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Saturday, April 29, 2023
Rockefeller Foundation - Fireside Chat with the Prime Minister of Barbad...
Bloggers note: of RockChild and Rothfellers.
In a story once read, the one in charge of the purse string, turn out to be a betrayer...there is a name for that!
......
let me just start out before I go to the Prime Minister I want to ask Andrew to do us a favor before we get to fixing the problem
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could you give us a quick diagnosis from your perspective you know in the UK in a
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way that uh speaking to those not in this room because I get the sense that
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everybody's on board with this initiative in this room but if you're going to be speaking to non-true
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Believers of fixing some of this problem diagnose the problem of the moment what's wrong with these institutions
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what's lurking in terms of the world with in debt in the developing world what are we trying to fix
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[Music] well I can thank you very much for your question I'm honored to be appearing on a platform with the Prime Minister and
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thank you very much for this opportunity I mean I think I can actually answer your question quite quickly and using
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really the words that um Mia has used around this conference and it and it's
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this there is mounting anger around the world at the failure of the rich world
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to deliver on its Promises to the poor and that anger focuses on issues
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Financial issues and um uh the point that Mia has made so
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eloquently is that when kovid struck the rich world found all the money that was required
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um and that that leads into a whole series of other things to do with vaccine fairness but the money was found
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when um a bank uh went down in California it
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was sorted out within three days um when financial crisis struck we had
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quantitative easing and unlimited amounts of money were printed
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um and uh yet when it comes to saving the planet and honoring our promises the
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money isn't there and the challenge for the International Community and we feel this uh quite keenly in Britain although
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like many other countries we have our own difficult economic circumstances with which we have to Grapple but but we
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have seen from our own cop in Glasgow uh two years ago and then
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um at chamel Sheikh where the the anger was mounting very clearly about this
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failure and we know that when we get through all these other Milestones this year the the sdg summit uh Unger the
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Paris Summit when we get to the UAE at the end of the year we're going to have
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to deliver so if you're if you're saying what Britain is aware of our immense obligations under the requirement to
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save the planet we can hear the noise coming from the global both and we know that the current situation cannot stand
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and real quickly before I jump to the Prime Minister when you share those views with uh Samantha power with other
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development Chiefs in the G7 do you get Applause or do you get ignored
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well when when we share them with uh sampa or with the French development
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Minister um we find a complete community of agreement um but what the prime minister they are
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powerless in their own governments no I mean I think that we are together quite powerful but we are all facing the
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individual challenges but but uh uh we are we are conscious of the requirement
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to respond as well as the need to respond to what prime minister Motley is
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saying well there is an article um that it was my quick um tutorial in this how to revitalize
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the World Bank the IMF and the development Finance system appeared on April 7th so just around the corner written by prime minister Motley and
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Rajiv Shah that outlines uh you know the the meeting that happened in Barbados
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that led to uh really the call to action and the plan and so prime minister
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Motley could you outline for us and I assume other people are watching this online outside the room
We have had enough
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What spark happened uh in in Barbados at that meeting and outlined the initiative
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what I can tell you is that we have
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had enough I sat in this room just now
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and I listened to the minister of Finance from Malawi
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talk about a cyclone that is the most funnily now powerful
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one of the most powerful and the longest lasting cyclone in world
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history let's be honest how many people in here knew about it
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before he spoke raise your hands who knew about it
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less than 10 people why because as long as things can be hidden
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under carpet as long as the news doesn't carry as
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long as the decision makers from the ministries of Finance or the heads of government or heads of
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state are not in the room we can have polite conversation that gives the impression of movement
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when we met in Barbados last year it was to bring a number of things to a head
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the continued belief that countries can Finance development with seven and ten
