Transcripts For CSPAN President Obama At Young African Leaders Summit 20140804

It puts people on a level Playing Field when it comes to those kinds of issues. Ohio, newcan from york democrat, colorado republican. Eastern ont at 8 00 the communicators on cspan 2. Theext, president obama in meeting with Young African leaders. After that, todd akin. Then a discussion about efforts to improve Health Care Services for military veterans. The British Parliament is in recess this month, so the prime ministers questions will not be seen tonight. As a Young African Leaders Summit on monday, president obama announced new efforts to expand the program and renamed it the Mandela Washington fellowship all stop the fellowship is made up of 500 subsaharan africas most missing leaders between 25 and 35. Didnt attend a sixweek program focusing on civic leadership and public management. The summit was held just prior to president obama hosting african heads of state at the white house. His town hall with a Young Leaders ran just over an hour. To introduce the president , flees welcome faith mangopei. [applause] thank you very much. Good morning. Africa, good of morning distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. I am a broadcaster, businesswoman, and world changer. But that is who i am. This morning, lets talking about who you are lets talk about who you are. Who are you . Americans have depicted u. S. Dark. Who are you in the shadow of corruption as well as the shadow of instability has crossed the shadow of your own who are you . When the face is who are you when the mental shackles which emphasize your inability to own your own resources refused to come down . The ones that have been chosen to rewrite the narrative. You are the ones [applause] africa, you are the ones that will testify on the greatness and the life of our african continent. By your work, all the world will know that africa is no longer a Sleeping Giant but that it is awake and it is open for business. [applause] we would like to thank president obama for the program that has whiched our eyes to that may occur when we no longer see as nations, as citizens, as families. Gentlemen, watch and learn and engage with one another. Ones who are africas best solution. [applause] young ladies of africa, join me in this, to welcome the president of the United States. [applause] [cheering] he is the leader. [cheering] hello, everybody. [applause] hello, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. [applause] thank you so much. Have a seat, have a seat. We are just getting started. Wow. Hello, everybody. Washington. I know most of you are visiting this country for the first time, so on behalf of the american people, welcome to the United States of america. We are thrilled to have you here, and everybody was watching online across africa or at watch parties, you are a part of this too. We are glad that you are with us. Can everybody please give face a big round of the plots . Round of applause . [applause] i have to say, faith didnt seem very intimidated. Not lacking in confidence. She is doing great work in south africa to empower young people and young entrepreneurs, especially women. I am not here to give a big speech. The whole idea of a town hall is for me to be able to hear from you. But first, i want to speak briefly about why i believe so strongly in all of you being here today. Next week, i will host a truly historic event, the u. S. Africa Leaders Summit, where nearly 50 president s and prime ministers attend from just about all of your countries. It will be the largest gathering any american president has ever hosted with african heads of state and government in government. The summit reflects the principle that has guided my approach to africa ever since i became president. The security and prosperity and justice that we seek in the world cannot be achieved without a strong and prosperous in selfreliant africa. And as we deal with crises challenges in the other parts of the world that dominate our headlines, even as we acknowledge the real hardships that so many africans face every day, we have to make sure that we are seizing the extraordinary potential of todays africa, the youngest and Fastest Growing of the constants. Next week summit will focus on how we can continue to build a new model of partnership between america and africa, a partnership of equals that focuses on your capacity to expand opportunity and strengthen democracy and promote security and peace. This cant be achieved by government alone. It demands the active engagement of citizens, especially young people. And so that is why four years ago i launched the Young African leaders initiative, to make sure that we are tapping into the credible talent and creativity of Young Africans like you. [applause] since then, we have partnered with thousands of young people across the continent, empowering them with the skills and training in technology they need to start new businesses, to spark new change in their communities, promote education and health care and good governance. Last year in south africa at a town hall like this, some of you the nexte, i announced step which was the washington fellowship for Young African leaders. To give youngwas africans the opportunity to come to the United States and develop their skills as the next generation of leaders and Civil Society and business and government, and the response was overwhelming. Across the continent, young men and women set out on a journey in remote journeys. They navigated the back roads and trained. Just to get an online application program. One young woman from zimbabwe took a fivehour bus ride, then another six hour bus ride, then another seven hour bus ride, a twoday journey, just to get her interview. 