 So first, let me introduce myself. Good morning. I'm Kathleen Hicks. I direct the International Security Program here at CSIS. And what we've assembled for you here today is just a fantastic panel of experts who live at that nexus of security and economic growth. And what we want to focus on in this panel is the importance of that nexus in the developing world. Achieving robust economic growth is necessary, of course, for stabilizing countries transitioning out of conflict. So what we need to do is find the best ways to promote economic growth as a priority, both for governments and for private stakeholders, what their roles can be. The discussion that we'd like to foster today in the context of this Global Development Forum is how to best align U.S. government diplomacy, economic development assistance, and security programs in support of that goal. What I've asked each of our panelists to do here today is to provide a brief set of introductory opening remarks. We'll then have a little bit of panel discussion and we'll open it up in the end for questions from the audience. Let me begin. I'm going to introduce all the panelists and then we'll start down the row, I think, in the order in which they are sitting if I have judged that correctly. So let me start with Melissa Sanderson. She is the Vice President of International Affairs at Freeport McMoran. In this capacity, she works with Freeport's government and public relations functions, as well as the corporate social responsibility group on projects and issues relevant to Freeport's overseas operations in Chile, Peru, Indonesia, and Congo, as well as Native American issues in the U.S. She was a member of the U.S. Foreign Service for over 20 years, serving in a multitude of countries and assignments. Her last diplomatic posting was as political counselor in the Democratic Republic of Congo following the end of that country's war and its transition to democracy. Melissa is also a member of Charter 100, the Retired Foreign Service Employees Association. Sorry about that. And the American University Women's Association. Next to her is Tony Gambino, who is the former director of USAID Mission to Democratic Republic of Congo. And for that position, he was awarded the USAID's Superior Honor Award. He's also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and serves on the Board of Women for Women International. He's worked on international development issues for the House of Representatives, the State Department, and nonprofit organizations. And he presently works as an independent consultant on international development and foreign policy issues. Sitting next to Tony, we have Tommy Ross, who is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Security Cooperation, where he is responsible for prioritizing Department of Defense bilateral and multilateral security cooperation activities and aligning security cooperation resources to the defense strategy. His office also manages a suite of defense institution building programs designed to strengthen capacities in partner nation military and defense institutions. Tommy joined DOD after 12 years as a staff member in Congress and from 2009 to 2014, he served as a senior intelligence and defense advisor to Senator Harry Reid of Nevada. From 2005 to 2009, he served as on the staff of Representative David Price of North Carolina, and he is a term member in counsel and formulations. Absolutely not least, but unfortunately last we have, at the end there, Mary Porter Pachesca. Close enough? Okay, I apologize. Mary is now the Global Director of Advisory Services at International Finance Corporation after previously serving as IFC's regional head advisory services in Latin America and the Caribbean. Prior to joining the IFC, Mary held a variety of positions in both the public and private sector, including serving as a partner in Market Access International, a women-owned consulting firm, as investor relations manager for the St. Genevieve Group, a group of international mining companies, and as the Latin American Caribbean Regional Business Advisor for USAID. In addition, she has worked for the U.S. Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration and she has also worked for the Banco de Credito of Ecuador. So with that incredible panel of experts lined up, let me turn immediately to my left and ask Melissa to kick us off with some thoughts on this nexus between security and development. Thank you so much, Kathleen. Can everybody hear me? Because I know I sometimes speak softly. Okay. It's a real pleasure to be here today sort of speaking for the private sector on an issue that matters so deeply to us because on a daily basis on the ground in countries like the Congo, we're wrestling every day with that nexus between what I call physical security, political security, and social security. Nothing to do with retirement. And it is an octopus to wrestle with because you very rarely get all of the dynamics right. Physical security in our case, let's just take the Congo as an example for the sake of the discussion. Physical security runs to gamut from putting up and maintaining perimeter fencing. Entering into a contract is required by the government of the Congo with the mines police to provide physical security. Training the mines police as required by international standards to make sure that they understand and adhere to human rights norms that are norms in many countries but not always in the Congo adequately supervising that security force because ultimately we remain responsible for their actions and any wrongdoing that they may commit is on us. So in the domain of physical security, we also coordinate closely with the Department of Defense. My colleagues that run security out of headquarters visit AFRICOM frequently. They like to stay abreast of security briefings provided by the embassy as well. So we coordinate with the regional security officer there. And I mentioned this in a domain of a secondary issue of our topic of discussion what the government does well in supporting the private sector. Those are a couple of examples of what the government already does really very well. Then we have this domain of what I'm calling social security. That one is local community relationships and that one is difficult because companies and communities particularly in a country like the Congo start out speaking completely different languages complicated by the fact that French is the national language of the Congo and most Americans don't speak French. But laying that aside, we have a fundamental difference in points of view that we struggle with on a daily basis. The single biggest problem that a company like ours encounters is expectations because after the war with ongoing poverty with ongoing corruption from the Mabutu era onwards, the population is frustrated. So number one, they expect something better. We also have a heritage issue that goes to expectations because in good old days of the Congo, the country had a very strong mining company that is called Jekebines. And in the tradition of peristatal companies, Jekebines provided to its employees security and jobs from cradle to grave. And not just jobs, you got your house. You got your furniture in your house. You got your refrigerator. You had a company store for your food. Your kids got their education. Expectations. Modern mining companies do not provide those sorts of amenities. We can't afford to. We operate on it for profit basis unlike peristals. So trying to explain what we do intend to offer, trying to understand how we can best respond to those expectations. Trying to create alternative employment. And in this domain, the biggest asset that we have are our partnerships. We partner with NGOs who know