mhm mhm. We need to talk it would be safe to say in the investment world, change isn't coming, it's already here. The world has been galvanized into action. What can we do to contribute to a more equitable society? The future belongs to those who adapt, those who identify shortcomings and unlock value. Quantum leap was necessary. I think you understand the situation. It isn't necessary. It's essential. If we're to build any kind of future, we have to ask ourselves, what can we do to invest in the right places for the right reasons, Not because it's the right thing to do, but because it's the only thing to do. Yeah, mm hmm. Welcome to critical conversations brought to you by Sanlam investments. Amla rot in Berlin were talking all things investing in Africa and South Africa because we believe it makes sense. In our conversation today, we're talking you through a range of issues that will show you where the investment opportunities lie, infrastructure to build on the economy, sustainability, to prepare for the future. The very topical issue of job creation and taking advantage of the youth dividend in africa and of course the energy conundrum as we talk energy transitions and how to overhaul economies with the provision of better energy. We've assembled a group of uh experts, They are investors who have looked at the range of opportunities available to you and they're gonna talk us through how to navigate the conundrums the fears, the complex world so that everything makes sense for you. We do want you to be part of the conversation so on social media, please do so on hashtag critical conversations hashtag sunlight investments and you can also using the platform, pose your questions via the Q and a portal and I'll make sure to pose those questions to our panelists who are they are experts are made up of Andrew johnston. He is the Ceo of climate fund managers, usually based at the Hague, but he's with us here in Wintry South Africa. Andrew is an expert on infrastructure investing. He has a passion for climate and blended finance, especially focused on emerging markets. Angela Kumalo is the Ceo of Kumalo co a champion of local entrepreneurs, He's mentored many in their journey through startups and he's going to be talking to us about issues of job creation. We also have via video call from massachusetts in the United States. You vinnie do you even is an expert on investing across frontier markets in sub Saharan Africa. His passion is for digital economies even as part of the faculty at Harvard Business School, but today he joins us in his personal capacity and lastly, nurse and I do the Chief executive officer of Sanlam Investments. He's going to provide us perspectives on the investment climate in general. His focus is going to be on impact investing and sustainability. So, ladies and gentlemen, let's get talking. We're bringing you the facts were not governed by fears and we're tracking all the opportunities. Sanlam is now the largest non banking financial services group on the continent. We will be important to the success of the continent in future, whether it be climate, whether it be social, social issues in terms of the infrastructure investment that needs to go in energy, education, all of those things. And When you think about Africa as a continent, you know, it's going to be the youngest active workforce in the, in the next 10, years. It's rich in resources and and solemn is as a company believes that and in the things that we do and part of what we do, you know, will be to to make sure we're contributing from an impact perspective and addressing environmental social challenges that need to be addressed for Africa to truly flourish. As I said to you, bringing a range of issues sustainability, infrastructure, energy, job creation, and investing in South Africa and the rest of the African continent. Let's start with the all important sustainability, a nursing idea. I'd like to just probe you on this one in this covid world. We've seen how the environment became cleaner. You know, we hear of the swan swimming the canals of venice. How do we build on that, this new consciousness for the environment, for the future? Just to make sure that on the right course, thanks a lot and good morning to everybody watching and listening. So, Loretta, I think, you know, when you when you talk about sustainability more generally, I I believe that you have to you have to understand the frame in which we're operating. We haven't got to this point, you know, suddenly there's there's a lot that's come before. In fact there's a lot of discussion now about defining a new geological timeframe called the anthropocene, you know, which really speaks to this to this time period around which humans have had an impact on the earth. Um and that's been coming along for a long time, you know, centuries now, whether you whether you date that back to the first team engines and if we talk about the climate situation that we're facing now and the environmental position that we're in, you know, things things like industrialization, background nuclear radiation from tests by the U. S. And the USSR. All of these things have been coming along for a while now that have actually led us to this position that we're in, where we've got now very defined and limited time frame with which we can we can act to actually save the climate from a social perspective. You know, I think you you can talk about many long standing forces that have been in place. You can trace it back to Western europe's influence on the world that have resulted in us facing some of these social challenges that we're experiencing now. So I think my point is, you have to, you have to first we understand that, you know, we've we've been led to this point now over a long period of time. Um, I think what Covid showed us as you correctly pointed out, is that we we have the power to reverse the effects of some of these things. And if we if we act deliberately and appropriately, we we will see the benefit of both on the environment and and on the social settings. And I think now the noise and the and the volume is being turned up on these agendas by the young people who are going to inherit the world from us. And they are basically saying to us, if you don't act now, you're you're going to leave us something that's not worth inheriting and and that's where the pressure is coming from. And I think we are obliged to do something about it now. And obviously we're having a conversation about the investment climate in general. How does sustainability factor in? So, you know, investing, investing is all about deploying capital? Right. So to to to actually alleviate some of these problems, whether you talk about the environmental impacts of climate or the social challenges that are facing us, whether it be, you know, quality of education, poverty, hunger, gender equality, any of those things require capital investment to actually either both schools or hospitals or sustainable power sources. Um, investing is about now allocating and mobilizing capital in the direction of addressing those challenges. So we actually start to see meaningful results out of that. And when I say sustainability to you, what comes foremost to mind from an investment point of view for me, I would have to say it's got to be about economic access and opportunities so that we're able to deliver a world where everybody is invested and uh, that will deal with a lot of the social ills that we face across all of our societies, particularly the continent of Africa. To still caught some of the numbers that you see around poverty, how many people have access to jobs, how many people have, you know, get up every morning with an occupation and able to put food on their on their families tables. For me, that's what it means. Obviously, climate change is an issue, but I am mostly concerned about other human beings that are not as invested or at least plugged into economic activity when so many others, especially the ones that are doing well, are doing so so well, and I guess that's in summaries, inequality. So for me, sustainability is we cannot have a situation where the few of us who get on the other side are having to build higher walls so that we can feel safer. We have to find a way to create access. We have to find a way to reduce inequality. Jobless growth has been a perennial theme in the South African context. Andrew when we're talking about higher growth rates on the African continent, as Angela's saying the rich are getting richer, the poor seemed to be stagnant, and those who are transitioning from the working class to the middle class, it's not a huge leap that they're making. So poverty alleviation inequality become important cornerstones of the sustainability agenda for you. Absolutely. I think the for a long time we measured growth in numbers. I think what the sustainable development goals are seeking is to challenge has to do is to measure growth in different ways to measure it in sustainability and carbon footprint in job creation. So the S. T. G. S. Bring it all together into a global plan. And for me this is really what sustainability means. It's it's I see investing as a means to an end the engine's behavior at the end of the day, the money informed behavior and our behavior is really the balance of sustainability. We are fortunate enough to live all collectively share a planet which provides resources to enable us to behave their behavior, consumed resources, and so on the one hand, as people, as plants as animals, we use external resources. The planet does resuscitate those resources. We need to find the balance at the moment. We're consuming resources more than than there being replenished and the investing activity is to try and find that balance between the two. I've often heard that, you know, when we talk about changing behavior, We should actually be talking about changing the behavior of perhaps 20% of the global population. Those richer nations are the heavy consumers. Those richer nations are the polluters. Environmentally, those richer nations are the ones who need to curb their behavior and let everybody else develop accordingly. So that's right. I agree that there's 20, tipping point. You don't need to convince 100%. You just convince the 20 because the way that we all collectively make decisions is within decision making forums. We're in a democracy. You just need to create a democratic process to inform a decision and that manifests and policies. For instance, If you can get the policy direction right, they will then inform behavior and they were both human behavior, financial behavior. So it's really finding that core 20 in the context of climate. You're right. It is there a northern hemisphere southern hemisphere issue? It is a developed country versus developing country issue and the flow of capital really does need to go from north to south from a climate perspective. But the broader spectrum of how we actually make decisions, I don't think we need to change the way we just make decisions. We do need to change the men in which we make decisions. Even I do in the United States, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us despite the time difference, We recognize that all andrews referring to the un sustainable development goals and if my memory serves me well, There's literally about 10 years Before the world is supposed to have achieved those 17 targets, it seems as though a lot of the world is behind the curve. Why is that? Well, change is tough and particularly when you're looking at change of behavior, which is fundamentally what we are looking at, whether it's behavior on a nation basis or even behavior on an individual basis. And so any change programme come from an institute in which we specialize in focusing on what does it take to implement transformational change. It's often the toughest change uh you know, to undertake and I think that this will be an ongoing journey part of the movement from the MdGS Millennium Development goals to the sustainable development goals is the challenge, particularly when you have multiple stakeholders across multiple geographies, all at different stages of development. Even if you look at just at the African continent itself, South Africa at the southern tip, obviously a powerhouse on the continent, we face similar but also different issues from others. So just within each ecosystem, we face the same challenges. But what is common as a nursing has mentioned, Andrew and Angela is that we're all facing these common changes. And Covid is a great example of the leveling playing field of regardless of where you were deficits in each country's ecosystem came up linked to infrastructure, the delivery of health care, the delivery of vaccines. And so infrastructure has emerged as a fundamental platform, regardless of where a country is on the ecosystem. Even in the United States, challenges in delivery, of course, different contexts in South africa similar across the rest of it. And I think what's exciting about today is to examine pre covid and post covid the sense of urgency. This refocus on what's taking place just to add an extra point part of the deficit, where the change that happened and what Covid revealed is that ultimately we faced a liquidity crisis, liquidity crisis in terms of support, but also in capital. And that has that trickle has stopped, did stop or slow down. We are re gearing and retooling and I think that it's a great opportunity for leaders to re examine both the priority and the focus Gentlemen, if I said