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Line or they get caught with their hands in the cookie jar with some of these other issues that getting prevent sanctions now rather than waiting for the fifth year with the eighth or the 10th you. So thats the mindset we are dealing with. That to our reformists and i ago, do you know who these people really are . These reformist dont have any real power. They are in positions but they dont really wield it. Take a look at the council of guardians, the council of experts. Take a look at who controls the military structure and economic levers. When you start to see real changes there, maybe he will see a crack. Its going to take time, derek, going to take time. We are risking a lot so we have to be vigilant. And out of anything thats articulated about what we are prepared to do between now and then when we get to this point about checking the behavior, about having a deterrent, having a course of option. Because i think all of our economic cards are not viable. That are not good the ineffective snapback sanctions big Economic Issues we usually have relied on are not going to be there in the to box us to use. So this makes it more likely that if youre going to have a response that will have to be military. In my judgment, or no response at all. And i think with this administration and make some subsequent administrations, the option will be we will just excuse things the way and they will violate them to violate and they will violate, and well just live with them. You were talking about how Administration Figures seem to be hopeful that the machine will moderate. One of the things that concerns me and i think there is some evidence that actually the administration is happy to work with a hardliners. We have some indication lots of ways the nuclear deal if it isnt the irgc that controls the nuclear file in many ways that will lock in the hardliners. And there was a store in Foreign Policy a couple months ago after the arab officials were invited to meet with the president at camp david, john hannah did a piece for Foreign Policy where there were arab officials who are described a as the president seems to admire certain things about Qassem Suleimani, certain things about the quds force. You think arabs are pretty confident you guys could use something with. One of the things i want to ask you is who is, i think im we know who Qassem Suleimani is not whats in his head, first of all . And is he winning in the region lacks if you get asked to enter that ended mike i will ask you. One is, the iranian state, state apparatus, there state institutions are effective and are very good. And theyve got a tremendous amount of intellectual capital that is brilliant and sophisticated not just for the Nuclear Program but in other areas of the economy. They are and industrious people and theyve got very good culture, literature, art, movies, film. This is a rich textured complex sophisticated society. All those things make it actually more dangerous, okay, because it has institutional capacity, the ability to line its resources and get the most out of them. Thats one of the things that impresses the administration. Rational, contrasting it in some ways to our gulf arab allies. That is one of the things that impresses the white house. So this admiration for suleimani has manifested itself in a voice of europe. The u. S. Speed deepening the Radio Free Europe speak with yes. We sent him 211 million they put out a decent that solomonic is a pretty nice guy. Im sure a lot of people think dick cheney is a pretty nice guy or the thought that Osama Bin Laden was a pretty nice guy, but not to make any comparisons. [laughter] wow, i dont know. Just landed them both sides spent i reject you mentioning the Vice President the context spent i second that but i do want to become what do you call it, marginalized. Marginalized. s about to solomonic him is he winning . Hes a wakeup criteria for america. When we going to do . Now hes doing so these cookies to sell this in iraq after leading a victory parades selfies. He led the force into tikrit. All of these sanctions were before the sanctions were vote on. Hes been leading forces on the ground with u. S. Close air support in the air being able to provide air support to suleimanis forces. You cant say that. Qassem suleimani is not controlling these things. Others are controlling it and he basic is that he works for Qassem Suleimani. Drive i was put in charge of the tikrit operations. Using to designated terrorist organizations to conduct operations, expelling sudanese on these areas. Of sanctions violations. Suleimani espouse those able to travel, leading designated terrorist organizations in the fight against isis. Let me caveat that. The fight against sunnis opposed to the iraqi government, thats a bigger deal than isis. So this was a clear and hold strategy. Clear this is outcome hold the area so they can come back and. And then this blanket labeling of the sunnis as collaborators simply because theres no iraqis to get a forces to to protect them. This is a Qassem Suleimani in iraq has not built a force to take back mosul. Has not built a force to get back ramadi or fallujah. No, he is winning. Is made baghdad morgue depend on tehran than they were a year and half ago. Hes out in the open working directly with designated terrorists and t the bank that directly funds his organization was also be listed. Not to mention what is doing in syria and these other places. So he is winning and baggage is taken more money and now you just gave him the ability to buy advanced weapons. And he cant help but smile spirit this may, in fact, prolong the ensuing campaign from this infusion of cash into the iranian coffers because they provided tremendous Financial Support to underpin the assad pushing. Qassem suleimani is directed and coordinated the strategy across the region orchestrating involvement from hezbollah in syria correspond to the iraq issue malicious industry. Is directly behind the bombings, the federal bombings of refugee centers, of the destruction of bakeries and then send it in syria in order to impact the population. Hes conducted and numerous Human Rights Violations under his organization and under his direction and tutelage, and this was occurring in iraq. You have ethnic and so, assassination, torture all this at the behest and guidance on sola maney. These are the types of people who apparently some americans believe will be able to deal with and we admire. The president of iran and the military, the conventional military of iran is not involved in this strategic geopolitical objectives of iran. Which is to dominate the region. That is a province of two leaders, one is a supreme leader, executives Qassem Suleimani who is execution arm exclusively. The rest of leadership is not involved in any of that. And that is the simple way to understand what is truly taking place. So given the scorecard that has been achieved as i mentioned before, its indisputable that they have had significant measure of success. And the two of them enjoy the success. China, you were speaking before about the sort of moral core general a Different Things that churchill understood and that Margaret Thatcher understood as well. Where they could see which things were tending. If i can ask you which way do you think this is painting . What you think it means for the region . What they think it means for the United States and our allies as well speak was i think American Leadership by and large is impassive and disengaged from the region, and has resulted this endangered our interest, its endangered our allies. It has emboldened our adversaries. Russia and china are considerably more adventurous i think is what they perceived to be, what is somewhat new to them this week American Leadership to the degree that it is. The europeans have been capable of asking for people to suffer in terms of National Security for close to 30 years. So they understood about the european