Test test. Test test test. Test test. Test test test. Test test test. Test test test. Test test test. Test test test. Test test test. Test test. Test test u. S. Policy responses to the significant stability of challenges presented by somalia which was literally and completed failed state, but where there is a Multi Lateral military presence where weve played a significant role and i think theyve made a substantial success in pushing back, where were expending less in money but boca horan last year was literally the deadlyiest terrorist organization in the world. It should get and deserves higher priority as senator cane suggested that are really unappealing. Gets more oil from the continent of africa than we do from the middle east. We long ago would have put africa at the top of our list and i am concerned that we are allowing others to become dominant players in africa and were lagging. Last in the weve really predominantly left the hard work to an au mission to the un and to the french. These are very different responses, in all three, there are no significant u. S. Troop deployments. We may be central to the activity in somalia and in nigh jeer yar nigeria. Its a quite different scenario. Where are we getting the best bangs for our buck. Where are we making the biggest progress in terms of advances our values and security concerns and what role was Diplomacy Development security play in this work, if you would in series whats the strategic framework for making progress. Ill start and turn to my colleagues. I think you asked early, what lessons we have learned and i think the most valuable lesson weve learned is that this had to be multi facetted. It cannot be just focused on security and military. We have to bring in the civilian agencies and we also have learned that we cant own it. We have to build the capacity of local organizations, local Civil Society. We have to build their capacity to own it and we have to be supportive of them. Third, i think, weve learned that we have to partner, so in this case, weve been extraordinarily proactive, but were not in the lead. We have been involved in the peace negotiations. Our military has been extraordinarily supportive of the french effort there. There are so many problems across the continent, we have to spread ourselves very thin and we have to look for other partners and in that case, weve worked very closely with our partners in the u. N. As well as in the french government to make sure that were having impact on the situation in the sale. And then, finally, this has been said in the room by everyone, we have to be concerned about human rights. We have to ensure that these governments understand that human rights are important for us and, as ive said before as core value, and they expect to hear from us on human rights issues. If we dont raise human rights, i think everyone of them would be in shock, so we generally start out in that area with all of these governments. And if i might interrupt before we continue, we had an exchange earlier about prior toization of democracy where it ranked appropriately said in senator and i are both appropriators and heard that loud and clear and it is an issue that i have pressed in resent appropriation hearings. We are under funding democracy and governance dramatically. That is something ive made appropriate. Appropriations request this year, because frankly we send the wrong message and i appreciate the senator raising concerns about drc and their shrinking space for elections if we dont fund our values and values essentially are around democracy and space for. I think we have a lot of opportunities here with partnering with governance, local communities making sure that were touching people on the ground where they live and not just working with institutions and capitals. I agree with you. The mcc, i was frankly pleased that tanzania because of electoral irregularities and failure to effectively address corruption suffered a really unwelcomed set back for them. And this weekend the great opportunity for us to continue engagement and the administration is sending ambassador from in and fred hod berg, if you would, might have the time to have them conclude. Thank you. I think the Lessons Learned in each of these three conflict areas that youve pointed out, that we have in the african continent, partners. They are committed to the solution. Thats something that may be unique globally in the way terrorism issues are being addressed. Each of the three examples you provided has the neighbors coordinating. It hasnt been easy. It takes constant diplomatic effort to coordinate and keep the momentum in each of these areas, but the solution you would want in somalia is a solution thats developed in materials of attributing countries to amazon. Its an au led mission. The region addressing its own problems and, of course, the bigger challenge there also is that these are governance that are generally speaking in many cases weak and poor and lack in capacity and sustained solution over time that addresses the radicalization. So its a longterm effort here but the buy in and commitment of the countries themselves to solving the problem is a virtue. Absolutely. I think the fighting is terrorism is every bit as urgent and large in scale as it is in the middle east. The key difference we have allies who are putting the soldiers into the fight. Theyre fighting and dying against terrorism in and we are providing critical support, training, funding and resources, but unlike other places in the world, we have significant numbers of willing allies who are sending their troops into the fight and its made a real difference and we