Migration, development and gender:
an interview with Dr Sonia Plaza
Zoom, 27 May 2021
Interview by Heidi Martins and Camelia Zavarache
Camelia: Sonia Plaza, a senior economist at the World Bank’s Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation Global Practice (FCIGP), is also the co-chair of the Remittances and Diaspora Thematic working group of KNOMAD (Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development).
Thank you again for accepting our invitation, it is a pleasure to meet you. I will now pass the floor to my colleague Heidi who will start the first section of the interview.
Heidi: Thank you Camelia. So, the World Bank group is known worldwide as a major actor in global development, providing financial products and technical assistance, helping countries to share and apply innovative knowledge and solutions to the challenges they face. Could you tell us more about the history of the World Bank, the FCIGP, and their main objectives?
Sonia: The World Bank was created in 1944 and it has funded over 12.000 development projects around the world using traditional loans, grants, interest free credits. We work in all major areas of development., The World Bank provides an array of interventions. It provides a series of financial products, undertakes analytical and advisory services to inform the development agenda and provides technical assistance to governments. The World Bank helps countries to share and apply innovative knowledge and solutions to the challenges that they face. Now, the Financial, Competitiveness and Innovation (FCI) Global Practice is the practice that deals with access to markets, and access to finance, and market approaches for economy. FCI strengthens the World Bank Group’s evolving approach to development finance: to maximize finance for development and to leverage private sector investments for sustainable and inclusive growth. So, we look at the private sector development; we look at the innovation policies; we look at competition policies; how we really help countries to get access to markets (these markets can be local markets, regional markets or external markets); how we can really increase and deepen the financial sector of a country. FCI works on strengthening market infrastructures and ensures households and firms have access to financial services. FCI looks at the regulations of the banking institutions; we are now working a lot on digitalization; we are looking at access to credit; access to different financial products; which type of products can support innovation and support the creation of an enabling environment for business to be competitive . We are looking at these issues to foster private-sector led growth and help create markets in client countries.
Heidi: Thank you. The next question is a bit connected with what you were saying because you just told us that all is linked with development. That’s a key term, isn’t it? So, about this concept – development – which definition best applies in the context of migration, according to you?
Sonia: There are several institutions, several organizations working on migration, but the World Bank works on migration applying the development lens. So any intervention that we do on migration is applying the development lens of the World Bank. The Bank Group’s twin goals of reducing poverty and sharing prosperity and its development programs directly or indirectly address the fundamental drivers of migration. For example, what are the main challenges of migration now? The income gaps differential; the demographic changes; climate change; conflict and fragility.
Viewing migration through a development lens can suggest promising ways to deploy the World Bank Group’s knowledge, finance, and convening power to catalyze collective action by relevant actors to address migration at the global, regional, and national levels.
In 2016 we wrote a paper to the board where we put what the four roles of the World Bank are in applying this development angle to migration. The first role, we have to address the fundamental drivers of migration and remittances, through bank support to development. The other roles are: (ii) maximizing benefits of migration and remittances and supporting the migration-related Sustainable Development Goals; (iii) generating knowledge for policy making and countering negative public perceptions; and (iv) financing programs to support safe and regular migration, including support for host countries dealing with migrant inflows.
What are the drivers of migration? Income differential. Our projects trying to reduce the income differential is the way that we are addressing our projects to reduce poverty.
The second driver of migration I mentioned to you is the demographic challenges. In Africa we have a huge demographic bulge that is a driver of migration. Youths need to find jobs and where are they going to be finding jobs? So what the Bank can do really is to create jobs and thatʼs why the World Bank is working on the Jobs and Economic and Transformation Agenda to accelerate economic transformation to deliver more and better jobs in a sustainable way, “creating and connecting to markets” and “building capabilities and connecting workers to jobs.”
And then finally the other driver of migration is climate change. Climate change is a very important driver of migration, the World Bank prepared a study which is called Groundsswell. The study found that the major climate change will create a lot of internal migration, because we have seen an increase in the number of droughts, increase in the floods, and other slow on-set events that would drive internal migration, but also some cross border migration. So how can we address this? The World Bank is working on help to prevention and preparadeness in these countries because once the disaster comes, once the drought comes, it is a huge amount of money that it is needed for disaster relief with a big fiscal impact for the countries. Everything is destroyed, not only human lives, but the whole system. So we are trying to do work in developing anticipatory actions, and trying to include climate change initiatives into national development plans.