how to do these things much better than we do. We have a partnership with Women for Women International. We have a partnership with PACT. We have a partnership with many other NGOs that help us to better communicate, better understand, and better deliver what we are able to deliver in the domain of social being, social well-being. We do build schools. We do build hospitals. We do train people to work in those hospitals so that they are sustainable and have some longevity after we're gone. Although hopefully we won't be gone for 100 years or so, but we're going to be gone. The rocks disappear. Lastly, the domain of political security. I left it to last because in some ways it's the most complicated because that's the deep dark water in a country like the Congo. Because we can explain and explain and explain what we're doing, but we're never going to be doing what some elements would expect and would want us to do in a country with a history of profound corruption. We as an American company operate under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. And one thing I wish the U.S. government did a better job of, and we'll come back to that, is helping to explain to nations what the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is. Because frankly, most of the time they don't believe us when we tell them. They're like, oh yeah, there's another excuse. They're cheap. They just don't want to pay up. No guys were serious. They're going to take our company away from us if we give in to your demands. So that would be something that the U.S. government could do better. But in any event, just to wrap up, on the government side, people like myself and the others in government relations domain spend a lot of time on a daily basis talking to officials from local mayors, to provincial governors, to members of parliament, to staff in the president's office, to ministers and ministerial staff providing regular briefings in engaging in dialogue to try to find out if there's some reasonable request that we could satisfy. So I'll let it lie there for right now. Thanks, Tony. Thank you very much. I'm going to plunge right into those deep dark waters that Mel referred to. I was asked to do three things. Talk about a case study. My case study will be the Congo, of course. The role of the private sector in mitigating conflict. So that's what I'll focus on. And then my time there as the USAID mission director, which was 2001 to 2004. So over a decade ago. The topic, of course, was paving the way for economic growth. And I want to discuss the interplay of external and internal factors focusing on political and economic developments. I'm not going to talk about conflict minerals. Not because that's an unimportant topic or irrelevant. I'm deeply familiar with the issue. I'm very aware of the recent report by a global witness and embassy international. And there's an op-ed in today's New York Times. But any discussion of Dodd-Frank and conflict minerals, frankly, would use up all my time. I'm happy to discuss this during question and answer if there's interest there. Now, a little bit of history just to understand this issue. Congo collapsed, collapsed economically over a 30-year period starting in the 1970s. It also collapsed politically, which was clear by the 1980s. When Laurent Kabila overthrew Mabutsu Sezeceko in 1997, it was frighteningly clear that the country had collapsed politically, economically, and militarily. Note that part of this collapse was the withdrawal or dramatic downscaling of operations of the vast majority of international investors, including some that had been operating in the Congo since the early 20th century. That internal collapse left the Congo wide open for external predation to take advantage of this internal weakness. That became the character of the Rwandan-Yugandan intervention in 1996-97 and certainly characterized the larger war that began in 1998. That, I want to remind you, was a continentally destabilizing war bringing in countries literally from A to Z, from Angola to Zimbabwe. During that period, President Laurent Kabila certainly didn't take actions to pave the way for economic growth. Rather, his policies drove the country to further economic ruin and political stagnation, therefore legitimate international investors remained on the sidelines. So that's when I returned to the Congo late 2001. Joseph Kabila had become President at the beginning of that year following his father's assassination. The economy was still dead. I'll give you one statistic just to try to bring this home a little bit. In 2001, per capita GDP was $80. And that's one quarter, one quarter the level of the previous high point which had been in 1974. Mining had been major export earner as Mel referred to a little bit for the country for decades, but copper production had really collapsed. I keep using that word, but that word is not an exaggeration. It had decreased by more than 90% as the state-owned mining company Jacobine completely rotted. Phelps Dodge, Freeport-Macmaran's precursor in the Congo, only maintained a skeletal presence. Little formal economic activity period, U.S. business presence, tiny. And that was the case across the board for international investors. There was a precious little private sector to work with, frankly, when I first got there. During my period as the mission director, we focused on promoting political and social development, looking over the medium term to create the conditions to attract international investors. By late 2001, when I got there, the war looked like it was probably over, but no political transition had been gone and the economy was still a disaster. The end of the war did not finish external predation, but it did create room for internal rebuilding, which began under President Joseph Kabila. And that rebuilding, political and economic, continued until, I'd say, about 2007. And that created space for some initial increased investment by legitimate international companies, intensified interest by others. So, the role of the private sector in mitigating conflict in a place like the Congo, well, let's start with the obvious. International companies couldn't stop the war in the Congo. Most were either not present and none were present to any significant degree. That required intense diplomatic activity. It was a job for states. But in the subsequent period, the private sector contributed as companies like Preport have to improved economic growth rates. As Mel said, international companies also to a great extent have modeled appropriate economic behavior, including how to interact with the sovereign state. This can help mitigate conflict, but it's far from sufficient. What I want to jump to is that I think today Congo faces a dramatic internal threat. The political leadership is weak. Institutions, including those that set the conditions for a stable economic environment, thus attracting international investors, are stagnating. Good elections, free, fair, transparent, seen internally and externally as legitimate alone will not fix this problem, but without them. We're whistling in the wind. We're indulging in dangerous wishful thinking. If we think the situation in the Congo will stabilize and improve. Terrible national elections in 2011 set the stage for the present situation of dangerous internal political instability. And we saw this in demonstrations in various cities in the country in January and in an excessively violent, clumsy, heavy-handed, repressive response by the government, including the recent detention of an American diplomat. The climate of stability, predictability, calm, needed for successful business activities and additional investment is now very much at risk. Now, this assertion that good