should be grateful for their partnership and im grateful for your service and the question to ask questions today. Very good. Senator murphy. Thank you very much mr. Chairman. I wanted to follow up on some of the questions senator asks regarding the interaction of Security Assistance and, assistance provided by the state department in 2014, it was the first time that d. O. D. Funding for Security Assistance in africa surpassed that provided by the state department comes through a lot of different places, but in particular, rather opaque fund that the pentagon runs calls building partner, capacity, which is about 10 billion globally is increasingly the source of d. O. D. Funds to stand up military capacity. And so ambassador thomas, i wanted to ask you about to what extent the state department and the bureau is read in to the decisions made of the department of defense to spend building partner capacity dollars. Its a huge amount of money globally. 10 billion a lot of it is spent in africa. The extent to which individual ambassadors have a say to how that money is spent to make sure that it isnt counter acting the work that theyre doing on the ground and, you know, your broader thoughts on sort of longterm transition away from the majority of money in these countries being state department money to department of defense money. We have an annual strategy review meeting with them where our dcms from across africa and usai. D. , Mission Directors are invited to come to guard on their on my colleague from usai. D. Linda is there as well. We look across the board at what they planning to do and look at what theyre planning to do in the context of our mission programs. In terms of our own strategy. We do work closely with them. Our ambassadors have veto power on any actions that theyre taking. Any programs that theyre doing and in general if theres disagreement, they work those disagreements out between ourselves. So were very much in sync with them. We wish we had that 10 billion to program on the continent of africa and we would be doing some Different Things we want to help them channel that money. 10 billion would be a huge contribution to democracy and governance. I described my funding as scraping the mayonnaise jar to get just enough to do the job that we have to do. How much just tell me, how much do you have in governance. Let me get back to you with that figure. Its a moving target. Okay. So i would submit that its probably well less than. Oh, yes. What the department of defense is spending in the partner capacity, which by the way is not broken down on country by country basis, as members all we know theres 10 billion spent at the department of defense. Im glad youre optimistic to the degree of coordination thats happening. You know, for members of the appropriations committee, its probably a topic that should get more attention. Let me ask one additional my colleague yield for one second, ill give you some extra time. I think youre raising a fundamental point. We have a couple of members that serve in the armed services. Its been a growing problem, as we get to the bill, theres another effort as ambassador pointed out there may be efforts made to even expand dods role in traditional state department areas. Thats what happens when youre engaged in very dangerous places. But i am not optimistic as the witnesses as to the ability to coordinate this work on a country by country basis. Its an effort. In the president s request increasing support for dng programs in africa and fy 17 the request for their sector is 20 of above what we did in 2015. Our figure for 2015 is 286 million and our figure for request for 1611 million. So when we are looking at 300 million on a good day and democracy assistance and then were handing out potentially ten times that amount of money in an account that has very little oversight from the United States congress, it tells these countries what we think is most important and as part of this balance, its difficult to do when the numbers are that skewed in favor of military and Security Assistance. To that and i dont know exactly who to put this question to, but maybe ill ask it to you and to others. In these three conflict zones that were talking about, can you talk a little by about this mystery, which is the attractiveness of a hobby oriented. That are often dominated by musli muslims. Some of it has to do with young men who go to the middle east to get taught in schools, funded by our allies in the middle east. We hear that from those. As you pointed out, there are likely a variety or number of different vehicles through which these ideas are or this etiology penetrates in society. This is not something that is limited, unfortunately, to areas of africa. We see it in southeast asia. We see it in other places where youve had to historically kind of approach or more kind of an approach to religion and faith that is tolerant of other traditions. That is being kind of worn down by this etiology and then that causes polarization, it causes intolerance. It causes conflict. Its a problem globally. It also relates probably to the spread of media, people have access to media coming from different parts of the world and there have been media funded through from coming out of certain regions that have propagated or emphasized a particular view. So there are a number of different vehicles and its a major or what are those influences. Thats where the difficult work of countering balancing will be will be identifying through research and through data, understanding. I want to thank our panelist and i think you can see theres a lot of interest in what we had to talk about today. If you could, well have questions, i know, after this if you could respond fairly quickly. Well take questions until the close of business on thursday. But we thank you for your service to our country and if you could with your crew, we would like to shift out now to another panel, okay. Thank you very much. Second witness will be mr. Christopher, senior associate and regional director for central. Limiting remarks within five minutes. My purpose today would be first i want to briefly update you on what we have learned about stability in africa and second i would share a view on the possible approach to mitigate the threats to peace in what is often referred to as africas arc of instability, which encompasses the link, and the hone of africa. 