UN Transcripts — https://transcripts.un.org/ar/asset/k10/k10invah8z
Africa Development Impact Forum (Event 7, ADIF 2026) — Economic and Social Council — 12 June 2026
Language: en
Automatically generated transcript — may contain errors. Not an official United Nations record.

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Panelist · Deshawn [0:00]:

member states, start with 4 and get a sort of homologation or alignment there, and then you can further expand the scope. That, I think, is one of the bottlenecks. Then I'd also like to mention 2 other points before I finish, referencing my other panelists. One was around the 2-wheeler and 3-wheeler manufacturing that Chema mentioned. I think what is important here is around regional coordination and the importance of policy local content, right? We talk about aggregating demand, but the truth is that, you know, within the member states, everyone has their own policies and are doing their own things. So you want to try and anchor investment, and we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars here, but you'd make— you make that investment and then all of a sudden the member states and the policy doesn't align with it, right? So it's people are importing from India, China, etc., and the local sort of investment then does not have the demand to continue and to ensure that operation continues to exist for the foreseeable future. The second is around, again, regional coordination. For example, if you talk about battery energy systems, there's a significant demand and shortage of energy security on the continent. We all know this. But if, for example, in South Africa we have local content, and this is something that is being discussed right now, we are increasing tariffs, so we are in discussions to increase tariffs to the WTO-bound, so that we can protect domestic industry. But this needs to happen not at a country level, it needs to happen at a regional level. If we can do that, then we can unlock the demand that underpins the investment and then the upstream skills and employment opportunities.


Moderator · Marie Kitau [1:40]:

Thank you so much for bringing all this. Of course, we hear you about the battery manufacturing, which is— Again, that labor force mobility issue comes up and the skills issue. Yes, we were really, when Caroline was talking at the session, her session this morning, we were saying this is exactly what we discussed, having some kind of skills passport or something like that sort. And you mentioned the policy coherence that needs to happen, not only at national level but at the regional level, and also coordination among the various ministries as well. So, yeah, so, Tabitha, same question, what are the— and the bottlenecks?


Panelist · Tabitha [2:24]:

Thanks, Marie. Deshawn and Chema and David covered some of the key points that are pertinent to our conversation, so I'm not going to repeat them. But where I see opportunity is not just in the actual manufacturing production of these products and services with green minerals. It is also in one area that nobody has talked about. We don't have any bankers in the room, but we actually need— I know Africa Africa Rising Bank is looking at setting up an energy bank, but we really need proper financial instruments that will be set up to support entrepreneurs. We do not lack demand. Demand is quite high. We do not lack entrepreneurs in the continent who are working in this space for beneficiation. We have enough of them across the continent, but what we lack is the financial institutions supporting these entrepreneurs in value addition across the entire value chain. So there I see an opportunity for funds to be created in Africa that would understand and speak the African language when it comes to entrepreneurship and the green value chain. Challenges that we face obviously comes squarely again to policy. I call it policy harmonization, which Deschamps spoke about. It becomes quite difficult to do business. I'll give an example. In the ECA, in the Central Africa region, the CEMAC region, if you want to import components into Gabon, you're sitting with a 55, 58% tax on battery, whereas if you import into Cameroon, 0% import and tax. If you import through Congo-Brazzaville, it's different. So Gabon is exposed, and because of that, it becomes difficult for any local company who wants to manufacture in Gabon to compete. So those are some of the challenges that we find. And also, it comes back to skills. We find that the skill levels are not the same, the certification is not the same, and it will make sense to have some kind of harmonized skills certification that will be recognized across the continent. And this is where we see—


Speaker 4 [4:25]:

Thank you.


Panelist · Tabitha [4:26]:

Institutions like the ECA and AU playing a major role to bring that harmonization, but also to allow for free movement of people to be able to work wherever the skills are required. A platform like what Yolanda is working on can become very useful at scale to drive this process. Other challenges that we face, which again nobody has spoken about, is free movement of people in Africa. I have to apply for visas to go to some other African countries, and because of that, I limit my movement in countries where I want to make investment. If I cannot go to a country within 24 hours, I do not invest in that country. It doesn't make sense that my wife was a German citizen and my kids can basically take the passport, hop on a flight without any question asked, go to other African countries, but I have to apply for visas and sometimes wait 2 weeks to get visa approval. It doesn't make sense. If we have to transform Africa, if we have to build this industry, we have to create jobs, we really have to look at free movement of people. I know other business people have spoken about this before, but it is quite dire that we cannot move freely on the continent, yet people from other parts of the world can come here freely. So I will rest my case on this point, and I'll support what my other panelists have spoken about already. Thank you. Thank you.


Moderator · Marie Kitau [5:44]:

Thank you so much for highlighting this, the financing issue. African Development Bank, Afreximac, others are usually our— they're not here today, but they are usually our partners, so there's room for, especially for entrepreneurs, so we can definitely partner on that. And you mentioned harmonization of skills, the skills issue comes up, and of course the free movement of people. —tough, a very— it's an issue that is also at the Africa Continental Free Trade Area, et cetera, et cetera. So now, in the 10 minutes that we have, I want to have an action commitment session, meaning that we have to come up with something that we can implement in the next 12 months. And we have alluded to it. And the skills thing comes up. It came up in the previous session. It comes up here. And when we were discussing earlier, amongst us, we talked about having a skills innovation and green minerals accelerator in Africa. We called it Sigma². So I'm trying to see now, how do you think this can be done, this kind of accelerator, skills accelerator? You mentioned to have some kind of mapping of skills, what is needed, etc., but let's be practical because I think the forum, ADF, is about being practical. What does it mean? If we were to have that kind of accelerator, SIGMA, what would it mean from each of your perspectives? And also, if you don't mind, because I don't think we will have time, if you can say who should be leading it and who should be anchoring it and what should be the partner, the stakeholders for that in a concrete way. Thank you. Start with the same order.


Panelist · Sheyma [7:31]:

So I'm going to stay consistent with my binding constraint about the demand, and obviously SIGMA includes industrial development, development, I would say the one initiative that needs to happen is a Pan-African, whether at the AFCFTA or the AU level, but a coordinating body that looks into potential regional value chains synergies and then coordinate across the finance funding institutions, the skills, the all type of different institutions to make that, and especially with the private sector to make that happen. I want to emphasize here, coordination is a galvanizing word has been used a lot in sometimes not in very strategic way. It is one of the most strategic functions. Actually, the difference between developed countries and not developed countries is the capacity to coordinate their productive capabilities, their skills, their funding, their finance, their policy to make things happen. Coordination is a strategic function and we need to elevate it again to that level.


Speaker 8 [8:35]:

Thank you.


Moderator · Marie Kitau [8:36]:

Thank you so much. Again, David, I'm still with the Sigma, so—


Panelist · David [8:42]:

Oh, yeah, yeah, no, I think we've already spoken about the Pan-African Skills Passport. That needs to be implemented because that will unlock a whole lot of value for us.

So ECA, you've convened this. I think you should take ownership of it. The AU gives you the mandate. We have a framework as far as the free trade agreement.

There's no reason why we can't do it, so we should just do it.


Moderator · Marie Kitau [9:12]:

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Thanks, Mornit.


Panelist · Deshawn [9:15]:

So I think we have discussed this, so I'm going to outline it and then say it explicitly. So if we look at SIGMA as the umbrella body, the way that we have discussed it and thought about it is you have this Pan-African Skills Passport, and the importance of that is twofold. One thing we haven't mentioned is around the influence of AI and new ways of learning. When we talk about TVETs and universities, these are antiquated institutions these days. You can go and learn anything you want on YouTube in a matter of a few days, and you can generate new knowledge that way, as well as AI. I think this is one of the things that the Pan-African Skills Passport needs to accommodate, right, where we have these certifications that go across borders and it's sort of a universal type of qualification or certification that enables Africans to work in different regions. So that's the Pan-African Skills Passport. The other one is what we're talking about in terms of the Green Fund or the Green Skills Fund, which we believe that DFIs as well as other donors and private sector should participate in. And as David mentioned, this should be, I believe, mandated or convened via ECA with other stakeholders on board. So you have a proper private sector governance organization where you have DFIs, policy influences, as well as private sector in the advisory board so that we can actually make tangible steps going forward. I believe that this is something— just the establishment of that body is something that we can achieve in the short term, and again, starting with a pilot with using a few member states and not the entire continent. So I believe that is— sigma squared could close this gap, and it is a 12-month problem, not a 10-year one.


Moderator · Marie Kitau [11:00]:

Thank you. Tabi?


Panelist · Tabitha [11:03]:

Well, based on experience, I have very little confidence that we can count on African governments to come together and coordinate and implement something like this, with all due respect. We have the Africa Minerals Strategy. We're still waiting for some of these countries to ratify. I don't know if we've got more than 4 of them to ratify, and this is in the best interest of the same countries. So in my view, while I believe the ECA should be the champion and the host behind this initiative, implementing some of the points that you've raised, I believe that it should be driven by private sector. Thank you. Private sector, we are very impatient. We are close to the reality. We know the pain point of the people, and we can have a Pan-African-wide private sector initiative that would enforce the different governments to come to the party. Most of the time, the policy framework that they develop are completely misaligned with the reality, so I think this should be driven in partnership with the private sector. Thank you. Thank you.


Panelist · Sheyma [12:11]:

I like that. Maybe can I add to that? When I said coordinating body, I didn't mean government. I meant actually what works really well is an honest broker between government and private sector, and I think that role needs to be amplified.


Moderator · Marie Kitau [12:28]:

Well, thank you so much for this. I mean, we wanted concrete, so I think we have concrete. So let me again say what is Sigma Squared. This sounds like so mathematical. Skills innovation and— see, I forgot even— no, skills innovation and green minerals accelerator in Africa. So AA accelerator, AA Africa. So, yeah, and I do agree, but we cannot work without government because they are the ones who are the— but we can say that, you know, they're not— You mentioned the African Union and the fact that they have to ratify, etc. We don't have to go that path, but we have to have them on board. Somebody was saying 2, 3 of them, Vishen, I think, 2 pilots, and then we can bring all— We don't have to bring all the 54, 55 countries. I like that the structure is already being developed. It's about skills, and skills, I think, is something even more than— Sometimes minerals can be a bit geopolitically very sensitive, but skills is not. Yes. So we can have the skills as an anchor and then, you know, map. But, of course, as we said, and there is an implementation clock. Where is Veronica? She keeps telling me that they'll come back to us and say, "Where are you with this?" So this is where we— this is where the seed starts, but then we can't just talk about it and then leave it at there. ECA as a broker, I like that, as an honest broker, and then with the private sector, with government, with academia, because the skills— and it doesn't have to be— it has to be universities, but maybe TVET as well, the vocational training, all of the issues that were— the previous session was a very good segue to this one. And then talk about this passport, the skills passport. If you can have one skill in one country, if you can pass it on, but that's a more complex issue that is— but— Thank you so much. I'm really excited about this. I mean, of course, the challenge is in the detail, like we say, and then how we take this forward. But we planted the seed here, and then hopefully we can converge another time and see where we are. And we have to bring in also the financial institutions that you mentioned and see completely where that could lead us. So we are 2 minutes ahead of time, so I'm very happy to close the session. Thank you very much to my excellent panelists, Sheyma, David, Deshawn, and Tabithabi. And hopefully we'll see you again with concrete implementation. Thank you.


MC [15:06]:

All right. Thank you very much, Ms. Kitau, and our esteemed panelists. I think this is the first panel that finished. Without the negative. So please give them another round of applause. All right. Distinguished participants, we will now take a short health and coffee break downstairs. We encourage you to also visit the knowledge fair, which is located in the same area. We will be reconvening at 11:30 Japanese time. Please learn from this panel and don't come in negative. So we look forward to having you back at 11:30. Thank you so much. Please give yourselves a round of applause.


Speaker 18 [15:53]:

Okay.


