← This Week in Global Development
This Week in Global Development
The latest from the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos
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This week, we are tuning in from Davos as we report from the annual meeting of the https://www.devex.com/organizations/world-economic-forum-46616. With Trump’s attendance and foreign policy dominating the summit, we discuss the most important updates...
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Foreign.
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My name is Rumbi Chakamba, and you're listening to this Week in Global Development, hosted by myself, Ada Saldinger and David Engswood. And I have my colleagues joining me from the World Economic Forum this week. I'm Raj and Elisa. So glad to have you. So this actually feels like deja vu for me because I hosted last year's World Economic Forum session. And last year, my first question was I feel like the Trump administration's foreign policy must be taking over the conference. And I feel like it's the same this year. So how much has US Foreign policy taken over the conference? And is anyone able to get anything else done? Raj, I'll start with you.
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Well, I think this is my 11th time at the World Economic Forum annual meeting. And I would say in many of the years when President Donald Trump has been the leader of the United States, or even when he was campaigning to be the leader of the United States, U.S. foreign policy was dominant this year maybe more than ever. I mean, with the saber rattling over Greenland. But just like in every other year, the issues that we report on and focus on, they're always happening, maybe a little more under the radar, but they're going, you know, even as the global attention is on, you know, what the United States is doing and its relationship with Europe and with the rest of the world.
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B
And Alyssa, I know that you listened in on some remarks from Senator Kun talking about US Foreign assistance. What did he have to say about that? That was like a little bit more hopeful. I think people might want to hear that, might want to hear those words. Maybe it'll help people keep spirits alive.
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C
Absolutely. So it was definitely a nice like Raj says, I think there is a development undercurrent that's going on across Davos. You just have to find it. But it's certainly here and it's certainly thriving. Yesterday I was in a really interesting session, just as you mentioned, with Senator Coons. He's a Democrat, obviously kind of very involved in the foreign policy space, has been for many years, or rather the foreign aid space. And he was really optimistic about this funding bill that we've talked and reported a lot about at devex. Really optimistic that, one, the Senate version of the bill will be passed next week. There's already been a House bill approved, and two, that President Trump will sign it into law. Now, what makes a little bit more complicated is the rescission package, which has not been announced. And we are just kind of anticipating, given the fact that the Trump administration has done two rescissions in the past last year, which we've again reported on quite a bit. Will that happen again now?
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I think those plain language, Alyssa, that's basically money Congress appropriates.
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You got it?
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Then the administration says we're just not going to spend it if we're going to hold it back.
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C
Yeah. And I think, you know, for a lot of folks in the sector and in the space, this, seeing this $50 billion was a big win. You know, we didn't expect it. It's a big difference from what President Trump had proposed in his budget request last year. Now it still remains to be seen. Again, like I've said, what will happen next. I think hearing that from, from the senator was really hopeful for a lot of folks, at least in the room that I was in, and then sticking.
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To the U.S. one thing that's supposed to happen today is a signing ceremony for the Board of Peace. Is there anything that you can tell us about the Board of Peace? What is it? I'll start there.
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Yeah. I mean, I've just read some of the other reporting that's out there, and the senses, the worry, I guess, of people in our community, the international organization community, is that it's trying to replace the United nations at some level. It's hard to know whether that's kind of a philosophical idea or a practical one from the administration. But it does say in the drafts that have been released that this would, you know, be structured like an international institution. You know, initially the idea was to focus on the reconstruction of Gaza, but it seems to have broader ambitions beyond that. And of course, you have a number of countries like Bell, Belarus and Russia that have indicated some interest and have been invited to join it. So it's, it's really interesting, but it's hard to know how much of it is going to pan out in reality, you know, even with that signing ceremony meant to happen today, although, you know, Ajay Banga, the president of the World bank, notably, is meant to be slated to be a member of that board. And I think that's pretty interesting that it might suggest a role for the World bank in this institution and perhaps in the Gaza reconstruction that's more prominent than it otherwise might have been.
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C
Yeah. And I think, just to add on that, people are really, I think, talking and wondering about what that means as razaj for the UN and it's kind of another layer and level of this idea that multilateral institutions are at risk and what does it mean for the future of institutions like the UN that have faced a lot of Kind of one, funding cuts, but two also just kind of change and turmoil over the last year. So I think, you know, individuals that are focused on places like Gaza and organizations that are looking at peace building, I think are watching this with kind of all ears to the ground to see what that means for their work, what that means for who kind of controls the power plays there.
