Good afternoon and welcome to the first monday, the first working monday in january. This is partnership of three organizations. My name is adam powell. I am the director of washington operations of the university of Southern California and president of the Public Diplomacy council. Those are two of the partners in the monthly event. The third part any is the Public Policy alumni association. Im pleased to have the president of that organization here to also welcome you. Its my pleasure to welcome all of you and if i could take a moment to just highlight three events that many of you will be interested in. The office of historian of the department of state is putting out the volume of the Foreign Relations of the United States. The documents for Public Diplomacy from 1961 to 1963, which is the kennedy period when many of us date back to. You have to sign up in advance and i think it will be a very interesting exploration of the history of Public Diplomacy. Secondly, one of the things pdaa does is provides awards for the current great Public Diplomacy the work that the department of state, Public Diplomacy officers are doing. We give the awards in may and were beginning to request nominations through the state department over the next month or so. I would ask any of you with contacts in the field to encourage them to nominate there people doing good work for that award. If any of you who are members or would like to consider being members, would like to contribute to the award fund youre more than welcome. Thirdly on february 12th at noon well have our Lunch Program over at decor house called democracy ain human rights and diplomacy. We look forward to many of you coming. Kwou wi you will get information in our newsletter that will be arriving on your doorstep on january 22. Also digitally. Thanks very much. Thanks. We have a Fourth Organization which has been essential these six years of the programs. To todays program, cities and combatting violent extremism. Our speaker is mike duffin. His full bio is in your package. Hes been a schoolteacher. He has contributed to article in the chicago tribune, Chicago Sun Times and other publications and he is someone who holds three advance degrees. He has one from Johns Hopkins in international relations. He had one from northernwerts in journalism and one from the university of Southern California this Public Diplomacy. The floor is yours. [ applause ] there is a price to pay with that education. I want to thank you for inviting me to speak and you for showing up. Can you hear me now . No. Should i it helps if the mike is turned on. Can you hear me now . Yes. Thank you for coming. I know the weather warmed up a bit but its still cold. I would like to thank adam for the Public Diplomacy council for inviting me to speak and thank you for being here. We have a Diverse Group of people in the audience. Ill keep the jargon and acr acronyms to a minimum. If some reason you dont have chance to ask me a question, look me up on twitter. Im happy to respond there as well. Id like to begin by talking about the last couple of years. We have seen a disturbing up tick in the number of mass casualty incidents in cities. Many have been perpetrated by isis and its supporters. Prior to november 2015, isis was urging supporters to come to the so called caliphate in syria and iraq. Tens of thousands of men, women and children answered that call. With paris and other attacks they were telling their supporters to commit acts of violence in their own communities using whatever means necessary. The attacks listed here are h t meant to show the geographic diversity. Some were instructed by isis while others were merely inspired by them. Some used explosives. Some used firearms. Some used knives and others use vehicles to kill and injure dozens of people. At the state department, we are both proactive and reactive in our approach to defeating isis. This is what we refer to as ct. We often say we cannot arrest our way out of the problem which is why countering violent extremism is so important. Its an umbrella term for range of activities focused on prevention, integration. Youll hear some people use building resilience against violent extremism. Youll hear some people say Building Social cohesion. The focus is actual activities that are directed towards countering isis and other groups. Which requires a considerable amount of trust. Third, we need stake holders to share practices, good practices with each other. We say good, not best practices because certainly no one has found way to absolutely counter prevent violent extremism while other every community is unique, theres a lot someone in lebanon could learn from someone in montreal and vice versus. We need the good practices institutionalized so when the educator or Community Leader takes a different position when they move on, we need someone who can take their place and pick up where they left off. Lastly, we need to bring more stake holders into the fold. At the most granular level cve is about engaging at risk individuals and ensuring they build up enough resilience to reject violent extremism. We need parents, educators, coaches, counselors, Business Leaders to get involved. We may not consider an internship, a cve program but if its training at at risk individual, later on they will be more likely to resist the rekrur recruitment pitch of a violent educatio organization. The network started with 25 members and now has 125. Not all members face the significant threat from isis. Some face threats from the far right and some face threats from the far left. There are currently ten u. S. Members of the Strong Cities network. Members