Narrator [17:47]:

Africa has no shortage of research, no shortage of policies, no shortage of promises. Too often, impact stays out of reach, and this is the implementation gap. Where evidence is delayed, and ideas fade before they are actioned and scaled up. It's time to build a bridge, a bridge from policy to practice, from dialogue to delivery. Introducing the Africa Development Impact Forum 2026. Not just another forum, a fundamental break from business as usual. For months, ECA and partners have been building momentum through the Pre-Forum Stocktake Webinar Series, convening experts on green minerals, AI and jobs, youth entrepreneurship and regional value chains under the African Continental Free Trade Area. These sessions are shaping real solutions for youth employment across Africa. One mission across three stages, where ideas compete before the forum, solutions will be discussed during the forum, and impact is tracked for scale-up. At the Africa Development Impact Forum, the Knowledge Fair tells the story of the journey from ideas to action and to impact. Africa needs 15 million jobs every year, not pilots, not papers, proven and scalable solutions. During the Africa Development Impact Forum 2026, policymakers, the private sector, youth, and researchers gather to discuss durable solutions. We invite you all to the Knowledge Fair exhibition area, where you will immerse yourself into a journey of success stories and scalable initiatives that are building a new Africa, the bridge to a brighter future.

Al Fadi, please cast your list. Une vision, un héritage. Entre création élégante et bâtisseur de demain, Ils façonnent le Niger à coups d'aiguilles et de pétanque.


Fashion designer · Al Fadi [20:18]:

Bienvenue dans le showroom d'Alpha Di. Honoré, trop fier de vous avoir avec nous aujourd'hui. Dans quelques jours, on va commencer, on commence déjà la première étape de la caravane Alpha Di pour la paix où nous parlons que de paix, que de créativité, d'éducation, d'image et montrer que notre pays aussi est un pays extraordinaire et magique. Nous travaillons main dans la main avec le FNUAP, le Fonds des Nations Unies pour la Population, et pour la population et par la population.


UNFPA [20:57]:

Merci de m'avoir donné l'opportunité de parler du partenariat qu'on a avec la Fondation Alpha Di. J'aimerais d'abord rappeler que Ce partenariat rentre en fait donc dans la continuité de l'initiative Elimin, qui est une initiative portée par le gouvernement du Niger avec l'appui du Fonds des Nations Unies pour la Population, INFPH. L'objectif à travers donc ce partenariat, c'est de former 240 jeunes Nigériens dans le métier du stylisme, modélisme. Donc nous sommes actuellement à 150 qui sont inscrits au niveau de l'École supérieure de la mode et des arts, donc, qui est sous la tutelle de la Fondation Alpha Dee. Ce que nous aimerions, c'est qu'à travers cette école, qu'il y ait un pôle de stylistes nigériens qui vont contribuer à l'industrie artistique et stylistique. À travers donc la Fondation Alpha Dee, nous pensons qu'il y aura une industrie artistique et stylistique qui sera créée et qui va pourvoir aussi du travail.


Narrator [22:07]:

Depuis 1998, Alpha Dee unit les peuples par la mode, la musique, la culture, à travers le FIMA, et élève l'Afrique et inspire des générations. Et Alpha Dee revient au Niger bâtir une école pour sauver la jeune fille, pour renforcer l'éducation de la jeune fille à travers son école Estmark.


Fashion designer · Al Fadi [22:28]:

Je suis fier de dire aujourd'hui que la jeunesse avec leur éducation, avec leur esprit, avec la caravane qui a commencé aujourd'hui au Niger, va aller très loin. Nous sommes en train de faire la première école supérieure de la mode et des arts. Cette école, depuis 10 ans on se bat, depuis 10 ans on a le— l'État nous a donné un terrain de 3000 m² déjà. Pour commencer, on avait un immeuble magnifique à El Fadi dans lequel nous avons accueilli, grâce au FUNIAP aujourd'hui, 150 jeunes. Les jeunes, ça veut dire vraiment les jeunes filles défavorisées que nous voulons aider. Les jeunes filles qui n'ont pas les moyens d'aller à l'école, les jeunes filles qui n'ont pas les moyens d'avoir une opportunité de grandir. Mais nous, avec El Fadi, nous, avec l'image de mon équipe, À nos équipes, on va leur donner cette chance d'être des grands de demain, d'être l'entrepreneur culturel. Chacun doit absolument dans 3 ans créer son entreprise, avoir 3 machines, 4 machines, créer ce qu'il appelle réellement sa dignité personnelle et c'est ce qu'Alpha Di veut leur donner. Et c'est pour ça que l'école est une chance, l'éducation est une chance et nous voulons être accompagnés par tout le monde. Le Funiap nous accompagne, Les Nations Unies nous accompagnent, l'UNESCO m'accompagne, l'État nigérien m'a donné il y a 10 ans un terrain. Nous voulons que chaque jour qu'il pense à ce que nous sommes en train de préparer par rapport à l'école, par rapport à l'éducation, par rapport à ce qui va rester demain, notre jeunesse, notre âme. Et c'est ça que je cherche absolument à faire comprendre au reste du monde, de nous accompagner, de nous aider pour que notre grande école de 3000 m² soit enfin fini. Parce que depuis 10 ans, on cherche à le construire. On a commencé déjà, la construction a commencé, mais on n'a pas pu finir parce que les moyens nous manquent. D'où l'intérêt d'être là aujourd'hui, montrer le travail des jeunes talents, montrer le travail d'Alphadji, qui depuis 30 ans n'a pas fait un défilé à Niamey. Nous allons faire un défilé ici pour montrer le travail dans le textile nigérien. Africain, la maroquinerie, la bijouterie, ce que l'Afrique sait faire de mieux, son savoir-faire. Ce que l'Afrique a de mieux, sa jeunesse. Ce que le Niger a de mieux, sa bonté et sa beauté.


UNFPA · Narrator [24:49]:

L'UNFPA, Fondation des Nations Unies pour la Population, joue un rôle crucial dans l'autonomisation des femmes et des filles à travers plusieurs interventions stratégiques. 1. Appui aux programmes éducatifs depuis 2013. Ce programme est une initiative gouvernementale soutenue par l'UNFPA. Il cible les adolescents de 10 à 19 ans déscolarisés ou jamais scolarisés, mariés ou non, et a pour but l'amélioration des connaissances des filles sur la santé reproductive, les droits humains, l'égalité de genre, l'alphabétisation, la formation professionnelle. Plus de 1000 filles ont été formées à des métiers comme menuiserie bois, électricité bâtiment, mécanique moto, restauration, pâtisserie, couture, talage et manucurie. Les partenaires clés de cette initiative dont la Direction de l'Autonomisation des Filles, Ministère des Affaires Sociales, le Centre de Formation Professionnelle en Styliste et Modéliste, l'ONG Gata Matassa, l'ONG Friki et le Foyer Féminin Marathoun.


MC [40:35]:

Ladies and gentlemen, can we begin to have our seats so we can start? If you have a friend, if you have a colleague that is not yet in the room, can you kindly give them a call and ask them to please make their way back so we can commence. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, may I kindly invite you to take your seats so we can begin the forum. Thank you. If you have friends, colleagues that are not yet back, you can please give them a call, African style. And let them know to come back in. Madame et Monsieur, je vous invite à—


Speaker 26 [48:37]:

Gentlemen, I request you to take your seats so that we can start our deliberations. Thank you.


MC [49:57]:

Distinguished colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. I hope you had a refreshing break. I was told during the break that not only are the Japanese strict on time, but the Koreans are also strict on time. So we shall be aiming and aspiring for both Japanese and Korean time combined moving forward. We? We. All in agreement, say, "Aye." Aye. Aye. So we shoot for the sun and we get the stars or something eventually. Okay. Without further ado, we now move on to thematic session F, which will explore Africa's industries of the future with a focus on transformative and labor-intensive sectors. This session will be moderated by Professor Amadou Alimbaie, Nonresident Senior Fellow in Global Economy and Development at the Africa Growth Initiative of the Brookings Institute— Institution. Joining him on this panel are Mr. Andrew Aliu, Regional Economist, Regional Office for Africa, International Labour Organization. Professor Banji Oyelaran Oyeyinka, visiting professor at the Open University and former Senior Special Adviser on Industrialization to the President of the African Development Bank. Ms. Angie Madara, founder of Athena Fund X, will be joining online. Ms. Laura Paez Heredia, Chief of the Regional Integration and Economic Diversification Section of the Regional Integration and Trade Division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, will also be on the panel. The session will run for 65 minutes, and Professor Mbaye, you can use less time if you choose. Now, Professor Mbaye, you have the floor.


Moderator · Amadou Alimbaie Mbaye [51:59]:

Okay. Thank you very much. First of all, let me start by congratulating the ADF team for the design of such a wonderful and timely initiative for the continent's industrialization and also, by the same token, let me express my thanks to the team for involving me in this very interesting conversation. Let me move forward by saying that This event is not starting from scratch. It is actually a follow-up event. On May 12th of this year, we had a webinar which was intended to diagnose the situation, the state of the African economies in terms of private sector landscape, private sector development, jobs, and industries of the future. And in that thematic event, we have explored many very timely and important issues. We gathered— Thank you. Experts from different backgrounds, from the academia, from governments, from international organizations, to look at what industries of the future would look like. And on that occasion, we undertook a very in-depth discussion about what would be a comprehensive typology of industries of the future, what are the obstacles to building these industries, obstacles in terms of institutional settings, obstacles in terms of infrastructure, services availability, obstacles in terms of policymaking, and obstacles in terms of regional integration. And taking stock of that, we tried to map out what policies needed to be undertaken to lift these obstacles. And again, the impediments to African growth and job creation were put in some very clear categories involving infrastructure, involving institutions, and involving policies. So now, in this panel, we would like to take stock of the discussions we had in those— in that webinar I just mentioned. To move forward in terms of designing strategies to bring about the necessary changes to put in place these industries of the future. And we would like to refine the analysis of the industries which we already identified and look at the obstacles to growth and industry upgrading— industrial upgrading to move forward and design the strategy to bring about the changes we have discussed. And to achieve that goal, we have a very, very rich panel of 4 leading experts. In the area of economic development, competitiveness analysis, and industrial upgrading. I will start from Prof. Bani Oye-Laran Oye-Yinka. I'm sorry, I misspelled your name.


Panelist · Banji Oyelaran Oyeyinka [56:29]:

It's a long name.


Moderator · Amadou Alimbaie Mbaye [56:31]:

Okay, so what is the shortest way to do it, Bani? Okay, I just stick with Banji. So Banji is an industrialization and technology policy expert. He's a former Senior Special Advisor on Industrialization to the President of the African Development Bank, and now he is academics at Open University of the UK. And then we have, as another panelist, Mrs. Laura Paez Heredia. Did I spell correctly your name? Okay, and the shortest way is Paes or Heredia?


ECA · Chief · Laura Paez Heredia [57:06]:

Laura.


Moderator · Amadou Alimbaie Mbaye [57:07]:

All right, another one, Laura. Okay, Laura is the Chief Regional Integration and Economic Diversification Section at the Regional Integration and Trade Division here at UNECA. And then we have Mr. Andrew Aliou. Did I pronounce it correctly? Good. Aliou is a Senegalese name and a Gambian name alike. so I have no particular challenge spelling it. Andrew Aliu is a Regional Economic Advisor at the International Labour Organization. And then we have Mrs. Engi Madara, who is joining us online. And Mrs. Madara is a founder of Ate Nak Funds. So these are the 4 distinguished panelists we have to help us move forward in the design and of an effective strategy to roll out what we have already discussed in the previous webinar. And I start with Mr. Banji Oye Larian, Oye Yinka.


Panelist · Banji Oyelaran Oyeyinka [58:23]:

Yes.


Moderator · Amadou Alimbaie Mbaye [58:23]:

Good progress, right? Okay, Banji, when we talk about industries of the future, we cannot elude the question of regional integration. We cannot go around the question of building very strong cross-regional cross-national boundary organizations. You cannot go around the issue of building a very strong ecosystem at the continental level. So what's your take about that? How can regional integration be a leverage to build a very strong—


Panelist · Banji Oyelaran Oyeyinka [59:05]:

The question is on which sector?


