficiency. So for those who doesn't know that the Central Asia is one of the regions of the, you know the earth which is kind of having serious problem with the water scarcity. So the in the next, for example as I said, 10, 15 years we have two rivers which is kind of main, you know the rivers of the Central Asia which kind of collects about like 80% of the water resources that the resources of these two rivers will decline significantly and you know the efficiency of the agriculture will be kind of one of the top issues. And as, you know the Mr. Lafortuna said that, you know the implementation of, you know the SDG outcomes or the targets will be depending on these changes and the global changes. So before kind of, you know the talking about the bonds I would like to speak about the a little bit about the one study which was kind of done with the specialists and our center also was kind of part of this. I have estimated that those vexant needed additional annual spending about like 7.9% of the GDP in order to achieve like this 2030 SDG goals. So if you looked at the distribution of the 7.9% highest portion goes to the what the health sector it's about like 3.4% and the infrastructure it's about like 2.4%, 1% on the water and 0.8% on the electricity and 0.3% on the education. So as a second country in the global it was vexant also first time implement, you know the issue of this SDG bonds. So if I talk about this SDG bonds $235 million with the 14% so that the one thing that, you know that was vexant in this five years not only issue the SDG bonds it also started like kind of becoming part of the global financial. So until 2017 we never issued not only SDG but any bonds in the global financial markets. So in the short time periods we issued we participate in the global financial markets we issued our first bonds and we are kind of second country, you know the as issued SDG bonds in the local currency. So this is the 14% coupon as a local currency. So, you know, when this bond was issued as you can see that, you know the bond, the revenue which is like $235 million worth of, you know the resources where, you know the directly and indirectly contributed to the total of 11 SDGs of the Uzbekans. So these are the health services. So that these are the components of like 311-8 education sustainable water supply and the waste management and the efficient energy production and the consumption and the deliver of the clean transportation services. So the pollution and the prevention of the control prevention and control and sustainable management and living natural resources and the land use as you can see that. So that these $235 million were kind of directly or sometimes indirectly contributed to the improvement of these SDGs. So if you look to the allocation of the SDG bonds like 54% went to the transportation system which is kind of, you know the contributes and environment, you know the also other parts health, education and water system. So if I talk about the geographically Uzbekistan has 14, you know, the regions, yes 14 obelisk we call it, yes. So as you can see that the majority part of this 14 you know, the SDG bonds were allocated to the Tuskan city, Namangan, Andijan and the Fergana Valley. And as you can see that these regions are accounts you know, the high portion of our population more dense. So if you see this Andijan so the Andijan region is considered as most dense the populated area of the Uzbekistan. So it's also kind of benefiting more people and it's also kind of, you know that they going to the towards the regions where we have more, you know the demand for these kind of resources. Yes, you know, this is kind of what the good example and I think that, you know that this experience should be shared and I think that, you know the not only 235 million as I said before like we also had this demand about like 7.9% of our you know, the gross domestic product. So if I talk about like it was Uzbekistan's you know, the gross domestic product it's about like 81 billion dollars. So the, as you can see the 8% of this it's about like, you know the 7.8 billion dollar worth of demand for further implementation of our SDGs. So what we are doing right now that we are kind of dividing all these you know, that the components to the three parts one portion is kind of we are kind of transferring some components to the private sector some components are we are kind of directing to the private public partnership system and some components to the what directed to the only government you know, the project. So as you can see that demand for these SDG level bonds will be kind of, you know the importance of this SDG level bonds will be higher and higher. So what I think that my opinion is that you know, to make this issues of these bonds will be more and more important for the developing countries. So one thing that you know as you can see what's happening in these days that you know, the interest rates as you know, the Mr. Lafortine said that interest rates are going up globally. So this is already making issuing not only SDG bonds but any bonds for developing economies making more and more than the, you know the difficult. Thank you very much. I'm sorry for if I take the longer time. Thank you so very much. Fascinating presentation. I noted the reference to policy coherence as an important and I'm hoping you can hear me okay. The policy coherence has