We'll go ahead and get started now with our afternoon program We've got a session now on governance inequality and growth domestic consequences of illicit financial flows The subtitle to this would be why do we care about illicit financial flows to talk about that? We have a lot of install from the Norwegian embassy Leonardo Baramacui from the State University of Rio de Janeiro and our Moderator for this session will be Roberto Fendt from the Centro Brazil de la Ració Internacionales And I will introduce Roberto and turn it back over to him So Roberto is the executive director of the Brazilian Center for International Relations acronym of SEBRI in Brazilian which is a prestigious think-tank here in Rio de Janeiro He has chaired the International Affairs Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce of Rio de Janeiro The Brazilian Association of Foreign Trade and the Trade Council of Federation of Commerce of the state of Sao Paulo He's also served as the superintendent of studies and research center foundation for foreign trade studies and professor of economics at the University of Sao Paulo and he is a Oh, and he also teaches at the Graduate School of Economics for FGV So without further ado, I will turn it over to him and for those of you who need caffeine or water We still have that in the back. So Roberto You hear me? Okay. I can't hear myself Well, our panel as was mentioned before will be on governance inequality and growth domestic consequences of illicit flows on my left This Olaf Lungstahl Is a consular for energy in oil at the Norwegian Royal Norwegian Embassy here in Brazil Mr. Lungstahl Works in Brasilia is a graduate of economics business and economic history from the University of Oslo The Norwegian the School of Economics and the London School of Economics On my right is Mr Leonardo Burlamacchi Who is current currently professor and research scholar At the state University of Rio de Janeiro works for the Brazilians He was formerly a senior program officer at the Ford Foundation and Very appropriately for these panel He was at that time in charge of reforming global financial governance initiative without much ado We'll get started Mr. Lungstahl We'll have the floor first and then I'll pass the floor to Leonardo Burlamacchi Thank you very much first Thank you to GFI and also to the co-hosters for for the invitation I must admit that there is some kind of a long-term relationship also between GFI and Norway and of course today I also Represent government of Norway as as I work for Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs There has been a long Collaboration in this topic and I will come a bit back to it And I've had the pleasure of working with Raymond and other of his colleagues also in Africa I recently came to Brazil just been here three weeks after I've spending nine years in Africa including five years in Sambia Where I worked most intensively on the issue that was mentioned by Raymond earlier So I'll possibly come back to that also a little bit, but let me let me jump into the presentation see if I can See if I can I will My talk will hopefully be quite brief and I will try to focus to put I think Some of the overarching elements for the discussion out although to some extent I realized that many for many of you this will perhaps be a repetition and to some extent it was Mentioned in the first session today, but I think it's important to sort of To to put the context of the discussion also when we look at the domestic scene because so the first Slide there is basically I mean why are we talking about this? Why are we talking about IFF tax havens and development and I will go a little bit into actually although the topic is more to the developing economies also Dwelling in a little bit on the developed economies. Why also developed economies are concerned about this issue And it basically has to do with that there is a very clear Indication and now increasingly more and more empirical evidence as well from the developed economies That the issues and and basically the connection between secrecy jurisdictions tax havens and and illicit financial flows or capital flights and challenges of Development and inequality are are a very large and they are also linked to overall Development issues also in the western world we can discuss perhaps if it's time But I mean there's no doubt that there are close links also with financial crisis and And also ups and downs in the global economy and in in economies in different regions Link to this topic and it's interesting just to put on the table a few few data here That sort of puts why this is so important and I've taken Taking some data from Nicholas Jackson who has written a very influential book on this topic Looking into from the point of view of UK, but also at the global level the issue of tax havens So just to put it out there. I mean 50 percent of world trade today goes through tax havens So this is they are involved in in a very large part of them of the international transactions that goes on both in trade And in services 50% of all banking assets are held in offshore accounts 30% of all FDI go through offshore accounts and Raymond mentioned this link to to China But you can also say the same about India and actually most, you know, the biggest foreign investor in India Where does the money come from it comes from Mauritius for example? And the balance sheet again Raymond mentioned of small island countries is above 18 trillion US dollar or About one-third of world GDP. So this is not we're not talking about Marginal or part of the global economy or part of the capitalist system This is this is the heart of the whole system the way it has evolved and it is bigger and it has ever been I mean, even if we talk about early early 20th century that you had inequality and global economy that perhaps Was similar to what we are evolving towards now never before has it been With the relevant the relative importance as it has today So for Norway, why is Norway interested in this Norway is a major partner in many countries when it comes to development cooperation and We have also realized I think through different governments that we have had that it's important to think differently about financing Development and it's also this big paradox that is now brought up by GFI and by other authors before as well to some extent Paul Collier for example writing quite extensively on capital flight earlier on and we had the Monterey conference in Mexico and financing for Development and already really got engaged in this and supported GFI in the early phase still supports GFI And wrote actually a government white paper on it as well in 2009 that became quite influential on tax havens and development Where we brought up also some of the available information We also brought up a lot of policy proposals that have been implemented to some extent in Norway and also Supporting regional and global and national initiatives. I mentioned. I recently came from Tanzania in Tanzania We have actually a project also supported where we work with the central bank to look at illicit financial flows as well And we have also supported work that Raymond and GFI has been involved in with the high-level panel in Africa as well as well as the global task force and And work through OECD and work through World Bank and IMF and several other bodies as well so Why as I mentioned if you there were questions earlier this morning also about the developed economies What is sort of the engagement here? Why? What is the access to the realities for developed economies here? And we have as many of you probably have might have read or at least have heard about There is a recent work that has created a lot of discussion But this also has come on the back of a discussion that has emerged for the last 10 to 15 years at least if not more And it is that we see a trend throughout most of the Western world or developed economies of Rising inequality so the last two to three decades According to documentation by Thomas Piketty in his famous book capitalism in the 21st century you see an Inequality rising that is he is comparing it with the situation before the First World War But the basic argument for the Western world from his side is that it's linked to the sharing of the gains Between labor and capital that they are becoming more and more unequal There are other studies also by French think tanks showing similar things for Europe for example so there is increasing evidence and empirics backing up this situation and Of course, it's linked also to the global financial crisis and the eurozone crisis Which are still to some extent ongoing with many countries struggling with the after Aftermath and the problems that accumulated were basically what we have seen is that through these crisis now what has emerged is is Also a situation where you have actually ended up with a big big problem caused to large extent in the financial sectors and and Well to some extent by public investment as well But you have actually had the situation where you ended up after the crisis With a more unequal situation than before and who is left with the bill? Well, it's basically the government and also the the big part of the population so a lot of what is lost in the discussion often in Europe for example where I come from is that a lot of people think That it was mainly due to irresponsible fiscal policy in Europe that they got into this This big mess to some extent that is true But to a large extent it's not true actually because a big part of the crisis now and the big debt That has accumulated on the hands of the government is actually that they have bailed out Investments from the private sector that went wrong basically So if you look at the fiscal soundness of Ireland for example or even many Mediterranean countries before the crisis hit Many of them are running surpluses for numerous years right up to the crisis hit So so this issue of inequality like was mentioned before also that There was a lot of capital and I mentioned the numbers on the last on the slide before a lot of capital Obviously some is from the south to the north that is accumulated in tax havens but a big chunk of money also is money that is taken out of the western world into tax havens and Then is actually not even in the numbers like Raymond was alluding to this morning Everyone is astounded by the numbers that Thomas Piketty is putting out But actually he's not really including Full on the numbers that are are in the tax havens and when we look at how big those numbers are we realize that Surely they mean that the situation is even much worse than what he has described So he's big he broadly leaves untreated for example the offshore economy that has increased as I said to Unprecedented levels in the last few decades And he doesn't discuss either which is understandable that a lot a big part of that boost in the offshore economy Comes from a growing and large