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B
And you guys spoke about this undercurrent of development happening at the conference. I'm sure Geopolitics is at the top of the list. We're getting a lot of news headlines in terms of that. And then for the development folks who are at Davos, what are some of the key themes they should be on the lookout for and what have you been hearing so far?
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I think some of the big themes we already saw coming into this year are just highlighted here. AI is a really big one. You've got most of the major AI companies and tech companies in the world here. You had some big announcements of initiatives between AI companies and development institutions. And you're seeing more and more interest in terms of using those tools for health, for education, for agriculture. We at Devex hosted an event with Tencent, the big Chinese company with their president for AI and talking a lot about those applications. And we got to meet with a number of leaders, including from companies like Safaricom in Kenya. And really just thinking about the fact that these applications are not some future thing. They're actually being rolled out right now and being used now in many places and potentially are really transformative. So a lot of the discussions I'm in are kind of juxtaposing the aid cuts with the opportunity around AI. You know, the aid cuts force institutions to rethink their model and AI maybe gives them the tools to actually redo their model. And the fact that those two things are happening at the same time is a really present discussion here in Dallas.
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And one of the big announcements actually came from gates and OpenAI of 50 million commitment. Alyssa, can you tell us a little bit more about that?
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Definitely. So I think there's just add a little bit of the context here which I found interesting. So I found out about this announcement a couple days before it happened because I was in a Gates booth that is set up here on the main drag in Davos, which is called the Promenade, gets to set up a kind of a shipping container that they've created as a showcase for various AI infused development, let's call them like ventures or products, different things. So that's like ultra portable AI ultrasounds, different kind of vaccines, like all sorts of things in the global health space. So that's kind of the backdrop. It's clear, as Raj said, people are investing in this, including the biggest philanthropic donors that we know. So anyway, they kind of continued that trend on Wednesday by announcing a new partnership with OpenAI and essentially the, the $50 million will go toward what the hope is to be country led, government driven solutions that infuse AI with healthcare programming. And the first one to do to kind of jump on board is Rwanda. But the goal is to reach a thousand primary care health clinics by 2028. So just beginning was just announced, but really kind of exactly like what Raj is saying. Taking this global health, taking AI and seeing what can come of it. Now I will say that I have talked to a couple of folks in the sector that are a little bit more critical or hesitant at least to be like, okay, well are we jumping on the bandwagon of AI can solve all problems? You know, are we sidestepping or jump frogging before, you know, or rather I guess like laying our eggs before they hatch kind of thing? When you think about Rwanda, that is a very different story than perhaps other countries on the African continent. Right. So it is a very good place, I think, for the Gates foundation to start in terms of capacity and what the Rwandan government wants to do. But I think we'll see how the rest of the initiative kind of rolls out in the months and years ahead.
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Just to add on that, I spoke to one senior global health leader who just to kind of explain how AI can really be transformative in the space, said, you know, for several years now we've been talking about can we get smartphones in the hands of community health workers and can we ensure those smartphones have diagnostic tools and have apps that they can use to gather medical information when they go house to house, when they meet people in their communities and to really empower that community health worker to do more. And this global health leader said, with AI, that might be a direction we continue to go in. But also you may just be able to do those things directly with the patient. The patient might have a smartphone and be able to self diagnose using AI tools using that phone, be able to get direct access to information. Not that you wouldn't need or want community health workers, but there's a shortage of them too. Right. And so it's just interesting how AI is transforming even the potential solutions that were seen as future oriented.
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There's so many things that fascinated me about this announcement, but you've highlighted Some of them. First of all, Gates actually mentioned he had a conversation with Peter Sands and Rwanda's ICT minister, Paula Ingabir, and he was mentioning that this is what they're trying to do. They're trying to give AI to patients and also in their own languages, which is probably very important on the African continent. But he also highlighted that there's been a concern about AI taking over jobs, but he feels that in Africa, for example, AI could probably leapfrog other nations because those jobs are not available. Let's say you're looking for radiology services. There are no radiologists. So if you have AI being able to take over that task, it's not taking over anyone's job because it's just simply not available.
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And.
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And then I also found it interesting that the starting point is Rwanda and then Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria, because I also feel like those economies are probably the easier place to start with, but they're also more difficult countries to kind of integrate this into. So it'll be interesting to see how that plays out and whether it'll become available in economies that might be a little bit more challenging to integrate this in.