an important approach to ensuring that the money is best used to focus on poverty reduction also on key resources, vital resources that are needed such as access to water supply and for the efficiency of agriculture and also the interesting analysis of the financing gap that the country has in terms of advancing the SDGs. I'm confident that through the use of the current line of bonds Uzbekistan will improve its borrowing position. So it's going to be much easier in the future to mobilize resources and again another way to help investors understand that returns on their money should not be only money but also the public good, the social good the environmental good that they actually create. The next speaker, thank you again very much Mr. Kalkimalt. The next speaker is the budget director in the government of the Republic of Benin in the Ministry of Economy and Finance who will walk us a little bit on how exactly the process of budgeting the SDGs as well as using external resources that primarily into financing the SDGs actually works in Benin. Again, another way to learn more and share with other countries that wish to learn from Benin. I would like to give the floor to you, Mr. Shao. Thank you. Thank you, Madam. I am Roderick Chaou, director of the budget. So on the question, you have to remember that the approach of planning is not adopted by Benin, it is based on international laws. So there is first the strategy at the national level which is declared in the Ministry documents. So we come to the operational level and then the investment plan. So in relation to the allocation of the SDGs on the budget of the state, Benin is registered in a new budget governance, so a management budget in the program. We have said that the SDGs, so from the Ministry strategy, we have built budget programs that are consistent with the SDGs. So that's the budget plan, the starting point to ensure that in the end, the budget resources can effectively address the needs of the population who are registered in the SDGs. The second thing that Benin has done in the matter, as Benin is a country mainly in fiscal resources, we do not have the necessary means to describe all the targets. Benin has worked to achieve a priority target. So in the matter, the priority is first the social because the government in its action plan has made a major pillar through the improvement of the living conditions of the population. And there, we have a new extended social model that now rests on, I would say, strategic actions. The first strategic action is first the promotion of social transfers to vulnerable groups because as you know, the number of vulnerable populations in our country is not negligible. So the government works to make a step instead of social transfers. The second aspect concerns the strengthening of social action services. The third is to expand the social insurance system to small employees. It is also a major aspect of the government policy. The fourth aspect is the strengthening of human capital through a large programme that you will certainly know, the HASH programme, Assurance Maladies for the strengthening of human capital. And finally, the last strategic action concerns the consolidation and modernisation of the regulatory legislative framework. So in relation to the social policy that is privileged in the actions at the beginning of the government, the BNA has made major actions. I could give some examples. First, in the education sector, the BNA has accelerated the integrated national programme of Cantines-Colais. It is a government-based programme that consists of giving children warm clothes a day. In 2017, the rate of school poverty at Cantines-Colais was 31%, but since the beginning of the 70s, the BNA has gone to a cover of 115%. So today, we have more than a million children who are eating, twice a day, they are repassing, but who also have access to the portal, since the policy, as I said, an integrated policy, all schools that benefit from Cantines-Colais also have the same portal system. So both of them will pay to also allow to ensure legion and sanitation in the middle of school. I can continue. He has some interference, I would say. So, Mr. Chau, please continue. You still have two minutes. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Okay, thank you. So, in terms of prospects for the Cantines-Colais program, the government aims to implement universal access before the end of the Kenkenakian pandemic, so before 2021. 26. And here, 1,800 children from Beninua and Beninua schools will have access to their food, at the school portal, but also all schools that are in rural areas will be covered. So, that's an important program. The second program that I wanted to mention here is the SWET program, which is a program supported by the World Bank for three years. It's a program that the main goal is to maintain the girls at school, especially the girls who are from disadvantaged families. And here, the students from this program, from this project, are from the SWET. First, they have to operate to transfer the students to the girls and, at the same time, from which schools are put at their disposal to help them to stay in the classroom. This program goes beyond the courage of the girls by mainly targeting the girls who are enrolled in the technical series but also scientific. And here, it is to pay a little less than a dollar a day and