Mia Mottley

The world has more than enough money to finance it.

And the fact that they're using a dam means that they're using renewable energy that is not becoming a drag on the planet as well.

But how they funded it was fascinating.

That's the story of resilience.

I mean, that's the most fascinating story.

They asked for a loan from the international bank.

And the bank's international community refused to fund it.

for whatever reasons, and the Ethiopians turned inward.

And between the central bank and the banks in Ethiopia and the ordinary citizens.

Citizens buying bonds, citizens giving donations.

And I said to the prime minister two days ago when we opened it to Abiy, I said, look, you know that this is the 21st century Adwa.

And for those who don't know about Adwa, Adwa is the battle where Ethiopia beat Italy in 1896.

Nobody believed it would have happened.

And Ethiopia came together and it took them, I think, almost two years in the long trek and they rose majestically.

Adwa is what led to the beginning of the Pan-African movement.

The New York Times, when you go to the museum in Addis Ababa that commemorates Adwa, you see the New York Times articles showing that this little African country, their mind or mine is much bigger than Italy,

beat the great Italians.

And out of this then came the entire movement that, guess what?

Black people can achieve something after centuries of domination and subjugation.

And out of that came the glory of the Pan-African movement, the conferences, ultimately the 1945 Manchester Conference, which really was the last major one before the independence movement, and Kruma and all of the others coming out.