net transfer from the south to the north So that is also sort of an emerging discussion in Norway I think in many other countries I will come back a little bit to international initiatives Hopefully on this a G8 has their three T's now under the UK And and now soon to come German chairmanship. They're looking at trade transparency and tax And why is that? I mean it's also purely for Selfish reasons because it has to do with that They have a huge debt on the public hands or on the government hands and they have a fiscal deficit And a fiscal problem while at the same time there are big amounts of money lying Unutilized or or or not taxed or that is not contributing and could easily solve big parts of this problem So for the emerging economies which was I was supposed to talk more about And What are the issues? I will not go so much into sort of all the human rights aspects and all the Social aspects that maybe was expected. I should have done but it's from my point of view fairly obvious Although we can discuss and there was some criticism also from the person who comes after me now questioning whether really that funding would be available for development, but I think it's true in Many countries where you have large outflows and I can clearly say coming from Africa having worked nine years in Africa That this outflow is a major problem And I think in many of these countries. Why is it a major problem? Yes, because They have the basic argument for aid for example was the savings gap, you know the savings investment gap This is I mean all all the time development economics This is why we started doing development economics in the 50s and the 60s and the the rationale for aid as well And it's true. I mean the there is a huge gap in parts of Africa And they've been a lot of studies and estimates So there is a lost financing opportunity for development in some cases. It's much more Extreme in parts of Africa. It's much more extreme in relative terms And you have actually then profitable private and public investment That could have been happening part of it as Raymond was saying through that some would have been taxed Some would have been then private that could have been utilized in the country itself And we have looked at the numbers of course So these are not small numbers. We are talking about up to one one trillion US dollar per year so as mentioned as Raymond mentioned this exceeds net legal capital inflow to the developing world and many times ODA and We also have a situation as I mentioned where these numbers are getting worse So we have a situation where the gaps are increasing So the outflows compared to what was really the gap or what was needed to reach certain growth levels or to have money to fund Social investments and also productive investment from the government side. The gaps are in some cases increasing There was a reason to report by GFI on East Africa that showed clearly I think for many countries that these gaps are growing and there is a big underutilized potential here So the net effect here is one study. I work quite closely with a number of economists Under there something called the African Economic Research Consortium based in Nairobi It's an aggregation of African economists from all over Africa that are now currently working on Publishing a book on the illicit financial flows led by Leonce and the Kumana and James boys and also other professors of economics from Nigeria So one of the economists in that group has currently is going to publish an Article and this basically shows that the net effect of illicit financial flows on growth and poverty Has been estimated to To have it could have if that money would have been kept in the country's according to his calculations They also has developed a number of models linked to this could have been of such magnitude If you assume that the investment had a similar type of efficiency than other type of investment Spreads in the in the public and private sector. It could have had meant that sub-Saharan Africa could have reached MDG one namely the poverty goal within 2015 as a whole as most of you know Sub-Saharan Africa is not on track to reach that goal Some countries are making progress, but as a whole the region is lagging behind quite a lot So what about Brazil? Where is Brazil in this picture? I must be careful. I'm very new to Brazil So I will try to but I'm looking reading quite a lot these days I'll try to put up some thoughts here For Brazil I've come across some numbers for example by tax justice network from last year They have an estimation and that's a study that was done by James Henry former chief economist of McKinsey He had an estimate in a global study. He did that around 520 billion US dollar of assets Coming from Brazil or belonging to Brazil were in secrecy jurisdictions So that's quite an interesting number Brazil is that was mentioned the seventh highest cumulative IFF outflow among developing countries in the last decade And then you have the situation in the economy of course that many of you know much more about than me But increasing productivity challenges in the overall economy Company also by low levels of domestic savings and investments Brazil on average at least in the last decade has been Much lower than many other benchmark countries in the region and not to talk about Asia. I mean currently between 17 to 18 percent of GDP Several studies by the IMF by others as well have estimated what the level of investment would need to be at in order to Sustain growth at certain levels So this this is clearly an issue That is there that there is a lack of saving and a lack of investment Probably also for reasons then in the enabling framework and in the whole thing that we can get into discussing But there's no doubt that if you look at for example infrastructure There's a stock number there that was from a McKinsey report 2012 The infrastructure stock of Brazil was only 17 percent of GDP compared to benchmark countries around 50 to 75 Investment in infrastructure in 2013 only 1.5 percent of GDP. It's an interesting number. It's close to the number of Estimated illicit financial flows out of Brazil in the same year And then there are estimates from from university here of Rio also Looking at what would it take to really lift Brazil up to the level of infrastructure development that That you would expect considering its level of development They're talking about very very big numbers and many many times the current plans of the government and of course right now 2014 Brazil is in Officially in technical recession So and with decreasing levels of growth in the last few years and I mentioned already that estimated IFF was about the same as investment in infrastructure in 2012 And I think no one disagrees that level of infrastructure investment needs to be significantly higher So yes, the money is needed Of course, if it would go to the right place is a discussion of enabling framework and policies So outlook I'll try to wrap up and just leave a few things here that will be more discussed in the next session I guess, but if you look at the international picture What what is the outlook the risk is what I had commented and many have commented in the first session earlier this morning that The trend is upwards. So if you look at the risk scenario, I mean Currently the way things are going By all by all signs one would expect the numbers to increase So one would expect financial flows illicit once and listed to go up and Inequality also to go up. This is basically what Piketty says in his book as well He doesn't believe that it will stabilize or go down in the in the near future But what are some of the opportunities? There is a lot of international and more and more and increasingly and Agreement that this is a problem. It's not just an esoteric problem or a financial sort of side thing of the financial system It's a systemic problem that has to be dealt with in a different way than before So there are a lot of initiatives G8 G20 as well OECD is starting a lot of work on this and there's a lot of attention to political level IMF is starting a big big Research program on this as well UN and also some of the BRICS countries are doing very interesting things in practice including Brazil is doing very innovative things when it comes to the issue of transfer pricing and in terms of moving away from the traditional Approach within the OECD guidelines for example on arm lengths deal arm arm arm lengths practices to deal with the transfer pricing issue and Then there are other things that are under some of these initiatives automatic exchange of information Brazil has pushed for this extended country by country reporting and Global financial systems scrutiny. There is some emerging discussion on this Question is whether there is willingness to go far enough and to go structural that answer is probably no Because it's very political But could for example the BRICS as was mentioned this morning or other groups that are growing in importance Push this discussion somehow. I think there are like-minded countries in the Western world as well And many multilateral institutions are willing to look at this in a profoundly different way So I think needed I will say the same for Bastille I think what is needed is actually a new global and national approach to regulation and taxing of international business This is what is on the underlying the whole thing. We can try to patch part of the system Is it really going to make a difference? I don't know. I mean the numbers are not not promising and there are quite a few alternative thoughts and Ways of how to tax differently, but it would require of course an unprecedented perhaps Agreement at the global level between a lot of very strong interest and diverging interest to some extent as well So for Brazil Outlook, how is it the risks will increase in Brazil as well? No doubt I mean I talked about the needed investment in infrastructure and other parts of the economy Brazil in many ways is at the path fork in the road to some extent I mean many have talked about the middle-income trap You have gone to a certain extent with a certain model and approach They will have to be very large investments. No doubt if you're going to re-boost the growth So there will be a rapid increase in infrastructure investment Typically those have a high risk of corruption and a high risk of illicit flows as well This is the experience all over the world including in Norway where there are several big corruption cases going at the moment and Then pre-sale development you're talking hundreds of billions of dollars in investment this as well high risk area So I wouldn't really expect the risk to go down or the numbers to go down unless you are doing Something completely different or completely better than most other countries that have been in a similar situation Opportunity the good news is I believe in my very limited knowledge of Brazil is that