to you, you know, it's all good and well that we're here talking sustainability, but some would say, you know, that's a conversation for the chattering classes. People who've got their jobs, who sheltered our warm, their kids are in good schools and they've got all the time in the world to ponder these issues when you are an ordinary person living in an african economy for that matter, in any of the emerging markets and your issues are bread and butter, you're not necessarily concerned about whether or not you should be using clean gas versus charcoal or whether or not, you know, um, you should consider the emissions in the environment, that's not your reality. And there's something about bringing these range of issues to the ordinary john and jane in such a way that they care, but they can't care if they don't have a job. If they don't have a sense of security, We need to deal with the Basics 1st. Yeah, I think Loretta, I think there's, there's truth in that. So on the one hand, um you know, there'll be a frustration element. It's it's difficult to make it real for those people, the ones you describe. I think there's also the reality is, you know, if you talk about the environmental challenge and you talk about reducing carbon emissions and net zero by 2050 whatever, however you frame it, that the reality is also that many african economies still depend on fossil fuels to operate and you simply can't shut those down and transition to clean energy immediately. But I think you you also made the point earlier, you know, we we we have to raise the awareness, we have to get to the 20 Because if you if you don't get to the 20% of the 20%, those ones sitting in the warm homes and behind the high walls that until I described believe that this is a problem for the future and we can ignore it now you don't get those minds and those pockets of capital and and action coming from those people to start addressing the problem. So you have to raise the awareness there, get them engaged in this discussion, um believing that they have a responsibility to do something now. And if you start getting that movement then you start getting more belief from the, from the people who are experiencing the problem on the ground and more hope, I think, which which moves the agenda forward. The I think to add to what Wagner and saying, I think it's also a question of leadership. So in other words, the connection between those who are in leadership positions that I mean politically, even religiously or in business to make the connection between the right decisions we all ought to be making about how those decisions impact and affect other people that may not be in those positions of power. So here we are talking about investment, here we are, talking about infrastructure, here we are talking about job creation. It's because you're a large extent where I've influences their decision making decision makers rather in that allocation of capital. You know, one of the most amazing entrepreneurs of South Africa gentleman name of IAN for talks about the role of businesses to serve. In other words, what is the point of business? If the money we allocate the decisions we make, don't start society, I mean then I'll be a billionaire and then you'll be poor. So I would enjoy my billions if you're poor. So the point is that that's literally how it is anyway, isn't it? And that's the mindset we need to start talking about. That's why the stds are there Because we don't serve ourselves as humanity if all of it is about to have and the have nots. I think there is actually a sea change underway in the, in the financial sector. I think 20 years ago, people looked at investment opportunities on the basis of their return. Do I get 15%? I get 20%, I get 2% and they'll make their decision based on their risk tolerance. I think what we've seen since the evolution of stds and certainly post covid is the emergence of purpose purpose investing. Been around for a while. We've heard about certain economy impact investing, social responsibility investing. This has moved to a completely different level of scale Now. Large institutions, governments and, and even private individuals are looking for purpose investing and whether it's net zero or whether this is sustainable investing, there is now a purpose attached to the dollars being spent. And I think that reaches down to the community that you refer to. That's your forte, isn't it, nursing this idea of impact investing. So when we start talking about the allocation of funds, what are we looking at here? If somebody said to you, okay, I've got some money to deploy, what do I invest in that would be sustainable and have that impact. So I think there again, it comes back really very much to mindset, mindset of investors and maybe to pick up on the point that Andrew made, we have to get into a phase now in terms of where when people evaluate the investments, you know, it's a Traditionally, historically, it's about financial gain, you know, so I come to you, you want to invest the money. And the question you might ask is, what is my financial return going to be from this? Uh, let's say you're looking for 10% per annum. And uh, and that's what you typically focus on and that's typically where investment managers are focused, I think going forward. Um that conversation needs to shift to, okay, what is the financial return you're going to get? But in addition to that, what impact are you making with that money that you are you are investing? So are you creating 1000 500 jobs through your investment? Are you, you know, feeding 1000 hungry people? You have to start seeing the world through those do lenses in terms of the money you're investing, what, what financial return you're getting, but also what positive impact are you making? So, so in terms of impact investing is really about that. It's about delivering a financial return to people who are investing money, but also raising the awareness and delivering a positive impact outcome as well. You and I want to get your views on this one, because in America there's this concept at the moment, it's not even a concept is the thing that people do social entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, that's what people do. They are deliberately going out there looking for business opportunities that have some kind of intrinsic social value. How well is it working well? Absolutely. I think it's a phenomenon across the world and you're saying that, you know, the class of so called social entrepreneurs, in fact, you'd be loath to find uh you know, even the likes of google and others at the heart of heartbeat say that their social entrepreneurs in the sense of making data accessible, uh and even the realms of finance and bankers, our social entrepreneurs in the sense of the dream of access in the last mile. But your point is quite quite powerful Lerato in the sense that embedded in it is this concept of what is sustainability. And at the end of the day, one of the definitions we certainly try to impart on the future leaders of business here is that sustainability is actually about the consistent delivery of services, thinking through risk clearly. So that regardless of the service that you are delivering, okay, could be a mobile line, it could be your streaming, it could be water power, it's reliable, it's accessible and it's affordable and consistency is quite important. This idea of not just thinking about the short term but over the long term and embedded in that means that leadership becomes quite important. So your point earlier on, the person at ground zero, the person who is everyday waking up and is an entrepreneur in a market in karaoke market in Tanzania as an example, one of the markets we used to serve when I was in banking, what does this mean to them? It's the decisions that the leaders who are in charge of setting the infrastructure, the access to water, the access to those decisions become really, really important. And how you do that, how you? D risk that that level of success that nursing was talking about becomes fundamental to that dignity, that accessibility because its impact at the end of the day, I don't want to belabor this topic too long but and I know you've got something to say to this. I want to ask. It's all good and well for a business to say, we've moved beyond the profit motive. We're looking at the um social impact, impact investing prerogative, but we're not a charity, we're not here to absolve governments of their responsibilities. It is, governments must build schools, It is, government must make sure that, you know, uh the poor somehow have access to public goods and services we can mitigate, we can facilitate, but we're not governments here. Mhm. So a couple of interesting sort of themes embedded in that, in that statement. The first is and talking about infrastructure, is it, does infrastructure rest within the public sector, or does it rest in the private sector? Or is it a hybrid of the two? And we've gone through various evolutions over the centuries of infrastructure existing in the early days. It was all private. The other was built by the emperor emperors and the kings and the romans. And um then for a period of time, it moved very solidly into the, into the public sector. It was the preserve of governments. It was a asset which was created for collective beneficial use. More recently, I think, we're now in a world that recognizes that infrastructure can and should be provided by the public by the private sector, the capital and abundant rest for the private sector. And the nature infrastructure is changing. It's moving from large scale bulk infrastructure to infrastructure, which is in your hand, it's moving from big power stations to cell phones. You know, it's moving from highways to google's or the Ubers or, and so it's putting the power of infrastructure in the hands of the users that enables the users in essence, to fund it. And so it's moving in a different place. What does that leave government to do? Well, they need to set the policy in place and they need to set the programs in place. The point I'll leave you this particular point on is I'm absolutely believer that programs work better than projects. So what government needs to do is they need to set a framework of programs into which is interspersed with the merit of pro of projects and the South African renewable program is a fantastic example of that. Set the program going and the public sector will sort of projects, hold your horses, rein yourself in, we're going to get there, we're going to get there. I just want to finish on this issue of a sustainability. We still want to know what are the kinds of projects we're talking about you when somebody says, okay, I've got good intentions, I've got capital to deploy and I still think I can make some money out of this way. I think, I think the pressure shouldn't come from kind of asset managers trying to change their behavior to be these um, somewhat benevolent asset allocators who now care about things when they're all your faces so sarcastic and I'm being honest because because that's not the world they come from, where the pressure should come from is the asset owners and who are the asset owners? Angela, who is a member of that pension fund, who's making those investment decisions? I've got to stand up and say I'm putting my pension away. Yes, of course. I want a comfortable retirement, but I also want you to care about the things I care about. I also want to know the people that are investing our friends, how what are they doing on the environment, what are they doing to alleviate poverty? What are they doing on infrastructure? We've had this bridge we haven't had here for the longest time, How come we don't, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. So but that empowerment for, for the asset owners, the real asset owners to be able to even have their opinion is unfortunately missing that bridge of information, education, awareness and the ability to be able to go and voice. So this brings in the E. S. G. Agenda which is so dominant at the moment. Yeah. And maybe just to pick up on Angela's point there first, I do agree that it is incumbent upon the asset owners to also believe in the need and translate that need and that pressure onto the asset managers. But if your asset manager doesn't fundamentally, I believe that you can actually execute on those requirements and still deliver financial return. Um then it becomes challenging. So you have to you have to get the asset managers to believe it as well. Um and it's definitely not with a benevolent intent, you know, so you're right, and I think there's enough, there's a significant body of evidence out there now that suggests that you can actually, um, invest for impact and deliver a financial return as well. From a, from the E S. G perspective, you know, E S G is really, it's a framework around which to evaluate, um, companies that you invest in more predominantly in the listed investment space or listed companies. Um, it's it's basically saying, as an as an investor in these companies, you have to think about the impact that they're having on the environment, the impact they're having on humans, social, social, social issues. And you have to factor that into the way you determine the value of these companies, then you have to engage actively with them to try and change their behavior. Okay, Triple bottom line stuff, Gentlemen, I'd like to move the conversation along now for us to talk about infrastructure and I know this is really