for 22 days a month. But on the whole period of the entry and on the duration of the project, this allocation for the girls who have been identified in the SWET as one of our countries. So, it's a program that will be closed in 2024, but for which the results have already been obtained, they are really elegant and show, of course, the progress observed on the rate of retention but also the rate of schooling of girls in the schools of our country. This program has been completed at the last entry by a program supported also by the World Bank which aims to extend the honours of the girls' contribution at the level of the secondary school. So, it's a program of programs that are articulated and that are completed and whose goal is to encourage the schooling but also the retention of girls in the secondary school and also help them to be professionalised once they have their baccalaureate. I would like to talk quickly. I know that time is not very fast of a program also important that I mentioned which aims to strengthen the social action service. There, it's a program that the government has recently put in place and which aims to promote people who are handicapped in our country. So, these handicapped people have access to discrimination in the public function at the university allocations. In any case, they will have a complementary allocation of more than the people in a normal situation. These people will also have access to everything they have mentioned in terms of leisure but also in public transport. And this program will soon also set up a credit-accessing system to support the entrepreneurship within this layer of the population that constitutes handicapped people in our country. In addition to that, there are people who are in a situation of malnutrition. For the most part, they are children who come from neighboring countries of the Benin but for which the government has decided next year to create a center of assistance for these children who are in a situation of malnutrition for which the budget is very important. Well, I can see that I have already gone far beyond the time I have had. I could answer any questions in case of need. Thank you. Mr. Chahou, thank you very much. What a great lesson of good governance you provided to us indeed is about planning and prioritization in budget strategies. It's also extremely important to invest in people if we want the user funds to generate a more sustainable future. Amazing commitments to universal coverage, both of social services as well as of some of the financial components of social protection systems with transfer to the poor to be able to spend, to contribute, to growth. Great programs also with the World Bank. We took note of that. The ruralization of the agenda, which is important to reduce internal gaps in development in country and the school feeding program. Amazing. Congratulations. This is absolutely great for all attending our meeting today as well as for us to further disseminate with other countries. So thank you so very much. I think we should balance out a little bit the panel discussions to bring in an international financial institution, the International Monetary Fund at this point to help us understand how IMF is supporting debt managers in developing countries to ensure that ESG that is managed sustainably. Again, we walk on a very thin line. Confidence needs to be maintained. Again, return on such investments would need to be sustainable. Countries are desperately trying to reduce the level of indebtedness and again, focus the use of that, raising that for the Sustainable Development Agenda. Mr. Kei Chung, who is a senior researcher at the IMF, I know you've produced an interesting paper with guidelines for debt managers together with Peter Linnner. Is there something that we would need to learn in terms of how that management ESG that could be more sustainable? I know the IMF produced a good chapter four report on Benin. It looks like there is trust that Benin will be able to manage properly. That the floor is yours, Mrs. Chung. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for having me. I am Kei Chung from the IMF, International Monetary Fund from Washington, DC and very happy to join here. So as this discussion was going, the ESG debt market rapidly expanded in recent years and the issuance of sovereign debt that meet the environmental, social or governance objective is opening a new financing opportunity for many sovereign borrowers. So against this backdrop, we wrote this working paper, IMF working paper to provide guidance to the issuer of sovereign ESG bond, particularly for the developing countries. So in this paper, we provide an overview of ESG financing options based on many countries practices. There are many types of ESG bond like SDG bond in Uzbekistan and also many green bonds you're familiar with and social bonds and sustainability bond and sustainably linked bonds and there are many financing options that is already practiced by many countries and we also introduced a good overview based on the analysis of what is operational requirements. What could be the additional cost that this could entail? So our working paper provides this kind of a good overview of this. So our findings are first, we realized that the additional requirements must be met for sovereign to issue ESG related debt and to raise funding for in the objective of