Africa Accelerating 2021 - Day 2: Securing Sustainability

0:10 Good day, everyone. Welcome to day 2 of Africa Accelerating to 2021. Before we commence day 2, we would like to acknowledge the land that we are on. We acknowledge that the land we are meeting on is the traditional territory of many nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat people, and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit, and Metis people. We also acknowledge that Toronto is covered by Treaty 13 with the Mississaugas of the Credit. I would like to call upon our Vice President to start off our conference. Thank you. Thank you.

1:04 ♪♪ Good morning, Canada, and good afternoon to the beautiful continent of Africa. It is a great honor and privilege to welcome everyone to Africa Accelerating 2021. I feel like a kid that lives in a candy store as we discuss ways to partner and collaborate for the benefit of my 2 most favorite places in the world. Canada, my beloved home by choice, a place that welcomes and accepts people as they are and give them opportunities to flourish without having to deny their origins or identities.

1:51 Africa, my beloved home, my identity and roots, a continent that has given and sacrificed so much to the world, and continues to do the same, sometimes without getting the full benefits back. Africa is entering, or has entered, an exciting season of taking its rightful place at the table, indeed all tables on the world stage. What we're talking about these 3 days and the work that has been done to get us here is building a foundation for the journey that Canada and Africa must walk together as equal partners with shared core values.

2:42 The last 20 months have reminded us that we are interconnected, and we are our neighbours' keepers. Which means that we all have to be intentional with every conversation, every action and every decision. And that is what we are doing at Africa Accelerating. We have a great line-up of speakers for us today. And I will get out of the way and let Gareth take us through today's program and the official welcomes. Back to you, Gareth. Susan Namolindwa, thank you so much for Joining us from Ottawa at our offices at the Chateau Laurier on Parliament Hill and indeed a wonderful, wonderful privilege to have opened that office just this year. And indeed to have hosted over 30 dignitaries, ambassadors, high commissioners and their representatives just last week at the pre-Africa Accelerating Reception held in Ottawa. A massive welcome to everyone again today. It's my great privilege to also acknowledge in addition to our Vice President for Canada, Ms. Namolindwa, our Head of Operations with me live in Toronto, Samantha Mandingora, and Jacques Ndungtumbe, as many of you know and certainly all on the continent do, Vice President for Africa for the Canada-Africa Chamber of Business. Our Chair, Mr. Sebastian Spiogarbaro, joining me in a moment for the introduction of this morning's keynote speaker, and the many other dignitaries and supporters, including Dr. Patricia Makesh, with us from Johannesburg once again, live here at the Toronto venue.

4:10 This doesn't happen, as we know, without the support and the vision and the leadership of our partners and sponsors. And so it is my great pleasure to recognize 6 B2Gold, McCarthy Tetra, EDC, Hatch, Mine Africa, Ethiopian Airlines, Dundee Precious Metals, Broad Strategy Osenco, Process Research Ortec and our partnership with Global Affairs Canada. I'd also like to once again underscore our premium partner, our lead sponsor, the underwriter for this event today, and that is Ivan Homines. Thank you so much. And thank you to the former president of South Africa and his leadership role at the company alongside Dr. Makesha and Mr. Robert Friedland, the visionary founder behind such an incredible global firm. It is now my great pleasure to welcome to the stage once again, live from Toronto, Mr. Sebastian Spiogarbaro, our Chair of the Board.

4:58 After 8 years serving with distinction, He served 3 of those years as chair, taking this organization into its current status as a full-time, fully-fledged organization with offices that have been opened during his term. Mr. Spiogabara has led leading companies, extensive career on Wall Street, and currently advises firms in billions of dollars of transactions per annum across the African continent. For the introduction of this morning's keynote speaker, Mr. Pierre-Bob Wynne, I'd like to call on my chair of the board, Mr. Spiro Gabra. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you very much, Gareth. And thank you again, Susan and Samantha, and Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you again for joining us from all over the world as we continue to discuss Africa accelerating post-COVID recovery.

5:58 It is really a very wonderful privilege this morning to introduce our speaker this morning, Pierre Boisvert, who is managing, who is a partner and national leader of the Africa Group, the Quebec leader of the Global Mining Metals Group at Mercati Tetralt, one of the leading law firms in Canada, and indeed our host for this entire program of Africa Accelerates in 2021. He's going to tell us a bit more about his own life interest, how he got interested in Africa. Oftentimes, when we meet someone who is a leading banker or a leading lawyer or even a leading politician or whatever field, We often do not understand the genesis of their story.

6:50 Sometimes it was a conversation in a taxi that triggered in them a passion. 1 day I would love to interview Elon Musk and ask him what triggered his interest in technology, what triggered his interest in creating the things he's created. Oftentimes when someone becomes successful, we see the end product, it's like a tree. We see the big oak tree, but we don't see the small seed that became that tree. And today we really are privileged because Pierre, who has been recognized globally as one of the leading lawyers in the world and by Chambers Global as the leading lawyer in the area of the only Canadian actually listed in Chambers Global as a leading lawyer in the area of mining, international and cross-border Africa transactions, to give us a bit more of a segue into how he became interested in Africa, what is the foundation of his interest in Africa.

7:47 Because I think that as we discuss transactions, we discuss investments in Africa, we discuss the development of Africa, we can't divorce it from how people got into the Africa space. And once you hear his story, a story which he has told myself and many others in private, you would understand that Canada could not have a better son and Quebec could not produce a better person. And McCarthy Tetrault could not have a better ambassador than Pierre Boisvert in the zone. Pierre, merci so much.

8:25 Thank you so much for this morning. And please, the stage is yours. Thank you. I want to thank Sebastian for his overly generous introduction. Hello everyone. It's a pleasure to be here with you today. As this is an English-speaking event, I will continue my presentation in English. Distinguished speakers and guests, ladies and gentlemen, I'll continue this presentation in English. Whereas other speakers were asked to address specific important subjects, Gareth has asked me to speak about my own journey, my own personal journey as far as being involved in Africa, as well as my firm's involvement. So this is a first for me in the sense that although I've been a speaker and moderator many times at many conferences, it was more to address legal or business subjects.

9:16 This will be a more general and I'd say philosophical presentation. In 1974, when I was a young student in what we call in Quebec a Cégep, which is I guess the equivalent of first year college or grade 12, in our literature class we were asked to read a book called Too Late to Fallow Rope, which essentially makes me realize that there was a policy called apartheid that was existing in South Africa. Too Late to Fallow Rope was the second novel of Alan Patton, a South African author and an anti-apartheid activist who published a book in 1953. And basically, it depicts the struggle between his position as a police officer And his private conviction that South African laws based on apartheid were immoral.

10:07 And to give you some context, this is 1974. Well, it's the 1970s. It's a continuation of the 60s peace and love generation, and young men had their hair down to their shoulders, which is, believe it or not, my case at the time, and social justice was a very, very important element. So the realization that apartheid was happening in real time in South Africa was quite a shock for me at the time. I remember having the opportunity later in my first political science course to select a subject for an outline, and I chose to write a paper on the comparison of selective African countries, including South Africa. Needless to say that in Quebec City at the time, I was the only student in my class that was writing about Africa.

11:00 Later on in 1985, then Prime Minister of Canada Brian Moroney delivered a sweeping condemnation of South Africa's apartheid regime at a United Nations speech. I, like many Canadians, felt mighty proud that Canada was one of the first countries to impose economic sanctions against South Africa. Nelson Mandela, after walking out of prison in February 1990, came to Canada in June of that year as vice president of the Africa National Congress and he addressed a joint session at the House of Commons and the Senate. It was the first time in 4 decades that a non-head of state had been given the privilege.

11:48 Mr. Mandela was always very grateful to the role that Canada had played as a leader of what became, at the time, an international movement of countries who imposed economic sanctions against South Africa and which contributed to the change of regime. Many years later, after I joined McCarthy, Tetro, the firm, decided to increase their international involvement. On the basis of transactions that I had been doing in Africa, I suggested that we create a national group focused on projects in Africa. Since then, we have had an active practice and I've had the opportunity to work in many African countries and actually I think my firm has been involved in more than 30 countries in Africa on various transactions and deals.

12:40 Of course, there are risks in doing business in Africa, just like there are risks in doing business internationally generally. Personally I can speak to this as I was caught in the middle of a terrorist attack at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Bamako, Mali 6 years in November this year. Approximately 20 people were killed and almost as many were injured. At the end of the day I was evacuated from a rooftop by Army Special Forces and consider myself very lucky to be alive. But actually this could have happened just about anywhere in the world, as unfortunately terrorism is a world problem. For example, Paris had unfortunately been the subject of an even deadlier attack the week before.

13:35 A few months later, I traveled back to West Africa for business and have been involved in transactions since. As I'm addressing a sophisticated audience today, I certainly do not have to go through the merits of why a country like Canada should be investing in projects in Africa. But for the benefit of some Canadian players in the audience that are considering doing business in Africa for the first time, let me mention a few elements. There's been a lot written about the rising Africa. A great example is McKinsey, who wrote Lines on the Move in 2010 and Lines on the Move number 2 in 2016. Still today, excellent documents on doing business in Africa and why everybody should be considering investment in the continent.

14:26 More recently, as indicated yesterday morning by Mr. Goldie Hyder, president and CEO of the Canadian Business Council. They published in February 2020 an excellent document entitled Why Africa? Building Canada's economic ties to the world's fastest growing continent, which also offers a compelling analysis. More recently, an organization called the Canadian Africa Growth Coalition, working with Ottawa-based Crestview Strategy, has written a document entitled, The Need for a Strong Canada-Sub-Saharan Africa partnership, which also outlines the opportunities that exist. I'll obviously be very happy to provide the references to those documents to anyone interested in reading on the subject.

15:17 There are therefore many compelling reasons for Canadian companies to be investing in Africa to which I can emphasize an often underestimated element. Canada is bilingual and French and English speak in country, which means that we obviously can speak the language in a vast majority of the countries in Africa.

15:37 Also, the Canadian brand, which we often underestimate, is extremely well respected by Africans. There are actually many industries in which we have an expertise that are a natural fit for involvement in Africa, including mining, oil and gas, energy, agribusiness, cleantech, and telecommunications, to name just a few. With regard to financing and contractual relationships, Export Development Canada, ADC, which I have the pleasure of being on the board of, and the Canada Commercial Corporation, CCC, are agencies of the federal government that can facilitate a company's involvement. Also, as mentioned by Prime Minister Trudeau yesterday, the federal government has over the recent years negotiated some bilateral international treaties with several African countries that provide additional investment protection.

16:33 More recently, the Canadian government has accentuated its involvement via various trade missions which notably involve Governor General Julie Payette, Mary Ng, Minister of Small Business, Export, Promotion and International Trade, which we congratulate again because her nomination was again confirmed yesterday with the new cabinet, and Prime Minister Trudeau himself. These visits, I must say, are very much appreciated by the private sector, who feels supported when Canadian politicians travel to Africa. There are also senior officers at Global Affairs Canada who do a wonderful job of promoting and supporting Canadian companies. And I will take the opportunity to salute Paula Caldwell-St. Onge, who will be moderating the next panel and who recently retired from GAC, and who did a great job as Director General for Africa, as well as Tariq Khan, who is the new Director General for Africa and who will be speaking, I believe, tomorrow.

17:31 Another key player is the Trade Commissioner Service that is working through the Canadian embassies and then do an incredible job of supporting Canadian companies. And probably for anybody thinking of doing business in Africa for the first time, That's probably the first call you want to make. With regard to positive recent developments on the financial side, let me mention the creation in January 2018 of Canada's first development financial institution, Findev Canada, which I also have the pleasure to be on the board of and which is a wholly owned subsidiary of EDC. The government of Canada invested $300 million initially in Findev with more funds to come. FINDEV's mission is aimed exclusively at impact investment in Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean.

18:26 Also Investissement Québec, a subsidiary of the Quebec government, is currently putting in place a $50 million fund aimed at Quebec-based companies who are investing in Africa. So there are tools available to accompany Canadian companies. But to quote from the Business Council of Canada report, during the period between 2001 and 2018, Canada more than tripled its exports to Africa from U.S. $1 billion in 2001 to U.S. $3.3 billion in 2018. However, Canada captured less than 1 percent of the additional global exports to Africa that were realized in this period. We can therefore do much more, especially in a context where diversification from U.S. And Chinese markets is being sought.

19:24 As many others do, I believe that developing a comprehensive Canada-Africa strategy by the government would go a long ways to bridge the trade gap. As previously mentioned, Mr. Trudeau's government has shown some very encouraging signs, and we hope that a call by several stakeholders to a more cohesive approach to Canadian involvement in Africa will be heard. Such a policy would certainly contribute to a more integrated Team Canada approach, a team approach which has been successfully adopted by other countries. Finally as advice to newcomers transacting in Africa for the first time, let me quote from my good friend Benoit Lassalle, pioneer in investment in Africa based in Quebec, who has been involved for over 30 years and who is currently CEO of SRJ Grafitte and Aya Gold and Silver.

20:21 He used to say, there are 4 P's that are required for success in the international market. Patience, politeness, perseverance, and passion. Gareth has also asked me to mention if there was a particular trend that I would want to briefly comment on. The obvious one is actually one of the main themes today, which comes under the heading of environmental and socioeconomic well-being, and which is sometimes commonly referred to as ESG.

20:54 Many speakers will be discussing this today, amongst them my friends Paula Caldwell, Siri Jenick, and Neil Reeder, on various panels that you will not want to miss. As enterprises look into environmental and social involvement, what I'm hoping to see as a trend would be a larger involvement by Canadian financial institutions and pension funds, which may possibly have to incorporate some ESG or impact investments into their portfolios. I believe that these financial organizations may have to move away from strictly providing the best possible return on investment for their shareholders, but also making room for investments that will have an impact in contributing to create a better world.

21:41 What 1 can expect is that this new investment approach will have a lot of arrows that will be pointing in the direction of Africa, as, for example, the United Nations sustainable development goals include elements such as no poverty, gender equality, climate action, affordable and clean energy, reduce inequality, clean water and sanitation, they will obviously all apply to Africa. Therefore, this new investment trend should bring about involvement by large Canadian financial players, which together with the African Free Trade Agreement are all promising aspects, which makes an optimist like me believe that although much has been done, the best is yet to come.

22:28 As they say in West Africa, Nous sommes ensemble, which translates into, we are together. In closing, I want to salute the work done by 2 organizations, Canada Africa Council, of which I was vice chair for many years, and also the Canada Africa Chamber of Business, notably for organizing Africa Accelerating, but also all kinds of other events. I just want to mention there's a lot of volunteer work that goes into these organizations, and I want to thank the people that are involved. I am confident that a three-day conference such as this will contribute to bringing the Canada-Africa business relationships where it should be, to the next level.

23:12 Je vous remercie pour votre attention et bonne continuation. I thank you very much for your kind attention and hope that you will enjoy the remainder of the conference. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Bobwien, thank you very much, sir, for these incredible remarks and an absolute privilege. I do remember, and for those delegates here yesterday, a book in 1974, a handwritten account of his own activism, a diary in a sense that Pierre had. So in the midst of sometimes a perception of Johnny, come lately to the Africa story, you saw an individual that has been absolutely distinguished in your unfailing commitment to the continent and to the Canada-Africa relationship. And certainly Ambassador Paula Caldwell-St. Orange has been equally committed throughout her distinguished career. We'll hear from Paula in a short while, but I want to recognize her as the host of last week's ambassadorial reception held in Ottawa.

