[inaudible] next we are going to have a number of important discussions. We particularly appreciate the work being done on peace building and countering violent extremism. And just nominated if you want f1 in building peace where we want to celebrate in their local context and also as a reminder there are people watching online on youtube and twitter. Please join the conversation with politics fragility. Any of our approaches to addressing fragility in gold locally Led Solutions and i can think of no better panel to help us better understand what that looks like than the one we have here. Really happy to introduce raj who will moderate the discussion and will introduce the panelist for us. Hes the president and editor in chief of the leading media platform for Global Development community. Community. Would you please join me in welcoming the panelists and [applause] good morning. I have to agree this is a Remarkable Group of being in the News Business i can say that its rare and in fact maybe its kind of like a unicorn in this space. Its rare to see a great idea in this case that turns into a thoughtful Task Force Report that then becomes bipartisan legislation. We are at an important moment which is will this policy actually work and may be the critical piece is understanding what we mean by prevention the word we are using a lot. What does actually mean. I would argue this panel is the personification of prevention. These are people working every day to prevent the kind of violent extremism we all want to present a round of the world they are doing it in their own communities and innovative ways. We will tell you who we have here in the dive into a discussion and include all of you in it as well. Right next to me is the executive director based in nigeria, nonprofit Inclusive Governance and also convened a movement called not too young to run which is pretty selfexplanatory. I think in a way it i its kindf the use of a youth panel. Im part of this panel as well. [laughter] next to him is the director of the International Institute for Human Development in tunisia and phd who studied a lot of the issues today so we are eager to hear your perspectives on the independent we have jacob who is the obamwas the obama foundatior and cofounder of the arts initiative. He is from south sudan. He started this initiative which is in its based collective but now you are based in chicago during a degree there. Welcome. Next to him, the cofounder and board member of crowned the woman, south sudan, said two members of the community today. Its a profit to be for nonprofit dedicated girls to become changing agents and ther society. We can start there. The administrator gave the tour of the force of many challenging locations in the world and they could certainly be on that list. There is peace at the moment and there is a deal coming to the new government in february meant to come through with six years of the war nearly half the country is displaced. When you hear us use words like governments and prevention here in washington, d. C. , what are you doing, what do those words actually mean to you on the ground in a place like south sudan maybe we can start with you. It should be on. Go ahead and tap it and see. Technology. Thank you for the opportunity and its always good to be back. I think for south sudan i would say both are very heavy words that we are still trying to figure out what they actually mean to have democracy and governance and to have prevention, i dont know if prevention is the right word. We come from a context of a country given as a result of decades of conflict. In summary, no is all we understand and as people that know nothing but violence and known nothing but war, and we do believe that if i react violently it is the best way i can be misunderstood. Its difficult to grasp the context where the concept of what it means to live in peace. We are still signing Peace Agreements. We just revitalized one last year and weve extended twice in an attempt to form a transition of government for a taste of what its like to have a Leadership Structure that is actually functional in place. What that means goes back to the decades where the country was given from. We have warlords that are being transferred or translated to peacemakers so you have Peace Agreements being signed based on the number of people youve killed or that youve displaced becomes your leverage at the negotiating table so we have people that we think are trying to make peace but at the end of the day the only away is by the amount of guns you have and the amount of maturity that you have committed so we are trying to transform a country by using the same people that caused the problem to solve the problem and its clearly not going so well for us as a country and getting out what it means to have Good Governance because it is still heavily militarized and i would say that is the context we speak of fragility that we have no distinction because Everything Else was militarized and that makes them extremely difficult especially for people that come from civilian background to try to transfer and results to conflict. Speaking to people who understand means of resolving any kind of conflict. Lets talk about some of those tools. When we talk about countering violent extremism, people have clear and immediate thoughts of what i might include. You work in an arts collective. Why do you do that and how does that connect . What do we understand by governance and maybe prevention and when it comes to the context of south sudan what we understand is violence because that is what we have been subjected to for over decades and since 1995 as of today. We have the means of stability for like two years. The 2011 until 2013 when the country went back to