where you Excel Andrew, you've been investing in infrastructure across the African continent for for the longest time. You've referenced social infrastructure and hard economic infrastructure and there's always been a distinction between that and I think I alluded to it earlier on, hospitals and schools is what governments do ports, bridges, dance, What business does? Where can there be a synergy? A confluence. So, great question. Thanks. Good at this. Um, so, Uh, infrastructure, I think fundamentally fulfils four rolls. The first is the obvious one. It's a framework. It's a skeleton of trade. It enables people to trade to, to have a common means of exchange. They create wealth. And that's really your first point. How do we measure growth Hitherto we've measured in GDP. So how, how frequently do people trade and if they trade more? Well, that's good. GDP goes up. That's growth For those two people. Um, in addition to that, the infrastructure does create and sustain vibrant communities for time immemorial trade routes have created communities along those routes at Barnes, people and it continues to do so we heard earlier on that the communities are connected by road are the same type of connectivity that happens through google. You know, we're creating communities were sustaining communities. That's the second point that infrastructure fulfills. The third is it's a very good investment opportunity or it should be an investment opportunity is that we have a duty of care to look after our savings and the type of thing that nursing does. He has this burden of saying I'm taking charge of people's money, what I do with it to ensure I can give it back to them when they need it. Infrastructure provides a safe haven in the right context for that money, With the right type of structuring the right type of 10or. But most importantly for me, your introduction was are represented firm called Climate fund managers. And when we come back to this climate thing, Infrastructure in my mind is the biggest and the most useful tool we have to manage and mitigate The effects of climate change and also to enable communities to adapt to the consequence of it are stds behind us. One of those is climate change, but in my world it actually attached it actually affects all 17 so and infrastructure is fundamental in that and getting ahead of the consequence of climate change, infrastructure plays a massively important role in that, both in the consumption of resources. My first point and also the matter of the manner in which we deal with the consequence of climate change and so that's where that's where for me, infrastructure sits and that brings together these two orbs. It's real infrastructure on the one hand, tangible stuff. It's intangible. Which is the digital and it's the community that serves and they are all overlapping. When you're talking here. It seems to me like it's a no brainer, it's rational, it's sensible. And yet when you look at the numbers, They don't tell you, we're told that in Africa you need at the very least $150, billion dollars of spending capital expenditure towards infrastructure. Each. Yeah, but what's currently being rolled out is less than two thirds. And of course with the pandemic, that numbers even declined further so people can see the rationale, but they're not doing it. Why? Two reasons one is on the, on the unavailability of capital side, it's a risk perception. The money does exist. There is trillions of dollars sitting in negative earning interest earning accounts today Instead of flowing to 10, return opportunities in Africa. The pure reason for that is the perception of risk. So that's the one issue that we need to address. And we need to connect the dots between demonstrating that these types of investments are not that risky on the first hand, and we can do that by using what you referred to earlier on called blended finance. And we'll get on to that. The second point is, I think Cubans point, which is one of focus and that when we need to get a collective focus and purpose around policy. Such that when people look at africa from an infrastructure perspective, they see a homogeneous strategy that sort of makes sense. It's not about necessarily Rwanda Malawi or South Africa or Nigeria. There's actually an infrastructure thesis that actually makes sense. That enables people to focus on a couple of key things and make a decision. If you can get those too right, then I think we'll start seeing the balance of capital flow. We're not tired of hearing the word risk. Every time you hear about Africa, go, go, even go ahead. I just wanted to just build on several of the points that you mentioned, which are quite powerful, which is what we often refer to as the so called infrastructure paradox. That the paradox is the demand is there for power Water. Yet there's a gap but let's put things into perspective. You mentioned some of the data and you know, I do teach finance and accounting and focus on numbers and execution and so just 20 seconds on the data, in terms of what we have, what we are facing to put it into perspective. So as an example, 300 million plus people across sub Saharan Africa across the continent actually don't have access to reliable drinking water. 695 million without basic sanitation. In fact, two thirds of the world's population that do not have access to electricity are from africa very similar to what we faced with fixed line versus mobile line telephony. So we can either look at it as an opportunity or a challenge. But the biggest, the biggest, the biggest point in terms of how we look uh at this, this this whole challenge of infrastructure and the deficit is that it is about de risking and understanding how do you get projects from the so called idea to actually getting them done? And what the data reveals is that from idea to actually getting feasibility, 80% of projects typically across sub Saharan Africa don't make it through feasibility. And more data reveals that of the 20%, about half make it to final stage, you've got about 10% of projects that make it through. And so the question that we have to unpack is what's needed to unlock that. Okay, you can even answer that question please because when I heard the word risk, I thought to myself, come on, these are all opportunities to build something from the ground up but it's not happening. So explain to us what goes wrong what unravels in the implementation or in the ideation. So very simply in terms of project, in terms of the kind of project delivery, there is no shortage of ideas. Um And what we're also seeing, by the way, data wise is that over the last decade, um it's the development finance institutions that have stepped up and it's actually been commercial lenders. The latest data is showing that less of that is taking place. And particularly during covid when liquidity hit markets, we found projects being placed on hold. And the themes are quite similar in terms of how we move through. And very simply it's there's usually several steps involved. The first is it's not just about trying to solve the problem. The first is choosing the what, what's the technology choices that we are going to make and the decisions we make are quite important. So as an example, Africa picked GSM as our mobile telephony network very powerful and a smart decision that really helped unlock the continent. So we have some choices going forward. And two nurses powerful point were endowed with coal were endowed with certain things. We've got some tough choices as to what we because that's the first point. But feasibility is important. Training in terms of getting the projects across the line is important how we fulfill that. Because my final point is that if a project comes in at five times its budget, who pays for that at the end of the day, this whole question of affordability becomes impacted. So it's up to leaders to not just think about solving it, but to do things affordably smartly get projects on time and it's easy to say these words, this is not just something people face in Africa, it's project management across and we certainly have the talent to do it. And I think that post Covid that is this urgency of saying, how do we continue to accelerate? In fact, your your comments echo the sentiments of hair retains his question has come through, but I can see that Angela, you're going to say something so please say it. And then I've got a question very quickly. I was going to say that the accountant to me tells me a few basic things about infrastructure. Number One is a long term investment for you to be able to be comfortable with the returns. You will eventually see you need security of tenure. Now the policy makers that we have, and many of the government's on our continent don't have the security of tenure. Yeah. So what typically happens that decisions that are made match. They are very short 10 years and therefore long term decisions are hard to come by and that's why oftentimes the guy's like I was thinking of guys like Vodafone, Mtn, etcetera, they will lay infrastructure across a country that you can get all the way from one due to. Now we're having potentially five G. Why do they do that? is because they have a license to trade and they know that we were consumers who will who will almost immediately by the service. That's why we can put the billions of dollars in the ground. So I also think we cannot ignore the role of governments and their agility and their ability to see a long term benefits in getting programs going and not individual projects that may serve their short term kind of political careers. I want to make one other point here, I think, which I think is quite important. I mean, we were nine years away from the target when we were supposed to hit the very ambitious goal set by the stds, which, you know, I think you even describe some of those things and has been talking about them. Um but I think there's a question of how many people out there actually aware of the sustainable development calls. You know, you you reference the funding deficits in Africa alone, but, you know, these things are global um in order to bridge those funding gaps, you you need a mass mobilization and alignment of capital. That means that your money, my money, the defies the banks, retail investors, institutional investors all have to mobilize to to bridge those massive funding gaps to achieve the Mdgs. But it's actually quite astounding how many people are actually aware how few people actually aware of the sustainable development goals. So there's an awareness problem. And I think you have to you have to bridge that awareness gap, you know, with a high level of urgency now as well. And it's not just the SDG s, it's, you know, the targets for infrastructure set by South Africa's new development plan, I think some of the target of 30% is meant to be met by 2030 and uh, we are way way below um that target already. And I think the last bit of money to come through for infrastructure was 2017 I here in the South African context. So this goes to what Mandela is also talking about and Angela using security of tenure. But I would argue in many of these African states, um, we're not dealing necessarily with strongman politics. We're dealing with political organizations who keep on being voted into power. So I don't know if your argument holds because if you're if you're voting for party X, that's been in power for 20 years, their manifesto hasn't changed. The personalities may have changed, but their program has changed. So why do we not have the infrastructure because party politics don't work. We are beating a dead horse. It is very clear that politics have driven by Personalities. Look at our own country, look at our own political history all the way back from 94. Look at the people of the presidents we've had. You can almost split up the role that nelson Mandela played. You can split up the role that Taiwan Piggy played, you can split up the role that Jacob Zuma played. You can almost split up the role that we hope serum oppose a place. So absolutely all of these people are from the same political party, but it is very clear the legacy that each of these individuals left behind. Fair play, fair play Andrew. Let's do the numbers again. Harold Payne says, echoing a lot of what you're gonna said earlier on. Is it just the perception of risk or is it the active mispricing of risk and can blended finance actually work given that it depends on development money, which is notorious, he says for misunderstood, notorious, I quote for misunderstanding private capital risk. Okay, so I want to take a step back and talk about the process. We spoke about the merits of infrastructure and what it can do and all the all the good things that it does, but there is a couple of things that have to happen to actually bring that to reality. And the project needs to go through three distinct phases. It needs to be developed. Even was talking about this, alluding to, this needs to be developed first of all, and I'll talk about what's missing in that gap. There needs to be built only at that stage, can actually start delivering those benefits that I was talking to the outset. So let's talk about those first two stages. Firstly, a characteristic is, it's very risky at the beginning to develop a project. It's less risky to build it and its least risky to operate it. And because there are so many different moving parts, there's so much more forecasting risks that you have to accept at that stage, because you really got nothing except an idea. Whereas when