24:05 Paula, really, you have done a fantastic job and you continue to do an incredible line of work as vice president, vice chair, I beg your pardon, of the Canada-Africa Chamber of Business. Well, one of the significant aspects of my visit to Ottawa following the legacy of Mr. Spiogarbaro during his term there and the setting up of our Ottawa office was the fact that we've welcomed many dear friends from North Africa into the fold, leaders from Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, as well as Egypt. It was wonderful to have the ambassadors with us. And so, it's without further ado, that in order to address this key topic of sustainability with a focus in this sense on the environmental objectives, I'd like to invite our key speaker, who's joining us for some remarks from Morocco. Morocco is a country that has pioneered renewable energy at an incredible scale. The Nour Solar Plan conducted by MESON, which is the national organization within the Kingdom of Morocco, has been a leader in the field globally. Mr. Moustapha Bakhoury has been well known in financial circles globally for his role in investments across Morocco, but also his expertise on the global stage. He's held senior positions in a variety of different capacities, including the financing and development activities of that country's national urban development company.

25:21 A special, special welcome as well to the Ambassador who's joining us from Morocco for your great leadership, Ambassador Otmani. Without further ado, our official message directly from the Kingdom of Morocco. Thank you so much. Excellencies, dear colleagues and distinguished guests. First I would like to express my sincere thanks for inviting me to speak in this important forum, Africa Accelerating 2021. Today, I'll be borrowing some of your time to paint a picture of Morocco's recent achievements and future prospects in the field of renewable energy. But first, as a quick reminder, in 2008, the world was going through an international crisis with major impacts on the prices of raw materials.

26:15 Which were marked by great volatility with a price of a barrel of oil reaching a peak of $148 in July 2008. Hence the global debate became polarized between 2 choices. Either continue down the path of fossil energy and mortgage the growth of its country, or invest in renewable energy, although it was more costly, but better master the cost of its energy and open the path for a new economical and industrial dynamic.

26:46 Indeed, His Majesty the King Mohammed VI showed boldness, courage, and great vision as he was able to transform a crisis situation into an opportunity, then an ambition. He embarked Morocco on a journey of continuous improvements that involves an ambitious strategy aimed at structurally developing renewable energies in the kingdom with the clear objective of reaching 42% of renewables in the electricity mix by 2020. Morocco in a very proactive manner took the path of energy transition in 2009 in order to decrease its fossil dependency and take advantage of its large resources.

27:32 In less than a decade, Morocco has succeeded in developing an initiative and innovative energy model based on renewable energies, energy efficiency, and regional integration. Mazen has embodied the executive arm for the implementation of this strategy since its inception in 2010, and is now the group responsible for managing the renewable energy projects in the country. Thanks to the success demonstrated in the initial years of this strategy, a new objective has been set to 52% by 2030.

28:10 One of the most famous projects that embodies this success is the north complex, the largest multi-technological solar complex in the world. Thanks to which Mazen took up the challenge and contributed to make Morocco one of the most dynamic countries in the global renewable energy market. Hence it goes without saying that Morocco sees the development of renewable energies as a lever for economical, industrial, and social developments of the country. Indeed, the development of a competitive renewable energy industry is one of the pillars of Mazen's integrated approach. For Mazen, the development of these renewable energy projects cannot be done without the support of and participation of the Moroccan industry and R&D on a competitive basis.

29:05 Our aim is also to create value locally and maximize the rate of industrial integration. Based on the achievements of the last decades and Morocco's full commitment to this energy transition. The ambition set for the next decade is even greater with a minimum of 6 gigawatts to be developed. New needs will be added such as electric mobility, decarbonization of the industrial sector, the production of green hydrogen and its derivatives, which will naturally increase the need for new and added energy capacities. Also, a good number of measure-off-takers and international players in the field of green hydrogen or green electrons are actively exploring in Morocco the possibility of sourcing green alongside methane.

29:57 It is therefore becoming increasingly clear that there is room for the export of green hydrogen to the trans-Mediterranean markets. And Morocco is willing to take on this challenge through the sustainable electricity trade roadmap, also known as CET roadmap, an initiative launched during the COP22 in Marrakech in 2016, which was initially set to ensure the trade of renewable energy generated electricity via green cross-border corporate PPAs with 4 European partner countries. Spain, Portugal, France, and Germany with the support of the European Commission. This global dynamic around green electrons and molecules will also allow ecosystems requiring the renewable energies in their transformation process to settle in Morocco to improve their economic competitiveness and bypass carbon taxes which will come into force in Europe starting from 2023.

31:02 On the other hand, at the continent level, Morocco through its experience and achievements in the fight against climate change and for energy transition in particular through the development of renewable energies is sought after by several African and least developed countries, wishing to exploit their renewable energy potential to generalize access to energy in their territory. Morocco has always been part of a tradition of know-how sharing and is also a fervent defender of South-South cooperation. In this regard, Mazen has been working for years to build links with the African continent. At the bilateral level, We are engaged in cooperation with nearly 20 countries, mainly in Africa, on 4 major axes.

31:52 Sharing of know-how, capacity building, technical assistance, and project co-development. As such, I will mention 2 representative examples. First, we provided technical assistance to RENQ in Rwanda under the framework of their largest Nia Barongo II hydraulic project. And Also, we are co-developing a 450 megawatts renewable energy program with ZESCO in Zambia. This bilateral dynamic initiated by Mazen has given rise to a trilateral form of cooperation with major international development banks keen to capitalize on Mazen's expertise in order to have a wider impact in Africa. To illustrate this, Mazen is strongly involved with the African Development Bank in the Desert to Power Initiative as the chair of the steering committee.

32:52 The initiative aspires to develop 10 gigawatts of solar energy in 11 countries of the Sahara region between now and 2030. And to have a significant impact on the standard of living of more than 250 million people. Another initiative worth mentioning is the Mazen and the Islamic Bank of Development partnership which relates to the co-development of renewable energy projects in African countries that are members to the ISDB group. The first projects of this initiative are programmed in Djibouti and Niger in the near future. Lastly, but not least, in order to extend this sharing tradition to a larger number of countries, the Coalition of Sustainable Energy Access, jointly led by Morocco and Ethiopia, was launched at the last United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York.

33:52 The coalition has raised a lot of attention as it was the first time that 2 countries of the South had joined forces to design an initiative in favor of countries of the global south based mainly on the principle of South-South cooperation. This initiative aims to meet the vital need of access to energy for the populations located in remote areas of least developed countries and other developed countries. To sum up, Morocco has adopted an agnostic approach to technology and seeks to diversify its project portfolio in order to accelerate its energy transition. The Kingdom fully intends to honor its active commitment to the Paris Agreement, the United Nations SDGs and its indices by outlining the path to a more responsible and sustainable planet. We are hoping that we support developing countries whose future seems uncertain, with a clear ambition and strategy at hand, anything is possible.

35:01 Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you so much, Mr Bukhari, for your leadership. It's phenomenal to see across the continent, as you mentioned, on South-South collaboration, just how well received the Kingdom of Morocco is and are highly respected, the status that you enjoy. I was just with our vice president in Gabon and going across Libreville to various meetings, the respect for the expertise and the leadership of Morocco is certainly, certainly well known and well established. Well, going over to Quebec now from our live stage in Toronto, it's my great pleasure to call upon Ambassador Paula Caldwell-Saint-On. She has served with distinction in the Government of Canada and is well recognized. She has received a number of accolades, including head of the Public Service Award for Excellence in Policy, and was also crowned with the Queen's Gold Jubilee Medal. She began her career in 1989 in public service, and today, though she has retired from her role both in terms of ambassadorial duties, as well as head of Global Affairs for Canada, she remains incredibly active as vice chair of our chamber from her base in Quebec, serving in Ottawa, working with various ambassadors and high commissions among our members.

36:17 Paula is utterly committed to the Africa growth story, and she's been key to so many companies who have their personal testimonies of expanding into the continent with the support of a senior public servant such as Paula Caldwell. It is my great pleasure to hand over to Quebec, where we are now joined by the former ambassador, who's going to be introducing some key leaders in the areas of institutional financing, private equity financing, and know-how when it comes to the Canada-Africa strategy for financing tomorrow's clean energy growth era. Thank you so much. Over to you. Over to you. Well, welcome everyone. Welcome to day 2 of Africa Accelerating. I am very excited to be moderating this panel. It's all about financing Africa's best energy projects in driving clean growth.

37:10 The African continent, as you all know, is rich in clean energy sources, and Canada has been a leading partner for financing these immense opportunities, including through the IFC's blended finance department, among other numerous public and private initiatives, which of course we will hear about from our esteemed panel. The panel will cover mobilizing the private capital flows into clean energy ventures from early stage companies into the large scale projects. I will be giving detailed bios before each speaker talks, but I just wanted to welcome you all in this Zoom era and hopefully next year we will all be in person and get to meet each other.

37:57 Our first panelist is Cruzcaya Sierra Escalante. She's our senior manager of IFC's blended finance department. Prior to her current position, she headed the blended finance unit, a governance unit performing credit review, quality assurance and knowledge sharing functions. And she served as IFC's global lead council for the climate and blended finance at IFC. Kruskaya holds a master's degree in public affairs, a concentration in Economics and Public Policy from Princeton's University's Woodrow Wilson School and a JD from the New York University School of Law. And before joining IFC in 2003, Kruzkaya was at Chadwarnan Park, working primarily in project finance in the power sector. So very well versed with very many years in this sector.

38:52 So without further ado, Kuskaya, you're our first panelist. Thank you very much, Paula. And let me just thank the organizer for the invitation. Perhaps I can talk a little bit about the blended finance tools that you have mentioned and how we have used them at IFC to drive high impact projects in particular in Africa and in the clean energy space. Blended finance for IFC has been a critical tool to help us de-risk pioneering projects that are at the verge of becoming, you know, bankable, but perhaps need a little bit of a push to enable private investment and to support market creation. This entails lending small amounts of public funds, which in our case comes through partner governments like the government of Canada, with commercial funds, for example, you know, other investors, IFCs, on account financing, as well as the many sponsors that will, you know, put these projects.

39:57 What we seek is to create, You know, not only one project, but also a very strong demonstration effect. Many times we look for projects that also can help create public goods. As I mentioned, these projects have not created yet a commercial track record, but have the potential to do so. In the past, we have supported projects, for example, in the solar, you know, in solar projects, but now we see that those projects tend to be financially commercial. We see now, for example, offshore wind to start, you know, being financial financing commercially in many, you know, countries in the middle income countries, but In some developing countries, they still need the support of blended finance.

40:52 In many countries that have higher risks, blended finance can help us minimize some of those risks, you know, and support these projects. At IFC, we have been supporting these projects for more than 15 years with blended finance. And we have managed and implemented these facilities like the one with Canada, which I will talk a little bit more later on. And we have over a dozen of these facilities under management. Our longest experience is in the climate finance space with blended finance. We started in the early 2000s with some of the global environment facility resources, which also Canada is a supporter of that multi donor facility, to help catalyze investment in what tended to be newer technologies and newer business models.

41:51 We also have a number of facilities that help support investments in the lowest income and fragile investments. In particular, in 2017, we received a bigger allocation from AIDA, our sister organization that focuses on investments in the lowest income countries. We also have facilities that focus on SME finance, on gender finance, and small hold farmers. As I mentioned, Canada is one of our oldest partners in the blended finance space and has played a major role in helping us mature in this practice and in the way that we have approached the use of blended finance in climate.

42:39 The strategic and careful use of blended finance can make sure that, you know, we are maximizing the impact of this precious public funds that are used to catalyze private finance. We follow on every transaction that we use concessional funds the DFI principles for blended concessional finance. In 2017, we got together with another more than 20 DFIs that focus on private sector to agree to a set of principles that will allow us to ensure that we are using these precious resources in the most efficient, effective and transparent way. We also together with Canada have worked alongside the OECD co-chairing a transparency working group as part of the Trijita Karana to try and enhance our work in this area and move forward the importance of blended finance and transparency.

43:45 IFC holds itself to the highest standards of transparency, and for about 2 years now we not only have been disclosing the use of Lended Finance, but we have been informing the public of the level of subsidy that we provide on every transaction. And this includes the transaction supported by the Canada program as well as every other program that we have under management. As I have mentioned before, IFC is now focused on moving to the new frontiers. The frontiers on low income, you know, finance, the frontiers on newer technologies. For example, I mentioned offshore wind, batteries, green hydrogen. And we have partners, again, like Canada, that is helping us to make that push to the more complex challenging.

44:38 In some cases, it's not only in the lowest, you know, income countries, but we need to start some of these projects and we need to push some of these challenges in the middle income countries and we have been very grateful with Canada's support across the globe and in Africa It has been also across the continent. As the use of blended concessional finance grows, we have also seen that we have the need to be very flexible. And in the midst of the pandemic, we saw that having the blended finance to try and support many of our clients as they were trying not only to struggle with their businesses, but also to try to bring innovation in the midst of those struggles have been quite important.

45:35 In the future, we see also that blended finance will allow us to ensure that, you know, growing, you know, with resilience, growing with continue to think about climate change in mind will be, you know, need the support of blended finance. Green recovery is going to be costly in some industries. And we may need to have the support of blended finance to help that. At the same time, we know that, you know, many governments have more now, more than ever, have lots of challenges to provide these resources. So, we need to be very mindful on how we are going to stretch this support and how we are going to catalyze, you know, this funding. And that means trying to bring as many other partners trying to mobilize as much private sector financing.

46:31 I will finalize my initial comments by saying for every dollar that Canada has provided, you know, to IFC in our climate finance programs, and this varies across different instruments, across different time, but in general, we bring about 3 or 4 dollars of IFCs on account financing, and that is complemented at least with another 3 or 4 dollars of other account financing. So you can see the multiplier effect that, you know, blended finance can bring. And again, you know, I will provide some additional examples about what we have done in the continent and what we have done in particular in clean energy. But Paula, just to, you know, get started by saying it has been a fantastic partnership, and IFC and myself personally are very grateful for all that we have been doing together.

47:28 Yes, well, thank you very much, Kluskaya. It's quite impressive, and I know a little bit about your projects. Next on this panel, we have Lade Araba, she's our Managing Director for Africa at Convergence Blended Finance. Lade is a seasoned development finance professional with over 17 years of experience. She previously served as technical advisor to the former Minister of Finance of Nigeria and was the head of the Strategic Monitoring Unit. She was also an advisor in the power sector team at the Nigeria Infrastructure Advisory Facility, the NIAF, a technical assistance program funded by the UK. And prior to NIAF, Lade was a technical advisor to the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, UNECA, where she advised on the building blocks for financing regional infrastructure projects and promoting intra-African trade.

48:25 She was formerly a senior investment officer at the African Development Bank, where she played key roles in deal origination and appraisal and received board approval for senior loans to several infrastructure projects across Africa. And Lade was previously an enterprise development specialist at the UN Food and Agriculture organization, the FAO, and she also worked for the QED group in Washington, DC. Well with all of that, she is not yet retired and very, very active and still working in Convergence Blended Finance. So please, Lada, The floor is yours. Thank you so much, Paula. It's an absolute pleasure for me to be here. And I'd also like to thank the Canada Africa Chamber of Business for this kind invitation.

49:12 As you know, Convergence is the global network for blended finance. And we generate blended finance data, market intelligence, as well as deal flow with the objective of catalyzing private investment at scale towards the SDGs in developing countries and we are very grateful to the government of Canada GAC which is a core funder of Convergence and which enables us to achieve the mobilization and building the field of blended finance as we have been doing over the last 5 years. Today's topic is very timely and I think also very interesting given climate change and just all of the opportunities that it presents for developing countries but also for businesses.

50:01 We know that universal access to energy is crucial to achieving many of the sustainable development goals. It is one of those sectors that creates positive externalities in other sectors and also facilitates investments across the board. And this is embodied in goal 7 which focuses on affordable and clean energy. Now according to our database at convergence we have seen about 182 blended finance transactions that are exclusively focused on the energy sector. And these represent an aggregate $76 billion worth of financing. Most of these transactions have actually focused solely on energy, but a few have had broader mandates looking into green growth, clean technologies, and other types of renewable technologies.