the bornagain. For some of us and depending with the governance means, you get to the idea of democracy and freedom of expression and respect to the rule of law for some of the things our country lacks and more on the militarization of politics, so we do not really have positions in our country. We have military generals who are running the country and more of a military way. People have created an idea of Coalition Building that has kept them in that position. There is so much of the social dilemma and its not easy to break through the barriers. Getting to the approach that we are using is active in the Civil Society organization. People were before 2013 after 2013, people were stacked on the claim we were watching with a blind eye and not really seeing, we see that are not saying anything. And then we just sit back because there are so many under the impression that you get into you think about issues that are happening within the country. Most especially when you get to the idea of the inclusion and having things to do with youth involvement and women involved in political spaces because we cannot feel like the new breed of leaders because this is what they have been fighting for and this is what they suffered to liberate that country and if you reflect back on some of the statements they used to say back then before, they had this generation of the red army that was part of the army generally. They would say no they will fix the new sudan but now if you try to remind them of what is happening, where are we to fix the country. Country. Its actually dangerous. As with a lot of cost. If you look at most of you might have [inaudible] called to be good looking up at exit and understanding the state building and he was taken in for just speaking out and getting new ways of leadership so going back on that initiative, we felt like when you speak alone or right ideas or get into public spaces and talk about the issues affecting the country then you get in trouble, so we thought of coming up with a clear way to get people into the discussion and to be able to bring up new ideas and bring together these energetic young people with Creative Ideas on how they would want to look at ideal countries they would want to live in so we use this a lot. We use music, spoken word, theater to speak on issues of concern in south sudan. When you create Something Like this it is bringing people together and then you were able to pass your message. The idea also of the public discussion and if as we see today that so many young people out there that are able to speak their mind wait on the social media or the public spaces when we organize such so that is the way we are using. These might sound like soft tools and we will get into these more in the conversation but they are very powerful and very effective as the report has shown. Maybe you can get into this discussion because in a way it is about changing the narrative, using the arts and the narrative is something you are focuse your studies to tell us about the perspective that you bring especially in your context and Northern Africa which is different than south sudan and nigeria. Hello, everybody, again. So, thank you. In our Organization Since 2013, we are working on busy programs that before, since 2000, we have been telling to the government that something should be done among the rising radicalization of the youth. We have been seeing since 2000 0 the way that radicalization which wasnt and one of the causes of the rise of protests in 2011 was that the government didnt really address the needs of some clear religious policies and tunisia. I am a linked list to the 80s and afghan radicalization process and also to the consequences of the resolution on the womens rights and islam and the rise of the bigger [inaudible] as you may know it is published on our website we have a study on the causes of the youth radicalization which is also causing a form of radicalization so we detected that there was a big work on the first generation of the programs into the Second Generation of lets say websites and facebook pages and so on but the first generation targeted women and we know in tunisia and some of those countries the programs were using satellite developed in tunisia but also in some European Countries that are bringing a lot of unemployed young people to more radicalized views on religion. So, weve been trying to bring the attention of the people to this problem, and i think im very grateful today that youre helping to raise my voice about these issues. These problems are still broadcasting and all of our security efforts in the global level will not give enough responses if we dont Work Together on countering these. Also among the young generation in tunisia we see that through youtube and facebook which is very popular there are still big groups of radical answers using these tools and using this free space to radicalized young people and we cannot do a lot against it. In our organization we produced 30 videos so you will found in our video the institute for Human Development 30 videos. A lot of these are bringing positive stories. There was a young teenager who joined the group and then thanks to his mother and family come he was resilient telling his story in a 12 minute short film an ane used this to go to the secondary schools because we think that there is a big vulnerability among teenagers so this is one y we targeted women and teenagers in our work. Its part of our work but i think later i want to come back to some of the things you brought up. In Northern Nigeria in particular you see similar themes from what we heard in tunisia but you are working on it with total reform, political reform. How do you connect to that employee i is the priority and y does it