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year and 12-year money shorter than the citizens getting a mortgage
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the continued belief that the countries of the global South must pay a premium
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to borrow money from the global North either as public sector entities or
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private sector companies the continued unconscious bias
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that regrettably passes across this world and you know I should get
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easier and gentler with each day week and month
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because the conversation is beginning to go in the right direction
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but I'm actually getting angrier because this morning at one of our meetings
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it was reflected and as the minister reflected who was in the room it was the deputy Minister it was the minister of
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state it was the minister of this last time I checked they're less than
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200 leaders in the world it is impossible
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for you to tell me that you have a group of seven countries and they cannot meet
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to address the fate of more than half of the world's population
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it is impossible for broadcasters to say that something that took over a thousand
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lives Malawi a couple hundred lives in Mozambique
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is not worthy of repetition especially since the length of the storm
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has created history but then again in the Bahamas how many people remember
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that the reason why we had the problems in the Bahamas with
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their last hurricane is that it did the unthinkable that it went over the Bahamas
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and sat for 48 hours now I've grown up with hurricanes all
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our lives all my life and the notion of a hurricane sitting on any country for six hours eight hours is
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horrific but for 48 hours you can't we start now so that
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we have just the luck or the misfortune
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that for the first time in a very long time the very issues confronting the global
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South are equally confront in the global North and that we have to raise above the
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discriminatory nature of the relationship the unequal yokin in
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a post-independence era that will allow us to be able to lure and level the cost
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of debt that will allow the people of the global South to be seen heard and
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felt and to be considered in the making of policy and for you to believe
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that Italy can declare a state of emergency this week to deal with
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migration and that it is going to be an isolated incident is to bury our heads
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in the sand the global North needs the investment in
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the global South if they are to preserve the stability the security and
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ultimately the prosperity of the planet and by extension of themselves now I get
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really curious when I hear therefore that people are not ready or people want
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to kick the ball down the road because what's happening in Florida as we speak
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Marc Andre you just mentioned to me Florida is underwater
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how much more must happen how many more people must
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lose their lives until the conscience of a few leaders and I'm not calling
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anybody out no why not go ahead leaders
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no your job is to make it sexy my job is I will my job is to reflect
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the reality of our condition well let me before you we I don't want you to finish but I want
Is there any urgency
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you I do want to say that you know we're on sort of day four of IMF World Bank week
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has I have not been able to follow what's gone on inside those buildings
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um I will take stock you know the moment later is there any sense that the urgency that you're calling forth both
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in the article and today is registering um or is the posture you're hearing will
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get to this kick it down the road uh they're not demonstrating
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um an intensity of at least investigation so I'm just interested in because I don't know what the tone is
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among leaders as I said in there yesterday there has been movement
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if I move from 220 pounds to 210 pounds
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but am I healthy at 210 so that the bottom line is this that while there has
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been movement the conversation remains vague as to scope
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as to timelines and as the specific measures needed and
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my thing is that we are in an interregnum because you have a new president potentially to come to the
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World Bank right and we're holding meetings with the president that's leaving by the same token
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the beauty of perception is the ability to discern I have been coming to
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Washington for a couple years other than when I was co-chair of the development committee and even then I
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was told that I didn't have a right to speak and that I was only supposed to introduce speakers I then chose to use
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each introduction as a two-minute speech
