You all get extra points for that. I'm Dan Rundy. I hold the Shrier Chair at CSIS. I'm very, very appreciative that all of you have come at such an early hour. Please take a seat, Minister, and please take a seat, my friend, JP Prosper. We are hosting this conference in partnership with the Government of Canada. Thank you very much, Canada. Welcome Minister Paradi, who is the Minister of International Development for the Canadian Government as part of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, DFATD, as it's known, and my very good friend JP Prosper is with us as well. We're expecting Minister Ba, the Minister of Finance of Senegal, shortly. This is a very interesting conversation. We've had a very strong turnout of about 300 folks RSVP'd for this event. I think reflecting the fact that these are demand-driven topics in international development. These topics that we've chosen are topics in line with the post-2015 MDGs and the post-Busan global partnership. For those of you that follow these things, I think these are some very interesting topics that countries like Canada, countries like Australia, countries such as the Nordic countries that are donors, have an outsized contribution to make in these demand-driven topics. These are topics that deserve more attention in Washington. These are also topics that no one country, whether it's the United States or Canada or others, can work on alone. I want to just touch on each of the topics we're going to be covering in our agenda, and then we're going to go, I'm going to turn the floor over to Minister Paradi to make some remarks. Doesn't give the Francophonie or the community of Portuguese-speaking countries, it doesn't get the same sort of attention they might deserve. I think the conversation we're going to be having opportunities and challenges in the Francophonie, I think will be quite interesting to look at some of the development challenges. You have translation sets, Minister Paradi has asked us to conduct this conversation in French. I think it's appropriate. I think it will be very interesting. My French is not so good, so I'm going to ask the questions in English, but I think our respondents are going to respond in French. So you will actually want to use your translation devices for that. On the issue of trade and development, this is an issue that we've been working on for over a year. We have a congressional task force report coming out on how to strengthen U.S. trade capacity-building capabilities going forward in future trade deals, of which I hope there are many. We also, on the issue of managing extractive wealth in 2013, there was an estimated $730 billion of global mining revenues, much of it in the developing world, something like five times the amount of all foreign assistance. In Africa, 51 of 54 countries have ongoing or planned oil and gas exploration. And export data from, for example, 2010 indicates that about almost 60 percent of crude oil exports come from the developing world. So managing oil, gas, and mining wealth is a critical challenge in development. If you said to me, is this going to be more relevant or less relevant in the next five years, it's going to be more relevant. Well, Canada and Australia and Norway, for example, have a lot to teach us about how to manage these important resources. And so I think we're really appreciative that we're going to have this conversation as well. Science and technology, 15 years ago, if anyone said that there would be widespread cell phone use in Africa, I think people would have shrugged that off. Ten years ago, if we talked about something like M-Pesa, which is a payment system in a number of countries starting in Kenya, people would have shrugged that off and wouldn't have believed it. Canada, Australia, the Nordics, the UK, and the U.S. all have something to share. And oftentimes, science, technology, and innovation is a two-way street. So we're going to be having a very interesting conversation about science, technology, and innovation. Finally, we're going to be talking about the fact that nine out of 10 jobs in the developing world are in the private sector. So how we work and partner and support the private sector is an important part of development. We've spent three or four years here at CSIS working on these issues. And for those G7 countries that don't have development finance instruments or development finance instrument capabilities, this is a real opportunity to think about how to strengthen those or build those. My good friend, Elizabeth Littlefield, who's the CEO of OPIC and is truly a great leader in international development, will be making some remarks about DFI's at lunchtime. So please stick around for that. But without further ado, I'm going to turn the floor over to my good friend, Minister Paradis, who's flown in from Ottawa to be with us. Minister, over to you. Pleasure to be here today at this conference called Major Drivers for Development Agenda. It's a pleasure to be here with you today with many key players in both policy in the private sector and the room. And we have a very exciting program before us. So I'd like to thank CSIS for welcoming us in their brand new facilities. And I would say, Dan, you're the man. We just met in June. Here we are with convening a lot of people for a great conference. So this is very exciting. And I'd like to thank also CSIS for partnering with Canada to make this conference a success. And before we proceed with the first panel, I'd like to say a few words about Canada's contribution to development in the last couple of years. So today, more than 1.1 billion people around the world still live in extreme poverty, trying to survive on less than $1.25 a day. How to keep these billion people from losing their daily struggle is a complex challenge that pushes us to really find our approach to international assistance. So since 2006, Canada has long been at the forefront of the international development. And for me, this means going beyond the boundaries that have traditionally defined how development is done. At the core of our efforts lies a commitment to new partnerships and constant innovation. It's a commitment to smart development that evolves with the rapidly changing development landscape. It is in spirit that Canada is happy. It is in spirit that Canada is happy to organize with CSIS this event today. As many of you know, international assistance is not what it used to be. Indeed, a great deal has changed since Canada began officially, pursuing international development in the late 60s. Today, developing countries are increasingly driving global growth and using economic development, trade and investment to fuel their own progress. The importance of development assistance has decreased compared to other resources. And foreign direct investment to developing world now outpaces assistance by a five to one margin. Elimiting extreme poverty and promoting global prosperity are two sides of the same coin. Partner countries in Africa, for example, have long said that they need more than just development assistance. How many times I heard from my counterpart, we don't need aid, we need trade. So friends, what we know is they need access to the knowledge and expertise that can help them to mobilize their own resources and capabilities. And with private sector investment, they can reinvest the public revenues into the health and well-being of their own citizens. I think Canada is an especially good position to help developing countries to meet these challenges, both institutional and economic. Canada weathered the global financial crisis better than most of our trading partners because Prime Minister Harper had a plan. Today, Canada has the best employment record in developed countries. Nearly 1.1 million jobs have been created since their recession. Canada experience can definitely be an asset for several developing countries. Canada was the one of the first donors to promote the central role of sustainable economic growth in international development. And it remains a top priority. More recently, when our government merged the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade with the Canadian International Development Agency, which is now DFADD, we're working at branding, by the way then, as you know, DFADD sounds... Anyway, we can do better. It's like CSIS. Exactly. More recently, when our government... So when we merged, it was to capitalize on the full potential of the interrelation between foreign policy, development and trade. We are now beginning to reap the benefits of this merger. We believe that this coherence will lend greater way to our efforts at all levels. As Minister of La Francophonie, I can now attest to the benefits of the merger in this specific area also. With its partners, for example, Canada is currently leading an effort to ensure that La Francophonie adopts an economic strategy. The recognition of the department allows Canada to push for a strategy that will consider the different levels of development of La Francophonie countries, while we ensure that trade and development are on equal footing. We have demonstrated commitment to international development since the earliest days for governments. In the 2006 budget, our government reaffirmed Canada's commitment to double international assistance to $5 billion in 2010, 2011. But it was also clear to us that to give a new impetus to our international assistance, we had to make some changes to existing policies and practices. At the time, Canada's assistance was too scattered among too many countries and too many themes. Moreover, this situation was noted in a critical report by the OECD on Canada's aid policies. In 2007, we therefore adopted an aid effectiveness action plan. We then decided to focus our energy and efforts geographically and thematically where Canada could take a leading role. And I think that no example can illustrate the success better than our global