50:59 three quarters of the transactions have actually launched since 2012. So we've seen overall in the global market that there has been an uptick in the number of energy projects that are being done from about 2012. So just under a decade ago. Based on an analysis that we carried out in 2018, we also realized that the average leverage ratio for blended finance transactions in the energy sector has been higher than the overall average, standing at about 6.5X. So what that means is that 6.5 dollars worth of commercial capital has been mobilized by each dollar of concessional capital, which is a trend in the right direction if we are to close the S. And P. Funding gap within energy specifically but also more broadly across all of the goals.

51:53 Leverage generally has ranged from a minimum of 0.2 acts to a maximum of 42 44.2 acts and a medium Leverage ratio of 3.67 acts. Now this is the same median as we have seen across all blended finance transactions. However the average leverage ratio as I mentioned has been higher. In the energy sector and across all blended finance transactions we have seen an average leverage ratio of 4 point 05X. When we look at the global blended finance market we also note that the energy sector has consistently accounted for about 30% of all financing that has gone into blended finance transactions globally.

52:41 It is quite intuitive for us given that energy projects tend to be more commercially oriented. Their revenue lines are clearer to identify. And blended finance is able to strengthen the and improve the risk return profile of these transactions. So that they deliver attractive risk adjusted returns to investors while also creating environmental, social, governance, but also broadly development impact. And we've seen quite a lot of activity from private investors in the energy sector in particular. When we break that data down a little further, we find that most of these transactions have actually focused on renewables. So renewable energy projects, this includes on-grid utility scale projects, but we've also seen an increasing percentage of off grid solutions. So about a third of these transactions are actually providing solar solutions to grassroots bottom of the pyramid communities through solar home systems, mini grids, micro grids, and so on. We also note that transactions in the energy sector tend to be larger than others, and I will speak a bit more to the average deal sizes that we have seen. And finally, I would say that, you know, Sub-Saharan Africa consistently accounts for the region with the most number of deals that are getting done. It's quite clear, given

54:12 the huge energy deficit on the continent and the fact that over 600 million people still lack access to reliable and affordable energy, electricity within the region. So it's clear that this deficit presents a tremendous opportunity and we have seen blended finance being applied to create bankable projects and more commercially viable transactions that are ultimately able to attract private investors. And on a closing note, when we look at our own portfolio within Convergence and our design funding grant program in particular, which we currently are running 3, well, 2 windows and the third is under review. We find that about a quarter of the grants that we have issued have actually targeted energy transactions. So these are a variety of structures, which includes funds, facilities, projects themselves, as well as other types of instruments. So we see that even within our innovative design funding program that we are seeing a lot of interest and activity within the energy sector. And, again, our global emerging markets window is funded by GAX, and we have definitely benefited from that strong support. And I think on that note, Paula, I will hand it back to you and I look forward to engaging further in this discussion.

55:37 Thank you, Lade. See where there's need, there's opportunity. So we will progress to Christopher McLean, CEO of StoneShare Capital. Chris and I met a few years ago actually at the Africa Investment Forum. So pleased to see you. Of course, COVID hit and we haven't seen each other in person for the last few years. But Chris says over 2 decades of global financial management experience in investment banking and private equity investments focused on energy and the company seeking capital for energy development in sub-Saharan Africa. In response to the overwhelming opportunities, as we were saying, in Africa's expanding energy sector, StoneShare has first-hand experience through their investments, their international speaking engagements, they solicit for a project capital and they have many discussions with investors who I had the pleasure to also meet with you, Chris, at the African Investment Forum from Europe and North America.

56:39 And you knew a lot of the private investors that are very interested in helping Africa. And your tenacity, of course, for Africa's energy in diverse forms is remarkable. And I thank you again for having been part of our team years ago, and I welcome you on this panel. So, Chris, please. Thank you, Connie, for those words. Appreciate that. The great convergence as it exists with energy is to say what does the capital want and what does the continent need and therein is a massive massive spread. We talk about 600 million people that don't have access to reliable energy at the same time. There's 200 million people that have the ways and means to pay for energy.

57:28 We're not talking about grant and concession. Yet global capital has a hard time of finding ways of bridging that gap and we all speak about trying to create you know creative instruments for financial progress and being able to move forward where in its primal form the examples that the model exists in the Canadian venture capital system. It's been here for 40 years. You know for it existed in different forms with different verticals being first the mining sector and then the oil and gas sector. But junior equity, junior capital, smaller amounts required to grow companies is something that Canadians have been doing for decades.

58:20 And that's what we do at Stone Chair Capital. When you look at the number of projects that are registered on different formats and different entities, whether it be AEF or the AIF or different places like that. It's to say there's all kinds of projects where they can get international debt, DFI debt, local concessional debt, grants, but everybody shows up most cases and says I need still need that 30% equity that's missing. Try and get large institutional investors whose minimum ticket sizes are much larger to invest you know 1 million to 10 million dollars in a project that is about something that they don't have the time or the resources for.

59:11 But as Canadians, and that's what we do at Stone Chair Capital, That's what we try to push forward. So as part of the formula and the creativeness that Chris Gaya has talked about, that Lade has talked about, that's where we're trying to step in there and say, there is room for institutional capital to be in a portfolio of many, many small projects that start things going on. As we all know, only 2 utilities in all of Africa are in the black, everybody else is in the red because of legacy issues. So saying we're going to do institutional scale large you know Ingerdam type projects that that takes this much of the capital that's out there. There's this much that's available. It's huge. We have to find ways of motivating that capital to real projects for real people.

1:00:08 And that's not necessarily a challenge. It's about adjusting the view of what is actually there. It's not perceived risk, it's about perceived financial opportunity. And the difference there is to say the risk is the same across all these projects. We've been investors in this type of space for a long long time. It's about how can we allocate and aggregate all these investments into something that, yeah, let's have institutional investors take these projects on later as they become bigger. Let's start building an energy place in Africa, an energy universe that actually meets the needs that's there.

1:00:58 One of my big beefs, and I'll just close with this, and I know it's lots of people say it, but the institutions of the global north all the time well we need a just transition we need this way there is no transition it's a just development You need to have something to transition from. And therein is the opportunity, is to say, the growth is exponential. COVID aside, we are moving forward in so many different jurisdictions on the continent, is to say, there is development opportunities that are available today. So yes, we'll leave it at that. Chris, well thank you, as passionate and as focused as ever. I love it. And last but definitely not least is our Jacques Dutombe, I say ours because he's the vice president for the Africa Canada Africa Chamber of Business. So so we see each other at the chamber. But most importantly he is the founder of the Africa Foresight Fund, an African-based private equity fund with a representative office in Toronto.

1:02:01 He's also the founder and managing director of EL Consulting and Management, which is Toronto-based. It's a firm focusing on project management and project integration. And in parallel, he serves as vice president with Process Research Ortec, which is a privately owned organization serving mining, metallurgical, recycling and chemical industries. He is a strategic leader and an outside thinker, an agile project manager that advocates and promotes responsible funding and transfer of knowledge, technologies and localized innovation. Jacques has been involved in projects in Africa worth over 500 million US in energy, infrastructure, mining and healthcare. So I now welcome you to this panel, Jacques, please, the floor is yours. Thank you, Paula, merci beaucoup.

1:02:48 Bonjour à tous. Bonjour. It's very interesting because this is a true story. The last 5 days I've called some of my friends in Zambia, Botswana, Gabon, I would say there was also Cameroon. And for all of them, there was 1 commonality, is that, oh, I might not have power after 5 p.m. So in Botswana, for example, it happened with power, and in Gabon, it was the same, internet. We couldn't have a Zoom meeting. So there is, and I was piggybacking on what Chris just said, just mentioned, My journey towards where I am now was motivated by the fact that I started as an engineer in Germany, implementing projects also in Africa, and then I evolved naturally to become project manager and a little bit of business development but the cases were always pretty much the same where you have a demand, you have a potential, But to go from the source of funding to actually fund a project, the gap was always so big.

1:04:09 And as a result, the number that you mentioned, Paula, 500 million, is probably 5 to even less than 5% of the real projects that were on the ground. And that's why today we still see in so many countries in Africa, we talk about power to the electricity, that still lack a proper, you know, power or potential to actually have generate power for their populations and for the industries. So that is the reason why you know we gradually navigated from being an executing engineer to actually now moving towards private equity and try to actually be involved in funding projects.

1:05:00 So one of the main questions I've always asked myself was how do we go from, you know, having a situation where we understand that in countries, what we call smaller markets, such as countries like Gabon or Botswana or Lesotho or Malawis, those less, you know, larger countries, how do we also find ways to put the projectors of investors in these countries. So we decided to create the Africa Foresight Fund, which is an African-based private equity fund as Paula mentioned.

1:05:49 We invest through private equity, venture capital and we have a corporate finance advisory. So we also enjoy a strong network of expertise, we have co-investors and a pipeline of excellent opportunities. The reason why I'm mentioning that and the reason why I start by talking about my personal experience is because those opportunities come from projects that have been vetted, have been worked on, have been actually some of them implemented all the way to environmental impact assessment, to feasibility study, economic assessment, and gradually over the years, you know, from my previous occupations, I participate in these projects.

1:06:36 So as I was mentioning in this panel, there's a lot of projects out there, very few finances, and I do think that at AFF we have, we've done that homework and we have an opportunity to actually get those investors and give them interest in those projects. So I will stop there for now and then we can continue with the question later. Thank you. Okay, well thank you. So much knowledge and power behind all of our panelists. So I'm gonna focus on a few questions. I'll go around the table, I'll ask you each a question, and then if we have time, I'll go to another round and we'll see if we have any questions from the audience as well. And so we will be feeding, we'll be putting those together into the questions that I'm asking you, if you will. So Kuduskaya, I'm going to start with you. You know, what is the best approach to financing projects in Africa from an IFC perspective?

1:07:39 And of course, is there a difference? The big question, is there a difference in the approach to Africa when you contrast it, you know, with the other markets? Thank you, Paula. Thank you very much. And I think you already saw a little bit of the highlights of this discussion in some of the answers. And maybe you heard Chris already speaking a little bit about the importance of risk capital. And I think Jax is also highlighting some of those needs as well. In particular, I believe that when you think about it, it needs to be seen from a holistic perspective. So, finance is one of the pieces of the puzzle. But you need to have the technical assistance. Capacity building in many cases is as important as anything else when it comes to, you know, having a good pipeline of projects. The other end of it, you also need to have the policy reform, the enabling environment around it. So, I think working, you know, in a holistic manner, and for us in IFC, this idea of having the strategic approach, the diagnostics that can help us identify the market creation opportunities so that we can come at it from a strategic perspective is what we are calling an upstream approach. So not only to go at the project that is in immediate need of financing. We continue to do that.

1:09:07 And we will continue to be an institution that if we can do that, we will do it. But at the same time, working upstream, trying to see what is that we can do with governments, with other DFIs to try and unlock those opportunities at a much, you know, broader level. At a much more strategic level. And, you know, you start with a diagnosis. You will work on capacity building. You will continue to be thinking about pilots, testing some of the ideas, so that then you can go into more, you know, financing. You know, you also need to think about different approaches. You know, Africa will have more countries that are more, you know, poorest countries. You know, other continents may have less countries that are, you know, that are, you know, poor. So you need to think what are some of these differences that you will need to change.

1:10:06 The cost of technology might be the same perhaps in one way or another, but the cost of applying that technology in different places might be totally different. The perceived risk of those investors in one place versus another, totally different. And that's why the approach that you will be taking, the financial instruments that you might be bringing. Totally different as well. So, I'll give you an example. When we started early days of, you know, blended finance, a lot of our work was in the middle-income countries. And there you saw that most of the time with a small, you know, discount in the interest rate, a senior loan potentially could be part of the solution, and it was enough. When you start doing more and more in lower income countries and fragile situations, you see that the de-risking tools are what you need. So the risk capital in the form either of direct equity or private equity, Chris, we are seeing it as an important need. Risk sharing facilities to work through our client banks, try to think about local currency solutions that perhaps in other contexts and continents, you may not need that. So these are some of the differences and the customization that you need to think about. And that's why for us from an IFC perspective, working with local sponsors, you know, the sponsors

1:11:38 are very important. So even if, you know, international partners are important, working with those sponsors that have the local knowledge is quite essential. So while there is no 1 size fits all solution, I think we need to continue, you know, working on focusing on the building blocks. How do you know how do you provide access to finance, access to energy, access to markets, and how do you help enabling environment? And then, you know, in the context of, you know, of Africa, how do you think about some of the underlying drivers of fragility. How do you think about, you know, the potential of increasing development impact? And here, Paula, I bring to in particular, again, the partnership with Canada that makes us think not only about climate, but how do you think about climate and gender? How do you think about climate and inclusiveness?

1:12:40 Because those are quite important aspects of thinking about impact. So together with the other parts of the World Bank Group and the other DFIs, we are thinking about taking this much more strategic and programmatic approach to upstream investment. And, you know, this is something that we hope that will help us create more pipelines so that not all of us are chasing the same projects and trying to find more viable while there are many others that need the capacity building, many others that need the risk capital. And many others that could come in if we just focus on the enabling environment and many other things that we are trying to think now as part of this upstream approach. So I'll stop there for now. Great. Well, and talking about enabling environments then, Lade, for those looking for financing, what are the most important considerations that they should bear in mind, you know, from the viewpoint of that one segment, the viewpoint of financiers?

1:13:44 So, Thanks, Paula, for that great question. I think Jack has actually already alluded to it and it's the fact that, especially when you look at the African context, we have a pipeline issue. Capital is chasing transactions as opposed to the other way around. We don't have a deep enough pipeline of bankable projects that are well-structured, and it really starts with project preparation. So pre-investment, making sure that all the studies are done. You have a credible feasibility study, you've done the technical studies, you have assessed different technical solutions and have come up with a rationale for selecting a specific technology, for instance, you've looked at the market, you have a market study, you've looked at issues of affordability, you have conducted an environmental social impact assessment, if there is going to be adverse impacts on communities, you have a plan in place to relocate them and to compensate them.

1:14:48 You should definitely have a robust financial model that has been stress tested where you have various scenarios that you have evaluated. As a project developer, all of your licenses and permits need to have been obtained. All the necessary contracts should have been well negotiated. Pricing should have been factored in. So effectively the suite of transactional documents needs to be complete, but also the quality needs to be quite high. Investors or financiers will also be looking at the management team. Do they have the track record to be able to develop this project? Do they have skin in the game? Nobody wants to invest in a project where the developer is basically just waiting to get out as quickly as the transaction is funded they want to be sure that it's completed to a certain standard and that they actually are able to operate so it becomes these assets become operational they generate sufficient cash flows and financiers will often have a long term view. So all of these would be part of the traditional credit assessment, investment appraisal due diligence that any financier would undertake. So as a project developer, it's just ensuring that you have done the work, your project is well-structured, that its fundamentals are credible, and that ultimately we can see the cash flows and we don't have concerns around the risk. They have

1:16:20 been adequately reduced or mitigated or structured and in certain cases blended finance approaches can be utilized for that. So I think you know at a very high level These are some of the factors and issues that a financier would be evaluating when they're making that investment decision. OK, well, thank you. And we'll retain that, you know, the capital is chasing the projects. I think there's something we can do with that. And it's a nice segue into Chris, you know, you're tackling numerous projects. So, you know, tell us a bit more about your rationale for the, you know, for the deal size range on which you are focused. And of course, you know, we heard Chris Kruskaya touch on that whole enabling environment policy makers, you know, that we've discussed before. But really, what is your rationale for the deal size range that you have focused on that?

