Ousmane Diagana: Yes, for 25 years, economic growth has been there in Africa. Unfortunately this year, the Covid by its magnitude will cause an overall contraction in the economy, and this will also result in a recession. The oil-producing countries are affected, the countries that live from the transfers of emigrant populations and tourism are affected. Before this crisis, and especially over the last 20 years, the level of poverty in Africa fell significantly, from around 60% in 2000 to 35% in 2018, but for the first time precisely because of this crisis, we are going to see an increase in poverty in virtually every African country.

We are still in the calculations, but I think there will be a contraction of about 3% of the national wealth in Nigeria.

Côte d'Ivoire is one of the countries where economic growth has been very strong, very sustained over the past 10 years, recording an average growth of 8%. I think that the impact of the Covid, obviously, will not spare Côte d'Ivoire as well, but we will still observe positive growth between 1.5 and 2% this year, which is not bad.

We are in the estimates, I prefer to give you a more precise figure in the days to come, as far as Cameroon is concerned. But I think it's going to be around 1%.

Here is.

Out of 160 billion, 50 billion will be in favor of low-income countries and therefore most of these countries are in sub-Saharan Africa. I must say that in addition to these 160 billion, we are also in the process of mobilizing 12 billion dollars to help low-income and middle-income countries for the acquisition and distribution of vaccines.

Both. Our priority has been to provide rapid responses for the strengthening of health systems, the protection of people's livelihoods, but also the creation of conditions for a strong, rapid and resilient recovery.

Yes, I see that the World Bank wants to support SMEs and the informal sector and that you have very concrete initiatives, particularly in CAR, Senegal and Ghana...

And I would say everywhere. In each of the countries since the crisis, we have very quickly financed operations in the sectors of health, agriculture, infrastructure and education. And we also provided funding to help small and medium-sized businesses resist.

Yes, we mobilized 10 million dollars, most of these activities were carried out by small businesses in the Central African Republic, and suddenly that enabled them to protect jobs.

Absolutely, I think the essence of our strategy is really to ensure that what we do contributes to creating jobs.

So $50 billion is fine, but isn't that a drop in the bucket compared to the $3 trillion that UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is asking for for poor countries?

You know, these 50 billion are over a very specific period. We have wallets that existed before Covid that are very rich wallets in terms of content. In each of the countries, I think on average in West Africa before the crisis, as I look at my portfolio before the crisis, I had a portfolio of at least two billion dollars per country, a portfolio that exists and that remains, and what we have also agreed with most of the countries, is to look at this portfolio, to redirect it, rebalance it, so that the resources that existed can be redirected, towards priority needs, depending on the outcome of the Covid-19 crisis in each country. We were there long before the crisis, we intensified our interventions during the crisis and we have a lot of partnerships which already allow us to lay the groundwork for an even stronger, more solid partnership in order to support the economic recovery.

From the discussions that have been held with the G20, I believe that we must already salute the initiative and the spirit that was carried out first by the World Bank and the Monetary Fund, and which was supported by all the G20 countries, and which also ask for the participation of commercial creditors so that its impact is stronger.

The indebted countries are asking for the renewal of this moratorium for a whole additional year, what do you think?

It is precisely these exchanges that are in progress, it was the subject of discussions during the last annual meetings of the World Bank and the Fund, the G20 is in the process of looking into it.