connect to these issues of radicalization of young people . Thanks for inviting me to share some perspectives on this. There is a connection and the report is very clear on the nexus between the leadership encroachment process and the governance and fragility. What you have today is a fact check of society and that discrimination between the states and citizens because our elections are to decide if i buy a lens, by politics and we dont default is accountable and transparent leaders. Its about recouping the money that is spent. It is about the people. So at the heart of fragility and violence, if you take responsiveness and accountability out of the democratic process, you just have leaders who simply dont have any regards to the people. Look at uganda today intending to run for office unable to run because of the onslaught and to clamp down by the government politicizing the political aspiration. If you go to liberia, a few years ago [inaudible] today the citizens are very discontent with the leadership. If you come to nigeria as well [inaudible] is a connection and thats why if you fix themcome if you fix politics, there is a probability that it will have transparent and accountable leaders who will deliver the dividends of democracy but of the heart of that is that you and our people. If we dont put people at the center of governance, than thiss attempt to build this relationship [inaudible] this issue of the violent narratives coming in through television or internet, it is this opportunity to the exclusion that creates the opportunity for people to say i dont feel connected to my government. They talk about this terminus disconnection of youth from the government. What do we do about that when you think of the prevention work they are working on, what is actually working . Some of the challenges you talk about in liberia for example were uganda it feels too difficult to address in the short come. What do you do today, maybe you want to chime in. Ratings that when you have i want to pick up on the value and importance of democracy and getting the leaders into power. When you dont have an opportunity to choose your leader as a citizen you have someone that is important to you and in the south sudan context i would say you have leaders who have committed atrocities so they are governing people who are terrified and traumatized of the particular leader there is no room for accountability. You have citizens will willing to settle for any small thing they can get that doesnt displace them. They dont even look at the position of the responsibility for the people they have in the leadership. The ability to have citizens that can hold leaders accountable because this is and someone i put into this position. It came through another channel and he can use use the channel to get the interest back out. Its difficult for example himself sudan to be specific because when we talk about exclusion i will speak as a woman first of all and i will also speak as a young people. Im dealing with two challenges that i actually need to address individually because before i can make it into any new space. When we look at the National Trend when people are talking about the youth in south sudan, the picture in their mind as a young man. People will say we need to address the issues of the youth exclusion. When they talk about people, they talk about the youth on the streets. You go from an innocent girl to a woman and been identified as a young woman leader in other words talking about the youth inclusion opportunities that enhance the capacity is developed to oversee the Peace Agreement also a young woman so this mechanism, the security review board all have young women to sit at the societys and its a way that has enabled the citizens to be reflected in ways they dont get to the challenge when you come from the Civil Society its been all influence you can make at the political level because theres not very many young people that are taking interest for the politics because it is militarized fix but then it walked to the point representation in decisionmaking is by those who feel that the positions they are in and so if that is something youre struggling with the Civil Society perspective theres a lot of progress towards addressing the issue of inclusion. A lot of it comes back to the expectations where you talk about citizens expecting the government to provide services and if you can change that, he fundamentally wont change the way people look at government. We are not expecting a young woman to be on a panel overseeing a Peace Agreement. It does not think about the future. The conceptualization of themselves, their tribes and with the political affiliations. But those challenges of the leadership problem are for a lot of young people on the continent of africa. Its time for them to rise up if we are the deterrent to transform politics. So how you use political power for the common good. Its not a guarantee. You have those African Leaders and for prosperity in africa. No. But what we see is if you get content and character that her continent will make progress is very high. So thats why people have rose up and read defend to advocate for our constitution and it was historic where we changed our constitution and thats where from the last election from the first time in nigeria 2025 and 29 and to legislate for the people and those statehouses of assembly because the average age of African Leaders is about 64 there are people today who have no Public Office and how do we expect to make progress how do we expect to address those economic challenges leadership quex look at boko haram that they recruit these young people because we have much more young people that my generation is rising but no we will take action and then