The other driver of migration is fragility and conflict and we have seen that, we have seen the cases in South Sudan, we have seen the cases now in Venezuela, fragility and conflict and tensions is a driver of migration because people wanted to escape from those situations. The World Bank has developed a strategy on Forced, Conflict and Violence Strategy for intervention in countries. For example, to avoid conflict due to climate change, we are working on a regional project in the Horn of Africa A lot of the communities in Africa are pastoral and they have livestock, if there is a drought they move to another pasture area which could be in the neighboring country because they are looking for new pastures for the livestock. These create tensions since there is scarcity of water and feeder. Thus, we have to look for intervention and how we can support also these pastoralists, with different interventions such as the provision of water, feeder, provide some support to the pastoralists.
Following on the roles of the World Bank on migration, it tries to maximize the benefits of migration and remittances and support in the migration-related sustainable development goals. What does it mean? For example, there are several sustainable development goals – SDGs – that are migration related indicators. One of them is the SDG 10.c.1 which is reducing remittances costs. That indicator says that by 2030, remittances costs should be 3%. Now, do you think that we have achieved that indicator? Still, we still need to do more progress to reduce these costs. At the global level, the average remittance costs is 6.38%, this is according to the Remittance Prices Worldwide. In Africa, the cost is more than 8%. Even if you want to send money from South Africa to Zimbabwe or to one of the neighboring countries, these costs are over 12 %. Only in the high frequency corridors, for example in the South Arabia-India the cost can be 2%, 3% or less. And in other corridors the costs are exorbitant. Now, do you think these need to be so high? With COVID-19, there has been a shift from sending remittances in cash to using digital technology The World Bank is working with countries to reduce the cost of remittances To reduce costs, it is important to increase competition, a country needs more companies entering into the market, and remove the regulatory barriers. There is another migration-related SDG which is the SDG 10.7., reducing the recruitment costs. Several migrants from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan are charged incredible amounts of their wages even like 17 months, 24 months, up to three years of their salary. They need to pay to the recruiter this amount of their salary. We have been looking at that before the COVID crisis, and the situation with COVID is that there is a lot of inmobility and the restrictions seem to impact the costs. Anecdotal evidence showed that the recruitment costs have increased. This is one of the SDGs that the Bank is trying to work with countries to reduce these costs.
The other SDGs are also affecting migration, such as access to education since this indicator has to be migrants inclusive, refugees inclusive; access to health; reducing poverty. So, all of those indicators are also important. The Bank tries to maximize the benefits of migration and remittances for both the host and home countries as well as for the migrants and host populations, because also you donʼt want to create tensions in the host communities when you receive migrants.
The third area that the Bank works on migration and development is that we work on generating knowledge for policy making and countering negative public perceptions. We develop knowledge for policy making and KNOMAD works on this. For example, when COVID started, all the economies were closed, there was lockdown in several countries. I work in Somalia. The World Bank had an emergency meeting with the UK Treasury, the US Treasury, Somalia Government, Central Bank Government of Somalia to facilitate remittances to the country. Somalia has a high risk for antimony laundering and counter-finance terrorism, so the country does not have correspondance banks. As an evidence based we mentioned that itʼs better that all the countries declare the remittances service providers, the MTOs, as essential services, so they keep these services open. Open in the sending countries and open in the destination countries. So thatʼs what the UK did: the UK declared remittance service providers as essential services. And in Somalia, the World Bank recommended to declare MTOs as essential services so people can go and pick up the money and receive the money. This is an example of policy evidence based.
And finally we finance programs to support safe and regular migration. This is the focus on migration, but everything that the World Bank does in development has also an aspect of that.
Heidi: Thank you so much, you just answered the next question in a very organized way so thank you very much it was just like … easy to follow and the question looked so difficult. Because it was: “can you tell us more about the migration-development nexus and how the World Bank Group aims at strengthening it?” So, I will pass the floor to Camelia. Thank you!
Camelia: We would like to know more about your work, namely as senior economist at the FCIGP. Could you tell us when and how your experience at the World Bank Group started?