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there is something fundamentally wrong I don't know who I was co-chair of the
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development committee two years ago but I haven't attended a development committee meeting in the last two years
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there is something fundamentally wrong with a system that does not give
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opportunity to its membership to have a voice right and the fact that I have to come outside like a protester as if I am
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a temporary interloper having been elected by a country by the way with all
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of the seats not once but twice but yet I'm being told that I am to speak as a
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feminine interloper now I may appear to be a little more angry this evening and it's largely because my blood boiled
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when I heard the minister from Malawi speak and I say to you that as long as we
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refuse to see these things are going to continue to happen and I do not know what else it
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will take because it is clear to all that this world is in a climate crisis I
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don't use climate change climate changes for people who don't understand crisis well let me let me play not a
The fivepoint plan
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Counterpoint but ask Andrew so what I found so seductive about the article was
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that while I agree with everything you said and that the power of this moment would you see that the the the the the
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drama and the trauma in the world that demands attention it also needs a plan and and what technicians and bureaucrats
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need are a five-point plan there's a three-point plan with little you know an a a b and a
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c and as I understand it and I'm going to butcher this part one is we've got a crisis right now and part one is the
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existing loan structure need to be renegotiated you've got to basically take interest rates you've got to find all the various engine and I loved how
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you flirted with the technical dimensions of how to do it in these
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different categories of of basically uh suspending forgiving loans drawing on
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sdrs you know that's part one part two is a new a new loan regime is needed
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along the lines of what prime minister just spoke about of extending the length of terms below interest rates coming in
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and then part three which I found really interesting is shaming the private sector into providing more broad public
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goods like in structures like gavi Etc so that is my understanding of the
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Bridgetown initiative now I know they're going to be a lot more here but from a from a perspective of someone who deals
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with a lot of drab people those kinds of things are somehow seductive and help you get both the track that deals with
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you know that this is a major moment but it also gives somebody a a a way to
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begin processing it so Andrew can you talk to the technical dimensions of the initiative well look I mean mean first
Mounting anger
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of all you refer to an absolutely brilliant article that was written by Raj and thanks so much to the
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Rockefeller foundation and the Prime Minister um by Raj thanks so much for the kind
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hosting today and also by the Prime Minister um but there was a much lesser article that appeared in the times of London on
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Monday which was co-authored by the uh Governor uh the Kenyan governor of the
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bank and by me as the British governor and I think having a commonality of view about what is required is is a good
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start I secondly I refer you back to what I said about the mounting anger that has been building and at some point
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uh we will get in my optimistic view we will get a sweet moment when real action
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is taken now what is happening this week is that we are focused on the requirement that the Prime Minister set
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out which is to turn billions into trillions so that we have the funding to reach the sdgs and address the climate
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crisis and and um I think that the a competitive battle between the five mdbs
Capital adequacy
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where you've got some of the world's foremost uh technical uh Financial engineers and and we saw it earlier on
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in the brilliant intervention from the Africa Bank um we we need them to compete for ideas
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for how we reach this trillions of Target and you so that that's one thing that is going on this week we are we are
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supporting the capital adequacy agenda but it's much but it's much much more
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than that you know we are supporting it by using guarantees Britain's given six billion dollars of guarantees recently
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to to help reach that Target you mentioned the private sector the private sector is absolutely critical to all of
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this we know that out there there is funding through Pension funds through all manner of different France through
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the philanthropists who after all drive forward these Financial mechanisms so often of 54 trillion dollars so so it's
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about uh it's a about the the mechanisms by which you increase the money it's
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about the use of the private sectors we've had we've heard about sdrs yesterday evening the British Finance
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Minister signed a deal to bring uh 4 billion uh of our sdrs to play
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um into play on the prgt and the other fund which is the RSC