1 in 2015 from a growth of 5 in 2014. In countries like kenya and nigeria, so the protection of 5 of tourism following terrorist attacks. We estimate, that at least 33,000 people have died on african soil since 2011 as victims of violence. And 6 million are currently displaced do to radicalization. Theyll to be found in the popularity of and that makes sense in the exclusion as much and week social contracts was high level or societal divisions among ethnic. Two, the must grounds for the radicalization are the border areas, which are in most of the countries neglected or governed, with governance and in terms of social economic and social institutional infrastructure. Three, while there are a number of commonalities, which radicalization, there are also impotent differences between countries, for example, social economy factors tend to be prominent drivers in the south, the lake theyre much more in ken kenya. It is with this in mind that embarked on the elect approach which seeks to address the multiple drivers and enablers of radicalization. Governance, communities, and at risk to address the drivers and related factors. We are walking in epi center, countries and other countries and in atrisk countries, supporting partners to implement integrated and National Policies and strategies. Flow community and faith based to prevent youth radicalization and local conflicts. Well also promote social at the community level, working in local and National Governance to provide basic social services to citizens. And the extension of authority. We have learned offer the best approaches to combatting violence. Let me conclude. Government partners, i thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Is that correct pronouncement. Its correct. Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the national institute, i appreciate the opportunity to discuss terrorism and instability and make the case for why democracy and good governors should be a Center Component of any contractors and Stabilization Strategy in africa. Safeguard elections and promote participation and accountability and government. The institute has conducted programs aimed or work with participants from approximately 50 of africas 54 countries and have been fortunate to be part of in many of those countries for the past two decades. Terroristic activities in africa over the past decade, the continent and roll back some of the gains political space and participation since the third wave of that began in the 1990s. Groups such as in northeastern nigeria, are catering the islamic enough and so mollian of africa have caused tens of thousands of deaths and tremendous economic dislocations. For civilian populations sochl of these extremist organizations are operating in africa are eager to with other parts of the world, notably and the Islamic State of iraq and syria isis. The International Communities rank and important Counter Terrorism efforts that seek to defeat the groups militarily and must at the same time assist the effected countries to address the root causes and triggers of the rise in extremism and violence. The place for motivation of today easter rorist in africa is deeply rooted in the of religious believes, however, it is noteworthy that governors failures have exacerbated the impact of this phenomenon and created an environment in which extremism tries. When a state collapses as was the case with somalia prior to the. All allows for huge s. W. A. T. S of governor spaces as was the case in northern all the social contract between the state is broken. Discontent with governance that are viewed as e lil jit mat or ineffective is the Fertile Ground for recruitment as effected individuals may easily embrace efforts to counter extremism and tourism in africa must my own experience and what i hear loud and clear from african democrats leaders and activists alike across the continent, i will strongly offer reck mep dagss. Any Counter Terrorism strategy for africa should be grounded in the edition of democracy and Good Governance such that shortterm military victories can be sustained in the medium to longterm. We cannot afford to defeat violent extremism now only to take up the same fight, five, ten years down the road. Two, bureaucratic regimes should not get a pass from the International Community solely because theyre good partners in the fight against terrorism. Shrinking political space, frequent violation of Citizen Rights and freedoms and the under mining of constitutional rule and meaningful elections breed discontent and dise fex that fert tile ground for recruiters and perpetrators of violence and extremism. Good partners extremism and tourism can and should be good performance and democratic governance. This, these two principles are not mutually exclusive. In fact, theyre mutually reinforcing. Africans of this generation are extremely fearful of relieving the experience gross human