Welcome back to another issue of Girl Economics! In this issue we have an interview with Mayomikun L in which we discuss PPE, internships, and the Warwick Africa Summit. We also have a deep dive written by Katie Daly into Venezuela!

An interview with Mayomikun L.

Tell us a bit about yourself and why you decided to pursue a degree in PPE!
Hi, my name is Mayomikun and I am currently a second-year PPE student at the University of Warwick. My journey into PPE was not the most conventional: my plan until about 5 days before the UCAS application deadline was to pursue a degree in International Business Management and I had sorted everything out in my head! I knew which companies I wanted to intern with and was set on going to Singapore for my year abroad as well. I had a friend who was applying to PPE at Oxford and so was privy to all of the preparation that he was doing. I realised that the course was incredibly interesting and very much aligned with what I wanted to do post-uni. I really valued the way that PPE explored the interdisciplinary nature of how the world works, and so I wrote up a new personal statement (much more quickly than people would recommend you do it!), sent it off and now I’m here!

Tell us more about your placement year next year
I will be at Adobe on a Customer Success placement year next year which I am very excited about! Customer Success is a customer-facing role in which you are supporting customers with the products they are using. Brands might come to the team with goals such as increasing sales and customer conversion, and you would support them in achieving those goals. As a customer success manager you also work internally with the engineering & sales departments to give feedback on how the products can be developed.
I would describe the role as being end-to-end consulting where you give the customer recommendations, enable them to implement them, and then go internally to different departments to ensure that the products do what is best for the clients.

What is the Warwick Africa Summit and how did you get involved?
I was at a Freshers Societies Fair and some girls from the Africa Summit came up to me and convinced me to get involved. I did some research and saw that the Summit had some very high profile speakers who were speaking about topics very close to my heart. I am Nigerian, I was born in Nigeria and I was raised there for a couple of years before coming to the UK, so I saw the Africa Summit as being everything that I am passionate about all wrapped up in one experience. I started in the community impact and fundraising side of things because this is what I had experience in from my time leading fundraising while in sixth form. I raised £1700 for children’s education in Ghana and had a wonderful time at the conference meeting incredible speakers. I wasn’t expecting to do Warwick Africa Summit again in my second year but I was approached by the leadership team to get involved and this time I went for the External Relations role which involved choosing speakers, reaching out to them, sorting out all of the logistics, and drafting their panel questions.

Is there anyone who spoke at the conference who made a particular impression to you?
A photography duo called TwinsDntBeg who hail from Ghana but who have travelled across the world doing photography. They are the official photographers for the Second Lady of Ghana and her husband is actually running for President at the moment. They have also photographed the President of Ghana and lots of high-profile celebrities across Africa. The thing which drew me the most to them is (1) they create incredible art, and (2) they are so humble and it was a real privilege to see how they see the world and how they encourage others to see the world with the same wonder. Photographers are quite literally showing you their perspective of the world and the way that they carried these perspectives through their conversations was very inspiring.

Do you think there is an information gap in the way that news from the African continent is presented in the UK?
I definitely think that there is a gap not only in the amount of coverage but also in the style and direction that coverage on Africa and African politics takes. Bringing it back to the Warwick Africa Summit, the purpose of this conference is to change the narrative around Africa and to give a new and fresh take on what it means to be African. In inviting African politicians who have done incredible things on the continent, you are changing the narrative on African politics from ‘African politicians are inherently corrupt’ to ‘African politicians are doing great work’. Western media doesn’t always do the best job of covering the successes on the continent and often instead chooses to omit good news in favour of a more gripping story about corruption. Don’t get me wrong, corruption does take place, but Africa is so much more than this. If you limit Africa's characteristics to poverty and corruption, then you are considering the 1bn+ population, the 50+ countries, and the many different cultures and languages in quite an unfair way which does not honour the complexity and richness of the diversity on the African continent.

