Good afternoon everyone and welcome to this exciting session which will focus on growth in Africa and we're going to be having a debate on whether that growth is rising or falling. So with me to go through this very important topic an excellent panel and immediately to my left let me introduce them first is His Excellency President Uhuru Kenyatta the President of the Republic of Kenya. We have immediately next to him Madame Winnie Bianema who is the Executive Director of Oxfam and also a leading voice on issues surrounding women youth and inequality which is one of the key things that Oxfam does. Immediately next to her is Mr. Tony Elumelu who is a founder of the Elumelu Foundation but also has worked of course in the private sector in private banking and focuses on building young entrepreneurs across Africa and then to the very end is Mr. David Lipton who is the Deputy first Deputy Managing Director at the IMF and has worked for US Treasury under the Clinton administration and was also in the Obama White House on security issues. So please help me in welcoming this excellent panel for the topic of We will be covering the question of growth in Africa and as you may have seen from the statistics from newspaper articles and publications the fortunes of Africa have been going up and down if you look at them from the point of view of growth. We had Africa rising with over 5% growth on average and then Africa falling with a number of percentage points being shaved off the expectations on growth. But within that mix there's been quite a variety with some countries doing relatively well like Ethiopia and Cote d'Ivoire growing at above 10%. You have Rwanda, Tanzania in the 6 to 8%, Kenya, Ghana and others also within within that range and then you have countries that are dependent on commodities that have really taken a hit including Nigeria, South Africa and others. So the big questions that we will be debating this afternoon are these macroeconomic trends that we are seeing. Are they the trends? What are they? What are they like? Is this something that is likely to continue and what are the other factors that would be driving the transformations we see there? Would also be looking at the patterns in industrialization and if there's anything within that that we would like to debate further to understand better the trends and then of course the big demographic issue of young people and jobs and how these scenarios of growth are impacting on the possibility to generate jobs. So to start us off I will be asking you Mr. President, from the point of view of running a country and a biggest African country, one that has had a role in the region but also globally, how do you see this issue of Africa's growth? Do you agree with the fact that it is falling or are you on the side of rising and where does it come out from you looking at it as a head of a country? Well thank you. Let me begin by saying that for the last 15 years or so Africa has had an incredible story of growth, rapid growth pushed by good commodity prices, good oil prices and we've seen this growth over a period of about 15 years which all of a sudden now we've seen a downturn. A downturn again as a result of lower commodity prices across the world, external shocks that really are not Africa associated. So we've seen a decline but that doesn't mean that that's the end of the African story because I believe the fundamentals are still very strong. If we take Kenya for example whereas the average growth rate of those countries that are commodity dependent has hovered around 3.6% we've managed to maintain our growth rate at about 5.6% with a much more diversified economy depending more on agriculture, services, a bit of manufacturing, financial sectors. So I think the story here is that Africa really just needs to diversify. Africa needs to move away from being commodity dependent to really tapping on what real wealth is and that is the productivity especially you know of our young people. And I believe if we really, this is an opportunity rather than it being a point of gloom. It's a point for us to see this as an opportunity to really explore where Africa's wealth is. Agriculture, how can we value it? Our services sector, our financial sector, what do we need to ensure we have proper macroeconomic stability so that our financial sector can also grow and deepen. We need to focus more on intra-Africa trade, improving and increasing our manufacturing capacity and trading more with one another across the African continent. So I see this really as an opportunity and a wake-up call that it's not the raw materials that make Africa wealthy. It is our people and that's where the investment needs to be. It is the African people especially our young people and that's where our investment needs to go. That's where we need to be focused and that's where Africa's future actually lies. I'll come back to you Mr. President with some additional questions but let me get the perspectives of the rest of the panel. Ms. Pianima, you looking from your perspective, are the fundamentals in place as Mr. President said and is growth enough? How would you see it from the point of view of Oxford but also from your personal experience living and working in Africa? Thank you Frani. It's truly an honor to share the platform with President Wolkenyata and my friends, Tony and David. The question of is growth strong? Is it enough? I think we focus too much on the figure of growth. Is it 10%? Is it 6%? I think the right question is is this growth creating jobs? Is this growth raising the standard of living of all our people? Is the quality of the growth that's key here?  And my answer is that it can be but it's not automatic. Why? Because we have a high rate of inequality. Growth has been delinked from poverty reduction. So we have a figure of growth. Growth is there. It's strong but it's not lifting everyone from poverty. There's a delink. We need to bring back that link. And let me give you an example. Nigeria is the best example of that. Between 2003 and 2009, that country had a positive figure of growth. But the numbers of poor people increased. And in fact, except for the 10% who included my friend here, Tony, who were increasing their income and the rest of the population, they are consumption, their national consumption declined. It tells you that growth is there, but it's been captured by a few and a majority are being left out. So we need to tackle economic inequality for the growth to be there. So now with slowing growth, what we're seeing is our countries, our governments stuck with this shrinking budget. The temptation is cut health, cut education. There's no money. My message is before you put the, before you chop, stop and see the opportunity to collect revenue is there. That's my second message. There's huge opportunity to collect more resources if we look at the money that is flowing out and taxed. Africa is losing a lot of money and taxed. The figures are glaring. They are horrible to see through tax dodging, through harmful tax competition. Our recent research showed in Kenya, Mr. President, that these tax incentives to foreign firms who actually use pressure to push governments to lower and lower tax rates, make Kenya lose a billion dollars every year. That's our estimate. I don't know if I'm right, but that's our estimate as Oxfam. Could be more. So if we could rein in on harmful tax competition and tax dodging, there would be more resources put in our people. 2025 will have a population that's below the age of 25. We are the most uneducated continent in the world, undereducated. What will these people do with no skills? We have to maintain the investment in health and education, and we must do that by taxing more progressively and reining in the tax dodging. Winnie has put on the table the issue of not only inequality, but also opportunities for getting revenues, and you mentioned the young people. And because young people are amongst us in the audience and also watching this webcast live, I wanted to let you know that there's a Twitter handle that we are using for this called hashtag Africa growth. So for those of you want to pose your questions or make comments on what you hear, you can use that hashtag, and I'll be also getting some comments and questions from people who are not in Kigali, who are following on this panel this afternoon. But let me now come to you, Mr. Tony Lumelu, particularly because of the work you've been doing with young entrepreneurs and also your own business experience and your experience in the financial sector. How do you see this challenge that we've been debating so far on Africa's growth? Is growth enough? Do you see it differently from the point of view of entrepreneurs and the external risks that you may have faced from the banking and financial sector side, or do you have another perspective you'd like us to debate this afternoon? I think I like the comments by His Excellency the President and my sister too. Although she said I'm the 10% class. One percent. But you know, to me, it's not, it's like the glass is half full, it's Africa rising or not rising. These are very, like, two harsh extremes. I think I'd like to see it from a different perspective. I am basically an investor in Africa. I invest across, I have investment in 21 African countries. And despite the dwindling commodity prices and all the, all the concerns being raised by the world, my investment appetite in Africa has not dwindled. It's not gone down. We continue to make investments. We, in fact, the next one month plus, we'll be doing a $2.1 billion energy transaction, which will help to improve for the access to electricity on the continent. So that is in Africa, and that is an investment we are making, not in this time, in this case out of philanthropy, but because we see that the return on investment is quite high in Africa. And that is what is driving our investment. Now, talking about the growth, whether it's inclusive or not, yes, I would say that we can do better in having inclusive growth on the continent. And this is a concern I personally have or had that made me to endow $100 million into the Tony Elmelo Foundation to drive the development of the identification, support, mentoring, training, and seeding of capital to 10,000 African entrepreneurs. Yesterday I was in Uganda and assembled the Ugandan beneficiaries, about 110 of them. I mean, sir President, by the way, your country last year, 169 Kenyans benefited from the program, and this year 70 benefited from the program too. So what, and yesterday I put them before the President of Uganda so that let them tell, share with the President what concerns they have that affect their investment, their ability to succeed as entrepreneurs. And I saw, honestly, I was sharing with my sister, very empowered young Africans, confident, energetic, full of ideas, and I liked the conversation that ensued between them and their President, telling them about tax issues and about how, in their opinion, how money can be chanted and to support some of what they are doing. That is a new Africa. These young Africans who help us address the issue, Mr. President, raised about job creation. If we realize that the development of Africa first lies in us Africans, that no one but also the development of the continent, and two, if we realize that the private sector has a key role to play in the development of the continent, and that the pipeline to the private sector is entrepreneurship, catching young entrepreneurs, training them, helping them to become self-reliant, helping them to help all of us to create employment and deal with the challenges of unemployment, then we will be able to address poverty in a manner that is sustainable, the growth we see on the continent become truly inclusive, and all of us will have shared prosperity. Thank you. So, Mr. Lipton, you've been listening carefully to what the others have been saying, and the IMF always gets blamed for the shaving down of growth statistics. What's your perspective when you look at the fundamentals, but also if you look at these trends that we've been facing in the last decade, and what's projected for the future years? Are we going to see better growth trajectories for Africa, and also if you could explain to us the diversity that you see across countries, and what is driving that diversity in terms of the future? Thank you. First, it's a pleasure to be here, and to be on such a distinguished panel. I think when I think about the question, is Africa rising or falling? I think my answer is Africa is rising, regrouping, and will be rising. I think that what Winnie said is right. The focus should be on increasing living standards, improving living standards, and having growth serve the process of a steady and important rise of living standards. I think that's been a very tough thing to do in the global economy recently. We at the IMF, as you suggested, we've been lowering our forecast for global growth, and saying that growth in the world is too weak, and there are too many downside risks. And unfortunately, a number of these factors have really adversely affected some countries in Africa. Unfortunately, bad things come in threes, and there's been the oil and commodity price decline, which has adversely affected