1:17:13 I think it's come from twofold. It's to say, as Canadians and trying to mobilize the finance and the things that we had to do, as Lade already mentioned, capital's chasing limited amount of deals. So it became a case of do I want to be competing with the big institutions from London, from New York, from you know where have you or is there an opportunity to work in a space to grow profitable real companies that then is appealing to them right And whether it be consolidating companies or whatever. And one of the things that I found through this entire process is the power of diaspora in these companies.

1:17:58 You know, they've got their capital, their friends, their family, they're building businesses. Through the last 2 years, the amount of portfolio companies that we've had where you know the founders have been back and forth to their businesses on the continent from North America, whether it be from the States or Canada, most of them Canadian, but it's to say, it's stunning. Like they go 4 or 5 times through this process because they're managing a business. And it becomes, okay, they're not trying to be the next big giant company in their country. They're trying to solve a need that is there and somebody I may have been Chris Gaia before it was talking about you know the different elements of SDG 7 And I think that's a really important part that we look at is to say the modern part that is there as part of SDG7 yes, we need clean Energy. Yes, we need access But that third part of SDG7 is is modern and how are we able to do modern?

1:19:05 It's with people like Jacques that have had experiences in the rest of the world, have had training, have had different experiences that they can say, you know what, I know an opportunity back in my home country, in a jurisdiction where I was engaged with different developers. I want to start a business doing that. Well, that dictates almost the size of the growth of what's there. We're not all trying to, like I said, build, you know, giant dams or giant LNG projects that are big ticket items. You know, often the size of the energy projects, if we're talking 10 megawatts or less, isn't that big, right? And we go from there. Excellent. Well, and then again, another nice segue into Jacques, who I know is, you know, working in like Gabon and Botswana, the smaller countries, if you will, for some of the projects.

1:20:00 I know you don't ignore some of the larger countries either. But you've been managing projects for decades and you were giving us your engineering background and your history. So you really know these projects and you've actually identified projects that have all of the kind of enabling environment that Lade was referring to, the social, economic, and environmental feasibility studies done, et cetera. So this is all very exciting. So, you know, would you say that your knowledge and your active participation in projects are key to that good pipeline that we were talking about and and you've culminated in deal flow so so what are your thoughts on on how to prepare a better pipeline since you're doing it now. Thank you so much. Lade actually said it all earlier, you know, project preparation.

1:20:53 Some of the projects that I have, that we have under AFF are 5 years old. Some of them are even 8 because the right project manager, for example, hasn't been found yet. I'll give you one example. I think Lade you mentioned, no I think it was Kuskaya who talked about battery storage, right? And today I read today that Toyota would build a 3.5 billion plant in the US. And as you know, lithium batteries have become the energy storage device of choice. There's 5 critical metals to produce batteries. All of them are in Africa, all of them. If you talk about wind power, you're gonna need to store that power point.

1:21:42 You can't just turn it to a turbine. And then, you know, So those elements are found in Africa. First problem, the raw material is not there's no value addition locally. So some of the project that we target are actually a set of project in series in order to give more power to the local people and I think power in capital P. In which sense, you have lithium, graphite, nickel, cobalt, rare earth and so on and so forth in XYZ country. You develop a process with a Canadian company because Canadian engineering companies are also among the best in the world. So this is a Canadian opportunity first of all to develop a flow sheet then a process to actually add value and do a metal beneficiation in Africa.

1:22:36 All of a sudden you create job, you create employment, you create wealth. That's 1. But then secondly, you can then now choose whatever project you want in terms of the energy source, renewable energy, wind, but the storage, they don't have to import it because they can actually do that same manufacturing in Africa. So these are some of the projects and I like the point I think when you were introduced a lot There was something about intra trade within the continent. That is one of the thing that I also promote quite a lot because for example something can be done in a country like Botswana and Zambia doesn't yet have the know-how that an institution in Botswana such as BITRI, Botswana International Technology Research Institution, has. So that know-how, BITRI will work with a Canadian firm to develop processes in order to produce a specific product in Botswana that then can be shipped to Zambia instead of being imported from Europe or other places.

1:23:50 So this is how we create economic corridors and actually wealth in the continent. So some of these projects, and as you mentioned Paula, it's very true that we, you know, I tend or we tend to focus on smaller markets and countries like the one I just mentioned and where we have experience, we have knowledge, We spend time, effort, we fail many times, but then we readjust our vision based on what we see on the ground. And then sometimes we need another person to come into the team to make the team more powerful and more appealing. So it's not a rush to get money to fund a project, but it's a work to get the right project and the right people to actually have a project that has an impact in the region that we want to work on. So that's basically our approach.

1:24:48 And I can tell you in that pipeline that AFF has today, we have very, very, very solid project with people with the same mindset that with the goal of really getting this Africa rising story to just rise even faster. Thank you. Bon, merci beaucoup, Jacques, and you may be getting calls after this panel from some people for your project. So, on espère que c'est ça le résultat. Alors, merci beaucoup à tout le monde. And Jacques, thank you for mentioning that we have a lot of very good Canadian companies that could be part of the capital flow deals and helping out in Africa since our technical expertise is well known. So thank you very much everyone for that.

1:25:35 I have tried to get in as many kind of blended questions as I can, not all of them, I will admit. Thank you to the panelists, Thank you to our listeners and to our Zoom colleagues all over the world. Merci beaucoup d'être ici. So again, Kruskaya, Lade, Chris and Jacques, this has been an excellent panel and it's been such a pleasure to be here with you again. Merci beaucoup. Thank you. Thank you very much. Well, thank you very much. It is an absolute pleasure that panel coming live. Thank you so much, Paula, for your role leading us from Quebec, You know, coming to us with some of the major players. I know we had people spread across from Nairobi on the one time zone all the way through to Chris in Calgary.

1:26:23 Such a pleasure to convene on such key conversations. And of course, IFC as a large institutional investor coming right through to some of the earlier stage considerations and certainly Chris at Stone Chair Capital, your insights in doing this very well received, working out of Alberta as you do, but regularly on the continent. It's my great pleasure to run through briefly, if I may, the remainder of today's programming. There's a lot of conversation and networking happening for those of you who are here in Toronto. As you know, we've got a main stage venue, 2 breakaway venues, and various meeting rooms. But also I hope conversations for those of you back at home or at the office across Canada or on the continent, also having that opportunity to engage. Please send through questions, it's askask.canadaafrica.ca.

1:27:11 That's the line to get in touch with us directly. BIOS program details, more information, including all of these recordings are going to be available as soon as we've completed the session concluding tomorrow. I want to thank again those VIPs who've been with us. It's been a phenomenal program. We kicked off yesterday with the Prime Minister of Canada, followed by the former president of South Africa, the senior representative for business in this country, representing millions of employees to the Business Council of Canada, those firms making a major contribution to job creation, and Goldie Hyder reminding us of the incredible potential, that gap between current export and trade with the continent, and where Canada has the capacity to truly outshine and to continue to outshine its immense contribution and partnership with the continent.

1:27:59 We've got some fabulous speakers still coming up, Some of them many known to our audiences back on the continent, in addition to their presence here. I think of people like Nassim Lari at Lucara Diamond. I think of individuals like Nikolai Christophe at Dundee Precious metals, an iconic name right here in Toronto. His address is coming up shortly. And then, of course, we go into the Mine Africa panel, where we've got a number of fantastic speakers. Wayne Floriani, a board member at the Chamber, also a vice president at Mine Africa, longstanding partner of the Canada-Africa Chamber of Business. We're excited to bring you in, Wayne, just a little later in the program. Then we conclude on this vital subject of sustainability from both the social and economic perspective, with one of the great Canadian companies, B2Gold.

1:28:46 Leading us there is Neil Reeder, who will be offering the keynote speech to conclude the program later today. Nikolai, an absolute pleasure to see you. We're seeing the same Toronto skyline that you are in one of the breakout venues. Pleasure to have you with us. I'd like to recognize you not only as a returning speaker by big demand, but as a leading supporter of this organization. We detailed yesterday existence that goes on 28 years in just a few months, and that doesn't happen without people like yourself. I know like many of us here in this room and across the country, you're a new Canadian, you came to this country, you've succeeded phenomenally. And now that that since relocating from Bulgaria, you've developed a passion for the African continent that is one that we see shared amongst so many of our supporters. So thank you for that leadership role. Today wouldn't happen with people like you. And I know more than just the financial contribution that you make to communities, to chambers, and also to your team and to building incredible staff capacity around the world, you've also been a leader in the development of methodologies and ideas that start to, some would argue, from an academic perspective, move beyond or take to the next level some of the considerations around ESG. It's an important subject. I know that we had the chamber in Mine Africa begin these discussions over a decade ago with Hatch, and you've been a key part of that all the way.

1:30:03 So big recognition and acknowledgement for your leadership role in this field. And of course, that forms the subject of the next keynote address, which is exactly this, changing the paradigm for natural resource development inside the approach of Dundee precious metals. For this exclusive series of insights, I can tell you that Nikolai comes with an illustrious background. He began his career as a student, a Master of Science and PhD from the University of Mining and Geology in Bulgaria. And he's completed courses at a range of institutions from international relations to further studies in the hard sciences. I know you're also a graduate from Harvard University at the business school in that regard. And then you've been working your way up onto the global stage. You were in mineral processing, research and development. You later then went through a number of other senior roles and assume the role that you hold today as you join us, and that is vice president and general manager. You're focused on external relations, I know, so both bringing in the social side as well as the hard economic component that ensures that return on investment, both to your investors, but of course, to your employees and your wider stakeholders, the communities in which you operate.

1:31:12 So, Dr. Nikolai Kristof, I know you're very humble, But to give you the formal introduction, it is my great pleasure on behalf of all of us here in Toronto and indeed across Canada and the continent to welcome you for this keynote address. Well, thank you very much, Garrett. Really appreciate the introduction. And I do want to say that, yes, we are big supporters for everything you as a chamber are doing. So much appreciated. Also, thank you for putting this event today again. It's another very interesting and useful agenda that you have put together. So thank you. And I will move to the slides. And so, okay, thank you.

1:32:00 So when we were discussing with Gareth and the Chamber what might be interesting for this event to share from DPM, we were chatting and we said, okay, why don't we share a little bit of the thinking behind the company and where we are going in terms of not only the business but how we see the industry also evolving and perhaps where we should be going and then what are those things that again going there are on the way that we need to deal with. So we have a few slides, let me just okay yeah So I'll probably make a few forward-looking statements, just be aware of that.

1:32:54 Few things in this slide deck, very briefly about DPM, then I'll expand a little bit about the company purpose, and then the framework that we are implementing, and a little bit of the learnings for implementation, and sort of the thinking behind all that. So about DPM, this is where we are at the moment. We have 2 operating mines in Europe, and we have 2 projects in development, 1 in Europe and 1 in Latin America.

1:33:42 And we are connected with Africa with the operation that we have in Namibia. This is a smelter, actually, not a mine, and it's located near the Tumeb town in the northern part of Namibia. The operation is co-owned by a group of previously disadvantaged Namibians. And if you want to learn a little bit more about the journey there for that operation, you can go to the presentation from the last year, from the previous event, and you can get a little bit more about that particular operation. So, moving forward to the purpose, it has been a great journey, actually, last year, going through the redefinition of the purpose of our company.

1:34:38 In a way, we saw a need to move away from what used to be a sort of well-accepted mission and purpose, mission and vision statements. And we took the challenge to define why do we actually exist? And what we came up with, really involving pretty much everyone within the company, is the statement that you can see on the top. It's unlocking resources and generating value to thrive and grow together. When we're referring to resources, obviously we are a mining company, but we are not referring only to the nature of resources. We are referring to all the other resources that are being developed or supported through the development of those projects in general. For example, human resources and intellectual capacity that is generating further growth of resources around the project.

1:35:45 And then we said, OK, why are we generating those? Why are we unlocking those resources? And again, we see a shared future where the companies and society grow and thrive together. So that's what we have defined as a purpose of the company. And again, I want to emphasize that We just realized that, again, when you look at that, there is nowhere mining really in the whole diagram there. So we are moving away from this traditional understanding of extracting resources.

1:36:31 We are really trying to look differently at what we do and trying to look clearly at the development of the development aspect of our business and transformational aspect of our business. And obviously again that development and that transformation is based on the strong ESG performance that we have and the strong innovative culture of the company. We also took a very bold move and we defined that one of our strategic objectives will be to generate net positive impact from the development of our projects. And I will unpack a little bit more what does this mean at the next slides.

1:37:21 So when you look around the world, we were reflecting on what's available around the world and what can we take that has been already developed. This is just a small list of the various frameworks and great work from various institutions, defining what again, we as a humankind, we as on the planet needs and what the various businesses will need to do, and so forth and so forth. And again, all that is generating, Again, what we are sharing among colleagues and in terms of the framework fatigue, there are so many frameworks, and yet there are still companies, countries, institutions that are still looking to develop more and more frameworks. So with that in mind, then we said, okay, if there is so much already done, what's the learning from there? And then we said, okay, that's fine. But Can we do a little bit more in-depth dive in, in our value chain?

1:38:36 And what you see here is some of the graphs from the European Union in terms of basically the transformation of the economy from a linear economy to a circular economy. And again, when you look at it, our industry sits in front of pretty much everything else, together with the agricultural industry. And this industry and both these industries are enabling the life that all of us are enjoying today. And I just want to underline the quality of life. And when we are saying quality of life, this absolutely includes the environment that we live and the impact that we have on the environment based on the projects that we develop.

1:39:33 So it's inherent that when we are saying that we are looking at the quality of life, that we are looking after the environment as well. So we were analyzing that and we said Okay, we can do life cycle analysis to the nth degree and so forth and so forth, but this is actually just a one-dimensional view of the whole industry. So we said, okay, how can we break away from that and move away from just being called extractives and being at the beginning of the value chain? And especially today, we are seeing this challenge that despite the old effort of trying to get to a circular, there is more and more resources needed to support the transition that the world needs to go through and moving to a low-carbon economy.

1:40:35 So then we were, again, in that line of thinking, we said, okay, what's out there and what can we adopt and how can we look at the business a little bit more differently than just this linear and one-dimensional view of it. So then we came up to something that's presented on this slide. And I just want to expand a little bit on, I have highlighted here 2 things on the right and I'm not sure how much you can read about that but we were reflecting on what do we as a business actually produce. And if you look at it again, conventionally, we are a mining industry, so we are producing mineral units or mineral outputs that all of us, as I said, are enjoying the life, or it's a foundation of the life that every one of us have.

1:41:38 And then also we are generating financial returns to shareholders. And This is precisely the challenge that we face. I really enjoyed the comment that Jack made at the previous panel in saying that, again, there is no in-country value addition. Well, of course there is no in-country value addition if we just look at that. So we said, OK, is this all that we produce? And then we said, well, it's not actually. There is so much else that is being produced. And we've tried just to list some of that. So what you can see on the right top corner, is just, again, the enormous human capacity development, and institutional capacity, and entrepreneurship development.

1:42:31 And obviously, all these projects are generating infrastructure development and out of that is a phenomenal improvement of the livelihoods around the projects that we are developing. Again, as an industry we are very focused now on preserving and enhancing the cultural heritage. And again, the transfer of knowledge and skills that a business like this is achieving is just phenomenal. And obviously, bank all the taxes, the royalties, all the fees that are hopefully wisely reinvested by the country and by the state to further generate growth.

1:43:18 So that's one of the, that's just 1 set of the products, but then we were saying, okay, obviously doing all this, we are building capacity within the company. So, so we are increasing that, that capacity within the company. And then we said, okay, what could help us really conceptually grasp all this? And we came across the framework again, yet another framework, which came out from the International Integrated Reporting Council at the time and their definition of the 6 capitals.