Sonia: Well, I came to the World Bank as a research assistant of my professor who was spending his sabbatical at the institution. I was studying at the University of Pennsylvania. The director of the International Development and Appropriate Technology came on sabbatical to the World Bank for one year. So he told me: “I need a research assistant, so why don’t you apply?”. I was already finished, so he said, “This is perfect!”. He brought me to the World Bank to be his research assistant to work on the East-Asia miracle report. I worked on the technology and productivity of all the firms and the main policies that explain the growth and development in East-Asia. The World Bank offered me the opportunity to work in both research and operations. I started in the Research Department, and then I moved to undertake some operations. Then, I returned to research and worked on some research on migration. I enjoy having the opportunity to work on the policy side and developing projects as well undertaking diagnostics and analysis, and continue doing research. However, what I try to do is not research for research as a blue sky research, but really how we can apply that research to respond to key policy questions that our clients need to address. I have always worked on the areas of the private sector development, technology, and trade. I started working on trade. When I was working with the Africa Chief Economist one day he said, ”Sonia, we have to make a presentation for the Africa Economic Research Council, we are the keynote speaker”, and I said ”We or you?” and he said: ”We because we will write the paper together”, and I had never worked in research on migration. I knew migration, I worked on those areas but not so much. Well, we did the paper, the paper was published in the journal and it was very well received and since then I have been working on migration, remittances and diaspora. It was in 2005. The Chief Economist is also a professor and very good economist and also, very close friend of my professor that brought me from the University of Pennsylvania. He advised me: ”Sonia, you never ever stop working on migration. So whatever you do you continue working on migration. Try to discuss with your managers to include it in your work program” and thatʼs what I kept on doing migration. At the World Bank, I wear two hats: my hat of finance, competitiveness, trade, and also the hat of migration (KNOMAD).
Responding to your question: What is my work on Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation I am going to give you three examples: i) I work on access to finance so one example is I prepared a feasibility study to create an index weather insurance for livestock. This study is for Somalia, where livestock represents 60 percent of their foreign income. This is a very technical product. The objective is to assess the feasibility of this financial product so before there are initial signs of a drought is coming or when there is a reduction in the rain or in the grass we can pay in anticipation to pastoralist, so the pastoralists don’t kill the livestock and will be able to buy feed. As I mentioned above, in Somalia, 60% of the income, of the export earnings, of the earnings is from livestock exports and the majority of the population lives in one way or another from livestock work. So thatʼs one example.
The second example, it is my work on refugees. We are developing some pilots to provide access to finance and markets in two refugee settlements through digitalization of the SACOs, training women to become agents-banking and linking refugees to markets. We are working on developing digital products for refugees. So thatʼs one aspect of the access to finance.
On private sector development, the World Bank is supporting refugees and host populations to access to markets and working at improving business environment and reducing the facto barriers. Iʼm also working on regional integration and trade facilitation for the Horn of Africa countries. Thatʼs my work on financial sector and competitiveness: itʼs working on trade regulations, standards, financial sector access and how all these policies support countries to increase productivity, rebuild back better after COVID-19.
Camelia: Thank you, I think you have answered both questions. The second was: “what was your background and what are your current activities and interests?”. I just wanted say that is amazing how you combine research and operations, itʼs something that, as a historian, I cannot do, but itʼs really amazing and inspiring. So I will pass the floor now to Heidi, for the third set of questions.
Heidi: Yes, you are right, itʼs really amazing. So, your participation in the Cost Action Women on the Move is a unique opportunity for us to look at migration and gender through a different perspective, related to development questions. How did you hear about this Action and why have you decided to join?
Sonia: Well, my colleague, , Kathleen Beegle who is a research manager wrote to me. Marie-Ruiz had approached Kathleen and she thought that since I worked on migration, the network could be of a great help. Kathleen is an excellent researcher, she is an specialist on poverty person, she is the manager on the Health and Human Development. She mentioned ”Sonia, could you please join this initiative, because you are the migration specialist” I responded to Marie Ruiz, and then I said “It would be an honor to join”. We had a conversation, she explained to me what was the network about, what is the aim and the goal of this network and I was very excited because it has the multidisciplinary approach; The network has colleagues working on sociology, other member have the historical perspective, it is about Europe and migration. Since migration is very multidisciplinary, you cannot approach it from only one perspective. Iʼm an economist but I have to be open to all the different angles, I donʼt undertake analysis from the anthropological perspective or the sociological perspective, the historian perspective so thatʼs why this network enriches our research, so I was very happy. It is an excellent network since it allows us to exchange with a different perspective. Gratifying because even the participation at the social events is very enriching. I participated in some of the happy hours that have been very innovative. They have provided me the opportunity to meet very nice people., I was so happy when the network organized the event for Christmas and then we did it for the carnival, the two ones that I participated. It was excellent. I think now I will have more time to participate in some of the lectures and other meetings that you have been organizing.