those who sell those products. There's been Ebola, which has affected three countries. We now have some severe drought in certain countries. And so about half of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have substantially lower growth now than before these three things happened. But at the same time, there are an awful lot of countries that are continuing to grow, and I think overall the fundamentals for growth still remain pretty strong. But when we look at the whole Sub-Saharan African area, we project growth next year, this year, to be just about 3 percent, unfortunately. That is below the global average, and this is significant. For the past 20 years, African growth has been well above the global average. Now, as I said, it's concentrated in about half of the countries with some quite severe slowdowns in a few countries. So what is there to do? Well, this is a marathon, because if you're keeping your eye on the prize, which is raising living standards, it's not something that happens in a day or a year or a decade. It's something that takes a long time and requires steady work. I'm from Boston, and I grew up watching the Boston Marathon, so I know there are a lot of people in this region who know how to win a marathon. And in Boston, we have at the 18-mile marker, Heartbreak Hill, and a marathoner knows that when you get to the hill, you have to adjust your stride but then power ahead. And I think that's the message for a lot of countries here that, you know, what do I mean by that? Well, there are countries that have seen their export revenues go down, their budget revenues go down because of the oil and commodity price declines, and they have to adjust to that. It's a fact of life. There are many countries, including those that are still growing, that have to, in a sense, be careful. Be careful to avoid being vulnerable to whatever shocks may come. Be careful to protect the most valuable spending items, the healthy education, and prioritize spending and get budgets focused and make sure that the right spending happens. To be advancing infrastructure, which is one of the key drivers that's going to help raise job and economic opportunities and ultimately raise living standards. And we also believe that countries should be making sure their exchange rate systems are flexible enough that they don't end up in very pressured situations, which we've seen in some countries that have not allowed sufficient flexibility. As far as broader strategies are concerned, adjusting to the rest of the world means perhaps fostering more domestic demand because you can't count on China the way you used to. Regional integration. This is a region right here with 200 million people. Regional integration would be a way for a lot of mutual gain among the countries in East Africa and finding ways to diversify your economy. Just, those are in a nutshell, but as you suggested, there really are no, there is no typical case country situations are very different. Each country has to figure out how to adjust its stride and powerhead. I'd like to come back and ask Winnie a question and come back to you, Mr. President. First, Winnie, on the issues that David has raised, that we have external shocks and that countries are in a marathon running in this long-term growth strategy and we need to be more resilient. When you look at these external shocks and the need for resilience, how does that square with the issues that you also raise on social safety nets and inequality, where do all the resources come from to get that balance right? Thank you, Franny. You know, David is from the IMF and David is also from Zungu. So he has to say things politely to us. But I mean, there's a hard message. The IMF likes to compare Mozambique with Vietnam because in the last 10 years they've been achieving almost the same levels of high growth. With that growth, Vietnam has been able to create 2 million jobs in industry, Mozambique, 160,000 only. In addition to that, Vietnam has created more millions of jobs in agriculture. Not sure how many Mozambique has created. Vietnam has created millions more in agriculture by modernizing it and increasing the productivity mainly of small farmers, small scale farmers. So this growth that we have had, we have not spent it well. That's the truth. If you take a country like Equatoria Guinea, Equatoria Guinea has the same per capita income as Spain. It's as rich as Spain, but it has a child mortality rate as low as Burundi's. It's shameful for us. So these are hard times now, 3% growth below the average of the world. You know, when we were kids, they used to say when the tough gets going, when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. African leaders have to wake up. And what I'm saying is that there is, we have to start from where we are. Agriculture is the base. The investment there in the infrastructure, in the research and development, in extension for small scale farmers to raise their productivity. For me, it's the immediate gain we can make to drive the growth. That's what we have for many of our countries. But over and above that, you remember when the financial crisis hit Europe and America, what did they do? They had to stop and say, hey, recession now. When we get the money, they looked around and that's when they woke up to the fact that their own companies were cheating, not paying their fair share of taxes. And they started this BEPS process through that. They've made some reforms, plugged some loopholes and are now getting some more out of the companies that were not paying taxes, doging. Here in Africa, there's a huge loss of our money. We've calculated, somebody has calculated that just one-third of the wealth of the richest individuals, one-third only, 500 billion, is hidden through tax havens. That could bring 14 billion dollars of tax. That could save 4 million children's lives. That could put every child in school. And Africa has 30 million children out of school. The money is there. We have to wake up and tax those who have the money, like my friend Tony here, get them to pay their fair share and get those who are hiding it through tax havens, particularly the multinationals, block them from hiding it. And then with that money, maintain investment in agriculture, create jobs and education, education, education. The knowledge economy of the future, our children, we won't be there without these kids being educated. That's what I see. I think the IMF is giving us the hard message that we must wake up and do what we must do to generate the growth through new growth avenues but maintain investments in our people, our youth, their education and health. So Mr. President, African leaders awake and while they're awake, what are they doing to actually create jobs and handle some of these risks that have materialized because of the slower global economy and the shocks that we're facing? How are you staying awake at night? Well, the first thing, I mean, it is difficult. Let's call a spade a spade, as we've said. It's difficult with declining revenues. It's difficult to meet the expectations that are out there. But I really don't see a lot of difference between what I said and what my sister here will say because I think the reality, the wake up call is us to be able to ask ourselves what drives our growth? Is this growth a growth that is sustainable? And by asking ourselves that question, we start to answer some of the critical questions that she's asking. And that's why I was saying it is necessary for us to begin to look at what are the drivers of our growth. Is it the commodities? Is it the oil? Is it all these extractives that really do not create and leave and retain value in Africa that do not retain jobs in Africa? Is that what is going to drive our growth? Or is it our infrastructure development? Is it our agriculture? Is it our increase of use and availability of technology so that our IT sector can also grow, our services sector? Because these are the sectors that create jobs. These are the sectors that create prosperity that is more equitable across the board. And we ourselves in Kenya are really trying to focus ourselves on these particular sectors. And as we do so, we also need to ask ourselves with these limited resources that we have, where are we spending them? We cannot afford to ignore education. We cannot afford to ignore healthcare. We cannot afford to ignore basic sanitation. We cannot afford to ignore the spread and distribution of energy and electricity which also in itself is a driver. So it is just how we balance some of these issues. And that is why I was saying this is an opportunity for us to begin rebalancing and refocusing our economies. And I'm saying Kenya is one example that this is the kind of direction that we ourselves are moving into. But more importantly for us to also understand that we can no longer also just depend on international markets out there. We need to also begin breaking down the barriers to trade in and amongst ourselves because our potential, our future resides in increasing the level of intra-Africa trade because that really is where our opportunity exists. Trading amongst one another. And as governments we need to start pulling down some of these barriers so that we can create and take advantage of economies of scale. And as the MD was saying, we are talking instead of talking about a Kenyan market of 40 million, we need to be talking about a regional market of 200 million. This is where the potential exists. And that is why I said I don't see us talking too far apart. We're on the same page. It is just how we pull our resources and our efforts and refocus and redirect our energies into this new chapter. Thank you Mr. President. You've answered a question that has come from Twitter, from Lauren who said that basically reiterated that Mozambique and Vietnam have same growth rates and have increased jobs so why can't Africa do it? So I think we will skip that question and go to... Can I comment? Yes, I'll come to you Mr. President. Give me two minutes. We have two young people who are here in the audience that I'd like to have them ask a question and I'll come to you to respond first and also to comment on the issues that have come up. Yes, our global shapers, we have two of them. So who's going to start? Faraja or your colleague? Thank you. I am Faraja Nyalandu, a global shaver from the Arusha hub and my question goes to all of the panelists, your excellencies and I'm keen to understand how you perceive the human resource in Africa as a key driver of African growth. You've mentioned other drivers of growth. We all know Africa is blessed with a lot of natural resources. But understandably and significantly we are not really addressing the issue of knowledge and skills deficits among young people in Africa. And what we see is that we focus on education being a solution for instance, having more investment in education but what kind of education are we providing to these young people? Are the certificates sufficient for them to survive in the fourth industrial revolution that we clearly want and clearly work for? Instead, the education that's provided in schools does it solve our challenges? We're looking at knowledge economy as a key driver of growth in Africa. How do you wish to integrate that? I think at all levels in the private sector, in the financial sector, at the IMF level of investment are you making towards youth as a key driver of growth in Africa in terms of the human resource, their knowledge and skills. As well as with Oxfam, I know you are advocating on the agenda but what kind of policies are you clearly advocating for and with Mr. President, how are you integrating that in your policies in Kenya? Youth I want to emphasize are a great opportunity and not a challenge. We only need to tap into that. Okay, thank you. Let me start then with Mr. Elumelu with the question on education and youth but also if you could comment on this exchange that we were having just before we went to the audience. Okay, so on youth, I call it youth empowerment, human capital development. I would like to make two comments on that. The first is that in the private sector we have realized that the kind of educational system we have to a large extent is more orientated towards certificates or certification and we need to have TVET, Technical and Vocational Education Training Program. When I was growing up, we used to have vocational training institutes and somehow later it fizzled out and so we need to bring it back. What am I doing as a private sector person in this area? I mean, I have partnered with a firm in Dubai that they are strong in this area and we are in the process of setting up a TVET, a vocational training institute to help as part of our philanthropic support to help see the young Africans starting first from Nigeria, approving the concept there and not taking it beyond Nigeria in this area. Also, at a slightly higher level, we set up what we call UBA Academy. UBA is an African bank that operates in 19 African countries. We set up UBA Academy where we train people because seeing that, again, the educational system will have a purpose for a different type of job so we take people on board, retrain them for like three months and pose them to different