there are some very innovative initiatives in Brazil and there is Also some political will to try to do things differently. So I mentioned the approach to transfer pricing and I think also there is new legislation coming some has arrived already and we will see now how this can be implemented and I think also what could be much needed is as well mentioned this morning to really use the Brick window and to work actively with with the coalition of strong enough partners to Influence really the new rules that are needed You need a new approach to in taxation of international business that I firmly believe and there is research going on I am on the research board research board of international center on tax and development There is they are doing new and innovative research. I believe in many partners and countries on some That could bring out some interesting findings. Thank you Stay seated. Well, I think this is a little bit more of a informal way of exchanging instead of just going to the podium And thanks for inviting me here. It's a great report and it's revealing I think a couple of interesting Sessions and a lot of interesting interventions. So I think we're going in a very very nice fact The title I gave to the notes that I wrote to myself just to have an idea where I could be starting from Title is Nuclear power and financial systems both have the capacity to blow up the world And I think he's into something when he says that okay Well, this should be very much in the front of the regulators in the central bankers nowadays So the growth of illicit capital flows as we could see from this report and for the past Reports that Raymond and his team put together very nice reports The the growth of illicit capital flows over the last I did three decades, but especially the last decade maybe And not only in Brazil all over the place I think this is one of the most telling manifestations of Something that I will call maybe sort of an audaciously a Structural change that globalized finance and globalized capitalism brought to us. I'm referring to financialization plus private interest driven Re-regulation people used to call this deregulation. I have a problem with that Word because I happen to believe that there is no such a thing as deregulation Deregulation completely regulation means anarchy means there are no rules. You can do whatever you want What we have is always re-regulation so the question is You regulate for the public interest or you let private interest write the rules that will be applied to them I think this is what exactly the sort of environment Institutional and legal environment that we're living through so financialization By financialization, I mean not only the growth in the size and in the profits of the financial system but More than that. I would say the industrialization of finance and the financialization of industry In the sense that finance now Doesn't really just loans Make loans for a few clients or even like a bunch of clients It packs their securities and they sell them all over the world. So that's industrialization of finance, right? and on the other side of the equation or the coin well Private corporate non-financial corporations all got financialized stocks buybacks and other things and the things that you Describe in terms of busy voicing in all all this refers to ways to avoid paying taxes and ways to increase their gains which Not necessarily or frequently has nothing to do with getting more productive Improving productivity. So that's what I mean when I talk about when I refer to those things. So the group of illicit capital flows and listed capital flows as well. I think illustrates the point In a sense that it falls in a very complex interaction Among domestic and international supervision and regulation tax authorities and tax rules, of course Financial regulators and tax shelters, which my colleague just mentioned and I will come back to this point in a moment So the obvious fact I will say I would say is that The reports as the report titles The title indicates they are and I will say a potential a potential hidden resource well Abundant again potential tax revenues in a world that that's starved for tax revenues that's a big point and Well those tax revenues could be doing what well, they could be doing a whole lot of things Raymond mentioned that they could be Funding helping to fund development are in the social programs poverty alleviation all the all those things combined There there's no lack of uses for them But maybe I think there is in they are insufficient that there is insufficient understanding in terms of what Add the bulk of the problem which I will Suggest it's a big regulatory flow Which gets us I think to the heart of all the financial system works And that was I think my point when I raised the question to Raymond in Earlier this morning so The obvious fact In terms of what adding to what I just said is that those flows they not only subtract From public interest related Uses, but they also add to purely speculative gambling activities and That's why I mentioned the potential the potential of a very negative type of multiplier If you'll multiply the operations you do with options and derivatives That's clearly not a good thing if the money stays but the financial Financial regulation in the place where or be it in Brazil be it in Russia be it whatever if you have crappy financial regulation that could be a big problem a lot of money that came to the US by the way and a During 2005 2004 2006 2007 he went there What for? for productive investments We know what happened with that money right it helped to inflate a Tremendous financial bubble so not necessarily liquidity equals investment productive investment or even a Responsible or sane consumption because again when we looked at the okay the housing boom and the way the housing boom was Managed this was consumption. Yes, but it was also it was also at the same time crazy in that net filled by Leverage and again, we were not well the US was in terrible shape shape in terms of managing that and the whole world Felt the blow So again the way the financial system works both domestically and Internationally speak It's I think at the heart of the problem in terms of this whole thing of illicit capital flows illicit capital flows and the way they link or do not link to develop but before trying to Close or wrap up offering some Comments, I won't say please I won't say I will Offer any answers to that but some comments before doing that Let me just take a small step back and get a little bit into the what I Think I will call the problem of the global, right? And this this also marks a lot of my trajectory at the Ford Foundation when I began there in 2006 it was I was running a portfolio called originally was called Global economic governance and then after the crisis it turned to be reforming global financial governance for the obvious reasons and And I was very much enthusiastic about the global the potential the potential and the Potentialities of some sort of global whatever global governance mechanisms go global governance Organizations go you name it What happened after I don't know six years at Ford I I stayed eight years, but maybe after Four or five I was already scratching my head in terms of okay What exactly is the potential of the global the global in terms of fixing the mess that were in the middle of? and By now I have to say I have much less faith in the global Then I used to have when I started there Some reasons I'm not obviously not gonna be Exhausting anything, but if we go and see the financial reforms and the financial The projects for financial reforms that are in place. So for example The Vickers report the Lee Cunning report the Vickers report basically UK Lee Cunning report is original But it's you right or what we have that's like the most has That's more meat into it. Not Frank not Frankville is us. It's not a global thing It's basically a US sort of regulatory reform, right? So we have an exception one exception there, which is the Stiglitz report the UN dash Stiglitz report of 2009 But this is the one that is less discussed and it's also what I think we have to say we have to I would agree with Someone if someone said well, but this thing is reported quite general. Yes. Yes. It is quite general But it's also truly global it addresses the problem from a global perspective, but still is just the beginning And it didn't fare well It it's not one of the most discussed thing. It's more or less. It passed It was discussed when he was released. I don't know maybe six months after nobody talked about that report anymore. So What's the reason? I'm not sure maybe because some of the ideas that are there are nice, but Tremendously difficult to implement even to begin to think about Implementation so they know very much the what's they don't very much. They don't know very much the house how to do So when we move from debates or proposals from the from from that to the facts I think it's fair to say we're six years after lemon right after lemon brothers I think it's it's it's fair to say that the situation we're in is far from encouraging I think the banking I think we know the banking system is more not less concentrated than it was Okay Global banks continue to do pretty much whatever they want They have a ton of money in which I was given to them free by the Fed And they are basically what really not doing anything not at Most of all they are not lending productively So is it it's sitting there or is being used is being used to to gamble Again, so that's not exactly exciting so and they don't need to lend to productive activities why because profits are booming anyway So the incentives to do that are simply not there again the way the financial system works counts a lot So if we look at who are the real The facto regulators nowadays Still are the credit rating agencies. They are the ones they mess up royally All the time, but they are still Doing the ratings and a lot of Corporations and even governments when they are Downgraded they have to sell some of the investments because the investors are not triple A or something like that And who who's on top of that credit rating agencies which were completely demoralized by the crisis itself So what exactly changes in that? So that's the landscape where illicit capital flows boom The last 10 years the last eight years the last four years So given that background the first question that I want to raise for discussion is the following well, is that Is it the case should should we be thinking that the case? Uh, is that not much can be done outside National borders meaning again the global dimension is not really very one that is very effective in terms of One is not able to manage whatever you think especially finance on a global scale And if this is correct if this is true So then the full question I think becomes The following what are the prospects for addressing