Climate resilient debt
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um so that you know that's a good start and we're we're in discussions with the Africa Bank uh how about how we can do
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another half billion of those you know it has to be negotiated it's difficult um I learned a long time ago in
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Parliament in the UK that the enemy is not the opposition sitting on the other side of the house it is the treasury and
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we have to battle with our treasury to get agreement on this but I'm pointing I just pointing out to you the different
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things that we're doing and I want to mention one other one although there's there's other ways of reforming the IMs
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toolkit which we're on and that is um the point about these climate resilient and debt Clauses in deals now
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you asked for something techie this is slightly techy but bear with me if um when when covert struck if you were the
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Minister of Finance or the president in Ghana you realized immediately that you needed more liquidity to meet the needs
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of your country but equally you are paying capital and interest off on loans
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and that is taking your liquidity away so these Clauses which Britain is is now
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actively using through our export credit guarantee Arrangements these Clauses
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give you a two-year standstill so what they mean is that in terms of all capital in an interest you've got a
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two-year holiday and you add on those two years to the end of the loan so so
Financial engineering
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and of course part of this financial engineering I was talking about in my first point is is the answer to Mia's
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absolutely fair question is why is it that my children get mortgages of far far longer than a poor country borrow so
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all of this is helping move forward and my optimistic aspiration is that we are
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reaching a Tipping Point where the voice of the global South so brilliantly articulated here
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um it is is unmissable and unavoidable you cannot avoid it and the uh wealthy
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world will then do the right thing having exhausted almost every other option let me ask the Prime Minister
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something here and this may sound naive and silly but I live in the naive and silly World um
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I'm interested in why we don't have Graphics in the New York Times or the post that show how much progress is
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being made on the initiatives you're laying out and how much not you know I've learned you know one of the interesting things with when Jerry Brown
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was uh uh governor of California and talking about distributed energy and
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how to setting Targets in the state you go County to county in the state and it would take you know three and a half
19:37
weeks in some places to get permits that take two days and some permits so I said and why don't you publish how long it's
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taking in each of these things so that you could compare counties and and and who was with the program and who wasn't
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and it made a huge difference that in in driving public pressure to get those
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permit rates to get people to put solar panels on their roofs down you know when
Media perspective
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you go into communities the United States you look at you know donations the United Way and you can see are you at fifty percent of your 60 so I would
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tell you just as a friendly a person in this from a media perspective it would
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be interesting to to see a chart of what's needed to do this to sort of look at reporting so that as you're telling
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us now that you see some movement well let's put that on a chart on a graph and let's see whether it's moving forward or
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not and then feed it to people like me or some of the other media there to show over time you know both the urgency and
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this so it's just a thought on addressing what you're saying is something right now that needs immediate attention and I understand that and
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that's part of it that we need to keep the language simple and keep the communication simple the reality is and
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I'm certainly going to take it up because this morning we learned from the
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minister of finance of Senegal that the World Bank gave Africa last year nine
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billion dollars in funding but it gave the Ukraine 23 billion and Fast Track
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Ukraine but it didn't Fast Track Africa I can tell you this afternoon that I was
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looking at my interest costs alone and last year for my loan for covid which I had to beg the World Bank for and get it
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as exceptional access because I'm a middle-income country whose income is too high but China is a low-income
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country um that may interest rate on that loan has gone from 1.09 to 5.48 this year now
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that's a 400 percent increase wow in one year my loans at the IMF have gone from
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1.077 to 3.916 my loans at the Latin
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American Development Bank have gone from 1.8 1.9 percent to a range of 4.47 to
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6.96 and you take it and not the screen grab of that and send it at the
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Caribbean Development Bank they've gone from 3.3 to 4.9 my simple point is and I
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agree with you we can put those metrics there but without context it's not going to mean anything the Ecuadorian Minister