areas. That's what we're doing. But most importantly, the Tony Elmelu Foundation I talked about before is my family's philanthropic endeavor or support. We end out $100 million every year. We identify 1,000 Africans, give them $10,000, $10 million every year. We've done it this second year. The first year we got application for 20,000 Africans. We worked with Ascension. They selected, recommended 1,000 we supported. And I have seen through state in touch with them how they too are helping to encourage and support other youths in their communities. And this is one way, one of the things we can do to encourage the young Africans who are coming behind us. So they will be much more successful than us in business. I talked about yesterday meeting with the president of Uganda. I was so encouraged how they were quite bold in discussing and engaging with their president. And that to me is again part of human capital development. Developing the next generation of African leaders, giving them self-confidence, giving them self-hope, driven by the fact that we're giving them the opportunity to prove their concept. What we are doing, 10,000 lives not much, but it gives them the opportunity to prove their ideas and put them on a platform where others can come and invest in them. That we're doing and that we want to continue. And my sister talked about the 1%, I thought it was 10% but she moved it to 1%. I think first, we will not criminalize wealth. We need it. We need to see private sector success to even encourage others. Almost peace and become successful in private sector in a professional manner. We should de-emphasize government contracts, we should de-emphasize government policy waivers as a way of making money. Because make money, private sector, productively. There are areas that we should be investing in the private sector. But the good news is, and that's the point I wanted to make, we can, we've had, I mean, we keep having conferences and you come at our conferences feeling bad for the continent. So why is it bad that things are not good or have not been good? Where we think things have been to improve, I mean, talk about that too. So that progressively people will know what they are doing that is right and we encourage them to do more. For the first time, Africans investment, Africa is rising. It surpasses foreign direct investment. That is very good. And we need to encourage that so that other Africans can come out and invest more on the continent. That where I address all my sister talked about siphoning money abroad, taking money, because it doesn't make sense. It is poverty of, of, in fact lack of self-confidence and poverty of the mind that creates that. Why would I take my money abroad to a bank when there are a lot of investment opportunities on the continent? In fact, I wish I had more, I would invest a lot more on the continent. There's nowhere that I made a kind of return in investment I make as an African continent. So why go elsewhere to do, to make investment? And lastly, on the issue, the conversation about, like, comparing Mozambique and talking about the growth rate in Africa, we need to understand the nature of the growth we had in Africa in the past. And I, you know, the president, two times now he's intervening and he has talked about diversification, diversification.  And I begin to think of diversification in a manner that can really help us. In Africa, we are basically, we just produce raw materials. We do not process raw materials. That chain, that, the processing of raw material, the conversion of raw material to finish produce, that is where value is added to economies. And that does not happen on our continent. It is happen offshore. So you have cocoa in Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, we produce cocoa, we take cocoa out of the country, we process cocoa, we come back to eat chocolate, we pay more, value is added offshore and not on the continent. Nigeria, other countries, we produce crude oil, yet the biggest import to the country, and so to the issue is in the area of petroleum products. And it goes on, cutting everywhere. So in the 21st century, and this is a conversation I would like to be part of, let's begin to talk of, let's begin to challenge ourselves on how to move our economy into a much more productive type of economy that when we say growth rate is like this, it truly will impact people because we are engaging, the value chain is fully optimized, engaged in country, in Africa, and not outside of Africa, because that is what brings this disparity that we see on the continent. Can it be done? Yes. What do we need to do? We need the private sector and the public sector and our development partners working together. For us to truly transform the country, our processing factories and co, we need to have like constant supply of electricity. We need to have modern and mass transportation system. We need to have modern logistic system. For all of this to work, we need government to help us create the right policies. And we need government predictability. My brother, when you meet with our leaders, we urge to help us, let's keep talking to our leaders, you know that if it is an investment in power or in transportation, these are long-term investment that also require long-term payback period. And once you make that investment, we need to make sure we can predict policies, policies that are stable, so that the investments can mature. And if we have more successful stories, private sector involvement that are successful on the continent, it will attract global private capital into the continent, it will encourage other people and other people in Africa to invest in Africa, and that is when we begin to correct the policies that were seen. Thank you. Thank you very much. We have run out of time, so I would like to take just one question from the floor, and please make it very brief, because I'd like to go to closing comments, and for the people who have asked questions on Twitter, I'll summarize your questions to the panel. So one last question, and very short, please. Thank you very much. I'm a global shipper from the Accra Hub. I'm a millennial, and I really want internet for all, because I believe that if we have really great internet as young Africans, we can leapfrog, and we can do as well as everyone else. So I really agree with the knowledge bit. Actually, some of my questions have been answered by Tony Aluminum, and I believe that private sector involvement is the real engine of growth around Africa. So, especially for me, I'm particularly interested in the internet, because we talked about knowledge and skills, and if there's really great internet around the continent, we can kind of solve this knowledge gap, because we can get access to the best information anywhere, and the best education anywhere, and learn about it. So I wanted to know about real examples that are happening now around public-private partnerships in private infrastructure development, because that is something that a private and, you know, like, I can build a really good school and help solve the education problem, but it's harder for me to do a really good role. So I want to know about real examples in our countries that you can share with us around public PPPs working. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'll add two more questions from Twitter, and I ask the panelists to pick the ones you feel more comfortable with. One question has come about regional integration and regional trade. What can be done to raise that and also to improve on the statistics that we're seeing and the real impact in terms of economic growth? And the other question is to share any examples that you have on the impact of Braindrain. So if we could tackle those four questions, the internet, what can it do, private public partnerships and examples that you have, intra-regional trade and integration and then the question of Braindrain. And I'll start with David and work our way towards the president. Two minutes to close. Thank you. I'd like to address the two questions that came from the young leaders. Clearly the youth is the future of the region and the question is out there whether the youth will be able to take advantage of modern technology, the internet and operate in a thriving private sector. The IMF's usual answer to that is you've got to have a country run well with sound macroeconomic fundamentals. We certainly have plenty of examples where mismanagement leads to financial chaos and you can have a whole generation wiped out because of the financial chaos and the lack of economic opportunity. But stepping back from my IMF perspective I heard the word leapfrogging and I think the question here for this region is whether there are going to be opportunities for advancement that really haven't existed before in the world. In principle the internet and the technology the ICT technology overcomes remoteness. Remoteness has been one of the problems for all of Africa and so if there's a way for people to educate themselves taking advantage of online training we at the IMF now have online training. American schools provide courses online. If there's a way to do that it clearly can be advantageous. But at the same time if someone lives in a house with no electricity they can't very well take advantage of that if they don't have the basics of health so there are things that really have to be done by government. While in Nairobi yesterday we visited an incredible company a company that overcomes two problems with one innovation for people who have no financial inclusion, no bank and for people who have no connection to the grid. This company it's called MCOVA provides a small machine with solar lighting three light bulbs, a radio and a charging station and it overcomes two problems. People can get electricity but they also can borrow in essence borrow the money to be able to afford this very expensive piece of equipment and in doing so avoid very expensive energy expenditures on kerosene, on batteries and so on and so forth. What they do is they pay few shillings a day electronically over their telephone and so there's both a financing aspect and an energy aspect which overcomes the two problems of exclusion, financial exclusion and physical exclusion from the energy system. Now it's in its incipient phase but imagine a time when you don't have to connect to the power grid you don't have to physically walk into a bank but you can borrow the money to buy enough energy equipment to be able to have an internet then the tablet for all program like the one here in Rwanda really can be for all. Thank you. Tony? Yes. I want to comment on the in-traffical trade and just two quick interventions here. One is the statistics we see there's about in-traffical trade in Africa is about 7% and what I always ask myself is you know what Africa or Africans need do we have them in Africa? You know we have the raw materials in Africa but we produce the raw materials that are spotted as of Africa and we don't know how many countries in Africa that have refinery capacity for instance. You can produce oil in Nigeria instead of sending it to America or China or India it's a challenge. So talking fundamentally about improving in-traffical trade we need to talk about processing. That will help us in achieving that. Second and last point on that if you look at Africa is a continent that is rooted in its past if you look at the transportation infrastructure in Africa these were designed and constructed decades ago and the sole purpose of doing this when it was done was not to have in-traffical group transportation it was to move goods from Africa and so in a continent that is so networked on the past and with this kind of infrastructure transportation infrastructure there's a limit to how much we can trade in-traffical even where the articles of trade do exist in Africa. Solution let's fix this infrastructure issue. How do we fix it? Again the private sector and our international friends that is what will help us address in-traffical trade as well as address that we deal with issue of poverty alleviation we do inclusive growth we deal with the job for our people and Africa will truly transform. Thank you. Winnie your closing comments. First I want to assure my friend Tony that we are not against wealth that we actually also everywhere we are in 95 countries we are working with poor people to increase to accumulate wealth to increase their assets that's what we do. But I have a message for the private sector. These are tough times we need the private sector we need the governments each must play its role. For the private sector I think that there is a very wrong idea out there that they are going to be the solution for everything. No. Stay there making the roads investing the bridges investing the power but stay away from health and education this advice from the bank that education can also be passed to the private sector it's not a solution we must get our governments to put our kids in school give them free education that's how other countries made it so the health sector the education sector free health free education are critical for us to get our people to be productive also private sector pay your fair share of taxes I'm happy to hear Tony saying