ESG, particularly like additional capacity such as cross departmental or cross ministry cooperation. So this was mentioned in Moushira for June and also Kakimosa presentation. Many developing countries we found out they are having a specific to many developing countries they're facing challenges in institutional arrangement because this ESG bond, this is the first time they ever have to coordinate across ministry. Many ESG objectives, the most common objectives we identified is clean transportation and clean energy and clean water management. And the minister of finance didn't have to work closely with this online ministry to get the budget allocation. And this was a new institutional challenges that many developing countries are facing when they're trying to raise the funding for this area. So additional capacity is needed and also their communication with the investors, investor relations, this new capacity is to sell their ESG bond ESG objectives. So this kind of additional capacity must be met before they consider. And secondly, so we focus on the developing countries it's in the same line. And generally advanced economy, you can see in the market that most of the green bonds are issued by advanced economy and advanced economy have a relatively deeper financing domestic market. So they can finance themselves in their local currency in domestic market and this affects a risk or like exchange concern is not their priority and they're riskless, but many developing countries they have a limitation developing their domestic debt market particular local currency debt market and they cannot meet many countries having difficulty meeting that finding a funding raising the funding in their domestic markets. So they have to rely on the international capital market and this can be a new experience to many developing country particularly when it comes to ESG bonds they have to have this framework they have to have objectives and this is another layer that particularly concerns the developing countries. And the thirdly, we found that the objective of ESG issuance the innovative financing have to be well integrated with the public debt management strategy. So many countries public debt management strategy is aligned as they want to meet the funding at the low cost with reasonable risk. This has to be when you consider raising money or ESG objective this has to be a factor into your total cost and risk analysis of your debt portfolio. So issuing the innovative financing instruments like SDG bond or ESG bond can sometimes hamper price discovery in the primary market or reduce the liquidity in the secondary market and which can affect the cost of the borrowing and that has to be analyzed in that your analysis and this has to be integrated with the debt management objective and debt management strategy. So before issuing there are like various factor that needs to be considered and this has to be well aligned with your public debt management strategy particularly you have to be aware of the cost and risk that might come and you have to be able to understand what may happen. And fourth we found that the innovative financing options are available both in private sector and the official sector sources. So it is now as I said the ESG market has expanded so rapidly there's this is a very big push and demand in the private sector. So it's a very attractive way to raise money with possibly based on the demand and supply and especially see some greenium as well but greenium is in debate at the moment and but there is definitely a benefit of raising money in the private sector but there's also option in the official sector financing. Official sector financing is normally available from the bilateral or multilateral sources and often on concessional terms and when considering this market-based ESG bond issuance sovereign should evaluate if their project is qualified for the concessional financing from the public sources. So it may require more scrutiny on the project quality and it may take some more time if the money may be dispersed at a slower pace but the cost savings is significant when you go to the official sector financing so that should be another factor that you have to consider when you're thinking about innovative financing. So this is a very important new area for the IMF to work on and as you may be aware that we also have a resilient sustainability trust RSD fund to help the low income countries and vulnerable middle income countries particularly address this long-term challenges including climate finance or pandemic preparedness or social issues. So other than IMF, the World Bank and many other international financial institutions are trying to provide help to guide to the right direction and not looking for more of a non-monetary payoff we are looking for and that is another way that we should definitely remember and pursue. So I can stop here. Ms. Janx, thank you so much. Great analysis and great advice to countries willing to take this avenue. We take note of the cross-ministry cooperation issues the communication with investors. I think that's an area where the United Nations on the ground has helped us as well. So I'm aware of for instance that in Uzbekistan the United Nations was one of the partners along the process. Some very interesting analysis also of the cost analysis that needs to be done the opportunities in private and official public