elections in Congo are a sine qua non, let me be clear. I am not suggesting that this is a universal principle equally applicable across all countries. Frankly, it's painfully clear in today's world that the relationship between political opening, stability, and democratic development is dynamic and complex. That said, I will assert this for the Congo and a number of other states around the world. So I'm suggesting that in some cases, such as the Congo, good elections remain a sine qua non for a return to the essential path of increasing stability in democratic development. The private sector cannot lead in resolving this complex political impasse. It's fundamentally an issue for the Congolese people and for diplomatic action and including assistance from donor agencies like USAID. But if Congo does find a way to organize good, timely national elections late next year around the time of the U.S. presidential election actually, that could restart a process whereby political and economic progress might start to move together again. That would be very good for the private sector. The private sector's role in mitigating conflict then would be to respond appropriately to the incentives created by this enhanced stability and opportunity created by these elections if something like this positive scenario could actually occur. Thank you. Good morning and thanks for having me. I'm from the Department of Defense and want to offer a Department of Defense perspective on that nexus between security and economic growth. I feel like a little bit of an odd duck on this panel talking about development and economic growth. I actually hope that you see me as a little bit of an odd duck, too. I think that's an instinct that's important to preserve in the conversation, actually. I think that when the Department of Defense looks at the question of how to get involved in a productive way in spurring economic growth and development in a post-conflict situation, we need to approach that challenge with extreme caution and humility. Let me elaborate on that a little bit. The bottom line is the Department of Defense is usually not the answer. But I do think we can contribute in some important ways in support of other agencies in the government and in the private sector that have greater ability to spur economic growth and deliver some of the conditions or help to create some of the conditions that Tony was talking about in support of vibrant institutions and vibrant governance and conditions that allow for economic growth to take root. When the Department of Defense gets involved, I think we need to be extremely humble about our ability to deliver economic assistance ourselves. And this is a concern that I think I've seen in my time in the Department and before I entered the Department where you will see from time to time military commanders believe that it is they who have the solutions for how to develop certain sectors of the private sector. They have the answers on what infrastructure needs to be developed or how we can help foster sustainable agriculture practices and that kind of thing. We've seen this play out a little bit in Iraq and Afghanistan especially where through no fault of their own, you know, commanders acting with the best of intentions and really being, you know, in large part, the main, if not the only, presence on the ground have taken on this challenge of economic assistance and I think the results have been mixed and we need to be very humble about our ability to do that. The Department of Defense is not the expert. Is not the central focus of expertise in the U.S. government for developing economic institutions and for developing political institutions and is very important that we have a large degree of humility about that. I think, second, it's very important that we approach with a large degree of humility about our ability to sort of provide security that allows economic growth to blossom. There is, I think, a lot of debate about or interest in the question of, you know, to what extent creating secure, as Mel put it, you know, creating physical security, fosters economic growth and the Department of Defense certainly can play a role in helping to create physical security. But I think we need to be humble about to what extent that actually is an engine for economic growth. Certainly it creates space but I think my contention would be and you know, Tony's remarks, I think hit this right on the head until we address the political and societal cleavages that create forces that will consistently undermine that physical security and consistently undermine economic growth. The physical security that the Department of Defense may have a role in providing will not be enough to truly foster sustainable economic growth. So we need a lot of humility in that area as well. And then the last thing, I would suggest is that there needs to be extreme caution in how the Department of Defense approaches collaboration with the private sector. Certainly we should be exploring opportunities for creative collaboration and I think there are some and I'll talk about that in a minute but but it's exceedingly important that the Department of Defense in the United States Military are not perceived as the guarantors of private sector activity that we are not seen as an army of the private sector defending the interests of the private sector or any particular sector economic sectors within a country as we go into military operations whether they're peace time or wartime operations. I think it's obvious the concerns that are created when partner nations or host nations within which the United States is operating militarily perceive that our interests at stake are economic not national security. There needs to be a clear line about where and how we're involved in the private sector to ensure that the credibility of the United States military operations abroad are maintained as a way to pursue shared national security objectives rather than selfish economic objectives. So with those cautions you know I do think that the Department of Defense can play a role here and I think it's an important role. First of all what I would say is you know stepping away from the physical security aspect a little bit. I think probably the most important role that the Department of Defense can play in helping to spur economic growth is focusing on defense institutions. Defense institutions are often you know they often present a challenge to economic growth. First of all you know what you see in a lot of developing countries including in post-conflict countries is that militaries dominate economic economic activity. Members of the military have their hands in all sorts of different businesses and that often creates businesses that are not optimized in terms of their ability to you know to produce economic growth and are largely that way because they're sources of endemic corruption. To the extent that the United States can be involved in helping to enable military and defense institutions overseas professionalize and develop the ability to stamp out corruption that opens up opportunity for economic growth and I think that's really important. You know I can underscore the extent to which we see in some countries around the world how much the military itself dominates economic life and that is just not going to be a productive force for growth. Second of all I think you know another way that the department needs to engage with institutions is to professionalize militaries in order to make sure that they're not a part of the problem and I think you know Mel and Tony can probably tell you stories much better than I ever could about how militaries can be part of the problem in the DRC and elsewhere obviously. Third