 Good morning everybody Well, it's a good thing I used to teach school I'm sorry to interrupt such a lively conversation. It seems like a good sign on day three of a conference My name is Nancy Lindborg. I'm the president of the United States Institute of Peace And I'm absolutely delighted to welcome you here this morning for the third day of a sold-out conference Which is a wonderful? Sign for the future of peace building and for those of you who have not previously been to the United States Institute of Peace It was founded in 1984 by Congress in response to citizens demand for additional focus within the US government on Peace building and how to manage conflict We are federally funded but independent and we are dedicated to the proposition that peace is possible Peace is practical and it's essential for national and global security And we do that by working in partners around the world in conflict zones equipping them with tools equipment training and policy Recommendations and it's wonderful to be here with a group of people who I know are completely aligned With the idea that peace is possible and peace is practical and so many of you are doing that in ways Here in this country and around the world every day and I can tell by looking at who is Who has been signed up for this that there is an incredibly diverse audience here people coming from different backgrounds different parts of the world and so I Know there's been a really rich conversation the last two days This is a great opportunity today to really explore the different ways that peace builders can make a different in conflict areas And in fragile states. I just returned from Istanbul where we had the first World Humanitarian Summit and I was just sharing with Melanie that what was remarkable to me is How front and center the issues of violent conflict are in that conversation? Both in terms of mustering the political will to manage those conflicts But also in how the humanitarian and the development community has to understand conflict dynamics has to think about how things are done in a way that enable Local actors to build peace from the ground up as well as from the top down and In the backdrop of what is going on globally these issues have never been more urgent and this conversation has never been more important And with that I am absolutely delighted to introduce a Good friend somebody you know well by now Melanie Greenberg who has really spent a career thinking about these issues and doing remarkable work And so please join me in welcoming Melanie Well, good morning everyone Welcome to day three of AFP's annual conference on next-gen peace We are so proud and honored to co-host this day the conference with the United States Institute of Peace The only government organization dedicated solely to peace and an important partner and champion of for all of Civil society working for a more peaceful and secure world And so Nancy thank you for your brilliant leadership and your ability to link so many different sectors and communities together for more unified and effective voice for peace and Thanks to to Linwood ham over in this corner We're so grateful to you and Tina and all of her US IP colleagues We couldn't ask for more for a more wonderful partner and it's really been such a joy to plan this with you The theme of this conference is next-gen peace over the past two days We've been exploring a fascinating terrain Ranging from innovation and peacebuilding to storytelling new frontiers and teams and human performance peacebuilding in Baltimore and community mediation over a decade over a decade in Nepal We continue the theme of innovation today with deep dives into some of the most complex peacebuilding problems facing the world today Highlighting new thinking and strategic approaches We also shine a light onto the deep personal and societal costs of violence on a very personal Anticidal level a reminder of why we're all spending our lives to build peace in an increasingly turbulent world So I want to thank the AFP staff and all of our interns for making it such a joy to come into work every day And for the blood sweat and tears have given for this conference And I especially want to recognize Emily Emily Lucy Who is masterminded and led all of the planning for the conference and whose brilliance you see reflected in everything today? So thank you to all of you. I want to thank AFP's funders who've made this possible And we look forward to a great day here today at US IP And it's my great pleasure now to introduce Bob Berg AFP's new board chair Thank You Melanie. Thank you Nancy It's so good to be with the US IP again and to gather on the last day of a three-day event I used to chair the donor committee on evaluation at OECD and I think we need to do a quick evaluation in the last two days So remember on TV and radio shows they used to have an applause o meter So for those of you who attended the last couple of days, what did you think of it? There's so right So for those of you who missed the event see you know next year by the whole package By the way our opening keynote speaker retired general and administrator of NASA and and presidential cabinet member Charlie Bolden wrote me last night saying thanks for introducing me to the work of the Alliance I look forward to future opportunities to participate and support your work That's one of the nice things about these conferences. You can bring people in and have them come into the tent I just want to note that this year we have added reason to be together You know you never know when you've been in a golden age until after the age is over That's those of us who were in the Carter administration kind of learned that Ah Democracy liberalism Human rights the