sector financing markets and also your reference to the RSD. I also noted that in the commitment that came out of the Paris summit we speak about from the World Bank for instance some 25% more IDA countries that are able to receive financing in IDA terms but also the potential reallocation of the unused SDRs for financing. One thing that I would add here is that Benini is part of the very vulnerable countries Uzbekistan also has its vulnerabilities. So we very much hope that within this space of financing and financing for development concessional financing most importantly we will have some changes this year with a partnership that we hope we are going to have together with the World Bank and other financial institutions on the adoption of the specific metric measuring vulnerability to be added to the GNI per capita. But again we appreciate the role that the IMF is playing in advising and ensuring that governments safely borrow and again build more confidence as they access the market. So much that we have two important speakers towards the conclusion of our dialogues who come with different perspectives. I will give first the floor to Ms. Kami Barre who works as a socially responsible investment advisor at MIROVA who is very familiar with both the case of Benin and Uzbekistan. The current financial conditions are not always very favorable for developing countries. That's again why we are discussing redesigning the development financing system at this point in time. What is your perspective again being familiar with the ESG targeted financing from your very particular standpoint? So Kami the floor is yours. Thank you very much and hi everyone and thank you for having MIROVA at the YIA Nations High Level Political Forum. Maybe before diving into my answer I'd like to introduce a little bit MIROVA to give a little bit of context in our philosophy. MIROVA is an affiliate of NETIXIS Investment Managers and we're fully dedicated to sustainable investment. We are a mission-driven company, B-Corp Label certified and all of our asset classes are 100% covered by the SFDR. So the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation classified under Article 9. I don't know if everyone is aware of this SFDR and what Article 9 means but an Article 9 fund under the SFDR is defined as a fund that has a sustainable investment as its objective. That means that at MIROVA we seek a positive social environmental impact as well as a financial outperformance with our funds. So the ESG's provide investors with a framework for examining the resilience of their assets in the face of outgoing interest formations and they even make it possible for us to go further and consider the exposure of investment to the development of new solutions and new economic models. So that's why we at MIROVA chose the SDG framework to guide our ESG investments and assessments. So we strongly favor sustainability, SDG, green and or social bonds compared to conventional bonds because it's easier to track the impact and see quickly the link between the structure of the bonds framework and the SDGs. So to answer your question, so we look at many different things when we're looking at SDG bond for emerging markets or developing economies, notably via those type of frameworks. So the first, most important for us is the use of proceeds and the quality of the project and its allocation. We really wanna see this transparency and clear description of the use of proceeds of the bond to understand as best as possible the project that will be financed with it and how they're answering the real challenges of the country. This help us determine the potential positive contribution of the bond towards improving the country's SDG goals. And maybe it might be a bit controversial to say, but less is more. Sometimes we see a lot of use of proceeds and it's not always the best to concentrate on key crucial aspects, even though we do understand that the issuer wants to touch as many SDGs as possible, but sometimes it can kind of be to the detriment of the efficiency and the final impact that it actually wants to have. A second point that is really important to us is the coherence and as I've heard it mentioned by all of the speakers before on this panel, the coherence between this SDG framework and the country's own agenda. The link between the use of proceeds and the country's SDG goal is important to us to understand if the use of proceeds are being allocated towards the critical aspects for the country and in line with their agenda. It's also crucial for us to make sure that the country is not obstructing any of the SDG going back to do not significant harm. It's important to contribute, but also not to have an obstruction. So of course we look at repeated controversies, high potential risk on any of the SDGs that could be linked. And I think the last point is the integrity of the transaction. We want to see an impact in an allocation report showing a high level of transparency with pertinent impact indicators destined to ensure the credibility of the transaction and to be able to measure the effects of the projects that have been chosen. And if it's audited, it's always a plus for us to make sure that everything that is being said is true to form. We also look at the governance. I know that that's something that is mentioned and the committee that will choose the eligibility of the projects, who