1:44:04 So we were looking at that and said, okay, well, this actually is quite interesting and quite powerful to move us out away from this one-dimensional thinking of the value chain of the industry and say, okay, it captures the financial capital. And again, when you are developing a project, and the previous panel talked about capital chasing good projects, when you are developing projects, you're borrowing financial capital. And then, again, with the development of the project, you're returning that financial capital. Then actually we realized that the same pattern could be applied to the natural capital.

1:44:49 So when you are developing a mining project, you are borrowing a substantial amount of natural capital by disturbing the land where you are developing that project. But again, as an industry, as a company, we know how to manage that. And then during the life of the mine, or some portion at the end of the mine life, close and rehabilitate properly. And we said that we cannot only return the natural capital, but we can actually return off the natural capital as well. We can make the ecosystem services even more resilient. We can leave a water dam, for example, or something like that, and where there was drought issues before, we can alleviate all that.

1:45:42 So then we were saying, okay, that's good, but how do we measure that? And this is the challenge that we are facing now. Again, back to our strategic objective of net positive impact, we said that, again, we want to develop projects that are generating a cumulative positive impact across all the capitals in the long term. So then we said, OK, how do we measure that? And this is where the challenge comes, because again, these capitals, they have different measures. And so we're now going through an exercise of doing that again. We've done some early work probably 5, 6 years ago, so it's not something new for us. But the frame, again, The methodologies have developed a little bit more and we'll give it another try again.

1:46:36 So then again, I just took a chart from the Value Reporting Foundation. There was a merger between the International Integrated Reporting Council with SASB last year. Great work that those organizations have put together. I really recommend you to go there and learn a little bit more from what they have done. It might look a little bit complicated, but actually it's not that complicated in terms of at the conceptual level, but it gets really challenging when you start implementing all that.

1:47:23 So with that, just a few practical sort of lessons learned, or again, sort of how we are approaching and where we are going. So we defined 2 main streams of progress and work that we need to be putting behind. And these are the continuing the journey on the sort of on excellence. And then with all the environmental, social, and government rating frameworks and agencies, we will be testing the S&P Global corporate sustainability assessment. So obviously, we are continuing with a number of the improvement projects that we have, or change initiatives that we have, obviously, very focused on the transition to the low carbon economy, responsible storage of mineral waste, sustainable and resilient communities. Basically, at the end of the day, this is one of the outcomes of what we are doing.

1:48:29 And then, as I mentioned, accounting mechanism for the 6 capitals. So that's the real challenge at the moment. We will be testing this next year and we'll be happy to share. Then, again, as a company, we enjoyed really a great ESG performance, but to further improve that performance, there is still work to be done in terms of embedding the thinking into the systems of the company. So there is a lot of work internally going on. And then communicating. It's not just disclosure. What I put on the right here is just, I did a Google search of mining a few days ago, or a month ago, And what you see on the top is what you usually get when you say mining.

1:49:20 Well, the reality is a little bit different, at least for us, and you can see it underneath. So, as an industry, we have the obligation, really, to explain the transformation that we have gone through already and the transformation that is coming. And in that way, make sure that the society is comfortable with what we are doing, make sure that society is comfortable, that we know how to manage, we can manage, and as I said, we are managing the environment. So that's a great challenge not just for us as a company, but us as an industry as a whole. So I'm sort of encouraging everyone to look at our approach and combine an effort in really that communication and changing the perception. So it needs really a paradigm shift of how society look at our industry.

1:50:24 And it starts with us helping the society understand better the industry. And these attempts that we are doing, we believe will be very helpful to articulate in a better way, not just one-dimensional what we are doing. We have a great support from the board in terms of governance, really sort of lucky with all that. And then there is another stream that we are working on, and this is really going beyond just what's already defined as frameworks and how we are actually transforming the business even beyond what I've just explained. So that's another stream that we are working on putting resources behind.

1:51:14 Gareth, I think I have exhausted my 20 minutes. I will be very happy to receive comments, questions, inquiries. You can reach at my email and I will be very happy to engage. Once again, thank you very much for putting the event this year again, and look forward to continue, cooperate with the chamber and support the effort. Thank you. Dr. Nikolai Kristof, thank you so much for your support and for such an incredible presentation. One of the characteristics of the Chamber of LATA are increasing partnerships with academics and one of the reasons is the result of the kind of cutting-edge content, the analysis, the peer-reviewed approach, and the excellence to research and to best practice. And so with that, I want to give particular recognition and a warm welcome to all the students, the faculty, the alumni at McGill University. Dr. Nii Adi, I believe, is hosting a viewing party, joining us from Montreal, and has curated a few questions that have come out specifically in response to your presentation.

1:52:24 The first one goes to concerns that are sometimes raised around the practice of mining companies. What role do you see for the next generation of students, as well as for faculty members right now in academia, to start to play a role as Canadian institutions of higher learning in some of the discussion, the methodology, the debate, that you've been leading from within your firm? Gareth, this is a great question. Thank you very much. It really is. And I put myself some efforts to try to learn a little bit more because when I was reflecting on that, there is something which is not right. I'm getting to a conclusion that again, as also academics, we need to look at how we are preparing the talent coming in for the industry.

1:53:16 We need to do a better job of breaking this compartmentalized thinking. The world today is so integrated. You cannot take a sort of a tunnel vision. You need to be able to look across and you need to be able to look ahead. So I think my message to, again, the academic world will be, we need to try to find a better way how we can prepare the young engineers, the young managers, to be able to see deeper than just the technical challenge that every one of them will be dealing with, whether it will be engineering, whatever it will be. How does this technical challenge is actually integrated within the societal needs?

1:54:11 And how what we are doing is responding and integrating with those societal needs. I think if we can do a better job in that, we will be preparing a generation of leaders that are much better suited for the, not the future, but actually the reality that we live in today. Brilliant. Next question also from students at McGill University this time, asking around sharing of experiences. So, of course, as we've begun each day, recognition of the First Nations and some of the challenges as well that are happening in communities. Some have argued, as this question does, there are differences, and yet there are similarities in the experiences of local communities that have been marginalized both in Africa and here in Canada. What is your experience or what are some of the prospects that you see for dialogue, for a chamber like ours, for companies like yours to start to in the Canada-Africa relationship, bring these voices and these experiences to the fore, and ensure that that is curated for best practice.

1:55:18 It's an open question to any initial thoughts you have, obviously a very big question, but critical for us here at the chamber and certainly in academia and across society. It is a big question, Gareth, and I will refer to one of our values, and one of our values is inclusion, diversity and inclusion. And I can tell you, being an international, multinational company spread on 4 continents now. It's really interesting to observe and work together to ensure an inclusive environment. Once you get there, it's just phenomenal to observe the flow of different ideas, the flow of different perspective, and the enrichment and the ability to look at the issues from so many different angles.

1:56:14 So I really recommend for all the businesses and everyone really to seriously think about providing an environment where everyone feels included, everyone feels valid. This is just phenomenal, and it's driving such a great result. So that would be my initial reflection on such a big question. Dr. Christophe, thank you very much and no doubt one part of a much deeper conversation. I want to thank McGill University as well for your incredible work, asking the critical questions and ensuring that as a chamber, you know, we reflect and we look at all sides. And I think this has been really, really fantastic. Dr. Christophe, more questions are coming through, but as you mentioned, you're open and available, so thank you from everyone here and across the continent for your openness to continue that dialogue and engagement. I'm sure you'll be getting an invitation to Montreal quite soon to continue this important discussion. Your support, once again, for this organization, for the communities where you operate is well recognized. And one thing that has always stuck in our feedback from many of our participants is the move from natural resource extraction to natural resource value addition. And that is a direct quote from your presentation last year.

1:57:32 Dr. Christophe, thank you very much. Once again, the honor is ours. Thank you very much. Everyone stay safe. Bye. Bye-bye. Well, back here on the main stage, it's my pleasure to welcome one of our key pioneers at the chamber. Wayne Floriani is somebody who has been creating incredible content as vice president of Mind Africa, as a longstanding secretary of the board to the Canada Africa Chamber of Business. And today we're looking at issues of supply chain. Of course, there's immense spending, there's immense investment that takes place with the billions that flow into the African continent, a lot of that through the Toronto Stock Exchange. But how that money and how those resources get integrated into long-lasting community supply chains that are sustained well beyond the life cycle of a mine is something that has certainly consumed Wayne and in fact the chamber with the launch of initial exploration of ESG over a decade ago with the past president Mr. Bruce Shapiro. So Wayne Floriani it's my pleasure to welcome you. And I'm going to hand over in a moment to you and your panelists again, joining like the previous panel from all over the continent and Canada and keep those questions coming in. It's ask at CanadaAfrica.ca.

1:58:45 Without any further reflection, my great pleasure to welcome our wonderful panel of experts will be introduced right now by Mr. Wayne Floriani, Vice President of MindAfrica and Secretary to the Canada-Africa Chamber of Business. Wayne. Hello, everybody, and thank you for joining us from around the world wherever you are today. My name is Wayne Floriani. I'm the Vice President with Mind Africa Inc. And a longstanding director with the Canada-Africa Chamber of Business. We're pleased to be partners in the Chambers Africa Accelerating Program again this year and delighted to have you join us today for what promises to be an insightful and very topical panel discussion on supply chain management, a critical component in your African ESG culture.

1:59:37 A bit of background, if I may, MineAfrica is a business development company that has been promoting mining investments in Africa for over 20 years through in-person and online events, including the biggest African mining events in North America held each March in Toronto during the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention. This event we put on in partnership with the chamber. We also provide mining and educational training programs under our master mining brand, including an online five-module course, Understanding the Mining Industry from A to Z. For today's panel, I want to stress that while we'll be focusing on the mining and natural resources sector in Africa, the principles of effective supply chains within an environmental, social, and governance, ESG context applies equally to all industry sectors, as well as all geographic regions around the world. So what you're gonna learn today over the next 60 minutes, you can take away and hopefully make use of in your own environment back home.

2:00:37 Our panel features supply chain experts and industry leaders who will discuss the importance of agile and efficient supply chains in Africa within the ESG context. I think it's particularly relevant a topic in today's COVID-19 environment. We have an excellent panel, an international panel for you today with 3 speakers, Siri Yagenic, Principal and Founder with Bridge, based in Canada, Victoria Stephen, who is the CEO of Enfuse Bond Holdings based in South Africa, and finally Nassim Lahri, managing director Lucara based in Botswana. We're gonna kick things off with Siri, followed by Victoria, and then Nassim. Thank you very much, Wayne. Good morning, everybody, or good afternoon, wherever you're located. I'm always embarrassed when somebody reads all that stuff. It seems like somebody else.

2:01:32 But that being said, ESG and supply chain have been core to everything I've done since I started in this business. Mining is basically part of a world global ecosystem. It's not, as Wayne said, this conference is about perhaps, or this talk about mineral resources, natural resources. But when we look at the supply chain and we zoom out for a minute, And we understand the full value chain of what minerals and metals we're putting, we're producing. It's not just the hole in the ground and perhaps the vehicles or the smelters or the concentrators, but it's all the contractors, it's all the suppliers, It's all the subs of the subs all the way from the beginning to delivery to that product so understanding the global role of ESG regardless of your industry is absolutely part of leadership in C-suite.

2:02:37 It has always been important. I don't think everybody always sat down and thought, gee, what happens if the world sort of falls apart, which is what happened with COVID. So our new approach or the approach that I would recommend we think about is how, where do we sit, where does our business sit in this global ecosystem and understand the world holistically. So it's not just about my mind or my industry, but it's all the impacts, all the different ebbs and flows. And then you realize not only with COVID, but with when a major vessel gets caught in the Suez Canal, or when there are simply, you know, they're now talking about cancelling Santa Claus at Christmas, because they won't be able to find enough containers, and to help deliver all the items that we need for whatever holiday we wanna celebrate, much less components for different operations or even power to be delivered.

2:03:46 So for me, the priority starts before we even talk about sustainability in ESG, about understanding for each of our organizations that full value chain and where at every step of the way the supply chain role impacts that value chain. And then looking at your mission and your vision about sustainability, because it affects the environment. It affects the social, the community, the socioeconomic. It also of course impacts governance and your policies and the way you do business. If we wanna do business right, particularly in mining, and we wanna get the right messages and create the lowest impact possible from all respects, of course carbon including, then we really need to stop, zoom out and map all of the different components of our supply chain and understand where we can fall short. So how do we de-risk our operations, but in this context of a global economy and the sustainability part? So I think a good place to start, Wayne.

2:05:02 Does that answer some of your question? Thanks, Siri. I think that's a good little tone setter for the rest of the discussion, a big overview picture. And maybe if I could just, before we move on to Victoria, ask you a quick question, and that's obviously supply chain and procurement has been around as long as there's been business and industry going, but what makes supply chain and procurement so important today in today's environment right now? So if you're trying to replace that little screw and that piece of equipment that's now stopped, no matter how small and inexpensive, simply because it's provenance from part of the world where there may be no further planes or trains or road or perhaps again it's on a vessel on its way here but it's stuck somewhere, then the smallest piece can bring your whole operations to a standstill.

2:06:00 So it's understanding not only where everything comes from, but also understanding how to be able to procure in the most efficient way possible solutions to your problems. So in the old days, which was pre-COVID, so not that old, you know, 18 months ago. It was, you know, just in, just out. You would call somebody and they would deliver 3 screws, 2 pump, whatever, and you weren't really worried. And it got there, and if somebody couldn't get it to you, you'd call another guy and they would get it to you, one way or the other, by hook or by crook. Today, even if you can call people, you cannot get your hands on huge amounts of different pieces of equipment, but also on contractors and on subcontractors.

2:06:49 Don't forget part of our supply chain are also our contractors, our subs, services, electricians, plumbers, welders. The market has seen a loss in that supply chain. And when you look at our business, everybody's trying to hire. And we can't find the right people with the right skills for a whole number of reasons. They may have had to relocate because families live in a different part of the world. Try and get somebody to come here from Australia, here being Toronto, so I'm in Toronto, you know, or I'd love to go and talk to Nassim in Gaborone or Victoria in Joburg. The likelihood I can do that to help fix whatever they have that's broken and needs help, it'll take a huge amount of time.

2:07:36 So we now need to look at what's around us and reconsider. And I mean, that's more to Nassim and Victoria, but we've never looked just around us. We've always gone for what is available in the greatest amount of number and the least expensive. Not obviously as generalizing, but if you look at a procurement team, and nobody really cared about all the different components. They just wanted to make sure that we had what it took to fix it. And now we have to look at that supply chain in the context of sustainability, of how, you know, is bringing something, I'll give the example, to Botswana from Joburg, the most sustainable way of procuring a piece of equipment. When we know that the trucks may be running on diesel and maybe from the port of Joburg something came on a vessel that's also burning diesel.

2:08:36 But when perhaps in the in the area where we're working, whether it's with Lokara or other opportunities in Botswana right now, Salibi Pikwe, there may be opportunities not too far from around us. So it forces us to zoom out first, understand the big picture, and then zoom in, and what's around us? And I can tell you, I haven't done a lot of procurement in my career, looking around us closer was not something that I automatically thought of. So, and it really, supply chain is really that critical strategic component that can help organizations truly deliver to their sustainability commitments, helping locals work, upskill them, train them, keep your carbon footprint low, helping economies. So again, remember, ecosystem, a socioeconomic ecosystem, and how can we contribute?

2:09:41 And if we don't have it, why not? And what can we build it? So it's become a very strategic component, not only to make sure we continue delivering to our clients and our shareholders, but a strategic component also for all our communities, our local partners, and the broader socioeconomic ecosystem the industry is functioning in. Great. Thank you. Thank you very much, Siri. There was an article in the National Post, Canada's national newspaper, just 5 days ago, and they were covering the meetings at the World Bank and the IMF and it was the various finance ministers from the G20 and the G7 were discussing the supply chain crisis and Minister Friedland, Canada's Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister, said Canadians must be realistic about the post-COVID restart of the global economy and the resulting supply chain bottlenecks.