Moderator · Amadou Alimbaie Mbaye [59:14]:

Yeah, yeah, I just reformulated the same, but I just formulated it. To build a very strong ecosystem of enterprises. Okay, sorry, I was directing the question to the wrong person. So I'm turning to Laura about regional integration. How can we use regional integration as leverage to build a very strong continental ecosystem?


ECA · Chief · Laura Paez Heredia [59:57]:

Thank you very much, Professor Ali. So I think The first comment that I would want to make is that we tend to look at regional integration and the AFCFTA, that is the African Continental Free Trade Area, primarily as trade instruments, and this is wrong. We should really shift our focus from trade to production. The AFCFTA regional integration is really about how can we leverage all the endowments, the resources, the capacity, the skills, the technology that this continent has to produce regionally for the continent and then by extension to trade. So we need to start by thinking in that order and not in the reverse order, just seeing the AFCFTA as a trade instrument. And why is this so? Well, it's because regional integration creates the necessary conditions to scale production, and this is what is required for competitive industrial ecosystems. And the AFCFTA in itself can serve— has the potential to serve as a production platform rather than just simply a trade agreement. I think we all know that this continent is characterized by small, fragmented domestic markets, by isolated production systems, by infrastructure gaps, industrial limitations in terms of capacity and constraints when it comes to investment attraction because of this fragmentation. And so therefore, the significance of the AFCFTA is really beyond trade liberalization. It provides a framework for us to be able to produce, organize production at a regional level, enable countries to really scale and pull markets and ultimately also capabilities, infrastructure, and investment. And I want to dwell a little bit about this AFCFTA framework that I'm talking about. I'm sure all of you have been following and have noted incredible progress in terms of the adoption of 7 protocols that speak to the AFCFTA. We have one protocol that speaks to the free movement of goods, right? So that is supposed to help us really harness that 1.4 million— 1.4 billion people's market that this continent comprises. But it doesn't stop there. We also have a services protocol. That is part of the framework. The services protocol is what is going to allow us to liberalize services. Critical services that are the backbone to trading goods, but that are also industries in themselves that can generate jobs, that can generate growth, that can generate value. We also have then what we call Phase 2 protocols, a protocol on investment, a protocol on competition, a protocol on intellectual property. These protocols must be seen side by side with the liberalization of trading goods and services. Why? Because these are the protocols that are going to allow us to see free circulation of capital, protection to the intellectual property that is generated on this continent, and by extension, the capitalization, the profit gaining for African creators, African innovators, to— that sell their knowledge and their produce. We also then as I mentioned, had a— have a protocol on competition that is really going to allow us to enable the playing field for local, regional, but also global participants in this African market. I also mentioned the fact that we have in the— within the 7 protocols, we have a protocol that speaks to youth and women, right? Right.— we have a legal framework that would allow us to support the young entrepreneurs, the women entrepreneurs on the continent to really leverage this African market. And last but not least, we also have a protocol that speaks to e-commerce or trade in the digital realm, so again, us being able to harness everything and anything that is produced through digital markets. So in sum, we really have a framework that that would allow us to leverage, I would say, industrial networks and production systems on the continent because of the scale of the market that we have. But there is a second important premise in this conversation that we also need to take account of, and that is the continent's future competitiveness will depend on its ability to move up value chains and also retain value within the continent. Yes. As we know, many countries remain concentrated in exporting commodities, in exporting raw materials, and really most of our countries, what they do is then import high-end value-manufactured products, right? This is a legacy from colonial times, and we need to break this legacy. We saw what this legacy brought onto the continent with COVID but also with the onset of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. We saw disruption in supply chains. We saw disruption of economies. We saw triple crisis: fuel, fertilizer, finance was disrupted. Really, the question for us is how to move from this disruption, this isolation, to more resilience, more adaptability. So, The challenge that we see that many African economies face is not simply about increasing exports. The answer lies in really increasing the sophistication of these exports, right? How do we bring in more value, more content, and more complexity into the production systems on the continent? Here again, the answer is the AFCFTA. It provides us an opportunity to reverse this trade pattern that we're seeing that is legacy issue by enabling countries to specialize in different segments of production or value chains, and it also allows us to retain value within the continent. I want to highlight 3 industries or sectors that I believe are sectors with the most potential in terms of this. Number 1, we heard it in one of the previous sessions, is green mineral sector. The green mineral sector, we know that approximately 60% of the potential value of minerals in Africa is currently lost because Africa exports minerals in its rawest form. We need to add value in that segment. And if we were to do that, we have estimations that approximately $32 billion could be gained through greater processing of minerals on the continent. And this is on top of the $80 billion that we know leave the continent through illicit financial flows. So if the continent there, again, is able to curb these IFFs, and especially the practices underlying IFFs, so things like trade mispricing, misinvoicing, then really this is a sector where we are poised to have incredible transformation. And an important effort in this direction through regional integration that we're seeing is, of course, the Zambia-DRC initiative for battery electric vehicles precursors. Another sector with great promise is the pharmaceutical sector. We see that Africa currently imports 70% of its medication and 90% or 95% of what we call the APIs, the active pharmaceutical ingredients, And yet the continent only produces 3% of the global pharmaceutical production. So that's a very small contribution. But most of the, of the global disease burden is concentrated in this continent, as much as 25%. But when we look at the market, Africa is set to have the pharmaceutical market reach approximately 70% $30 billion by 2030. So clearly there's an opportunity there that we have to tap into. And how? Well, we need to strengthen pharmaceutical value chains across all the, the chain segments. So research and development, production, regulation, pooled procurement. And so we need to really see this sector not only as a necessity for health sovereignty, but as an opportunity opportunity for productive transformation. The third sector I'd like to talk about is really services in general, but financial services in particular. Across Africa, the services sector contributes to 50% of Africa's GDP and as much as 40% of employment. So really a sector where the continent is well poised to seek economic diversification and it is a sector where we've seen the systematic contribution over the last decade, so clearly very important for Africa's economy. What's also very important here is that this sector, and particularly financial sector, has been one of the sectors that has been most dynamic in terms of growth. Across Africa, more than 30% growth in exports, right? And last but not least, you know, when you look at the AFCFTA, our member states, have prioritized financial sector together with communications, tourism, transport, and business sectors. So clearly, these are sectors of the future. These are sectors where we can upscale and generate employment. And it's particularly important because if you do want to trade, you need financial services, right? You need insurance, reinsurance. You need letters of credit. Otherwise, you will not have trade in goods. So services also, not as a sector in itself, but as an enabler for trade in goods, is very, very important. Let me also— one more minute. Okay, let me then try and close here with one last element, and this is very important. We heard the testimony of Mr. Yared Teshome earlier in a session about special economic zones and Ethiopia's interesting journey in terms in terms of moving from industrial parks and special economic zones. This is truly a conduit. Under the AFCFTA framework, we have the ability to have cross-border special economic zones benefiting from the rules of origin of this free trade agreement. And it is in these special economic zones where small and medium-sized enterprises are poised to gain the most and to connect, link, leverage, and learn bigger firms and have access to regional and global value chains. And because we're wary of time, I think I'm going to stop here, but I'm happy to take questions. Thank you.


Moderator · Amadou Alimbaie Mbaye [1:10:58]:

Thank you very much. Thank you very much for being both very insightful and concise. So let me now turn to Bani with the right question. Okay, which is about developing value chains and ecosystems to bring about structural transformation in Africa. How do you think these value chains are contributing to generate good jobs and to bring about structural transformation? How would you see these value chains? How— in what industries How do you see them?


Panelist · Banji Oyelaran Oyeyinka [1:11:42]:

Thank you very much, Moderator, and thanks to ECA for inviting me. I was here many years ago to start my 20-year career in the UN at ECA where I started, so it's nice to be back here. Before I give a direct answer to your question, let me make a few remarks about the job situation on the structural transformation issue in Africa, which is also consistent with your findings at the webinar. I went to read that carefully also, and I think we should link whatever is there to whatever we are doing today. The first point I'd like to make is that Africa is undergoing the largest and the fastest demographic shift in the world today, and actually in recent history. Between 2025 and 2050, The region's working age population is projected to expand more rapidly than in other developing regions. We'll be adding over 620 million people to the labor force. This is close to 80% of all the net increase in both developing and emerging economies. Number 2, regarding structural transformation, a large proportion of the region, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, We are stuck in what I call structural growth trap. There has been very slow and, in some cases, lack of progress in the shift of sectors, specifically from agriculture to manufacturing, because it has been the desire of all nations. Every nation that made progress always moved from subsistence agriculture to manufacturing and thereafter to services. So what has happened and what this has created is that 70 to 80% of households are in quasi-subsistence farming and both rural and urban poverty has become endemic. I'm placing this in context of where do we get the sources of jobs from and I think it's important that we are very clear before we make those kinds of recommendations. Yes. So we need faster structural transformation. This means that the current structures of most of our countries will never solve the job crisis. I make three sort of equation-like statements. One, to solve the job crisis, Africa must achieve faster structural transformation. And to achieve structural transformation, Africa must achieve faster industrialization. We have to break the hold of stalled industrialization and deindustrialization. And by the way, many countries in Africa actually in that situation. The industrialization has stalled or actually they are deindustrializing, in other words, going back prematurely before reaching the $10,000 threshold of income per capita and going to services. And this is really what you find in most of our countries. And the third equation for me is to create large employment, we must prioritize manufacturing, which is the engine of growth. This is an indisputed statement. And for more than 50 years, this so-called Kardashev Law has been proved across all regions, all sectors, all times, that the faster the growth of manufacturing, the faster the growth of GDP. Yes. The faster the growth of manufacturing, the faster the growth of also non-manufacturing because it pulls productivity up. And a few speakers have mentioned the issue of productivity today. So I'm going to point to 2 or 3 things, underlying causes of why we are having this jobless growth. There are growths in many countries, but jobs are not coming up. The first thing I want us to take note of, and this will be in respect of making our recommendation, is that Africa harbors a very large proportion of poor people in rural areas. I hardly have heard many people mention this. It's very easy for us to forget when we sit in this cozy, nice place how the other people live. I sort of been working a lot with the rural people over the time I was at the AFDB for 7 years, building the special agrozone, talking to them, and it will strike you where we all come from. The structural composition of those areas is mostly subsistence farmers with poor skills, living very miserable lives, and many of our countries have failed to modernize agriculture, and that had been a problem. In addition, and I heard Laura mentioning minerals, a lot of those space also, the rural space in Africa, the people of Africa, the workers of Africa, miners are largely artisanal. Their life is not different from those subsistence farmers. Very miserable, working for peanuts. And this has fostered what I call resource dependency on many of our countries. So it has basically stopped diversification away from agricultural raw material export and also raw mineral export. These two things affect the tradeable sectors, both agriculture and manufacturing. Yes. So what do you find as actors in those spaces are people with low skills, poor knowledge, weak technologies, low productivities, and all of them translates to low income and poverty. And then you move to the urban sector. I used to be director, UN Habitat, working on this issue, so somehow I'm able to pull these two together. Thank you. And there's always been the urban bias. All of us are urban-biased people. We live in cities, and we tend to think that's where life stops and end— starts and ends. You find that rural people, they migrate to cities in hope, not because there are factories, because many times there are no factories. The old migration pattern, the old rural-urban migration was a sort of a pull factor. People are pulled to the cities because there are factories and there are no workers. What has happened in Africa is that it's a push factor. People move from rural areas because there are no facilities, there are no opportunities, no schools, no hospitals, there are bandits, there are all kinds of people, so they shift to the cities. And they get to the cities And they are stuck in slums and in sprawl. And then you find informality spread all over the place. Informality should not be romanticized. In fact, in measuring structural transformation, one of the things we measure is employment shift, status shift. It's a condition that should happen, but not a destiny that should persist forever.


Speaker 40 [1:19:08]:

Thank you.