feckless leadership, talking about our adversaries. I think what is new to them is to agree that the degree to which American Leadership has stepped back and theyre clearly taking advantage of the. Im not helpless about this issue because i think weve been here before many times where American Leadership is a defining experience for this great country of ours. We started out with a lid who understood what he wanted and he was fighting a conventional military that was the best in the world, and it took him seven years and we eventually beat them back. Ive talked about the founder of our country. We had a president during the civil war that couldnt fight in of the generals to fight the war competently. And his leaders came to me. His closers can come and said look, we have got to make an accommodation with the Jefferson Davis government. Weve got to establish some kind of a corner in terms of somewhat able to us given the way the war is going. He would have none of it. None of it because he knew that was to destruction of the United States as we knew and every principle we have in this country as a result of the. He finally found a guy who could do something with it. Roosevelt and truman during world war ii to the decisions they made were extraordinary and their extraordinary leaders for making it. Had nothing to do with party. Rose that makes a decision watching not theism, and he decides that conjunction with churchill, that is likely to be sufficient having fought two world wars not to do some and i clambered aboard were to against this ideological leader that is not going to be sufficient to defeat the military cant even defeat do not see regime. That the only which prevent this from happening again is to defeat the german people. What a decision that was. And that resulted in millions of civilian deaths. And germany today is what, a flourishing economy, democratic society, and war is something not even on the horizon. Truman made a similar decision did it with what he was facing in japan. He had a weapon and would bring the war to them. He knew the costly to invade the island of japan having watched all the of the topping that took place. The people that thought, the cashews were rising and he made a very difficult decision to force the leadership to stop the war. He had to kill japanese civilian people to do it. Look at those decisions. Those are staggering decisions i think by people of character who didnt want to make those decisions. They are good people. They knew what they were doing but they believed this was a humane thing to do to stop this kind of calamity that has been imposed on the world by people of people. I think that leadership will rise in this country again and will continue to rise. Why . Because my faith in the American People. People give rise to that leadership. I want to ask quickly and that i was if i can do to for a question or two if we have enough time. I want to ask what are these sorts of decisions that the next administration might need to make, especially regarding iran but im not just talking about the iran nuclear deal. Im talking generally about come if were talking 36 years of the iranians of American Leadership not respond to iran, will this finally rise to the level american lid will need to respond to it . I think American Leadership really matters, and we sing a disaster of the absence of leadership in the middle east region and how it has alienated our friends and our frenemies in that part of the world. Even statements by the gulf cooperation countries, you know, in some way lukewarm support for the nuclear deal reflects a calculation on the part of this is going to go through and it doesnt do them any good to be outright opposition to it publicly. I think the next layer has to rebuild confidence in the region, build bilateral and multilateral relationships in the middle east, north africa. We have to deal with the sino moscow pakistan to be emerging in the world and influencing that come at a dont think we want tehran to be part of that sino soviet pact, but that seems to be where we are headed. I think we may need to think about declaring a Nuclear Umbrella in the region and providing private assurances for that in order to forestall the movement in what i see as a tendency towards consideration of Nuclear Proliferation by the gulf country, possibly even cairo. I think we Building Confidence in that we civil we mean and to go to back it up is something we needed to come and get me to be about pashtun we need to be clear who our enemies are impact of a friend. We undermined to me of those in reaching whether tel aviv, the gulf, cairo. So i think there is some major challenge there for the next administration because it takes a long time to repair those relationships. Mike, do you want we are already doing that though. The administration is saying this keeps iran from a Nuclear Weapon. While they assure the region that will provide you things to keep them from attacking you with one. That just doesnt make sense. We are already starting come you go to your gulf allies and tell them will help you build up your capabilities so that you be able to do enough to deal with this increasing iranian threat they were getting ready to give money back to come arms back to the editing if they dont cheat, allow them to develop a Nuclear Weapon in 10 to 15 years. General, if you can just quickly. Leadership can turn this around frequently because you start with what is the role of the United States facing a global secret challenge a as as we havd turkey to add to the American People and the articulate that to the world at large. And i think just about alone begins to let our adversaries and our friends know that American Leadership is back. Thats number one. And then your actions will always speak louder than your rhetoric. This is not rocket science. We have no comprehensive strategy to deal with radical islam, and with the two president s who have been dealing with this since 9 11 and we still do nothing comprehensive strategy to do the. Thats outrageous we could find ourselves in 2015 with that, but thats the truth of the. Im not talking about some muscular military strategy. Ive talked about a comprehensive charge accuses the tools and whats of them in the region to bring people together in a native type alliance we had to push back against another ideology called communism. Weve never done it. U. S. Leadership would help organize it and get the people in the region and others who are interested in this stability in the region and bald. We start to make some progress, the same thing with countering the iranians. As opposed to giving with china and russia, this doesnt have to be all about military muscle, but they have do some conviction you are willing to use some of military muscle. You have to believe there is an imperative that you going to do something, and what actions they do that. You dont abandon libya up you decide to take the regime to one thing the president , the new president takes over in libya, the one thing as this, youve got to be with us into the problem. I need to people to come over and train is a good divorce i can stabilize this thing. Ive got all these radicals running around with armed weapons who helped take down gadhafi. What we do . We stiffed them. Assessing a message . Of course it does. The iranians say we want to honor the accord. We give up our Nuclear Weapons. You were supposed to provide us with saturday. That was a treaty. Why are you not only that . We dont want to soldiers on the ground. We dont want you to place. What did ask for . Ask for weapons. We stiffed them. Those actions speak far louder than words. These are only people are asking for america to help them solve a problem they have themselves. The same thing with the Free Syrian Army became and 2011, no help. Clinton, petraeus, dempsey and panetta on a committed to the president in the summer of 2012 to help them. The president s jus to spend int know. Those actions just reverberate around