Heidi: Thank you.
Marie Ruiz: You are so generous, thank you so much. We are so happy to have you.
Heidi: So, speaking about the main objectives of the Action, we would like to reflect with you on the importance of gender and women’s mobility. We’ve already discussed the migration-development nexus, and what about the migration-women-development nexus? What is the place and the role of women in this process?
Sonia: Well, you will see that you cannot talk of migration without gender, without women. Itʼs very important and this has become even more important right now, after COVID. Women have been heavily, heavily impacted. Not only women but also women migrants, because they have been heavily impacted. Migrant women and refugee women, and displaced women, they have been impacted because they were working in the sectors that require closer interaction, and in sectors that have been closed. They have been also impacted because they have to take care of all the kids and they have to take care of sick people. As migrants, it has been difficult for them to get access to vaccines. So, we have seen a lot of these situations happening in several countries. In the Bank we have a Gender Strategy that is in place, and in the Bank also when we approach migration we approach from the development angle, so whenever we apply it, the approach of the development angle is from the gender angle, and women. Just to give you an example, I am working on these issues. I did two diagnostic studies in two refugee settlements in Uganda, in the Rhino settlement and in Nakivale settlement. The studies identified the barriers for refugees and the host communities to really integrate more into the markets, because Uganda is a country that has no restrictions, is not like other countries where the refugees have to live in a camp and cannot leave the camp, or refugees cannot work. In Uganda, refugees can work. However, there are the de facto barriers. But when we did the study on access to markets and access to finance, we met with a lot of women. Remember that in these settlements, youths and women are more than 71% of the population. So, any intervention that you want to design has to be targeted to these underserve populations. Now, just an example for refugee women on how they can be incorporated into economic activities. We are going to design now a pilot and we wanted to train women to become agent bankers; agent banking is not real banking, but is small banking. Thereʼs no woman agent banking in the refugee settlements and research has found that women accessed financial services if another woman in the banking interacted with them. Given the larger population of women – 71% – you need to train women as agent banking.
Thatʼs part of my pilot. The new regulations for agent banking require two things: that you have an established business, and in order to register that established business you have to have a fixed residence, domicile, address, and the address of the women in the refugee settlements doesnʼt fit those regulations. Under this pilot, the World Bank will work with the government of Uganda on how we deal with this regulation These are the kinds of interventions we are trying to develop.
Heidi: Thank you. This answers more or less the next question, but maybe you have other example, I don t know. How does the World Bank Group (re)act towards the (in)visibility of women with regard to this matter – development?
Sonia: The World Bank has a Gender Strategy, and it has been working for the last 20 years into reducing the gender gap. Some examples of the World Bank activities include: women and the law, the World Bank looks at the barriers that women face on access to credit, on access to finance. For example, in several countries a woman cannot access credit if the husband doesnʼt sign the loan. When I interviewed several Somali diaspora women, they said to me: ”I have to go to a bank with a man” because there are social constraints and norms. Women still face several de-facto barriers in developing countries. The World Bank is working on removing the de facto barriers, facilitating access to credit and finance (eliminating barriers), and improving regulations that promote women to participate in economic opportunities, to create entrepreneurship. We have been working a lot on gender-based violence projects to eliminate it.
The World Bank is also expanding women’s participation to get business linkages such e-commerce, sell products from their home. And then we provide the training, we work with micro-finance institutions and we also provide training. I work in East Africa, our projects include credit lines with a focus on gender and youth. We are making sure women will have access to finance. The World Bank has been working on closing the gender gap. Women and migration is also important. Everybody speaks about the feminization of migration. Women migrants sometimes do not want to go back home since they want to avoid the male dominant system at home. When the woman has migrated, they handle their own money, they handle these kinds of things. Women-head households are also very good in administering remittances. With the mobile money, when women receive the funds in their mobile, it empowers them. They do not have to go to their husband, and they can administer the funds according to the needs of the household.