Panelist · Banji Oyelaran Oyeyinka [1:19:09]:

While I was director at the UN Habitat, my colleagues said, "Oh, let's do slum upgrading." And one of my old bosses used to have a very funny way of putting it. He said, "There are no 5-star slums. You get rid of it." And many people have gotten rid of it. And we're always stuck in this, want to upgrade this. Informality should be a condition that has a time limit. You don't find them in Boston, you don't find them in Berlin. Why should we romanticize it and say Africans should live in informality and slums? I think this is a decision we have to make in going forward in terms of what should be the new ideas for us to move forward in terms of job creation. It drags down growth. There's no question. In fact, I was surprised. Many years ago, the IMF did a study that shows that inequality created by informality actually drags down growth. It came from a very unexpected source at the IMF. So it is not something for us to live by and be happy. The third point I would like to make is a slow growth scenario. Again, you find that on average, if you find a fairly— with the LDCs, the average growth is 1.5% over the last 3 decades, you will never achieve any kind of convergence. In fact, it will take 70 years for us to achieve any doubling of the GDP. Of course, there are some countries, you know, Ethiopia, Rwanda, growing at faster rates, but this cancels out when you go to the Sahel, go to other places, so it doesn't add up. So we have to be mindful of This. this. We have to show that for us to have a far better growth rate, we must have a new way of doing things, a new way of running the economy.


Speaker 42 [1:21:11]:

Thank you.


Panelist · Banji Oyelaran Oyeyinka [1:21:13]:

The fourth point and last one is that structural transformation, the kind that we observe in Africa, is due in large part to stalled industrialization. And I'm saying this advisedly. I was very much involved with my country's industrial policies in the early days. There were a lot of fantastic plans that we had. It's not that Africans didn't have industrial policy. We had industrial policies, but it got stalled. We built big, big things, you know, steel refineries. Thank God for Dangote Refinery that's back now. But it's not that Africans didn't have industrial policy. And at the African Development Bank we had a big pillar called Industrialize Africa, and I'm very glad that we stuck to our guns and persisted to promote industrialization. So the major point with this is that productivity is extremely very low because you don't have sector-wide efficiency, and the kind of companies we have are small firms. In fact, they are too small to effect any change. So that's the last point I'd like to make. The studies that we see— I'm sure ILO also, they have all these studies— 70% of employment are concentrated in own accounts, family business. They won't make any change. One company in Korea, Samsung, contributes 24% of GDP of Korea.— it's not small. So we have to rethink the scale of doing business. So I think I'll stop here, maybe when the time to discuss comes, but basically, directly, all of those sectors that we need are all in plain sight: agribusiness, digital services, manufacturing, tourism, and renewable energy. The point is how do we do them intentionally? It's not to say do this. How do we manage them? Thank you.


Moderator · Amadou Alimbaie Mbaye [1:23:24]:

Thank you very much, Banji. We now turn to Mr. Aliyu about the issue of jobs informality. Africa's growth has been widely jobless. In the last few decades, Africa has grown much faster than most regions in the world, but poverty is still very high and informality is still very high, much higher than in comparative region. So how can we, in the design of the industry of the future, address this informality and job quality issue? And this question is to you, Mr. Aliyu.


ILO · Regional Economist · Andrew Aliu [1:24:16]:

Thank you very much, moderator, and I join the Thank you, fellow panel members, and thanking the ECA for the invitation as well. Yes, traditional industrial strategies seek to transform economies towards higher value and— manufacturing and technology-driven services. The debate around industrial policy is not new. It has run for a couple of decades with the ECA, and in fact, the Economic Report on Africa in 2014, '15, and '16— 2015. Focused on industrial strategies, and in fact the one in 2016 was more on green industrialization. I'll not dwell on the mechanics and economics of it. Prof has touched on that and how they are related to jobs, but permit me, because we are talking about— Yes. How these industrial strategies can transform into decent work, jobs, and so. But since we are talking about decent work, allow me also as a reminder, the decent work agenda is also— so when you talk about industrial strategies in the context of decent work, it's important that we remind ourselves of what decent work entails. Basically, there are 4 concrete pillars. One is promoting jobs, and from a decent work perspective and industrial policy and jobs, and Prof. and other speakers touched on that, there's a move towards sectors with sustained growth and employment-generating capabilities. There's also the dimension of guaranteeing rights at work. I mean, traditional industrial policies don't speak too much to this, but if we are talking about the decent work agenda and jobs, Then it's important that as economies transform, it's important that rights at work are respected during these— during economic and structural shifts. There's also the issue of protection. When in economic and structural transformation, there are normally winners and losers, so protection, including social protection, is really very important. And finally, and something that we don't talk about much, is in standard industrial policy as we know it, is the issue of social dialogue. The ILO insists that you cannot be talking about jobs, industrial strategies without workers in the room. You cannot leave that discussion to government and businesses alone. So, I mean, this reminder as we talk about jobs from a decent work perspective, are important. I'm reluctant to suggest that the current industrial strategies and employment strategies we have are decent work blind. In 2004, for example, the UN— The UN— you need to regional— a review highlighted that a good number of industrial policies in Africa do have decent work dimensions. That is important. But it also did recognize a few countries like Mauritius, Rwanda, Ethiopia, South Africa, that have gone further to look at issues of job quality and the like, and also issues around skills development, youth, women's inclusion and formalization as part of their jobs strategy. And it underscores the important point of what— why we are here, that the strategies are quite comprehensive on paper, but implementation has focused more on job numbers rather than— so the gap between ideas and implementation is playing out here as well. Of course, we cannot talk about jobs, the quality of jobs, the number of jobs without referencing or situating the conversation in the transformations that most speakers have has spoken about, the demographic and the twin transitions of technology and greening. From an industrial policy point or strategy point, the demographic discussions tend to focus quite a lot on numbers.— and Prof had mentioned numbers, so I will skip that. The demographic transition focuses quite a lot on numbers, but it's also important to underscore that the prospect of these young people is also critically linked to where people live and work. And Prof— Yes. So that means from a job creation and industrial strategy point, Issues around the future of agriculture, infrastructure, rural development, climate resilience, regional integration, mobility, and the growing emergence of platform work are all critical to the job creation dimension. And I also— Of course, The current pace of technological change, the pace, the expanse, the reach, is quite different from technological changes that we have seen in the past, whether it's in terms of mechanization and— But from my viewpoint, we also do argue that the outcomes and the concerns may not be very different. So, and history provides quite important lessons. So the Industrial Revolution, for example, this fact did transform production, did— Transform. At transform living standards, but the start of it, the productivity gains were not even. It led to work intensification, longer hours of work, and quite interestingly, wage stagnation. Mm-hmm. So, for example, yesterday somebody intervened and said that she'll be reluctant to pay her accountant more for job that Claude AI is doing. So this history tells us that this concern is not new. Even at the time of the industrial revolution, there was which— Yes. Stagnation. And I also want to underscore a very important point, that with all the technological progress, going back to the industrialization, the Industrial Revolution, and more recently the information technology advances, actual social progress only occurred over time and only when labor institutions, trade union interventions, issues of social security and collective bargaining became central to the discussion. And for that I want to make the important point that the transformations and the impact on jobs It's also a test of institutions, and the outcome is not determined, predetermined, and it's important that we approach this from a human-centered point of view. So that is one important point. But for— Yeah, so let me make a point about inform— informality. Current industrial strategies tend to focus more on high-tech and formal institutions. But industrial— formalization from this network perspective should not only talk about— focus on the formalization itself, but first of all you have to address decent work opportunities for where people are working whilst you work on the pathways towards formalization. I stop here for now. But of course there's also the issues around youth. Most industrial policies tend to talk about numbers and— but they have not prioritized how the pathways towards these jobs are created, whether it's through skills, apprenticeships, entrepreneurs, ecosystems, and the like. Then I will stop here for now. Thank you very much.


Moderator · Amadou Alimbaie Mbaye [1:35:42]:

Thank you very much, Mr. Aliou, for these very insightful remarks. I'm now turning to Nji Madara. About the issue of financing. You know, financing is key for any industrialization policy. If you want to build infrastructure, you need financing. If you want to set up good companies to generate jobs, you also need financing. Sir, how do you see African countries bootstrapping their internal resources to generate this financing, or also, or alternatively, engage in international partnership in order to generate this financing? What's your take about these issues?


Founder · Angie Madara [1:36:33]:

Thank you so much for the question. I hope you can all hear me. I don't know, I'm not sure if you can see me, but I hope at least you can hear me. I will start with an anecdotal story, um, because I have been fortunate enough to do lots of things. Um, I've worked in, in multinational corporations, I've worked in the humanitarian side, but I've also been an entrepreneur. So for today, maybe not even an anecdotal story, a confession. So I built Athina Fund, which is a platform to fix the, the investment gap specifically for women. And that is what I'm here to talk about today. But I built it because I lived it. Like I said, I, I've spent over 17 years in financial services. I've helped scale and develop M-Pesa. I've designed financial products for the unbanked, and I've sat in rooms with some of the world's biggest DFIs, but I could not get a meeting when I was starting my own enterprise. And it, it was not because the business was not good enough, but it was because nobody could see it. That is the missing piece. Africa does not lack ambition. We do not lack talent. We do not even lack capital because there is money. We lack infrastructure. And I was happy to hear that Laura touched a little bit on infrastructure. So when you ask me what types of partnerships and actors are still missing to unlock the bankable industrialization in Africa, my answer is embarrassingly simple.


Speaker 48 [1:38:28]:

Okay.


Founder · Angie Madara [1:38:28]:

We need someone to turn the lights on. Right now, private capital looking at African industrialization opportunities is essentially driving at night with no headlights. The DFIs have the mandate, the institutional investors have the capital, the entrepreneurs, particularly women-led businesses that make up the backbone of every labor-intensive sector we have discussed today, they have the traction, but nobody has built the road between them. If you think about road networks, the AFCFTA creates the legal corridor, which is fantastic. If you think of it, it's like a, it's like a tunnel when you think of the road networks. But what else is needed? In this tunnel. We need to have proper lighting, we need signage, we need this tunnel or this route to be visible on our GPS, and that's moving us towards building a proper road network. Here is what the data tells us, right? Women-led enterprises represent the majority of Africa's informal economy. We've talked about informal economy. Dr. Professor Banji mentioned it, Dr. Andrew mentioned it as well. Agro-processing, trade, ICT-enabled services— women make a majority of, of the labor force in this sector. But these women are not a niche. They are a social— they're not a social program. They are the largest untapped asset class on the continent, but they are invisible to capital. It's not because investors do not want to fund them, it's because investors cannot assess with confidence. The information asymmetry is structural. You cannot fund what you can't see. We've heard that so many times, you cannot fund what you can't see. And the data right now And right now, the data layer that would make these businesses visible, benchmarked, and even packaged in a format institutional investors already understand simply does not exist at scale. This is not a pipeline problem, it's an infrastructure problem. So what, what is missing? Um, I've been thinking about it for a while, and I've identified 3 things. that could move the needle forward. And number one is AI. AI is here to stay. We need to embrace AI. We could use AI to enable origination, to enable that infrastructure for origination, a tool that finds, assesses, and surfaces investment-ready businesses the way Bloomberg Terminal surfaces listed assets. That does not currently exist for African SMEs. We can build it. Number 2, a gender lens back— backed into industrial— industrial finance— financing from the start. Gender lens financing should not be a checkbox or a box tick kind of exercise. It should not be a side program. It should be a core feature of how capital is deployed, because any industrial strategy that ignores the majority of its workforce is not a strategy. It's a plan for half the economy. But by investing in women, we could add over $300 billion back to the African economy. And I'm glad Professor Banji and Dr. Andrew mentioned it. We could create more jobs. Thank you. By investing in women, we could unlock more than 20 million jobs in the continent. And number 3, the real bridge between development finance and private capital. DFIs have the mandate but not always origination capacity. Private sector have got the capital but not risk tolerance without better data. Thank you. The missing actor is the infrastructure layer in between, the thing that makes the handshake possible. And just to end on an anecdotal experience, when we were building M-PESA, we did not increase financial inclusion by convincing banks to care more about the poor people. We built infrastructure that made serving, serving the poor commercially rational. That is what we need. We need to build that infrastructure. Not more goodwill, not more roundtables, though, although roundtables such as these make sense because we are talking about implementation, but infrastructure that make investing in African industrialization the obvious low-risk, high-return decision that it actually is. There is a lot of potential, a lot of growth in Africa. We just need the data to highlight this and make it a very low, low-risk investment for capital holders. That is what we are building at Athena Fund, and I would love to work with ECA, ADF, and the Implementation Network Framework to pilot exactly how this looks like. Thank you. Across the FCT corridor over the next few months. Thank you.