you know there is an opportunity in a post-conflict society to seek peace dividends you know to seek ways of divesting from military expenditures to divert money to developing the economic sector and developing other sectors of the government and I think that's a way that the Department of Defense can help as we can work with institutions to help them understand as we can work with defense institutions to help them understand how to right size their militaries for the missions that they face in a post-conflict environment often militaries which are which are you know in many cases way larger than they need to be can be right sized to free up resources for other activities and I think that's an important role. The other piece you know while I do think the institutional side is among the most important clearly the Department can play a role in generating greater physical security by working with partners to enhance their ability to provide for security in a professional way and in an effective way in their home territory you know the notion of building partner capacity is increasingly a focus of the Defense Department strategy and our national security strategy because the United States cannot be the guarantor of physical security everywhere in the world and we must work with partners in order to improve their own security and regional security. This is an area that we must work hand in hand with the State Department. All these are areas where we must work hand in hand in the State Department but I think this one is particularly important because when we make choices about where to build up military capability we have to make very sure that that military capability is in line with our foreign policy objectives. I think one other thing I would suggest is that you know we do need to explore greater opportunities to collaborate with the private sector. We need to do so with two questions firmly in mind. One is what's appropriate and the second one is what works. You know I don't think we have a lot of good models for either right now. I think you know the department has explored private sector collaboration in fits and starts. We've seen you know some things go well and some things go less well. Some things that are appropriate and not appropriate. Some things that work and some don't but I don't think our body of experience in post conflict environments is broad enough to truly have a roadmap for future collaborations. I do think that we will likely be most successful in such collaborations where the Department of Defense is collaborating in a whole government approach where the State Department USAID other government agencies as relevant you know in some cases the Department of Agriculture and some cases the Department of Treasury are involved in helping steer the policy and the programs in support of economic growth leveraging the Department of Defense advantages which you know can often be increased access because a lot of times partner nations with outsized militaries will turn to the Department of Defense as a partner of choice because of the importance they place on their own military. So we need to leverage that access in order to be able to get USAID and USDA and others in the door. We need to be able to leverage the Department of Defense's situational awareness certainly where we have military troops on the ground they can identify opportunities for economic investment and working with partners to generate economic growth that may not be apparent to those that have less of an on-the-ground presence and then you know certainly to some degree leveraging Department of Defense funding where appropriate and supported that kind of whole government effort. Let me sort of stop there and look forward to further discussion. So as Kath mentioned I'm with the International Finance Corporation and that's the private sector arm of the the World Bank Group and I was asked to talk to you a little bit about how we view private sector development in fragile and conflict affected states how we that thinking has sort of evolved over time and a bit more concretely about the instruments we we can deploy in these challenging places. So let me start off by by saying that we we believe very fundamentally that we can't achieve these big goals that Dr. Kim came in and gave us when he arrived to eliminate poverty and promote a more inclusive world unless we bring fragile states along. These countries are lagging far behind quote unquote normal developing countries and they're home to an increasing concentration of the global poor. On top of that not surprisingly being the International Finance Corporation I mean we also believe the private sector is essential to development. And it's creating 90% of jobs in these markets and it can often it's not just about jobs it's about the innovation and the sustainable solutions that it can bring in when others are going to eventually leave. So if we're going to meet the myriad needs of of fragile states we're going to have to be able to create environments where companies can grow create jobs provides the goods and services citizens want and the the tax revenue that governments All that said I would be lying if I told you that we walk the talk for a very long time I think like with other bureaucracies IFC's been paying lip service to the important of engaging and and fragile states for a long time and not so much delivering on the priority I was hired nearly 11 years ago into IFC's Cairo office and I was specifically to establish a hundred million dollar technical assistance facility to support the private sector in the foremost challenging places at the time Afghanistan Iraq West Bank Gaza and Yemen and it it shocked me that it was hard for me to push projects through the system because those were considered too challenging and then when the State Department and the the G broader G 20 saw that oh we're doing interesting work they said cover the broader region to which my colleagues then got excited oh then when we don't have to do so much in Afghanistan Iraq we can all go to Morocco so you know even five years ago when I was tasked to represent IFC on the world development report on conflict security and development I was told I could write a five two seven page paper on the role of the private sector in in fragile states I ended up with 70 pages and I feel I only scratch the surface on key issues now obviously I'm willing to share or share our dirty laundry because I truly believe we've come along way it's not to say that we see the private sector today as a panacea to all the ills we're not naive for for those of you the NGO and civil society committee we are well aware that the private sector can be a potential source of good or evil but we think that if we get in there and work closely I heard the recurring theme of collaboration with partners encourage public action then we can tip the scale in the right direction so you know over recent years I've seen this institution move from sort of an ad hoc approach to a much more systematic approach in fragile states we have a vice president now dedicated to the theme we have a senior operational head who's worked on investment and advisory operations in the field who is responsible for the more day today we have a formal ramping up investment not only our own investment but that of others mobilizing the market we are on the advisory side really increasingly prioritizing the building blocks you need looking systematically at the barriers to growth access to energy access to finance access to markets and and trying to promote in general an enabling environment and we've made adjustments internally to our operations you know now we know it's not business as usual everybody knows that