is around that table? Who is making sure that the projects are in line with the SDG goals? Who are making sure that the risk management is of those projects are being taken into account? We also look at the look back period of the projects and the split between the refinancing and financing of those projects. How long ago does your project state from? Are they new or are they recent? How are they gonna work? So this is a bit of how what our job is as an ESG or SRI analyst when we're analyzing an SDG bond and as a responsible investor. Rami, thank you so much. A very interesting perspective from an asset manager. I noted the importance that you attach to the SDG framework as being practically the foundation of the formulation of financing needs. Also, the analysis that you do on the use of proceeds. And the fact that you believe that focusing on key interventions that may show an interlink with all the SDGs is the best approach rather than scattering, taking a scattering type of investment that would minimize the returns and maybe not give an opportunity for stronger linkages across the SDG targets. The coherence, again, that was mentioned but the most important part is on the integrity of the transaction, the reporting requirements that need to be met so the auditing that would add a little bit of more confidence to the investors and who makes the decisions, what exactly is the stage of the project. Those are important components for our government partners to consider as they aim to attract more investors in the financial market. So thank you so much. Appreciate your intervention. Our last speaker today is Mr. Cedric Mer who is the Head of Center of Expertise and Innovation and ESG coverage for SSA at the Natifix Green and Sustainable Hub. SSA that as we all know is a sovereign super national and agency that is a little easier to raise, I believe but anyway, we will hear from Cedric as your presence on the panel is extremely valuable. You have supported Benin in the operation you're familiar with other cases. Again, Benin and Uzbekistan are the most important among developing countries. Mexico also tried years back and launched an SDG bond as Indonesia as well but Benin and Uzbekistan are important for us to learn from. So what's your assessment a few years later, two years later on the current debt raised and the management of the debt and the progress towards the SDGs and what are the prospects for other developing countries to be able to do the same. Cedric, over to you. Thank you. Do you hear me? Thank you so much for the invitation. So you're right. So Benin issued back in July, 2021 its inaugural SDG bond, it was a 500 million Euro bonds with a maturity of 12.5 years. At that moment, it was not deemed to be a one-off. Benin intended to be a recurrent but because of market conditions and because of interest rates increased which have dramatically surged it's becoming more challenging. The bond was priced at around 5% and it's no more small than that nine percent. But luckily and thanks to some of the debt management Benin is not facing a strong Euro debt refinancing constraints on the short term. So there is no such a pressure for the moment but what is very important is that the international market turned adverse for countries like Benin but the Republic did not drop its sustainability commitments and I think that level of dedication is very essential. So what has been accomplished? We have had before the inaugurations all the costumic exercise, the prioritization of the targets but now over the last few years we have had a greater annual tracking progress of the SDGs, a clear identification of the remaining gaps notably thanks to the SDSN. So in terms of accountability and dialogue things have really improved and policy dialogues and reform are well underway and I think it helps in the perception of Benin by market participants. So Benin won several awards and now it's really recognized by some international investors but also by other issuers as a best practice especially when it comes to impact reporting. And then we come to that point about the second impact reporting which will be released in the coming days sticking to the commitments taken in front of investors. But the procedures, the governance and the capabilities have improved. So in this second annual impact report Benin shows that it delivers on its promises. There is a clear identification of the beneficiaries we have international data. So looking at municipality level and tracking some dynamics, territorial dynamics we'll have a focus on leaving no one behind with some deep dive into some segments of the populations and we have a rather compelling approach around intelligence on the SDGs. And with a few flagship programs on support to entrepreneurial farmers focus on schools which are not provided with canteens a waste collection improvement in many municipalities. So that's what is being provided by Benin. So what are the perspectives? So of course we need to innovate. We need to find out new mechanisms in this context of high interest rates. Credit enhancements are really necessary with the involvement of DFI. So when public agencies are a bit complex we need to find out loans with guarantees and credit enhancement from DFI which allow to involve private investors in defending of countries like Benin. There are a lot of talks and thinking about nature conservation