2:10:39 So I think that underscores the relevance of where we're at now in the COVID-19 pandemic. I'd like to move on to our next speaker now, and that is Victoria Stephen. Victoria has been working in the mining industry for 19 years, and many of you active in the mining space in Africa will know her from her background in mining media. In 2014, she segued out of that into starting a technology business called Bond Holdings and Fuse. Her passion lies in mining and how technology can drive profitability for industry by empowering small and medium enterprises in more of the mining procurement spend. She is based in South Africa. Ladies and gentlemen, Victoria Stephen. Thanks Wayne.

2:11:25 Yeah, thanks Siri and good day to everyone. I think to follow on from what Siri has said, the intention is to change the narrative from local procurement is just a part of my ESG requirement to local procurement is a core part of my business and can be a pillar of profitability. I feel there's so much untapped potential for profitability if companies utilise procurement at both a local and an SME level. Procuring locally can not only drive profitability through cost savings but also support local businesses and also economic growth. I think procurement tends more towards what is known and visible rather than what is unknown.

2:12:12 I mean, and this is understandable because with the effort it requires to find new suppliers and vet them is really time consuming. So I think the consensus is rather the devil you know, than the devil you don't know. Which means, as Siri mentioned, that that spatial awareness of more options within the local supplier environment is actually quite limited. What's important to understand is that this thinking may have a knock-on effect throughout operations because if procurement is codependent on certain suppliers with no visibility on other options or backups, the security of supply is actually at risk. And this could cause other challenges, such as if the current supplier base is not able to supply what is needed because of stock outages, or obviously a more recent example, a global pandemic, corona, that brings the logistics of supply chains to its knees. I mean, shipments, even intercontinental supply of goods becomes challenging and costly, which means going to market to find new supplies is inevitable.

2:13:24 Also another consequence is overpurchase, the overpurchase of goods to compensate for the inconsistency in supply, which has its own challenges and cost implications. And I mean, all of these factors contribute to rising operational costs and downtime. So there really is a need to shift thinking to how do we build a supply, sorry, how do we build supply chain resilience? And I think this is a very key point. And the answer can be simple. There is an existential need for buyers to have the freedom of choice in order to prioritise procurement based on whatever the current needs are, but to have backup plans to the backup plans to ensure that there is security of supply and to mitigate the risk of downtime.

2:14:17 Having visibility on the local supplier environment and particularly at an SME level is key, or I feel is key to supply chain resilience. And this is where technology offers us a bridge, a way to connect on levels that we never imagined were possible. Through tools like Infuse, we can build an ecosystem that promotes and empowers suppliers within the local environment. It's a responsible sourcing solution that centralizes and it promotes and also categorizes all potential suppliers according to the products and services they sell so that everybody has a fair opportunity to bid for business. It supports current procurement systems and processes by giving buyers easy access to this information so that they can make informed decisions by narrowing down the options available to exactly what is required so the procurement becomes seamless.

2:15:13 It also supports supply development by expanding business opportunities and visibility of local suppliers to buyers in ways that up until now have not been out of reach. Every way you look at this, it's a win-win for all stakeholders. With our current project, we're busy working together with a major mining company in South Africa, who will be sponsoring their community suppliers on Enfuse as part of their supply development program. The intention is to capture all the local community suppliers onto the system and then share this with other mining companies in the same region, giving other mining companies access to new local suppliers and the opportunity to add their suppliers onto the system, sharing and growing the suppliers across the region and then obviously nationally.

2:16:02 As a result, mining companies can grow their doorstep spend and local suppliers have access to new buyers which helps them expand their business and support supplier development. This creates an interdependent ecosystem. I honestly feel it creates a thriving, or it can create a thriving interdependent ecosystem. And this is specifically designed to drive profitability while delivering on social responsibility within ESG and create supply chain or can create supply chain resilience. And it can be rolled out anywhere. So to conclude, this shows that ESG can be seamlessly integrated into any organization and can become a pillar of profitability. Thanks, Wayne. Over to you.

2:16:50 Thank you, Victoria. And a quick question then to follow up on some of your comments, Victoria. Mining obviously is a global industry. Major mining companies operate and diversify their risk portfolio by developing projects in many countries around the world. And many of the bigger mining suppliers also are global in nature. How do you balance that out against procuring local and the importance, We all know the importance of procuring locally, which is effective for the mining operation and the supplier, but it also empowers and develops the local community and leads to supplier development, as you were alluding to. Yeah, I think you said it yourself. I mean, balance is key. Not every jurisdiction is going to give you a 90% local procurement opportunity to a 10% international, which is something you know Nassim will talk about a bit later, but every jurisdiction is different and every mining operation is different and the equipment on the mines is also different. So if you have a specialized piece of equipment that's only available globally, then you know, that's what you need to do because the idea is to create a sustainable business as well. So I think it's to link the 2 together and have a good balance between buying locally and then buying international as you need for your operation and obviously the jurisdiction that you're working in.

2:18:19 Thank you, Victoria. That's also, I think, an excellent segue into our final panelist, Nassim Lahri, who is the Managing Director of Lucara Diamonds in Botswana. Nassim is a professional accountant with 22 years of experience and more than 17 specifically in the mining sector. She has a master's degree in strategic management and has held strategic, key strategic roles throughout her career. In 2018, she was named Managing Director of Lucara Botswana, being the first woman and the 1st Botswana woman to serve in this capacity for a diamond mining company in that country. She was also the youngest female Managing Director in the mining industry in the world and a trailblazer in the industry, according to Forbes Magazine and other international magazines.

2:19:08 She has served as a board member for the Depswana Pension Fund, the Kaminala Accountancy College and Pula Medical Aid, and is currently a board member of the 1st National Bank of Botswana. In 2020, she was nominated in the top 100 women in mining. Without further ado, over to you, Nassim, to wrap things up for us. Thank you so much. I feel like Serena. I think you're talking about somebody else now. But thank you for the lovely introduction. I'm feeling a little humble there. But anyways, I think for me, I'll start off where Victoria left off on the 90% to 10% procurement. So just To let you know, I mean, I work for Lucano Botswana. And when we started off, we were a small mining organization with very specific requirements. And obviously, those requirements weren't available in the local market.

2:19:57 And at the time that we actually started off our business in mining, your procurement was more or less coming back to what Victoria said was about 50% local and then 50% foreign, right? But what we did, and I keep saying this, is the DNA of the organization automatically took into account ESG, even though at that time it wasn't fleshed out as ESG and I think Sari may have mentioned it earlier on. It's inherent in the DNA of the organization and what the organizations want to do for their communities and the countries they work in, right? So for everyone on the call here, Lukana Botswana is actually owned by a Canadian company and that is one of the DNAs or cultures they brought into Botswana because if you look at other organizations here locally, you would actually want to go to South Africa first before you actually look in in Botswana, but what we did was on the 50-50 split, we knew that we had a market that we needed to bring in with the remaining 50% into Botswana, and there was a concerted effort to make sure that that value chain would be brought back into Botswana, And it's about making sure that profitability is achieved right the way through the value chain. And that's what we wanted to achieve. And for us, you know, the community is very key in terms of developing the community so that they can actually furnish our requirements from procurement perspective.

2:21:13 Right now, as we speak, we're sitting at a 90% local procurement environment versus a 10%. It wasn't easy, we're in operation for about 10 years, we most of our, specifically our technology, we've got very specific niche technology that we use which is first of the kind, first of its kind in the world, and most of the expertise was sitting in Germany. What we had to do is we had to basically import those services into Botswana, use those services, and actually then start working on a development plan to make sure that our local communities could actually furnish those machines or even our employees within the organization because most of those services were outsourced. And our entity initially started off with quite a few outsourced activities, which we then started bringing in. And skills transfer is very, very important. And as we do that, it's also taking into account the local procurement.

2:22:04 Other activities that we brought online was basically our mining contractor, it wasn't a local mining contractor, as an example. We made sure that they set up a JB here locally in Botswana, where that particular company would then partner with local entity here and would impart their skills. So those are the sort of formulas that we use to actually get to this 90%, 10%. And it's worked really well for us. And you talk about sustainable mining, sustainable, responsible mining, and making sure that you have sustainable procurement going forward. That's very key for us as well. So we didn't want to implement something that would work for about 2, 3 months or even a year or 2 years and then just disappear, right? So it's all about sustainability and sometimes, you know, we overuse the word sustainability but I think from our perspective it was to make sure that we have these services for 20 years or 30 years that we're running in this country. And in that process, we're able to make sure that those skills are then exported to other countries, because we've now become the experts of that technology as an example.

2:23:05 So whoever is servicing our organization is able to take their expertise and now use it in other countries. And I'm specifically talking about one of the technologies we use, which is an XRT technology, which was the first of its kind in the world to be implemented at our operation in Botswana, and now we have the skills internally and we're able to export those skills. So this is something that's quite key for us and it's quite exciting, you know, I could go on forever, it's such a passionate topic that we have and I think amongst the 3 of us, or actually 4 of us, we'd be able to go on for about 2 hours. But all I'm getting at is, you know, coming back to what Victoria said, yes, it takes time. And everybody has to make money through this process. It's not just about the miner, it's about everybody in the value chain. So nobody actually gets shortcuts or shortchanged in this process. We make sure that we handhold absolutely everybody to make sure that whatever we get as a mining operation is what we want and at the right levels, the right prices, yes cost effective, but at the right prices for everyone.

2:24:03 And I think what's key, you know, we talk about this pandemic, nobody actually knew we would actually face this pandemic. And what was key for us is we achieved that 90%. So the 10% was a bit of a challenge, but the 90% that we were able to contain locally. Yes, some of the components from the suppliers were a bit of a challenge because they had to go back to South Africa. But most of our suppliers were actually now developing the items locally in-house in Botswana. So that made it a lot easier for us to get access. Not to say that other components were very easy to get access to. There were certain components where we haven't mastered that arch to actually develop it or manufacture it locally in Botswana. But where we weren't, we were actually able to get components across for them to be set up here locally in Botswana. So that made that a lot easier for us in terms of getting the local supply up and ready. And what it did, it also accelerated the components that weren't actually generated locally or manufactured locally to actually start getting manufactured locally.

2:25:02 So I think the pandemic actually accelerated in a good way a lot of things that were taking a little bit of time to actually get on board, but because of the pandemic, we had no time, we had to produce and our suppliers had to provide for us because that was their SLA with us. So I think for me, it was quite important in as much as the pandemic did a lot of not so good things, it brought a lot of great things as well. And one of them was to accelerate certain production items specifically from our suppliers. So I think I sit here as a very proud managing director, moving from a 50-50 split to a 90-10% split. Obviously, for those who know our organization, we're going into an underground process. Very similar issues that we experienced in setting up the mine initially, we're experiencing now. But it's the exposures that we've had from the commissioning of our current mine to the underground that's actually assisting us now to start looking at ways that we can actually then reach, by the time we actually go completely underground, we actually reach the 90% because many of the expertise and skills are not available here locally. But we have plans in play. And also the government is quite keen making sure that this happens.

2:26:14 And like you talk about jurisdiction, We have a great jurisdiction and the government really helps us. They actually facilitate and they don't frustrate. So that makes it easier for us to actually transition to those 90s and potentially, hopefully 1 day it'll be 95. I can't say 100% because that's not possible, but let's say 95 and be realistic. Thank you. Thank you, Nassim. And I liked your point that COVID seemed to spur you on as it did some others. We don't hear very many positive things that come out of COVID, and that's 1 that I think is quite relevant. What, in your mind, pre and post and during COVID situation do you think are the key factors that have made you, Lucara, Botswana, leaders in the ESG and CSI, CSR space in Botswana?

2:27:02 Oh, thank you. That's a very good question. And thank you. It's settled straight straight to my heart, this one here. So I think for me, you know what was key and I talked about the procurement aspect where certain things had to be accelerated. And that's what we got as a benefit from COVID. The other benefits that we got from COVID and you know I always say you know when you're hit with a negative, or like they say when you have lemons make lemonade and that's what COVID did for us right, we were making lemonade like on a daily basis yeah, but in any case you know what we did from a corporate social investment perspective is we know that we provide good jobs in the mining industry, the procurement side, the supply chain aspect. It benefits the community quite a bit from a mining perspective, but our product is finite and we know eventually we're going to run out of the diamonds, and we have a life of mine as well, which we need to consider.

2:27:52 So one of the corporate social investment activities that we looked at was what would happen to the communities beyond mining. So what we do very well is mining, but what we do equally well is the corporate social investment activities. And we've gone into the agricultural space. And we've set up an integrated farm in one of the villages that we furnish in the Boteti area. And through COVID, because the borders had closed, we were able to produce fresh produce for the communities in that area, which was quite, it was really good because we weren't getting anything from South Africa at that point in time, specifically because the borders were closed. And even if they were, at times they were open, we weren't getting fresh produce coming through from South Africa. So I think for the communities, the corporate social investment activities that we put across actually assisted all the aiding communities that we actually furnished in terms of production of eggs, because that's what we actually do on the farm. We had spinach, fresh spinach, peppers, cabbage, carrots. So all the great vegetables that we were able to produce were now being produced for the community in the 18 villages. So what happened with this particular project is it was an upcoming project profitable but the profits accelerated significantly through the COVID era and I think for us from a corporate social investment perspective that was great and then I come back again back to the procurement side of things, because we had so much going for us with respect to production,

2:29:22 because we were considered an essential service and we had to continue, we had no lockdown in our environment. We don't even know what that means. So we were producing 24 7, we had work 7 days a week. So basically, for us, there was no downtime, and our suppliers had to make sure they kept up with us. And because of that, they were accelerated to make sure that they were producing what we needed on time. And that also accelerated their programs to actually start manufacturing components locally here in Botswana. So thank you for that. Thank you. Thank you, Nassim. That concludes the comments from our speakers. We can do a few questions now. We've got about 15 minutes to go. Maybe I can kick things off with an observation, and that is 1 in terms of local procurement and supplier development vis-a-vis beneficiation.

2:30:15 And I know there's a big move and a lot of desire, not just by African governments, but all mining jurisdictions around the world, Canada included, to benefitiate locally produced ore and commodities and minerals. I think it's a relevant comment given that the theme for the three-day Africa Accelerating Program at the Chamber is accelerating Africa's development with assistance, partnership and leadership from Canada and how we can work together. But Canada is a natural resources country and does not have a strong beneficiation sector in its forestry or minerals products. What it does have is a very, very strong mining supplier and services base, and that's through associations like Mine Connect, Mining Suppliers, Trade Association of Canada, the former Comise group. And I think maybe that's a little bit of a message for African governments is yes, let's not lose the agenda of trying to beneficiate and put more value added on our commodities, but let's look at something that is perhaps more achievable, and that is developing a very strong local mining supplier base, much like the Capital Equipment Export Council in South Africa.

2:31:21 And those companies, you know, are then going to be not only servicing local operations, mining operations, but internationally. We had in my hometown a company, a suburb based company, working with an Australian mining company in West Africa. That's a three-way partnership between a company, a country with a mine and the mining company. And I think, yeah, beneficiate, but let's look at a local development of a strong supplier base, which is great for the local operation, as well as the community and the stakeholders all around that space. My observation. With some of the COVID disruptions around supply chain and so on, and there's some talk you see in the news about alternate supply chains or developing alternate ones, is that a relevant option or is it better to do you think, and I'll throw this one out to work on your existing supplier supply chains and modify them and tweak them for it or to develop a fallback position in case something happens like the Suez Canal, Siri that you had mentioned the ship and the issues.