to say enough is enough. We care about our future to bring africa back to progress. What do you want us to know about the region that you are in with a historically high number of women there are many signs of progress which im trying to get at but across the region a very challenging environment. What do you want us to know here in washington about the region and the opportunity of this approach when most of what we hear that is the direction . I have to congratulate that talks about preventing violent extremism problem to be addressed but i think 30 or 40 years and violent religious extremism of that security oriented solution was not enoug enough. So for me its a very Good Opportunity of that ideological problem so as professor i have to point out there is more population of unemployment and poverty. And with some seeds of radicalization that are linked to dozens of radical lasers. To see that north africa and west africa very challenging environment and then to say in the emerging democracy to stabilize. It is more fragile land 2011. So to make north africa and west africa more stable because in the mediterranean area in europe then its also a challenge for Homeland Security in the us. Everything is linked. So for me in a way in the storm a very challenging moment even leading me to question the decisionmakers here what is the role of africom and what should be done to make the area more stable with the link to energy omissions. All of this is very challenging and also linked to libyan conflict with the western borders of india because there are a lot of armed groups. So as a woman i have to say that even though this conflict is very complex it is more challenging for women and sometimes we expect now to india if it rises we are not really prepared to have the big numbers of refugees they are women and children but expect an actor to help. But allow me to come back to our work. So we started to work on the project mainly it was the policewoman and we thought it was very important into really help some to be powerful and these piece kit keeping missions with those resolutions and a lot should be done because we can talk a lot on the security resolution but if they do not give a budget we cannot change. We trained those professionals of Civic Education who are leaders and who do a lot of work in the countries and they said for us to make research asked on action plan in 2017 we identified these areas at two Different Levels from 15 through 18 and we trained on these issues. We made them understand the first signs of politicalization for example we have a little story with the professor far from libya again the professor identifies three times radicalization. And as we trained the professor she contacted us. And said i have a student who is refusing to talk. He is isolated. He is giving radicalized post on his facebook and very brilliant generous professors are giving every day a lot of support to these young people. Some of the post was not about music so to forbid in islam which is not freedom. So to tell them among the two big books like the life of the prophet mohammed for example or the story that was perfectly received and to give the source and this young teenager has already prepared his legacy to go to syria with this important and crucial discussion with the professor young person decided not to go to syria because he understood he was following a radical or what they think about islam and he identified that Youtube Channel that was sending him a different story. So these are everyday stories that we work on in our work and we really have to prevent radicalization. I appreciate that story because it crystallizes how this works out on an individual level and millions of people. And with islam to really know what we are talking about. Im sorry to say that to address this issue so we should Work Together on research how to prepare that counter active and im open to work on this with you. Thank you for that. Before we get to questions i want to get your take on this it sounds like we are facing a huge fire and we have a cup of water. We are using education on an individual level or arts programs to speak out to community groups. How do we turn this narrative with a global fragility action and the administrator to believe in these ideas . How do we take this to the next level . Now that you study in the us what do you do to see this through to the next level . Thank you. So they see themselves and then with nothing to run back to so with that situation we are in for what we are working on is Coalition Building may be to be where warlords or citizens. Its a tugofwar we have politicians who try to utilize their influence to manipulate when we have a society trying to create that platform to have a wider understanding and how they hold these people to account. In 2017 the forum was not just invited but we had to come together as a group of organization in south sudan to form a coalition with the Regional Government organizatio organization. And i saw that when we elected to participate so with the womens representation but it is so bloodied the definition of youth so now we work on having a youth policy for that age bracket of the youth. So one to be led by a young person but there is no division. And then you see them with gray hair and you say i him young now im fighting for immigration. [laughter] so that people hate themselves so if they are from this tribe. So the politician uses this with that affiliation from their community. To recruit to have more young people support the interest. And so to create a different narrative around that. So we have the new tribal 64 tribes in south sudan we need to create an umbrella but the problem is if you use tribal to find yourself different. And i think