leadership role in maternal, newborn, and child health since 2010. Before Prime Minister Harper drew the word's attention to the crucial issue of maternal, newborn, and child health, we were having trouble reducing maternal and child mortality. Thanks to the Moscow initiative and the resulting global action, maternal mortality rates are going down and millions more children are able to celebrate their fifth birthday. It is our top development priority that I am proud to say was reinforced by Prime Minister Harper in May at the saving every woman, every child, global summit in Toronto. Heads of governments, industry, and civil society organizations came together to build consensus on how to redouble international efforts to reduce the preventable deaths of mothers, newborn, and child, children under the age of five in developing countries within a generation. The summit reaffirmed that we are on the right track. That saving every woman and every child is within arm's reach. And that redoubling our efforts is a necessity if we are to meet our goals. It also reaffirmed that this issue must retain at the centre of our post-2015 global development agenda. And Toronto, the Prime Minister, announced that Canada would provide $3.5 billion over five years to support maternal, newborn, and child health. This commitment will build momentum in the global effort to save the lives of millions of babies, children, and mothers and help them to grow and thrive. We already saw results two weeks ago in New York when President Kim of the World Bank and other leaders, including Prime Minister Harper, announced the founding of the global financing facility for every woman, every child. As a founding partner, Canada will contribute $200 million toward the facility as part of our $3.5 billion commitment announced in the Toronto Summit. Housed at the World Bank, the facility will provide the critical financial infrastructure to mobilize the capital required to scale up health services for women and children. And in particular, the new facility will establish a multi-donor platform to help developing countries to build and strengthen their CRVS system, which is a crucial, crucial need. Development has now become a global endeavor in which partners from across a section of areas work together to meet the needs of the world's poor. It used to be squarely the domain of government development agencies, charities, and international organizations. Canada is furthering its development priorities by working closely with a multitude of partners. And there is no type of partner that alone can enable us to overcome all challenges. Each stakeholder has its reason for being. And as I said earlier, we know that sustainable economic growth drives poverty reduction and the private sector drives economic growth. It is thus vital to partner with the private sector to raise people from poverty and set them on the path to the prosperity. Meaningful jobs, better education, and training, and improved health and nutrition for mothers and children can all lead to an increased likelihood for overcoming poverty. And these are all increasingly attainable when the private sector is better connected to global development efforts. Since I became Minister of International Development, one of my priorities has been to make sure Canada is at forefront of the efforts to leverage local, Canadian, international, and multinational private sector actors. It is why I was proud to be named Chair of the Redesigning Development Finance Initiative known once again with another acronym, RDFI. The RDFI is a joint global project between the World Economic Forum and the Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Its main objective is to expand the pool of foreign and domestic capital to help accelerate social and economic progress. And its main tools are one, identifying and testing innovative public-private finance models, and two, scaling up blended finance partnerships. That being said, I recognize that we have some improvements to make on this front. The Canadian private sector does not participate in development in its full potential. Many have identified the lack of a Canadian development financing mechanism to explain the situation. This is something I have taken seriously, and I'm currently consulting to see how best respond to the situation. Many other non-traditional partners can help Canada to overcome the challenge of development. There is no doubt that innovation is vital to the achievement of development results. And Canada's scientific and technological community is one of our greatest assets. Since the department has long been active in developing countries, it has a very unique perspective on the field. And I want the department to connect our S&T ecosystem with the needs of the developing world. There is also the influx of immigrants from other countries, which has created diasporas or expatriate communities whose activities have an impact on development. With transfer totaling nearly $24 billion in 2012, Canada is the third largest source of remittances to developing countries. This is more than four times of the official development assistance that is flown out of Canada. So these remittances help to reduce poverty and meet basic needs in several developing countries, but they are certainly an opportunity, once again, to optimize and leverage on this regard. So there must be greater recognition of this significant contribution by our fellow citizens, and we cannot do without this valuable cooperation. Diversifying our partnership is crucial to the future successes of our aid program, and there is no lack of opportunity to do so. But it is just as important to maintaining the quality and strength of our long-standing partnership with civil society. And for this reason, as Minister, have made great effort to establish ties with civil society, I had often heard people talk about how our partner organizations plentifully represent Canada and the world. And since becoming Minister of International Development, I have the chance to see this with my own eyes. Through their activities to assist poor and vulnerable communities, partner organizations are embodying Canadian values worldwide. I know that by working with our traditional partners in civil society, we can have a great impact also on development. So in conclusion, as a nation, as a people, Canadians are motivated by the need to help those less fortunate than ourselves. However, we must never lose sight of the fact that citizens expect Canadian aid to deliver tangible results. We are better equipped today than ever before to reduce poverty and to invest or develop an assistance funding where it will have the greatest impact. Canada will lead by focusing on the impact of its activities and by developing innovative solutions that can change lives. So my hope is that today's conference will contribute to the development of such innovations in Canada and around the world. So thank you again, Dan, and the team, for having this terrific conference. Great. Thank you very much, Minister. Thank you. I think we're going to jump right into the conversation about development challenges and opportunities in the Francophonie. I'm going to introduce my two friends, and then we're going to get right into it. So you, of course, have met Minister Paradis. He's the Minister for Development for the Canadian Government. And then my very good friend, John Philippe Prosper, who's the Vice President for Client Services at IFC. JP happens to be Haitian, but is a global citizen. And JP has had a very distinguished career at the International Finance Corporation, which is the private sector arm of the World Bank Group. And prior to that, was at the Inter-American Development Bank at the private sector arm. And prior to that, worked in a private sector finance institution in Haiti. So brings a global perspective, understands Haiti, of course, but also understands the challenges and opportunities in West Africa, including Francophone West Africa. So my French isn't so great, but I'm going to ask the questions in English. But I know that we were going to conduct this conversation in French. And so you should use your translation devices, and then afterwards return them as well. It looks like our friend Minister Bah has something has come up, and we won't be able to join us at the last minute. And I apologize for that. But we're going to go ahead, because the show must go on. So when I think about Haiti or I think about many parts of West Africa, oftentimes in the United States, I think in Canada, there is a perception that there are only challenges to think about. I disagree with that. I think there are many of incredible opportunities. I'd be curious from both of your perspectives, when you think about the opportunities in countries like Haiti or the opportunities in Senegal, I'd be curious about how you both see that. And let me start first with my friend J.P. when you think about opportunities in Senegal and Francophone West Africa. And Haiti, from your perspective at IFC, what do you see? I guess I have to rise to the challenge to do it in French. No papa's question is easier as he appears to get those conversations in English. So I have to recalibrate. First of all, I'm going to take the friend speaking Africa and those countries. We're going to speak Haiti in terms of opportunities. I think that you have to see what has happened in the past. If I take the example of Haiti and what we've seen in the last few years, there's been a certain number of reforms that have helped the companies in our countries. And it's thanks to these reforms that the climate for investment is better than it was before. And there's still a lot to be done, but there's been a lot of progress. And I will take the example of the investments IFC. And I'm talking about some sub-Saharan Africa. Our investments went well. We began the great wave of reforms. And I see in this room that