an asset is actually operating, you're dealing with operating technical risk, different levels of risk. The what you need to develop a project is fundamentally six things. And I'm going to try to answer your question is why it's not happening. So you need a good idea, you need a engineering plant, how are you going to build it? You need a financial plan, how are you going to fund it? You need a revenue plan. How are you going to actually pay that money back? You need enabling framework, which means the rules are in place, you've got the policies, you've got the permits, you need enabling framework and most importantly, you need the expertise. You need a team, you need a bunch of people who have actually got the wherewithal to make this all happen. Most of us already exist in the new world there as we're trying to do this an accelerated basis because of the challenge of climate change. The challenge really is about the revenue solution and it's about the finance and enabling environment. All the rest of those are just continuing what we've done before. We know, to build stuff. There are lots of expertise. They have great ideas around, as you said, The thing that's missing is the enabling environment. The regulations you mentioned while South Africa has been a bit of a holding pattern to 2017 Regulation on the one hand, and revenue lower than the other Eskom The inefficiency to actually take on more power and pay for more power has put that very good program into a bit of a holding pattern. So you need those six. Where does blended finance come into it? It comes into because blended finance have provided by governments, it's much more risk tolerant. It doesn't. Some instance, he needed money back so it can absorb these type of risks. So where blended finance plays a role is to be able to develop projects and a more aggressive manner and also fund project because it absorbs at risk, private sector is well placed to actually own these assets and to operate the assets. And so, uh, that's what we do. We are blended finance practitioners. We used to be commercial infrastructure project finance Guys, we've evolved into what we term ourselves to be climate orientated blended finances using this combination of capital to absorb risk at the right place. So I'm absolutely convinced that blended finance the way to go. It is also a way of bringing a small about a public capital, which is taxpayers money, your mind and your money and augmenting it with the trillions that exists in the private market, bringing those together and putting them into these risk buckets to actually deliver this infrastructure. I can feel, I can feel the engine is starting to is starting to take us in another direction towards energy. Just before we go there, you and I do want to come to you because you're a former investment banker. And I want to ask you, you know, when people use the word bank ability, what do they mean in the infrastructure context? And if the project is bankable, what other funding models are there? There was a time where public private partnerships were all the rage. And now you're not really hearing about them. Right. It's a great question. And you know, drawing on the investment banking routes over the last few years, part of our flagship infrastructure structure causes that we run based on the following framework that really has had appeal across latin, America, the US etcetera. And it's as simple as this infrastructure projects cost capital costs money to build roads to build dams to power a continent of power a country. This is an expensive business. And so capital typically can come from several sources, and particularly when we look at our continent and various regions of the east, west or southern. Typically that capital can be international investors. That's typically the western investment, what are they looking for? They're looking for a risk reward return. I invest capital over a certain period of time and I'm expecting a return. We also have capital that comes from other economies. So the chinese for example are quite active, right? But there it's a strategic investment. It's a slightly different type of capital. And you have to be aware of. What is it that if it's not necessarily a direct return, what are you trading off? Not right or wrong, good or bad. And last year of course governments are very much having skin in the game and through all of those different types of funding, you have to make a choice as to where are you going to going to go for the capital to do this. But how we talk about this concept, Lerato, where you say banker book is really about three phases. Once you secure the capital, the first is the capital to deploy it, the next is managing the project, whether it's a tall road, whether it's a power plant and lastly it's the ability to collect funds or reserves, someone has to pay for it. Now, it ideally can be the consumer that's using that uses it, but it's not always the case and you have to think through that. And so investors be it. The chinese government remains the largest investor in Africa infrastructure by the way, by quite a margin. And again, it's not a good or a bad thing, investing in infrastructure is good for the continent. We just have to be aware of what is required, but and how do we do that? And so part of it is how do we get all three elements right? And particularly on the collection side of things, this becomes how a project becomes sustainable over the long term. And the question is, you have to manage all three of those, right? I want to bring in a very important pillar of this infrastructure story, but perhaps one of the most contentious and this is the energy issue. Um If I look at some of the statistics that uh human was referring to earlier on, Africa alone has more than 600 million people who are in need of energy. That's even before I mentioned the e word, what are we gonna do about that in terms of where to focus um the energies, the capital that's deployed into getting electrification. Look, I think so, I'll go back to my earlier point. You know, we we are very much on the continent in a in a fossil fuel based energy system. You cannot simply switch that off overnight and and expect the continent is still function and get the economic growth that we need for, you know, the jobs that we we need to create to to utilize that demographic dividend that you know, maybe in Africa's favor or is in Africa's favor. Um So I think it is a it is a transition. It is a move now to towards more clean energy whether that solar hydro whatever and to get that blend and that balance right. And I think the you know, you know the question, maybe that's on everyone's mind is what is that right plan and what is the optimal balance and what is your transition plan to actually get there transition? Are we talking energy transitions or energy progression? Because at the end of the day, whilst we can focus on greener cleaner sources of energy, this is still a resource rich continent. Coal and fossil fuels still have something to contribute. And we can't discount that. Absolutely. I think I think it is a glide path. I think not only is there the resource, the natural resource which which is part of the sovereign wealth, but they also have the this concept called stranded assets. We've invested trillions in certain assets on the expectation they will they will deliver For another 50 years. We can't throw those away, we've got to retool them. So but there is no doubt that we are moving into non fossil world, the world is traveling in that direction and we will go with it and we'll go with that were driven by the technology, things like internal combustion engines, They will be replaced by any cars. You may even have at some day, you know, a non a non electron hairdryer in a society. We will undoubtedly go that way. Where energy plays though is it's it's sort of the Superstorm. On the one hand, it is the largest contributor of CO two globally. So from a climate perspective, we've really got to get away from burning fossils from a human rights perspective, the electron is the most enabling entity two in our freedoms of human rights. So addressing both things at the same time as a big step forward on the, on the greater SDG story. And why does, why is it achievable? Well, firstly, we've seen renewable energy, it's currently the lowest cost provider of of electrons. That's largely because of the scale because the technology actually enables us to generate electric electron with a solar panel far cheaper than any other source. The challenge with it is it's not always on technology will enable that always beyond what's called base load and in that will come a new world called the hydrogen economy in our kids, which are just down the road In 10 years time. They will be talking about a hydrogen world. They will live a hydrogen world. Can you just define it for us quickly? Because I've heard it's the mining houses actually that could lead here. Well it's going to be it's going to be the mining is going to be the technology and it's going to be the consumers. So there's three parts the hydrogen economy. It's the generation of the molecule that's a heavy infrastructure play. And to make 100 molecule you need a bunch of power which will come from neurobiology. You need a chunk of water. And so most of these will be marine based and beyond the call of the oceans. That's how you make electron I mean molecule then you then store and you've got to travel it. So you gotta take it somewhere because then you're storing the energy in this in this molecule which you then get liberate at the other end. So either either package it in pneumonia or you can you put down a pipeline and you put in the boat and you take it to a source. So a lot of europe is retooling its pipelines now to move away from natural gas to moving hydrogen. And you take that hydrogen and then you combust it and and that and this is and and and the use of the use of that hydrogen will affect everything. We do microwaves, hairdryers, cars, and this is going to happen. And yet government still needs to be convinced that you need a very good relationship with the private sector. I mean the stuff that Andrew is talking about, we've been alive and watching it happen in front of us and it is happening. I mean, renewable energy industry has done the IBP program talk about programs and projects. It's obvious that we can solve these things with better partnerships. I see more hydrogen projects and toll roads by a long shot, we should never have had those details in the first place. Well, the world a World Cup. Okay, So yes, exactly. I just wanted to build on your point that, you know, make no mistake, the, you know, the development of energy and the provision of, of power and electricity is transformative for a society. In fact, the studies show that the rural electrification of the United States was fundamental to the transformation of this economy into a superpower economy. And if you look at the African continent, south Africa, other countries just that, that delivery of electricity for a student to study and have electricity at night for a farmer to expand a farming to the delivery of health care and ultimately to the Internet, which is all powered through electricity is going to be fundamental. And so to the point, it is also a shift from large power generation to localize power and so you can see pockets of that in kenya with that. But I want to come back to big power generation if you look at grand anger, something we've all been in forums for for almost a decade now. A lot of it is it represents that the potential for clean energy, hydroelectric in this instance exists. But there is an element of what is the final step in the transmission line across multiple countries where stakeholders, so is it an ability of just will of leaders coming together? Because we certainly know that, that, that the countries are willing and that's where it's complicated. What's the pricing across borders, what's the tariffs and I think that we're reaching the stage and images, but more needs to be done in order to unlock a number of Okay gentlemen, this, this conversation is getting very heavy for me. So I want us to just bring it down. Simplify it for Lerato. Here's the basic issue. People in Africa need electricity. The one country that has a semi functioning utility is underperforming. They are power outages in the most advanced economy on the African continent. There's inconsistent power supply in leading economies such as Nigeria and others in West Africa. It is not a good story to tell and somebody needs to fix it. And where is that fix coming from? Is it coming from hydrogen? Is it coming from coal? Is it coming from renewable energies? Whatever it is? It needs to happen very, very soon. Yeah. So the deficit at the moment actually isn't in the generation of the electron, it's actually getting it to the customer. So the challenge we sit within South africa is actually a british is that our load is quite peaky. We have heavy industry that using a lot of power or collectively we have a generation capability which is only generate electricity on an ad hoc basis augmented by renewable, which is also relatively ad hoc. And the grid in of itself doesn't store energy. You have to have that which equals that instantaneously. So the grid needs to be balanced on the one hand. So energy efficiency, we need to live in a society where we actually use less energy. We need more technical level technologies that we use LED. S not incandescent light