the region and beset us with considerably more problems as a result of the. This isnt all that hard to do if you make up your mind of what the role is america place in the world, and im not suggesting that muscular military strategy, but it is about leadership. That it is executed effectively, 50 interagency actually are doing what theyre supposed to be doing if they establish real metrics and measures instead of obfuscating. The frustration with dod and data treasury and dea and elsewhere about this is very high. In fact, they do not want real option. Luscious move along. Luscious do enough and that shows a lack of leadership in real interest achieving affect the result to impact the enemy. In this case isis. It is the president s own strategy that he is not making sure is executed effectively. It will rebound on us at some point dramatically. It is already affecting the people of the region. Most of the things that have happened since the president announced a year ago is the lack of response and follow through in his own government. Thanks, charlie. Lets see if there are any questions. You have the microphone. The gentleman, if you can introduce yourself is probably one of time for questions. The Director Center of islam at the hudson in the two. I wanted to ask a question follows from mr. Harveys remark that we are trying to understand these people as we understand ourselves and one part about lack of understanding is a lack of imagination for what the quds floors, iranian and general might want to accomplish. You gave a very fine account of what they have done. I was wondering if you could speak to what they might do in the future. Not in general terms, but specific things you might anticipate from them and especially the issue of the missiles which i believe you cited, general dempsey, i say it is a very serious issue that is frankly not gotten very much attention. Well, for me and derek has some specific knowledge of it, but i think the strategic object about the United States dealing with iranians desire for hegemony would be to use all the element and allies in the region for the sake of the people of iran who change the regime. And im not talking about a terry takeover. But that should be strategic object to and then you work towards countering what they are doing with our allies in the region and it is not just about the United States and military power. It is using all the elements of power to do that with our allies in the region. What is necessary to counterpunch and i think yesterday lit me of times when it was necessary for 1983 through 2008, you have to do that and its not just necessarily buy yourself to do that. But that kind of price tag just has not been there. We are down it attacked go low level in dealing with the regime with a comprehensive strategy and we lack an equivalent comprehensive strategy to cope with that reality. One thing the iranians will do the next five years if you look at whether investing their money, cyberballistic missiles, antishipping capabilities both when faced and seabased and supporting a wide number of proxies in the region and venus that a reliable partner for all those proxies. I think what they are going to do is build up their capabilities, reinvigorate their economy and rainforest disasters. The past is going to really inform the influence to do the three things they want. They want to limit and health and the state of israel long term. They want to make the United States not a factor in the region and they want to undermine the coherence of the gcc and pick off those countries and get them into their orbit. One way or the other and power sheer minorities from majorities in the case of bahrain and elsewhere in a way that will change the political dynamic in the goal and that is where they are headed. They will focus on securing their interest in the area and lebanon and theyve gone away to establish a state in baghdad and they will solidify that. They continue to undermine everything we do in iraq the iss and capable Security Forces and they use all the capabilities to directly undermined the independent capability building countervailing forces a line and most loyal to the supreme leader, not to the government of baghdad. That is what theyll continue to do. One quick question. You mentioned cyberunderstanding only recently the iranians have gotten cyber. Is this accurate and how did it happen . From my perspective, looking both sides and government and outside of government, at least five to seven years. The russian . You will see all kinds of former iranian entrepreneurs that came over when the shah fell and others in the first and second generation. Theyve got really and intellectual capital and theyve taken advantage of scoring around the world in the United States. These guys are not enough. Cybercapabilities exploding the advanced technology nation. You can buy the capability in an educated nation like iran certainly has the capability to grow their own in this field. People are getting more aggressive with it. The United States has handsdown the number one offensive capability in the world. Ive been doing with this issue for nine years and will make your eyes water but they can do. Nonetheless, other countries who are also advanced technology is our gradually acquiring a greater offensive capability. The chinese are the most prolific and iranians have a real capability. And thats list is going to grow. It will be a fabric of the geopolitical challenges we are using. It is a huge enabler to acquire intelligence. Its a huge enabler for intellectual property and a huge capability to shut down your opponents capability which is pretty dramatic in terms of what they can do. Thank you, gentlemen. I wanted to thank you for questions on train coming. Thank you to cspan and hudson. I want to thank the panelists, general keane, mike harvey and jack kean. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [applause] now, because merce engines will produce the results the critics want, we have to be honest. Congressional rejection of this deal leaves any u. S. Administration that is absolutely committed to preventing iran from getting a Nuclear Weapon with one option, another war in the middle east. I say this not to be provocative. I am stating a fact. Without this deal, iran will be in a position, however tougher rhetoric may be coming to steadily transfer capabilities. It is breakout time, which is already fairly small, could shrink to near zero. Does anyone really doubt that the same voices now raised against this deal will be demanding that whoever is president bomb those are your facilities . And as someone who does firmly believe iran must not get a Nuclear Weapon and who has wrestled with this issue since the beginning of my presidency, i can tell you alternatives to military action will have been exiled to once we reject a hardwon diplomatic solution at the world almost unanimously supports. So lets not mix words. The choice we face is ultimately between diplomacy or some form of war. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not three months from now, but soon. Us him a pardon for political participation and preventing youth radicalization. The International Foundation for Electoral Systems hosted a panel looking at engagement both before and after the teenage voting age, emphasizing political participation of young women and girls here from earlier this month it runs just over 90 minutes. We welcome into the discussion on Youth Engagement as a deterrent to radicalization. My name is Michael Svetlik and then the Vice President for programs for the Electoral Systems better known as ifes. For 25 years my organization has worked to advance with government and democratic right by providing Technical Assistance to election stakeholders across the globe, working in countries undergoing democratic transition from those experiencing are emerging from postconflict to those experiencing democratic consolidation. We are working to empower the underrepresented, including youth, women and persons with disabilities and other marginalized groups. To participate fully in the process and we applied fieldbased research to improve all aspects of the cycle as part of the political process. In support of our work we have now connected programming in more than 145 countries. Worldwide we are currently have more than 30 offices in various countries. Our organizations vision is a world in which strong Democratic Institutions empower all citizens to have a voice in the way they are governed. There are programming, ifes emphasizes engaging young people in the political process is critical to the countrys democratic amid a culture of democracy exists when citizens are informed about democratic principles and can translate that knowledge into action through such things as Community Service and leadership. With its commitment to future Democratic Health in mind, we design programs and implement Youth Programs around the world to foster understanding of rights and responsibilities in a Pluralistic Society and work to create a culture of engagement are those who have not yet reached the voting age in their country. For youth of that age, ifes works to provide training, tools and opportunities for new and franchised voters to participate in elections and advocate for positive change within their communities. Considering the challenges young people face around the globe today including the serious threat of radicalization, these programs are more vital than ever. I have a very personal connection to work with youth as i started my career in International Development 25 years ago as a peace corps volunteer working in postcommunist poland. I worked with High School Age students for over three years and subsequently did research and work with other users in the south caucasus and central asia. At that time we were working primarily to combat apathy, to orient for combat disorientation and orient young people to the rights and responsibilities either newly found her newly realized. Im proud to be part of an organization taking this issue seriously given the new threats we have big youth face some 20 years later. With that, i would like to introduce our moderator for this session, my colleague, augusta featherston, serves as ifes technical lead on Youth Engagement and helps us design specific or brands that work on other global youth initiatives. Please join me in welcoming her and i look forward to a lively conversation from my other colleagues as well. [applause] now i am embarrassed. Thank you, michael for that very kind introduction. I would like to take a moment to thank congresswoman Sheila Jackson may as well as her office and staff are partnering with ifes and providing support for the event. We are pleased to be here to discuss the topic of Youth Engagement and we believe the discussion is particularly relevant and timely in light of the International Focus on youth during the month of august as well as global Current Events that illustrate the challenges that young people face every day in their community. Before he introduced the panelists i beg to make the audience in the room as well as those watching online to join the conversation on twitter by treating ifes 1987 and jackson may t. X 18 which stands for texas 18th congressional district. One more housekeeping Comment Period will save questions from the audience until after the panelists have had a chance to respond to my grueling battery of questions and for the q a portion of the microphones are available in the center of the room. Without further ado. I enjoyed on the panel by four of my colleagues who between them have a wealth of regional intact expertise that will enrich our discussion. Ambar zobairi is the director of the middle East North Africa division in her portfolio stands a breath of ifes technical areas including programs that address election violence among other topics. Matthew cohen manages ifes programs and Central Africa, most of which feature substantial Civic Education and Youth Engagement component. Jessica huber is responsible for the global gender programs which promote political participation, justice and equal rights for men and women around the world. Finally, julia smith is the use use and provides electoral conflict in Security Strategy and program development. Thanks to all of you for joining me here today. Our discussion today will focus on how engaging young people in constructive people in concert to democratic processes can serve as a potential deterrent to radicalization. Quick working definition of radicalization from the u. N. Working group focuses on the sub tag is radicalization is a process by which a person is indoctrinated into rigid ideology come equipped with future goals or plans that eventually lead to extremism, militancy or terrorism. This is the understanding we have of that term throughout our discussion today. Its important to note at the outset of our discussion the Research Suggests no single path is radicalizradicaliz ation, rather slightly due to a confluence of fact areas including local context that might compel an individual to radicalize. However, factors such as alienation from Traditional Community support structures or alienation from cultural identity, political marginalization and lack of opportunity to engage in meaningful or Productive Work are often contributing towards a turn towards radicalism. The launching set of influences and internationalized to shins, think tanks and other organizations to work with young people are especially concerned about the status of youth and their potential to radicalize. We must examine why this might be the case. A sample not about demographics here could provide some of the motivation on the topic. According to figures, a little more than half the worlds population under 30 years of age and those individuals that in countries with emerging and developing economy and democracy is. A show for example the largest number of young people could roughly three quarters while Subsaharan Africa has the largest population under 30, roughly 70 . Something else to know when we talk about youth and citing facts and figures, under 30 are such pardon, and many of you know there is no single definition or universal definition amongst practitioners. Usaid defines years in a 2012 policy intended 29 years of age provides stats that encompass 24 years of age and in the African Youth charter from the youth means, this is a direct quote, every person between the ages of 15 and 35 years. Lets reflect on that for a moment. Think of yourself that 15 versus present day. The gap between those milestones is huge. For our purposes in terms of the conversation, youth is best understood as a period of transition from dependence of childhood to the independence of delta. This makes it more of a third category rather than a fixed age group and in fact ifes approaches Youth Engagement is designed to address two distinct cohort that is young people have not yet reached the edge to vote versus young adults who have. Another note here that the United States hallmark moment is 18 years of age and elsewhere different voting ages. After 21 years data 16 years. This is one of the reasons we dont remark at a particular age as categories of youth. In light of the demographic statistics i mentioned a moment ago, it seems clear the numbers speak for themselves in terms of justifying much critical to address the needs of young people globally. Recent largescale youth survey findings reveal insight into attitudes and beliefs surrounding democracy and democratic participation which of course is a critical vehicle ensuring citizens are addressed. Some survey findings suggest young people are not fully engaged in their countries. For example according to the 2015 barometer survey, 40 of African Youth never discuss politics with friends and family and 60 of never contacted a local Government Official to resolve community issues. Both of these are indicators of public and