this imbalance between global markets Global financial markets especially And the lack of a proper institutional framework to discipline them I think that question is still there not much was done in terms of resolving that there's not Not a very clear or or smart answer to that that one So if the global in itself is if if global governance is much more And especially again global financial governance is much more difficult To accomplish then some of us think it was Should we be concluding that financial globalization? After all is unmanageable. It cannot be managed And if so it should be reversed Less financial globalization should be something in the works because you can't have Global financial markets, which are completely unmanageable if you can't manage them If you don't have the institutional apparatus to deal with them So the logical response is okay. Then we have to reverse them Of that's something that I leave. It's a point that I leave for discussion. I'm sure that There will be people here that will not agree with me, but that's the point for discussion The second thing the secondly the question of and then I go let me Put together illicit and listed capital flows Both of them because Raymond you said oh, I don't I don't have a problem with the listed capital flows The ones that go and they are legal. I have why do I have this problem because I think that The impact that capital flows listed and illicit the impact that the destabilizing impact that they have in terms of domestic policy space in terms of the volatility of exchange rates and by Doing that the impact their impact on interest rates. This is a problem This is a real problem for development. Why because it creates a whole lot of uncertainties by Creating financial volatility and eventually financial fragility. That's minzki I'm really being minzki and here So it gets in a way of development the way I see it, but it's much less because This money represents a lack of savings. It doesn't It doesn't because there's no savings glut If you have credit You have investment You don't need to save first the household needs to save first in order to expand Banks can create money and especially Treasuries and central banks they do create money and after they do that Then they get the deposit. They don't need the deposits first to create the money afterwards So there's not a problem in that regard The question is financial volatility. So that I think is what for me is again the The cracks the The central point of the issue of the issue and the question that follows that is obviously how are global regulators Dealing with that and the response. I don't think it's thrilling, right? Let me jump to Just one episode that To give you a new illustration of that difficulty This was in jackson hole at the central bankers conference last year, right? Where we had this famous paper by ellen ray from the london business school And where she was saying well The basic takeaway that she had was The choice is the following One has to impose capital at jackson hole. So that was a really bold statement Either you have to impose capital control or you have to let the you have to let the federal reserve Run your economy, which is basically what you're doing And apparently this bold statement didn't cause any big storm among the u.s. Participators The then president, I don't know if he's still doing this to the president that then his lock heart was the the federal reserve the atlanta's federal reserve President he told the press very bluntly this We are there to set national policy for the betterment of the u.s. economy And do not have a lot of scope to go outside That set of considerations And the financial time summarized that episode with the title central bankers have have given up on fixing global finance Which I think it was appropriate because what he was saying was very good luck. Our problem is domestic even if As I think we know the federal reserve the closest thing that we have From a global central bank However, it's not a global central bank. It's the u.s. central bank and Its policies are domestically oriented. Otherwise, it'll be they will be even illegal So against this orientation The next question that I think I would like to suggest is how to build international cooperation On manage both listed and illicit capital flows If The most powerful central bank of all Has an explicitly domestically oriented Set of policies. How do you build international cooperation in a place like that? Uh Fourthly and then I'll go back to the fiscal shelters. This is I would say so much important than people People give them Well, it's it's it's one of the most crucial elements in this whole thing Why? well We all know and my colleague here all of just Underlined all this This combination this deadly combination of fiscal shelters off balance sheet operations And their combinations. There are the perfect vehicles for illicit capital flows as well as as well for the list. Okay Tax avoidance over leverage, etc But the really interesting question is this Why fiscal shelters are so Much used. Why do they exist? And the answer is simple Because they are legal They are perfectly legal So the question is this why fiscal shelters are legal Everybody uses them Why because they can there is no problem in using them again. They are legal So if one wants to get serious about anything in terms of global Regulation of capital flows, we have to have Capital controls as as one of the most important pieces of macroeconomic management on one hand And you have to close down fiscal shelters because they don't do any good for any of the things that we're thinking about They're just do harm for them. But again, they're legal and just before we think again Oh Caiman islands and there are other islands that they're all the Caimans and the jerseys They're linked to other islands Manhattan the uk, etc. And don't forget Delaware Okay, don't forget Delaware not Caiman not Jersey Delaware Just inside the u.s. Is a big fiscal shelter. Why on earth? This is legal So that's the kind of questions. So When we deal with illicit capital flows, don't get the first african african dictator that is there This is not a problem problem is in Delaware problem is in wall street. That's where the problem is So let's be clear about that and Just to wrap up and try to finish up, okay Uh When exactly Tax authorities Will begin to really cooperate with financial regulators Because they don't they don't cooperate And i'll give you a very brief example or i just meant i don't i don't i don't think i have time to do it But this the case of n ron is emblematic about that because n ron was reporting Record profit record profits because he was using the mark to market rule that was allowed to them by financial regulators on the other hand The irs the you american uh tax authorities were not taxing n ron at all Why because from their perspective n ron was not making any money There were there were no profits to be taxed But there were profits. They're showing up for financial regulators. They were not showing up They didn't exist. They were reporting potential future profits as existing profits The irs knew that financial regulations apparently didn't and they never talked to each other So this is a big problem when this is going to start happening because they don't talk Those agencies don't talk to each other and they should And lastly to close up really Regulatory capture that's again another big problem because regulators are Often not very well paid Sometimes they are not even well respected in the u.s. They weren't and the whole rigging post rigging and bushes, etc not respected And of course very easy to Get captured if you have I don't know all sorts of Perks and the next job and things like that not to mention Ideological capture, which means everywhere again in 2014 every single U.s. And uk whatever anglo-american universities are still teaching more or less the same things Same things the textbooks are the same. So Light touch regulation effective markets efficient markets, etc Remember who got the noble prize this year? Well shiller, which is against that and elgin fama the father of efficient markets Very much schizophrenic, but this is how the noble prize was distributed last year very much So what I think we're facing It's a very a truly unholy alliance in between ideas and Interests and the power of The financial industry I'm done. So What I would like to suggest and that's again a point for discussion Is that when we look at? Sort of the system that we have in place I would call it a system of governance by lobbying Lobbies are the one who exercise the who mobilize and exercise the governance If this is correct, I would say illicit capital flows are just the tip of a much bigger iceberg, which is the problem of after all Western style Democracy if representative democracy is there, but who really governs are the interests of the big corporations and the financial interest Can we really talk about true democracy? That's My final point and I thank you when I'm sorry that it went more more than I should thank you very much Thank you very much You know both of you made my my work tough because usually the moderator would be Taking notes of whatever it is agrees and would throw the these agreements on the on the Of the people who who made the statements, but I'm very sad to say that I agree with most of what said in this panel just beginning with Eduardo's presentation I fully agree that I I couldn't agree more With Eduardo on the difficulties of avoiding capture of regulators by the regulated I couldn't agree more with the Difficulty of having any multilateral agreement on anything You just look at the the trade Agreements we are on the verge of turning the world trade organization in the major and the huge dispute settlement Organization and that's all in the same applies to financial regulations and the regulation of capital flows Most central banks. I don't know of any any one central bank which has in its mission to help to fix problems of imbalance in the international market in the national financial market usually the The mission of a central bank Is to preserve the value of domestic money Which is another problem by the way the existence of several different monies in the boat some of them have an additional mission of Pursuing price stability with preservation of economic growth as the the federal reserve in the united states But none of them has any mission to take care of financial imbalances on a world scale So if such an institution doesn't exist, we shouldn't expect that these things would happen spontaneously I'm a bit dissatisfied with the the causes of of the the illicit flows Discussed here Because I guess it has a lot to do with the size of the tax burden That individuals and firms Have in their respective countries So Those tax heavens As Eduardo mentioned They they serve the purpose of channeling resources from