so we manage the load. And this is maybe what nurses point was is that every person out there should be aware of how much energy they use and they actively can choose to turn a light on or put an L E D and and balance that load. Once we've got that in a manageable form then we can produce the electrons, then we need to connect them and the connection will come with militarizing. And what you've been saying, put the generation capacity in the hands of the user, put the solar panel on the roof, So the electron doesn't have to go, 50 km who don't need to go two m down to the kettle below the roof. So so last week in South Africa, the president of the country, made that announcement that um for some of the big industrial players, they can regenerate and they can produce To the tune of about 100 MW each cap. This starts to open up the space for more independent power producers to come to the fore. And I think for me, the main point, there was, you know, the debate leading up to that was whether it was going to be 10 or 50, you know, so we were kind of anchored on 10 or 15, then he came out and he said 100. So, you know, to your point, um, what needs to happen, I think it's more of those kind of things. We saw a big positive surprise there in terms of moving forward on the energy energy story. So, uh, I think that's that's a good story, There's a lot of hope there, I think, you know, the more of that we see, the more likely we are to move forward on on the broader energy picture and more entrepreneurs ready to take up these opportunities. There's no economy, there's no entrepreneurs, there is no innovation without power. So if you can't solve the issue of energy, you don't have um ability to create a livelihood for yourself. Interestingly, I found it quite quite amazing That the fight to the private sector has been going on through the minister right, the 10-50 debate that that person is talking about And the announcement of 100, a lot more than we all expected came from the president. So what do you say? So I just found it quite interesting that, you know, it's not something the minister was engaged in resolving the private sector said, guys, we found each other, we spoke, we've now agreed it's 100, let's go. So you reckon it's political principle just unilaterally made a decision and we cannot ignore the impact of politics and all that we're talking. Okay, I just like to add quickly and while 100 is a good number, We do have to transition or progress of 65,000. That's what currently we have installed capacity cold. The future world is zero coal. So we're gonna replace the 65,000 with pockets of 100. So while it's a big step forward, there's a lot of hundreds. A long way to go quickly. He's going to fund it. Um Andrew going back to all the conversations we had earlier on on blended finance. I mean, the pension funds in South Africa, you can correct me if I'm wrong, have something like four trillion rands of capital that can be unlocked. Yes, they are prescribed assets that can just go everywhere that money. But there is cash. And would asset managers be willing to roll out some of that cash towards sorting out some of the energy issues towards helping Eskom Would you help? Don't answer me answer to that question. Those type of questions is always, it depends, It depends on a number of factors and it really depends on certainty on the certainty of policy. And if we envisage the future, you know what Andrew and others are speaking about, make no doubt in 5, 10, 15, 20 years that we are going to have even local households, local companies feeding power into the grid. One of the elements is how does legislation keep up with that? And I think this announcement that was just made is in keeping with that. Now we're very South African focus in the sense of this bit of the conversation. But your question was Pan African in the sense of Nigeria as an example, and that's a classic example of Africa's largest economy having a huge demand for power, but an inability. And I think the African Development Bank has done some some terrific, some terrific work in terms of what's, what's going on. They just set up uh and help set up the Africa Infrastructure Investment Fund, which is a dedicated fund to Nigeria. And what's interesting there in terms of trying to solve the problem, Lerato, because you said, what would it take? We've discussed a number of things from feasibility to project management. All of these will help on their own. But collectively, unfortunately, a lot of these things have to happen together. But what they're trying to do in Nigeria is to get local funders to fund local projects in local currency. Right. My great accountant brother there spoke about matching meaning you're matching local currency to a local project, so you're not paying back in dollars and you're getting this matter. And I think this move across Africa is for more local plans. There's a move to local banks participating. Local folks having skin in the game and that, I think is a terrific, terrific direction that we're going, but again, it goes back to the costs you one. And if the costs and the importation of equipment is going to come in dollar terms, you're gonna need to have some kind of offshore investment in this thing or some kind of offshore capital coming through along with, um, the locals liquidity issues. I just want to go back to the money, who pays for it. How can they pay for it? If we're gonna have more local players in the economy and liquidity is an issue, Can the pension funds come through? Should they come through? So, so yes, they should is the answer. The question. I think the solution lies from all parts of capital. It needs to come from the government and he's come through from the private sector, through the pension funds. I do also just make you want to make the point that I don't think that there is actually an either or option. I think every every prudent fund manager deploy of capital recognizes that unless that money delivers a sustainable outcome in a collective way, his return expectations are flawed because it's not, he's not gonna he's not gonna make that. So I don't think they can, they actually can choose any more to say I want the 10% or I want the impact. I think they are so intertwined now that there is no, there's no differentials. And final question on this one from julie S Rich says renewable energy is great, but what is the true cost of moving an economy to renewable energy? Right, So, so that so that whole energy transitions thing, What is the true cost and what are the socio economic impact of moving to renewable energy? And can a country like South Africa really afford to lose all those jobs in coal mining, etcetera? Yeah, it's enormous. The true cost is huge. And I don't think it's quantified. I think also in South Africa, if we are in a, in that exact unique situation that we have a utility that is effectively the off taker and the supply of capital to the minds, it's a major employer and it's a huge exporter being Eskom. It's more than just a power utility. It's a, it's a very big part of um, the world in which we live in South Africa. So for them, it's not really about energy transition. It's actually a just transition from moving from a major employer to another form. It will be another energy company of that, I'm pretty sure. Um but it is the actual total cost of it known, I don't think it is as we transition. Let me read your comment from Hassan Adamu. It's a question, but I think it's a comment. Akon lighting icon is the singer, the rapper Akon music. He's revolutionized parts of Africa Senegal to be exact his home country, providing solar lighting too. Under resourced communities. Could South Africa and greater Africa explore collaborations with entrepreneurs like a con like prominent musicians to get them to do interesting things, profitable things, but social impact things, creating an enabling environment for us to reach the SDG s in a realistic way. So that ecosystem of entrepreneurs there in hip hop, they're actors, they're in finance their everyone, everybody coming to the party. And I think ultimately the issue here is about job creation. So let's take a look at why it's important to invest in plan for the future through the legacy project investing for impact, you know, to us really means addressing real problems. Ultimately, our objective is to alleviate the country's triple challenge of poverty, unemployment and inequality. What we do in the, in the investors legacy range, it's all about job creation. We find businesses we need to expand to debt financing, equity financing. We provide those businesses with the platform and the expertise and business support to actually grow and enable them to employ more people and get bigger and bigger. And through that, you know, one preserve jobs. And secondly, if they're able to grow their employ more people, It's time for us to talk about job creation on a continent where the average person is set to be 17 years or younger market for the future, but without economic growth, is there a way to absorb these young people coming through the pipeline to be the entrepreneurs of the future and to be the employees and taxpayers of the future, Angela. That's a question for you. You work very much in this space, you mentor entrepreneurs, you are an entrepreneur. Do you make of the despondency that's out there. I think a couple of things Lerato, I think if you're speaking specifically on job creation, we've got to be honest without situation and that is um indeed the time that lifts all boats when it comes to job creation has to be economic growth. But economic growth alone without inclusivity is of no use because they have just have more. So it's got to be what in South Africa has become something termed inclusive economic growth. In other words, how do you grow the economy, but take as much of a population with you? Um, Covid has, has definitely had an impact. I cannot tell you of just the sheer blood on the streets, a small business level about what Covid has done. It has obliterated businesses, especially businesses in the biggest communities where people live, A lot of them are very retail wholesale, food service oriented. So when lockdowns happen, where human beings cannot interact, where they cannot gather, that has a direct impact on someone's ability to feed their own families. So I think Covid, I think also just kind of the slow economic growth have generally had, particularly South Africa is difficult and also entrepreneurship um isn't necessarily a proxy or even a replacement for jobs. You know, it's really hard, it's very difficult to take something that's an idea to work at it with your own capital, to convince other people to eventually give you some money to take it forward, to get the first customer invoice, that customer wait for them to eventually pay you while you're paying your costs. Those are not easy things to do is quite quite difficult. So I do think that we as Africans need to look at job creation and the ability to support entrepreneurs um as as two very different work streams because they don't mean the same thing. I probably get quite frustrated when when the rhetoric is oh you can't get a job or start a business. It's not that I'm glad you've just raised it and I love that sentence to use entrepreneurship is not a proxy for job creation. So where does this thinking come from that young people be self starters, you know, be courageous, go out there and do something for yourself and then when the economy tanks then you they ramp up that message. I think it comes from the problem statement. The problem statement is, we have way too many people out of economic activity and the economy is not generating enough or want to see the economy in the formal economy is not generating enough opportunities for people to be able to earn a living. So let's separate me starting a small business and me being an entrepreneur, the lady who's selling at the taxi rank when people are commuting to and from work and is able to make a little bit of money to take the kids to school. That person is self employed, that she's created a job for herself and she can live through that. That is really, really good. She may not be an entrepreneur, she may not have aspirations of building this uh, this little desk of hers into 100 deaths that kind of take over the continent of Africa. She's just trying to keep herself self employed. So I think, I think that's kind of where the mix up typically comes up, that's a job and you've created a job for yourself and that's good. That is not something to be scoffed at. I think it is something to be encouraged. We do need as many people as possible to have the wherewithal and get the support to create any income for themselves outside of formal employment. I get a pay slip every month and an smS, so that's one element, let's call that sme development, how do we develop S. M. M. S all the way from micro to perhaps slightly larger. And then there's the world that excites me, which is what the digital economy has done for us. It's given us an opportunity to build global businesses for the first time in our lives, we can actually come up with something, build it and it can grow. We look at the businesses that have been started here in South Africa payment services like Yoko, um home services, um like the services where you can now call help on your phone to come and help you like Sweet South South. So, so that is all enabled by technology. So yes, we must find a way to have as many people to be able to