we see a former CEO. He's a great visionary. And I recognize his technology presence. He's the one that started. And there was a great decentralization effort. And we had, I remember when I went to Africa, there was about $15 billion in the last few years. Now there's $1 billion of exchange that gives you an idea of the exponential growth in this. Because essentially, the opportunities, there's more opportunity because there's a certain number we've contributed. We've been able to help. If we couldn't have done it if there were no private investors. Because the financing is mainly the private sector. We only supported these investors. And we have a lot to think, as you were saying. And there's been a certain number of reforms in terms of infrastructures, which is very important for Africa. You can't have development in Africa or anywhere else. And unless you have appropriate infrastructure, and I take the sector of energy and electricity. And until three years ago, even an excellent day, and about $200,000 million, now we are doing more than $1 billion. And in the energy sector, we are also doing a lot in the sector of agriculture and agribusiness. And the past fiscal year, we've met many millions of dollars. And what are we saying here? Yes, there are opportunities. And there's a lot of opportunities in the sector of natural resources and raw materials. But there's also agribusiness where there's a lot of possibilities. And we can talk about the financial sector. There's an exponential growth in this sector. Many financial groups have merged. I would say there's lots of challenges. There remains a lot to be done. And we are working with the governments, both in terms of assistance, technical assistance, or serpent, or services to the government. And by working with the private sector, that's essentially what I would say for African general. And West Africa in particular, that has been also the case. I will take the fragile companies, like countries like Ivory Coast, the renewal today, because the war between and we've been able to invest more than a billion dollars in the energy sector. And we talked about Haiti. Haiti also, Haiti, as you know well, has had a lot of problems, not only political problems, but the famous earthquake and the problem of reconstruction. I'm pleased to say we have done our part and we've contributed to the reconstruction of Haiti. And we have a lot of programs in Haiti for technical assistance. But also in terms of investment programs, we are going to invest over the 12 next months about $100 million in Haiti's and very important projects for investment. But we were investing in agribusiness and also in the financial sector. That's what I have to say essentially. Minister, thank you very much. The francophonie, I think it is important to put some figures and to put in francophonie. It's about 77 countries, 225 million people that are spread over five continents. And francophonie is 15% of the gross world product. And francophonie offers an immense potential for growth because 60% of the francophones are below the age of 30 or less. And I would like to, when you say there are opportunities, there's a lot of future in the French-speaking countries in terms of economic development. The main sectors, we've talked a lot about infrastructure, energy, mining, and health and education. What we are doing in Canada, being a full-scale member of francophonie, we are the second biggest donor in francophonie. And since 2010, and clearly, we are remaining in the francophonie. There's this development that is relevant. It's a French-speaking community that's transparent and that is going to help the advancement of the rule of law and democracy. And the whites of women and children and other people, I'm talking about the Senate. In general, we have an organization that is in full form and works about language, culture, and diversity, and good basic rights, and transparency, and good governance. And this, in 2010, at the consortium declaration, we talked about an economic strategy. We worked on this as member countries, and it will be adopted in the future. And on the 9th of November that is coming up, we want an economic strategy that's not static. It's to create dynamism, to create economic interaction between among the members of the francophone community and to do things in the future. When we think of Canada with our market action plant for the development of markets, and we are trying, as we can, as Mr. Prosper has said, we have to support, but we have to also be sure that we have a legal framework and a business framework that is adequate to stimulate investment. This means to have agreements for the protection of investments. We signed with Ivory Coast, with Senegal, with countries like Benin. And we, at Catechry, we started to an agreement to create a legal framework to assure the security of the different sectors. We have to come to agreement when we talk about the dynamics of the summit and to look for players for development. And a lot of people in West Africa are concentrating on the advance of women and also the development of agriculture. We also know that women can play an important role in their daily function to earn their living. It's the whole family that benefits from this. They can go to the school. They can get educated. And this is something that helps a good number of projects that are advancing in this sector. And we can hope that we have economic development that is broader with investments that come from countries like Canada and the United States. We talked about Haiti and Maespa side. It's sure that there are a lot of challenges. There are political challenges. And if we look in the future, what can we do to be optimal in the reconstruction of Haiti and in Canada? What we're trying to look for is to take advantages that Haiti has had with this tragic earthquake that occurred in 2010 and what we can do for the infrastructure. And we are looking for an innovative process to do more to start from the fundamentals to help Haiti to have more and more economic development prices. We're looking, of course, looking for a narrow collaboration so that the government Haiti can do what it can. And so we can have a legal framework for have security for investments so that within sustainable investments that will help the growth of the economy and the education and to lift Haitians out of poverty. Thank you very much. When I think about IFC, I agree with you that 15 years ago there was only a small amount of investment. And both IFC and the World Bank in partnership with governments like Canada, like the United States, other donors supported a major set of reforms, the doing business indicators and improving investment climate. My friend Peter Boyke is here. He's in the audience of former CEO of IFC, was a great innovator in that respect. And so I appreciate you recognizing him as well. Could you talk a little bit? And when I look at the list of the opportunities, agribusiness, infrastructure, energy, and mining, education, as well as also thinking about how to include women in the private sector, I think of IFC as being active in all of those areas. The other thing when I think about IFC is that it is in some ways similar to the Francophony, a transmission belt of learning across countries. Could you just talk a little bit more about how, whether it's in, for example, it could be between Haiti or in West Africa or other parts of the Francophone world. How does IFC, whether it's the Francophone world or not, how does IFC take lessons from one part of the world and bring it to another? That would be one question for you in terms of how IFC does its business. And then I think the other question for you, JP, would be is when I think about parts of Africa, including Francophone, West Africa, there's a good news story there. And what is it gonna take from, in terms of the sorts of reforms that are gonna be necessary to turn Haiti into the same sort of good news story? If you could just think a little bit about what's it gonna take on the economic side or the economic reform side to make Haiti a good news story? So those are my two questions for you. One is about IFC and it's serving as a transmission belt and talking a little bit about how you transfer learning. And the second is how do we turn Haiti into a good news economic story? Because if you'd look back 20 years in many parts of Africa, it was all a bad news story and that's changing with challenges. And I think I wanna believe, and I do believe that it could happen as well as Haiti. And for you, minister, I think one of the questions is how should we think about the Francophonie as a transmission belt? And how should the United States and Canada better leverage its relationship with the broader Francophonie as part of its larger development and diplomacy strategy? I'm gonna ask my friend JP to go first. Merci. Thank you. At the level of IFC, how do we share the different experiences that we have from one country to another? Essentially, we try to establish information systems to do some knowledge management so that we can ensure that training what we did in one country or another, we can always, if we want to do a similar project in another part of the world, we can benefit from the internal experience. That's done. And this is done today, I wouldn't say in an informal manner, but not in sufficiently systematic manner. That's one of the reasons for which we are currently reviewing how we restructure the current structure. Now, since October one, we no longer have a regional vice president. So before October until September 30th, I was a vice president covering Latin America and Africa. Which allowed, from that point of view, to cross, have cross-visualization between Latin America and Africa. I was there, I saw both. But now we only have one sole global vice president. Global plan services. And we have two co-chairs, me and a colleague. The objective