space for civil society in many countries and violence are all trending in the wrong direction Four of the five bricks and the EU are in serious difficulties We could be here a year from now with an American Berlusconi in power Despite these trends and threats the global community had its most productive year ever That is because they found ways to work together on environment on social and economic goals and On the marvelous and serious goal for peace We as a field have accomplished much in our work and in this difficult environment. We not only must be smarter in our work We must work in far greater more effective more embracing and more courageous Alliance as The great British economist Barbara Ward said in the midst of the Cold War We are either to be a community or we will die So we have added serious purpose for being together today I look forward very much to an exciting and needed set of discussions And we will begin with a great first session and Melanie's going to introduce it. Thank you So it is a tremendous honor to introduce Jeremy Richmond who will deliver the keynote address this morning Jeremy is a neuroscientist and the founder and CEO of the Aviel Foundation Dr. Richmond has extensive research experience spanning the range from neuroscience and neuropsychopharmacology Dicardio vascular biology diabetes obesity metabolic syndrome immunology and inflammation He has worked in the research and drug arena for over two decades and is passionate about helping people live happier and healthier lives Dr. Richmond is dedicated to reaching out and educating youth and believes our future relies on their imaginations This is manifest in his teaching martial arts biology Neuroscience and rock climbing to children and teens for more than 25 years Most important. He believes it's critical to empower youth to advocate for themselves and their peers when it comes to brain health and brain illnesses Toward this end Dr. Richmond and his wife Jennifer Hensel started the Aviel Foundation Committed to preventing violence and building compassion through brain health research community education and engagement Jeremy is a peace builder in the deepest sense of the word as He will tell you he lost his daughter Aviel for whom his foundation is named in the horror of Sandy Hook He's taken this experience and dedicated his life to understanding the causes of violence and helping people organize in their own communities for healthy brains The mission of the Aviel Foundation is to prevent violence and build compassion and communities by fostering brain science research community engagement and education So Jeremy we can't tell you how honored we are that you are here with us today We hope you'll consider our community a home for you and for your family We support you not only with the increasing emphasis for the peace building community is putting on neuroscience But on a much deeper personal level as well We hope you know that we stand with you and your family and Dedicate ourselves to honoring the memory of your beautiful daughter in all of that our work on peace in the world Well, I appreciate the opportunity to come in and speak today I'm going to talk about and Sort of a different way of looking at science and the way we can use it to prevent violence and build compassion through research and education both and And I have to express my Profound gratitude for being invited to speak here and to to be invited into such an amazing community And I think that being in a community is is really the key to peace. So I appreciate it I'm gonna make some introductions as I start out in the in the brief talk that I have first I want to introduce you to my favorite organ the brain The brain is just another organ like the heart the lung the liver the kidneys It can be healthy and it can be unhealthy But unlike the other organs the brain is difficult to study and people are surprised when they find But we know less about brain science than we do about any of our other sciences bar none We know more about the subatomic structures We know more about the bottoms of our oceans the surface of the moon Then we do about our brains and as one of our 15-year-old interns put it really profoundly She said considering this is the organ we use to consider It's really ironic how little we know about it But it's difficult to study the brain it's housed in our skulls. It's not whizzy wig You can't take it out and look at it for a while and figure out what it does So there's a lot more pieces of the puzzle missing from from this than all the other organs And so we begin to think of it in a very ethereal invisible way We think of it. Here's my body. This is where you know the the action happens, but where am I I'm somewhere else It's separate, but we have to recognize all of our behaviors come from this organ and therefore They're all biochemical in nature and you can have healthy and you can have unhealthy behaviors just like you can have Healthy and unhealthy hearts and lungs and livers and kidneys So we need to fill in some of these missing puzzle pieces and And that's what we're all about So let me give you a brief introduction to myself in a couple of different ways first. I'm a neuroscientist by training I got really interested in studying the brain in neurosciences because I had a A grandfather when I was a kid that had Alzheimer's disease How many of you have been touched by that disease in some way almost everybody? When I was young it was the disease wasn't well-known and it and it turns out the disease is so much more than I can't Remember things it really changes your personality Profoundly you become a different person and while it was really tragic that my grandfather suffered in this way It also fascinated