50,000ely, some extraordinary Young Africans applied, in today they are at the heart of what we are calling our network, the Online Community across africa that is sharing their ideas and new collaborations to realize the change they seek. I want everyone out there to know that you are the foundation of our partnership with africas youth. Today we are thrilled to welcome you, our washington fellows, to an Exchange Program unlike any other that america has ever had with africa. That youngranks is woman from zimbabwe who in jordan all those bus rides. We want to welcome abigail. Where is abigail . [applause] where is she . There she is. [applause] thats a lot of bus rides. [laughter] i do have a first item of business. I launched this fellowship not far from the original home of nelson mandela. In the spirit of this program, it reflects his optimism and idealism, his belief in the endless heroism of youth. Blessing of the Mandela Family to whom we are so grateful, theyre proud to announce there is a new name of this program as the Mandela Washington fellowship. [applause] [cheering] youre the first class of Mandela Washington fellows. Thats right. I know all of you have been busy. All of you have been busy at some of americas top colleges and universities. Learning how to build grassroots organizations and how to run a business, how to manage an institution. As one of you said, my brain has been bubbling with all sorts of ideas. I know you have been developing your own ideas for meeting the challenges that we will address at next weeks summit and i want you to know i have read some of the recommendations that were produced, and i thought they were outstanding pieces of work. That is what i want you to hear today, your ideas, your visions for africa. Willat this summit, you engage with some of our nations leading voices, including someone i know you cant wait to see, michelle obama. [applause] [cheering] congress who are strong supporters of this program are also here. Where are the members of congress . There you are. [applause] some outstanding members of congress are here, you will get a chance to meet some of them. Are headed of you off to internships at our nations leading companies and organizations. Will take said you what you have learned here and put it into practice back home, and that is the whole idea. I took somey that pictures with some of the University Officials who hosted all of you and uniformly, they said they could not have been more impressed with all of you, with what a great job you have been doing. Thank you. [applause] i know you have all been experiencing america as well. The places that make us who we are, including my hometown of chicago. [applause] you have experienced some of our traditions like block parties. We have experienced some of our food, texas barbecue. You really like that barbecue, huh . [cheering] you got the longhorn thing going on . Americans have been learning from you as well. Every interaction is a chance for americans to see the africans that are so often overlooked in the media. The africans that are innovative and growing and dynamic. A new generation, all of you on facebook and twitter, creating new ways to connect. I see some of you tweeting this town hall. [laughter] although mostly i see these guys shifting in their seats over and over. To get a picture. Dont think i didnt notice. [laughter] you all need to stay in your chairs. Slick. Dy thinks theyre [laughter] [applause] leaderst is, our Young Initiative is a longterm investment in all of you and in africa and the future we can build together. Today i want to announced some next steps. First, given the extraordinary demand, we are going to double it. In two years, we will welcome a thousand fellows to the United States. [laughter] [applause] we will do even more to support young entrepreneurs with new grants to help you start businesses or nonprofits, training thousands of aspiring entrepreneurs and smaller towns and rural areas. Our globaluccess for entrepreneurship summit, i can announce that next years summit will be hosted for the first time in subsaharan africa. [applause] [cheering] third, we are launching our whole new set of tools to empower Young Africans to our network, new online courses and mentoring, new ways to meet up across africa and around the world, new training sessions and meetings with experts on how to launch startups. Instigateins today, started, all of you all you have to do is go to yali. State. Gov, and thatll give you information on how you can access all these resources. We are creating new Regional Leadership Centers across africa. Americanining with universities, african institutions, and private sector partners like microsoft. We want to thank them for helping to finance it. [applause] if microsoft around the applause. Give microsoft a round of applause. We are starting in senegal, south africa and kenya. [applause] and we aim to help tens of thousands of Young Africans access skills and resources they need to put their ideas into action. The point of all this is that we believe in you. I believe in you. I believe in every one of you who are doing just extraordinary ings, like [applause] she saw a close friend died during childbirth. She now helps train birth attendants and