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This portion of this Week in Global Development is brought to you by pivotal, which works to accelerate the pace of social progress for women and young people in the US and around the world. We're proud to spotlight pivotal's Action for Women's Health initiative that awards innovators who are shaping the future of women's health from North America to Southern Asia. Hi, I'm Katherine Chaney, senior Editor for special coverage at devex, and I'm thrilled to be joined by Nana Otu Oyorte, Executive Director of Forward uk. So I'd love to start by hearing from you what inspired your work and what is the particular challenge you're looking to take on.
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Wow. As an African woman, I mean, I have always had a deep responsibility due to my privileged position basically to contribute to change, particularly with women affected by violence, discrimination, and really lack of dignity and rights. Very early in my journey, I think I was moved by stories of women and experiences of girls affected by female genital mutilation, child marriage, and particularly those who I either worked with or lived in the community with or came across. So. And I realized that it was more of a common thing, so that really inspired me. So I felt compelled to really use my voice, my leadership, and the platform that I had to be able to explore how I can contribute.
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So Forward UK has long championed women and girls bodily autonomy, and I wonder if you can Tell us, how do you see women's health and rights as interconnected and why is it so critical that health initiatives also address power and gender inequality?
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At Forward, we adopt a rights and empowerment based approach to our work because you cannot tackle health inequalities without tackling rights abuses. And for us, gender equality, rights and access to support and services are really, really connected because again, there are underlying injustices which is a result of lack of rights. And I know that our work on sexual and productive health and rights and tackling female genital mutilation, it requires there to be that enabling human rights sort of basis or standards in order for people to be able to benefit. And so shifting power is so much critical because it can help transform the gender norms and related enabling environment that is important for women and girls to enjoy their right to health.
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D
I wonder if you can share what are some of the lessons from your work in African and diaspora communities that could inform how global health systems support locally led solutions?
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It's really interesting because if you look at the history of Forward uk, we started because a nurse who was the founder came across FGM whilst working and then realized that this was a problem that was repeatedly happening to African women and people, particularly health professionals, didn't know how to address it. So she took it upon herself to really make that difference and to research. And this is 40 years on. This is Forward. We have helped place FGM on the global agenda. So we've learned that sustainable change is rooted in lived experiences, leadership agency. But also we know that you need to build trust and cultural understanding because again, if you don't really understand culture, people will say, oh no, this is too dicey, no, I don't want to talk about it, et cetera. But cultural understanding is so, so important to change. So listening deeply to lived experience and local experience and knowledge is so, so vital. But also putting local women and girls at the center of programming is really what we do at Forward. We focus on how to work with communities, putting communities at the center, particularly grassroots communities, in things with what we do.
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This award comes at a critical time for women's health, so I wonder if you can talk about what it will enable you to do.
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So we want to expand our women's leadership training. We have been working, or we call it, which is enabling, empowering our sisters. And we've actually done. We've got about 400 women and girls. We have trained in this young women's leadership. We want to expand this over 500 young women in Africa expand to more countries. But Also in the uk but we also want to strengthen the capacity of young women's organizations. They tend to be less funded, less supported, less access, but also have less platforms that they can share. But the problems impact on them more than actually other we at forward, we also believe in evidence based work. So we want to really explore how we can develop our evidence better and really share what works to drive change and also influence policies at different levels to make more people, particularly African women and girls, to really be part of that change.
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D
Nana, thank you so much for your time and congratulations again.
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They also highlighted another interesting point. I found this announcer quite interesting that it's going to be country led. Which brings me to my next question. There have been so many discussions around moving aid in a direction that is more country led. One of the things that's on the forefront of this is the APRA research that actually looks at reimagining aid in as oppo. Are we seeing any more movement in terms of that and are we seeing any more like firm plans and how that's supposed to shape out?
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I don't know if we're seeing firm plans, but I have spoken to a number of African leaders, including heads of government, and there is a real sense that we picked up during the World bank and IMF annual meetings, devex's coverage even then, that they're ready to move on from the aid system. The number of leaders who've said to me in a way we needed to get to this point, it's really quite dramatic versus what I hear from a lot of the development community which is still reeling from the cuts and seeing some of the negative impacts of those cuts. A lot of the African leadership is saying we had to get to this point and in a way this is a positive because it's forcing us including to do things like drive the internal trade agenda within Africa and get African countries trading more with each other. So the spirit of the Africa, of the Accra reset, which is, you know, African countries are going to be much more taking their own decisions, being more self determinant in terms of their own health system, their own development plans and then also working more regionally, that spirit is really present here. I was at a dinner last night with a number of African leaders making these exact kinds of points that we need to take investment money on the continent of Africa, pension funds, banks, private equity and invest in the continent of Africa, and that there are a lot of opportunities to do that here, a.