earn an income, but we must also come up with an ecosystem that supports the best ideas because those best ideas can create the future conglomerates that can employ so many more. Okay, so it's an interesting thing that you've just said and it's illuminating for me. So there's there are people out there who are able to generate some kind of an income. So they've created a job and then they are entrepreneurs. And what I understood you to say is these are people with big dreams, Empire building dreams, those are the entrepreneurs. So for me that is a person with that, with that at least aspiration because not all aspirations are the same, my aspiration could be, I just want to any income and put food on the table. In fact maybe I'm gonna do this for now while I'm looking for a job because actually I want a job, so I'll create a job. An entrepreneur is not that person is not looking for a job. So what makes an entrepreneur? Well isn't that the question which were all that answers to? So a lot, first of all you gotta, you gotta be very patient because it's very, very difficult out there. We don't have an ecosystem that's really plugged in, so you gonna have to do the plugging in yourself. So I must build the network myself, I must build the idea of myself, and only when I get to a certain scale do I have a chance that the formal economy may pay attention? And so in my view, the only way we can create entrepreneurs at scale is we got to preach the gospel. We have to keep asking imploring young people to think about a life where they can create their businesses of their own, whether just to earn a living or to scale at scale. I think there's there's a there's a cultural element here as well because, you know, entrepreneurship by definition is also risky. You know, you have the likes of Richard Branson would have gone past a few times, You have to have a lot of risk appetite for that, which means in terms of the environment, you know, to support entrepreneurs, you need capital. Capital must flow to support those businesses, you know, in the U. S. Typically that venture capital space where money chases good ideas and then those ideas, you understand the risk that they may fail, but they could also blossom into these businesses that grow and grow and create more and more jobs and so forth. And culturally, here, I think we we do to some degree struggle with the risk appetite to support that. And that's probably one of the things that, you know, in terms of Mandela's referenced an enabling environment, we need to change. I think it's great. You and you're here. I'd like you to speak to us as a south African domiciled in America. Um you know, Silicon Valley, it's an example that people love to use where in close proximity is venture capital to the innovation. So you can sit tell it out with your great idea, somebody is close by, who can see you working and we'll go and find the money for you. And even if the idea fails, the bank will keep on putting money in your business a couple of times before they give up, which is not gonna happen here. No, absolutely. I mean 20 m outside my my window is the Arthur Rock Center for entrepreneurship. It's one of the leading centers in the world and it has an interesting definition of what entrepreneurship is coined by one of the folks referred to as the father of entrepreneurship in the United States. Howard Stevenson was a fellow faculty member here at the Harvard Business School. Howard Stevenson defined entrepreneurship as the pursuit of opportunity beyond resources control. It's very important definition that has withstood the test of time here. The pursuit of opportunities beyond resources controlled. Right? And at the heart of that is that it is about what nursing says, it's about risk taking. And certainly there are cultural differences where in fact failing as an entrepreneur and getting that so called experience here allows you that second option. And certainly in South Africa, we do have challenges that if we fail in a business, there's a history of a credit record, but one of the elements that until it touched on is how do we think about an enabling ecosystem? And that brings us back to infrastructure? Right. There's hard infrastructure and the so called soft infrastructure, skills development, et cetera. And so the journey of an entrepreneur, if you want to set up, and we often refer to entrepreneurship with the capital E that's the ambitious person who wants to scale open up a gym and they have 100 of them. Just a small entrepreneurship. Someone who is too, until this point trying to make a living. And both are dignified forms, but particularly on the scaly, is it easy to get a phone line? How easy is it to file taxes? How easy is it to hook up onto the internet and this is where the infrastructure becomes fundamental. And so to your point, yes, we can say get out there and do it, But what's the role of everyone in that ecosystem? Final point is it's not just government doing X, Y. Z. You know, government in South Africa, post apartheid has worked extremely difficult to deliver on water on sanitation. It's also the role of the private sector to say, what's the financing for smes? And this is where digital innovation is exciting. I think everyone is coming to the party look at the new startups that are using digital technology to enhance credit, to get new forms of data to unlock it. So we have a way to go. But to my point, all of these on their own help together, they play a role in unlocking it and make no mistake, entrepreneurship and innovation is the heartbeat of where South Africa and the rest of the content is going to turn itself around. And I'd like you to say something to this, you've been a bit quiet on this particular subject and it's not just finding the money through venture capital and then having the infrastructure as you've been talking about it. I've also read that it's also helping the entrepreneur access new markets. Now, the reason I'm saying this is people are excited about Africa having this fledgling middle class, But really when you look at the numbers, the middle class is made up of people who are earning perhaps an extra $10-$20 a day. That's not a sustainable, viable market to create these billionaires that we need in the future. There's a sense here that we're not ambitious enough in our thinking, in our perception of what's really needed to drive groundbreaking economic activity in Africa. I think there is a gap between the traditional understanding and perceptual infrastructure being the toro that we've and how does that actually affect the moms and Pops. I think the earlier conversation, we're talking about entrepreneurship and the likes, there's a more fundamental issue about where should jobs be created? Should there be in the public sector, which would have been the private sector? I'm of the view that every job that's creating the private sector has the potential to create another 10, 20 100 jobs. Every single pope public sector job probably is just another job. And the reason for that is the public sector. Wake up in the private sector. Wake up every day thinking about growth. They think about their measure of success is growing that business. I don't think that's a wake up thought for for public sector and and and that linkage, while they do think that our role is to enable it actually is a different nexus to the private sector guy who wakes up in women who wakes up, how do I grow my business? It's an ever present thought. So that growth dynamic, which we need to absorb youngsters into the job market needs to come in that area and we need to create a policy. Now come to your question, where does infrastructure playing that historically? Never did because infrastructure was the preserve of public sector or contractors? Big contractors or financiers? And how has that changed? Well, it's changed because infrastructure has now changed its nature. Its miniaturized, it's more accessible. It's on your roof. It's in your hand, is digital, it's not it's tangible, it's intangible. So infrastructure as a concept now, it's actually available to the, to the everyday man. What that means. Coming back to my development point is that there's also financing facilities that recognize and are available. We heard about the legacy funds that enable business startups to follow a concept. So that's also changed. So that's more accessible from financing perspective. And we're starting to see policy formulation the 100 megawatts. That's also so these things are starting to happen, which really does challenge the the the 23 year old to actually think about infrastructure in a different way to what historically she might have thought about Angela as we want this question down creating new markets is a very important one, right? Because you can have the idea, but you've got people who can consume by, You know, the product. So on a continent where the middle class is made up of people who earn $10-$20 a day, that's not quite the vibrant market we're talking about. So that's the first thing. And then secondly, Hassan says, isn't now the time for venture capital to collaborate to create enabling legislation and regulatory framework with the government, putting the needs of the country through the filter of what does our country need to thrive while meeting our key is D. G. So Vcs here, I'm assuming his venture capital is definitely not the vice chancellors at university and they're collaborating with the government to create the kind of legislation that says, what does this country need? So let me make those three points. The first is to stay away from Andrew's point, let's not miss the issue of skills. I often hear so many people talk about the biggest issue we've got in supporting entrepreneurs is access to capital. It is an issue, I argue it's not the biggest issue. I think the biggest issue we've got is skilled and I'll explain that to you very simply, most of the successful entrepreneurs we've got in our country are people that have gathered a skill at some point. They went to university, they studied something, they became a professional so I can run my engineering firm, I can run a little accounting firm and then I can move on to other things. But I have a skill and ironically, I probably had a job, right? So if I don't have the political skill and I may not have had any formal training or development, it's very difficult for me to do something my morning generating income. The biggest opportunity we've got right now upscale. Our people, our digital skills, we've done a piece of research, I said in a platform called Steam or Diesel, which is essentially a lobby group and that's, that's gonna be the answer to my VC question where we've been able to tell you that the big, the highest demand demanded skill in South Africa for jobs are digital skills and this is an exportable skill. I can sit here in South Africa, I can do a piece of work for anywhere in the world and get paid in us dollars, but I gotta have the skill. So it's not rocket science. Let's figure out a way on how we can upscale as many young people as possible. You're providing digital skills. Second question you asked me about consumers. That's the beauty of businesses that it finds value irrespective of the profile of the consumer. That's why we've got brands that service the higher echelon. Have you got companies have been built for years on people that are in the lower pyramids. So the fact that consumers in Africa may not spend as much quality in europe is no excuse for business. Business finds opportunity. Ask Pepco asked many other companies we've had last point on the V. C. Versus legislation, You know, one of the things that I'm sad has been discontinued Mainly because of abuse unfortunately is a provision like the 12 J. Provisions. So the section 12 provision is quite simple. I'm gonna encourage Lerato to make investments in businesses that are entrepreneurially driven and I'm gonna give a tax break for it. It's not rocket science, right? Of course many clever people went to abuse it. Now, here we are. We don't have that legislation anymore. That was a very useful way of our legislation. Can partner with VCS because what happened is that VC firms, fund management firms started building up now on the basis of that because if I can get eight million from 100 people suddenly have 100 million rand that I could, that I could manage and reinvest into small businesses. So it's happened before. I think it's a space that the likes of somebody's trying to get out there and popular so that government can rethink. Um, you know, uh, this is, this is a huge topic, an additional perspective Lerato could, it could be brief human because we've got a few minutes left. This is a brief point is that we need to be careful when we talk about venture capital and venture capital has seen worldwide is unlocking this tremendous value. The pool of venture capital money in sub Saharan Africa is actually quite small. Venture capital defined as early stage investment. We have a very robust private equity market. So I do think that the VC community itself needs support. If we take all the capital in D. C. And actually deployed it won't be enough for the step change you're talking about. So corporate venture capital becomes fundamental and so in South Africa corporate Vcs the name of the game, the mindset inside of the businesses investing and thinking of delivering to the last mile. And I just want to say that it's a different topic but it's quite a powerful one for us to realize that that's where