political participation or in other words an engaged citizenry. Furthermore, the number one finding from the recent 2015 survey indicates young people in the middle east or in certain democracy could ever work in their region. These findings give cause for concern and yet when asked about top priorities, young people the world over frequently indicate they are interested in contributing to societys in a meaningful way. In fact, a report this month by the International Youth foundation analyst statements and recommendations from dozens of these summits connected over the past two years in addition to my then 10 Large National and regional polls including the two i mentioned a moment ago. What the report found with young people identified economic opportunities, education and Civic Education, citizen participation, governments come anticorruption cometh security, quality and human rights among top concerns. They suggest a generation eager to take on the challenge of leadership with communities the world over to equip young people the tools needed to meet the challenge. As you know, ifes focuses on advancing Good Governance and democratic ways by primarily providing Technical Assistance to election stakeholders and empowered citizens to engage in the process said the under represented including youth, women and other groups have a voice and the way they are governed. Ifes is engaging young people in the process and is crucial to a Democratic Health a dysfunctional culture of democracy exists when young people are informed about principles and translate that knowledge into action for Community Service, leadership, Public Engagement are not electoral participation methods. This commitment to future democratic held positions ifes were to serve as a potential deterrent to radicalization. Ifes implements programs around the world to foster an understanding of Citizens Rights and responsibilities and this is of particular importance for those who have not yet reached the voting age in the country as an extent that body of research in the fields of education and Human Development suggesting intervention helps establish and demand lifelong patterns. The framework in mind i would like to turn out to our panelists for some discussion. Thank you for humoring me they are. They are. Were all here to discuss how our work contributes to Youth Development broadly. I would like to pose a question for each panelists. In your opinion, what are the most persistent challenges in terms of civic and Political Engagement confronting people in your region . Good morning, everybody. First let me thank a gusto for moderating their very grueling and very wide discussion today and also think the office of congresswoman for hosting this event today. In terms of the middle east and north africa where i work for most of us know what the basic challenges are that it existed before the revolution to place in 2011 and continue to exist even now. For example, this is an issue that continues to be pretty prevalent in the middle east and north africa. Some countries as much a 70 of the population is under the age of 30 and in most of the middle east and north africa the population age continues to be under the age of 25. 50 or more under the age of 25. This is a phenomenon that will continue another decade and will have a large effect on people in the middle east and north africa. The lack of Educational Opportunities and highlevel unemployment which may range in countries between 25 and 40 is also the name many young people were protesting about unemployment has increased in many countries in the middle east and north africa. Tied with this is the lack of upward mobility. This means many young people are unable to get jobs, get married and have families and this can have a big impact on their psychology. Specifically in regard to civic and Voter Education and Political Engagement, theres four points of light to bring out. First is prior to the revolution in 2011, many people in the country of the region have not had any sort of experience with democracy. The concept of democracy was fairly new and in those countries where elections are held, a lot of this is very surface level. Who are older than the youth age. We also have president s and many of the countries that are well beyond the age, the median age for example indiana and he was four times the median age of 18. 5 in yemen. So i think that young people have walked the democratic process and they show that less and less think democracy will work in their country compared to 2012 with the number of 72 had hoped for democracy and now only 38 say theres a potential for democracy to work in the region so i think that we see a lack of trust continuing in the democracy itself and then finally we should also mention that Political Institutions are weak and this has allowed many nonstate actors to move in. Weve seen the margins of isis and al qaeda and space taking control and increasingly starting to radicalizing to recruit through very many skilled methods so those are the same reasons the Political Engagement hasnt been very strong. Before 2011 and since this doesnt mean that its all bad news. Part of what we see in the survey is that there is still optimism in the region. They are optimistic about their future. They do still see countries like the u. S. As allies so this is something that we could make work in our favor. Additionally it doesnt need to be an issue. If it is accompanied in the policies as we have seen in korea and japan or accompanied by strong market policies as weve seen in east asia they could end up being a positive and not a negative. Dividends there are so many followup questions i want to ask about. Some of the things you mentioned that i think it would be helpful to have some other comments. So if are any of the challenges weve seen similar or different from the issues just highlighted . Let me start there. A lot of the issues raised are very similar to a lot of dynamics weve seen in africa and i think what i would like to add to the discussion is thinking specifically about africa and Central Africa is a one of the Biggest Challenges is a general failure of the state institutions to deliver Economic Growth and better opportunities that undermines any link that you might try to create between engagement and sort of an improvement in your own life and so that is essentially a major challenge to the Youth Engagement broadly but more specifically and then juxtaposing that there are a lot of political actors that are sort of looking to instrumental ways to sort of further their own political gain and offer an immediate access to some sort of an authority raises a fundamental question of how do you support the long game of Economic Development more attractive when there are different factors that are sort of instant gratification. Thank you. Do you have anything to add to your regional experience. I trust the microphone is working. So there are a couple of things i want to add to the things that were said previously. In asia, one of the largest concerns is the lack of the channels to be heard in the bigger determined to be most important at that that other people are not determining to be important. We see a lot of the same things that were spoken about earlier the levels of apathy and 70 of young people said they dont care about politics. Theres a high level of Political Violence in a number of countries into quite a bit of disagreement how they are transferred in countries and this is at the essence of change can happen through official channels in high levels of apathy among the population. This leads to some of the movement to take the actions that matthew was talking about earlier. In some of the countries unlike the middle east where theyve gone through the spring. Her not considered agents of change. And in many cases there is a lack of policies and these often are a part of not only marginalized groups themselves but triple marginal groups and again with disabilities that are part