rights abuses just because some leaders were allies of the west at the time. The fight against terrorism should not become a institute for the pair dime of this in africa. Are not allowed to fester and breathe extremism, dissatisfaction and from the state during to deprive extremist of possible recruitment grounds and after the peace that would have been gained militarily for the medium to long term. Excessive depravation in both terms and in access to political voice freedoms and Civil Liberties make young people vulnerable to recruitment incentives of movements to conclude, let me say that this enthusiasm of a few years ago and some remarkable accomplishments in the last two decades, democracy and governors in africa is under attack. It is challenged for extremist terrorist organizations and on the other hand in some cases that fear to combat corruption and protect rights and freedom. The company should do everything in its power to help read the continent of both threats. Friends of africa must make sure that they do not willingly or inadvertently allow themselves to become accomplices to allow basic rights and freedom and secure feature. Thank you mr. Chairman and members of the committee for this opportunity. This is a brief and will be submitted for the record. We thank you both for your testimony and i want to turn to our distinguished member. I want to thank you both of you for your oral presentations as well as full statements that are being made part of our record. I have eve had a chance to look through it and its certainly reinforces the concerns that i have eve had. I want to get a little bit more granular here. Both of you mentioned the importance of the underlying causes of radicalization and although we have to deal. We have incredible tools. Undp is incredibly important part of our International Efforts to help develop the pros sparety in countries that we hope would provide the longterm stability necessary and its Incredible Service in developing democratic opportunities around the globe and United States and Development Assistance and Security Assistance. These are tools that can provide incredible opportunities for stability globally. And yet we point out that in africa, we have not been as successful as we need to be. So therefore, my question to both of you, what has worked that we should build on. I see your specific recommendations. How do you take the current programs that are available, United Nations or private organizations or through government, how do you take those programs what programs need to be reconfigured because theyre not providing the returns for the investments that are being made. Can we be a little more specific here. Let me say when you were listening to the previous panel, what you say is music to my years. It comes down to Good Governance. This is the fact first in africa and the we have seen ungovernance basis has been development but the insecurity that were seeing in the continent. Youre right. We have Good Practices. The issue that is seen here, most of these countries have very limited space and hence cannot deliver to scale the Good Practice that were doing. I think the solution is number one, not only are we leaving ourself to military solution, but in the military and. Im just coming from kenya where i saw an Excellent Partnership between the two countries in the region what theyre doing initiatives. We havent discussed a lot in doing the first panel. Its at the border. Obviously doesnt have the luxury of governmental entity or if you say or more International Organizations such as undp. With the resources that weve always received graciously from some of the agencies, weve tried to put a lot of emphasis on developing society because when you look at the statistics or the studies done by organizations such as and i reference that in my recent statement, 7 to 5 of africans aspire to live in democratic societies, believe in demo kra si. So the demand and Good Governance continues to rise on the continent. Unfortunately, the supply is shrinking and so programs that can allow the expansion of political space would bring more citizens into the process. It would also allow the citizens to advocate for the proper management of resources that are channeled to governance or that created within this strengthening citizen based organizations because of some of them are very active, especially in including royal areas in some of the areas impacted by the grievances. I will extend that for example there are a number of groups that engage in presence. I engage with some of the people that are dealing with trauma and organizations sometimes receive support from india and other organizations in helping on behalf of citizens. I agree with both. Border issues, its a good point and we need to concentrate more complicated because the problems can go across borders and therefore the country. You know, not sure what host country is responsible unless you have partnership complicated, difficult. I certainly agree with you on Civil Society. If you dont have a healthy Civil Society, it breeds the problems and that is the reality or perception that you can get a free pass from the United Nations or from the United States if you are working with what you do internal in your country will not really be a major importance to the International Participation and support. That, to me, whether its real or perceived can be a huchlk problem in dealing with Civil Society ordealing with Good Governance ordealing with democratic institutional development, just share with me your concern as to whether the leaders of countries that are working with us have the view that the International