heavily taxed countries to lower Taxid countries and then to really distribute the money back to Where the the return on investment given the institutional protection of investment Exists I have a doubt to a lot with your presentation I had the understanding That inequality in brazil Had been reduced dramatically especially during the the two firms of president lula and You correlated so to speak the The increase in illicit financial flows from brazil With the increase or understood it badly With the increase in inequality So I was puzzled but maybe understood it incorrectly And when on a world scale Inequality is also being reduced and it's being reduced dramatically because Of these incredible growth in china, which was one of the poorest Country number of people in the world and in india. So inequality is going down and On a world scale In brazil inequality is going down and the figures presented for illicit flows is not They're not going down. So I I would be tempted not to correlate The two but this is just a comment to provoke questions and more comments And I I would like to to uh to pass the word to the floor to To the audience to for the questions, please whoever wants to intervene Just give me the name And and to whom you would like to address The question, please the microphone Microphone it in a french, please First inequalities reducing is a kind of simpson paradox because Uh, you if you calculate at global level. Yes, it's reducing because the china is Growing but if you calculate in every place except from brazil inequality is growing so It's I would say that's a bit unfair from the point of view that People that are living this inequality that's reducing in a global level Um The idea that the bricks Will do something to change this. I think that I'm not sure if I I would say that it drowned it. It disappeared uh with ukraine or with the solution in with the crisis in Cyprus that Was the first time that the people that get the capital there their capital was destroyed Other situations the state intervened and saved the wealth But in cyprus they decided oh this wealth is not valid wealth It was a tax haven that was Wasn't heaven anymore I think that's the the idea the proposal that Russia Russia should be expelled of swifts And uh the Things that are happening like for example Argentina Banned by a court in new york from the financial markets and started to do swaps in u1 with china That's analyzed that's some kind of split happening and the the the idea that we can have A global solution a negotiated global solution It's not there anymore. So I believe that's some Taking the the point that all of put I I believe that's That's some kind of unsolvable split happening that this The this globalization financial globalization we're living they are It's about to dissolve by political problems. So I would like to see Perhaps if we go now we'll see this point the other thing in brazil we have an internal mastery So the thing is we have limits for the local levels of states to Make uh infrastructure investments and we don't have like china that has some Offsheets of balance structures That allow this kind of investment to be done a point that I saw Two times albert katal make here in brazil That's that's the the the huge difference because the We can't for example create an entity that would do the The fast train between ria and san paulo because we can't create enough balance public Entity anymore So that's the the thing we there are some more complicated things that the The late responsibility of fiscao and the other Or Kind of the the things that are in the agenda in brazil that make it quite difficult to do well, we have 10 more minutes. So what I'm planning to do is the following up I'll have two more questions if there are two more questions in the audience and then pass the The floor to both of the speakers for replies Any any more questions, please? I'm paulo vorobio Leonardo You've been quite pessimistic in a way in terms of your description of the impossibility of a global Global way of dealing with with finance and I think I made this point earlier that If we look at the post recession Regulatory Environment it's it changed very little In the margin in the margin there were some changes But in the beginning actually the the g20 was formed in a way to to Partially to to to do with this issue to To look at finance from a broader aspect But particularly your idea your idea of financialization Which means the financialization of industry the industrialization of finance I think it's it's I agree entirely but do you see do you see Any way where this conundrum could be moved From where we are one more question. Is that all? Well, maybe I should Yes floor first to all of you might address including my Yes, my my comments at the beginning and the and the Try to address the questions posed by the audience. Yes. Thank you very much Oh, I think it's uh, it's a very interesting discussion also taking a lot of notes on my My colleague here in this intervention. I fully agree and I think you summed it up well We seem to agree on a lot of the basic descriptions Uh I think I mean you the question you posed a bit I mean, is there anyone with the mandate to fix the global financial system imbalances and causes To some extent of course there are existing institutions that have have this as part of their mandate But have they been equipped to implement is another question perhaps the IMF for example Has to some extent some of these mandates. They had the ambition. I think under the former Head as well as under the current to try to move in that direction However, they don't have The means basically nor potentially The instrument the right instruments to really do it and it's unclear. I think whether Also, the big powers would want them to have that sort of leverage and and and those means But I do think they to some extent have it. I think in europe and in Parts of the western world. I mean another one is the bank of international settlements I mean they also to some extent have some of this mandate But again, they haven't been fully leveraged to do it. I think And this discussion goes on really in terms of whether one really wants And then the comment you made on causes of illicit financial flows. I mean, is it linked to We should be raising up the issue. Is it linked to that the tax burdens are too high In some other countries they are escaping from I think to some extent there It's it's an interesting discussion, but I think in many of the countries I have worked I was five years in sambia. I work mainly on the issue of mining and extractives the similar In tansania and I don't think necessarily there for example the issue was that The tax burden was overly high to be honest. I mean, it's much higher in many other comparable countries In fact, when I came they were at the global bottom when it came to effective tax rates on the mining But still they didn't collect practically anything in mining tax So it's it's a race to the bottom. Unfortunately a bit we are talking about here because of course If the alternative is zero rate then You know, I mean where where where is really? I mean, I think the crux of the matter here is that No one really wants and of course the shareholders want The company leadership to minimize their tax the tax expenses So as long as you have this as long as you are unable to put restrictions and to regulate differently Both at the global level and not to forget also at the national level because we haven't talked that much about it But it's actually possible also to do a lot of things at the national level some countries do much better Including my own country. Norway does very well in terms of taxing Petroleum and many countries actually in the case of petroleum managed to get a hold of a very large share of the revenue But the issue is more how it's used. I mean, Nigeria is an example where they don't manage But actually I've been looking and I'm doing currently a study as part of my phd work on this And there's a large difference between mining and petroleum So so the question here is a bit. Yeah, is the tax burden too high? Is that why they skip? It's a bit of a dangerous discussion I think also because if you can have zero, of course, obviously you would be pushed by your shareholders and your And your owners and your management to go as close to zero as possible as the big ones do Um And then on the inequality. Yeah, I mean you're right. I didn't I was a bit Unprecise and juggled the way I described these things. I wasn't implying in any way actually that In inequality in Brazil had gone up I think it's clear that it has gone up in Europe. It has gone up in us For several decades I think it's clear that yes at the global level because of China especially and a few other countries There is some sort of equalization happening But if you look within the countries There are huge challenges of inequality also in the ones that are very successful like china Uh, and still brazil. I mean even if the last decade you saw some progress and professor norah lustig and others have documented That this is not just brazil but parts of latin america Still the levels of inequality are very high um So, you know, uh, yes, I mean it's very good I think Concrete policies that led to this and a lot of effort from brazilian government and brazilian people to Historically then for almost the first time Reduce inequality Still there is a long way to go. So I think and that I mean coming again having worked in africa There are huge challenges linked to inequality and we know That it's not That it's not Any more some economists had argued earlier that this was part of the expected path and That you have to sort of settle with that inequality has to be high and somehow sometimes also it would be good for growth I think at least this discussion is over Now even the imf and others have now come out with reports saying that no there is empirical evidence showing Clearly that if you do invest in reducing inequality in efficient ways It's both good for development on the social side and good for your growth rates So you have this now for the western world and for developing countries so this was the point there and then on the On the discussion on the bricks and uh, yeah, I mean I I was just throwing out some ideas here I I I don't really know too much about it. I agree With with with my colleague who was saying that this is is really at the international level is very difficult how to how to deal with these issues And but I do I I I think I will go back to saying also that I do think Brazil and also other Developing economies can do a lot more at the domestic level Uh, and I think actually that this whole issue of the Financialization of industry and the derivative issue. It's actually not unsolvable at the national level I would actually insist that it can be dealt with To some extent not solved fully Let me give you one example from