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Lot of the same things. And you know, one thing I always say is that the African Union probably has a policy for every single thing and they've got great policies on paper. But actually getting that to move to action has been a challenge. So I hear that this moment might be what actually pushes this forward and it'll be fascinating to see what comes of that. And Alyssa, in terms of the development conversations, what are you watching and what are you hearing development folks talking more about?
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Well, I think it's really interesting what I think both Raj and I are picking up in little side conversations and tidbits here and there. And one example just to kind of go on the thread of African Union and country led, I happen to sit next to Trevor Emanuel yesterday during an event who is the former finance minister of South Africa and he also co chaired a panel that we watched really closely at devex about debt. And this was kind of a big thing in the G20. So when we were covering that in Johannesburg last year, we were really curious what happens next. The G20 passed a. Or really they kind of were the, they launched and initiated a panel to look at debt issues in on the African continent and where to go now. The G20 was quite happy about it. They didn't officially endorse it, but they were, you know, kind of celebrated this, this panel and the recommendation. So I asked Trevor yesterday like what's, what's up, what's happening next? So the next kind of piece of that puzzle will happen next month. So from the From February 15th to 16th, the African Union will be taking forward just kind of looking further at those recommendations and seeing what they can do on a country by country level. So looking for example the Angolan president Trevor, Trevor mentioned is very interested, so different things of and by the way, he's also chairing the au. So you have these programs that I think again like Raj said, are being increasingly country led, increasingly AU led and they've kind of coming off the back of this what is seen at least I think Rimby, you would know better than I but on the African continent is Quite a successful G20 summit. From South Africa standpoint, what comes next? And it seems that the answer is that needs to be Africa driven.
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Absolutely fascinating. But one thing that interests me a lot about Davos is who comes to Davos. So in addition to all the celebrities, it's billionaires, it's CEOs, etc, how can the development community make the most of the people who are available here? Because I'm assuming this is a place where you can come up with new collaborations, new coalitions. Are we seeing more of that. And how can we make the most of the people who are brought in?
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I mean, there's always a lot of announcements that come at Domos because people want to use the platform to say, hey, look at this new coalition we're building, or look at this new initiative. It would be interesting to go back over the years and, you know, really hold accountable how many of those turn into something real versus just being an announcement. But what is real, I think, are the relationships that get forced here and the narratives that come out. And so what's unique about this space is it's not led by the development or the humanitarian community. Quite the opposite. The conversations Alyssa and I are having and the. The discussions the WEP is hosting on these topics tend to be in the side rooms, right? The main stage events are much more geopolitics, business, technology. And so what's interesting about that for the development humanitarian community is to connect themselves to those discussions. And you see a lot of that happening here. So the kind of unusual or strange bedfellows of some Wall street bank. I spoke to a leader of an African NGO who said, I got to sit down next to Jamie Dimon last night, the CEO of JP Morgan, the biggest or one of the biggest banks in the world, and talk with him about African agriculture. That's the kind of thing that only happens here. And so that's why you end up with some interesting initiatives and ideas that are born here, because you get these unusual relationships that are forged. And unfortunately, in some ways, for the development humanitarian community, it's often not the place to come and take over the discussion, but nonetheless, it's a place where they leave here thinking, okay, I now know something about where AI is going, and I have relationships with those AI companies in a way I didn't before, and I can use that to drive some of my mission and my agenda in my organization.
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B
Alyssa, you're seeing more of these relationships forming. And one thing that really stood out for me in your newsletter. Alyssa had the first Davo newsletter that came out yesterday was what Larry Fink said. He talked about the voices that are missing from Davos. Is it important to. Looking at the nature of the conference, is it important to have those voices? Or do we just need to represent and sort of speak out for the people who benefit from development initiatives?