this is where the government in my country because we thought we were all united and you have issues of south sudan. So we are all under the same umbrella. To recruit these young people so going back to these communities and then to apologize. This is what you pay for. So lets try to bring communities together. You dont have road so there is no connection between different counties read a Different Group of people so they are not connected. And this is easily exploited. So we try to break that barrier as a platform where people come to gather so we tried to use propagated into the mindset of young people its an alternativ alternative. I think that word alternative is an important from this panel which is a political culture of division attempting to divide people. And that need to be combated. So we went to get a question now and to get to as many as we can. And please keep it brief. Wonderful presentations i wish i could talk to you for a couple of hours Vice President of the ngo global pletter service. My question has to do with the education structures in your country. It takes place through school are media organizations but talk about the training of teachers to make it a profession and with the ministry of education how can you provide good wages and futures for people who are teachers or encourage young men to go into teaching so its not just a womans role and also the role of the media and the investigative reporting and looking at the changes of islam to interpret. Theres a lot to do and talk about ways to do this. I am a fellow at the World Justice Project him prior to this year there was a secondary in College Humanities teacher so its gratifying to hear all the voices on the stage and to be involved with the Fulbright Teaching Exchange in malaysia we worked with counter radicalization education in islamic schools. That was really effective. So is there anything similar to this happening in the countries where you work or a desire to bring this teaching to these countries . And then a slightly more general version what role does education around the rule of law play in this window of opportunity to intervene. We have line to the back. s on the border of nigeria i am very happy about what my folks have said because of africa like one country but i wonder to reflect on the impact of the International Economy with all the way of the partition to africa so to introduce fragility as a foundation and as part of that expectation. Second id like to follow through from the first question about education education the colloquial we are dealing with is precisely one of the sources of fragility. We have african values. With the Civil Society for 35 years and with that society over 33 years. Now in exile here program want to hear from the north and from the west if this is our understanding we fail to tell our partners this is our understanding in somalia when there is conflict if two men are fighting the woman goes in between them they stop because of the respect they have for mothers. Working in mogadishu now i have a connection and i see we need to go beyond eight what is able to really reconceptualize africa so i like to hear how that works in your work. Thank you. I have worked in this space and the question i have regards to the definition of youth we have grappled with during evaluation so we should have a universal definition so all over the world every country or depending on other criteria or when women begin to bear children and with Life Expectancy so what should the brackets be based on . Dad is fascinating lets touch on that. Do you have a take on this . Do we need to have a universal definition . I go to the un classification that if there should be a classification and as you can see its difficult to have that classification because in the context and the National Youth policy in nigeria has between 15 and 29. And with that policy formulation to frame those goals. But it is the period between independence. Because there are social economic context its very difficult to adopt that of youth i propose a go under the political context to classify but at that original level we already have that framework that is classified youth to take it from 18 down to 15. Why does it matter . N union isnt just some independent institution, but an institution that brings together all the african country said they have kind of harmonized what it means to them. I think every continent has to define when a young person has to be independent so that would be my take on that decision. It seems like it matters in a political culture when people are not able to advance and take power but we can come back to that. I want to get back to the question around education. Maybe you can jump into this about messaging and the kind of messaging we can use to counter radicalization. Thank you for the clustered mentioning education anquestione importance of education. I have to say its very important to point to the fact we are now more links to west africa in the middle east and i want to state that my american friends sometimes we have this link but that also its important to explain to you that we are the first generation and forth will be a preparing. We have been watching the new here often now talk about burkina paso there wasnt a link to these views for example we hear that there are very violent groups rising so in a way, preparing something. We should be prepared and allow me to insist it will be more al qaeda then isis and maybe other opportunities we can discuss this. We should prepare ourselves because young people are exposed to a lot. Families, mothers, mainly professors because they spend a lot of time with teenagers as i said. What we did and what we do and what we commanded you to do a there are formal