getting our senior management along to understand that we may need more aggressive risk envelopes risk capital envelopes and for those of you that aren't aware we are a triple a rated commercial investment bank that means there are constant tensions between making money and delivering on the triple bottom line so they're coming a long way with they have committed more to letting us ramp up to the top levels projects and that sometimes our credit officers would like to just throw out prematurely you all who've been on the ground know and can imagine the different challenges that that we have we're also working to mobilize new pools of risk capital to to complement the things that we've been doing and we're trying to to boost project development and capacity of clients on the ground who struggle with environmental social governance issues who don't look like good candidates for investment but let's work now so that we've got a market rather than say we can't do it we're also looking at our staff we let's face it and I don't think it's and only our institution people aren't dying to go to DRC necessarily and the ones that want to go are earlier in their career we need the best and the brightest in the seasoned people to get on the ground so we're working a lot internally on incentives and and financial recognition and of course we're doing our daily and equity trade finance guarantees we're doing the advisory work that I reference we're also coming up increasingly with more creative solutions like blended finance where you can take a commercial approach but with subsidy built into it into a smart way to try to incentivize people to get into the these challenging markets and then maybe I'll wrap up with the more spiritual standpoint for the corporation in terms of what we're pushing ourselves and hope to push others to do and that's that one understanding that we need to engage far earlier in these places we tend to all wake up after the problem you know you've read a lot of the literature these are second and third generation reforms that they shouldn't be the second is the importance of approaching these markets in commercial terms rather than just using grants and distorting the market that isn't to say there isn't a place for intelligent subsidy but getting you know I remember when I worked in Haiti for USA AID back when President Aristide restored to power and I don't know 95 perhaps USAID we had a project where we were giving a dollar a day and we distributed wheelbarrow so everybody could pick up the trash but you could go at dawn and watch everyone putting the trash back so that they could pick it up again and my new institution the World Bank they thought they were being very clever having these massive reforestation projects where everyone would plant the trees you know the people local communities would get involved but you know by by morning the trees were gone and unfortunately they never put the trees back it wasn't a replanting exercise it became charcoal so having a longer term vision about where we're going and thinking of maybe you do need a subsidy at the beginning but you have to step down some of these heavily subsidized things you've got to start reconstruction by creating mechanisms from the get go that can facilitate sustainable economic opportunity so we have by no means cracked the nut a lot of the things I've said in certain corners of the institution are more aspirational than actual but I think it's fair to say we've come a long way and I'm looking forward to the discussion thank you all that was an incredibly rich set of issues I've taken all kinds of notes about where to go on the questions and each each one of you has layered that on so I will not get to everything I think that is is important to talk about here and I'm hoping the audience will help with that if I can start with Tony Gambino there were some really clear themes across the conversation collaboration was one sustainability was one and the political change if you will was one in these fragile states and so if I can start on the political piece which I thought Tony in particular you really brought forward this idea of the necessity of political change in order to create an environment my words I guess to create an environment that's conducive to any kind of economic activity so security may be the precursor to political change but political change and I think in your remarks is really the linch pen that moves you toward that security being sustained and having economic development so I'm curious with all your experience both in government out of government in and around the community for so many years what is your sense of how well that is not just understood within the United States interagency but that the tools are there to help fragile states get through the political development process so that they can bridge from insecurity into economic development well thank you very much I almost feel like I planted that question but but I didn't I was able to hear a little bit of the end of the plenary session that Dan so ably moderated and appreciated a lot of the comments but I want to focus on something Senator Dachal said when he took us to four D's and he made one of the D's democracy and it's perhaps a surprise to people who don't follow this in detail that actually the ability of the United States to deliver on our rhetoric about democracy is actually very weak USAID has extremely limited democracy promotion funds you talk to any eight officer working on this and they'll bemoan the actual funds that they have to do what they call DG we will come together when we have certain priorities look at the recent elections in Nigeria where the U.S. played a major role the referendum and so I'm just going to talk about Sub-Saharan Africa the referendum in South Sudan a few years ago and a heavy effort in the Kenyan elections recently but we don't see these efforts across the board challenges let me just talk about Central Africa right now International Crisis Group just came out with a report that I encourage you to look about talking about an electoral challenge in Burundi right now depending on how that goes that's going to affect whether Sasu and Gaysu stays in the Republic of the Congo where he's looking to change the constitution the standard trick used by people who want to pretend that they're democratically elected but actually are more dictatorial than Democratic so that's up in Republic of Congo as I stated the Democratic Republic of the Congo is supposed to have there's a calendar out supposed to have presidential elections next year in November there's lots of controversy around that and Rwanda is scheduled to have presidential elections in 2017 and I'd say there's not a lot of smart money on President Kagame stepping down so that's and when could go on those are just in Central Africa now to go back to the Democratic Republic of the Congo elections cost money the last time around in 2011 the Europeans led in funding and gave upwards of half a billion dollars what did the U.S. give basically nothing the U.S. when Senator Feingold who served very very ably until recently is the special envoy for the great legs and he hit this issue very hard some of my remarks actually are based on some of the things that Senator Feingold said in a recent speech but when you talk about U.S. dollar commitment to this in an environment where we need hundreds of millions or billions the U.S. is putting 20 million on the table and when you look at what the 20 million is for most of it is for good things but things that support Democratic elections so civic education other that doesn't get me to the main issue of the half billion plus that's required for elections so we talk a great