2:32:36 If I may answer, I think we should stop tripping on words, alternate versus, I think both Victoria and Nassim gave perfect illustrations of making the lemonade. So necessity is the mother of invention. Take what you have and figure out how to fix it. I don't care if you call it alternate or different or plan B, plan C. I love that Nassim's talked about, we just didn't have a choice, which they didn't. They were able to accelerate their suppliers. Everybody was on board. So again, you're pulling out of the industry, opening up, looking around you with tools like Victoria was talking about, you now have visibility.

2:33:25 So it's evolving. It's going from the rotary telephone to a smartphone and who knows, eventually we'll be talking to watches, right? Which we already do. So and that's why I always get a bit frustrated when people talk about these acronyms, ASG, ESG, they're all important of course or CSR, it's cultural. What does your business want to do and how do they want to be as a corporate citizen? So Lucara is doing amazing work, They are held by a Canadian company, but their culture was core on how to develop work in Botswana. I'm currently working as well with a client in Botswana, the same philosophy, how do we work with what's on the ground and help everybody become better off for a not very technical term, and use tools that technology provides us that like what Victoria is doing, to help have visibility that we didn't have before.

2:34:31 So I don't care what you call it, but we need, as an industry, to focus less on terminology in ourselves. And this means Canada too. I mean, I work with Indigenous communities and local communities. We have huge capacity in Canada to do so much more than just minerals and metals. And we're getting there. We're having these conversations. But there's the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business. There's so many, you know, you will see indigenous communities working with energy companies to develop new ideas and different ways of doing. So we need to be both resilient, so survive, again to Nassim's point, they, nobody stopped, or pretty much nobody stopped in the mining world, thank goodness, in many respects.

2:35:24 But how do you become also agile? So when you work in the Arctic and you have to make sure your Inuit communities are protected so they don't get sick, how do you keep that going so that they don't lose the revenue? So we are now encouraged, if not forced, to open up our brainpower beyond the simple mining and going to agri-foods and renewable energies and smart mining. And that's what really makes what we're doing cool, is that we can survive, not because we're horrible people who dig holes in the ground, but because we provide opportunities to shine and to grow and to radiate well beyond hopefully what is a small footpath. So a bit of my passion there, but yeah, that's my answer to your question.

2:36:17 Yeah, and can I add to that? I just love what you said, because you know, it's what we lived through the whole COVID period. And you know, for everyone that's in this panel understands change is the only constant, right? So you needed to be agile, you needed to be resilient, and all those great words that we use, right? But it's about, you know, yes, we had many plans and backup plans, but it was about dealing with the situation at hand and dealing with what we currently had at our disposal. And if I could use just an example that we had, I mean, we were actually in the midst of just before COVID hit, we were actually starting a project on SAP and insourcing our procurement. And there was no way we could stop that, right, because it would just derail our entire procurement process, right? Ironically, it's the procurement side that we were insourcing and the processing.

2:37:05 So, we had Deloitte actually doing our project management and the implementation of the project and countries were locking down and most of the people that were actually assisting us were from South Africa. So they moved back to South Africa because that's where the expertise sets. And we had a call immediately after the lockdowns were declared and Deloitte said, so what are we gonna do? And I'm like, what do you mean, what are we going to do, we're going to continue with the project. And we're going to use local resources, you're going to upskill these guys, however you do it locally here, and we're going to get this thing done. And honestly, by October last year, we commissioned with no hitches whatsoever online with an SAP system, a full accounting SAP system, and a completely commissioned procurement system, from the warehousing to the people to the dispatching everything. So honestly, if you if you put in and we had many backup plans to stop and, you know, but that was never an option. So I believe that, you know, if you get given too many options, you get derailed. Focus on what you want.

2:38:12 And yes, you have a lot of noise on the side, but just manage the noise, right? That's all we need to do. So I love what you said, Sari. It just, it plays directly to where we were coming from. And I think, you know, the culture of the organization is so important because without a good culture, we wouldn't have gone live last year on both SAP and our insourcing and our procurement, because we wouldn't have been resilient or been able to be adaptable to what was happening around us. So I just thought I'd share that with the team. I'm just going to quickly, because I think Victoria has so much to say, but as leaders, you shared that vision, and you made sure that your vision went from the top all the way through the organization and in all fairness I sort of know the car a little bit and The vision from the top was exactly witnessing a saying and people on the bottom felt empowered, felt they were like yeah we can do this.

2:39:05 So it really is that this even within the organization this okay let's you know let's team let's do it together And the internal stakeholders were the key components, not only obviously for Lucara, but for all of these organizations that are continuing to function throughout the world. Those that did very well, including procurement, were those that empowered their teams internally, understood that we have to keep going in a positive and dynamic way. And every it's like it's like playing soccer. I'm a huge soccer fan. So, you know, That's when you see teams score, whether it's Liverpool or Chelsea, Liverpool fan, just so you know. But that's when you see them go.

2:39:55 You team up and you go, let's do this. So just wanted to share that. No, thank you, Siri, and thank you, Nassim, for that. We are going to wrap up now, but maybe I'll give the floor, the mic back to Victoria. Just for a couple of concluding comments, if you so choose, Victoria. Yeah, I think it's important that we understand that mining can be good. It can be really good. And I think all of us want to leave the place that we work in better off than what it was before we got there. And I think, you know, Nassim has done a fantastic job of that with her team and she is such an inspiration and I think a lot of companies could learn a lot from what she's achieved. I know diamond mining is very specific but there is a lot of crossover and I think It's important that the industry knows, like I said, that mining really can be good.

2:40:50 And it can be hot. It can be full of hot. And I think the environmental elements are starting to come into play now, which is really important. I mean, carbon footprint, we're doing some exciting things on the technology side in terms of measuring carbon footprint and being able to measure that and give feedback to mining companies with regards to that. So, there is just so much space for so much good in this industry. It's so exciting. I love this this industry. I'm passionate about it. And I'm really looking forward to seeing how the industry evolves over the next couple of years. Thanks. Thanks, May. Thank you, Victoria. Thank you, Nisim, and thank you, Siri, for being a part of our panel today. And thank you, everybody, for joining us. I hope you enjoyed it and got some good takeaways that you can bring back and use in your own companies, your own culture, and your own communities in which you're operating.

2:41:48 A quick plug, stay tuned for more information coming out from Mine Africa and the Canada-Africa Chamber of Business on participating in the biggest African mining events this March 7 to 10, 2022 in Toronto during the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada. And Siri is a board member of that organization who's been working hard to make sure that the convention this year is not just a virtual one, but a combined 3 days in-person followed by a two-day virtual. Thank you for your, Siri, for all the work on that and getting that. That's the biggest mining investment show in the world and it'll resume its rightful spot again in person this March. I'd also like to thank Gareth Bluer at the Canada-Africa Chamber of Business and his team for putting together such an impressive program over these 3 days and we're delighted at MindAfrica to be a part of it and delighted to be able to host the panel discussion that we had today. So thanks again everybody for joining us, Enjoy the rest of the accelerating program, and we hope to see you again soon.

2:42:51 Cheers. Cheers, everybody. Thank you, take care, bye. Bye. Thank you so much, Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, dignitaries. Thank you so much, Mr. Wayne Floriani of Mind Africa for this wonderful panel, and to our amazing panelists, Siri, Victoria, and Nassim. And we recall with great fondness and affection Nassim and Lukaris' support for Africa accelerating 2020. It's now my high honor and great privilege from this main stage here at Makati Tetrault to hand over to the Vice President of B2Gold and to invite him to make his presentation. I'll call on our President, the very overworked President, Mr. Garrett Bloor, for your introduction of our esteemed keynote speaker. I truly phenomenal Canadian company. B to gold. Thank you.

2:44:15 Well, good morning to all across Canada and good afternoon to those across the beautiful African continent. I'm Gareth Blore, President of the Canada-Africa Chamber of Business, and great to welcome each of you back for a session that I've been looking forward to, as have many, over in recent months. It's the final keynote address on day 2 as we've tackled issues of sustainability, socio-economic welfare and environmental well-being. And we have got an illustrious keynote speaker, Neil Reader, who's closing us off today with his remarks across the presentation tackling a number of important areas. Neil Reader joined B2 Gold following a very distinguished career in the government of Canada. It was 35 years with Global Affairs Canada. In those positions, he was advancing Canada's trade, foreign policy, and developmental agendas.

2:45:03 He held several diplomatic postings all over the world. 7 of those were held overseas, in addition to his senior postings in Ottawa. And most recently, Neil served as Canada's ambassador to the Philippines. His prior postings included a number of countries, High Commissioner to Brunei, Canadian Ambassador to Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Honduras. He has also served as the Deputy Head of Mission at the Canadian Embassy in Mexico. Mr. Reeder has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Saskatchewan and his Bachelor of Journalism degree from Carleton University. He speaks 3 languages and is well known across the public sector and now takes a leading role at B2Gold in the private sector sphere where he's been advancing some incredible initiatives together with the team for which B2Gold is well known across the world. A true Canadian patriot as some have described him and certainly a leader in the private sector with an incredible company.

2:45:58 Neil Reeder, the privilege and the honour is ours. Welcome to Africa Accelerating 2021. And I give you the floor for the keynote address for today. First of all, let me say it's a pleasure to be here today with you on behalf of B2Gold. And congratulations to Gareth, the board and all the members of the Canada-Africa Chamber of Business for bringing this event together. We're very happy to be part of Africa Accelerating, both as a participant but also as a sponsor. So today I'm going to talk a little bit about B2Gold and some of the keys to our mining success in Africa. This first slide is just a cautionary statement to point out that this presentation may contain some forward looking statements that are subject to change.

2:46:52 I'll go on to the first slide here to show you mine and project locations. This is kind of a view of the world from B2Gold headquarters in Vancouver. We have 3 operating mines currently in Mali, in Namibia, and in the Philippines. We also have an advanced development project in Colombia at Gramalote. This is in the province of Antioquia. We will take a decision on that mine with our partner AGA sometime in the course of next year and once we came through with a final feasibility study. But that could well be our next mine. We have greenfield exploration projects in Finland, Uzbekistan, and most recently in Egypt.

2:47:42 So here we're just showing you a bit of the history of 1st Bema Gold, which became B2 Gold, and the range of countries where we have operated as a company. Some of these, of course, are very challenging jurisdictions. It's a company with a strong history of mining exploration, project development, construction, and operation of mines in various parts of the world. In Russia, for example, we built 2 mines at a time when gold was $200 an ounce. On the right-hand side, you'll see some of our core principles. These are really the values that we hold close as a company, the core values of B2 Gold.

2:48:28 And these are some of our keys to success. Deliver on what you promise. It may seem like a simple comment, but it's not. Because companies are making promises, governments expect them to deliver, and if they don't, there's great disappointment, community dissatisfaction, etc. So do what you say you will do, and you will have a good reception, delivering again on your promises. Senior government relationships are obviously very, very important wherever we work. And we've also, of course, had a very strong commitment to employee training, local employment and training at all levels. I'll come back to that a bit later. I'm just showing you here the tremendous growth in B2Gold over the past 10 years where we've gone from basically 2 mines in Nicaragua 10 years ago to 3 mines today and considerable growth in production.

2:49:28 It's also a happy miner slide because we're showing major growth in production, but also diminishing costs of production. So you can see going left to right that the all-in sustaining costs of production have gone down quite considerably over the course of those 10 years. And I would note that the Kitco Mining site had listed our Focola mine in Mali as the lowest cost gold mine in Africa. This slide is just showing you some of the development work that we're doing at the Fikola mine. We've got significant production, over 500,000 ounces in annual gold production. And we continue to work on exploration around the mine site, north of the mine site, and also next door on the Cardinal property.

2:50:23 We're also mentioning here the Ojikutu mine in Namibia. Again, a new development there as we're taking our open pit mine underground. The Wolfshag pit is going underground and we expect to see production from the underground extension in the first quarter of 2022. That should bring our annual production up to around 200,000 ounces annually. And the final point I mentioned is Gramalote, which is an advanced production project in Colombia. This slide is showing our exploration budget for this year. This is a company that was born of exploration, grows with exploration, and places a very high profile on exploring in various parts of the world.

2:51:11 As our President and CEO, Clive Johnson, likes to say, The cheapest ounces are the ones you find with the drill bit. We've been very, very successful in exploration. This year we're committing some $66 million to exploration. You'll see on the left column in West Africa and Namibia some of our various drilling activities as well as some grassroots exploration on the right. I'm just going to touch on Uzbekistan. This is, of course, in Central Asia, a very rich gold province, a historical gold region, which was, of course, once part of the Silk Road, extensive gold production throughout Central Asia for centuries.

2:51:58 And in the case of Uzbekistan, we now have 3 permits south of these major mines, as you can see, including in terms of production, the Murintal mine, which is producing over 2 million ounces per year, with a reserve of about 150 million ounces, making it one of the largest gold mines in the world. So we are truly an elephant country in terms of the mining business and we're very excited about the opportunities in Uzbekistan. I'll just show you some work that we're doing here in the central Lapland region of Finland. This is adjacent to Rupert Resources. Anyone in the gold mining sector will have been reading about some of the discoveries that Rupert has been announcing based on their drilling campaigns. We now have drilling underway in properties adjacent to Rupert.

2:52:53 And this again is a region of very high gold potential. And some observers believe that this may be in fact the largest gold deposits in all of Europe. This is our newest project in Egypt. These are properties we've been awarded by the government of Egypt in the Great Eastern Desert between the Nile River on the left and of course the Red Sea on the right. Again, historical gold properties since the time of the pharaohs. Gold has been processed in the country. We believe, again, great potential in Egypt and very excited to be going there. I'm going to turn now to sustainability and talk a little bit about some of our work at the community level and also occupational health and safety.

2:53:45 On this slide, I just want to make a point on the COVID response that we have been very careful to mine safely, very conscious of the health and safety of all our employees throughout the COVID pandemic. And I would say the governments in Africa, for example, Namibia, where 10% of the GDP comes from mining, have been very conscious of wanting to see us mine safely, but keep mining because we provide important jobs in, for example, the area north of Vintook, the capital, where there's very little opportunity for people and the Ojakota mine is a major employer. So we've mined safely around the world throughout this period, but also help the communities where we are and also the national governments.

2:54:37 For example, $2 million contribution to the anti-COVID campaign in Namibia and nearly $1 million in Mali to help the government's program there for purchase of medical equipment, supplies, et cetera. So I'm going to talk here about economic contribution. This is a very significant discussion because It's important that one communicates the benefits of our mining operations, indeed all mining operations, to local communities and governments. And you can see in the bottom here some of the impacts that we're talking about. Over $400 million in payments to governments throughout the world in 2020, for example.

2:55:22 In Mali, that constitutes over $300 million in payments to governments and $63 million in 2020 in employee wages and benefits. So major, major economic impact. I spent several years in the Philippines as the Canadian ambassador before I left the public service and moved into the private sector. And I was always struck in Masbati, which is a very poor province in the Philippines, and the tremendous impact of the Masbati mine, which over the course of mine life has brought that province much, much higher in the socioeconomic standings within the country, becoming now a mid-income province in the Philippines, which is important because of the opportunities that we've given people in terms of jobs and training, et cetera.

2:56:15 A people slide is always very close to the hearts of everyone in B2Gold. We have a family, my President and CEO calls it the United Nations of B2Gold. People from all over the world work at our mines and of course we're very much an international mining company. Over 4,000 employees globally. I'm very proud of that second figure on the left, local employment numbers of over 96%. This is quite remarkable. We have mines, for example, Ojikodo in Namibia, where there's very few expats even working in the mine that is basically run by Namibian personnel. We're very proud of that because we want to transfer these skills and knowledge to the local community and to professionals from within those countries.