of other ethnic groups in the countries that they are operating in so they are facing further obstacles to participation. The other thing that we see is a lack of skills in order to advocate and address grievances nonviolently so just knowing how they can get involved in some of these particular processes. Like i said there is a high tolerance of violence and it is perpetrated by young people that are often encouraged to take to the streets on behalf of Political Parties and engage in violent acts and its perpetrated by police and the culture in the countries where there is a high tolerance for violence. So this is then seen as an appropriate tool. Violence is inappropriate to engage. The last one is a sense of meaning and i think that we are all looking to live meaningful lives. When it comes to young people it is an important or an intense time because you are trying to find out where to find meaning and its in a number of different ways whether that is an economic meaning for your child, whether it is a sense of political participation or you are part of a social movement and so this makes it particularly vulnerable to people who are looking to exploit the School Curriculum that promotes alternative views or radical views on involvement. They are susceptible to Political Parties who want to use them to mobilize them and susceptible to groups that are providing this sort of sense of immediate meaning to be part of something thats bigger than them. But i think it is critical this changes over time country by country so it is as broad as asiapacific and its quite difficult. Thank you very much for those comments. I know im not supposed to be commenting now because we are talking about regional issues that you gave me a couple of good entry points including the fact that regional generalities can also change, and likewise we can see global trends. I wanted to pick up on a point in the marginalizations at the concerns that we have for the youth looking at young women in particular young girls and their access to the process and this is a concern that isis has china ways a priori be here at the u. S. Government and the girls in the Girls Education and this is a key piece to access for girls into the political process. Often times in regions of the work that we work around the world, parents, communities have to make choices about who goes to school and young, poor girls are often the least recognized families and communities as meeting the education or the trace that is made between the sun and the daughter and father and the son is chosen for reasons that tie to a number of cultural understandings with the sun we can invest and hope for the future in the community so as not to put the burden squarely on the parents either but i think the lack of access is a key moment for girls and i think another piece of that in terms of societal burdens is early marriage and making sure that girls can stay in school so that they can continue to progress in their societies and become leaders in their societies. When we talk about politics in particular, there is a sort of masculinity of politics that this is mens work or boys area and thats Something Else we try to break down the barriers and do so as soon as possible is critical. So just to raise security. So a lot of the places that we are working our unstable and they are transitioning to peace and often times the restructured his severely the movement is severely restricted which means that they cannot necessarily participate in meetings in public life in the same way that men and boys can. Theres a lot a lot of a lot of discussions on the challenges. One followup i want to ask the panelists because it came up more than once, i would like to explore this idea of Political Parties both math and julia mentioned this and maybe it looks different across the region but can we talk more about how that might have been or why joining the youth wing of the party might be of interest and then how the parties abused a position. I think the example that comes to mind for me is a country that isis is working in currently and so one of the major issues in the process has been for over cmd sse that is the ruling party eventually essentially creating a youth wing for its Political Party to act. Its a very militarized wing of the Political Party entity essentially act as goons. They basically strongarmed people into behaving the way that the ruling party wants them to behave. Its as policemen and to initiate violent confrontations with protesters into sort of in an effort to have everything spirals out of control. As a, i think that is somewhat of an extreme example with a lot of the movements that are very active in eastern congo. There are certainly other forms that are equally extreme. Where i think that becomes attractive to the youth to join again we are talking about youth that dont have much in the way of opportunities otherwise and we are also talking about political systems that are very concentrated in the system. Its not a very diverse economy. Its the most immediate way to get access to resources on a sort of meaningful scale through political activity and more disenfranchised youth is the only way to do that through this militant kind of engagement. What will that mean for the future . Can young people that are part of this Movement Come back and serve in Public Office in an ethical or non corrupt way . I suppose thats really depends on what unfolds after this conflict. But i think one of the major challenges with transitions in general is how do you bring these actors and especially young ones and this is something jessica can speak to him the line between the victim and perpetrator is kind of blurred because they can be seen as both in some sense. How do you bring them back into the fold once the stability has returned and of the goal has moved forward in that situation. They are very much run by folks and adults and grownups that are part of the party rather than having their own platforms into their own associations. Ive lost my second point i will come back when i remember. It relates to the escalation of the conflict to the topic of radicalization and how you attempt to bring those that have been fighting into a more democratic process and this is something that they are struggling within many of the countries that we are working in. The reintegration of young men and boys we are very concerned about how to address running around with an ak47 or sitting around in town Hall Meetings having conversations about politics. Its not so easy to nick that transition and tunic that shift in a society that has been so unpredictable and unsafe for so long so i think that is a key piece that we are concerned about. We cant just treat them as a monolith. People come to this for their own reasons some of which are very different and i just want to recount an anecdote ive been following very closely the protests over the Garbage Disposal issues and recounted by somebody i follow on facebook who have been part of these protests and she talked to some who were perpetrating violence and the majority of the group had turned against them and was trying to get into the arrested were to have the Security Forces take them out. They engaged with them and started talking about some of the issues and along the course of the day, they became some of the biggest allies. So there is a sense that engagement of young people on a personal level can make him an honest difference. We talked to the panel about some of the challenges and the trends across the region. I would like to ask if we could turn to some of our programmatic examples. It would be nice to hear a little bit more about what we are doing. I think if we think about the larger scene and some of the things we can view to address the challenges, one of the first things that i would say is we do need to focus on building more democracy of civic awareness and civic mindedness especially among the youth maybe even targeting a younger audience than