me Who we are all the way down to our core really depends on the proper functioning of this organ the brain So I went into studying the brain as a result of this passion and The only reason I highlight this and I do this really it's important in young audiences to highlight the importance of letting things Experiences in your life touch you down to your heart Because when you have a passion when you have a reason for doing something You get so much personal satisfaction in life when you're pursuing things that that are personal and and touch you So there's there's a great quote that it's often attributed to to the Holocaust survivor Victor Frankel But he was actually quoting Nietzsche when he said those who have the why can endure anyhow So I always encourage people to find the why in life because then there's no obstacles There's just great learning opportunities. I Also need to introduce myself in another way and my wife and I as parents Who in 2006 had a beautiful baby girl of EL? She became the brightest light in any room a smile that could melt anybody break down any barriers Loved stories. She she loved stories to fall asleep drive driving in the car Going to the bathroom. She had she had to have a story all all the time and she really She really got it She realized her whole life was a story and that everything that she did could be told through a lens of this was a great adventure Going to the grocery store who knew unfortunately As Melanie pointed out her story came to a horribly tragic ending when she was murdered in her first grade classroom With 19 of her classmates and six of her educators on a very dark Friday, December 14th of 2012 in Newtown, Connecticut And as you can imagine that touched us about as close as you can be touched This is such a profoundly Heart-breaking phenomenon to lose a child in a violent way like this that it really turns your world upside down To try to paint a picture of it is really difficult But you feel like the world is spinning and you're gonna fly off and so Literally, Jen and I were on the floor for for days trying to figure out what we were gonna do How we were gonna try to reach out and prevent this kind of heartbreak and tragedy from happening again And as we would travel around the the world talking to people trying to figure out How to address this epidemic of violence that we have particularly in our country people would express their sentiment to us with an interesting Statement, I can't imagine what you're going through. I can't imagine how how hard that would be And well, of course, we appreciate the sentiment the irony is that they are imagining it when they say that and that they are Stepping into those shoes just for a second and they're horrified But we all need to do that We have to step into those shoes because that is the connection to your heart And the only way to be motivated to do something is to be touched in that way So we really can imagine and really need to imagine it Because we become involved when we allow ourselves to be touched So we have a trademark you can imagine and on the brighter side of that tunnel It's the imagination that sets us free to make tomorrow better And it's the imagination that we need to use to create something better tomorrow A statement that I think is really important for us all to embrace that comes from this Imagination is the concept that few are guilty, but all are responsible from AJ Heschel We are all responsible for being part of a community and ensuring the health of that community for advocating for ourselves For our loved ones, and we have to take that that responsibility very seriously the other Quote that I really like that's appropriate here is Is one that's hard to find out who originally said it It's mostly attributed to Reverend Watson be kind everyone that you that you meet is fighting a hard battle And I see this every time I travel every time I meet somebody you look him in the eyes Everybody has a tragedy Everybody is facing some great adversity, and you need to recognize you can't see those battles They're in there though, and you have to be kind as a result so What can be done? We created the Aviel Foundation With a specific mission both Jen and I are scientists, and we said well we need to approach this in a scientific way That's the way that we see the world we answer why questions for a living. That's what scientists do So we created a foundation in honor of our daughter to leave a legacy With a mission to prevent violence and build compassion through neuroscience Research community engagement and education and let me expand on that just a little bit We're researchers so on the one side of the coin. We want to fund to foster to encourage Neuroscience-based research that bridges biochemical sciences and I'll expand on this in the upcoming slides and behavioral sciences and We want to make the study of the brain in in any form That doesn't have to be a test tube or a neuroscientist or a clinician a psychiatrist and neurologist It could be an engineer that builds the next machine that allows us to affordably and accurately measure brain activity it could be it could be a peacekeeper who comes up with a Paradigm or a program that helps us heal be resilient and be peaceful But we want to make that study that endeavor lucrative and prestigious so that people will want to go into that field We also recognize that science in a vacuum is of little or no value Unless you give it to the everyday citizen in a way that they can approach it embrace it and use it as a tool So the other side of that coin is Community engagement and education. It's the what then We want to provide tools to the everyday citizen We want to make this study an understanding of the brain