Heidi: Thank you so much. You have already answered the last question, which was “In your opinion, how may gender perspectives challenge the way The World Bank Group deals with development issues and builds its financial support products?”. Thank you.
Camelia: We would finally like to leave you with a reflection on cooperation between different institutions, in this case Academia and financial institutions. Adopting gendered approaches can be considered primordial for development practices. Could you give us some examples about the (potential) collaborations between academia and financial institutions, relying on your experience at The World Bank Group?
Sonia: Yes. Well the Bank works in partnership with different institutions. In several activities and in our projects, we try to work with local institutions and other institutions. I was giving you the example of RCTs – Random Controlled Trials – we work with some of the research institutions, the universities, we do research together. There is a Gender Lab also at the World Bank. The World Bank also works with UNICEF, we work with Young Women, we work with all the other UN agencies working on this, ILO, UNHCR, UNDP and others. In KNOMAD, we always bring the perspective of gender, we are writing now a report on gender, women and FCV (Fragile, Conflict, Violence). The World Bank also makes a lot of requests for interest and call for proposals on some research, diagnostics and activities focused on gender. Before we have been working with research institutions. For example, when we did the Africa Migration Project and undertook six migration and remittances household surveys in Africa, we worked with Makerere Institute, University of Uganda, we tried to bring all the local researchers as well, we worked with the University of Ghana, especially in the context with the countries in the South. We also work with research institutions in the North. The World Bank has a lot of collaborations. And we look for more.
Camelia: So, to finish, what do you expect WEMov to bring to you? Our network?
Sonia: I will expect to learn a lot from the other different perspectives and different approaches For me, as I mentioned, I am an economist, but I would like to learn from the Sociology approaches, the historical approaches, from the Anthropology approaches, all of those approaches will improve our research. And also because each of the people in the network in Europe they bring a completely different angle; I am concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa, but when you hear what has happened in Central Asia, what has happened in Europe, in the Balkans, in all these countries with all these experiences completely different, and even … you talk about France, Germany, the issues that they are facing … are completely different. So, I think itʼs very good to do this exchange between North and South and what is happening in different contexts, that it would help. I would love to learn more about the diaspora in Europe, the different diasporas, but also the diasporas types because this is an area that I research a lot. But I think there is a lot of … to do a project together that becomes the voice of women, from the voices of the women would be great.
Marie: Has COVID impacted your practices?
Sonia: Well, Iʼm in virtual missions so now Iʼm working since 5 oʼclock in the morning. Now that is was Ramadam and I was in mission with Somalia counterparts, they donʼt want to have meetings after 3 p.m. Yes it has impacted a lot. I think that very soon we are going to go back to the office I think, in the Fall, Iʼm not sure, at least Washington. I donʼt think so for the other countries because of the vaccine.
There is a lot of virtual meetings , sometimes it is very difficult due to different time zones. If you have built a relationship with a client, it has been easier to continue the relationship. I have my previous relations with a client, so I can call them when we have these missions; I have already done four virtual missions, which is not the same, because it is even more tiring. It is always good to have meeting with the client in person.. Since you have to undertake several virtual missions and due to time difference, the missions become longer.
Marie: Sometimes you have to deal with local authorities that may be an obstacle to knowledge, do you face that sometimes?
Sonia: I work with a lot of majors and local governments. I worked in Mexico in the local states working at the federal, state and municipality level thatʼs The World Bank hears from the local governments and the client, our approach is working with them and not imposing things, trying to get their views.
Marie: For instance, in some countries when you try to work on a specific group the government might not want you to approach that group, where you actually are going to see a lot of poverty and inequality.
Sonia: Well, yes it depends on the country and thatʼs why sometimes you want to work also across all the groups. So for example, in Mexico I worked with different groups in the Northern and Southern States.… I worked with NAFINSA which is the largest development bank in Mexico I was working on local development in the Southern states of Mexico. The Southern states are the most underdeveloped where you have Chiapas, which was a conflict area. I was working with the local municipalities. I organized a regional event. Several of the NAFINSA colleagues have never travelled to the Southern state of Mexico. And now we are working on those projects as well, so everything has to be working in those aspects.
Marie: Maybe, just … Have you concretely experienced or witnessed the impact of COVID on women, women migrants?
Sonia: Yes, on migrants and refugees. But the situation is not because they are migrants or not, is because the impact is for the whole population in Peru.