delivers kids, helping to save the lives of countless mothers and their babies. [applause] want her to save even more lives. To give you another example, robert from uganda. [applause] [cheering] robert even even though he thet hear, he can see discrimination against people with disabilities. Andas been their champion is standing up for their rights in schools and on the job, so thank you, robert. We want to see you standing up for the universal rights of all people. Mambusu in chad. [applause] in senegal, she is taking a stand against Human Trafficking that commits to many women and girls to forced slavery. She runs an academy to give them the skills to find jobs. We are so proud of you, thank you. [applause] we want to help you help these young women and girls. There is a future of dignity that we want or everyone all across the continent and all around the world. Where is she . [applause] he helpedmalawi, thousands in darkness without electricity. He gathers scrap metal, builds generators on his porch, takes them down to the stream for power, delivers electricity so farmers can irrigate their crops and the children can study at night. Thank you. [applause] and everybody here has a story. We believe in all of you. We see what is possible. The vision that all of you have. Not because of what you have seen here in america but the coast of what you have already done back home, what you see in each other and what you see in yourself. [applause] where is . [applause] he has a wonderful quote. Here, i have met africa, the africa i have always believed in. She is beautiful and young and full of talent and motivation and ambition. Being here with all of you and has onlyogether, strengthened his determination, he says, to realize my aspirations for my country. To all of you and everyone across africa who joins our initiative, i want to thank you or inspiring us with your talent and your motivation and your ambition. You have got great aspirations for your country intercontinental. As you build that brighter to make sure that the United States of america is going to be your friend and partner every step of the way. Much but itry started. And lets get this started. [applause] all right. I know this is a rowdy crowd. First of all, everybody sit down. Sit down. Im not going to be able to call on everybody. Just a couple of rules. Number one, dont start standing up or shouting. Just raise your hand and i will try to select from the audience and i will try to take as many questions as possible. Lets keep the comments relatively brief and i will try to give a brief answer. Although if you ask me what are we going to do about ending war [laughter] that may require a longer answer. We will see how it goes. Rule number two, we should have microphones in the audience. When i call on you, wait until the microphone comes. An attendant will hold it in front of you, you can ask your question, introduce yourself and what country you are from. Just to make sure it is fair, were going to go boy, girl, boy g, girl. In fact, we are going to go girl, boy, girl, boy. One of the things you want to how we are africa is going to empower women. [applause] lets see. Were going to call him first. This young lady right here. Wait until the mic is there. For somebody right behind you. There is somebody right behind you. Introduce yourself, welcome. Thank you, mr. President. I am from south africa. Ny question is Nelso Mandela has inspired the foundation for the african fund for enterprises, it has run for two decades and has since been stopped. Is there any chance to give another fund for enterprises in africa . It is a great question. One of the things that has been interesting, and not only some platforms you develop that your university but also during my trips to africa, is the degree to which Young Africans are less interested in aide and more interested in how opportunitiese for businesses and entrepreneurship and trade. Not to say that we do not need to deal with very serious challenges in terms of poverty. We need to make sure that we are continuing to work on behalf of that. But i think everybody recognizes that if you want sustained development and opportunity and selfdetermination, the key is what is produced, to be able to create jobs and opportunities, organically and indigenously. Then be able to meet the world on equal terms. So part of the challenge in entrepreneurship is financing. For so many individuals across the continent, it is just very difficult to get that initial start up money. The truth is that in many communities around africa it is not that you need so much, but you need something. What we would like to do is to work with programs that already exist to find out where the gaps in terms of finances are, and then to make sure that we are utilizing the resources that we have in the most intelligent way possible. To target young entrepreneurs, to create small and mediumsized businesses all across the continent that will hopefully become large businesses. If we are supplementing that kind of financing with the training and networking that may yali, thene through we could see the blossoming of all kinds of entrepreneurial activities all across the continent. That will eventually grow into larger businesses. We are very interested in this and this will be a primary focus of the summit that we have with the African Leaders next week. How do we make sure that the financing how do we make sure that it goes to those who are already at the top . You shouldnt have to be the