that he reinvests here in Africa that he's not channeling his wealth through a tax haven but we know that this is not the reality of money from other companies and so we must deal with this issue of tax dodging and Africa must take a firm stand and harmful tax competition where governments are being pushed down in terms of the taxes they charge the exemptions they give because companies can play them so there's a need for a regional corporation on tax that will help Africa get its money then this environment enabling environment for the private sector I must say that in agriculture where we must work hard because most of our countries can make it there and increase growth there the private sector is the small scale farmer in fact I can add it is the woman the one who farms that is the one who needs an enabling environment the one for the private sector the big business they've had enough it's time to make it possible for the small scale farmer to be productive to make gains from their labour and lastly for governments I think that our leaders have a tough job now and perhaps the starting point is to take a distance from business to be less friendly with the business sector it's too close the relationship between business and government is too close too close because governments tend to make policies that are favouring big business that are not necessarily favouring the ordinary person so govern in the interests of the ordinary the poor passer yes the private sector but don't let them rig the rules in their favour don't let them bring us to this situation where they can literally right for the country the tax law and get away without paying tax so governments be tough on the private sector regulate them, encourage them to come but get the best deal for our people and I think that the future is there for us because the sources of growth are there it's the people, it's the skilling of people it is the agriculture where we have the opportunity and the minerals they will come back thank you Mr President your closing remarks thank you I think I'll close by just trying to answer some of the questions that you raised I think there was a question of an example of a successful private public partnership and I want to cite the example of the renewable energy that we're doing in Kenya where we are partnering with the private sector who are working on power generation with the government buying that power we have a number in the geothermal sector but also the largest wind farm in Africa right now is being developed in Turkana in Kenya 400 megawatts which is being developed by the private sector with a commitment that we would enter into a power purchase agreement with them to be able to utilize that energy through the national grid so that's just an example I think the other issue that was raised had to do with regional integration and I think Tony touched on it quite a bit but I think we need to be more focused we cannot talk about intra-Africa trade if we do not have and we in East Africa are really really working very hard in that particular direction I think for the first time since independence by the end of this year beginning of next year we will be connected to Ethiopia which again will enable a smooth trade between Kenya and Ethiopia we are working on integrating our various road sectors within the East African community as well as power connectivity so that we can share power also across borders so these are some of the initiatives that we are working on together with removing all these NTBs that have been barriers to smooth trade and I believe ultimately this is what will promote and encourage the kind of growth that we want to see but I want to close with the issue that was raised by my young sister here because I think she's the one who really has hit the nail on her head if Africa is to grow it must focus itself on the youth and as she's correctly stated our youth are not a challenge they are actually an opportunity and the greatest asset and we need to be able to invest in them and when we say invest in them we're not just talking about investing in education we have to ask ourselves what kind of education because as she said we are churning out people from our schools we are churning out people from our universities but are we churning out that which the job market requires we in Kenya are beginning to relook at our curriculum to ask ourselves is our curriculum tailored to the needs of the world today to create opportunities for our young people so we are beginning to look at that we are beginning once again as Tony has said to reinvest in technical training as well because this is where we are seeing the skill shortages and trying to see how we can match the skill shortage in the market and preparing our young people to be able to fill that particular gap so that they have the right skills as well as also preparing our kids for a more technologically driven world in Kenya we are beginning this digital learning program because we want our kids at a very early stage to be able to be into technology and that has also had the additional effect because in order as my friend Mr Lipton said in order for us to be able to have that digital learning program we can't do it without electricity so as a result it has enabled us to connect all our primary schools to electricity by extension that has helped us connect more Kenyans to the grid and over the last three years we have been able to move from 32% of Kenyans connected to the grid to 52% so this is also helping drive our economy overall so these linkages are what is important but I think I just wanted to conclude by saying that the future belongs in us as leaders understanding that investment in our young people creating opportunities for our young people in there lies the success and the story of Kenya where we can have growth that is both inclusive and equitable but also sustainable thank you thank you very much Mr President in closing I'll just say a few things the place where I work which is the African Development Bank from the comments we've heard from the panelists this afternoon they have highlighted light and power Africa feed Africa integrate Africa industrialized Africa raise the quality of life and if we do these five things then growth will generate quality of life and it will give us the kind of resilience and stability that we are looking for please join me in thanking the panelists and really giving them a strong round of applause for tackling this tough issue


In this topic, we will discuss about the various types of assignments that are given to expatriate employees and how that affects the performance management system of the multinational organization. So the type of assignment which is given to the employee that will lead to how the tasks are defined for that particular assignment and the more objectively those tasks can be defined for that assignment, the more easier it is to measure the performance and to make the performance management system more objective and structured. However, if the assignment is subjective, if the assignment involves subjective tasks, then the measurement of such type of activities is subjective and therefore cannot be translated into very much objective criteria. The type of assignment is going to then affect how the performance of an employee is measured by the organization. So there are four types of assignments which have been classified. Number one is the technical type of assignments for which about 5 to 10% of people are sent on these technical assignments. Technical assignments are basically given for short-term knowledge transfer when, for example, a new machinery is installed or new technology is installed, a new system is developed in the subsidiary and people at the subsidiary level, the home country nationals, they are not familiar and they are not conversant with the technicalities of that new system. People from the home country, they are from the parent country, they are sent to the home country to conduct these technical assignments to make sure that the new systems they are working properly and that the people who are operating those systems they have the accurate and appropriate know-how to run the system. So they go for short-term knowledge transfer purposes and about 5 to 10% of expatriate assignments are technical. Second type of assignment is that which is of developmental nature. About similarly 5 to 10% of the expatriate assignments are developmental. Developmental assignments are those that focus on in-country performance and acquisition of local understanding by the assignee. So these type of assignments they involve developing the mark, first of all understanding the market and then developing the know-how to operate in that market and establish your grounds in that particular situation in that particular country. So these assignments they are for the purpose of developing the organizational structure, developing the organizational knowledge, developing the organizational norms, developing the market of that company. So these could be of various different functions, that could be on the financial level, that could be at the marketing level, that could be at the operations level. So if a person is sent to develop the operations network, the operations department, then it would be the developmental activity in that particular area. If that person is sent to develop the market for a product of that particular company, then it is going to be in that marketing area. If that person is sent to develop the financial systems of that company, it is going to be in the finance area. So it could be in any area of the organization and about 5 to 10% of the international assignments are developmental in nature. Then the third type of assignments they are strategic assignments and about 10 to 15% of the expatriate assignments are of strategic nature. These are at the C-SOOT level, at the top level management, which are high-profile activities for developing a global perspective. So it will not be at the managerial level or at the middle level manager level. These assignments will be at the CEO level or somewhere in the C-SOOT level, which would be to develop a global perspective of the subsidiaries that are working under that multinational network. So these are about 10 to 15% of the assignments. And finally are the functional assignments and most of the expatriate assignments are functional in nature about 55 to 80% of the assignments are of functional nature. And these are more enduring two-way transfer of existing processes and practices. So functional type of assignments, operational type of assignments in which day-to-day activities have to be managed and a two-way transfer process between the home country and the parent country has to take place. So people who are, for example, financial head, the marketing head, the R&D head, these people who are supposed to make the connection between the parent country, the headquarters and the subsidiary. These are the people who are mostly sent from the parent country to the host country to manage this connection between the two. And they are of the functional nature and mostly 55 to 80% of assignments belong to this category. When we talk about performance management of these types of assignments, the technical and functional assignments, you can see very well that they are more objective in nature. And therefore limited sources are required to measure the performance of people who are doing these assignments. And for that, you can also get concrete output criteria. So for functional and technical assignments, you can measure it by how many projects a person has completed or how many contracts have been signed and how many products have been launched. So if they are technical nature assignments or functional nature assignments, it is easier to calculate the performance of these types of assignments. Whereas if the assignment is that of a strategic nature and that of the developmental nature, that is more complex and involves subjective tasks. So you can very well imagine that strategy that is not devised on a spreadsheet. It is something which has to be a combination of art and sciences. It is something which has to be a combination of rationality and creativity. And when both these things they come together, that becomes a subjective task and you cannot actually measure what is the strategic development of the company in that particular year. It's possible that whatever tasks have been done or whatever things have been done by a person may not reflect at the strategic level in a one year time period. So strategic and developmental assignments, they are more complex and there are subjective tasks and it involves a wider variety of local and global participants and perspectives, which means that people from various different aspects from local aspect and also from the global aspect may be required to comment about the performance of that particular individual and may need to be participating in the performance management process. So this is how the different types of assignment they affect the performance management process of an organization and how that needs to be altered and needs to be customized according to the type of assignment which is given to the international employee.