Africa and that is that in most countries in Africa and it might be the same here as well When you deal with the balance sheets or multinationals that do mining or petroleum activities Normally, for example derivative activities are allowed in the tax accounts Now, why do you allow it? I mean you open the playing field for speculation and for abuse You could simply do as was done in sambi at some point Although it was later reversed because the president died. There was a new government coming in and policies were reversed We simply put it out of the regular core mining tax Uh legislation and dealt with it separately What did that mean the mining companies were up in arms about this because for the first time they could not Write off huge fake losses that they did through derivative actions In their core balance sheet that was reported to the tax authorities in sambia What did it mean? It meant that suddenly they have huge surpluses that had to be they had to pay tax Supposedly they managed to negotiate the president died and then yeah It's a long story and I've written a paper about that as well that is available on the net but uh I think you can actually regulate for certain industries and for parts of the economy to avoid part of the issue With the derivative and other sorts of financialization of the economy So I agree. That's why you the issue of regulation You need to actually have tough regulation and to separate Between these different elements to not let it uh erode your tax base to such an extent It's possible to do that has been done in several countries. It's not impossible Thank you Okay, uh, let me get first to I think what is the The really biggest question which was raised by paulo, uh, which is well, I am quite pessimistic Do I think that uh, there is any solution at hand and my answer for that is well, not really why because it's not a technical problem in terms of Technicalities, I think I I mentioned some elements, which I'm not saying that is easy, but you can figure out For example, much less financial Globalization than what we have today. How do you do that? You use much more capital controls as a key tool on your macro financial management You close down fiscal shelters Or you impose tremendous restrictions on on them Uh, you get tax authorities to really interact on a daily basis and that that can be done today on with electronic platforms You can't do it domestically and internationally All those things Can't be done from a purely technical perspective. What is the problem political is a problem of political will The elites which would be the ones cable Of managing that managing not solving completely but managing that problem getting getting it to a much better I don't know plateau They are part of the problem. They're they're almost all involved With this so it's very complicated Uh This is a very complicated issue to Change the political will that would enable the technical solutions to happen. That's why I think that I I always scratch my head in thinking about that Not disagreeing with with with you that yes, some countries do much better than other countries. Yes Singapore for example is the The Best example that you can really do Much better in all those things one of the reasons being they are the best bureaucracy in the world And why is that among other things? They Are very well respected. They get a very nice salary They get tenure But on the other hand if they mess up they go to jail right away And they can do it. So yes, it's possible. They they have a truly Viberian Viberian kind of bureaucracy and that works But if you have the reverse Then It's very difficult because you you're already handicapped when when you begin with when you when you you build Your public infrastructure to deal with those problems You're already handicapped if you start by saying the state is part of the problem not of the solution You're already you're at the loss of the battle Just to get like two very quick observations your your Or that in terms of the the idea that illicit capital flows that you are not very Satisfied with the explanation for them, right? And I think that the explanation for them. It's really easy It's like why do you have illicit capital flows growing and growing and growing because they can Because all the conditions are there for them So would you rather if you if you're a corporation or a very wealthy individual, etc And you have the opportunity of paying And then I again, I don't think the tax burden is a big problem because if I can choose Am I going to pay 50 percent tax 10 percent tax or zero tax? I would say once Well zero tax if I know that I can do it I will pay zero tax So I will do it if it if it became so easy to do it Then It really does not depend on the tax burden in itself. It depends on the incentives and the easiness That you can do it if on the other hand you post a lot of fences And you control much more money and money out and you identify who is doing what Then it becomes more complicated, but that's not the world we're living and just like the One one One beat of a of an observation that I I can't resist Just mentioning because this appeared more than once already In the morning and now in terms for example of okay one of the The good things that If we're able to curtail elicit capital flows would be for example We would have a lot of money to invest in infrastructure. There is so so badly needed again We don't need it would be great to contain elicit capital flows But we don't have investment in infrastructure at least here in brazil because there's only one Institution that does it it's called the nds the Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico and Private finance private financial institutions don't do it. Why they don't do it again because they can Because of their portfolio preferences short term portfolio preference They can make a ton of money not putting one dollar in infrastructure investment. Why would they? If they are able to profit immensely without doing it so again Regulations and incentives. I think this is the name of the game Thank you. I guess We are about time to finish the session. I would like to thank both speakers and the attention of the audience And now we make a break for the next section. Thank you very much. Thank you


everyone around the world to this special event going world in physician week. My name is Jacqueline Nevekas, I'm the Director of Migration Health at the International Organization for Migration, IOM. And I'm here with my colleague, Cécile Rélian, who leads the Migration and Sustainable Development team here at IOM. Hi, Cécile. And Patrick Dujigan, our Health Advisor and Expert for Asia and the Pacific. Again, welcome everybody. There has been a lot of talk about COVID-19 vaccines, how effective they are, how safe they are, all very important questions of course. Another very important question, who has access? Now, we've probably all heard that vaccines are not shared equally among countries. In fact, more than 80% of vaccines have gone to high and upper income countries only. But vaccines are not only shared equally among countries, but also within countries and among people. Now, that is why today we like to talk to you about migrant inclusion in the vaccine campaign. I'd like to make two very short points. First of all, there are many migrants in the world today. The number of international migrants globally is estimated to over 200 million people, including labour migrants, international students, and many others. We can also force displaced people like refugee, there are some million in the world, and internally displaced people, some 20, I'm sorry, 49 million in the world. So we are talking about a very sizable group of people who have moved for a very great variety of reasons. Secondly, COVID-19 has shown us that we are all in this situation. Everybody can get infected. And no one is safe until everyone is safe. We hear this a lot. In other words, to solve this global crisis, we have to make sure that everyone can be protected and get vaccinated. But as we will hear, it's not that simple. Now, Petri, I'm turning to you. From your experience in the region of the pandemic, can you tell us a bit why migrants are at risk of being excluded from the vaccination campaign? What kinds of obstacles they may face in terms of accessing health services in general? Hope to you better. Thanks, Jacqueline. Well, I think it really begins right at the beginning. I mean, there are many circumstances where migrants are simply not counted to be included in countries ordering of vaccines or planning for vaccines. So right from that very beginning, particularly migrants who might be in irregular situations or undocumented situations may be invisible. And so they're simply not being counted and included. And even if they are being counted or included or there is provisions for migrants to have access to vaccines, there are many barriers in place that can pose a challenge. They may not be aware of how to get vaccines because materials aren't being provided in the right languages. They may not be included in education and outreach campaigns. They may not be able to have relevant ID cards or valid ID, which is often in many countries required, and particularly in this region, a lot of countries are requiring identification cards which many migrants may not have or they may not have valid identity documents. So that's a real challenge as well. There's also challenges sometimes in some countries, migrants are being asked to pay for vaccines, whereas national citizens are not being asked to pay. So that really starts making very big differences in terms of the challenges for access to people and the ability to be able to register for vaccines, to be able to go to their appointments, as well as there's a lot of fear amongst many migrant communities, not only fear or concerns about the vaccine itself because they haven't maybe been reached with education, but fear of some of the negative repercussions of accessing health services. Sometimes it's with stigma and discrimination from the service providers, attitudes of the population who might be saying or acting like, you know, why should these other people be getting vaccines when we should be getting them first, but also fear of repercussions from immigration or other services as well. And I think the important point is when it comes to this COVID pandemic, we really need to be reducing all of those barriers to make sure that everyone has access to them because no one is going to be safe in our communities unless everyone is safe, and including one person is excluding, you know, that person from being included. Thank you, Patrick. You made quite some important points because it's actually quite difficult to access healthcare in general, I suppose, as well as COVID-related services. For some migrants, including the vaccine course, you mentioned that migrants may actually be quite