we typically target. Not only voting age youth, but a slightly younger grade school or secondary school level and this is something we are hoping to do in tunisia where we are going to work with the ministry of education, which of course we would need to work with government authorities to introduce Civic Education in the School System itself. We hope to be working with them to introduce the idea of voting and we will be doing voting simulations for the youth introducing the idea of pacific responsibility. I think it is extremely important to introduce at a very young age primarily because when people grow up in the concept of democracy, they have different expectations and i think right now in the middle east and north africa people are still trying to figure out what democracy means and if it has an impact. Whereas people that are read that they have High Expectations and work within the system this is something that when i was reading about some of the recent protests that took place in south america i noticed that some of the leaders were saying that they were not trying to topple democracy. They were trying to work within it and they had High Expectations of what the democracy should offer them. So to bring people up to these concepts early on i think would have higher dividends and a higher impact on the system. I also do think that in our programs and isis does do this, we try to empower individuals as well as the Civil Society organizations and some examples i can give our work that weve done with the group called i watch that we helped over a twoyear period build their capacity and skills to monitor Campaign Finance and advocate on issues of importance around Campaign Finance. And also, in libya we worked on the Womens Leadership Program which not only helps young women to understand the concepts related to democracy and civic awareness but also helped to give them skills to allow them to be in the public sphere and by that i gained i mean they gain some skills and capacities to be able to take what they have learned and use it in the internships they got and many of these young women then went on to take the positions in places like the predators office. I think the Partner Group also hired one of the Staff Members and we had some that joined the staff in the Election Commissions are giving them actual skills is important and i wanted to mention one of the other things they do is mainstream activities in the program this is the way that we can most sustainably introduced the youth programming into the projects. Youth are such a big part of the countries that we do need to think about when we are thinking and deciding things like the registration projects. But also, they can sure that the government is able to take the concerns and facilities consultations in a twoway dialogue. A lot of them feel their voices are not heard. They are still not being consulted and they do not have decisionmaking powers and i think one of the things i six can do is facilitate some of these complications and dialogue. This is the kind of thing that we are hoping to do with the democracy for him in the future where we will be connecting the groups with the interim government and the Opposition Council as well as increased conversations. You illustrated clearly the classic problem of the tension between wanting to effect change outside the system versus engaging in the institution. And young people sometimes have a difficulty navigating that transition. And they are passionate about the issue and passionate about not wanting to engage with what is seen as a corrupt or ineffective body. So programs that can help do tend to be sustainable and effective. Would you care to share some aspects . I think in some sense all of the work is in chile is aimed at building a strong and sustainable Democratic Institution that actually delivers on what they are supposed to deliver in a sort of economy and society and i think that is one of the key aspects of promoting engagement in general but specifically the Youth Engagement. Its almost meaningless to talk about engagement if there isnt some sort of a working government with which to engage and there isnt a link between the active and engaging and eventual results that come from it. So in that sense all of the work that isis does have a sort of engagement component as one of the end results. We do specifically work with the youth in the programming and in africa we do have one great example one thats just starting at a very youth focused project and basically what it is we are doing a survey basically i think the idea is that it was going to address this sort of low rate of the registration and so its going to start with a survey that is going to try to get an understanding of why they are registering in such low numbers and then from there there will be a Civic Education campaign that is going to be designed to get more to register. And then along with that, theres also going to be those working with the minister of education and the institute of Curriculum Development and Curriculum Development and the Election Commission to develop a secondary School Curriculum. Basically this fixed curriculum which are kind of rare in africa at the School Curriculum that are focused on civics and how to engage appropriately with the government institutions. So that is a really exciting opportunity. Up until now our engagement has been mainstream into the programs and more specifically into the civic and Voter Education just because thats something we do a lot of in africa there is a huge need to spread information about how to vote and why to vote and why is a democratic system sort of an idea system for africa. The way we do that for the most part is a couple of ways. One of them is to work directly with the youth in the delivery. This is where the youth are so limited facetoface Voter Education we make sure that our partners are going to schools to do it. And then finally is developing this ever end civilly and Voter Education. Its the radio shows that appeal to you for comic books or refunds on contests and. That is one of the ways that we specifically reach out. Is does that degrade the seriousness of upholding the right as a citizen to cast the ballot when there is that materials are having to Voter Education spinnaker they were done sort done for because does the election day was getting up close and there was one done in tandem with more substantive civic and Voter Education. I think the goal and they were appreciated and quite visible. The day of the elections could be pretty tense and there was the fear that there might be incidence of violence so the idea was to create that atmosphere right before the elections just to help get out the vote. I i wanted to take a quick comment about the writers and the level of the violent extremism in the different countries. So in the form of the radicalization of different then the audience and theres a number of activities that are similar across the regions but i wanted to highlight the training that we work on in the countries where the violence is localized. We have a program that his people is people against violent interactions and we have been quite successful bringing in young Political Party members to be trained for the young local leaders members of Civil Society organizations who come to the trainings and learn ways they can get involved in ways so understanding the roots of violence and how it affects the electoral process and understanding what type of activities that can become involved in and how to hold townhall for example, how to lead peaceful rallies. So we build on these resolution type of Skills Including debate and advocacy skills so filling a that gap of the skill building. And example we have a debate exercise. In some of the places we teach islamic democracy workshops and theres an opportunity to explore that means in relationship to the Democratic Values in all these cases is to equip people to talk about the things on their mind and