Moderator · Amadou Alimbaie Mbaye [1:44:25]:

Thank you very much. We now have around 12 minutes left, and I would like to use this remaining time slot to allow for some questions from the audience. Please, when asking your questions, try to make clear who the question is destined to, and be also very, very, very concise since time is running very fast. So we'll open a list of people who would like to ask questions, and We'll come back afterwards to the panelists to have them address these questions.


Speaker 51 [1:45:14]:

Your name, please? Okay, I'm going to speak in French.


Moderator · Amadou Alimbaie Mbaye [1:45:23]:

What's your name?


Dago Fidelia Beugré [1:45:24]:

Dago Fidelia Beugré.


Speaker 54 [1:45:27]:

Okay, I'm going to speak in French. Dago Fidelia Beugré.


Moderator · Amadou Alimbaie Mbaye [1:45:33]:

Mubarak. Okay, what's your name, please?


Abdubasit Abdasis [1:45:42]:

Abdiasis.


Moderator · Amadou Alimbaie Mbaye [1:45:47]:

Okay. All right, we have two ladies.


Iya [1:45:53]:

Iyaye. Iyaye.


Ila [1:45:56]:

Ilake.


Iya [1:45:57]:

Iya E, or you can say Iya, no problem.


Moderator · Amadou Alimbaie Mbaye [1:46:00]:

Iya, okay, thank you.


Zodwa [1:46:07]:

Zodwa.


Moderator · Amadou Alimbaie Mbaye [1:46:10]:

Okay. Yeah, what's your name please?


Irene Kadi [1:46:20]:

Irene Kadi. Irene Kadhi.


Moderator · Amadou Alimbaie Mbaye [1:46:27]:

Okay, we have a list of 6 people who would like to ask questions to our panelists and we start with Dago. Mr. Dago, you have the floor.


Dago Fidelia Beugré [1:46:37]:

Merci beaucoup. Thank you very much. Let me first of all thank the Deputy Executive Secretary of the ECA. My name is Dago Fidelia Bergery. I'm from the African Solidarity Africa Fund. It's a Pan-African institute that covers 23 member states. Our main purpose is to provide financial guarantees. When I was listening to Madame about funding, I just want to make a contribution on that score. In our center, in our fund, we've given more than $1.92 billion worth of guarantees, mobilizing $3.33 million in actual funding that has been for the most part allocated to the industrial sector. This makes it possible to ensure that there are more than 100,000 direct and indirect jobs created through this funding. I just want to make a contribution to state that we were invited by the ECA because we have tools that enable us to leverage external and domestic funding. To support economic growth in our member states. So our purpose is to support the ECA, see how we can give tangible support to the private sector, which is out there, and how we can all be integrated in this platform that the ECA is creating so that together we can mobilize and share risk. We can pool risk with funding partners and others who can leverage funding for investment and productive projects in Africa that can create jobs. That's my contribution.


Moderator · Amadou Alimbaie Mbaye [1:48:19]:

Thank you.

Thank you, Bokou. We now move to Moubarak.


Senegal · Economist · Moubarak [1:48:25]:

Moubarak, you have the floor. Thank you very much. My name is Moubarak. Moubarak, I'm a Senegalese economist. I would like to stress that we find often in African development that we're working in the informal sector. We're talking about informal sectors and talking about industrialization there. Fine. I'm from a rural area and my— in my economy, it's an agriculture-based economy. But— and there's a lot of potential for growth, for development if we modernize agriculture. So I agree that there's this global trend when we look at the Asian experience forward, we tend to talk about manufacturing, but there is also agriculture. You can create a lot of wealth from agriculture and a lot of services, which is why I think we need to open the spectrum much better there. Thank you.


Moderator · Amadou Alimbaie Mbaye [1:49:25]:

Thank you, Bukumu Barak. Taksis is the next speaker.


Managing Director · Abdubasit Abdasis [1:49:31]:

Yes. My name is Abdubasit Abdasis. I'm managing director of Home Finance Initiative. Since yesterday, I was looking someone talk about especially development finance, and I want to thank Ms. Madara from online, raising the topic of bankable projects. So, of course, I agree with you. Africa does not lack capital, pension fund, insurers, and other private investors hold significant capital, but the problem is mobilization. So how are we going to mobilize this? Because through bankable projects and creating pipelines— yesterday we saw entrepreneurs representing their ideas But the problem is we have to train them how to create viable or bankable projects, and that will come with commitment of government, government is DFIs, MDBs, or creating 1 to 10 ratio of mobilization. Thank you. So then private capital, which is really huge, can be mobilized. Thank you so much.


Moderator · Amadou Alimbaie Mbaye [1:51:06]:

Ila, you have the floor.


Educational mentor · Ila [1:51:07]:

Yeah, thank you so much. My name is Ila and I'm from YEP Initiative. I'm an educational mentor and I work with the youth. I have only one question and I think it's the most pressing issue we're facing, which is who is deciding for the youth. As a continent and as a nation, we know we have good policies, paper-perfect strategies, but we have issues with the system. And when I say system, I am directly implying to the people in power and leadership, because those are the ones who get to design, evaluate, and decide on projects regarding the youth. So I wonder how much proximity they have to the youth regarding understanding their needs, their potential, or even the flaws they have. So these days it's very common to hear institutional resistance, bureaucracy, corruption here and there, be it governmental or private organizations. So if implementation is ultimately taken out by people, then I guess the gap is not only focused on policy, it might be a gap on leadership and representation. So—— the bottleneck is not only— the bottlenecks might be, you know, people with titles, offices, and self-serving interests. So how— but genuinely, I believe there are right people who are committed enough to change the generation and the realities of the youth. So how do we push these right people to these roles? How do we even appoint them so that they can create an enabling environment. Thank you so much.


Moderator · Amadou Alimbaie Mbaye [1:52:41]:

Thank you very much. Next is Zodwa.


Zodwa [1:52:46]:

Thank you, Chair. Mine is just on two points, and I would like to agree with Professor Banji that we cannot romanticize informality, and that brings me to the issue of— on circular economy. If you want to include industries of the future, I think the circular economy in the context of Africa has to be included, bearing in mind the amount of waste that you generate and what it does to the environment. Unfortunately, we don't have frameworks, especially when it comes to trading in secondary materials and supporting the sector. And then the second one is on artisanal miners. With the rise of, or the importance of critical minerals, I think it's very important that we sort of formalize mining and we protect the participants, because when you see some of the conditions the artisanal miners work under, it's very endangering and we can learn from the other countries where they've sort of formalized mining and harnessed the sector to benefit everyone.


Speaker 75 [1:54:08]:

Thank you.


Moderator · Amadou Alimbaie Mbaye [1:54:09]:

Thank you very much. And last is Irene. Irene, the floor is yours.


Irene Kadi [1:54:21]:

Professor, good day. Thank you for giving me the floor. I would also like to thank the panelists for very enriching contributions. And I would like to come back to what Madam Eridia was saying. She said when you talk about regional integration, free trade, intercontinental free trade zones, we need to focus on production and then trade. And then Mr. Bongi who said we should think about the scale of economic activities. We know that in African countries when we talk about agriculture, it's a very key sector and can be perceived as a very good reservoir for job creation for youth. Today, this morning, we're talking about industries of the future. We need to transform agriculture into a technological sector so that it is competitive and attractive for youth. So I have a question. In concrete terms, how do we structure agro-industrial value chains in such a way as to make them more automated and more competitive whilst increasing the volume of labor that can absorb African youth. Thank you.


Moderator · Amadou Alimbaie Mbaye [1:55:48]:

Merci beaucoup. Okay, I was informed that we have completely exhausted the time that was allocated to our session. But I request the organizers to just give us 5 minutes, one for each panelist, to address the issues that were directed to them and also respond to a very, very, very, very precise question. If you were to recommend one priority action for government, development partners, or the private sector, what would that be? So 30 seconds for each part of your time. I start with Laura.


ECA · Chief · Laura Paez Heredia [1:56:30]:

Thank you. Thank you very much, Prof. I think the second question for me is easier than the first question we heard from our participants. So for the second question, the one priority action I would want to request our member states, especially our governments, to really take seriously is implementation of the AFCFTA. We have a framework, we have discussed it in this panel. Everything is there in terms of— of us leveraging a continental market of 1.4 million people. But in order to do that, member states have to be serious about adopting the necessary regulatory changes, the necessary policies in their internal markets so that we can have the free movement of trade in goods, in services, free movement of capital, free movement of people— in sum, to give this market give it life. Now, for the second question, and I think I'm almost done here, I thank you very much, the participant asking about the agricultural endowments for Africa and what we need to do to transform the sector. So we need to really have economic transformation not only accompany the demographic transformations that we have discussed in this it needs to anticipate those transformations. We need to generate jobs that add value but that also create meaningful income for that youth bulge that we hear enters the market every year to the tune of 15 million. And in order to do that, we need to be able to adapt and augment all the technologies that are out there, innovation, and of course intellectual property. Yes. So that would be, in a sense, what I would think is needed. Thank you very much.


Moderator · Amadou Alimbaie Mbaye [1:58:19]:

Should we move now to Aliou? Yes.


ILO · Regional Economist · Andrew Aliu [1:58:22]:

Thank you very much, and I will take a cue from that and reiterate the point that the importance of placing decent work and social justice at the center of this transformation. That we've all spoken about in the last two days, but also again underscore the point that these transformations are a test to institutions. And when I say institutions, I mean education systems, labor market, social protection systems, enterprises, and representation and social dialogue. Thank you. Very importantly. And also, I want to close on the fact that the transformations will not wait for institutions. So the institutions of work, production, and protection should actually try to keep pace. Thank you very much.


Moderator · Amadou Alimbaie Mbaye [1:59:24]:

Thanks, Aliu. And now I'm moving to— Banji?


Panelist · Banji Oyelaran Oyeyinka [1:59:33]:

Thank you very much, moderator. Two quick suggestions for ECA. I think the ECA should work very closely with the African Development Bank on a program that we started called the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones. I was one of those leading that program. We raised over $3 billion. We are in 15 countries, basically creating industrial zones to process agriculture. Agriculture, and that goes to the point that Irene was asking. This is one way for us to actually make them at scale, aggregate farmers and also ensure that they connect with big farmers. What we've done, we've done several countries now. I can't go into details, but I'm happy to supply details and work with the ECA colleagues.

Second point, I come from—

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] —formalizing the artisanal sectors. Especially mining is so degrading, is so demeaning when you see the way people work, and this for me also applies to subsistence farmers in Africa. It drags down the economy. They work hard, they labor all day long, but adds very little to growth. And my last point will be that all the sectors that we recommend, they all work together. Each one should be coordinating and we should find a way to actually get them all working in tandem—agribusiness, manufacturing, renewable energy, and also digital services. They all support each other. Without manufacturing, you cannot do digital services.


Speaker 84 [2:01:08]:

Mm-hmm.


Panelist · Banji Oyelaran Oyeyinka [2:01:08]:

Without energy and power, you cannot do big agribusiness. So all of them are together.. And in our framework suggestion, we should actually find a way to provide that kind of suggestion. Thank you.


Moderator · Amadou Alimbaie Mbaye [2:01:21]:

Thank you very much. Last but not least, Ngi, you have the floor.