invisible because they may not be documented. You don't have papers. You mentioned actually administrative barriers as well as financial barriers. It actually also poses complicated questions around the right of every individual to access, something as basic as health services. So another big question that people may ask themselves now is why would that pose a problem for me? Why do we all need to care and worry about this access issue for migrants? Can you explain a bit more about that? I mean, it goes beyond the fact that migrants have the same right to healthcare as others. It's a human right to have access to healthcare and there is a real moral imperative to make sure they're included. But actually, from a public health point of view, migrants must be included. There cannot be pockets of people in our societies or communities in our societies that are not being included within this because the virus doesn't discriminate based on migration status, based on legal status, based on ethnicity. Everyone is being affected equally. And so, therefore, our response must also not discriminate against people based on any factors and really be looking at those who must be prioritised according to medical criteria and risk criteria first. But that includes migrants and non-migrants as well. And they must be included equally. If there are, as I said, if there are segments of the population not included, this means that all of the efforts that everyone is going forth from having to the lockdowns, from the heroic services that our health providers are doing, all of that will be in vain if we're not making sure that there is full coverage of everyone. And in particular, many migrants are in situations where they may be more vulnerable because of their living and working conditions, because of their socioeconomic conditions and their inability to access healthcare. So actually, it may be causing additional risk not only for people, but also for our communities. So it's not just a moral thing to do and it's not just the public health thing to do. It's the smart thing to do for our communities. And if we're going to end this pandemic, we really need to make sure that everyone is included. Thank you, Patrick. I like that summary that's including migrants. It's not just the right thing to do from a moral perspective. It's also the smart thing to do from a public health point of view. Now, inclusive vaccination campaigning is not just a story about the public health effect. We are all observing that this crisis has impact and have repercussions on many factors of our society well beyond the health factor. Cecilia, can you expand a bit on this? Many thanks, Jacqueline. I think we can really say that migration and migrants in general have a huge role to play in our societies. And really that migrants are part of the solution. And let me say a few words as to why. So when really COVID-19 hits, we realize just how much we need migrants. Migrants are really the frontline workers responding to all the different challenges posed by the pandemic. They are the one looking after the elderly in the relevant centers. They are the shop attendants. They are the farmers. But they are also the engineers, the innovators in our society. And just a very clear case of that is the fact that the vaccine Pfizer BioNTech was actually developed by Turkish migrants residing in Germany. So we can really say that migrants need together the fabric of our communities. And migrants therefore have a critical role to play to fulfill the promises of what we call the sustainable development goals, which is the global agenda that was agreed upon by the international community for achieving a fairer, safer and more inclusive society by 2030. And we have only nine years left in fact to fulfill the promises of the SDGs while at the same time we can say that the pandemic has really set us back to the extent that we are now facing a lost decade of development. So this is the situation upon us. So by including migrants, by vaccinating them, by ensuring that they have access for example to legal routes to migration, that they have access to formal documentation, we allow migrants to fulfill their potential as entrepreneurs, as innovators, as workers, and actually we might have a real chance of getting back on track. Okay, those are very important points. I like what you said about migrants actually can be part of the solution. We need migrants and I also have the impression that the pandemic of course has hit the life of all of us, but it has also maybe disproportionately hit the lives of some migrants, especially vulnerable migrants. Meanwhile, we can say that's vaccinating everyone including migrants, especially those at least forgotten and the invisible that we call them, is a very important condition for all sectors of the economy to actually fully recover if I understand you well. Am I right? Absolutely right. So as long as there is a public health risk, as long as migrants aren't vaccinated and can't access the same public health services or they are afraid to do so for all the reasons that were explained before, we won't be able to fully return to normal. And this is really important because we can't really accept the current state of play with those border restrictions. These can't stay forever. If people can't move, many can't get safe and decent jobs. We can't get our food harvested or transported. We can't share innovation and skills across our borders and we can't save the lives of those who really need protection because they're leaving in unsafe places around the world. This is also important because migrants send a lot of money back home through what we call remittances. And I think previously I was more touching upon the contribution that migrants make to the host societies and I'd like to turn as well to the impact that the pandemic is having from a development perspective on the communities back home. Because indeed, migrants do send part of their income back home to support the families and their communities. And this is so important because actually with this money that those families, those communities can have access to health services that they can send the children to school, that they can have access to clean water, sanitation, all of those elements that are so critical in this health crisis that we're facing. So really what is absolutely important to realise is that the impact that the pandemic has had on remittances is absolutely huge as we are estimated that we are now facing a 40 billion US dollar drop in these remittances around the globe. So you can only imagine what that means for those communities back home. And we can say that this crisis has a cost not on young migrants but also on us all and I'd like to say also a few words on that with some 120 million people that have fallen back into extreme poverty as well as the loss of 255 million jobs, full-time jobs. So really without vaccine equity, without inclusion in accessing vaccination we will end up, all of this will end up costing us a lot more. And so the best way to ensure that we can move forward and start recovering is really to protect everyone. Thank you both. You well explained how these vaccination campaigns are of course very important from a public health, global health point of view but in fact also from a socioeconomic point of view and overall development point of view if I may say and that doing the right thing is coming actually with very difficult obstacles and barriers. Now it may be interesting actually to not only talk about problems but let's now also try to look into the solution how can we ensure that migrants are not left out of vaccination campaigns seems to really boil down to removing those multiple barriers that started mentioning earlier Patrick can you maybe tell us a bit about possible solutions that you are seeing being developed in your region or even beyond over? Thanks. Well I think we've focused on a lot of the challenges and the problems that migrants are facing and our society are facing but really this is not just about problems this is about opportunities and solutions and as very well put you know the migrants are actually part of the solution they're part of the solution of recovering from the socioeconomic and part of the solution of recovering from the health impacts of the pandemic as well. So what it boils down to is a change of mindset of not considering migrants as a problem that countries need to figure out how to solve but rather to consider migrants as part of the solution to include migrants in the planning process to make sure that they're being included on advising how to reach those populations really understanding what challenges they're facing in terms of registering or documentation required for vaccines and including them in that process to remove those barriers. We've seen some good examples of countries including migrant workers in vaccination campaigns particularly if there's being concentrated COVID cases in that area and we've seen good examples of enrolling migrants themselves to become vaccine educators and community outreach workers to give education and information to other migrants as well. We've also seen some countries remove the requirements for identification or having reduced identification requirements so providing any form of name and address or other forms of registration so that for the second dose migrants are able to have the same dose and the same information required but they're not being required to present those challenges and passports and these complicated documents as well. So really I think important to how do we address these challenges really I think we need to change the mindset that migrants aren't a problem to be solved they are part of the solution and without including them we're going to be unable to solve this global challenge. We really need global responses that includes everyone and that means asking migrants what their issues are encouraging them to be part of the solution and going that extra mile to reach out to them and having their views and inputs as part of the vaccination planning itself. Okay brilliant. I think your stories show us how clearly important this for everybody to include migrants in the vaccination efforts and this is a story about policies across sectors. It's not only about the health sector. It's also about addressing the ID card issue or registration card issue. This barrier is not going to be resolved by a health provider by the health sector. It's a very good example of how different sectors in society are part of this important task. We also heard about operational challenges and solutions information messages to be shared in the right language to reach a hard-to-reach community of why migrants I want to underline the importance of engaging migrants that you actually both mentioned as well. Engaging migrants themselves to build trust for example to combat vaccine hesitancy and misinformation. I