WikiLeaks, OPCW Dorma Docs, OPCW Whistleblower Panel on the Dorma Doc Attack of April 2018 23rd October 2019, Today WikiLeaks publishes a statement made by a panel that listened to testimony and reviewed evidence from a whistleblower from the OPCW Organization prohibition of chemical weapons last week. To accompany the statement, WikiLeaks is also publishing a previously leaked engineering assessment of the alleged chemical attack in Dorma, Syria on April 7th last year. This statement was omitted in the final report by the OPCW which does not support its findings. WikiLeaks editor Kristen Rufferson took part in the panel to review the testimony and documents from the OPCW Whistleblower. He says, quote, the panel was presented with evidence that cast doubt on the integrity of the OPCW, although the whistleblower was not ready to step forward and or present documents to the public. WikiLeaks believes it is now of utmost interest for the public to see everything that was collected by the fact-finding mission on Dorma and all scientific reports written in relation to the investigation. We call out to people within the OPCW to leak these documents securely to us via WikiLeaks.org. Submit. One of the panel members was Dr. Jose Bostani, the first director general of the OPCW, who concluded that, quote, the convincing evidence of irregular behavior in the OPCW investigation of the alleged Dorma chemical attack confirms doubts and suspicions I already had. I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of investigations seemed incoherent at best. The picture is certain clear now, although very disturbing, end quote. In support of the OPCW's original objectives, the panel called upon the organization to re-establish its credibility and legitimacy by allowing all inspectors who took part in the OPCW investigation to come forward and report their differing observations in their appropriate forum of the United Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention. Internal OPCW email, 23 November 2019. OPC Management accused of doctoring Syrian chemical weapons report. WikiLeaks today publishes an email sent by a member of the OPCW fact-finding mission to Syria to his superiors, in which he expresses his graveest concern over international bias introduced to a redacted version of the report he co-authored. The organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons sent a team of experts to investigate allegations that a chemical attack took place in the Syrian city of Doma on the 7th of April 2018. The author of the email was a member of that team and claims the redacted preliminary version of the report misrepresents the facts he and his colleagues discovered on the ground. The email is dated 22 June. It is addressed to Robert Fairweather, chief of cabinet and forwarded to his deputy Amir Shoukat and members of the fact-finding mission to Doma. He says this misrepresentation was achieved by selective omission, introducing a bias which undermines the credibility of the report. Further it claimed that the crucial facts that have remained in the redacted version quote have morphed into something quite different to what was originally drafted end quote. This is said to have been done at the behest of the office of director general a post that was held by Turkish diplomat Ahmed Uzumsi at the time. He has since been replaced by Spaniard Fernando Arias. The attacking question was widely attributed to the Syrian army based on reports by rebel forces that were present in Doma at the time and this assertion was backed up by the United States, British and French governments. These three countries carried out airstrikes against Syrian government targets in response on the 14th of April 2018. This was before the fact-finding team had gained access to the site in Doma. The mission there was delayed for nearly two weeks by entrenched rebel fighters and subsequent clashes between the rebels and government forces that moved in the area. Upon arrival the team found much of the physical evidence including the bodies of the deceased was no longer available. It was alleged that 49 had died and up to 650 had been seriously affected by a weaponized chemical gas released in a specific area of rebel hell Doma on that day in April. Rebels claim the gas came from cylinders dropped from aircraft clearly implicating Syrian government forces who had complete air superiority. The redacted report seemed to support these conclusions but the author of the released email outlines some specific aspects of it which he considers quote particularly worrisome. Firstly, there is a statement in the redacted report. It states that there is sufficient evidence to determine the presence of quote chlorine or another reactive chlorine containing chemical end quote. The email points out that this was quote likely one or more chemicals that contain the reactive chlorine atom. Such chemicals could include the major ingredients of household chlorine based bleach purposely singling out chlorine gas as one of the possibilities is disingenuous end quote. The redacted report also removed contacts from a claim in the original draft which concerned the likelihood of gas having emanated from cylinders found at the scene in Doma. The original text is said to have purposely emphasized that there was sufficient evidence to affirm this being the case. This is quote a major deviation from the original report according to the author. He also cites problems with paragraph in the redacted version which states quote based on the high levels of various chlorinated organic derivatives detected in the environment samples and quote. This is said to overstate the case according to the email quote. There were in most cases present only in parts per billion range as low as one to two parts per billion which is essentially trace quantities end quote. One piece of evidence which was shown on news networks across the world was a video set to show victims being treated in in a hospital in the aftermath of the attack in Doma. The symptoms shown were however not consistent with what witnesses reported seeing that day. A detailed discussion of this was apparently omitted from the redacted version of the OPCW report. The email stated quote omitting this section of the report including a pedagmology which has been removed in its entirety has a serious negative impact on the report as this section is inexcusably linked to the chemical agent identified. In this case the confidence of the identity of the chlorine or any other choking agent is drawn into question precisely because of the inconsistency with the report and observed symptoms. The inconsistency was not only noted by the fact-finding mission team but strongly supported by three toxicologists which with expertise in exposure to chemical warfare agents end quote. Yet another point of contention is the placement and condition of the cylinders reported to have contained the chemical agents. It has been alleged that their condition may not be consistent with having been dropped from the air compared to damage in the immediate surrounding area. This was discussed in an unreleased engineering report from OPCW that was leaked and WikiLeaks published in October 2019 and indicates it is unlikely the cylinders were airdrop. See previous release OPCW whistleblower panel on the DOMA attack of April 2018. Sections discussing this are largely absent from the redacted report quote. This information was important in assessing the likelihood of the presence of toxic chemical versus the use of toxic chemicals end quote states the email. The author ends his letter with an appeal to the management to allow him to attach his differing observation to the document. The annual conference of the state's parties of the OPCW that is composed of representatives of all member states of the convention starts Monday November 25th in The Hague. Media partnership and coordination La Republica, Italy, Staunen, Iceland, Der Spiegel, Germany, Mail on Sunday, UK. OPCW DOMA Release Part 3, 14 December 2019. Today WikiLeaks releases more documents showing internal disagreement within the OPCW about how facts were misrepresented in a redacted version of a report on an alleged chemical attack in DOMA Syria in April 2018. Amongst these is a memorandum written in protest by one of the scientists sent on a fact-finding mission FFM to investigate the attack. It is dated 14 March 2019 and is addressed to Fernando Aries, director general of the organization. This was exactly two weeks after the organization published his final report on the DOMA investigation. WikiLeaks is also releasing the original preliminary report for the first time along with the redacted version that was released by the OPCW for comparison. Additionally, we are publishing a detailed comparison of the original interim report with the redacted interim report and the final report along with relevant comments from a member of the original fact-finding mission. These documents should help clarify the series of changes that the report went through which skewed the facts and introduced bias according to the statements made by the members of the fact-finding mission. The aforementioned memo states that around 20 inspectors had expressed concern over the final fact-finding mission report which they feel, quote, did not reflect the views of the team members that deployed to DOMA, end quote. Only one member of the fact-finding team that went to DOMA, a paramedic, is said to have contributed to the final version of the report. Apart from that one person, an entirely new team was gathered to assemble the final report referred to as the quote FFM core team, end quote. This new team was staffed with people who, quote, had only operated in country X, end quote, according to the memorandum. It is not clear what country that refers to except that it is presumably not Syria. It is possible, though, only speculation that country X refers to Turkey as OPCW has sent teams into refugee camps there to interview survivors from DOMA. The author of the memorandum states that he was the one originally tasked with analysis and assessment of the two cylinders found on the scene of the alleged chemical attack. This was a task he undertook, quote, in the understanding he was clearly the most qualified team member having been to the location in DOMA and because of his expertise in metallurgy, chemical engineering, including pressure vessel design, artillery and defense R&D, end quote. He continues, quote, in subsequent weeks I found that I was being excluded from the work for reasons not made clear, end quote. The author explains that he had frequently asked to be updated on the progress of the final report and to be allowed to review the draft, but was turned down on both counts, quote, the response was utmost secrecy, end quote. Once the final report was released on the 1st of March 2019, it became clear that the conclusions of the report had changed significantly in the hands of the new, quote, core, end quote, team that assembled it in its final form, quote. At the conclusion of the in-country activities in the Syrian Arab Republic, the consensus with the fact-finding mission team was that there was indications of serious inconsistencies in findings. After the exclusion of all team members, other than a small cadre of members who had deployed and deployed again in October 2018 to country X, the conclusion seems to have