now is to manage the institution in a global manner. And avoiding cleavage from one region to another. We want more fluidity, more transfer of experience from one region to another. We have just begun. We're gonna see how it will happen. We hope it will work, but that's the objective. Or at least one of the objectives. So roughly talking about the subject, how we're going, trying to improve it. Now, the second point. What should we do to change? I must say that it's a little difficult given that I'm Haitian myself. So I'm a little ill at ease. I'm going to make a little bit of, not a joke, but a comment. It may not be politically correct. I remember about 15 years ago, maybe more. Say 20. And I had a Haitian who was university professor in Washington and who worked at the Inter-American Bank. He was a well-known, I went to see him. What do you see as a solution? How do we change things? And he said, I'm going to speak, translate because we spoke in Creole. That was not in the economics textbook. It's a little in bad taste, but it's just to say that really it's a relatively complex problem. And I think it involves more, in my opinion, of governance in the large sense of the term, not only about how to manage one thing or another, but to implement structures and institutions that permit the country to function. I'll take an example. If you take the example of the Canada of Canada, you could put a robot there as a president and the institutions would work. If you take other countries, it's a little bit the same, but in some countries like Haiti, we don't have this type of institution. And I think in my opinion, we must first create these institutions, implement systems, as I said, of governance, and especially, and create, and that's going to be in my humble opinion the result of education. Of the majority of the people which Haiti has not done, which the Haitian elite has not done, even people who had the opportunity, like me, who had an opportunity to study and do have a nice academic career, I think it's a failure of the Haitian elite. We must ensure that the majority of the population, that if they're educated, they'll be able to ask for more. They can be more demanding from their government. So for me, it's what's to be debated, it's not just an economic problem. So here's what I would say. Thank you. I like the expression when we talk about Francophonie, how it would be seen as a transmission belt, I mean as a learning belt. We talk to each other, Francophonie is trying to define itself among its members as a transmission belt for learning. As I said before, we can build on this rich heritage that was given to us by the secretary of youth, be a strong Francophonie, then that also has a lot of assets. We can't neglect them, we have preserved them in terms of good governance, transparency, democracy. We must build on what's been done up to date. For example, when a country, a Francophone country, we cannot be excluded if there is a problem to be excluded and re-included. It's a very important tool. It's seen more and more in the world. There's more and more pressure on the country in question. We have to go to a second phase, which is to have an economic strategy that develops the economic block. With the Francophonie, when you talk about 77 states that are members, that's about 900 million people. You need, there are people that are adhering, joining this movement and observers that want to join in, because they see growth in this area. I really believe in it. It can be a transmission belt for learning. I have a good hope that following we can go forward with an economic strategy that will be dynamic. And the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Senegal told me that following the Decals Summit in November, the following Monday, there will be an economic forum that will be held. There have also been meetings that have been held, be it in Mexico in the spring, or the world economic. The Francophone actors are getting together more and more to agree on the future, so that we may continue to this second phase, which is the economic phase. That becomes interesting, because for countries like Canada, the US, I think that once again, it establishes a level of security for investors, even on a legal point, that makes for a serious approach. The members of the Francophonie, 24 of the member states that have the lowest indicators in terms of development, there's an enormous potential, but knowing that they are serious, that we cannot just look at simply the forms of aid, but also the forms of investment for economic growth, and there is an appetite for this, and Canada and the US and other countries can really gain from a partnership, because we can share our expertise, so technical expertise, whether it be in the realm of health or infrastructure education, there are other countries on the other side that say, yes, we have to do business together, because we want to move in the economic world progress. One last question for you. You have a meeting with the CEO of EIB in a few minutes, so I really appreciate you taking time out of your schedule. I know the minister also appreciates it very much. Could you just give us a couple parting thoughts about, if you're, when you look as someone who's a Haitian and an expat Haitian, as also someone who's worked all over the world, including in West Africa, if you think about the challenges and opportunities that you see in West Africa and Haiti, where should the United States and Canada, how could they best work with IFC? What would you love to see? How could the United States and Canada work more closely with IFC on opportunities in Haiti and in West Africa? There may be certain things you're thinking about, either there's a new investment climate facility, or you may be thinking about new opportunities in infrastructure. There may be new opportunities in education or health or gender. I know there are any number of different ideas are constantly bubbling up at IFC. I'd be curious if there was one or two opportunities that come to mind that are currently in your inbox right now in either Haiti or in West Africa. You think, boy, it would be so important for Canada, the United States, to get involved here, that we ought to be seizing together, IFC and partners like the United States and Canada. Merci. There's a big about money. I think actually money will flow if you have the right conditions. And private investors, wherever they can make money, they will go after it and try to make money. I think one of the strongest roles they can play is by virtue of their influence with these governments to make sure that the proper help push the proper reforms and also on governance. And I'm insisting on this, not that the, frankly, the African countries already have worse governance than anywhere else or done some countries of Eastern Europe or others. I mean, a number of countries have governance issues, period. However, if you don't fix that, you are not going to have sustainable investment. So I think this is going to be very important. That's one. And I don't want to take example in the mining sectors. I mean, I'm sure the Canadians know about tons of example, and we know somewhere we have had issues. So I won't get into specific countries. Second, I mentioned earlier, when I was talking about electricity, I was talking about infrastructure in general. There is no way you are going to develop a country when people have to pay 30 cents, 40 cents, or 50 cents, sometimes a kilowatt. I mean, which company can be competitive in doing that? It's madness. That's not going to happen. You are not going, so if we talk about, you have to develop more, let's say, agribusiness, not just send the raw materials or the products that you have from Africa, just export them, not to do that, but get more value added locally and build more, and the value chain and do more, create more jobs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But the only way you are going to do that is that if you can be competitive. Now, as I said, with those, if you are paying those amount of money for a per kilo or whatever, it's not going to happen. If to ship a good from, let's say, from one country to another, that may be close to each other, but because of the way the transport system is, it costs much more money than if you have to make it coming all the way from the US or from China or wherever, it is not going to be competitive. So clearly I think infrastructure is going to be another area where we can work together and more importantly, we can bring the private sector into that in public-private partnerships if you have the proper reforms and the proper business environment created. And as I said, we have plenty of example, I was mentioning earlier how much money that we have been able to put. I think I was saying like five years ago, we are putting $200 million at best. And now, I mean, the last two years, we have done an average of about a billion dollars in infrastructure, let's say in Africa. And it is just our contribution and we have some mobilization, but very little there. So clearly, those two area and the third area, I think which is absolutely fundamental, I mean, agribusiness, a lot of these were included, but access to finance, because in those countries it is proven, I'm not inventing studies done by economists, by others, about 90% of the jobs are created by small and medium companies. Now, if small and medium companies cannot have proper access to finance, how are they going to be able to invest? And if they don't have the proper environment framework, we talk about, let's say, ease of doing business. We talk about, this is not even when we look at the doing business for country to improve. This is not for the big companies. If I'm a large company and to get my goods from customs, let's say it could take three days or four days or whatever, because there's so many procedures and blah, blah, blah, and you have to pay people a lot of money to do that. Well, I can hire somebody and pay maybe 50,000 dollars or 60 or 80,000 a year to take care of these things.  