Community will give them a free pass on govrnl nance issues as long as theyre part of our issues on violent extremism. For us human for whatever we do. And its not negotiable. So you really doe ploy out of country if you cant get the cooperation that you need from the leaders. Are you willing to pull out of the country, if you said its a bedrock. Its most important point. When you pull out theres a cost to community. So what we do is but i think we as the u. N. Could be better off to support capacities and ka support communities and help countries with these human rights. It takes time, it may not happen over night. Ill say that its here and that you hear as you travel across the continent, Partner Organizations within Civil Society. That when you go through the list of countries that have become poor performance, some that were initially that are backsliding, that those countries happen to be terrorism and its perception that that that on the minds all of the declarations and all of the work that has been done to support Civil Society in the past the example that you raised early its obviously it if iet been backsliding on the front. But its still viewed. Where undertakings are mutually reinforcing and you could be a good on a front and still be a good performer on the democratic governors front. You get short term gains an long term, youll not with the stiep of stability that will provide not only opportunity for citizens but also eliminate the gap im afraid that we have focused on Counter Terrorism from Military Point of view with partners at times to the exclusion of dealing with the development of Good Governance in a country and it seems like this hearing is only spotlight on that. Hopefully we can figure out just in response to the u. N. Youve got to be prepared to walk away if you dont have a partner that is providing a fair opportunity to the people of their country. Its sometimes difficult because you know that there are needs out there that you have to deal with. If its not getting through. Thank you mr. Chairman, what he said is unlikely to have it occur, is it not. Lets just be honest with you, not to talk way afrom the country but invest in the community. We say this is building the social contract and empowering for them or to fight for human rights. Thats an investment i think worth doing. Just to under score the point. Look we always look for way to providing humanitarian help. We look for a way to deal with human crisis that exist. If the host country believes that theyre always going to have a partner regardless of their own activities, you lose the ability to change the under lining problems within that country. And we talk, you know, the first panel is here and we went down this same line of discussion theres no question as they see malfeasance relative to governance and other issues that creates ill will towards the United States, is there . Thats a question. Yes. Obviously, it creates a lot of doubts in the minds of were dealing with a segment of the population thats only going to increase. Its the young people, its the activists. Its the journalist and we know that africa is a young continent. Who love and respect the United States for this values and theyre the ones being put in the position when government that is then used to shrink political space and silent voices. So we end up not creating friends with the segment of the population that is the continent of the future. We understand that we spent 1 of our u. S. Budget on foreign aid, 1 . Theres no question that during the president ial race there will be discussions about foreign aid, i mean, i dont think thats possible for that not to occur. And so, you know, people listening to this testimony that listening to the fact that were on one hand dealing with corrupt leaders that are not treating their populations properly, sending them money that in many ways keeps them em in power if they partner with us on Counter Terrorism more so. We have people that are being treated unfairly, we have one of our Committee Members that are constantly focuses on this issue. As we debate our nations interest, which i think may be more so in this president ial year may be discussed in times in the past if you would both of you advocate to me why believe the continued involvement in countries like the one were discussing is an important thing for the United States to be doing. As i said earlier, although it can be generated. Its a Global Public bad, it belongs to thats why it behooves us to fight them wherever they are. Im not saying that we should give a free pass, but you have to fight it and fight also, thats why thats why its important in this fight. I agree what my copanelist just said. We may remember the initial bombings in tanzania that they did target american institutions, and embassies and americans died in that process. Theyre a threat whether theyre on the homeland or trying to operate overseas. Because their ultimate goal is probably targets than the villages that get destroyed and the number of african countries. I think its important to send for the message that is teaching time is worth nine. And that we all threatened by this phenomenon irrespective of where its finding itself at the present moment. But i i think the challenge is that, some of the middle east, isis, people act if were going to do away with isis in the next with year or two, are missing the fact that the root causes are a long, longterm a long, longterm issue. Same is true in africa. The root causes there are a longterm issue. And i think as americans look at the resources that we have and the needs within our country, sometimes the simple thought that