knowable to everybody because at the end of the day really we all Own this information. We paid for it We really deserve to have it in a way that we can use it and this will foster empathy increase connection and Encourage people to take action and we we love the the statement knowledge is power But we think it goes beyond that we think knowledge is empowering and once you've been infected You can't do anything but take action So what are the tools that we can use? How do we study the brain and how do we link the what's happening under the hood here to the behaviors that we see? And that's where I think a lot of the shadow the mystery the invisible nature of things that are mental come from this Very complex world of how do you study the brain? What can you know about it? Well, we have some really great tools We can watch the brain we can see it and not only can we see it We can watch it while it does it something so you can say this is your brain on joy. This is your brain on anger This is your brain on frustration We can look at it We can also do the P in the cup kind of science We can take a cheek swab a urine sample blood sample the fluid science and we can measure Things I do do some of our stress chemicals like cortisol Adrenaline serotonin dopamine GABA glutamate Neurotransmitters and hormones that you can measure that correlate with behaviors And we also have the wonderful world now of genetics where we've sequenced the entire genome I'm not going to pretend that we think we know what all the genes do or what they all are yet We're making discoveries every day But we do know the whole sequence of the genome and we can identify the presence or absence of genetic material with behaviors and now we have the amazing science of how the environment Influences those genes that what we call on top of the genetics the epigenetics and we're going to expand a little bit on that But these are the tools that we have these are the tools of the trade So we need to build some bridges with these tools to the behavioral sciences The link between the P in the cup science and the sort of tell me about your mother science that we picture somebody laying On the couch and giving their giving their history and we have some bridges just to illustrate so that maybe you can connect to what I'm saying We have the molecule serotonin here on the left We know that when you have lower inappropriate levels of serotonin in parts of the brain that's associated with depression That's why we take things like Prozac SSRIs serotonin specific reuptake inhibitors We have a bridge between the biochemical and the behavioral science Well, we need to fill in as those pieces of the puzzle that relate to things like reactive violence where somebody explodes inappropriately and Becomes very violent in a reactive fashion the guy that goes road rage or the kid in the lunch line That feels affronted when you step on his new shoes and gets violent and what's the difference between the reactively violent individual's brain and The proactive or instrumentally violent individual who's disenfranchised Who's Becomes a sort of extremist This could be Your terrorist it could also be your serial rapist or your your your pedophile somebody that Pines away thinks of ways to lash out in an antisocial way against society And what's the difference between their brains and the everyday citizens brain? Those are the pieces of the puzzle that we need to fill in But we have some barriers to our understanding of these pieces. We have the mental barrier right now We diagnose diseases of the brain Mental illnesses based on symptoms and syndromes groups of symptoms With extra opinion and checklists now. I'm not being so heavy-handed This is really the best that we've had for a long time, but we need to move beyond this Here's the problem. Can you imagine going into the doctor and she looks at you She says well, your nose is running your eyes are puffy and scratch your throat hurts. You're a cold You know, wow that bone sticking out. You're a broken arm. You're a colon cancer But if you go into the doctor feeling depressed overwhelming grief for a period of time and she goes To a checklist and you answer yes to five out of nine questions on a questionnaire You're depressed and you're bipolar and you are schizophrenic and your child is ADHD There's two huge problems here one. We haven't found anything wrong. We didn't identify a pathology so there's really no hope and We're moving away from this but more frequently than not we define the individual as the disease We don't say you're a colon cancer. You're a rhino virus. You're the flu But we do say your child is ADHD schizophrenic bipolar That's a self-fulfilling prophecy if you tell a child he's got a learning disorder He's gonna have a learning disorder We need to move away from that. We need to make the invisible world of mental a visible one name it what it is There's so much fear and trepidation is stigma associated with this invisible world of mental that people don't get help for themselves Don't get help for their loved ones And this is certainly the largest contributor to why the Sandy Hook shooter never got help Never was intervened and it resulted in horrible tragedy We need people to feel that it's a matter of chemistry and not character to feel comfortable talking about brain illnesses and brain health In the way that it is Can you imagine going to the doctor and she looks at your child and says well little Johnny's right in the middle of the Growth curve good job with the improving his diet But we did find a little too much dopamine in his right cingulate cortex, which is a really fancy way of saying This explains his behavioral impulse control problems at school There's no