turned completely in the opposite direction. The fact-finding member team members find this confusing and are concerned to know how this occurred, end quote. Towards the end of the memo, he writes, quote, in conclusion, I must stress that I hold no opinion, interest or strong views on the technical part of the matter, nor any interest in the political outcomes. My interest is in sound technical rigor, the science, engineering, and facts will speak for themselves, end quote. WikiLeaks is releasing supporting documents that back up these claims in great technical detail, including the original interim report and appraisal of the changes each iteration went through. OPCW, DOMA, release part 4, 27th December 2019. Today, WikiLeaks releases more internal documents from the OPCW regarding the investigation into the alleged chemical attack in DOMA in April 2018. One of the documents is an email exchange dated 27 and 28 February between members of the fact-finding mission, FFM, deployed to DOMA and the senior officials of the OPCW. It includes an email from Sebastian Brahe, chief of cabinet at the OPCW, where he instructs that an engineering report from Ian Henderson should be removed from the secure registry of the organization. Quote, please get this document out of DRA, Documents Registry Archive, and please remove all traces, if any, of its delivery, storage, whatever in DRA, end quote. Main finding of Henderson, who inspected the sites in DOMA and the two cylinders that were found on the site of the alleged attack, was that they were more likely manually placed there than dropped from a plane or helicopter from considerable height. His findings were omitted from the original final OPC report on the DOMA incident. Another document released today is minutes from a meeting on 6th June 2018, where four staff members of the OPCW have discussions with, quote, three toxicologists, clinical pharmacologists, one bio and analytical and toxicological chemist, end quote. All specialists in chemical weapons according to the minutes. The purpose of this meeting was twofold. The first objective was, quote, to solicit expert advice on the value of exhuming suspected victims of the alleged chemical attack in DOMA on 7 April 2018, end quote. According to the minutes, the OPCW team was advised by the experts that there was little use in conducting exhumation. The second point was, quote, to elicit expert opinion from the forensic toxicologists regarding the observed and reported symptoms of the alleged victims, end quote. More specifically, quote, whether the symptoms observed in victims were consistent with exposure to chlorine or other reactive chlorine gas, end quote. According to the minutes leaked today, quote, with respect to the consistency of the observed and reported symptoms of the alleged victims with possible exposure to chlorine gas or similar, the experts were conclusive in their statement that there was no correlation between symptoms and chlorine exposure, end quote. The OPCW team members wrote that the key, quote, takeaway message, end quote, from the meeting was, quote, that the symptoms observed were inconsistent with exposure to chlorine and no other obvious candidate chemical causing the symptoms could be identified, end quote. The third document is a copy of the OPCW email exchange from 20 to 28 August 2018, discussing the meeting with the toxicologists. The fourth document is an email exchange from the end of July 2018, where it is stated that the eight OPCW inspectors deployed to DOMA during the fact finding mission, except one, a paramedic, should be excluded from discussions on the project.


To operate effectively in this trading environment, we have to set rules. We have to have safeguards and we have to set rules that we're actually going to follow. Because if we don't set these rules, if we don't follow these rules, you can really create enormous damage that we can do to ourselves, both mentally and financially. So to prevent this possibility of exposing ourselves to damage, we have to create an internal structure. We have to create a special mental discipline. We have to create a perspective about the markets that guide our behavior. And we have to set these up so they guide our behavior in a way that creates value in our own interest, for our best interest. Because think about this, this structure that we create, it has to exist inside of us. We have to create it in our mental environment because the market does not provide structure for us. The market has limitless opportunities. There's limitless ways to trade, so it does not provide any structure. We have to create that structure for ourselves. It's a boundaryless environment. When you're a trader, there's no one except yourself that's going to force you to decide in advance what your risk is. Copyright© OSHO International Foundation


I spoke with Brittany. She was getting ready to make dinner for her boyfriend and his two kids and she was making chicken parmesan. And it made me think about a video that I have of me and her making chicken parm when she was three years old. I was teaching her how to cook then. She loves to cook. My mom has two master's degrees in culinary arts. So a little rubbed off on me and I showed Brittany how to cook a lot and her mom showed her how to cook. And Brittany is like me. The most secret ingredient in any recipe is love. And if you cook with love, it's always gonna be that much better than anything else anyone could make without that extra ingredient. So I'm really proud of her.


The shocking reason why the narcissist will never respect you. Many victims who have been involved with narcissists are shocked at the level of disrespect. Narcissists are offensively impolite and ill-mannered. They show no concern or respect for your rights or feelings. They are self-absorbed and they lack empathy. They are preoccupied with their own feelings and needs, which results in them disrespecting you. It results in them not considering what you want or using what you want to manipulate you, but never having any genuine care or concern for you. They never have your best interest in mind. When most victims feel like the narcissist doesn't respect them or approve of them, they will try harder to gain their approval and validation. They will try harder to please them, which results in these victims running endlessly on a hamster wheel that the narcissist has created for them. It results in these victims running themselves into the ground because the narcissist is never satisfied. Nothing you do is ever good enough for them because they have these insatiable desires, which they can't even fulfill for themselves.  As these are feelings that they don't want to deal with, it's too painful for them to deal with. Which is why they hold you responsible for how they feel, because they don't take responsibility for their feelings, but they see their feelings as facts. So if they feel hurt or upset, in their minds that means that you must have hurt or upset them, so now they have to punish you. They have to withdraw their attention from you or they have to hurt you. They have to do something to get revenge, to feel like they have gotten you back a return for their perceived injury, even though you may not have done anything to them. This could all just be happening in their minds. It could be something that they have imagined, yet they will hold you responsible for how they feel, even though it has nothing to do with you. They are delusional because they run from reality. They don't want to deal with the truth because the truth would require them to take responsibility. It will require them to hold themselves accountable for how they feel, which it isn't going to benefit them in any way. Because they've gone so long without attending to their own emotions, they've always held other people responsible for how they feel, so they wouldn't know where to start. It's much easier for them to pass the blame on to someone else. Then they can make other people try harder and harder to make them happy. They can just sit back and not have to do anything at all, while everyone runs themselves under the ground trying to please them. So why would they ever respect you? There's no incentive for them to do that. They learned a long time ago that being rude and dismissive gets people what they want. And that is why they act this way. That is why they don't respect you, because they've learned that if they respect people, they will always end up with a short end of the stick. Narcissists are focused on their survival, and they've learned that respecting other people is detrimental to their survival. It puts them at a disadvantage, which is why they will never respect you. Which is why they will never treat you right. When you first met the narcissist, it may have seemed as though they admired and respected you. It may have seemed as though they had regard for your feelings, wishes, rights or traditions, but that was just manipulation. They deceived you. Narcissists never respect the people who are closest to them. They never give them the compliments or praise that they deserve. They always take them for granted, because they look at it like, if you're so great, you wouldn't be here. You wouldn't be around me. If you were deserving of anything better than I give to you, you would have left a long time ago. So when you stay around the narcissist, you may think that you're proving your loyalty and devotion, and that is worthy of respect.  When you remain around the narcissist, it tells them to keep the ill treatment coming, and they don't feel guilty for how they treat you, because they see it as though you're deserving of it, because you choose to remain around them. They see it as though if you were smart, you would just get up and leave, and it's only when you do leave they think that maybe you're worse up than after all. If you leave, they see it as though that's a smart one. They figure it out, and while they may secretly value and admire your courage, they're still not going to respect you.  They will smear your name. They may even try to sabotage your progress, because the truth is that they just don't want to respect you. Respecting you makes them reflect on how they're not worthy of respect. But if they can keep you down and treat you like you're worthless, it makes them feel better. It makes them feel like they're worth something, as long as they withhold their respect from you. They feel like they're okay. It's only when they're forced to acknowledge your qualities or accomplishments that they then feel small in comparison. They feel like they don't measure up. They feel like they're not worthy of respect, and they don't want to feel that way. So it's either you or them. They live in this black and white world where people are either good or bad. You're either a winner or a loser, and in their world there can only be one winner.  As long as they disrespect you, they can maintain the illusion. They can sustain their false self, and they can feel like they're actually worth something. They're too insecure to give you the respect that you deserve. Thank you for watching. I hope this video resonated with you. Please like, comment, share, and subscribe. If you would like to donate, my PayPal link is in the video description. Coaching queries, you can email me. I coach it at NARC Survivor at Kuduk. Thank you for watching, and I'll talk to you soon.