talk but we walk not such a good walk I think that that also has longer term consequences because this is where Tony and I overlapped because I got to the embassy in Kinshaw in 2003 and being in the political office the main mission was to get them to elections and after your departure and I can say this now that I'm no longer in government we we watched a perceptible decline in the ability of the U.S. to among other things build that Constitution that was going to lay the fundamental Democratic foundations for the Congo's future because the countries that were giving more money to the Congo had a bigger voice in the room and there was also a palpable disappointment on the part of the Congolies particularly civil society who were counting on the U.S. to be a big donor and to be a big voice in the room and to stand up for human rights and to stand up for civil society and that didn't happen either so you know the phrase pound wise and not pennywise and pound foolish applies perfectly well to the way that the U.S. government manages its budget in coordination with its principles on Democratic action. Let me turn to Mary Peshka and ask about the private sector piece of this so I think everyone would agree as much as we'd like to think in clean phases if you will from insecurity to some kind of security to political to to growth it's much messier than that and I'm wondering if you can provide any examples that you have seen in your work of where the private sector has actually been able to help mitigate the any piece of that helped in the insecurity to security piece the security to political reform if you will to political reform to economic growth have you seen examples that you can share where the private sector is really succeeded in that way? So probably I don't even know where to begin again in terms of the examples what I can't give is a very pretty typology of fragility and this is exactly the formula that's what that's the holy grail what everyone's trying to figure out but definitely you know we all know what the problems are in all different kinds of fragile states weak physical infrastructure very bad investment climates insecurity lack of skills lack of human capacity with with flights so there's myriad problems that the private sector can can come in and and help with and and also I think we have to think about different kinds of private sector right as I have seen we think not just about FDI and international or multinational investors we think about local and regional players too because sometimes you're going to be more effective with local and regional players if they're there but I've seen things like in Afghanistan where very early on initial investments in mobile telecom before there was a decent telecom law and and all the building blocks that were needed be made that helped on so many levels it helped farmers it helped medical diagnostics everyone knows Afghanistan and winter is a no move around the country so doctors aren't getting there it helped on corruption because eventually they were able to pay police through the mobile telecom and they weren't getting shaken down by their their chiefs and their lieutenants every time the the paycheck came in we were just talking recently to the CEO of Firestone and he talked about going to Liberia and how they it was a disaster you know they every time they went outside everything had been destroyed for Firestone but they decided you know what while we're waiting for the country to get its act together and while we're waiting to to rebuild our facilities we're going to start buying rubber anyway and so their first trips to the towns were all ghost towns with nothing going on and and literally within a year you had transport services with taxis working and bustling shops so this is not something the state did formally but that the private sector decided you know I obviously see an opportunity in a financial gain but it had very positive impact so what we're trying to do and what we hope others would do is how how can we be practically you know practical in these instances and facilitate people getting in if that's partnering with it IFC or our sister organization MIGA for political risk insurance anything that will make companies more comfortable then maybe I don't want to go much longer but touching on the local and the regional I think we forget too that the private sector is not just a source of jobs but it can be a great source of social cohesion so thinking about restoring market linkages and facilitating access to finance getting into micro finance which informal enterprises haven't been destroyed I mean been destroyed but many have survived so getting that's kind of quick and dirty it's low-hanging fruit and I don't think you should excuse yourself just to do that but having something tangible sooner can make a big difference I do want to mention something briefly just because I think Mel would be too shy to say so I think actually in the very difficult situation in the Congo what has occurred in particularly the southern part of Katanga Province the mining province is remarkable and fits in with what you're talking about and it's because that's where the copper cobalt mining occurs and with companies like Freeport coming back in with copper prices going in a better direction for a period of time and very importantly with a governor of the province who understood reasonably well I'd leave it for you you knowing much better than do I how to work with the private sector there was some space and so even with all the difficulties that I sketched out in the Congo we've seen some real development in that part of the Congo unfortunately Southern Katanga is one small part of a huge country which has 11 provinces now moving towards 26 and so Southern Katanga would only be one of the 26 provinces and I don't have many stories in the other 25 if you will but I think that is an important one well represented on this panel Let me let me turn now to Tommy Ross and ask you know you laid out I think very well whether you meant it this way or not I think you laid out what many people see is the inherent paradox that that the military U.S. military lives in which is this this catch 22 of you find yourself in situations where it's a fragile state you're the on the ground presence at least in the greatest numbers military commanders see things that need fixing and we have trained them to fix things that need fixing even if they are not the best instrument sir or other authorities that have come along for D.O.D. I wonder if you could just talk looking forward as the one person here who is in the administration and party to this conversation that I assume is happening about looking forward what is the institutionalization of an approach that if in fact it is to get D.O.D. out of that position how is that manifesting in terms of money authorities capabilities for other parts of the government to fill in that space so unfortunately I think you know when you talk about money and authorities and those kinds of things we're constrained by the political environment that we live in and dependent upon you know the congress and and other actors to make tradeoffs and budgeting and I'm not sure that I see you know major changes on the horizon in terms of huge boost the I.D. budgeting and in order to enable them to play more of a role what I do think the administration is looking at is you know what are new sort of business models for taking on interventions in places where there are clear needs across different sectors recognizing that numerous different agencies you know are much involved in trying to put in place in a constructive way as a security governance initiative that the president announced at the Africa