Founder · Angie Madara [2:01:26]:

Thank you very much. I'd like to reiterate what I said before. The capital already exists. The problem is not supply. But because of informality, because we work mostly in informal sector, sectors, the problem that we have is visibility and trust. There is over $3 trillion sitting in global institution portfolios explicitly allocated for emerging markets and impact investments. African Development Bank— Professor Banja said that he mobilized $3 billion. There are hundreds of billions in that mandate. The problem is not capital is absent. It's that the infrastructure to connect the capital to bankable projects that scale has never been built properly. And to address the question that was asked before by one of the, one of the attendees, we need even to redefine what we term bankable projects properly. Right now, bankable, quote unquote, is defined by institutions built for different contexts, for Western credit frameworks that have collateral requirements, that have— Yeah. Reporting standards, they were not designed for African SMEs or informal sector businesses. We need first to get that African context right. We need our own benchmarks. AI can build those. We do not have to wait for a decade for data collection. And just to end it on a small note, M-PESA did not create financial inclusion by making banks more generous. It built rails that made serving previously invisible customers commercially rational. We need the same for African industrialization. AI-enabled— AI-enabled tools that find, assess, and surface investment-ready projects in a format that institutional capital already understands. Thank you.


Moderator · Amadou Alimbaie Mbaye [2:03:28]:

Thank you very much. We are now at the end of our session. Before closing it, let me reiterate our thanks to the Secretariat for a perfectly organized session, to our panelists for very insightful observations, and for the audience for very productive engagement with the panel. So let me stop here, and I would like to mention that the discussion doesn't stop here. We'll continue the dialogue, we'll continue the engagement with all the stakeholders until ADEIF delivers on all its promises. Thank you very much, and I'm giving back the floor to—


MC [2:04:10]:

Thank you very much, Professor Mbaye, and our esteemed panelists. Can you please rise for a photo, looking at Danny over there with the big camera. Thank you. Please rise. Please join me in giving them again another well-deserved round of applause. Thank you. And Angie, thank you online. This now concludes our thematic sessions. Distinguished guests, please kindly note that the forum evaluation is available via the QR code displayed. We would greatly appreciate your feedback as it will help us improve future editions of the forum. Now, distinguished guests, how many of us were here yesterday for the hackathon? By a show of hands, how many people were here? Okay, all right, we see almost half or three-quarters of the room. In this next segment, we will be announcing the winners. This will be followed by the second impact talk to be delivered by Alfadi. After lunch, we will have our simulation session, which will let us know about the process so far. And now for the moment we have all been waiting for. We would like to extend our sincere congratulations to all the hackathon participants. You have done exceptionally well, and we wish you continued success. Success in your respective endeavors. Our judges did have the challenging task of selecting the top 5, and in no particular order, I will be inviting the runner-ups to come forward. To give the certificates, we would like to invite the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, Mr. Claver Getete, to come up on the platform to present the certificates.


Speaker 90 [2:06:01]:

Thank you.


MC [2:06:04]:

He will be joined by none other but the Deputy Executive Secretary, Program Support, Mama Keita.


ECA · Director · Karima Bounamra Ben Sultan [2:06:12]:

I am here as well.


MC [2:06:20]:

Director Karima has mentioned, "I am here as well." So please give Director Karima a round of applause. All right. Okay. So audience, I need your help. We need to show great warmth to all our hackathon winners and all those that are not even going to be called today. So first and foremost, in advance and anticipation, for all the 9, or is it 10 people we had, can you please give them a resounding round of applause? They have shown strength, resilience, tenacity, and they have come through so far. Now, as I call your names, please come forward to receive your certificates, and again, I would ask you to give another very warm round of applause as I call each name. In no particular order, these are the runner-ups. Are you ready? Yes. There. We're trying to make it look very nice and prestigious. No problem.


Speaker 94 [2:07:31]:

Okay. Are you ready?

Do you have an order?


MC [2:08:05]:

Now, with an intervention for Kenya Solar Workforce and Climate Resilience, please give a round of applause to Eva Nyambura Muthoni. I wish we had some music that did all this, you know. [SINGING] Congratulations, Eva.


Hackathon participant · Eva Nyambura Muthoni [2:08:52]:

Thank you.


MC [2:09:15]:

All right.


Speaker 98 [2:09:20]:

Next.


MC [2:09:23]:

With the intervention Credify from Ghana, we have Solomon Boakye. Please give him a round of applause.


Speaker 100 [2:09:36]:

Congratulations, Solomon.


MC [2:10:15]:

Next, with Aiti Kola from Cameroon, please give a round of applause to Christian Njilu in Tieche.


Speaker 102 [2:10:25]:

Congratulations, Christian.


MC [2:11:02]:

Congratulations, Christian. Next, from South Africa, with Agribusiness Trade Corridor Pilot, ATCP, please give a round of applause to Nandi Mkwanazi. Congratulations, Nandi. Please coming up. And now, while the runner-ups were called in no particular order, we do have a winner. The winner of the 2026 Adif Hackathon With a proposal on green and inclusive employment from Burkina Faso, please give a round of applause to Luc Neboma. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Can we have all 5? Can we have all 5 come on up to take a picture together for a group photo? Can we have all the remaining 4 please come on up? Eva, Solomon, Christian, and Nandi, please come on up and take a group photo. Thank you. Can we have some music, please? Thank you. Please give them a round of applause. Thank you so very much. Yes, DS, Director Karima.


Speaker 104 [2:14:40]:

Thank you very much.

All right. We need the cheers.


MC [2:14:55]:

We will now have— congratulations once again to all of our winners. We're all winners, and I hope you're all inspired to work on your ideas and move it forward with resilience. Okay. Next, we will now have our second impact talk to be delivered by Alfadi. Fashion designer and goodwill ambassador, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. This session will be moderated by Director Karima Bounamra Ben Sultan, who directs the African Institute for Economic Development and Planning at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. This session will run for 45 minutes. Director Karima, you have the floor. But if you want to use less time, we are also open to that. Thank you.


ECA · Director · Karima Bounamra Ben Sultan [2:15:57]:

Thank you, MC, and with your permission, I will speak French.


ECA · Moderator · Karima Bounamra Ben Sultan [2:16:08]:

So welcome to this session, all of you, devoted to the presentation by His Excellency Mr. Al Fadi. It's an honor and pleasure to receive Mr. Al Fadi for this discussion within the framework of the Development Impact Framework, within the framework of creative industries. I thank him warmly for accepting without hesitation to come and participate in this forum and discuss with us and contribute effectively to job creation in the African continent. So how should I introduce him, Mr. Al-Fadhli, given his— Mr. President, long work. Alpha Di is known beyond our frontiers. However, today we are not only receiving the designer, the fashion designer, it's not— he's not just a doctor in tourism and in hotel management, and we don't receive him just as an artist for peace, an ambassador, a Goodwill Ambassador for African Innovation of UNESCO. And he's not just a defender of the international and African design, but a son and a defender of human rights in Africa in his agriculture and multiplicity of work. He's someone who— Thank you. Believes in sharing, in training, with all the generosity and humility that characterize him. We receive someone who believes in transmission for our youth so that they don't forget where we are coming from and continue to portray the courage of Africa here and beyond our borders. We are receiving someone who creates jobs himself and supports and defends the actors of value chains which are in the textile industry, in jewelry, within the prospective inclusion, equity, and sustainability. We will start this session with a video on the contribution of Alpha Alphabdi in the creation of jobs in his country of origin. Then he will take the floor and tell us in a few words who he is and how the design industry draws increasingly more attention in the world and how he— this is a lever for creating employment in Africa and creating industries for the future. Then we will open the floor afterwards and we will take this opportunity, which is exceptional in nature. If the technical department is ready, the department— the video is going to start.


Speaker 108 [2:19:28]:

Thank you.


Narrator [2:19:43]:

Al Fadi, plus qu'un styliste, une vision, un héritage. Entre création élégante et bâtisseurs de demain, il façonne le Niger à coups d'aiguille et de béton.


Fashion designer · Al Fadi [2:19:54]:

Bienvenue dans le showroom d'Al Fadi. Honoré, trop fier de vous avoir avec nous aujourd'hui. Dans quelques jours, on va commencer, on commence déjà déjà la première étape de la caravane Al Fadi pour la paix, où nous parlons que de paix, que de créativité, d'éducation, d'image, et montrer que notre pays aussi est un pays extraordinaire et magique. Nous travaillons main dans la main avec le FNUJAP, le Fonds des Nations Unies, pour la population et pour la population et par la population.


UNFPA [2:20:32]:

Merci de m'avoir donné l'opportunité de parler du partenariat qu'on a avec la Fondation Alpha Di. J'aimerais d'abord rappeler que ce partenariat rentre en fait donc dans la continuité de l'initiative Elimine, qui est une initiative portée par le gouvernement du Niger avec l'appui du Fonds des Nations Unies pour la population INFR. L'objectif à travers donc ce partenariat, c'est de former 240 jeunes Nigériens dans le métier du stylisme, modélisme. Donc nous sommes actuellement à 150 qui sont inscrits au niveau de l'École supérieure de la mode et des arts, donc qui est sous la tutelle de la Fondation Alpha Di. Ce que nous aimerions, c'est que à travers cette école qui lié un pôle de stylistes nigériens qui vont contribuer à l'industrie artistique et stylistique. À travers donc la Fondation Alpha Dee, nous pensons qu'il y aura une industrie artistique et stylistique qui sera créée et qui va pourvoir aussi du travail.


Narrator [2:21:43]:

Depuis 1992, 2018, Alpha D unit les peuples par la mode, la musique, la culture, à travers le FIMA, et élève l'Afrique et inspire des générations. Et Alpha D revient au Niger bâtir une école pour sauver la jeune fille, pour renforcer l'éducation de la jeune fille à travers son école Estmark.


Fashion designer · Al Fadi [2:22:04]:

Je suis fier de dire aujourd'hui que la jeunesse, avec leur éducation, avec leur esprit, avec la caravane qui a commencé aujourd'hui au Niger, va aller très loin. Nous sommes en train de faire la première école supérieure de la mode et des arts. Cette école, depuis 10 ans on se bat, depuis 10 ans on a le— l'État nous a donné un terrain de 3000 m² déjà pour commencer. Mais on a, on avait un immeuble magnifique, Alpha D, dans lequel nous avons accueilli, grâce au FNIAP, aujourd'hui 150 quand jeunes, les jeunes, ça veut dire vraiment les jeunes filles défavorisées que nous voulons aider, les jeunes filles qui n'ont pas les moyens d'aller à l'école, les jeunes filles qui n'ont pas les moyens d'avoir une opportunité de grandir. Mais nous, avec Alpha D, nous, avec l'image de mon équipe, on va leur donner cette chance d'être des grandes demain, d'être l'entrepreneur culturel. Chacun doit absolument dans 3 ans créer son entre— entreprise, avoir 3 machines, 4 machines, créer ce qu'il appelle réellement sa dignité personnelle. Et c'est ce qu'Alpha Di veut leur donner. Et c'est pour ça que l'école est une chance, l'éducation est une chance, et nous voulons être accompagnés par tout le monde. Le FUNDIAP nous accompagne, les Nations Unies nous accompagnent, l'UNESCO m'accompagne, l'État nigérien m'a donné il y a 10 ans un terrain. Nous voulons que chaque jour qui pense à ce que nous sommes en train de préparer par rapport à l'école, par rapport à l'éducation, par rapport à ce qui va rester demain, notre jeunesse, notre âme. Et c'est ça que je cherche absolument à faire comprendre au reste du monde, de nous accompagner, de nous aider pour que notre grande école de 3 000 m² soit enfin finie. Parce que depuis 10 ans, on cherche à le construire. On a commencé déjà, la construction a commencé.

That's why we are here today, to showcase young talent and the work of Walfade, who has not had a show in the work. Tonight we will present a show here to celebrate Nigeria and African textiles, leatherwork, and jewelry. That's what Africa does best in craftsmanship. This is what defines Africa, its youth. It's what defines Niger, its kindness and its beauty.