we can deal with terrorism like that and maybe the lack of understanding that there are root causes within africa, within the middle east, that are going to mean if this group is gone, another group is going to be coming right behind it unless were dealing with both sides of the equation. I nigeria and its recommended for its effort. This is one example where an african country that is not necessarily is better able to manage the Economic Resources and human character in a way that gives people confidence that the government can respond to citizen needs and grievances an the countries still doing well today. Thank you. Were way beyond time. If i can just ask one last question, we had a little bit off topic. We had a really sort of hearing if, if you will, about un peace keepers and the abuses that are taking place. And i would just like to ask in closing, when this is happening, what does that also relative to populations and their feelings about their, you know, people who are working with them to keep peace but also how does that fuel, if it does. How does that fuel additional attraction to terrorist groups . Its its not a wide scale, but horrible, whatever it happens, it puts the discredit of the on the good work that is out there and you have seen the secretary general. He condemns it and it still happens. So condemning it doesnt mean anything to me. He has condemned it when it happened lately. He has dismissed the head of the mission. He has named the countries where the soldiers are coming. I think it behooves us to persecute. Who has gone to jail. Yeah. I think once the secretary of general has named the soldiers who has done it. It behooves the countries to persecute. You understand from my perspective that would be like us naming the terrorist as bad guys but doing nothing about it. Do you understand . And the secretary general has always special coordinator, from the u. S. To coordinate the efforts of u. N. Progress and under line the acts. Prosecutions are what not naming people, not naming countries, not prosecution. But, mr. Chair, you would know that the u. N. Has no space for soldiers given, thats why it says it behooves those countries to do the prosecution once they are named. If i might, i want to just join with the chairman, im not satisfied that the United Nations has done everything it needs to do. I understand you dont have independent ability to do that, and i understand you have the politics of dealing with all your members state. With the peace keepers, it was very very late in the game and the action was not adequate and we know that the secretary general is very sincere and we know that Security Council has taken action, but we have not seen the type of enforcement that we expect. And i think the same thing is true with the various programs under the United Nations, that is, the Development Programs are critically important, but if youre not prepared to break your partnership with a corrupt regime, then i think you are doing a disservice. I understand that humanitarian needs, i understand dealing with particularly ngo types where we can do direct humanitarian service, but contracts with governments that are corrupt need to be prepared to walk away and we cannot get the type of progress. We dont expect progress over night. If i can, mr. Chairman, if youre patient, just one quick question to you. What would you like to see the United States do in order to respond to the perception that we give free passes to Coalition Partners in regards to their human rights violations, is there something specific that you would like to see us do . Senator, i think you turned from some of the issues, i think speaking out actions that can reaur sure the vast majority of the country, when the United States democracy is one of its core pillars of its african policies it really means it, so it sends leaders acting with impunity even at the highest level it under minds everything else. I would also mention what you discuss in terms of resources, Additional Resources for democracy and Good Governance programs, democracy support programs and also a sense that the programs to be effective because youre talking about changing attitudes and changing behaviors and impacting, dealing with people who acted one way for decades and who now need to act differently, that sustained level of support is more likely to pay dividends that shut surgical type interventions, because you need time to be able to create relationships of trust, you need time for people to entrust that your Technical Assistance is not partisan and means well in terms of raising the well being of citizens and putting in place systems and processes that can endure beyond one government or one leader and that requires time and so resources, i think that will go a long way. Fortunately for us the three decades that ngi and all the organizations work in this country have a huge impact. You are speaking out regarding the un if its not your area of expertise in our purview and i appreciate. But i think you can understand where none of us at the panel are particularly thrilled what with u. N. Has handled the Peace Keeping issues and called for prosecutions to take place. Let me close with this. I think, this certainly this hearing has given us a good hearing of complexities that exist. We have similar complexities in the middle east that were dealing with countries that, you know leave thesing vacuums discriminate against various sex that are not. This is a challenge we have around the world were dealing with issues like this. But we thank you for your focus today on africa well close that as of thursday afternoon if you can respond fairly