And as I said, if 90% of the jobs are created by them, if you don't fix that environment, forget about it. So I think those are the three areas that I would mention, of course, you can orders, but that's your own private, is that? JP, thank you. I'm gonna hope the minister will stay because I wanna ask him about moral suasion and perhaps using the Francophonie and Canada's moral suasion with countries in the Francophonie as well as responding a little bit to these opportunities in mining and infrastructure and access to finance. Thanks again, JP, for being with us. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. I think that, because I wanna make sure that the French audience hears this. When we think about the issues of governance and the issues of moral suasion, I think when I think about Canada, I think a lot about the Canadian brand and I think a lot about leveraging that Canadian brand in the Francophonie. Talk a little, you mentioned a little bit about this issue of using political pressure and not excluding folks, but also using it as a way to have, I think, frank conversations if we can put it that way. Talk a little bit about how Canada thinks about issues of governance and how it uses its moral suasion on challenges in Africa and Haiti and elsewhere. Oui, merci beaucoup. Thank you very much. Excellent question. I think it's basic, it's fundamental. In fact, when partner countries say we're going to have trade exchanges, not only for development and aid, that means that it can be attractive. So it's important to implement a legal framework to find agreements and the protection of investments and also to improve governance overall, public management, government management. We say in Canada to our investors to say, well, you should interest yourselves in developing countries, but of course they're used to deal in attractive environments, in good environments. And so we have to emphasize this message. The Francophonie is a very relevant organization as long as some people move away from these values and that can be very serious on a diplomatic level. This is a tool that we have to use, but from the side of Canada, we're doing this constantly. When we talk of branding of Canada, you could say that we talk about the mining sector. It's extremely important because in Canada, we're the best ambassadors of the mining sector. We have a lot to share. We have to take away this ghost of mistrust that people are going to come in and take all the resources. On the contrary, the partnership is a win-win. I've specifically talked about, we've committed to an important dialogue with civil society because if we're gonna have projects that are going to be good for extractive companies, we must be committed. We have to say my specialty is the development of exploiting a mine, but if we're gonna be better in the community, the government can bring people together and say, are you thinking of doing a deal with such a person, such a company, and I have all this equipment in the field in terms of development. I can name one project, Tech Resources, who are now in certain countries and they're going to do zinc distribution. We realized there was a problem with the growth of small children. OTECH is a projector of producer zinc. There are connections there that can be made. The community can reach a win-win situation. Some will go in projects for training the workforce for health installations. I wanna say that I'm proud to say that there is more and more Canadian branding, especially for action plans for extractives over the next quarter. We're not doing it on the short term, we're doing it on the long term. We wanna have a durable engagement within the community because by working together, we're gonna have economic development and social development in the community and that means that everybody wins. So that's why I really want to eliminate the view of the private sector as the bad guy. There is really a partnership that can be brought about. The government has a role to play. A very strong dialogue has taken place with civil society over the last few months. We talked with civil society and they gave reports. What are we expecting as the government? What is our role? What do we wanna do? With the development, we're here, but we can go further. We have to bring people together. The private sector, foundations, civil society. What are we expecting from each other? We need a policy, a draft policy paper that's been put online in order to survey people and to ask, what do you think of this? So we had an interactive dialogue and we have come up with a more, we wanna have a more systematic solution for the future and that includes the different actors. Everybody has a role to play. It's not one or the other. It's everyone together. It could not be done alone. And we must transcend not just the Canadian approach, but when we talk with our partner countries, everybody participates and we're all together. Mr. and now you're aid minister. So when I think about Haiti, could you talk about Canada's economic and development engagement in Haiti a little bit? Because I think it's important for this audience and for the audience watching this to understand that the engagement of Canada in Haiti is not just an assistance when you're one of the largest bilateral donors, but I'd be curious about the role of the private sector in Haiti and how those two blend now that you're in this new role. I suspect you've got a perspective on that. Oui, effectivement. Yes, in fact, there are a lot of challenges in Haiti and I think, like Mr. Prosper said, in fact, reflects. I share his view on economic projects. The economy, we must address the basic needs, the political aspect, but we have to also strengthen the capacities of the state, whether it be governance or implementing measures for the business world and also the state of law and establish a legal system. And we need predictability if there are lawsuits on the horizon. There's work to be done in this area. That's a dialogue that we're continuing to have with our friends in Haiti. How do we help Canada to help to strengthen the capacities? The Prime Minister, LeMotte, is very active in supporting investment and that's to his credit, but there's a side that says, if people, if you come here, how can I better manage the risk if I come here? In the state, we have to work to ensure that so if we can strengthen certain capacities, we can share some expertise and it's a continuous dialogue that is evolving. When we talk of economic projects, some projects are working well. I went to Haiti myself and I saw what I saw in the region. And in terms of microfinance, there's some very interesting projects of microfinance that are cooperative for regional boxes. There's 400,000 savers in a region, so that's families. Families can now send children to school. School charges are paid once a year, so for an ordinary worker, that's a big sum. That's almost prohibitive, that's very hard to get. So with microfinance centers, the annual costs are amortized over a monthly plan. So the families have access to education for their children. It seems simple, but problems like this, that's how you strengthen a generation so that people have access to basic needs such as education and that's how we can hope to have a type of development that is better for the future. There are other projects at the agricultural level that I saw that were very interesting. A lot of partnerships being formed whether in with the Canadian Federation of Municipalities but also projects with agricultural financing of Quebec. That's to say that there's potential there. And the key, and I understand it for having been there but having also consulted the diaspora, which is very important. What we're being asked to have as a role, what we can do is bring people together to have a dialogue in terms of partnership. If people get together and imagine and create partnerships, you can establish a dialogue that will not be stagnant. And from a more macro level as a government, we must continue to talk among ourselves to establish priorities, not to have 25 priorities, but to find hubs, central hubs, to develop fundamentals so that the government is working on these fundamentals and so that we create an environment that is attractive to investment. This will allow us to better group our affairs together in the future, but we have to really strengthen partnerships. Thank you very much. I thought this was absolutely fascinating. We don't often have conversations that looks at these parallel structures with the Francophonie or the Committee of Portuguese-speaking countries. And I think that there is a transmission belt, there is a learning belt. I think there are significant opportunities in West Africa and I think as well as in Haiti. And I think to the extent that governments can help in sharing risk and in terms of helping to support improved governance like you've discussed and improving the rule of law, that we're gonna be able, if we've nine out of the 10 jobs are in the private sector, we need to find ways to improve the private sector and there's certainly role for DFATD, there's certainly role for other donors in that and so really appreciate you sharing your perspective on that and also appreciate JP joining us from IFC at a time when it's very busy given it's the annual meetings this week. So please join me in thanking the minister and JP for this very interesting conversation. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Okay, we're gonna have a set change. We're gonna have my friends come up about the trade and development nexus. You've got two or three minutes and we're gonna start in three minutes. So if you guys wanna get coffee of three minutes too, we're gonna start in three minutes. Thanks everybody.