son of somebody or the daughter of somebody [applause] ifould be able to get you have got a good idea, you should be able to test that idea and be judged on your own merit. That is where i think he can help, bypassing what is often times, in sadly too many countries, a system in which you have to know somebody in order to be able to finance your ideas. One thing i do want to say, even in the United States if you are starting a business, there is trouble getting financing. For a lot of u. S. Entrepreneurs and smallbusiness owners, when they are starting up, they are borrowing from their br others and sisters begging and scratching. Inherently, there is risk involved. I dont want to give anybody illusions out there starting a business or wanting to launch a business that it is going to be easy, it will not be. At there are ways we can make difference, and particularly in rural areas of africa, you dont need a lot of capital to get started. If you buy one piece of equipment that can increase yields for all bunch of farmers in that community, and then the profits that they make it allows you to buy two, then four, then eight, you can grow fairly rapidly because the baseline of capital in that community may be relatively low. Necessarily have huge barriers of entry, you just have to make sure you have the initial capital of stop even a small amount of capital can be hard to come by. That is why making sure this is a top priority of efforts is something that is not unduly emphasized. Its a gentlemans turn. Im going to call him the sky just because he is so tall on this guy just because he is so tall. There you go. Go ahead. Thank you, mr. President. I am from senegal. The firstobama, president of the United States of africa, i would like to know can you share the two important issues you discussed with the first president of the United Nations of africa . I am the first africanamerican president of the United States, but i wasnt sure of what the summit f africa becomes a United States of africa. If you get a chance to meet the president. An intellectual exercise. Now i understand your question. It is an interesting question. Watchehow africa unifies, would be something i would say to him or her . I think the thing i would ishasize first and foremost the issue of governance. Sometimes this is an issue that raises some sensitivities. Who is people feel like, the United States to tell us how to govern . We have different systems, different traditions, what may work for the United States may not work for us. Oh, and by the way, in the United States, you dont see the congress isnt always cooperating so well. Our system is not perfect. I understand, with the knowledge that. Lets acknowledge that. I will say that regardless of the resources the country possesses, regardless of how talented the people are, if you do not have a basic system of of respect for civil rights and human rights, if you do not give people a credible, legitimate way to work through the political process, to express their aspirations, if you dont suspect basic respect basic freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, if there are not laws in place to which everybody is equal under notlaw, so that there is one set of rules for the wellconnected and another set of rules for other people if you do not have an Economic System that is transparent and accountable so that people trusted as they work hard and they will be rewarded for their work, and corruption is rooted out if you dont have those basic mechanisms, it is very rare for a country to succeed. I will go further than that that country will not succeed over the long term. It may succeed over the short term because it may have Natural Resources that it can extract to generate enough money to then thatibute, but over time, country will do klein. Decline. If you look at examples around the world, you will have a country like singapore, which has nothing. Statea small, tiny city with not a lot of it has no real Natural Resources. And yet it has taken off. You have other countries which i will not to that have incredible resources but because there is not a basic system of rule of law that people have confidence in, it never takes off. Businesses never take over. Emphasize is that governance as a starting point you have to have an education system, overtime, infrastructure. All kinds of other elements that are necessary. But if you dont have the basic citizenshat ordinary can succeed based on their that they efforts, dont have to pay a bribe in order to start a business or even get a telephone, that they wont be shaken down when they are driving down the street because the Police Officers arent getting paid enough and this is the accepted way to supplement their income if you dont have those things in place, then over time, there is no trust in the society. People dont have confidence that things are working the way they should. Then everybody starts trying to figure out, what is my angle . And it creates a culture in which you cant really take off. Right . You are never going to eliminate 100 of corruption. Here in the United States, we have to throw people in jail for or having done favors for politicians. But the difference here in the United States, as is true in many of the more developed, industrialized countries, is that is the aberration rather than the norm. If you want to start a business in the United States, you file paperwork, you might have to pay a fee of 50 or hundred dollars or whatever it ends up being, and that