think we may also like to highlight an important role that migrants play in the COVID-19 immunization role out itself as co-developers and providers of migrant and people-centered health services in countries of their origin and of destination. Actually I would like to try to move to questions from the audience who may have been listening to us and of course welcoming the audience to write on their questions in the common boxes. Okay, so give me a second time reading some of them to try to summarize. Okay, got it. There are already not enough vaccine doses for citizens. So how can you expect governments to cover or prioritize people who are not even citizens? That is a very common question I think. Pat, do you want to answer that question? Sure. I think there's two points to make on that. Firstly, I don't think we're saying that non-citizens should be prioritized over citizens. It's not saying that migrants are somehow special and because they've crossed a border unnecessarily more at risk and not be prioritized for COVID. Really, what we're saying is they must be equally prioritized because if the priority of the government is protect the health of citizens of that country, that cannot be done until everyone within that country has access to vaccines as well. So if only citizens are being covered with vaccines, COVID is not going to go away, the impacts are not going to go away, the impact on the health system, impact on the economy is not going to go away because COVID will still exist within that community. So it's not about whether governments should be prioritizing one group over another or can only cover a segment of the population. The pure simple reality of it is unless everyone is safe no one is safe. So we must include everyone. This is not an option. It's not a request, it's just a reality. If there are people who are not being included well, the immunity is not going to work well and COVID will continue within our community. So it's not really an option, it's really a reality that everyone needs to face. Consider everybody equally and evidently there are not enough vaccines in the world today and all migrants in all countries are prioritizing different groups, different age groups for instance and then it doesn't, it's not about vaccinating all the migrants at once, it's then also of course prioritizing the migrants as they are prioritizing the citizens. That's a very good point. I see there is another question that is also a question that I've been hearing quite a lot about what can regular people, I like that term regular people what can people do to help immigrants and refugees having access to vaccines? That's an interesting question. I have some thoughts about it myself to see it over to you first. If I can comment over. So I think we all have a role to play and indeed it's interesting to hear the terminology of regular people. We are definitely all members of the same society and we need to see and understand which role we each individually of us play in that mix. First of all, of course by being very much recognizing the when you are for example in front of a shop attendant who is a migrant or who is your care worker and so on to really show I would say recognition and embracing the fact that they are bringing a lot of benefits for our societies. So I think as individuals in the way of dealing with migrants and from a human to human somehow relationship, I think each of us we have a role to play to provide that recognition and embrace the benefits that we are getting from having those individuals in our society and playing very active an important role in the pandemic. From the perspective more from I would say from the policy makers what is really important is also to fully embrace this reality and to alleviate all of the barriers that can really help migrants to contribute to our society. So it really means looking at what is it that currently we have in our legislation in our ways we are providing access to basic services that could actually be preventing those particular groups, migrants and their families to have access to them. So I think there is also a very important role definitely from the policy makers themselves to really map and screen what is it that right now is an impediment that needs to be overcome. If indeed all of us we can have access to the relevant services so we can all be safe for all the good reasons that Patrick was mentioning earlier. Thank you Cecile. I guess we all have a very important role to play migrant or not migrant in avoiding discriminations xenophobia and to nurture a positive narrative around migration and stop the myths about migrants and refugees and really look at the facts that you have so well described throughout this conversation. That would already be a leap forward. Now there is another relevant question coming in. How can governments reach all migrants? Even people who are not registered and don't have documents and are in fact hiding. That's a very good point and Patrick I remember you were the one mentioning I think that many migrants are invisible and some even want to remain visible because they are so worried about being caught by the police and maybe deported. How can governments reach out to all migrants and maybe this is a particular organisation like IOM maybe in touch with migrant communities. Patrick do you have a concrete example of that from your work in the region? I think this really goes to the nuts and bolts of working with migrants and it really goes back to that issue of listening and understanding migrants and their perspectives and hearing from them what the services are. It's simply not good enough to sit back and wait for migrants to come to services. Services need to be provided in a way that migrants can understand linguistically or the language that they can understand in a cultural way that they can understand in the locations that they are at and in ways that don't provide extra challenges like financial costs or having to travel or being afraid of migration. There's been some good examples within this region, particularly in Thailand where the government has been including migrant workers in vaccination campaigns, particularly in the locations where there have been recent COVID cases or recent clusters of outbreaks. The government has taken a proactive approach including working with IOM to make sure that information from the government migrants from surrounding countries to work with migrant health workers to reach communities and do a lot of that networking and encouraging people to come forward for providing free of cost care not only for the vaccine but also healthcare in terms of COVID testing and follow up and making sure that not just vaccines are provided but in case there is extra lockdown measures provided or quarantine measures that are provided for the other food, water and sanitation and other medical needs of being taken care of as well. So that's been a really good proactive approach of going to where migrants are reaching them in a way that they need to be reached in a way that they can understand that doesn't cause negative impacts to their migration status or to their other socioeconomic status. Very good example. Thank you. Do you think it's also information that migrants can be able, can get vaccinated? How can we inform them? I think you just gave a very good illustration of that Patrick that indeed it is true information and very different channels of information that migrants can get the right information and in the right language. Anything to add there from your end, Cecile or Patrick? Maybe if I might... Oh sorry, Cecile, after you. I just wanted to say that you touched a critical point just now by talking about having access to information in the native language of the migrants. That's absolutely key. And I think again if we have to turn to positive examples as we see them we can say that some mayors city leaders have taken some extremely innovative approaches that have really been very impactful. So really understanding that one needs to be efficient and therefore reaching out in the local language is one critical point but very much in the native language of the migrants and sales but also it is about and I think Patrick already spoke a little bit about that getting to the places where migrants are and it's very clear that there are pockets of cities where those populations may be actually marginalised. So really having mobile teams in cities reaching out to them and doing something that is all so important which is winning trust of migrants. So really working through community leaders, religious leaders and therefore making sure that the official information is well understood and well accepted and really also this couple potentially with accessing other type of services of cash based intervention. So there's a whole array let's say of tools and ways of working that we have seen being tested in different parts of the world and again very much particularly in city context which is so important because we know that the immense majority of cases of COVID-19 are actually happening in cities so that's why I want to really embrace and salute here how much city leaders have shown the way in this process. Very good also nice to know linked with the role of cities and mayors in fact just something to think about and also to think of another example outside of Asia imagine I'm an urban refugee very very big town in easily the region in Nairobi where many Somali and Ethiopian migrants are living there are quite some challenges in accessing vaccines here it's actually a comment that came from somebody I think this is a very good summary indeed of a situation a very big city refugees, urban refugees, migrants labor migrants probably undocumented many are living there and try to access vaccines I think the examples you gave are excellent in showing there are ways of reaching also these people but we have to really think of it as a whole society approach and not just think of so it means the health sector no it will go through many different channels and sectors I think we are already talking for more than half an hour it's amazing I think we have to wrap up I will not try to summarize this conversation I want to thank you Cecilia and thank you Patrick and thank you to all the audience for your actual questions and listening to this special event on migrant inclusion and vaccination campaigns and of course we are always available to answer questions so do not have a difficult conversation with the public as I said hard to summarize this discussion but I can safely say that this conversation today showed that there is only one way out of this crisis and that's together so let's continue to discuss and find ways to jointly recover better, stronger and faster have a great best of the day everybody around the world and hopefully see you soon again and leave no one behind thank you very much everybody thank you bye bye