Marie: That’s interesting. You know why? Because youʼre challenging a lot of recent research on the impact of COVID on migration and I agree with you, I think it’s the impact of COVID on vulnerable populations.
Sonia: On vulnerable populations including internal and international migration. Yes. Remember that with the COVID, a lot of the migrants, internal migrants, for example in Peru or in India, there were in Lima or in the cities, they were going back to their places where they were born. And in their own places, they received a lot of rejections because they were thinking they are coming from the capital, they are bringing the disease, And that also happened in India. And also in the case of Peru. And what we have seen also is if the access to health services requires you to have an ID and then you don’t have a passport, then you are not going to be able to access services, right? Certain countries have provided access, thatʼs why we say in our policy recommendations, in the latest brief we said: “Provide access to health and education to migrants, independently of the legal status of refugees and migrants, and provide access to vaccines”. This is a public health issue. When I read on the Spanish flue that the most impacted were migrants, I started following the news and collecting information.. I only have some information, not empirical evidence because I havenʼt got it more, but only anecdotal evidence from the newspapers. In Sweden, who have died of COVID? Somalis. In New York, who have died? The Latinos, a lot of the Latinos were migrants who have died. We don’t know if they have the preconditions, or they have been more exposed since they were working as essential workers . However, the amount of remittances have not been reduced. We were expecting that the remittances were going to be reduced by larger amounts, but they were reduced only in the second quarter of 2021, when there was the lockdown but then after that recovered. Remittances are resilient and the migrants are still sending a lot of money to their families. Now, how are they able to send a lot of money? Because these migrants are the ones who are still working, and they are essential workers.
In other cases, they are giving priority to the nationals, you are doing a lot of priority: you prefer to treat the youths instead of the old people, remember that people were doing that when there were not enough ICU beds and there were not enough respirators, they were making a trial and said “OK, forget about the old people, we only receive the youths”. And now, when the situation became very bad in some of the countries, they said: “we treat first our nationals” I donʼt have any data to analyze the impact of COVID on migrants, I only have anecdotes so this is one of the areas that I wanted to do further research. If somebody wants to do that, I would be happy to collaborate!
Marie: But I totally agree, I think COVID has shown the world that borders and frontiers are not …
Sonia: They don’t exist.
Marie: They are meaningless, they don’t …You know, COVID crosses borders and people cross borders, yet people still build borders and governments don’t seem to realize that we have to have a global response. If everybody gets a vaccine, and everybody gets protected, we are protecting the world. We cannot think in terms of nations anymore.
Sonia: No.
Marie: Because if youʼre not treating, if youʼre not vaccinating the migrants, then your nationals …
Sonia: Yes, but that population is there, no? The virus doesnʼt say: “Oh, youʼre a migrant, youʼre not a migrant”. The virus is around and attacking all.
Marie: And then the virus is going to spread so you … And also, I think itʼs a lesson of humility and a lesson of humanity for the world to see that these variants come from regions where we havenʼt paid attention to the poverty, and now itʼs back, and weʼre still not… unless we face this and we deal with this, the virus will never go.
Sonia: But then my question is at least for my country, Iʼm from Peru. We were living in the boom, a lot of money, a lot of things. Where have we spent in health services? There are no hospitals: these hospitals are from the 1950s. So, all the money, extra money that we had generated, for whom? When we havenʼt been investing in health. At least we should have had enough, not enough, but some. How come we have not negotiated for vaccines? We have excess of money and they have not been able to invest in health.… So a lot of things have come out into the light with COVID, that development in developing countries independently have not been working well, no? On this issue, so itʼs … So that’s the debate. That’s my view.
Marie: I agree. I think you have exceeded our expectations and we have taken a lot of your time and youʼve been really generous. Thank you so much! Iʼve really enjoyed this, itʼs been fascinating, and itʼs going to be fascinating to read as well.
Heidi: Yes, thank you so much for your time and for sharing all of this!
Marie: So what I will do now is thank you again for preparing the questions, for answering the questions, this has been wonderful, a wonderful discussion, I really enjoyed it.
Thank you so much. If thatʼs ok with all, we will let you go. You have been wonderful and one day we will meet…
Sonia: Meet in person, exactly. Thank you very much.
Heidi: Thank you for your time.
Camelia: Thank you.