is it. You have your business. The business may not be making any money, you still have to do a whole bunch of stuff to succeed, but the point is th at basically, rule of law is observed. That as the norm. That is what happens 95 of the time. And that is where you have to start. Haveis where young people to have High Expectations for their leadership. And dont before the by this notion that we have a different way, an african way. Well, no. [laughter] the african way its not that you suddenly have you have been in office and then you have a Swiss Bank Account of 2 billion. That is not the african way [applause] part of rule of law is that a rulers eventually give up our overtime. It doesnt have to be the same way all the time, but if you have entrenched leadership forever, then what happens over time is you dont get new ideas. That rule ofble law becomes less observed because people start being more concerned about keeping their traditions than doing the right thing. Great question. Even though it took me a while to understand it. [laughter] its a young ladies turn ladys turn. How about that young lady . Right there. Yeah, you. Hold on a second. The microphone is coming. Good morning, mr. President. I am from botswana. I just wanted to find out how committed is the u. S. To assisting africa in closing gender inequalities which are contributing to genderbased violence which threatens achievements of Many Development goals, especially access to universal education . Will not find anybody more committed than i am to this issue. Let me tell you why. First of all, i was mentioning earlier, if you look comparatively at other countries around the world, which six ivies which society succeed and which dont. One of the best measures of whether a country succeeds or not is how it treats its women. [applause] if you think about it, it makes sense. Women areirst of all, half your population. Justu have a team we finished the world cup, if you have a soccer team, a football out and theu go other side has a full team, and you send out half your team, how are you going to do it . You will not do as well. If you are not empowering half of your population, that means you have half as few possible scientists, engineers. You are crippling your own development unnecessarily. That is point number one. What number two point number two is that if you our empower and educate and respect a mother, then you are educating the children. Right . Man, you educate him, thats ok. [applause] [laughter] a woman, you educate her, and suddenly youve got an entire entire country is suddenly becoming educated. This is an absolute priority for us. Withll be discussing this the heads of state and government we speak to next week. We have seen some progress on some fronts, but this is where traditions can sometimes get in the way. Mymany of you know, father was from kenya. [applause] that the kenyan contingent. I think what applies to kenya is true of many of the countries in africa, and this is not unique some of the old ways of gender relations might have made sense in a particular setting, so when can you for example, polygamy existed. It was based on the idea that women had their own compounds, their own land, and so they were to bered in that area selfsufficient. And then urbanization happened and suddenly the men may be traveling to the city, and suddenly there is another family [thee city and the women villages may not be empowered in in theme way women ma villages may not be empowered in the same way. If you try to duplicate traditions that are based on an entirely different economy and entirely Different Society and entirely different expectations that is going to break down. It is not going to work. You have tont, update. You have to create new traditions. Accept the oldto ways of doing things, you can respect the past and respect tradition while recognizing there has to be a new age. There are some traditions that have to be gotten rid of. There is no excuse for them. Female genital mutilation, i am sorry, i dont consider that a tradition worth hanging onto. [applause] tradition that a is barbaric and should be eliminated. Violence towards women. Dont care for that tradition. I am not interested in it, it needs to be eliminated. [applause] of the task is to find what traditions are worth hanging onto and what conditions you have to get rid of. There was a tradition in medicine that if you were sick they would bleed you. Thats a bad tradition. We discovered lets try other things, like medicine. [laughter] have to cling on to things that dont work. Subjugating women does not work. Society will fail. Everything we do, every program that we have in education and in Small Business or Economic Development we will write into it a gender equality component. This is not just some side note, this will be part of everything that we do. The last point i am going to make is that in order for this to be successful, all the men here have to be just as committed to empowering women as the women are. [applause] that is important. Dont think that this is just a job for women to worry about, the men have to worry about it. Youou are a strong man, should not feel threatened by strong women. [applause] [cheering] we have a gentleman in the bright tie. Go ahead. Thank you, your excellency. I am from kenya. I thank you for the opportunity. Africa is losing her people to starvation and diseases which are otherwise curable. This is largely because our as a global leadingwhen is the u. S. The other countries in providing governments to be in a position to pulrovide and toliver and infrastructural our people . Let me make a couple of points first of all points. First of all, it is important to recognize issues of health. Significant progress has been made. I think sometimes we are so properly focused on the challenges that we forget to remind ourselves how far we have come. When you know how far you have, gives you confidence as to what further you as to how farther you can go. Hiv has been cut in half in africa. Deathslosis and malaria have been reduced by 40 and 30 respectively. 