2:57:06 We've also are very focused in Africa on affirmative action to encourage Malians, young Malians and Namibians to advance within the mine. For example, in Namibia we have an Affirmative Action Program which identifies young Namibians working at the site who show good potential and we try to bring them into management roles. This includes people who are called previously disadvantaged persons whose families had suffered under the earlier apartheid regime in South Africa and in Namibia. Some beautiful pictures here and I'll tell you momentarily the stories that go with those pictures. So on the environment, I just want to talk about P2Gold as a steward of the environment.

2:57:57 Our objective is to protect the environment where we work, enhance the environment, and provide support, whatever we can do, to assist in strengthening environment around the mine, but also to assist environmental projects that come to our attention. So here, for example, we're looking at 2 residents at the 15,000 hectare wildlife reserve that we established in Namibia, at Ojikoto. This is very important because we're de-wilding, we're bringing the former farming areas back to their natural wild state and allowing wildlife to flourish. It's also important because we have a very significant project at the mine, a nature reserve education center, and we bring in members of the public and young people from all over Namibia.

2:58:52 6,000 students so far have visited the mine and spent weekends at the mine site, traveling, touring around the Reserve, seeing the wildlife and learning about, really, the wildlife in their country. Because some of the children who grow up and live in the townships have not had opportunities to see the wildlife in their natural state. We also teach them basic physics and natural sciences and hope that they might be interested in the natural resource sector 1 day. We're also very proud of our work on mangrove and coral reef rehabilitation in the Philippines. Some 1.4 million mangroves that have been planted in the bay around the mine site because there was significant damage over time and also to restore the coral reefs, which were damaged by dynamite fishing.

2:59:49 We've now got some 20,000 corals have been transplanted onto these reef balls that are placed at the bottom of the sea and they help regenerate the coral growth. So these are very important programs that we're very proud of as a company. Another area I'd like to touch on, of course, is green mining. We see a lot of rhetoric about green mining, a lot of discussion about things that one could do, 1 could not do. I think there's a lot of good intention, but B2Gold delivers. We have delivered, especially I'm going to refer here on the solar side. We're very proud to be one of only 2 miners in Africa that have 2 solar projects active at the moment.

3:00:38 So we see ourselves as a leader in green mining. It's good for business and it's good for the environment. We're reducing our energy costs and we're also reducing emissions and consumption, of course, of heavy fuel oil. And as you'll see the numbers there at the bottom, there's been a tremendous impact in Namibia from the 6 megawatt solar plant that we have. And here you can see the solar field out in Ojikodo. It's important because Namibia, as you can see in the second bullet, has tremendous solar irradiance, so great potential for solar power in the country. And here you'll see a photo of our solar field in Focola at the mine site in Mali. This is a much larger project.

3:01:27 This one is a 30 megawatt solar project and 64 megawatt of HFO. So this project is now at full production and one of the largest off-grid facilities in the world. I should mention that it's the 93,000 solar panels that were purchased to build this project. And were purchased from a Canadian company. Now I'm going to touch on our communities. This is of course something that's core to the work of B2Gold. A social license to operate is earned. It is not bought. The next slide will talk about the Rhino Gold Bar, but here you're getting an idea of some of the work that we've done on the community side in Namibia, including scholarships, internships for local children who don't have a lot of opportunity to study.

3:02:20 We've also collaborated with UNICEF on 2 different projects in Namibia which help disadvantaged students. Another new project that we've just announced is called Dubox Jumpstart. And this will be a project where BT Gold and Dubox Jumpstart will fund and build up capacity of young entrepreneurs, of young startups in Namibia and give them the opportunity with training and financial skills, financial management, how to set up a company, etc. So we're very, very proud to be part of that project. And finally, I'll mention, again, another new project which might be of interest to the audience, to support the San community. The San, of course, are the original, they're called the original Bushmen of Africa, who have been in Northeast Namibia for some 30,000 years.

3:03:16 And they are very isolated, these communities, and we've realized that they need support for education facilities and for health facilities because what happens is We want them to have a full education before they leave their communities for higher education. Otherwise, there's a risk that they will run into trouble or not integrate into the larger communities in Namibia. So that's a tremendously exciting project. And this is the last integrated community of First Nations in Southern Africa. So just to mention the Rhino Gold Bar Campaign, this one is very dear to our hearts. Our President and CEO, Clyde Johnson, decided that we would support rhino conservation by donating 1,000 ounces of gold from our mine in Ojikodo.

3:04:12 The sale will support organizations and communities that protect the rhino population in northwest Namibia, the last free-roaming population of black rhinos left in the world. So working with the Cape Mint in Cape Town, we produced 1000 special-issue gold bars that were sold through a campaign on the Kitco mining website. And as a result, we raised well over $1 million, which is now being managed by an advisory committee and used to purchase supplies, equipment, transportation, walkie-talkies, anything that the anti-poaching patrols need to help protect the herds from the risk of poaching.

3:05:00 And part of this is very interesting, is also building up the infrastructure in the communities around the rhino herds, so that they have more opportunity, more infrastructure, education, health care, So they will be less tempted when the poachers come around trying to entice them to assist in a poaching operation. So if you can bring opportunity, better living conditions, we believe that also is a key factor in reducing the risk of poaching. So now we'll turn to the communities in Mali. Just a few other projects we're involved in again, the new secondary school, new Fadugu. I will mention that as part of our project in Mali, we did a resettlement of some 4,000 residents that were living too close to the mine site, and we decided it was better that we move them completely back several kilometers from the mine site in the new Faduku village. And we're very proud of that. This was a $20 million US investment by B2Gold.

3:06:09 And the villagers are now there. They have new homes with solar panels for each home. They have potable water within 200 meters of each home, they have a mosque, they have a police station, they have schools, all brand new. And this is something that B2Go felt was important. And again, the community benefits from the mining investment. And we also ensure that they have opportunities and better infrastructure going forward. That second project I'll just mention in Mali is again a very important one with UNICEF. So we're developing education and health facilities and safe, friendly spaces for children and women who are living in the informal mining areas around the mine.

3:07:00 Mali has a very large informal mining sector. In the case of our Focola mine, we've worked with the community to provide some protection and support to the girls and their children who are working in that area. And the safe spaces, for example, are for children under 5 years of age. And again, very important for them to have that environment. Really just to conclude, I want to mention how proud we are as a company to have received a number of responsible mining awards over the past year. ESG is at the core of our identity as a company. We strive to bring the highest standards in responsible mining wherever we go.

3:07:47 We're proudly Canadian, a Canadian company, and we bring Canadian values as we work abroad. And this has been recognized through a number of awards over the past year, And particularly I would note the PEDAC Award for Sustainability in 2021 and Mining Journal Magazine, which was designated us as the most sustainable miner in 2020. So thank you very much. It was a pleasure talking to you today. And again, I wish Gareth and all the leadership of the Canada African Chamber of Business every success with Africa accelerating. Thank you. Neil Reeder, thank you so much. A fantastic presentation and congratulations on the achievements of B2Gold across the world and of course, particularly on the African continent.

3:08:40 A number of people have been discussing strategies, reports, approaches to best practice, but of course, you've achieved it. And I think the key question from everyone is how, what makes B2Gold different that has led you to securing the impact that you've achieved? Well, thanks Gareth. I think first of all, B2Gold has a integrated approach to mining. So we go from early exploration through development to decisions on construction, finance. We have our own construction team and we go through the end of life of mine and rehabilitation of the mine. So it's a wholly integrated circuit of activities around the mining concept. I think this gives us a particular advantage because we don't have to get outside contractors. We have all those skill sets in the company.

3:09:32 For example, our construction team has been together for 35 plus years, and they've built 5 mines in various parts of the world, including in very challenging jurisdictions like the Far East of Russia. So I think that gives us a certain advantage. The second point is exploration. Again, our exploration team, led by our senior VP Tom Gerrigan, they have been together for 30, 35 years. So they have tremendous experience and they're able then to work as a team over long periods of time with complete confidence in each other. And that's a tremendous asset. We also have a very strong rapport between the engineering program and geology. So they talk to each other, they work together.

3:10:19 It's really a group of 1 under the leadership of our president and CEO, Clive Johnson. And what that means is that we don't, I don't see those tensions you hear of in other companies, for example, because the 2 don't always get along but we've been I think very successful on that. And the final point I would say is that unlike some mining companies at the community level what I've been impressed in observing is our willingness to engage with communities early on, but also to provide benefits to them well before any decision is taken on developing a mine. In the case of Burkina Faso, in the case of Columbia currently, we're undertaking community programming. We have a three-year program to help SMEs around the mine region that we're doing in Columbia. We haven't made a final decision on that mine, but we're contributing already in Burkina, medical health facilities, for example, in and around the Kiaka deposit.

3:11:22 So what we're really doing is saying to companies, to countries and communities that we will deliver, and here's an idea of what we like to do in consultation with you, so they can see the benefits early on, even before a decision has not been taken on whether we go forward with a mine or not. Well, Neil, thank you very much. I mean, to some of the points I think you've really outlined, we do have a number of government representatives, policymakers from across Africa, as well as Canada. Speaking to policymakers, what are the sort of initiatives that you've undertaken to date working with policymakers that have led to the sort of success where the bottom line is communities are prospering and you've actually enabled the sort of economic growth and flourishing that has happened across markets where B2Gold operates?

3:12:11 Well, I'll give you a couple examples. I think in the case of Mali, for example, you know, we understand we're working in what was basically a pastoral community. People did not have a lot of skills in terms of vocational, technical skills, trade skills. So we developed a program with Global Affairs Canada, I might say, $7.5 million program cost-shared. That program has just ended, but we were able to provide technical vocational training to 1,500 people from the neighboring villages, who some went on to build their new community as they were resettled with mine construction. We built with them a community for 4,000 people at a cost of some 20 million dollars U.S.

3:12:59 So we work very closely on that project to assist those individuals in developing skills that will be important to them in the current environment but long after life of mine as well. You can imagine young people in Mali with a trade certificate, carpentry, steam maker, electrician. These are very important skills. So we're proud of that. And the second element is that we're going to make sure there's continuity in the training because what we're doing is co-financing a center in Kenyeva, the local community, where they will be able to take the training there in a program that we manage with the municipal government. So that ensures that livelihood opportunities continue beyond the life of mine.

3:13:47 Fantastic. And Neil, a bit of a personal question. Many have known you over the decades as a leader around the world. Some say there's not a recent prime minister in Canada who has not made an appointment having you serve somewhere on the globe. What led you to make the decision to move from public leadership into the private sector, and specifically that transition into B2 Gold? If you'd share a little bit around that, many people have certainly raised it as a point of interest. Well, thank you. That is an interesting question, actually. I guess partly having spent 35 years in the public service in the Department of Foreign Affairs, I felt it would be a good experience to get into the private sector and have that experience at some point in your life. When I joined then Department of External Affairs, 1981, it was basically a commitment for life. Most of us went right through the department for 25, 30, 35 years, various postings. I had 7 different postings abroad.

3:14:51 But at the same time, you never really had private sector experience or even experience outside of the department. I went to PCO for a few years. So in that respect, I did have that experience. But it was important, I felt, to have the opportunity to work in the private sector. And the second factor was I seemed to have connected with B2 Gold at various points throughout my government career. When I was ambassador in Central America, B2 Gold acquired the Limon mine in Nicaragua and they also built the Libertad mine. So when I was based there, they came into the region, sort of the 2008-2009 period. And I remember meeting Clive Johnson, President and CEO at a restaurant in the mountains above Costa Rica, San Jose, the capital.

3:15:42 And I was so impressed by him. I said to my wife, Irene, when we left, you know, this is a remarkable gentleman in terms of his vision, dynamism, his energy, entrepreneurship. Again, when you're in government, you're impacted by that sort of individual. And I thought this is really quite interesting and his life story, you know, coming with the family, immigrating from the United Kingdom and then prospering in Canada was very interesting. So I kind of registered that one and I moved on in my career and later on on my last posting I ended up in Manila in the Philippines and while I was there B2 Gold acquired a mine on the island of Masbate which today is the third mine of the 3 that we have operating.

3:16:31 So I met individuals there who were with B2 Gold that I had known from Central America, very, very small world when you see the intersect between diplomacy and mining, I guess. And when I came back to Ottawa having planned on retiring, I began a conversation with them and we ended up with this position which was created. I think it's an important position obviously for a mining company that's wholly international but also operates in very complex jurisdictions. So having people like myself, I believe, who have experience in various parts of the world, I have the languages, the contacts within global affairs, and a number of governments abroad. So it was a very happy marriage, I think, and I'm really enjoying it. I think it's an asset for mining companies in particular to have that government relations component.

3:17:27 So I'm happy to be where I am. Well congratulations, you know, and taking that innovative approach, the market solutions that are being delivered, giving effect to Canadian values across the world, absolutely fantastic. Of course, you make mention of Clive Johnson, this year's CEO of the year, or certainly the most recent CEO of the year, as Kitco announced. Just fantastic leadership and showcasing those common grounds around Canadian values and the results of the commercial relationships that have followed, not only for your investors, but as you always put front and centre for communities around the world. Congratulations and absolute honour once again and thank you too for BT Gold support. As a chamber of business, it's now 28 years of existence and that doesn't happen without companies like yours who believe in what we do and always give effect to the values and the vision that you pronounce on the public stage. Once again, an absolute honor. Thank you so much, Neil. Thanks very much, Gareth. It's a pleasure for us to co-sponsor and also for me to speak.

3:18:24 And we wish you all the best with Africa accelerating this year. Thank you. Thank you so much. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye bye. Bye. Thank you so much again, all of you. And especially thank you so much B2Gold for that wonderful presentation. We've saved the best for last. So tomorrow we have our final day of the conference and we tackle the issues of enabling Africa's restart for a new global growth engine, exploring the African Union's collaboration, free trade, Africa, Canada, partnership with institutional investors. We basically have a number of important speeches and dialogues all dealing with the financial aspects, the economic integrative aspects of Africa's growth. We'll have opening remarks by His Excellency Ramkele Mene, the Secretary General of Africa Continental Free Trade Secretariat.

3:19:42 Most people are not aware of this, but effectively This is probably the single most important event that has happened in Africa in 50 years. But nobody is paying attention to it because it's a generational positive event. If something bad happened, everybody would know about it. This is effectively a treaty that would bring almost all the African countries together into a free market area. One of the things we often hear from investors who are going to Africa is that, well, why should I go to Togo, or to Benin, or to Burundi, or to Ghana? I mean, these are small countries. These are small markets. And every country has its own rules and its own language and its own regulations, and it just makes business cumbersome.

3:20:28 But China, that's one big country, and if I sign an agreement with China, I can work anywhere, or Brazil, or India. So, in a certain sense, or Europe, in a certain sense, Africa is going to give China and a number of other major markets a run for their money. Because when you integrate all the African economies, 54 countries, you'll have an economy which at the moment is about $7 trillion. Now that it's not integrated. China's economy is about $20 trillion. So 10 years from now, there is no doubt in anyone's mind that if this project, this very important project of integrating Africa's economy into a free trade area is even 0.5 successful, Africa's GDP growth will be several multiples of 7.

3:21:16 And there would be absolutely no doubt in anyone's mind that whether you're a Canadian company or you're a Belgian company or you're an American company, if you are not invested in Africa in some way, you would miss the 21st century, much like many companies who were not invested in the North American market, missed the 20th century. So tomorrow will be a very important day. So we really hope many of you will be able to attend and be part of this session. So again, thank you so much to all of you who attended today's session, and to our speakers, and to our panelists. Again, to McCarthy Tetreault for hosting us in the live venue here in Toronto. To 6, our technology partner for making this possible. To Samantha, to Gareth, to Jack, to Susan, to everyone who has made this possible. And obviously to those who helped to build this organization for over 20 years, Bruce and Wayne and Stephen and so many important people without whom this organization will not be what it is. So thank you so much, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen. We look forward to continuing this dialogue and this discussion tomorrow. Thank you.

3:22:30 In tomorrow. Thank you.