Tell us about an inspiration to you
My parents! I really value how they keep things that need to be prioritised prioritised, but beyond that, they have given me a lot of freedom to pursue my interests and do what I am strongest at. They always guided me towards my strengths and helped me to understand how I can turn those strengths into a career and in doing so have broadened my horizons in terms of seeing what is possible. My parents always said education was non-negotiable and this is a value that I do hold in myself in terms of always trying to do my best and making the most of every opportunity. They never constrained me to certain opportunities and always honoured my interests, passions and skills. I am Christian so I believe being free to explore my God-given interests helps bring me closer to the person I have been called to become.

DEEP DIVE: Venezuela: A lesson on how not to handle oil

It is reported that Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world, with an estimation of more than 300 billion barrels, and as we’ve seen with other oil-rich nations, this should help lead them to economic growth and development. For Venezuela, it started from around the 1950’s until the early 1980’s and it looked like the country and its’ economy was going to continue with the success they had, with rising oil prices helping the country to experience an oil boom, which lead to substantial economic growth. The oil revenues collected by the state-owned PDVSA (Petróleos de Venezuela S.A) during this time were spent on ambitious social programs which are estimated to have benefited millions of Venezuelans.

All was well for Venezuela and its economy, until it got its first warning signs of overreliance, when in the 80s, due to a surplus of crude oil there was worldwide decreasing oil prices, which led to estimated inflation levels of between 6 – 12%. The continued decreasing oil prices combined with continued high public spending which led to strikes, protests, and riots across the country.

In 1998, Hugo Chávez was elected President of Venezuela, and in 2000, oil prices soared, and Chávez substantially used these funds towards welfare programmes and social spending, attempting to combat the years of food and medical insecurity, and underfunded education systems. However, as these are key government spending areas, this led to most government spending programs to be heavily reliant on the oil industry, and such, as world oil prices fluctuated, so did Venezuela’s economy.

Venezuela’s fortune would quickly change due to plummeting oil prices, which not only heavily affected the economy, but also the public sentiment within the country. Venezuelans were getting tired of this high inflation, in particular the workers of PDVSA, who organised strikes in 2002, which would continue until April 2003. As a result of this, the government fired 18,000 PDVSA employees, roughly equal to 40% of the total employees at the company. As expected, firing this many employees of the company’s main GDP sector led to economic disaster, with an inflation rate of 31.1%.

The high levels of inflation continued throughout Chávez’s presidency, and into the start of Nicolás Maduro’s tenure. With many international companies ceasing their operations within the country, the economy was in complete disarray, and in 2016 was it was reported by media outlets that “Venezuela was suffering an economic collapse”, shown by the extreme poverty levels, and the country ‘winning’ top spot in the misery index, as well as hospitals stopping to perform surgeries due to a lack of supplies, resulting in the avoidable deaths of many Venezuelans.

However, in the last few years, Venezuela’s economy has began to show signs of a recovery, with the government reporting the yearly inflation rate to have dropped from 686% in 2021 to 234% in 2022, thanks to rising oil production along with a loosening of currency controls which in the past had made it difficult for Venezuelans to obtain a more stable currency, such as the US dollar. Many businesses prefer to trade in US dollars, however this is potentially causing a divide, as those paid in dollars have a stronger currency and more stable than those in bolivars, which makes the payment is US dollars ‘worth more’. It is also important to mention that income inequality is widening in Venezuela, and many still live in high levels of poverty.

So how can this be fixed? Now this is no easy fix, otherwise it would’ve been done. But, to improve this, in the relative short term, Venezuela and its’ government need to stabilise the macroeconomic side of things, in both fiscal and monetary policies, reducing budget deficits and stabilising the currency. Along with this, there needs to be both arevitalisation of the oil sector, but diversification from it, to reduce the dependency which makes the country so vulnerable to price fluctuations. Hopefully, through these fixes, the country can address its’ social problems, through infrastructure investment and development, and improvements in education to develop the human capital of the country. Although a difficult task, this period of time will be key to rebuilding Venezuela, and creating an economy that provides hope to its inhabitants.

By Katie Daly