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Redi Tlhabi (Moderator): Just on that, let me bring in the UN Special Advisor for Africa. You are very passionate about education, particularly Stem, and we know that the African Union has declared 2024 the year of education. Very exciting. But is it doable? When you look at the average government spending on education in sub-Saharan Africa in particular stagnated at 3.8 per cent, its lowest since 2014? How can the continent then achieve these goals? How can we reverse this trend and commit to investing in education?  

Cristina Duarte:  It's a pleasure to be here. I think we reached a point that any conversation about education financing from an African standpoint, we need to bring to the table to dig to that conversation. 

Inefficient public spending. Otherwise, in my view, is not a serious conversation as we speak. And allow me very quickly, moderator, to provide some quick numbers. Public spending inefficiency in education reached 49 per cent. Can I translate these numbers in cash? $12 billion a year. Any conversation about education financing needs to address the $12 billion in inefficient public spending. 

At the same time, what we see a huge effort from African governments to finance that education budget expenditures. You mentioned 2.9. I have a 4 per cent 5 per cent figure, and most of all of African countries are meeting or are trying to meet the commitments. So, we have inefficient public spending and the huge effort from governments to deliver these magic numbers 3 per cent of GDP, 4 per cent of GDP. This is a paradox.

What we see if we analyze the conversation that, the innovative financing is landing in this conversation and debt swaps, and you mention we need to be very careful and believe I'm going to say that because I was Minister of Finance. But before I worked ten years in the international financial system, we need to be very careful, to bring a financing mindset to solve problems that, at the end of the day, should be solved not by a finance mindset, but by an efficient policy framework. 

What I'm trying to say to fix education, land poverty, these inefficiencies in terms of public spending, you need to fix the budget. You need to fix the budget to fix education. ODA has no profile to finance these state functions, because you need predictable cash flows. ODA is not predictable; it is coming down. So, in order to address these, someone told here mentioned the long-term mindset, education, finance, it requires a long-term mindset.

We have a paradox my dear sister, we have been asking, I say Africans, but for more ODA. But at the end of the day, Africa loses $500 billion a year. I can provide down the road the breakdown if you ask me. So, we need to stop losing money. We need to put domestic resources mobilization in the driver's seat for the financing for development in Africa. And when doing so, we believe that we start getting money first to create a national education system is beyond building schools. You need to have a system, so you deliver education today, tomorrow, but in the next 25 years. You don't need funding to build schools. You need to build a system that will take care of the schools.

Otherwise, you invest in schools and down the road, we will not have money to maintain the schools. And you need to invest again in ten years. In ten years time. So, thank you very much.