We'll just give folks a minute or two to join and then we'll get going. Okay, good morning everyone. I'd like to begin by acknowledging that I'm joining you from the unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Swahilite peoples. My name is Fen Biggs and I am the Canadian Oil Program Director here at stand.org. We're here today to release our new report, Subsidizing Climate Change. I'm going to introduce you to our panel first and then I'll walk you through some of the highlights of our report. So we're joined today by Vanessa Corkle, she's a Policy Advisor on Canadian Energy Transitions with the International Institute for Sustainable Development. We also have Fergus Canard with us. Fergus is the Economist who did the analysis that underpins our report and he'll talk to you a little bit about the methodology and work we did. And we're also joined by Alexander Woodsworth, Campaign Director at the Dogwood BC. So our report is based on an analysis of this year's BC budget. We went through on line by line through the budget itself and the supporting document, the ministerial service plans and identified fossil fuel subsidies using the World Trade Organization's definition. We found that this year the BC government will give $1.3 billion in subsidies, tax breaks, and other incentives to the fossil fuel industry. This is more than double the amount that when John Horgan and the BC NDP took office. The single largest increase this year comes from the Deepwell royalty program. This is a tax loophole that's designed to support the fracking industry. It is now at $421 million. But because we give out these credits faster than companies can cash them in, there is an outstanding liability of Deepwell credits that are held by fracking companies that now equals about $3.1 billion. That equals lost future revenue for the province of British Columbia. This budget through its estimates goes out to 2023, 2024, and it shows by that year fossil fuel subsidies will have raised to $1.8 billion. That will include a 150% increase in the Deepwell royalty credit. Additionally, this year the gap between the amount of money that the province takes in in terms of oil and gas royalties and the amount we give out in fossil fuel subsidies grew again. This year there's a five-fold amount of subsidies for every dollar that we brought in in royalties. At $182 million, royalty revenue is actually quite low in comparison to some other sources for the province. We took a look at other forms of revenue and found that for instance, BC makes less off oil and gas royalties than they do for vehicle licensing and permit registration, which is a pretty amazing fact. We also found that this year again BC spent more on fossil fuel subsidies than we did on clean BC, the provinces plan to fight climate change. In fact, in future years that gap is going to grow according to big budget estimates. Then finally we found that the province has consistently over the last five budgets underestimated the costs of fossil fuel subsidies and been low on that number every year and has overestimated future royalty revenue from the oil and gas industry. For instance, over the last five years the government predicted that royalty revenues from natural gas would increase by about 15.7%. In an actuality, they only rose by 4% over the same time. On the petroleum side, the numbers are even worse. They predicted a 2.1% increase when in reality those royalties fell by over 13%. This is the highlights from our report. You can find it online at Standout Earth and I hope you will all check out the full report. I'm going to pass it over to Vanessa now to talk about some of the broader context around fossil fuel subsidies. Thanks and congrats to Standout Earth on the release of this report. I'm speaking to you today from Ottawa and CDL-Gonkwinon-Oshami Territory. Just to contextualize the findings of this report, as momentum is increasing for a green recovery worldwide, including in Canada. We saw in mid-May the International Energy Agency release a major report modeling pathways to a net zero emissions economy. That report made it crystal clear that government investment in new fossil fuel production has to end this year if the world is to meet its climate targets. And provincial governments like BC cannot be exempted from this. Ultimately, fossil fuel subsidies make it cheaper for the recipients to produce and consume fossil fuels. So cheaper to pollute. And money put towards fossil fuels works against positive policies like carbon pricing that aim to put a price on pollution. Essentially like raising taxes on cigarettes to discourage smoking while giving those companies tax breaks to make more profits in cigarettes. So it's incongruous policies that we need to fix. There are particularly worrying trends in BC. We did a report on BC subsidies that looked at 2017 figures and back then outstanding royalty credits were at 2.6 billion. The jump to 3.1 in just a couple of years is really worrying. These types of subsidies distort the market and make fossil fuel investments and production seem artificially attractive, tilting the market away from the clean energy we so desperately need. Royalty adjustments are a huge problem in BC. We look at Canada writ large. It is the second largest provider of subsidies to fossil fuels among Canadian provinces. Royalties are supposed to pay for public goods when companies extract publicly owned resources. It is supposed to fund things like clean energy, housing, education. But instead, we are making it cheaper to create the climate change, which will have rapidly rising costs if we don't start to deal with this in a strong way. More worryingly is the emphasis that BC is putting on LNG or fracking. An example would be the 20-year agreement that the government of BC signed with LNG Canada, which was the clincher for their final investment decision and therefore also the clincher for the final investment decision of coastal gas link. This type of government support makes projects viable that would not otherwise be economic and can help lock in high carbon assets that might be surrounded by assets in the future. LNG is particularly problematic because we are seeing a continued argument from the gas industry that gas can be a bridge fuel. This argument is 30 years old and there is much evidence to debunk it. Recent research from the IASD energy team in Geneva released last week shows that there is no room for more fossil fuels of any kind, including gas, that renewables are much cheaper than gas, especially in power generation in countries like Asia. It is also a poor solution to energy access. Also because of the methane leakage associated with gas, it is not a clean solution and we should not be putting emphasis on this at all. So in closing, it is vital that as we are recovering from COVID that governments take a long hard look at what they're doing to support climate change policy and also their policies that might be working against that. And in particular, the BC oil and gas royalty review that has been promised is a huge opportunity that the BC government should not squander. It is extremely important that we deal with provincial fossil fuel subsidies in Canada and it is critical to address them if Canada and BC, as a contributor to that, is going to help meet our climate change goals under the Paris Agreement and our global commitments on fossil fuel subsidy phase out. Thanks. Thank you, Vanessa. I will very briefly talk through the call methodology of the analysis that underpinned this report. As Fenza already mentioned, it was done by looking directly at the 2021 BC budget. In particular, there were three key budget documents that contained the majority of the figures that underpinned the analysis. So the first and probably most important is the budget and fiscal plan that outlines at a high level the key revenue and expense measures across the entire BC budget. Secondly, were ministerial service plans. They outlined the operational and capital expenditures of individual ministries and in particular focus of this report were the Ministry of Environment and Climate Strategy, the Ministry of Energy, Minds and Low Carbon Innovation and the Ministry of Forest, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development often called Flinrope. The other document of interest were the 2021 estimates papers and they just get into a little bit more detail about individual revenue and expense items and provide a little bit more colour to the programs that the money is attached to. So with those documents in hand, the methodology for the analysis in the reports was quite simple. I read through them all and highlighted expenditures and programs that related to the consumption and production of fossil fuels, as well as those that related to climate change mitigation and adaptation, as well as a handful of other programs and expense measures of interest often used for comparison to contextualise kind of the scale of spending on fossil fuels and climate change. Budget items that contributed to fossil fuel subsidisation figures that you'll find in the report include things like direct capital expenditure on fossil fuel projects or enabling infrastructure, as well as things like tax credits and exemptions for elements of the fossil fuel production supply chain, as well as exemptions and credits on the consumption of end products. Fossil fuel revenue sources cited in the report were also sourced directly from the government's own estimates. They can be found in the budget and fiscal plan. Once all of these relevant revenue and expense measures were categorised and captured for the current budget and its current plan period, I then went back through previous budgets starting from the 2016-17 budget year, working my way back up to our current year to track how the items identified had changed over time and to see whether there were any other programs or expense measures of interest that were introduced or paid for during that period and have since been discontinued or reformatted into a different program. I also tracked how these items identified in the current year were behaving over the current plan period, so I think Sven mentioned before, out to the year 2023-24 to track at least what the government is projecting as a future trend for the items of interest. Once all this information was compiled together, I conducted some basic trend analysis to see what elements of the budget were growing or shrinking and at what rate and some basic comparative analysis to other large features of the budget to try to contextualise the scale of both fossil fuel subsidisation, the revenue generated from its extraction as well as the province response to climate change. So I guess that's the, at a high level, the methodology for report.  