50 fewer women die giving birth. 50 million childrens lives have been spared. And most importantly, we are not just providing assistance to programs, but we are also empowering governments themselves to begin to set up Public Health infrastructure and networks and training nurses and specialists so that it becomes selfsufficient. We are making progress. Now i think there is a legitimate discussion to be had around debt forgiveness. With what is now the let you knownt to that is a whole other topic. [laughter] to get too far off field. Genuinethere is openness to how we can help and make sure that countries are not saddled with debt that may have been squandered by past leaders now hamstrung countries making them unable to get out from under. The only thing i would challenge the notion that the hasary reason that there been a failure of Service Delivery is because of onerous debt imposed by the west. It may something be somewhat controversial. I am older than all of you, that i know. You are my ageif youre not supposed to be lie about your age. [laughter] when i was a college student, dependency and terms the legacy of colonialism those were all topics of great and fervent discussion. Datingas no doubt that, back to the colonial era, you could trace many of the problems that have legs the continent. How lines were drawn without regard to natural boundaries, relationships,ic whether you look at all the the wealth that was extracted without any real return to the nature of trade as it developed. Value was never actually produced in countries, but was sent somewhere else. All kinds of legitimate arguments to look at in terms of history that impeded african development. Some point, we have to stop looking somewhere else for solutions and you have to start looking for solutions internally. Is, atrful as history some point you have to look to the future and say, ok, he didnt get a great deal then, but lets make sure we are not making excuses for not going forward. The truth is that there is not a single country in africa, and this is true for the United States as well, that with the resources it has could not be doing better. There are a lot of countries that are generating a lot of wealth, i will not name any, but you can guess, this is a iesleducated crowd countr that are generating a lot of income, have a lot of Natural Resources, but arent putting that money back in to educate children. There are a lot of countries where the leaders have a lot of , but the money is not going back to provide Health Clinics for young mothers. Important think it is for western countries and advanced countries to look at past practices. If loans have been made to given to that werent Productive Enterprises by those leaders at that time, those leaders may be long gone and the countries are still unable to dig themselves out from under wese stats can strategically, in pinpoint fashion, find ways to assist . That is a legitimate discussion. But do not think that that is the main impediment at this point to why we have not seen greater progress in many countries. There are enough resources there, even if debt is being serviced, to do better than we are doing in many cases. Ok. A young ladys turn. Havent gotten anyone in the back. How about that young lady, right there, with the glasses . There you go. President. U, mr. I am from madagascar. It is a great honor for me. Thank you on behalf of of the great madagascar. We have yours, we all known yo [indiscernible] the goal, for those of you not aware, this is one of the primary tools we have to promote trade between the United States and in many african countries. Is set to expire. There is a negotiation process taking place as we speak. More progress will be made next week. Have learned some lessons about what works and what doesnt. Through the first stage of that law. In some cases, what we have manyvered is that countries cant even if they have no Tariff Barriers they still have problems in terms of getting their goods to market. Part of what we are trying to do is to find ways in which we can lower some of the other barriers to export for african countries. Not just the tariffs, but how can we make sure that there is greater transportation that works, how can we make sure that trade financing is in place, what are the other mechanisms that may inhibit exports from african countries . That is the first thing. On a separate track, part of what we are trying to figure out is how we can promote interaf rican trade. They relate to a legacy of the past and colonialism. You have strong infrastructure to send flowers from kenya to paris, but it is very hard to kenya to tanzania. But theser, infrastructure is not there. Part of what we have to do is to try to find ways to integrate africa. Much of that is a question of infrastructure. Some of it has to do with systemsting regulatory between countries. We are embarking on some experiments starting in east africa to see