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And I think you're asking the question of Davos, right? It's like the. The tension, I think, as Larry Fink, who's the CEO of BlackRock, kind of raised, which was the fact that most people that are affected by what we talk about here, are not here. Right. It's a very elite gathering. It's an elite forum. And the decisions though are global. I think, though I'm not sure if I have quite an answer to your question, but I think what strikes me about where you're going with that is the fact that when I was writing a piece to kind of look at what to look at here this week, someone described this, this forum for development heads, UN heads, civil society leaders, as something of a coming out party. So it's kind of a way for people, especially when we have a number of new UN heads appointed, coming here and just saying I'm here, putting themselves on the map and putting their mission and their organization on the map too. And I think I'm seeing that with the ways in which people are getting into conversations, people are kind of showing up, meeting people, the after, you know, that the after hours kind of networking from a much different standpoint too. There's also just the awareness raising, I think. I was talking to someone last night and he was a, did, was involved in AI and procurement at a major tech company and we kind of were talking about my role and I mentioned I covered US foreign assistance and he didn't really know anything about what had been going on last year and was really surprised when I mentioned, you know, the industry collapsed and, you know, people died. And he was like, really? I don't know. I was also like, yeah, you know that. And so I think we're so in our own bubble, right, as a development community that we forget that we are a bubble. Right. And I think to just kind of make a full circle, Davos can be the place where development begins to cut through, through our bubble and just kind of get around to the rest of the world that's existing on a different plane.
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I think everybody loves to hate the Davos meeting in a sense, you know, because it is an elite gathering because there's so much excess and totally understandable. But the truth is that the reason people keep coming back to this year after year is there's, there's real value in the intersection that's here, particularly for the development of humanitarian communities, because these are often people that you wouldn't have access to otherwise. You wouldn't be able to meet the heads of these AI companies or Wall street banks as easily if you're a CEO of an NGO or a small philanthropy. So there's certainly nowhere near as much representation here from the development humanitarian community as you might like. But there is real representation and the, the World Economic Forum has these Schwab fellows, and they're really fascinating to me. I try to spend time every time I'm here sitting down with at least a few of them because they're the ones who are doing these interesting innovative enterprises and NGOs on the ground that kind of merge a lot of the themes we cover and report on a devex. So, for example, I just talked to somebody who is working on these ATMs that provide water in Bangladesh. And it's really now at scale in that country where if you need clean water, of course, you could build ultimately a piped water system where you can have a tap in your house, that would be great. But that can take many, many years, right? Even decades. But this is a system that can be deployed very quickly, works, and you can go and get clean water just like you would go get cash out of an atm. So there are initiatives like that, many of them at bigger scale than you would expect, that get highlighted here, and they're really excited to hear about.
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B
Well, this brings me to. This is a good segue for my final question. What advice do you have for someone who's at the conference looking to have these development conversations, and what should they also be on the lookout for as the conference comes to an end?
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I think the thing I wish I had more time to do because I'm so scheduled here now, and I come in so many interviews and meetings, but I think the best thing to do is to try to let a little bit of serendipity take hold and to attend events that are outside of your usual area of interest and focus and, you know, meet those people, like Alyssa was saying, meeting someone from an AI company, the people that you wouldn't otherwise maybe connect with and meet with and, and see what ideas that sparks and what relationships that can build that can lead to new things. And I do think the development humanitarian community, as I wrote about my annual predictions piece, if we think just about aid, certainly aid has been cut a lot. And so it looks like this is a space that has shrunk enormously. But instead, if you think about the private sector and you think about the DFIs and the multilateral development banks, and if you think about the philanthropy community and you draw a much bigger circle around social impact, it's actually in some ways a much, much larger field and community than it was a decade ago. And I think that's well represented here. And so the development leaders I speak to, that's what they're leading into a lot of their calendar is booked up with meetings across sectors, across disciplines, across, you know, to organizations they may never have worked with before or never met before.
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B
So the perfect place to network and meet new people. And it's actually the perfect time to do it since it's the beginning of the year. So for those of you who aren't able to make it to Davos, I suggest that you sign up for devex Newswire because you'll be getting a dispatch from Lisa that tells you everything that's been going on at the conference. And I also suggest you follow Raj and Elisa on social media because they actually give you little updates that are quite fascinating. But thank you both so much for joining me. It's been a great conversation and please enjoy the rest of your dollars.
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A
Great to talk to you, Rumby, as always. And yeah, it's a, it's a busy week, but a fun week, and we look forward to bringing all the, all the information we glean back to our community here at that Expo. Sam.