character judgment there. You've already gone out and read every self-help parenting book. There is anyway You need some you need some help and now they're saying well There's hope we did find a problem and this is what we're gonna do to try to prevent it There's no there's no stigma attached with that and we need to move in that visible direction So if you get anything out of this talk I really encourage you to recognize that is brain health take the word mental out of everything You need a new brain tality. We need to think of it. Take it out. It doesn't mean anything. It has no value You know, we need to rename the substance abuse and mental health disorders administration We need to we need to take mental out of our lexicon and just call it what it is because that that does a Large service towards getting help and decreasing the fear interpretation So Can we study violence? Is there a paradigm a model that we can that we can create where we can look at risk factors that lead to violence and Protective factors that lead away from it so that we can then associate Biochemical changes with the behaviors that we see how do we predict it? Is there any way that we can do that and it turns out there's a lot of risk factors That lead to violence and protective factors that lead away from it towards what we could only call say compassion kindness connection communication resilience it turns out that there are and And if I have a lot more time I like to go through a lot of these examples But I'm going to really cruise just through a couple of them and I want to really highlight the important ones one that I start With oftentimes people say, you know, we're animals humans are just animals We're probably very violent and we come up with these debates The the nature-nurture debate is very famous one But as with a lot of our debates global warming for example, the world is warming up We could debate why it is but it's a fact that it is there's no debate And in this case the nature-nurture debate, there's no debate We know that the your genes influence how you see the environment how you interact in it What you think is relevant and the environment shapes what genes are expressed where they're expressed Organs are expressed in how long they're expressed there to what extent they're expressed you can't separate them So if you leave here today and you ask if somebody ever asks you is it nature-nurture? Is it your genes are in the environment give my really smug smile and say of course it is It's both there's a great quote by Don have a famous behaviorist and I love this quote. He said What contributes more to the area of a rectangle the length or the width and I'll go as far as to say that there is no Behavior there's no disease that is purely one or the other there's always a contribution of both nature and nurture So keep that in mind. You're not born Delta bad bad hand That can't be that can't be influenced and you can't be born with good genes Into a bad environment that purely leaves you in that environment. We can we can always influence this and that's because In other words, if you're born in an adverse environment, you're you're abused you you grow up in Sierra Leone. That's very hostile Yes, you can end up a violent and psychopathic individual But if you're raised in a nurturing and healthy environment that same individual has the Great chance to be your resilient leader your fortune 500 CEO your president That's because our brains are plastic throughout our entire lives Neuroplasticity refers to the ability of the brain to adapt and change in response to environment It occurs on a molecular level So at the the points of contact where your brains communicate with each other We call these the synapses the the proteins the the constituent the chemicals that are in those communications zones the synapses Can change you can influence that what's there? It occurs on a cellular level Contrary to what I was taught when I was a kid that you know You're born with everything under the hood here that you get and that's it take care of it We do grow newer neurons. We do replace them. We're doing them right now some of us more than others and This neuroplasticity occurs on a regional basis kind of like a muscle You know if you if you use regions of the brain more that they become reinforced You deliver nutrients and clear out waste more effectively just like a muscle is use it or lose it and When we're born We have about a hundred billion neurons Okay, that's a lot packed in there a hundred billion and each and every one of those neurons has the possible the potential To talk to and communicate with two thousand five hundred other neurons So think about that each one communicating with twenty five hundred others Talking to twenty five hundred others. That's an amazingly elaborate network of communication And as you reach about the age of three all the way up through adolescence Which which believe it or not ends for women around twenty one and for men around twenty four not eighteen That communication completely expands about to a deploy where each cell each of those one hundred billion neurons can communicate with up to 15,000 individual other cells When you talk about complexity that is a machine more complex than any of those computers that you have in your pockets That's an amazing machine and as you become an adult you're not becoming more stupid You but you do prune away those connections and that's what makes you the unique individual that you are That's your personality what you use becomes reinforced and what you don't is lost Which brings us to the point again another quote. I love quotes. This one comes from the ex-slave Frederick Douglass Because the brain is built this way It's really