UNFPA · Narrator [2:24:25]:

UNFPA, funding national—

UNFPA plays a crucial role in empowering women and girls through several strategic interventions. It has supported the ILMY. This program is a government initiative supported by UNFPA. It targets adolescents 10 to 19 out of school or never enrolled or married yet, aiming to improve knowledge in reproductive health human rights, gender equality, literacy, and vocational training. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] More than 1,000 girls have already been trained in trades such as carpentry, electrical work, motorcycle mechanics, as well as catering, baking, tailoring, beadwork, and handcrafts. Key partners include the Directorate of Girls' Empowerment, Ministry of Social Affairs, training centers in design, and NGOs such as Gotan Matassa, Fricke, and Marathon Women's Center.


Speaker 115 [2:25:33]:

Thank you very much. So that's an outline of what Al Fadi has been doing in the area of fashion designing and job creation. Today, he is going to talk to us through a dialogue, especially interacting with the youth and development actors to ensure that there's job creation. Without further ado, I give you the floor, Mr. Al Fadi.


Fashion designer · Al Fadi [2:26:08]:

Thank you very much.


UNESCO · Fashion designer; UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador · Al Fadi [2:26:11]:

Thank you. First of all, I'd like to thank you. Thank you to the Secretariat, the Executive Secretary. Thank you, Mama Keita. Thank you for organizing and for inviting me from Niger to come here. Your work is of quality and enables me to understand what ECA is doing and what the AU is and what UNESCO is and try to understand and speak and bring a message of peace because I was an ambassador for peace for UNESCO before starting what I'm doing. And for over 30 years, about 40 years in the area of fashion designing and leading and guiding —youth. I can speak English, but—

Thank you, and excuse me, les personnes qui ne parlent pas bien français.

So for those who don't speak French, I'm sorry. I'm happy to speak in French, but I mix the two languages. I want to show the youth that this is possible. Fadi has done a doctorate. We have worked in administration for 10 years. Before going into fashion designing. Our understanding of our policies is that, you know, the politicians don't understand that the culture can be the other side of politics. All politics wants to keep the image for themselves, for the politicians. When they go into missions like here, they come here as ministers, administrators who have nothing to do with culture and art.


Speaker 118 [2:27:49]:

Yes.


UNESCO · Fashion designer; UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador · Al Fadi [2:27:49]:

So it's high time that this changes. It's high time that we understand that Culture exists and we're working. I have a doctorate and I create employment. I have studied for over a long time. For over 10 years, I've been director for tourism in Niger before going into fashion. This shows that the dimension between culture and art have to go hand in hand with the administration because we create employment. The youth must understand what I'm doing, they can do it. Here that the youth understand that we can even be a doctor, you can have a PhD and do fashion designing as well and ensure that creativity can be at the service of the people. So I've always wanted to create employment in creation, in fashion designing, and in jewelry. I've had a chance of going to Luxembourg, but first of all to have— to work with UNFPA to support me to help the children. We started with 70, now we are at 250,000 people who are educated in the area of fashion and designing, in the area of learning art, the African art. So I wanted to inform the people that Africa knows what to do. Africa has skills. Africa has unity. Africa has the background of art. We cannot bring everything from Europe. Europe exists, but we need to understand that Africa— where the great financials of Africa are not thinking African, If the big designers, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, and so on, they exist because the big funders and financiers put money in what they are doing. But the African doesn't put anything in Africa. So it's high time that the big funders of Africa understand that they can earn by putting money in Africa and give Africa the opportunity to grow with the politicians, the ECA and the AU, All of us have to understand that we can work together to create millions of employment opportunities. The example of this great country that I adore, which is Ethiopia, with Addis Ababa, we have leather, we have textiles. So compared to Mali, of course, we also have a lot of resources. We have textiles from our country which are— Made in Addis. In the textile industry where we are working, where we are contributing a lot to our continent.

This is a massive combat. We cannot just sit. We have to fight and artists have to be loved, supported. We have to listen to them. We have to ensure that we give them their due respect. All our youth are running away. They are leaving the African shores. Because there's no respect. Even the work they do, it's work. It's work they're doing. But half of the work is adulterated in the political morass. I come from a country that it's Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso. There are many, many magnificent things that are perhaps a bit hard to do, but we have to love our culture. We have to support the cultural dimension. Our children should not be running away, taking away their energy, their know-how because knowledge is leaving our shores. So this is my fight today. I am saying the struggle is whether we're talking about mantina because, you know, in fashion, when we talk about job creation, we're not talking about the people who sew. We talk also about the models, the thousands of people in the industry, the musicians, The photographers, the artists, the paints, the visual artists who are doing extraordinary work. And ever since 1984, we— in 1994, we have set up the African Federation. Chris Seidou was one of the co-founders. I was the president of the— Federation and the AU, at the time the OAU, was giving us support to make sure that we were recognized. An African Federation is very difficult. Imagine for one country it's difficult enough, but when it's the entire continent, this is something we have to do. We have to think just like the people who do play football. There's a Federation of Football. There's sports. But there has to be the same thing for the industry, the— The economy. The designer industry, we have to be respected, we have to have access to finance as well. African Development Bank is there working with us. Many banks work with us, but they have to put more money in. They have to understand that what we're fighting for is actually peace. Peace. When there's money, there's peace. And we have to look at the artistic dimension, the cultural dimension, and also amongst ourselves, support each other, love each other, hand each other the hand of peace. I think I've spoken. If you have any questions that you would like to ask me, then no problem. But I'm trying to portray to you we have to give each other support, hold each other's hands. Africa is a productive continent, extraordinary continent, must be loved, loved by Europeans, loved by Chinese, loved by everybody. We're a huge continent and we're in a place where we should serve as an example. I'm an African. I'm proud to be an African and I believe the fight for culture, for art, of job creation, I'm ready to create 10,000 jobs and I can do this in leather, in jewelry, in textiles, but all this has to be given support and understood by the people in politics and big organizations such as yourselves. Thank you.


Speaker 120 [2:33:50]:

Merci beaucoup.


ECA · Moderator · Karima Bounamra Ben Sultan [2:33:52]:

Alpha Di, thank you so much for this vibrant message. Conveyed with a lot of warmth and hope, which puts culture right back in the center of productive capacity for our continent. It's a dialogue you wanted to have with the youth, but I believe you've actually thrown out an appeal to all who work together to make this a sector of opportunity— the decision-makers, the funders, the financiers, the partners who are within the United Nations system or within other systems, regional, national, international systems. You've really launched a very moving appeal that through our initiatives we safeguard our talent on the continent and we make sure that we provide the necessary education and we enable workers to become even more fulfilled in the work that they do. I know there are a lot of youth here in this hall. I wonder, any reactions to his message? He has perhaps said something which may spark a response from you about how we can translate this into action, how we can actually make the creative industry sector something that we can discuss. which we shall do more in detail this afternoon. We said this morning when we were talking about regional integration, we were talking about what are seen in inverted commas as more serious subjects: development policy, development plans. We now are looking at a field that is just as serious, but we need to perhaps demonstrate more of an effort to make sure that it is fostering our development potential. Yes, I see one hand up. Just give me your name. Let me write down the names, please. Hello, Aminata Damili. Well, we saw the video. This is an effort to support women's development and job creation amongst women. I see two requests for the floor, a third over there from women. So I see the women are listening and are very receptive to what Al-Fadhli had to say to us all. But we'd like the gentlemen to speak as well with just as much warmth. But we shall start with you. Thank you.


Speaker 122 [2:36:51]:

Thank you for the presentation you've just made. I'm speaking in French, if I may. You launched a message which I love. I think we have to be optimistic. I'm an economist. I've been following development pathways in many countries for many years now, and when I look at this journey, despair was prevalent. But thanks to the progress we have seen, history shows that there's hope and you need goodwill, good intentions to translate opportunities into reality. I have a question about the link between the creative industries and the textile, the garment industry. I've worked a lot in clothing. This is a very industrialized industry. As you said, it's driven by the brands. The brand names have the power. It's the person who has direct access to the consumer that has the power in their hands. But I've always wondered myself, what is missing for us in Africa? How come we're unable to develop a brand which may not necessarily be a luxury brand because there's many luxury creations in Africa. But we don't find a brand that targets the middle classes like H&M or Zara in the West. What prevents us from having H&M or Zara in Africa so that we are promoting luxury at the level of the value chains that we see in the Western world? Thank you.


ECA · Moderator · Karima Bounamra Ben Sultan [2:38:30]:

Okay.


Aminata Dambele [2:38:38]:

Thank you very much for giving me the floor. My name is Aminata Dambele. I'm from Mali. It is a huge pleasure for me to see Al Fadi himself in person. I have grown up seeing your pictures, seeing your books, work and I always wondered, people would say he's Malian, he's Malian, but I'm proud, I'm proud of Mali, Niger, Burkina you said was the foundation. So I'm absolutely honored to see you in person here today. I have a doctorate in artificial intelligence applied to cybersecurity. I have a question. Is the industry you refer to not A little bit under threat from AI. I've worked a lot with Bogolan in Mali. We're very proud of it. It's our national identity personified in this material. But we're fighting now because of copyright. Bogolan is being copied. Fake versions of Bogolan are being made all over the world. Now, please, I ask you, artificial intelligence, is it not a threat? Or do you see it as something that can help us today if we know how to adopt certain measures that help to promote our work and ensure its continuity? Thank you so much. I'm delighted to see you in person. Thank you.


Speaker 125 [2:40:11]:

Thank you for giving me the floor. As she said, It's a true honor to meet you here today, Mr. Al Fadi. We would hear your name ever since we were little children. It's a huge delight to see you in person here today. My question is about your foundation, your school. I wonder when youth, young people, particularly young women, and you stress this, when they leave your school, School, is there any follow-up? How do you ensure that they are actually— they find jobs, that they're integrated into society, that they can find some kind of fulfillment? Do you follow up or does everybody— do they end up leaving your schools having been trained and then it's up to them to find their way? I wonder. That's the question I have for you. Thank you.


UNESCO · Fashion designer; UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador · Al Fadi [2:41:09]:

Merci, merci, merci.

Thank you very much. Thank you, really. I asked Karima to let me speak, to let me answer you right away because my head is getting old. I forget things quickly, so allow me to quickly answer the questions as they come. I'm delighted to hear your questions. Let me say, for the very first one, it's a huge journey and the story is one of resources. When you talk about the ability to sell, to have designer African fashion, these brands you talked about, H&M, you talked about other middle-income brands at the global level, they have billions, billions. They fund this all over the world who put poor money into their brands. And that's why they can produce goods that can be sold instead of at $50, They sell at $25, $30 because of the amount of money pouring in. So everything is a matter of resources. Africa is not lucky enough to get the kind of support from funders who give that kind of dignity to them so that they can create production goods, quality goods. In Africa, there are people who have millions, the potential to produce millions and millions of clothes, shoes. There's no reason why we can't produce all that. But for that, you need a brand. You need the image. You need to have communications. You need promotion. Yes. Everything depends on resources, depends on the banks or the funders who want to— or even your sponsors who want to assist you as Africans and help you get into the large-scale supply. Have I answered your question? Is that okay? Is that an answer for you?


Speaker 127 [2:42:56]:

Yes.