programs, biodiversity or carbon offsets which are sometimes fraught with greenwashing. So we also must be cautious about that in the design and to avoid shortcomings. But my personal belief is that when the market condition will improve Benin will be well positioned because we now have a greater track record. The authorities have shown dedication and long-term commitments. Policy consistency is key. And when we talk with investors they are always concerned for low and middle income countries about implementation enforcement. And what Benin has been doing over the last few years is to show such consistency. So I'm rather optimistic about Benin. Despite the international context and the multi-phase crisis there is progress. There is a political consistency and greater accountability and transparency which is really an opinion system of evidence. Cedric, thank you so much. Great concluding points I would think but let me just mention a few. The fact that you've identified dedication as an important factor as an enabler to ensure that such innovative financing actually happens and it will utilize the fact that by embarking on ESG borrowing countries need to prioritize their targets need to have stronger monitoring and accountability. Also extremely important as you mentioned the impact reporting the capacity to generate data that would allow us to look how much the impact that the municipality level has been also the focus on flagship programs in Benin that bring social value looking into supporting more sustainable farming but also schools and school feeding the waste collection that improve quality of life. And also the innovative a mechanism that need to be adopted considering that rates remain high interest rates and the DFI part to bring in private investment. You also mentioned some other areas that would need to be considered but I just want to we haven't touched upon that it would have been interesting to also discuss other states. Yeah, I can mention when we have been working with the Republic of Senegal which is to release a framework with two formats user for seed and KPI linked. So there were a lot of talks about sustainability link bonds over the last years. So this is another development which can inspire other countries and we really see especially in Africa some emulation between countries and a lot of willingness and needs of course we are fully aware of the needs but I think this is this is quite promising. Thank you so much. We wish we had more time. So as the SN Guillaume La Fortune colleagues thank you so very much for giving me this privilege to moderate the discussion. Much gratitude to the government of Benin to the government of Uzbekistan for joining us today. I wish we could have also some of the most vulnerable countries attending to listen and learn from Benin and Uzbekistan. I would... Maybe just before we close because I think there were a few changes as all of you have noticed on the program and for some reason I believe minister Bagini couldn't join us today but I just wanted to mention because I thought it would be mentioned in his intervention that as part of what Cedric was saying on this continuous focus on sustainability in Benin that we're launching the report today and we're about to launch also an SDSN network in Benin to strengthen capacity for science-based pathways, policies, planning, monitoring that is locally based and this network will be co-piloted by the University of Aboumeh Karvi and the Department of Research and Strategic Studies at the Ministry of Economy and Finance. I just thought this was important also in this continuous engagement on the SDGs in Benin. Sorry for interrupting. No, thank you. Great, great addition to the discussion Guillaume. This is the year when we talk about SDG progress we are going to have as you mentioned at the beginning the SDG summit later on alongside the General Assembly, the 78th General Assembly climate action summit. We will also look into progress on financing for development in the follow-up of Paris but also ahead of the Marrakesh meeting and after the G20 summit this year and also a series of other internal discussions in the international financial space to ensure countries have the necessary resources to move forward. So there is commitment, there is coherence, there is alignment national and sub-national levels. There is readiness by investors to finance public good, social good, environmental good as well as economic development. Should we all come together with solidarity with commitment to ensuring that the planet our community will have a safer future. So I wish to thank SDSN. We will soon release also a report on the progress on small island developing states on the SDGs as well as a financing gap. Maybe to conclude, SDSN put forward a paper showing that good progress towards the SDGs requires a minimum of 18,000 US dollars public outlays, public spending per capita. Most of the countries, vulnerable countries that are far below. So we need access to financing to make things happen. Countries need means to be able to develop sustainably. Thank you so much. My name is Simon Amarinescu. I'm a big honor to have been with you today. Thank you, distinguished speakers, everybody in the audience and the government of Benin, the government of Uzbekistan and Guillaume at SDSN. Thank you and thank you so much. Thank you everyone. Thank you, Simon.