important that we approach creating healthy environments for our children because it's easier to To to build the strong child than it is to repair a broken adult Okay, we have to remember that our brains are plastic throughout our lives. So even the adult can be fixed It's just a lot harder Let's move to the for the sake of time Since I only have a couple minutes When we look at this paradigm and we can identify in a scientific sense risk factors that lead to increased likelihood of engaging in violence And it's it's Unfortunately in human nature to kind of go down this list and look at the negative and go okay We have a healthy family unit. I my kids wear helmets when they play sports. They don't get traumatic brain injuries There's no toxins in my environment. They get good physical activity, there's low They don't get to watch it violent media or play violent video games I'm good to go That's not how the brain works. Unfortunately, if you're not actively pursuing protective factors You're moving downhill. It's like a muscle. It's either hypertrophying and getting bigger or atrophying and getting smaller There's no good to go So if you were to look at this and say what are the protective factors that I should Best spend my time. I'm just gonna highlight a couple of them I'm gonna cruise through them one of them without question needs to be self-mastering The ability to set and achieve goals Name and tame your emotions and recognize how your behaviors influence other people's behaviors And when I we call this emotional intelligence, but it goes by all these other names over the years It's it's getting a lot of popular press right now for I think great reasons It turns out that parents a lot of times hear that we want to teach this in schools And they say oh come on we've got so much my kids needed to learn reading writing and math right the sciences That's the important stuff Well, I they can relax because if you if you teach social emotional skills in the school Kids improve 11 to 17 percent on their academic test scores. That's a profound improvement in their test scores But while we're at it, let's look at those test scores What do they mean now clearly if you're gonna be a biologist you need to know biology a physicist needs to know some Math, but what do these test scores academically worldwide prove? Well, they don't really predict anything what one thing that they do predict and it's almost disturbing The better that you do on a on a standardized test worldwide The more money your family has What does that mean? It means that somebody is writing the test and that person is usually somebody with great means But but your emotional intelligence predicts success in life and Usually I do a social experiment and I have people define success, but for the sake of time Let me just tell you that your Your skill set how good you would rate yourself or your parents would rate you or believe it or not your kindergarten teacher How they rate your emotional intelligence? Predicts health it predicts your incarceration rate it predicts your substance abuse liability It predicts how often you see the doctor it predicts wealth It predicts your credit score and how much income you're gonna have as an adult It also predicts your parenting style and it also predicts your satisfaction with life So if there's anything that we're gonna instill in our in our kids at school it should be social emotional skill building Let's go up to another one. I met a lot some great people from Wisconsin This is a really great study in terms of social justice and perhaps approaching how we could reform the judge the criminal corrections and Processing system They have a huge problem in this area south southeast Wisconsin with violence And when they looked at though the most heinous offenders, these are juveniles that are murderers rapists and have been Incarcerated for aggravated assault they go through the juvenile processing system They go through time served and within five years Over 70% of them recommit the same heinous crime again 70% and In this area near Madison They said we can't afford this we can't afford this on a moral and philosophical level But we literally can't afford it financially because these beds cost in the range of 45 to 65 thousand dollars Per bed and we have too many of them and they're gonna recommit and now they're adults and that's even more expensive 75 80 thought $5,000 per bed What can we do? They read they looked at the paradigm and we have a compression paradigm in our country where we Segregate from society and compressing compressing compress to the point that every time that you infringe on a On a rule you're isolated further and further and further you're losing more and more and more community engagement and rights They said can we turn this paradigm around instead of having it run by law enforcement have law enforcement service security and safety But now what we're gonna do is we're gonna have health care providers run the facility And we're gonna give cognitive behavioral therapy to these kids give them one-on-one FaceTime Okay This isn't hand-holding. I mean these kids are heinous criminals, but they're shown that their behaviors have a have a value and a meaning and Do affect other people that their lives matter and I don't think and I this could be argued by a therapist Certainly better than by me. I don't think it was the cognitive behavioral therapy that mattered It was this one-on-one attention and time-giving, but that could be that could be studied But the results are unbelievable Within just two years of applying this program at the Mendota corrections facility Following the kids out for five years. They cut the recidivism they cut the Recommit of the crimes