UNESCO · Fashion designer; UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador · Al Fadi [2:42:56]:

Yes. The thing is, without resources, we can't. Africa has always been in the background and you can't talk about H&M and all the others. In Africa, we're talking about a continent of 54 countries, but no, no, no funders are putting money into creation or into mass distribution. And we have to think about it. The creators are there. The images are there. The image is there. The makers, the producers are there. The stylists are there, but we need resources. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Now, Mali, Burkina, and Niger, that's my life. It's a whole story. I just completed the wonderful experience that we call the Alpha-D Peace Caravan in Timbuktu. Imagine Timbuktu, the history of religion. Alpha-D came with models, top models, creators, designers and walked the fashion walk showing our work. The caravan went to countries, places that are difficult to get to, Bamako to Timbuktu. And this happened last October. Geniuses came with Bogolan. People wanted to show that Bogolan is Africa's number one Cloth. The minister the other day, Mr. Daffey, showed me that Bogolan has been trademark deposited in UNESCO. It's wonderful. And African know-how is something we have to protect, be it kente, be it Bogolan, be it ndop, be it Terra Terra from Niger. The textiles are there. They exist. They live. But if you don't protect these brands, then that's going to happen. The big creators of major designers are going to copy them and we don't get any royalties. In which country do we get this— do we receive royalties on our continent? But this is something we're pursuing with African Union and we must, with the Economic Commission of Africa, we must show that we have deposit— that we have value in our copyright. We are unique in the world. It's a whole continent. Yes, small countries. Yes, small countries are there in Europe,— these small countries that want to lead an entire continent, Africa? No, it's not possible. Africa has the values, superb values that we need to promote, and we shall with intellectual property, copyright, and also with funding. With financing, I think we can go very far if we get the type of support we need from the African Development Bank, from other funding sources who will support us, and they're billionaires. There are billions, many of them in Africa and they come to us just as they do in Europe. Thank you. Very important. Thank you. Thank you very much. The third question is the Alpha Di Foundation. This has been something that has existed for the past 8 years now. We established it to support youth. I live for youth. I want to give creation support to youth, support them in their education and health perhaps also. Especially in education and the creation of know-how. The Alpha Di Foundation is something that we set up since over 7 years ago and now we have the big— this major school that we call the École Supérieure des Modes, the Higher Institute of Fashion and Design. And it's something we're doing in Niger with the UNFPA. We are expanding hopefully to 23 countries because the Sinang, the boss UNFPA boss came to Niger and said, "We want to work in many countries in West Africa, East Africa." So, the Alpha Di Foundation absolutely must follow up with this. Continue to give this kind of promotion to youth in Africa so that they're educated. And for the graduates from these schools, yes, yes. This year there were 70 finish the third year. 30 designers, young people of talent. We want to help them set up their businesses, set up their shops so that they are people of worth in Africa who get the support from the Alpha Di Foundation. We're not going to just let them go without any support whatsoever. No, with UNFPA we're going to do it. Is that the answer? Do you hear that answer?


Speaker 129 [2:47:20]:

Good.


Director · Karima [2:47:21]:

Thank you. Do we have any other questions? Any other thing to add? Yes, over to you, at my right first, then we go towards the left. Over to you, madam.


Speaker 131 [2:47:36]:

Madam Karima, thank you. Thank you, Sir Al Fadi. You have shared with us your wonderful journey. I am a huge fan of— your work and then I see, as I discover other aspects of your personality here today, I consider this to be a true honor. I have a question that is speaking more about the foundation. What kind of challenges have you faced beyond the financial challenges that you talked about in the video or that you mentioned with respect to the day-to-day activities of your foundation with respect to the actual training program, and the young youth on the day-to-day basis, what do you face?


UNESCO · Fashion designer; UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador · Al Fadi [2:48:19]:

Challenge number 1, competition. You know, there are many foundations. Our first ladies have come and wanted to kill us. They didn't know what we were doing. But we are a foundation of artists. Our first ladies, they have foundations there. A lot of money goes in their direction. But we don't get that kind of support. Neither do we get the kind of money that we can put into our foundation that they do. No, the money goes to these first ladies. But we're lucky to have had UNFPA behind us, UNESCO, others who are supporting our institutions, our institutes, our— design institutes who are giving us the type of support we need. And we're going to continue because this is a foundation that must be supported at the global level. But when you're talking about politics, we're always given the lower— positions, but that's why we need support. We want others to accompany us because everybody can bring in what they can bring to build us up in education and art. Thank you.


Cameroon · Estelle Desirée Monisson [2:49:26]:

Merci pour la parole. Je suis— Thank you for giving me the floor. My name is Estelle Desirée Monisson. I'm from Cameroon. It's a true honor for me to see you in front of me. And I really— you inspire us. I have a question. Energy is a huge problem in Africa. It's expensive. There's energy outages in Africa all the time. What do you do? How do you do as a company to remain competitive at the international level and first of all at the African level? Thank you.


UNESCO · Fashion designer; UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador · Al Fadi [2:50:06]:

In my country— in our countries, there are outages all the time. No electricity, no water, but we're lucky in the sense that we're industries that are small or very medium. We're not in countries where they're like here, where there are 50,000 employees in textiles or in shoes. Or even in cosmetics. But all this can be addressed and we're working on it because we have our dignity first and foremost. We have placed that on the ground, then we have to create jobs on top of that and then we have to have funders who support us. Yes, we're not always getting what we want, but we do what we can within the means that we have. We have salons, we have— Yes. Orders that are placed and we try to respect these orders. This is what is happening right now in Benin. Benin, a superb country with cotton. The president of the country is now making cotton an industry where they make shirts. They can produce t-shirts. They can produce jeans. This can create thousands, tens of thousands of employees. And this is something we can do in our countries to make— styles and designs that can go to them and they can then produce them, mass-produce them in the quantities required. We don't always get the help that we need, but we continue to do this within our means. Thank you.


Speaker 135 [2:51:38]:

Bonjour. Merci. Good afternoon. Thank you for the beautiful presentation about your foundation. You talked about capacity building, rural development. You said it's in the rural areas that they're vulnerable sectors of our population. There are many African countries where efforts have been made to fund capacity building in rural areas. A lot of money, a lot of resources go into ensuring training in handicrafts and— processing, agro-food processing, and so on. But the problem we always have is sustainability. Once a project duration comes to an end, what happens? According to you, how can we build an African model that builds capacity, ensures self-empowerment within the rural areas, sustainability such that they last? The outcomes last beyond the project life? That's the question. I'm talking about sustainability for cooperation projects.


UNESCO · Fashion designer; UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador · Al Fadi [2:52:49]:

Thank you very much for that question because really women are very close to my heart. I support women a lot when it comes to education. In Niger right now, we have in our workshops a lot of women, women who work and not just in fashion, they work in agriculture, they work in— in livestock rearing. They work in tanneries. They work in jewelries. And these are women who are in associations that exist locally. Unfortunately, we haven't always been able to identify all these associations. But those who come to us, we can train them. We can educate them. We can give them resources when it comes to management, communications, so that these young women, they have work that is given the appropriate value. And we have— we build up project funding documents for them that are worthy of their work. Every 2, 3 months we have silos that we have— we work with these women during the various festivals, Ramadan, all of it. We have them come and exhibit their work and it's beautiful work. So we're training. We're training in fashion and through the foundation, we're moving to a higher level in the sense that we don't want to stop what we're doing but we want to go post-secondary now. We want to have people who with the talent can get to master's, can get 4, 5 years higher education post— post their secondary qualifications. We have— Master's. Several floors now in our building, but we want to have 3,000 square meters of space where we can have youth come in who can work in fields like artificial intelligence, like the other talents that we need, like you've mentioned, to support youth, to support the marginalized, support the vulnerable. So this school is going to be a launching pad from Niger reaching out to other continents and to other parts of the continent. The subregion and beyond because what we're doing is working hand in hand with Africans who are from Niger, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire so that their know-how is pooled and we get the kind of expertise, kind of quality that can take us very far.

Thank you.


Director · Karima [2:55:25]:

Finally, we see a gentleman who wishes to speak. You have the floor, sir.


Speaker 138 [2:55:30]:

Mr. Al Fadi, thank you so much. And thank you for the inspiration that you give us. Your story is one that reveals to us that the main challenge we have ahead of us is funding. Now, in your training program, beyond capacity building, are you thinking about working with funding institutions like microfinance, or other types of local-level banking institutions that can support youth in setting up their small businesses? In other words, is there follow-up at that level post-training for access to funding? Thank you.


UNESCO · Fashion designer; UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador · Al Fadi [2:56:16]:

Thank you. The challenge isn't just funding. The challenge is the politicians need to understand. Our political people need to see that the creative people who make creative work are working for the country as well. It's not who has a friend in politics that is the one who's going to go forward. No. We don't have subsidies. We don't have the kind of support that— we have all kinds of worries when it comes to that. But it's the kind of funding we have to find is the kind of funding which within the foundation will help build a foundation but also comes from the states so that we have— the kind of dimension that is such that we are proud, everybody is proud of what we're doing and we can demonstrate that we are creating jobs, we're fighting poverty, we're giving hope to the youth, helping them stay on the continent, preventing them from running— going away from the continent. And this is why we feel we need to work with our youth so that everybody understands it's a wonderful continent and the states needs to give the generation of youth the hope that they can work with them. Thank you.


Director · Karima [2:57:23]:

Okay. I have been told we have to stop, but let me give the floor to one last, very last contribution, then we'll conclude this session. Thank you. Over to you.


Speaker 141 [2:57:35]:

Thank you. In 15 seconds. We tend to hear always that culture is at the beginning and the end of development. We are told at the beginning and at the end of the developmental process is culture. I'm an economist, so what is your analysis of that statement?


UNESCO · Fashion designer; UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador · Al Fadi [2:57:56]:

Mr. Al-Fadhli says, "I know you, I know you, yes." I think you've said it all. With culture, we're talking about our continent, an entire continent. Yesterday, I saw you as a Senegalese advisor to the president. I adore the work that's being done in Senegal. Tell him we love what he's doing. Culture loves him and we want to continue to work with culture. He should continue to work with culture. Give the dimension that the Senegalese men and women need so that they can sing, paint, create. And when they get support from the politicians, they know that they exist. They vibrate. They don't feel that they're going to have to go and drown in the seas. Culture is the beginning, yes. Culture is also the end. And I'm happy you're saying it because culture means job creation, poverty reduction, fighting against poverty, promoting our image, eating, eating our chebu jen, our fukuri, our yassa. These are things that we can do. Even if there are safeguards now, Malian textile has copyright now. Let's wear African things. It's all very well to have a nice suit and a wonderful tie, but it has to change. Change up. Tomorrow, wear something that Aissa Dione, her textiles have made or any other Senegalese has made because this will add to value in Senegal and this is what I want. We have to have culture in this dimension, show, demonstrate that Africa is a a positive continent. You, you're an economist. Give the chance to others to study this and see how much they can get from it. Thank you very much.


Director · Karima [2:59:43]:

Thank you. I know a lot of hands are up, but unfortunately I'm being told to wind up. I have to now end this session and I'm regret— regrettably, I have to do so. But I would like to say, and I'm going to use a word that Marily said we should stop using when she spoke yesterday, but this is It's a sector that has potential. But what we want is move from the stage of potentiality to the stage of action. Real reality, not we could have done this or we can do that, but look at what we've done in our creative industries, in the sectors that demonstrate that they have— full-fledged contribution to make to our societies, contributions that actually give opportunities to youth who are so despondent now, who have lost their bearings, no references. They don't— they have to reintegrate themselves into the African realities and the African culture. I think the return on investments in this area is not just economic, it is is primarily social, enabling our youth to flourish and to find that they are within a context that is one with which they are familiar. You also talked about having all the players, all the participants recognize what the sector can contribute. We absolutely have to show that we can rise We've talked about people from all kinds of studies, areas, and creative industries, but there's a challenge of scale that we were going to have to face so that the industry is recognized as such and that the environment is conducive to making sure that, for example, regulatory authorities, the funding authorities, more open to what sector is doing. Ban Ki-moon has been looking at me, which means I have to stop. It means I have to stop. So on behalf of all of you, I would like to say a huge thank you to Al-Fadhli for his presence here amongst us. It was the first opening for dialogue and we shall continue in many and diverse fora because there's a lot to share. When this session has— Thank you. Come to an end. Off camera, there can be opportunities to discuss and talk about seeing development differently and youth employment differently. Thank you so much.


MC [3:02:27]:

All right, thank you very much, Director Karima and Alfadi, for this insightful session. Please join me in giving them another round of Merci beaucoup. All right, a gentle reminder to kindly complete the evaluation form. The QR code is already displayed on the screen. We would also like to encourage you to make use of the hand sanitizers that are around the room. At this juncture, for the moment a lot of us have been waiting for, including me, We will break for lunch and have the simulation session right after. We will reconvene here at 2:55 PM, Japanese and Korean time. Now we are using two times to encourage. Thank you very much. We wish you a very good lunch.