the unlocking lies and of course to keep developing the V. C. Community. All right so um and I'd like you to just take a breath because I'm coming to you now as we change tack winding down our conversation, we've spoken about a lot of things sustainability, infrastructure, job creation, energy economy. Let's talk about invest ability, South Africa and the rest of Africa. And I know we shouldn't always draw a distinction between South Africa and the rest of Africa but in this case it's almost an important distinction to make. Because so much money not so much but quite a bit of money is coming through into the African continent. At the moment. It's headed towards East Africa infrastructure, it's headed towards West Africa's new digital economy uh in terms of the stock of FBI coming to South Africa still in heavy industries like mining. But these new ambitious plans, people need some convincing when it comes to South Africa. Why? Well it's a great question and certainly the game has changed, but despite it all, you just have to land even in these covid times and, or tambo to realize. And again, I will reveal a slight bias that South Africa remains, that shiny country, that shiny house on the hill, you know, to describe, you know, in another era that is, and it has so much incredible uh endowed opportunity within it from our airports to our roads. And even with Eskom challenges uh, to what's taking place. So make no mistake that we still are seen as the stepping stone into the rest of the continent. But the game has changed. Capital is agnostic looking for investment and we have different economies moving at different places. So East Africa, of course, with services, kenya with its banking sector, it's a gateway from the east, the West Africa with the oil industry. But certainly there are pockets and if you look at it, those pockets have been Ethiopia Rwanda, very unique circumstances of small country, but certainly gaining a reputation for delivering with a certain type of leadership. There are pros and cons and certainly francophone Africa has also been getting its, its fair share. And I think regardless of the region, what are international investors looking for because the first realization is that the capital alone in South Africa is not enough. We need FBI okay to get that FDR, you're competing with other parts of the world and that's where, that the solution that's taking place at the moment is a hybrid solution. It's not just government, but it's also business and what our international investors looking for stability, a rule of law and South Africa still has that amazing court system etcetera. So I think we still have to play for it, but we have to work a bit harder in terms of in terms, in terms of getting what's known as the South African narrative going and there are no easy solutions. How do you deal with the state owned airline? How do you deal with the power utility? How do you deal with parts and infrastructure? How do you deal? How do you deal with an economy that's not regarded sub investment grade? That's that's a huge one. And just think about what what the definition of sub investment grade actually actually means right. It's actually in business terms, looking at a long term outlook of where, where it's going. And just remember when nelson Mandela took over as our first democratic elected president, South Africa went through the similar phase of where we went through this, where the world looked and said, what are these risks? What are these risk elements? It takes data wise, 5-10 years for a country to come out of such an element. And right now post Covid, I think are these elements in terms of what is that clarity of purpose? In terms of our policies regarding key elements? Power remains a fundamental part of any investment if you're thinking of building a new motor plant. So I certainly think that there's some hard work to do it. But to add to that, this isn't just a solution for government. I think we also have to talk about the psyche that does everybody feel that their contributors? How are we doing to Andrew's point when its power generation? How are we changing our behavior? And so I think the next 5 to 10 years is certainly going to be a challenge. I think we have the right leaders in place. I think we have the right foundation stones, but we are uh competing not just against our colleagues across the borders, but certainly other regions of the world. Okay, so gentlemen, we need to be really quick and how we attend to this one and frank. So the truth of the matter is that compared to other African economy, South Africa's a mid range, almost tertiary economy. So we can't really compare South Africa, you know, we must compare apples with apples. But having said that within the emerging market space, South Africa is losing its shine. It seems to be so I think South Africa is quite unique is that it's got the largest pool of pension capital on the continent. That's what makes it stand out. We've got the most mature and the largest, most world capital pension fund, that's where all the money in the long term, but it is a long term money. And it's also in the hands of people that it's not their money, People like SAm and nursing are the custodians of multigenerational savings. So as a result, they are much more conservative than a Bill Gates or say or a cod say let me go and do this. You know, because it's because of because they are, as I said, they have a duty of care to these multi generations. So it's sticky money to be in rhythm. The second point, which is an correlated that South Africa is actually very well capitalized. There's lots of money in South Africa and so it's very competitive. So things are actually very keenly priced. The third thing that's rand based, so, so we don't factor in the volatility, so we spend rand's, we earn rands back. It's all one singular thing. And you know, if you're sitting outside of South Africa, you see two things. One is, I've got country risk, I've seen all the bad stuff, I've got FX risk. And thirdly, I probably haven't got the long term view that a nursing does and it's very competitive. So they perceive the risk to be much higher than it actually is. They see it in a different way and so they can't compete. Yeah, I think I'll just lift out one point specifically that you've been referred to. I think, you know, from an investor perspective, whichever investor you thinking about, investors will look for two. Two main things to see a country as investable. The one is consistency of government policy and the second thing is leadership. Um, to your question around shine, I think, you know, one has to acknowledge that we we probably haven't done our credibility in that sense, the world of good in the last decade and we've got some time to, to rebuild now. And I think, you know, signals like we've seen last week around the energy, uh, 100 megawatt announcement all steps in the right direction and as that goes and that trajectory moves forward then, you know, I think we will, we will get our shine back. You mentioned leadership earlier on and this is the bug bail when it comes to South Africa versus others. Um, yeah, man, I think, I think there's an answer in leadership plus collaboration, what I mean by that and the covid pandemic once again has proven that when we South Africans have a common enemy and we have to resolve the situation, it's really, really hard. Somehow we found our way through it. But you see the problem is that we don't do that often enough. So I'm talking about collaboration between small business and big business and you already saying it, I'm suddenly seeing it. Some of our biggest retailers and biggest banks have got hundreds of young people busy coding them solutions to better serve their customers. That's happening with big business, recognizing that they're not as agile as small business pay, partnering, government needs to do the same with business. Not only when there's a global pandemic, you need to take the view that the people that are going to innovate on energy is going to come from the private sector. The corruption story overplayed in South Africa. Is it overplayed? No, because I don't think you can never ever overplay corruption. I think it's a very real thing and it drives a lot of decisions or indecision because certain people are not quite lined up. So those are those who are apprehensive about South Africa because they feel there's been some kind of a failure in leadership. Are they justified to feel that way personally? I can't fault them. We should do more to try and change that. But I don't think we've done ourselves a world of good. I agree, I agree, but I do think that was yesterday's chapter. I think we're stuck between the the zone of um development entrepreneurial capital will say South Africa, you've got the ability to sort out your own problem. You don't need my money unless it gets to IMF top disaster status. But for your normal european development bank, they'll say South Africa, you can sort this out, you don't need our help. The fact you messed it up on the last right, you're learning by that there's a bit of sort of self flagellation going on, move on, get your act together, and that's where the money is not flowing in while. Rather goes to Malawi Rwanda, where they're saying you actually do need our help. So the european investment bank and on the digital side, I mean, Jack Dorsey is during his sabbatical in Ghana and looking very much into looking at what's happening within the digital ecosystem in West Africa. There's all this innovation happening in South Africa and nobody is interested. Yeah, What does that tell you? It tells me that we don't do very well when it comes to collaborating and supporting innovation and it will come. I mean, for example, the spectrum issue, can you imagine the release of that spectrum into our economy? If it's well supported, gives you access, it reduces hopefully prices. It means that if I'm in um tuba tuba, I may be able to afford internet access. Then itself gives me economic opportunity. So I think it will come laredo, but we need to put some foot on the pedal. You when you're listening to this conversation, tell me what you think. You know? You know, certainly I have a slightly different perspective in the sense that what do we have going for ourselves? We have an incredible financial services ecosystem, our bankers, our banks and the technology is second to none right? Always in the world, economic foreign reports amongst the top in the world. Our challenge is getting that last mile and continuing the journey to financial inclusion. We have what is recognized as one of the most advanced insurance sectors in the world are insurance industry. In fact, it's the country that invented the so called, actually an actuarial degree that has gone all around the world, very powerful. The rule of law court system. So the DNA still exists. I think what we're talking about is that like in many places in the world, the trust deficit between different sectors needs to increase. So what are the forums that can do that? And to Angela's point, Covid showed that when there's a challenge of a crisis, how we're able to step up and I really think there's 44 elements where we need to invest in number one. Education is going to be key education in terms of digital education, education in terms of our workforce, re kiting and retool. So moving to the green energy, the earlier question on will that cause jobs to be lost? Actually, it's about the mindset that is going to open up an entire spectrum of new jobs and new skills that actually prepare us. And I think the solution and the way the world is going is hybrid solutions. The degrees our engineers are studying, our lawyers are studying, our doctors are studying may not necessarily be what they're doing. They have to think in terms of hybrid, in fact the api mindset, how we interconnect banks, insurers are all going into different sectors and I think we have to have it a continued development in both our mindset and how can the infrastructure support that particularly with digital innovation, access to bandwidth and driving that? I'm very excited about the next few years. I hope that our mindset in terms of the challenges has shown the following that if you look at how South Africa has coped in the Covid crisis and I know there's a challenge now with numbers going up. It's remarkable how the country did that with the resources at present. And so that indicates the leadership, capacity and capability that you and my last question to you on this subject and then we start to have, we have to start wrapping up. Please touch on crypto and Blockchain opportunities. It's too big to ignore in these types of discussions. Associates, Yakult fender. So, um, let's imagine all was, well, the enabling environment was right. Innovation is happening at a very robust pace. Where does Africa stand on this? So crypto, Blockchain is a great, is a great, is a great point. And and don't forget that the South African Reserve Bank was one of the first reserve banks to look at Blockchain technology in terms of doing transfers and so the famous project made headlines around the world, but clearly across the continent, there's a room for that. And what we're typically seeing is that the different central banks, my formal role, my job was to meet each central bank across multiple African countries is that they're either adopting let's be adventurous like the South Africans, very successful project or a wait and see, but no doubt that