if we can get tanzania you guys know all of them. [laughter] we are starting to work with these countries to see if we can get some blocks of trading taking place. Because, look, obviously theres going to be a certain market for certain goods. I mentioned flowers from kenya. The market will be in the wealthier countries. But there are going to be some goods that it is going to be much easier to sell, if i am a kenyan businessman. It is going to be easier for me to sell my goods to tanzanians ugandans that or oris to compete with nike apple in the United States, right . Historically, when you look at how trade develops, if you look at asia for example, which is growing extraordinarily fast, i huge volume of that trade is within a region first and then over time, that becomes a launching pad from which to trade locally. Globally. This is an area in which i think we can also provide assistance. Just answer directly your question, were very strongly committed to making sure that the goal is reauthorized. We have a bunch of members of congress here who care about this deeply, as well. How much time do we have . Ok. I think we have time for two more questions. Im sorry. If the gentlemans turn. Let me, uh let me see. This gentleman in the white. Hold on a hold on a second. Lets get a microphone on him. Hi. It is a pleasure to meet you on the mr. President. My question has to go with the antitrust laws. You will be meeting with our leaders next week. When you discuss the issue of antitrust laws in africa, are you willing to include it on your agenda is not . Thank you. Obviously each country is different. Im not familiar with antitrust laws in every country to be honest. Commit told certainly doing is to talk about antitrust in the broader context of what i said at the gaining. The issue of the rule of law and how it interacts with the economy. Monopoly or a collusion between a few companies that create artificial , then the economic theory will tell you that invariably that is inefficient. It means consumers will pay more for worse products. It means those companies can concentrate more wealth without actually improving wet they produce and overtime, the stop the economy stagnates. Bigave a history of huge, corporations. Controlling huge sectors of the economy. Over time, we put in laws to break up those monopolies and to create laws to guard against artificial monopolies that prevent competition. Of arust is one element broader set of laws and physicals that every country should be adopting with the basic notion that if you are successful, if you are a Company Innovative ort is a company like microsoft that came up with a new concept, you should be able to be big and be successful. Those who founded it like bill gates should be wealthy. But what you also want to make sure is that the next generation, the googles or facebooks, that they can be successful in that space. You have to make sure that those who got there first and not closing the door behind them. It often happens i think in many countries and not just in african country. You make an excellent point. I will make sure that is incorporated in the broader discussion. Ok. This young lady right here. Because she looks so nice. [laughter] thank you very much. I am from kenya. Go ahead. Thank you for meeting the young people. I know you are going to ask the the people back in our countries. My concern would be how will you be able to get them to commit . I know they will promise you that. [applause] dont get carried away here. [laughter] well, look, we part of what we have done by building this network that will be doubling over the next couple of years is we will go directly to the young people in creating these networks and opportunities. What we are already seeing is many countries are excited about this. They are saying, this is something that can be an empowering tool for us. Let us take advantage of it. There will be some that feel somewhat threatened. There is no doubt about that. The good thing is we will be creating this network, there are a whole bunch of people following this online, on social media. Well have these regional centers. You will help to make sure that some of these promises are observed because the whole continent of young people is going to be paying attention. And well be up to see which countries are really embracing this opportunity to get new young people involved. Which ones are ignoring this promise. And so, i will say to every one of these leaders you need to take advantage of the most important resource you have and that is the amazing youth in these countries. You are going to have to also hold them accountable selectively, across countries. That is part of why this network can be so important. So, i know that this is sad but i have to go. I have other work to do. The good news is you have these amazing people who will be meeting with you and talking with you and most importantly, one of the amazing opportunities for you to get to know each other and talk and compare ideas and share concepts going forward. The main message i want to leave you with is that in the same way i am inspired by you, you should be inspired by each other. Africa has enormous challenges, the world has enormous challenges. Of what i tell the young people that intern in the white house and i usually meet with them at the end of the internships, i tell them despite all of the bad news you read about or see on television, despite all of the terrible things that happen in places around the world, if you