What would need to be true on the demand side?

Yeah, I work for a DFI and a DFI is a supply side intervention.

So me saying that investment is demand determined sounds like a strange thing for me to be saying.

So I think I better be clear that there is always a margin on which supply side interventions can be very powerful and they can raise the quantity of investment as important.

And that's why we all do what we do.

But what I mean by the quantity of investment being demand determined is is that the volume of investment in India is a lot larger than the volume of investment in, let's say, Belgium.

And that's not because firms in Belgium have trouble finding money.

How does one balance at that point in time the need for speed versus the need for optimization of subsidy and how does one sort of assure oneself that the subsidy that could have been utilized elsewhere is not getting used up here and therefore we are not reducing the overall pool of this very scarce capital that we have?

What do you think, Paddy?

I don't really claim to have any special insight here.

I read the same newspapers as everybody else and I accept the explanation that European governments are cutting aid because they need to increase defense spending.

And we all know what has happened in America.

I think maybe some countries...

Politics has also turned more inward looking with a narrower idea of what's in the national interest.

Popular support for aid spending has always been a bit precarious, although I think a small majority still say they support overseas aid in principle.

So what do you think might be driving it? Paddy, I wonder if we could come to you first.