"I think the debt of the countries of the South should be deferred." At the New Global Financial Pact Summit in Paris, Brut met Melinda French Gates, co-president of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
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00:00One thing we don't realize is that 50 percent of the farmers across the continent of Africa are
00:04actually women. Yeah, I think people don't know that. They don't know that and they're women and
00:08they're often young women, right? They are the ones then who cook the meals. They spend hours
00:13cooking meals if there's food, but then they decide who eats first, second, and third in the
00:19house. And can you imagine your farm gets wiped out so your food is going down and you're deciding
00:25which child eats in which order? And often the women will forego eating themselves so the children
00:31can eat. Hello Melinda French Gates. Thank you so much for giving us this interview. We're delighted
00:35to have you here today on Brood. You are the co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
00:40You're an advocate for women and girls all over the world. Today you are in Paris for this new
00:45summit for a new global financing pact. I'm going to go straight ahead to the questions. The
00:50countries of the global south, they pollute much less than the countries of the global north, but
00:56they face much more of the consequences. Do you think it's fair to ask them to provide as much
01:03effort as us? It's absolutely not fair. I mean they didn't create the crisis. The global north created
01:09the crisis. So it's up to the whole global community to come together and say let's make
01:15the right investments so these countries can make this energy transition. They can still deal with
01:21poverty, still go ahead and they need to invest in health and education and make the climate
01:27transition. Do you think we should change the rules of the game? I think we need to change some of the
01:33governance for sure and change the voices. I mean one of the things is these institutions were set
01:39up after World War II, but now we have more countries and we don't have the global south
01:44represented in those institutions. How do you think they could now decide to include them more?
01:49What could be done? Well we can concretely bring in the G20. There are 20 leaders that
01:56represent the global south. Bring them into these institutions in a stronger way instead of it just
02:02being what we call the G7 nations. We need to make room not just for their voices but room
02:08for them on the governing bodies too. That could be an idea. Yes. And you took part in many of the
02:14conversations that happened yesterday. What came out of this? Do you have any concrete measures that
02:20have been decided? Definitely. Two billion dollars is now being moved to Senegal to help them with
02:25their energy transition. Zambia, which is one of the African countries that has a lot of debt, their
02:31debt got refinanced and that has been on the table for several years. Because that's also the
02:37key point I think is, should debt be cancelled for all these countries? I think debt should be
02:42delayed for these countries because instead of paying off your debt and having to decide, okay
02:47when there's a cyclone do I take care of the disaster or do I pay my debt? That's an impossible
02:53choice, right? How can we do to change the perception, the western perception of Africa, the
02:58continent of Africa? You know, I've been traveling to Africa now for over 20 years. It's been a huge
03:04privilege. The vibrancy there is unbelievable and as you said the dynamism. So I think we need to
03:10showcase more these amazing African artists. You see it in culture, you see it in fashion, you see
03:16it in music. The other thing we don't talk about is, you know, I go to places like Johannesburg or Nairobi.
03:21The young entrepreneurs, the tech entrepreneurs coming forward with applications for their country
03:27and their continent, what they're saying is, hey bring your venture capital to us too. Invest in
03:32our businesses. It's no different than in the US or in Europe, right? They have great ideas, let's
03:38capitalize them. And what would you say to, let's say, a young European person from like 18 to 25
03:46who's like, I want to help, I don't know what to do, should it be my role or is it the government's role?
03:50What can I do? I would say use your voice. Your activism makes an enormous difference. The
03:55governments are listening. So the global citizen concert that happened last night, believe me, that
04:00was talked about at the state dinner last night. They're seeing the youth care about our planet.
04:05They care about others who are living in other places getting a good education like they are.
04:11So if you use your voice and you use your activism, it pushes government to do the right thing.