connect online and in person through workshops, annual global meetings and exchanges. The United States and several other governments support it and its run through the london based institute through Strategic Dialogue. In addition to our direct support, my office works closely with the state Departments InternationalVisitors Leadership Program to develop exchanges that support participation in the network. In march, 2016, the inaugural brought one city official and one Civil Society representative from ten scn members to the United States for three weeks. Such exchanges help expose Exchange Visitors to good practices in the u. S. And help spread Awareness Among cities. Its built in alumni network. In fact, at least five members of the original scn ivlp have been to both annual meetings. They keep in touch on facebook and have collaborated with each other on their work. In may 2016, turkey hosted the global meeting. About 200 people from 40 countries attended this event that highlighted the diversity of the network. We had the chattanooga mayor speaking there. We had a major from mnigeria tak about his experience being abdu abducted. A year later denmark hosted the Second Annual global meeting. This time about 500 people from 50 countries attended. Right over here we have the mayor. Im going talk about him a bit in the slide. Its partnership between the state department and the department of Homeland Security office of civil rights and civil liberties. This two way Exchange Program has connected about 20 cities around the world with u. S. Counter parts. Our embassy identify the International Cities first and work with dhs to identify we work with dhs to identify the appropriate u. S. Partner city. We try to identify cities with complementary skill sets and those that express an interest in maintaining a connection beyond the exchange. These cities arent necessarily part of the Strong Cities network. Some of them are and we those who are not we encourage them to join. One point i want to mention is when people think of cities to partner with International Cities, the first one may be like los angeles or minneapolis. When you have repeated delegations going to the same city, thats taxing on their schedules and we want connections that people who have the time, capacity to engage their International Counter parts. Lets say today we Exchange Business cards. We want connections where when we introduce them to their u. S. Counter parts they have the ability and the interest in following up and forming partnerships that require a lot of time and effort. Each delegation has five to nine people and typically include someone from the mayors office, Law Enforcement official, religious leader and representatives from Civil Society. One delegation will spend a week in the others city meeting with range of stakeholders and a few months later the two cities will trade roles. Its hard to quantify the success of a program but in one case we can. There was once the highest per capita number of people departing from their city to syria and iraq. After updating their Community Engagement strategy following the exchange, the departures suddenly stopped. We recognize there are multiple factors involved but we have heard from several cities how the exchanges helped. We were able to bring the mayor and brpolice chief. They were able to participate in this exchange. If earlier this year we did an exchange between last year we did an exchange between london and los angeles. It was not feasible to ask mayor kahn to participate in that exchange. We were able to get the deputy mayor of los angeles, the Deputy Police chief to participate. Its just to say theres value in engaging smaller cities. These exchanges may have more of an impact. In december 2016, we partnered with orlando and tampa. We had this exchange planned before the Pulse Night Club attack. There was nothing that we knew about a threat there. For this exchange we arrange meet wings with mayors of orlan and tampa. Such engagements allow us to put cbe on the radar of u. S. Mayors who can champion this issue better than i can. The one thing i want to know about the mayor is he has been very generous with his time. I met with him on several occasions. We had an ivlp from canada come through orlando recently. We had a meeting scheduled with the mayors office, not necessarily with the mayor and he decided when he saw this group was in, he decided to meet with them and spoke to them for about an hour or so. For mayor of a major u. S. City thats extraordinary, that commitment to this issue. This past december we brought a delegation from manchester to boston. Both cities, as you know, have experienced major terrorist attacks. Manchester wanted to learn about bostons efforts to promote resilience following the Boston Marathon bombing. Some of the delegates never worked together. Spending a week in boston helped them build critical relationships. They also developed some ideas for new programming based on bostons efforts to engage at risk youth. I was there. We visited a gymnasium that trains young people who have recently been incarcerated. Trained them to become personal trainers and theres a mentoring component to that. That was one example where the delegation for manchester were really excited about the program and not to say they will necessarily develop a program exactly like that, but they were inspired by that. As we speak, a delegation from boston is traveling to manchester for the second half of that exchange. In april, we brought representatives from ten cn members from macedonia to the u. S. They have had the highest per capita number of people to depart