Welcome back to the Wizards Forum 2023. Now I'm delighted now to be joined by Thomas Lamanoskas, who's the Deputy Secretary-General of the ITU. I hope a lot of your pronunciation right there. Yes, amazing. Thank you, Chris. So, no, it's been a few days now. So what have you been hearing from the Wizards participants? So first of all, I'm being seen a lot of enthusiasm before you're hearing that. We have different formats. We have a neuronal format with more than 40 ambassadors. We just finish the day with ministerial sessions, with the breakout groups as well, and with a very active and enthusiastic engagement. And of course, what's important feature of Wizards Forum, we see a lot of different stakeholders here, private sector, civil society, really engaging. Also, I'm hearing very clearly the people emphasizing the things we need to achieve really for the digital development to be for all. So of course it's very strong emphasis on inclusion, really connecting everyone, but make sure that everyone benefits from that connectivity. Very strong emphasis on sustainability, as well as to make sure that it's actually, we do our bit for the climate crisis and to tackle the crime crisis. And there's a lot of also emphasis on this digital development to be people-centric. They talk about human rights aspects, they talk about privacy, they talk about ethics. Some of that are, of course, something that ITU is strong about, something that our other sister agencies that involve in the process is strong. I think that is the beauty of this process because everyone comes there together with their own strength and contributes here to resolve those issues. There's a lot of work there, there's a lot of topics you mentioned. It's not going to be easy. It's not going to do it overnight. No, exactly. Well, I think we've already been doing for 20 years. I think it's a moving target as well. You know, when 20 years ago, when Wizards first started, you know, the internal connectivity, I think if I recall correctly, that was about 12%. But even then, it was already ambitious to make sure that that benefits all and we really work hard to benefit all. And now we have much better place in that way. So we, of course, have still 2.7 billion not connected, but it's still less than a third of the population. But I think the principles and the things we need to do, we kind of learn how to do them. It's just now to put in that hard work to do it. Well, we address this in the long term. So, Thomas Lemnoskas, the new Deputy Secretary General of the ITU, thank you very much for your time. Thank you very much, Chris. Really a pleasure.


You think I forgot to get all the paint off of it before it dried? Yeah, I think it needs to soak for like a week. Maybe I can rescue it. Maybe, we'll see. Oops. I would say good morning, but it's just after lunch. Anyway, we're having a slow go at it today on Sunday. Mostly because after like a week of insomnia for me, I slept in until almost 10 o'clock this morning. But I finally got some sleep. Okay, guys, so we're upstairs in my guest room and I was looking for something earlier that I can't find the original artwork for or the digital files for on my computer and at this point I don't know if I'm gonna find them and how much stuff is up here in the completed artwork and journals. Pile in the guest room. I don't know if I'm going to ever find them, but what I did find was a bunch of these old, you can't even see. Yeah, portfolios, different sizes, types and varying contents from the beginning of my journey to more recently and some of this stuff I want to keep because I do have digital copies of it that I enjoy to use and sell in my Etsy shop. So I want to keep the original. Some I just want to use and cut it up and do something else with it. Some I'm gonna just get rid of and purge and sell in the Etsy shop or give away to purge box or like it just has to go away. Some of it's really bad. So I'm gonna share all the good the bad and the ugly with you. So I'm gonna point the camera towards the floor and we're gonna get started. Holy cow. I'll be back. It is Monday morning January 4th 2021.  So obviously I'm in the car again and we are headed to check the peel box and the grocery store. I'm almost out of coffee creamer. So that just can't happen.  And yeah, all the things for the things, right? So do you see that? Yeah, Bambi's out there eating. He's hungry. It's 11 44 a.m. Tuesday, January 5th, 2021.  Anyway, we just got done with YouTube live and did some watercoloring which went over really well. Everybody was glad to see it. So I was glad to do it. I have an Etsy order I need to wrap up. I have I have a pile of paper on my desk. I need to work on some things in the calendar and schedule out some things. I need to put out the schedule for Patreon live which we're going to start this week Friday 10 a.m. So if you aren't a patron, why? Why? It's not that expensive. I'd appreciate the support. Anyway, we're going to have classes that are just for them over there live classes starting on Friday and my desk is a mess. Sorry. And so I'll be doing that and I'm going to be writing into my calendar so I don't forget. I'm also going to be writing in my calendar, my Monday to-do list, my Tuesday lives because I've just, yeah, been forgetting and I think I'm going to schedule like Thursdays for filming. I need to film the December project pan user to lose a thing. So I need to do that. Thursday.  Good morning, everybody. It's been quite the morning already. It's only 10.08 a.m. Hey guys. All right, so I don't want to take my gloves off yet because I wanted to film this and it's messy. So I have a number of fountain pens. I like drawing with fountain pens besides my crystal. I had one last night that I hadn't used in a while and the ink, although there was ink in the cartridge, it was kind of semi-dried up and clogged and so I filled with a pen last night and got it to work. But I thought, why am I going to toss this out? Let me see if I can get the ink to come out or reconstitute it by putting it in a little cup with some water. So I got one of my small cups I used for acrylic pouring and resin and stuff. It's like a mini solo cup and I put some water in here and left it sit overnight and we have some beautiful blue ink. Now I need to tell you that once I had it sitting here overnight, there was still like some ink in here and the best way to force it out is to squeeze it with a pair of pliers until you get all of it out and then just tap it down. It's this beautiful blue color, blue-black color. So I am going, I need to make some watercolor, little watercolor-y images of some florals, floral-inspired things to possibly turn into sticker flakes for the Etsy shop. And so I was going to just use my watercolors and Org Wash, probably the Daniel Smith palette. And then I thought, well, why don't I use some of this on some of them? So we're going to try that and probably use it in combination with the watercolor paint and see what happens. I'm going to get, I forgot to get all the paint off of it before it dried. Yeah, I think it needs to soak for like a week. Maybe I can rescue it. Maybe, we'll see. Oops. And just in case you think that was the only one, no, there were three of them that evidently didn't get cleaned very well. And yeah, now they need to soak. Murphy's oil soap and water, put them in a jar, let them soak for at least a couple of days, maybe longer. And then when you take them out, scrape them with a palette knife, the bristles, and maybe they'll get clean. Maybe. Yeah, we'll see. Anyway, good morning people. It is 9.35 a.m. Thursday, January 7th, the day after everything that happened in Washington, DC. If you don't know what I'm talking about, look up January 6th on your computer. If you're watching this in the future, it should pop up. Anyway, it's done and over with. We have our new president and vice president elect. And hopefully things will calm down now. We'll see. Okay, I don't know if I said this in the vlog clips yet or not until I review them, but I know I posted it on social media that I was working on some watercolors for some new feathers, sticker flakes, these because I spent not only because I wanted to do some new ones, but I couldn't find the old ones. And I wanted to re-scan them. I found them. So we are going to do a combination of old feathers and new feathers and come up with something really cool. I have a few that I'm not going to re-scan and not going to include, at least not at this time, but I will keep them. And I might have found some more sketchbooks and journals and things that need purging, but not today. Manya, maybe. All right. I'm going to keep scanning. I'll be back. Hey guys, good afternoon. It is Friday, January 8th, 2.59 