leadership summit last year the security governance initiative is working in six different countries on security sector governance and what it really is it's a model for how Department of Defense Department of State you know including Treasury Department of Justice Department of Homeland Security and so on can in collaboration with each other and very importantly in collaboration with the partner country develop a framework for in partnership addressing security sector governance concerns and you know that means from the from the beginning from the ground up building a truly collaborative partnership approach to how we do security sector assistance the countries that we have chosen are not without their challenges you know where the six countries that have been selected for I think basically piloting this model for use hopefully more broadly not just in Africa but around the world are Tunisia Nigeria Niger Mali Kenya and Ghana so a really interesting and diverse set of countries there that really do all have challenges and you know I mean you look at Nigeria despite very good elections there you know the institutional capacity needs are tremendous and there is you know no question that we walk into a situation where there will remain political tensions left over from the elections where corruption will be a significant challenge and where the entire government will be distracted by the fact that they are fighting a war against Boko Haram that poses a significant immediate real-time security challenge to their sovereign territory so that's sort of one example of the six that we're dealing with and I think it's a great opportunity to sort of flesh out this interagency pushing very hard on as we develop this business model is creating a role not just for the different agencies but also for the non-government sector in these countries to include the private sector and so we have done some initial assessments in some of these partner countries to look at developing plans of action but we haven't delivered a single penny in aid yet so this is very much new and in development so I don't have to do that but I do I would point to this as a really promising model for doing things a little bit differently Thanks Tommy and let me ask my last question for Mel Sanderson and I'll open it up we began with you talking really down at the if you will unit level and I'd sort of like to end there in my questions to come back to this issue of sustainability which you raised and again several others did but all the way I would I was wondering if you could share how you what are the most compelling themes you have found in the corporate sector in the private sector that resonate in terms of corporate responsibility and sustainability in these fragile states that others may be able to learn from Yeah I think it's always a push pull between particularly an extractive industry between the business case of putting in place a high-tech highly efficient production procedure with as good as possible of a logistics chain and as good as possible supply chain there's that as an overriding priority and then there has increasingly been I guess I've been with the company now nine years there's increasingly been the realization that you know social activities aren't a waste of money they're an investment of money because and I think someone else mentioned this you don't want the tires burning outside of your office you don't want the chain fence that you built overrun by thousands of angry persons and if you don't you need to invest time in talking you need to invest time in finding the right things to be doing and the right partners to do it you need to accept that you're not always going to get it right when we first started and we were building to mine one of the things we were immediately aware of was the need for agricultural development because the governor had pointed it out to us and the state that we are in in the Congo has always in the northern part been an agricultural based economy with the little fisheries industries as well and so we thought great will help the local farmers start micro farms we set up a micro financing project we provided seeds we provided you know the necessary implements and basically we said okay go forth and grow something and we'll buy it from you when you have it that didn't work out so well we hadn't really thought through what is the sustainable cycle for building a viable agricultural community that could yes serve to provide food to our mine and our mining community sure but to the broader market beyond that who was going to be the transport agent how were those roads going to be built who was going to to be able to ensure that they weren't stopped on the road by military so it became clear to us that we needed a broader dialogue to ensure sustainability we needed a political dialogue we needed the local dialogue we needed an international dialogue and we needed the right partners and last of all we needed to invest the money in the time so we took a step back we cancelled the original program and instead we set up our social fund and the social fund is run by the local community we contribute into it .03% of net profits and it's already several millions of dollars we also discovered in doing so that we needed to help educate the managers of the fund in how you manage big money because maybe to a huge international corporation like Freeport $30 million isn't you know humongous but to a community that never before had the capacity to manage directly $3,000 $30 million is a leap that's all the way to the moon so step by step we have discovered that you start small and you grow larger and you invest in success so I would say that would be my answer I'm going to open it up now to the audience I think we have microphones in my right yes I'm getting a knot on that so why don't we start right here on the aisle this gentleman John Rothenberg I'm an Afghanistan specialist long-time Afghanistan specialist I was part of the civilian surgeon on a base in Pactica so you can guess where I'm going with this a lot of my a lot of my colleagues really did not agree with the PRT concept and I think that people have gotten to that point but when I saw I went through four brigades and when the right brigade was there it actually did work I think that I'm a minority view on this but I think that some sort of I think it's part that that was an evolution from Japan at post World War II and I think that there's there is a space for further evolution where it would work better and I was wondering what especially Mr. Roth thought absolutely I think that's exactly right you know I think what what really is important about that model was it allowed USAID and others to be able to inject perspectives into planning as it was happening on the ground every day so that that perspective was taking an account of and certainly to allow USAID to go out and do its mission in the field as well but you know from my perspective I think the Department of Defense will function better when the perspectives of interagency partners are injected at every stage in planning from the beginning and we are increasingly trying to to ensure that kind of injection at various levels I mean all of our combat our geographic combatant commands now have State Department advisors as deputies to the to the commanders and I think that's really important I think it does make a difference in how the COCOMS plan their security cooperation and other activities around the world we also see see USAID personnel popping up in COCOMS as well and so that's really good AFRICOM in particular has made good use of USAID officers in you know in positions where they're responsible for doing military planning so that's very useful and