the mindset of what crypto and Blockchain represents is empowering folks to be able to transact. In fact, m pesa is a kind of similar concept of people able to trade on a platform and I think that philosophy of empowering people on the ground is going to continue. We are very fortunate to have legislators, particularly our central bank that have been at the forefront of this. It comes back though to handle his point is that whether it's crypto or Blockchain, how are we empowering our youth, be it in our universities to truly embrace the digital era, and I think that's where the exciting element lies. Alright, so gentlemen, we've had a big, dynamic, comprehensive conversation, We can't answer all the questions, we can't come up with all the solutions, but we have to keep program, we have to keep thinking critically listen. I'd like to turn to you now. All of these issues we've spoken about ultimately address this one point that Andrew raised you are here looking after generational savings, people work hard for this money and it is asset managers role to find the best place for this money to go for social impact and impact investing, but also to create very solid returns for their future. What is your responsibility in all of this? Loretta's? I think you summed it up quite well there. So, so the first thing is Africa and South Africa are investable. Um but more importantly, we don't have a choice, you know, we have to invest to solve and alleviate all of these problems from an asset managers perspective. You know, we have to see our role changing so our role traditionally of um simply delivering a financial return for for investors and your point is well made, you know, it's hard earned money that's invested here, it's the money that's going to secure livelihoods and and make sure people have a dignified retirement um that we are investing now, which means we we have a massive responsibility, we have a massive responsibility to understand our roles now to be able to evaluate the investment opportunities accurately, to think about, you know, not just the financial return that's going to look after the people who put that hard earned money in our in our care, but also how we match those objectives of, you know, ensuring that those people still have a dignified retirement, but ensuring that the broader community is actually, you know, benefit from our upliftment that every human is entitled to a better life, that matching function Israel asset managers within the subcategories we've discussed today, sustainability, that's what you're referring to now, but we've looked at infrastructure, we've looked at energy, infrastructure, entrepreneurship and job creation, where do you see yourselves on the spectrum? Somebody's even saying here, would you support entrepreneurship programs look so in the infrastructure space? I think the pension fund regulation in South Africa is currently under review and being looked at to propose changes that facilitate more investment in infrastructure from pension funds that will give them the opportunity and then it's up to the asset managers to make sure that the opportunity is taken and matched to the right opportunities, factoring everything that we've, we've actually discussed here from a jobs perspective, look, you know, our role is very much in the financing part of things. If you think about something like private equity and you've been referred to the fact that we've got a robust private equity sector in in South Africa and Africa, um that's providing equity financing into companies that, you know, want to expand and grow and create more jobs on the smaller end the sme side, you know, it can be more things like debt financing, ensuring that those companies have access to capital, um you know, to to continue to grow, to keep them going and that sort of thing. So from a job's perspective, you know, I see us playing there from an infrastructure perspective and energy, um it's going to be very much in that space of of having more opportunity to deploy capital with regulations being relaxed or change to accommodate, you know, more investment in infrastructure more generally in the country. Just before I wrap up, and I'm going to wrap up with an audience question actually, which I think is very good. I just want to read you some points that were made. Um don't you believe the oil old boys who ran successful businesses should be approached to assist new businesses get off the ground and uh manage success. So perhaps um you know, some of the old boys, I guess those instead of March, etcetera, could they come through uh in their venture capital space? Um We've been urged not to forget that from an agricultural, though, it doesn't sound sexy to young entrepreneurs, It's important and it is often key um to unlocking potential in the economy. Uh there's a reference here to spinach is now considered as potential energy gold for EVs, which could take the box of feeding people and providing energy at the same time. So when we're talking blended finance and looking at different areas of investing, we could also see that cross pollination across sectors, asset owners are still very inactive within the E. S. G. Narrative, despite legislation requiring them to have an active responsible investment strategy. What could be done to get asset managers more actively involved in the E. S. G. Um narrative um on the on the renewable energy side, lots of labor will be created an installation of solar refit he'd collected. So jobs can be created in this energy economy. And then in terms of our own personal responsibility. As users timer example, Giza wise said only to turn on during off peak periods and and remove peak load burden could also be where we adopt a sustainability um mentality as people within the country as well. So yes, everybody is engaged and people see where the consumers responsible, where your citizenship matters, where that corporate citizenship matters. Now, the question courtesy of her son Adam in all that's been said here today, how can we cultivate agencies within ourselves, within our countries and leadership to take ownership of our destiny? Even I'm going to start with you. What is the mindset that's needed amongst African leaders, both corporate and political and even citizens to say this is our collective future and we need to give it the very best that we can to change the course of history. I think that's the fundamental definition or D. N. A. Of a winning country. It's the mindset of the country that despite the challenges that you face, what can you collectively do? And it really is about that that change from how we approach resources from our own homes in terms of recycling the use of power and thinking about that every small step counts. How do you move from a consumption culture to a savings culture? Right, instead of buying the flat screen tv, are we educating ourselves about that investment? And it starts from the education system, The Banking Association of South Africa. Had a wonderful program of financial literacy being introduced all the way from primary school, whether it's in a rural area to start thinking about how do you think about this concept of entrepreneurship? And I think that the seeds are there, but fundamentally, let's not forget that we have always been a country of leaders and we remain so. I am very confident and certainly amongst the leaders, certainly the public sector leaders we have, and again, I'm a glass half full person. So many are working towards that goal of inclusiveness and certainly within the private sector. And I think that the forums that were created certainly under covid where those sectors came together uh accelerated things. My final point on this is that ultimately, many of us as parents, it starts from the home in terms of what we are investing in, uh, certainly within our own households. And, and I think that it starts in everyday behavior, the courtesy we share to others. And finally, we're all asking the big asset managers, certainly they have a role in enabling entrepreneurs, What are we everyday doing to support the small mom and pop to support the business to use that entrepreneur and engage and support them? And I think that's that's that's a fundamental thing that we can all play a role in every day. It starts with you Andrew. Alright. So, Loretta, I'm of the view that without a climate future, there is no future. So for me, it's about urgency. We know we are losing that battle. And so we've got, we've got to behave quicker. We've got to make decisions more aggressively and we've got to make them in a different way to win this climate battle, to do that. We need to be focused. And for me, there are only six areas to focus on. It's about those components of climate, which is power, water and food. Those are the big challenges of the future. Next thing agenda. We've got to address agenda because we are missing an opportunity of mobilizing the results of the world without actually getting real about gender equality. And the final thing is the carbon cycle. It's all very good to use renewable energy, but we also have to capture carbon. We need to look after the oceans, we need to look after the forests. Those are the Big six big things and the rapper of it, it's about urgency. So every day tomorrow forever. The listeners are wake up tomorrow and think about the climate, Take note of the energy consumption, all those things that people mentioned and think about, how do I actually changed my behavior to enable us to live in a climate sustainable environment circular economy stuff. Andrew talks about the environment in the word, in the acronym E. S. G. The S. Stands for social for me, I think the fundamental issue we have is inequality. Um and and the only way that I know for sure that can deal with inequality is universal access to economic opportunity. I believe the biggest opportunity of our time for jobs are digital skills and I believe that the biggest opportunity of our time for entrepreneurs is to knit and create a more jointed ecosystem as opposed to a disjointed one. But I'll tell you a little story. I have uh the South African government launched an initiative of 700 million Rand to support township and rule based entrepreneurs. The requirements to apply for the funding was that these companies had to be compliant with South African Revenue Services that you have. Their companies registered, a CRP C had to have a bank account for a period of time. They struggled because not enough entrepreneurs who need the help can access it. We need to now run another program to get the entrepreneurs to be able to qualify so that they can apply for it. So the point is the initiatives are there, there's just a lot of support that needs to happen to keep the existence of working better. Yes, uh Lerato for me it really boils down to two things. The first is awareness and the second is introspection, not to repeat what my my learned colleagues around the table I said, but you know, I've got three Children, and whenever I think about the prospect of what my three Children may have to deal with at some point in the future, it really scares the life out of me, this is not tomorrow's problem, you know, we can't we can't afford to be ignorant about it, we can't look to other people for solutions. Um it is really down to I think everyone applying a level of introspection on everything that's been discussed here. Um and thinking about, you know, if you're driving around here and you see the inequality that ideally refers to you, see all the things that are happening from the climate change around the world, and you think about the impact is going to have on your Children, your grandchildren, it must it must invoke something in you that calls you to action. If you get enough of a groundswell around that, then then we are going to make a difference and that's ultimately what it was not too for me. Absolutely. And I think our conversation today was really about that call to action is look at what you do intrinsically, look at it in the context of the society in which you operate, hold your pension fund advises accountable through E. S. G. Be the change you want to see at work. And then all of a sudden South African Africa starts to work better. Thank you so much to you. Andrew johnston, who is the Ceo of Climate Fund managers? Angela Kumalo Ceo of Kamala Co, you've now do faculty member at the Harvard Business School, speaking in his personal capacity though, do not attribute any of his comments to Harvard and also a nurse and I do, who is the Chief executive officer of Sanlam investments. You've been watching critical conversations as we've probed a whole range of issues that are impacting competitiveness, um growth and innovation in the South African economy in Africa at large, what we heard is it's doable, the money is here, the ideas are here, let's get it done. It's been critical conversations brought to you by silom investments, keep the conversation flowing on hashtag critical conversations and know that our next session will be taking place on 13 September will be looking at the all important issue of climate change. You heard today? How fundamental and issue this has become. We're going to dedicate that session to climate change, climate solutions, green economies and all things That have to do with sustainability. So make sure you tune in 13th of September for the next edition of critical conversations. Remember keep talking, keep probing until we meet again. I'm Lerato Bell and it's been my pleasure. Mm mhm mhm