p.m. Well after lunch, but then it's been a busy morning. I spent about two hours or so zooming with the supporters and folks over at Patreon. I am uploading a copy of said Zoom with their permission to YouTube. Now it is an unlisted video. It's a playlist. There will be a playlist for it and all the other future zooms with them for patrons and supporters who can't be there to watch back later. So that's a thing. So if you want to see some of that, then you need to join Patreon or something. So the link for Patreon is in the video description. I do have YouTube membership people. For the most part, they will get access to the recordings. I'm not sure at this time if they're going to get the lives or not, but the patrons get the lives. So anyway, that's how it's kind of working. If you're a patron and you're watching this and you have a Facebook, please connect with me on Facebook because I do have a chat over there for patrons and supporters. And consequently, if you're a YouTube membership supporter and you have Facebook, make sure we're connected over Facebook and contact me, private message me. And I'll put you in the chat with the other supporters. We do have a little group chat in Facebook Messenger. And it's easier for me to answer your questions there and also let you know when I'm going to go live and all that stuff, all the things for things. So anyway, we did that after the live. I did some cleaning and I made this little guy. I'm going to be posting him on social media later. If you don't have any of my Art Foamies yet, why not? The link's down below. There's also some other really great designs and they have frequent specials and sales and free gift with purchase and all kinds of stuff. So check out Art Foamies. I got one of these. I'll put this back in a minute. The glue is drying on this. I got one of these. These are those aluminum scan proof wallet things. Supposedly you put your cards in here and nobody can scan your info out of your pocket or anything. I guess that's a thing. Anyway, it was like a dollar at the thrift store. We have a thrift store that's walking distance from the house. So I went there and I picked one up and you can get 18 half pans in here if you turn it into a watercolor palette. So I am in the process of gluing them in. I've got some A6000 in there and really there's something sticky on the bottom of that. Let's grab a piece of paper. There we go and let that dry. So I'm going to wait that down and let those all dry in there. But that's pretty cool and it's very small and compact and it would fit easy in a travel water case. Not that we all could go anywhere right now. I might want to take a few watercolors and just a notepad of paper and a water brush out on one of my walks and go sit in the park and do some watercoloring. You never know. I also got these two done in today's Zoom chat with the patrons. So we worked on recreating a version of this original painting of mine. There we go. I used the same inspiration photo and similar colors and technique. This one is a decidedly masculine looking. There we go. More than the other one I think. They thought to. But I like the way it turned out. This one's done on a canvas board. I mean an art board. I may... Oh, I've got to clean up the edge up there. I'm going to let it dry and cure for a bit and clean up that edge. And I will probably put it up for sale in the Etsy shop. It's about, I don't know, 8 by 10 or something? 9 by 12? Someone put that? I also did this one where I did the same technique for my slow stitch portraits only we did at a paper. So we did a collage portrait. And there's a specific technique for that. Again, if you want to see how I do that, and we're going to be doing a slow stitch portrait, and if you want to see how I do that, then you need to be a patron because they're going to have access to the video. So sorry.  Are we sure my head's attached? Because I think I forgot it somewhere. Holy cow. I have been to the grocery store. This will be my third time this week. I don't know if it's COVID fatigue or stress of the political situation or the holidays or all of the above, but I can't seem to remember what should be on my list to save my life. And I just tried to go to the store without my car keys. And of course the parking lot is super people-y because you know, well let's just go get it done. Good morning everybody. It is heck of right over here. It is Saturday morning, January 9th, just after 11 a.m. Happy birthday to my little sister Elizabeth. She is 50 something today. So anyway, happy birthday, Elizabeth. Love you batches. So we are down on Main Street in Tigard showing a few businesses some love today, safely of course, and looking at the vestiges of the rioting that's been going on in our tiny little sleepy town. Some of the businesses as you can see behind me there still have boards up. We talked to one of the storekeepers. We were just in the stationery store and most of the businesses are taking the boards off during the day and then putting them back up at night because they have been advised that they should do that. They're not completely secure in the feeling that things are over. So yeah, scary times anyway. Hey guys, it is, I don't know what time it is. 20 minutes to 8, Saturday, January 9th. I keep wanting to say Sunday and I keep wanting to say September, fun fact. I don't know. I don't know. It's been yet another weird week and not necessarily in a great way but we had fun today walking around the antique shop and the stationery store downtown. I bought a few things. I'll put a picture right here. We didn't get too much. We don't need too much. I think my favorite thing was this sticker. I think that was my favorite thing. It was on clearance at the stationery shop. I'll be putting that on a journal maybe next month on the cover. So anyway, yeah, it was interesting. Anyway, we also had a home chef meal kit for dinner. This one was Acapulco State Quesadillas. It was pretty good because that's been a thing this week. We just cannot remember to get everything we needed at the store. We're just not writing it. We're not remembering to write it down. I don't know what that is all about. Anyway, if you guys would like to see a renewal of the series we had on my channel, Cooking with Fred aka him. Let me know. Say something down in the comments below. There's a number of different recipes that we'd like to try including one for sourdough cinnamon rolls and we have the recipe and I've got plenty of stuff. I've got enough starter for like five different households. I wish you all were closer. I'd send you some. Yeah, so we have and we get home chef kits on the regular generally once or twice a week. They're just easy way to do dinner without having to plan and without eating too much processed food. So if you'd like to see us work on some of those and argue about the recipe while we're doing it, that happens almost every time. Let me know. Say something down below. Also, don't forget to check out the video description for relevant links, links to my Patreon, links to my Etsy shop. I do have a newsletter where I will preview announcements of new ideas, new products, sales that are going up in the Etsy shop and all kinds of different things. Most of my links for the newsletter and Patreon and everything else are either in the video description or in a link tree list of links, the link for which is down below in the video description. So check it out. Look around. Support the free content if you can. Patrons and YouTube membership people get access to content that is unique for them and hopefully that they enjoy and if you're one of those people and you'd like to see something specific, please let me know. So think about joining that. It's not expensive at all and I'd appreciate you supporting the free content here on YouTube. That's one way that you do that and I'm able to keep up with supplies and different things that you all want to see. So I'd also appreciate it if you go out and find your favorite content creators either here on YouTube or over in the Facebook art groups. Figure out how you can support them because most of them are hurting right now and I know that they could appreciate your help. So check out their video descriptions. They can't figure out how to support them than ask. I also, by the way, have two Facebook groups if you'd like to be a member of one or both. The links for those are also in the link tree list of links and my Instagram, if you want to follow me and see what craziness I get up to on a daily basis over on Instagram. Anyway, I think that's it for this spiel, I think. There's new stuff coming out all the time right now in the Etsy shop. So and there's a lot of big changes coming up. So stay tuned.  Bye, guys.