then the other thing you know what we're we're trying to do and I talked about the security governance initiative in response to Dr. Hicks question a few moments ago but the other the other very similar model that we're looking at that I could have talked about was our implementation of Presidential Policy Directive 23 which is intended to create you know integrated country planning and integrated regional planning so that what the Department of Defense does is constantly informed by other partners equities you know to institutionalize that kind of integrated planning around the world is a is a major challenge but you know we're making progress and I think you know it's it's nascent but we're making progress and I think it's a very important goal to work toward my name's Laura Robinson and I spent the last seven years or so working with the task force for business and stability operations which is a difficult subject for some people but one of the things that I worked on was extractives and what we found is that you have working groups within the US government that discuss some of the major issues but what you don't have is multiple other stakeholders that are involved in the discussions there's nowhere to plug in for the private sector to understand where the infrastructure planning is with the the local government is there can any of you comment on what the ideas are for really we talk about partnerships but what is the mechanism by which we partner whether it's a PRT at a at a government level or whether it's expanded to a a more significant private sector input to that discussion well I mean we do we do a lot of of coordination sort of on our own I would say that there's not a good institutional mechanism I mean I can give you a concrete example what I mean by institutional mechanism for extractives the international council on mining and metals ICMM is an organization that encompasses most not all but most of the western minors so majors as well as juniors and would serve as a as a good focal point for coordination because they well understand the industry viewpoint and certainly could be a reliable spokesperson for us to the best of my college that does not currently exist in outreach between ICMM and the government or the government ICMM it's a great thought and it's one that I can take back to ICMM I don't know precisely even as an ex-government person how we would motivate the government to do that because I think that the more you bring private sector voice into the room the more complicated policy decisions become and I'll give you a concrete example of that as well the Grand Inga Dam in Congo is potentially a resource which could power not only all of the African continent but have powers left over to sell to Europe I mean it's it's potentially that huge the DRC is not included in Power Africa yeah I see a couple of surprised looks on people's faces it is not included in Power Africa and that is a policy decision which is within the government's purview to make but with a private sector voice in the room you would have had a lot of frustration articulated because particularly the mining sector is energy starved we desperately need power to keep growing to keep fueling further economic development to keep a good momentum going so had we been in the room we would have further complicated that policy decision by arguing fairly strenuously that Congo should have been included time for one last question and we'll take this one right here good morning my name is Rosemary Segero my organization is called Hope for Tomorrow we focus on conflicts and violence prevention we are in Kenya and DRC and we focus right in the rural areas in farming and agriculture just as what she has said we work as civil society organization without funding but we use our own means to make sure we are doing so how do we collaborate with the USID everybody here talking about because when there is still violence and conflicts how will people develop the military people being abused especially women young girls you trying to do farming entrepreneurship you can't do anything so how does such a country come out of these problems to develop itself and looking at what we are all talking here now so what is the next step out of here or next for UN but we are looking at the rural areas how do we partner as civil society to make an impact of growth and development in the rural areas of the countries of conflicts thank you thank you very much I think this goes back maybe to some of the themes Tony that you brought out early I don't know if you want to touch on that I'm very happy to talk about that because that's a sector that I'm directly involved in today and I've done a lot of work on over the years and of course the focus has been on the for-profit private sector we could have a long long discussion on the role of civil society both international and local as it relates to all the issues that we've been discussing this morning USAID and other donors work constantly regularly and often very well with civil society organizations including local ones that's the case today in the Democratic Republic of the Congo it's the case in many other places that's kind of bread and butter work for USAID to engage with civil society both international and local and to try to develop mechanisms including financial support that leads sometimes to what I think are new worthy innovations in this area one that I'd refer to is a promoting local governance project that USAID ran a few years ago in the Congo where it funded local civil society in the Congo to work with local governments to try to get some budget transparency and work for it and let me give you just a short short anecdote to let you know what that means the USAID project gave some of these superb Congolese civil society actors I visited them myself in an extremely remote regional province to feel that they had kind of the space to go in and start asking uncomfortable questions of the government and they wouldn't be arrested or abused or otherwise because they had at least a little umbrella of this funding that was coming from the US so they started asking and I mean this is a literal story what's your budget what's your budget just tell me what your budget is the response the initial response again I'm being quite literal was that's a secret it's illegal to ask me what our budget is well because they had the support these civil society organizations went back and could say well actually it's not illegal you're actually required under the law to tell me what your budget is it just took it seems like the simplest thing in the world to an American audience it took months and months and months but they got a budget then they said well ok we're interested in agriculture for the obvious reasons number two what's your budget for agriculture again can't tell you can't tell you months and months more they got the budget for agriculture well what are you actually ok that's the dollar figure what are you actually going to spend it on well this is the real work of forging the relationship between civil society and local government structures to make them improve it's tedious it's long but there's a great role that international actors and of course when there are and this was a so remote there really was no international private sector at all but in areas where there is I would absolutely encourage the involvement of those companies in a broader set of actions because that benefits everybody well I want to thank the panel today this has been really a fascinating conversation and as I said when I after you all made your remarks there's much we've left on the table for future conversation so if the audience please join me in thanking this panel today