the idea they already have to provide them the vocabulary and resources to articulate this to other audiences. Another area that we are involved in is the civic leadership camps. We do this in the philippines and bangladesh. Its a Civic Education experience and then go on and do things in their own communities and these are things that are of interest so it might be waste disposal, it might be clean water initiatives, it could be just having discussions about the level of violence in society bringing together the groups to talk about something that line that dont come together in the happiest discussion. And i wanted to do a followup. The issue of the students are addressing are the products of the design or that part is key and that is something that we discovered in practice and again its awkward to sit up here and talk about young people when youre not a younger person but its young person but its key to note we work with organizations and the answers come from the students that participated. Its down bound to exploit them are manipulating the youth to support other issues that are not coming from the youth themselves. There are two more things i would like to touch on before you to audience questions. We have some interesting points earlier in the comments and i would like to come back to those and see if we can delve into them a little bit more. You talked about some of the barriers that young women and girls face and i would like to follow up now on what solutions are available to the barriers. Im happy to talk about those but before i do that i just wanted to pause and acknowledge that today is wednesday and on the hill this is an important day for congressman jackson lee and her colleagues. They wear red on wednesdays so i try tried to find some this morning in my closet and in memory and support for the girls in Northern Nigeria i just want to speak to this issue for a few minutes its a great thing they are doing to continue to wear red on wednesday because this is an issue thats happening to young women and young boys around the world constantly. They are going to school and their parents assume they are going to learn and then they dont come home. I am not an expert in nigeria but i did live in northern uganda for a long time and a similar incident happened. The girls were of abducted in the Lords Resistance Army taken into captivity. Similarly, there was a mounting support maybe if twitter existed it would have helped. And in fact i was in uganda when the last girl returned sometime after so please dont give up on that campaign and lets not forget about the other girls and boys around the world world thought they were leaving for school one morning and are now in captivity for armed violence. Apologies for that advertisement that but it is an important one to acknowledge. It prioritizes the democracy and governance work. We understand not everybody can participate in the same way whether it is women and men or persons with disabilities. We are looking for ways to reduce those barriers and find pathways to participation and so for the work with young women and girls we mentioned a leadership project that we have and we are doing this around the world and i just want to say that isis does have similar projects and themes that we address but they are tailored to the unique experience of the girls and women that are involved in the countries so for libya theres an interesting dynamic that most are educated and go to school and some are highly educated with advanced degrees but then they go home, they dont work in libya. So during the spring many women were outside of the home for the first time participating in the revolution and then they kind of went back to the womens leadership project targets those young women and we included an internship to say to help support efforts to say what happens after education and that doesnt mean that you just go home. But i also want to mention that we did this and how we are learning from our experience we do recognize and support the fact that for young people we need to create an involvement with family members that we didnt anticipate as we held a leadership training that there would be so many husbands and brothers showing up so this was something the Program Staff found that come to support those that are moving outside of their home and so isis is learning from the different context this is a critical piece we must engage family members and support them and in fact, in our iterations beyond those initial trainings, we are including the band that are supportive of the women to participate in these trainings and we are not just sort of accidentally providing meals but convening them to say what is it that is important and why are we gathered. There are many involved in the womens leadership training that they were very focused on the Community Peace building. That is the thing they wanted to get from the leadership skills. As of the program was more tailored to that. I think matt talked a lot of the pacific and Voter Education. Women consistently lack the information about how to register to vote and so targeted campaigns aimed at young women and girls is critically important to inspire interest. It is a Great Organization called running start thats usbased that focuses on providing pathways for young women to politics, and one of the species is the tenure is important to Political Leadership so the longer you are in power the higher up you go and get why men tend to start in politics later in life after theyve had families, etc. So that means they are junior when they come into the position to inspire them to start earlier and that is a critical piece we need women and girls participating in political and electoral processes but also to leave those political and electoral processes. Those comments i come as a sort of general inclusion perspective so all of the programs ive been involved with serve both girls and boys. Its refreshing and needed to have a conversation about particular Education Needs and support needs girls would face in furthering their Civic Education and leadership. Theres one other thing i would like to explore before we move into the period. I feel in the context of this discussion its something that needs to be raised. Often used in the Information Technology and social media are discussed in the same breath, so much has been made on the role of social media and recruiting people to extremist movements and so forth. And i would like to ask the panelists whether they have a role in engaging people to do the exact opposite and if you could share your thoughts about that and a programmatic example if it exists where weve been able to do that successfully. Absolutely they have a big part to play in the youth programming today. We saw of course with social media and the internet did for the revolution in 2011 and people were able to share photos and videos and talk about their experience as it happened on the ground and got engaged much of the global audience in those movements as well but we also see the internet used as a tool by organizations that are highly skilled at using such tools and they use it for recruitment and target as young people creating games providing content in different languages like arabic and farsi. There are those that simulate defeating your enemy, going on war missions. So the opposite exactly, the opposite. And speaking of women, this is a tool that can be used. Young people can educate themselves on their own time and they can do it with the computer, smart phones, so this is one of the main ways to create a social identity online. So just as the internet can be used for that, we need to be thinking about how we can use the Civic Engagement and Political Engagement to counter this kind of content as well. It can be a platform for positive engagement and so while discussing civic and data that might not be as interesting as some of the more radical propaganda thatso

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