Suspected herders have ambushed and killed four persons in Ulewkia village in Guma local government area of Benwe state. The incident happened on Wednesday in Guma, a country home of the governor Samuel Othom which has been under herder's attack since January 2018. Media aid to Othom James Igbudu recounts that he was travelling to the village accompanied by his colleagues when the assailants ambushed and shot at their vehicle. Igbudu said the attackers opened fire on their vehicle at the Ulewkia village but they escaped unhurt. Hello, hope you enjoyed the news please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.


All right, we're talking with Aarash Hamedian, who is appearing in a new film called Voiceless. It will be presented at the Rome Independent Film Festival next month in April. And Aarash, first let's start a little bit with this week, of course, Iran won its first Oscar, first Academy Award for a foreign language film for the movie A Separation. What did you think when you saw Ashkar Farhadi get up there and accept it? It was so nice, you know. It was like a national celebration, all the people were happy. And also, many of them were proud because this movie showed another part of Iran because in many movies, in different festivals, we always saw a view of the villages and people were alone, you know, they were praying to the God or, you know, they never showed, even if they showed, it was less that this movie showed another side of the society, the intellectual side, the social, you know, problems and what they, people, how they feel, how they think. And it was very good from Ashkar Farhadi and his group. And it was nice that he said, let's put politics aside and focus on how 2,500 years of Iran's history and its rich culture surpasses all politics. What do you mean? It was wonderful that he was able to remind the world and the millions of people that were watching, that we, as human beings, need to rise above the politics of what's going on in the world with our countries and focus on our humanity. I thought that message was... Because this movie was not a political movie. Right. It was about the politics of marriage, actually, between men and women, but that's a separate issue. We are artists and whatever we do, if it has a big success, politicians, because they have a power, so they want to put something in it and they want to stick it to something and say, okay, it was political or something like that. But everyone see the movie and anyone see the movie can prove that it was a very good social drama and it was justice that he get the Oscar. Yeah. Well, now let's talk briefly a little bit about your new movie, Voiceless. Tell us a little bit. In real life, you're an actual student in Greece and in the movie you play an Iranian who has come to Greece, so tell us a little bit about your role. Okay. This movie is about an Iranian actor who is not a political refugee and even not an economical immigrant. He just came out from Iran with Bambiza, like many people who do it, and he want to be an actor. So he faced many things, many problems and many, many new stories in new society that he came. And in the movie we see that during his life in Greece, many directors give him the same role, a same role who is like a Middle Eastern role and be the same situation, psychologically and socially. So he start after playing in many roles and repeating it, he start to have a problem with it. And it came to his life, this reputation. And so he start sometimes to react after a year to react for what happened for him, and we see how he managed to continue it. I was going to ask you a little bit about the role you had before, Rotoguantanimo. Tell us a little bit how you got that role, how did you get involved with that? The American soldier who was a Farsi speaker, who translated between the prisoners and the American troops. Yes. It was like a miracle that I played in that movie, because I didn't know anything about this movie. I was a student in south of Iran, and when the crew came, I just heard that professional crew came to shoot movie, and it's very professional. I went to the camp and start to talk with some people and said, you know, who were from the movie crew? And I told them, I am a student, I am a young actor, I love cinema and theater. And if it's possible, I want to be your crew and see how a professional crew shoot movie. And I think they saw that I am interested. And they spoke with the producer and he said, okay, you can come. And I start to go there. And since first day, I was, you know, watching them. And I became friends with them. And I could speak English. They got help from me sometimes. And after a few days, the assistant of the sons had a problem. And they asked me if I like to be assistant of the son. And I said, yes, why not? And the son, I was Stuart Wilson also. And Stuart Wilson, you should point out who Stuart Wilson is. Yeah, not who Stuart Wilson is. Yes, Stuart Wilson was the son of Harry Potter and many great movies. Not just any sound man. This was Stuart Wilson. Yes, professional. And, you know, when I started working with Stuart, I said, you know, you tell me anything you accept the things that you say me to do. I want to learn more. And he liked that too much. And we became friends. And one day, I spoke with Michael Bitterbottom, the director of the movie. And I asked him.  I don't know when, but it's my vision.  And he was smiling and I said, ha, ha, yes, son, OK. And the time spent after two days in the break, Michael, the director came to me and he said, all right, you can act. You can act. He had a tea, you know, Iranian tea. And I was so surprised. Yeah, it was so great surprise for me. And I played the role as an American soldier who can speak Persian. And I translated between prisoners and American jurors. And it was a great experience for me. And that experience gave me more motivation to find my way to catch up, to catch up my goals, my purpose. And after that, I know I was working hard. Always, you know, if you are a hard worker, definitely you will see the results one day. It could be sooner or later. But we have an expression in Persian. We say, I can't translate it exactly, but it was like. Persistence. Persistence. Persistence pays if you want to summarize it. Persistence pays. Well, so why don't we finish off with a little give any advice for English learners or people who are watching you and learning English? Yeah, tell us about how you learned English. I just, because I was an English learner when I was in Iran, and still I learned, you always learn. And when I was in Iran, I started to learn English when I was like eight, nine years old. But seriously, I started when I was 17 years old. And I got many materials from the VOA program. That time, there was not like internet or YouTube, the programs, websites. It was just a radio program and also the tapes and CDs and the books in the bookshops, which was from VOA. And some of my teachers, I never forget them, introduced me to this program. And I start to work on it, reading the books, grammar, vocabulary, learning, writing different texts, learn how to write a text, learn how to read. And I improve my vocabulary, vocabulary knowledge. And I just wanted to say to the students and English learners in Iran and anywhere in the world that they shouldn't be disappointed and, you know, like bored to learn English. They shouldn't say, it's difficult. I can't do it. Because any time if you start, first, any time, never it's late. And if you start and try hard, and if you are motivated and you believe to yourself, definitely you can do it with hard trying and, you know, repeating, because English is a very powerful instrument. If you learn it well, you can communicate with many people. It opens a new window of life to you. And anywhere you go, you can communicate with people. Because anywhere you go, there are people who can speak English. So it's better to learn very good English with good pronunciation, work on it, and see what happens. Just learn a few months, and then you will see. You will see you understand new language. Now you can read new stories with new cultures. You can communicate with people. So I just want to add a small member of the Society of English Learners to, it's not like advice.  It's their decision. But definitely with learning English and trying, they can do it. And thank you from you guys and VOA program, because they make very beautiful program. And it's very modern method that makes it more easier to learn English without many details or old methods. So if they follow this method, I think it's not a commercial, I'd say. How much do you pay this time? Yeah, well, persistence pays. I mean, I think what you said earlier. It's my experiences. So I think definitely with following this program, they can learn many things. And as much as they put, they try, they get the consequence, the result. Well, Arash, thank you so much. We wish you all the best with your acting career, and keep in touch. And we'll talk to you again soon. Khadar hafiz. Khadar hafiz. Thank you. Good night. Good night.