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of Foreign Affairs said this week and it resonated with me that 1.5 degrees does
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not mean anything to the average person because if I pull up my weather ah in Washington today the temperature
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is going to go from 50 something degrees to 80 something degrees so we're fooling ourselves by believing that technical
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language is causing the anger what's causing the anger is 108 degrees in Europe last summer right what's causing
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the anger is the term um the the tornadoes and the floods and the
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hurricanes and the Cyclones what's causing the anger is the droughts right so we need to get that thank you Andrew
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for using the natural disaster Clauses because Grenada was the first to use them Barbados then took it up and until
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now Barbados has been the largest issue of them now I want to explain the
Getting people to change
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difficulty of getting people to change and that's why I'm really thanking you from the bottom of my heart
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something that is simple and a no-brainer and costs nothing that you have a climatic event
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that you suspend the payment of the debt for two years to preserve the Integrity
23:24
of the instrument rather than worrying whether I'm going to pay or not now if you can't get
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people to accept that when it costs them nothing and it simply requires a
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decision making on a legal Clause tells you the scale of the opposition similarly if we have a position where
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people don't and I don't believe that there's anybody who has done this in the increase of in interest rates on
23:52
existing loans as an act of wickedness but they have done it unconsciously
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and they have allowed us to have to face increases of two to four hundred percent
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in interest rates not on new loans but on existing loans
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existing loans where the all interest rates were guaranteeing them a rate of return and profitability and something
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has to be fundamentally wrong when we are too large to feel
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well if banks are too big to fail institutions must not be too large to
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feel and that is exactly how it feels so I want us to pause and to recognize that
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if we don't deconstruct and reconstruct with warp speed to use president Trump's
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phrase with the vaccine with warp speed then what we are going to see is
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countries falling down at the beginning of this session this afternoon the deputy Secretary General of the U.N told
24:56
us there are now 52 countries on that row if there were 52 people on death row
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people would be jumping up there are 52 countries times Millions
What will it take
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adding up to billions who are on debt row what will it take do
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we have to go through Paris and New York and Marrakesh and Dubai
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in the meantime what happens to the people who are relying on this for jobs and for food
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and for health care and even get the education yet and that is what concerns
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me and I'm saying to you that we can't hide finance and treasury from
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development we can't hide finance and treasury from the other Ministries and
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what is happening is that we're giving excuses but what is not changing is the
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intensity now let me also be clear and let's make this last point this is not an academic session
Natural gas
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and nobody has brought money to the table yet on adaptation in any serious way nobody has brought money for loss
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and damage my country in about a week 10 days will go and
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issue blocks for natural gas I don't want oil we do not want oil but
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we will issue for natural gas and to be able to make hydrogen why because
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whether we like it or not there are three hundred thousand people dependent on us and whether we like it or not with
26:36
increased interest rates and reduce opportunities for Baron and increased expenditure with hurricanes come in the
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first time in 66 years and a what a scarce country we've got to meet the
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needs of people and by saying no oil a few oil and gas companies will laugh at us and say oh
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they're Looney because you can't get gas without oil well there's a small possibility and then there are a few
27:00
state to state Partnerships that we will go for and one or two may or may not take the option right to have a future
27:07
and to pay for that option for the future and then maybe somebody may even say
27:13
we'll pay you to keep the natural gas in the ground my simple point is that we
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have to do something because the world is not doing anything at sufficient Pace right to allow us to
27:25
meet the needs of our people and the rest of the countries who have oil and gas who may not want to save only gas
27:32
but who are prepared to use oil are prepared to do it because they feel that the disparity in who benefits and who
27:40
still has opportunity because the International Energy Association says 2015 net zero is still 20 fossil fuel
27:47
right so that Chevron is still working total is still working and he is still
27:54
working all of the others are still working
27:59
where's the equity so folks we have seven minutes and that's going to give us time for about one question I bet so who's the lucky
Questions
28:06
person uh who's got some burning Zinger that we're all going to
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you know no no questions comments will we continue okay one right here we're going
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to write right here I I'd be really interested tell us who you are oh Kate Hampton children's investment fund