They're often underutilised for good reason. They're incredibly boring and long and sometimes hard to read, but they are a really great way of holding a government to account and tracking what is really important to decision makers. So my hope is that this analysis can paint a clearer picture for the state of fossil fuel support in this province and potentially inform action moving forward. Thanks. Thank you, Fergus. Alexandra? Thanks, Ben. Hi, I'm Alexandra Woodsworth. I'm calling in today from unceded seashell territory on the Sunshine Coast. Thanks so much, Ben and Stan and Fergus for putting together this report and inviting me to join today. So at Dogwood, we are campaigning to move the sea beyond gas in order to build a safe climate future. So I follow this issue pretty closely, but every time I hear it laid bare, as my colleagues have just done for you here today, the reality of what is happening here in BC with fossil fuel subsidies just hits me every single time. We're literally paying private, foreign-owned corporations to carry away BC's public resource and to profit from polluting our air and fueling the climate crisis. And we're doing it at the expense of other urgent priorities. So this is a zero-sum game. Every public dollar handed over to the fossil fuel sector is what is not available for other things British Columbians need, like healthcare and housing and renewable energy projects and clean tech. So one of the things in the report that was really concerning for me to see was how handouts to oil and gas are ballooning, obviously, but clean energy investments are falling so dramatically, looking around 75% down from last year to next year. Obviously, exactly the opposite of what scientists are telling us and now even the world's most influential energy forecasters at the IEA are telling world governments they need to do. It's the opposite of what our neighbors, our nearest competitors are doing. Joe Biden just announced plans to ax $35 billion worth of oil and gas subsidies from the U.S. budget, you know, citing market distortion, running counter to his goals of energy security, clean energy economy. The Canadian government has committed to phasing out fossil fuel subsidies by 2025. And as Vanessa mentioned, now we are second only to Alberta here in D.C. in terms of, yeah, how much provision we provide in terms of support for this sector. And it's showing in our emissions, which have risen faster than any other province in the country since the Paris climate accord. And they're on track to keep rising, unlike places like the U.S. and the EU. So Premier Horgan continues to sell British Columbians this myth that we're a climate leader, that we have the best climate plan in North America. And it's simply not true. And nothing symbolizes this more than spending twice as much to fund increased fracking than we do on climate action. This is what some folks call the new climate denial. Leaders say they get the climate crisis, but they are not practicing the policies that align with what the science says we need to do. So increasing handouts to oil and gas is also the opposite of what many NDP MLAs advocated passionately against when they were in opposition. They slammed the B.C. liberals for selling out B.C.'s future, for padding corporate profits, for the great giveaway to oil and gas companies. But since coming to power, as we've seen in this report, the NDP has completely doubled down on these subsidies. Even as the economy has been reeling in this pandemic, they have found more money than last year to hand out to big oil and gas companies, which is really fundamentally at odds with the NDP's core commitment to look out for everyday people. With these subsidies, instead of making life affordable for everyday folks, they are looking out for the rich and powerful at the top and for foreign-owned companies. It's also totally at odds with what British Columbians expect from their government. We know from polling that folks want strong action on climate. They support clean energy. And I think this is where the NDP faces some choices going forward. I think so far they've coasted on an outdated perception that B.C. is a climate leader. Awareness of this true emissions picture of the choices our government's making to use our tax dollars in this way on such a scale to finance this polluting industry remains relatively low. But polling also shows that our attachment in this province to natural or clean B.C. brand is very strong. And there's strong questions about what will happen as reality sinks in that when it comes to climate, we may be closer to dirty B.C., sort of sponsored by our tax dollars. So fossil fuel subsidies became a major issue during the provincial election. Public pressure resulted in this commitment from the NDP to review oil and gas royalties. And that process is coming later this year. And if it's fair and transparent and allows public participation, this is really going to shine an unprecedented spotlight on this this costly counterproductive outdated practice of subsidizing pollution. And the outcome of this review could really be seen as a litmus test for the B.C. NDP's commitments to climate action. Either they keep funding the main industry fielding emissions and B.C.'s climate camp plan keeps failing. Or they cut off these subsidies as really kind of like a baseline step for meaningful commitment to decarbonization. Yeah, so it's a choice, really prop up a sunset industry, keep looking out of touch with the strides being made by our neighbors, by our competitors, with the B.C. public with their own base, really, or cut those funds off and send a strong signal to climate concerned voters that B.C. is seriously about getting back on track when it comes to climate leadership. Thank you. Thank you, Alex. I'll just wrap up by saying that, you know, last December, the province came out with its first climate accountability report. And that showed that the gap to our 2030 target had grown yet again and that we are further behind. Report also found that there are two particular sectors that are lagging behind the rest of the economy dramatically, oil and gas and heavy trucking. Oil and gas contributes just three percent to B.C.'s GDP and is about half of one percent of the jobs. This is a very small industry that's getting a disproportionate amount of provincial funding that props it up and keeps it alive. At a time when we are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money into fighting climate change to try to reduce the impact, the simplest thing to do here is to end these subsidies and align the government's rhetoric and its actions. So later this year, as both Vanessa and Alexandra referenced, the province is going to conduct a royalty review. They promised that during the election and in the mandate letters, this is an opportunity for them to take a hard look at things like the deep well royalty credits that have basically is a case where, you know, they were brought in to support the fracking industry when it was in its infancy and was a new technology. But today over 80 percent of the wells in British Columbia are fracking wells and almost every single producer is in line for the hand up for these subsidies. We're no longer supporting innovation or a bridge fuel. We are supporting climate change. And the people of British Columbia have the right to know about that and that's why we've made these figures public today. With that, I'm going to open it up to questions. You can either use the Q&A function here in Zoom, raise your hand with the little button or just type straight in the chat and I will help fill up those questions. I've got one here in the chat that I think might be a good question for Vanessa. Can you talk a little bit about the clean infrastructure royalty program and whether this is a good fossil fuel subsidy because it reduces methane emissions or whether it's still problematic? Yeah, it's a really good question. So I think often what happens is governments are in a tough political position because they want to introduce a positive policy like carbon pricing, but they also want to bring heavy emitters and get their support. So in this sense, I think this royalty program being focused on methane leakage in theory could be a positive idea, but the reality is that it's still a subsidy. So we at ISD work with international definitions of subsidies. So the term of subsidy that has been defined by the World Trade Organization that over 170 countries have agreed to includes this type of subsidy even if there is an environmental benefit. And the reason is often it is actually cheaper for governments to achieve the same policy goals with different policies. So subsidies that have social environmental benefit should only be in place if there is literally no other viable alternative to them. And the onus should be on the government to demonstrate that. The other problem is that this is not happening in a vacuum. This infrastructure royalty, the clean infrastructure royalty program is actually one of a number of royalty credits. If there were no other royalty credits, then maybe you could argue that it is actually having some some outsized benefit that would justify keeping it. But the reality is that this adds to the many royalty credits that many of these companies are already receiving. So arguably is not an efficient subsidy. And so I think it's important to not get just accept the usefulness of a subsidy because it has some environmental claims. Thanks, Vanessa. I have one here for Alex Alexander. Obviously, old growth logging in Ferry Creek have been in the news a lot. Some people have called that a betrayal of the NDP's commitment on the environment. Do you think the fossil fuel subsidies are similar betrayal? Well, I think we have to go back and look at how strongly British Columbians believe in climate action and want to see that level of action here in BC. And yeah, the BC government has consistently the NDP has consistently made those commitments has consistently said that it will align with Paris. It will take these steps. And I think this is where this kind of new climate denialism comes in. We see we see them talking at both sides of their mouth so that we have some good investments. We do have some steps being taken. But we have a budget just coming out that shows projections of fracking increasing by 30 percent over the next few years. And obviously the funding that goes along that you've highlighted here today. So these two commitments absolutely don't line up. And that really does need to be highlighted more. And I think folks are ready to see that now. I think the old growth logging situation has kind of burst a bit of a bubble and really brought that level of public attention onto a number of BC's, you know, BCNDP's failures when it comes to the climate file. And yeah, I think climate voters, the more and more they see what's happening here, the more we get this awareness out there, are going to to really start to realize that, you know, the BC government's record is certainly not add up to to its its rhetoric. And that really needs to change. Okay, thank you all. I am not seeing any other questions in the chat. So I'll just remind everybody that you should have our release with a link to the report in your inbox. And that if you would like to do a one-on-one interview with any one of our panelists, there's media contact information there. Thank you everybody for joining us and thank you to the panel.