programs, curriculum, but i recommend what we did it as informal work. We go to the schools and use a the activities led by leaders open and generous to work with young people so its more the informal activities because they are flexible. If we open up a changing the curriculum is too much political and it can bring the curriculum to become more conservative. I can tell you a very rapid story. We went to the city and it was one of the topics so we went to this school and we were among those its very violent and marginalized and can be this. We went to the school and had the professor opened up the space and gave us in a way legitimacy and ca then we made r training. This time its more addressed to the young people and we were surprised the generosity. We sometimes work with private sectors we bring video, exercises and coffee breaks. We were surprised they spent the night preparing for orange juice and take us. It is a very poor area and was the only one area that prepared the coffee break. What they did because they were really amazing and i said okay to that we will replicate this program to a school not far from us is to say to you we learn every day from these young people. They suggested this and duplicated it and even had a their own money to print. They said to us you have to send us the logo and hash tags and we already have the money. We were excited about this energy that young people could produce so in a way it is rare awherethe activities can be betf there is among 1,800. Some of them are official and the same number, 1,800 are informal and we dont know what the curriculum or. Its not simple to invest in these spaces so for us they are bringing a pillow society so its an everyday challenge. I spent a few days to open an office in north africa on the reachable leveregional level bek we can bring our expertise and duplicated what we do and at other areas. Maybe you can give your final thoughts. I personally believe its going to be one of the ways we might transform the conflict because of when you have a country considered a crisis zone, the Services Provided are more humanitarian and development and for south sudan there is the case we are in. For example how the comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed in 2005, a child would still have minimal access to quality education and that is going to be another generation of youth that has been denied access to education to be able to be independent and make decisions on their own. Education is considered a Development Aspect weve been struggling to define the limits the main challenges the minimal commitment to as violence continues and they are kicked out of the learning spaces they are it seems more temporary. For us education at this point is considered the Development Aspect in the crisis space. It doesnt matter the impact would be more than sitting in a fancy room with someone that doesnt know what they are teaching me. So, there is very minimal investment in Human Capital and people talk about the schools that have been destroyed and infrastructure but its something we are lacking a. On your twitter feed i was looking before the panel a beautiful picture of the kid working on the ground. We just heard from north africa and west africa are starting to see future instability thats beginning to be routed in the challenging picture. With a very rare species of an act that has been passed with Coalition Building around the importance of prevention and governance would like to chat with my brother. They do make a very staggering and surprising resolution. The debate around the echo and the involvement in that. The development determined in politics and did these dynamics of International Politics we are very mindful of that and its also affecting our conversation but the pushback we will continue to complain about how we have configured or reconfigured. We have had bowled out. I think as we look at the dynamics of this level we are able to look inwards to ask ourselves questions about what his leadership during and looking at the transformation our pushback is likely on that and then the values preindependence if we look at some of these values it seems they are pushing back on those values that say entitled to so they cannot question into this generation is pushing back on that and we continue to push back on some of these values that we think does not advance or development. But in conclusion, its for the mobilization strategy. How does that inspire active citizenship. Second hell di do they strengthn the capacity of the groups to engage with the state. Its very critical because it should be active and strong Civil Society groups at the Grassroots Level so we need to look at how they strengthen the local groups at the Community Level to address the factor that drives agility. Third is about inequality, economic and political inequality and this is where it plays a Critical Role in how does it promote the leadership. One generation of political leaders to another or even promoting leadership transition within Civil Society. [inaudible] they would deliver on some of the games of the fragility act. The comments reminding us about the berlin wall and that efforts to bring it down and how hard that was and its important to remember in a sense theres an equivalent effort underway in each of your countries and many others around the world. Theres an equivalent effort to tear down the wall to tear down something fundamentally and we were all invested in that and i hope in many other organizations in washington and around the United States we care about these issues and are here in solidarity a few. Its a privilege to understand the work that you are doing on the ground. [applause]
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