28:24
Foundation I'd be really interested in the Prime Minister and The Minister's thoughts on
28:29
um what are the prospects of getting from the Paris Summit which they're both
28:36
closely involved with right a heads-level coalition that will actually
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drive uh the decisions necessary through the multiple venues because this is we've seen High ambition coalitions for
28:49
climate for biodiversity but they were in one treaty process where it's the
28:54
same ministers coming back again and again what we're talking about here is a multi-venue so I'd be really interested
29:00
in their thoughts on what it will take to get the Coalition necessary to drive the decisions through them thank you I
Why dont we go to Andrew first
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love the question because it was one of my questions that I didn't get to so perfect uh but why don't we go to um
29:11
Andrew first well I think that what is driving this
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to a considerable extent is public opinion I think that what Mir is doing
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is uh she is tweaking more than tweaking the conscience of the world the points
29:28
that she's making have to have an answer and I don't think it will be uh I'm I'm
29:34
sure there will be a communique from Paris which will set out a series of of aims and hopefully some concrete
29:41
commitments the extent to which it's in any way a pledging conference I think is very very limited we are hoping to drive
29:48
forward these climate resistant debt Clauses uh as a as a a part of that
29:54
um Summit and the French are being incredibly Collegiate with all those who are interested in doing these things which is a very encouraging aspect of uh
30:02
the way the International Community is facing this but there is a huge agenda and I think that the fact that we have
A huge agenda
30:09
so many different Summits this year may be an opportunity because it gives repeated uh chances for what mere and
30:17
others are saying from the global South to be heard by the North and to react to it and if you've got all these different
30:23
Summits you've also got the the vital Summit about the sdgs at half time
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um if you've got all these Summits coming I think there there's a chance that it will drive forward the agenda uh
30:34
more vigorously and more quickly thank you prime minister you're gonna need to make this good
30:39
I want to salute president macron for his courage because it cannot be easy to break away
30:46
from the path and that's what he's done by the same token is dangerous because Others May
30:53
say well you didn't talk to us before you broke away the truth is that none of us have time for niceties anymore none
31:00
of us and I really do hope that we appreciate that in almost every faith it
31:05
doesn't allow us to see the the the we don't get the Panacea necessarily
31:10
overnight as much as we live in an instantaneous world that we build build build build our problem is is that we
31:18
need to build with speed and I believe that if you accept that I keep telling people I'm a Jimmy Cliff girl you can
31:25
get it if you really want but you must try and try and try the bottom line is I believe that Paris represents an
We need to build with speed
31:31
opportunity for us to start to build a record as we go to cop 28 we cannot go
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to cop 28 with promises the world no longer believes
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what comes out of cop we need to go to cop 28 with a record and not promises
31:52
and I believe that Paris offers the first opportunity but there are a number of other stops along the way
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um and the natural disaster Clauses Andrew as I said they thank you and thank Britain for that I believe that
32:05
there is a chance for us to establish a climate mitigation trust a catalytic fund call it what you want but it's
32:12
focused only on lowering the costs and leveling the cost of debt between the
32:18
global South and the global North for the private sector to help in achieving mitigation a simple simple ambition if
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we can get a few countries together to be able to launch that we go there for with a record and then we start the
32:33
conversations with oil and gas with heavy mining Etc okay we're gonna my
32:39
friend in the media here has got one fast question really fast shop take old with devex are you worried that all of
32:44
this is going to lead to social investor maybe not worried maybe you're looking forward to seeing people take to the streets I don't think that anybody who
32:51
has the right mind in place will look forward to people taking on going to the streets and social unrest
32:58
um look I do believe that the world is facing a
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mental health epidemic given the last three four years and I do fear that this
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is only going to add more and that we will see more anxiety within countries and that's why I see these things as an
33:17
investment and not as a Act of Charity to the global self and I hope that the
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global North population will understand that they stand in the very same position that the population of the
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global South stands in and if we don't get together and demand of our leaders
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that they lead then we will pay the consequences for it one way or another thank you well what I will say just in
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the end after this Paris meeting that was referenced if you want to call me after about who the villains in the
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meeting were we'd be very interested um and I assure my friends in the media world I want to thank uh minister of
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State Andrew Mitchell and of course Her Excellency prime minister Mia Motley for talking talking with us we have to end
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it now but I want to thank you very much I want to wish you the best in this important initiative I think people in
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this room I can feel from the tone are very committed to the ideas of
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Bridgetown I hope to do my part as well in that but I think it is going to be really important to find ways to to
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there are a lot of folks out there who are not committed not because they're opposed but because they don't know
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about it they don't understand the urgency and I think that's something you've raised very well so I want to thank you both big round of applause for
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the Prime Minister and the minister thank you very
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