for syria and iraq. This exchange exposed them to good practices in the u. S. And helped them connect to each other. We chose to send this delegation to tennessee and georgia to learn about integration in the civil rights movement. They met with the mayors of nashville and also visited atlanta. One thing id like to point out, they are not necessarily comparable to the theyre large cities are not comparable to our large cities. For me, it doesnt make sense to send a group to new york or los angeles and thats not to say that atlanta is a small city but in the case of chatanooga, 130,000 people t population, they did have the opportunity to sit down and meet with the mayor, police chief. Everybody involved in the attack from two years ago. That was extraordinary for this group and quite inspiring for them. Some of the members of the delegation. One has become a member of parliament. One is the national cbe coordinator for kosovo now and one is the minister of sports. Weve had nice returns in terms of deliverables for that. Id like to talk about the next steps. A few of the things were planning in the future. We will expect 40 to 50 mayors. This is part of an ongoing relationship weve had with u. S. Conference of mayors. They meet twice a year. Its the one forum for ul u. S. Mayors to get together, talk about cross cutting policy issues and to network. When ive attended, im looking for cities that would be interested in hosting ivlp delegations. R. N. Ing to i listening to mayors talk about their priority it helps opportunities for them. If they have a program they are trying to champion. They are very open to sharing that internationally. Ill give you one example. Anaheim mayor, ive been speaking to him for the last two years at the u. S. Conference of mayors meeting in indianapolis in june 2016. I learned about his city of kindness initiative. I didnt realize when i started talked to him that hes really good friends with the dali lama. Thats just to say when i asked him to travel to denmark for the Strong Cities global meeting, part of my pitch to him was hey, this initiative, a lot of other cities in other countries would really be interested in it. The mayor of nashville, when we brought that delegation there, the mayor has this initiative called the office of new americans where they help integrate newly lly arrived immigrants into society. That was what helped us set up that meeting. Listening to mayors and their priorities is critical for this partnership. Next month were having the mayors of louisville and anaheim and possibly one other mayor travel to india. Right now we only have one member in india. We hope to increase memberships and get cities more active. Major major tate was so impressed with what he saw that he wants to launch a yearlong campaign. Its the Strong Cities network messaging campaign on kindness. One thing ill note about this, not all cities, violent extremism isnt an immediate major concern for all cities. Granted, there are attacks in places where its quite surprising like that town, that really small town in texas a couple months ago. That being said, mayors are not going to allocate huge amount of resources just because its topic of the day or whatever. Its just to say that by investing or getting mayors to invest in social cohesion, kind of a know your neighbor kind of initiative, thats something that some cities can buy into and you know its not going to upset advocacy groups or whatever. Thats just to say this delegation is really important for us because its sending these high level mayors to, priority country for us. Please follow twitter and ill update you on the progress of that. Next id like to talk to you about the south by southwest festival. We have two panels. One is local leadership in the wake of terror. That will feature the mayors of chatanooga, orlando and manchester. Im going to moderate which will feature some of our domestic and Civil Society partners. Hes traveled to the netherlands to engage in a Speaker Program for us. We certainly, when we find mayors or cities that are willing to engage, we engage them as much as we can. We dont want to overuse those connections. You know, i think sometimes mayors they get hammered in the press by their opponents to say they are traveling on an international junket. With tglobal meeting in denmark the mayors of anaheim and chatanooga wasnt up to par with anyone in this room yet alone the mayors of major u. S. Cities. Its just to say if we ask them once, we have to really think about asking them twice. We have to make sure that experience is good for them so that they will recommend these programs to other mayors because we really do want to send u. S. Mayors out there to twop connections between cities. Our role is to facilitate that connection. This concludes the formal component in my presentation. Im happy to answer any and all of your questions. Thank you so much. [ applause ] i see one hand up already. Thank you. The Trump Administration has been antiimmigration. Im wondering what the impact of this attitude is on getting cooperation from muslim and immigrant communities and cities around the country . Were the state department. Its hard for me to talk and necessarily come up in your discussion . Its something that i would just say that the hay your ma with we talk with, theyre looking i think they recognize they recognize our role, the state departments and its just to say that its just an issue that the, you know, i think we talk on a more minute level about more of a working level about the issues and for some people its not a concern. The when people have concerns we note them. Its just to say that for us