in half That's a profound result that needs to be replicated and expanded in in other populations larger groups And I would love to see that in the adult population But we can change this paradigm and the reason that I think we can change it is because Well, a lot of young audiences often come up to me and they say, you know, we're just animals at the end of the day It's in our it's our it's our nature to be violent So let's look at that for a second It turns out that what makes us special Particularly is our brains and it's not that we have bigger brains But we have a lot more of a part of the brain the neocortex the outside part the part that you always draw with all the Bumps and ridges that neocortex to total brain volume. That's what we have a lot of and what does that correlate with it? turns out That the volume of neocortex to brain ratio correlates with the group size that we live in which leads to the conclusion that we either have big brains because we have Large groups or we live in large groups because we have a big neocortex Regardless, we've evolved to live in large communities And when you look at the evolutionary process, we don't evolve on the same genetic level that the other animals do We we evolve at a much different process in days past you have Darwin's finches here This guy in the upper left has a big fat beak because the environment where where they live They have a selective advantage if they can crack tough seeds and Get the the carbohydrates inside these finches in the bottom right Well, they live in an environment where the advantage is obtained if they adapt genetically To to a long beak that reaches into the flower petal and gets it out of the the pollen in the middle there But humans if we need to crack a seed we build a nutcracker if we're cold we Build jackets air conditioning for the heat. We went to the moon just to check it out We evolve on a different level Richard Dawkins has a great term that he tried to rhyme with genetic He called it me medic the transfer of ideas We adapt our environment to suit us through the exchange of these ideas and we evolve By sharing our knowledge and those that are able to do it effectively to communicate connect collaborate and create Those are the evolved humans and that's our evolution. So I would argue that yes while we are just animals To be human means to be humane and that's what we need to evolve to We're we're always hung up on differences I think it's important to point out that if you look at on a genetic level, there is no such thing as race We're really hung up on race But there is just one race and I'm not saying in a hippie trippy not only in a hippie trippy tree huggy sense But literally there is no such thing These two girls in Nigeria are just as genetically identical to these two girls in Southern California. That's a fact So am I saying that when you get your next job application or college entrance exam You cross this off and you say hey, I'm a human well Yes, I wish I could say that but while there is no such thing as there's only one race There's no such thing as different races. There is unfortunately the existence of racism and Until we can normalize the playing field and get rid of those differences that are completely contrived We've got a lot of work to do and that'll go a long way towards peace to recognize them. So I appreciate your time We all need to to recognize that the brain is our seat of behavior That we all are in control of our brain health and advocating for our own and those of our loved ones I could tell you about what we're doing specifically if you have time But and ways that you can help so please I Always I promise my wife. I will always say find us on Facebook and like us tweet us on Twitter It really matters because we can share this message of brain health So put it out there by all means donate if you have the means in the desire to do so But but find us and like us tweet us Instagram us whatever that that verb is and And just to just to conclude Remember why we're all here and what we have to do in front of us because it really matters Thank You Jeremy. That was just I can't imagine a more inspiring and wonderful way to start the morning We just have a few minutes, but I wanted to make sure we could take just a couple of questions But also hope that we can invite you back every year to have just much more of a dialogue and everything you talked about I'd be honored. Absolutely. Yeah questions Yes, and we'll cluster a couple. I want to thank you for your presentation. It was really amazing my father is a therapist in a prison And I'm going to be sharing a lot of this with him and while he is a really great empathetic Therapist sometimes he does struggle with seeing these Prisoners who have such horrific backgrounds and pasts and have then gone on to do some horrific things And he does struggle with that sometimes and I'm wondering What you would say to him and what you would suggest he say to The men that he sees to give them hope about the the preventing and the healing of Brain health and violence. Thank you That's a great question. You know what can be done Particularly on these adults that you know We've pulled out of society. So specifically I Would make sure that he has a Good support structure to recognize the difference between empathy Which would be taking in all that that emotion and feelings and compassion Which is to hope that you can actually do something with those feelings and that he needs to Take care of you know self-help first What he can tell his patients or his his you know his patients Is to recognize that Their experiences the adversity that they faced have a large contribution to their behaviors They don't excuse or forgive the behaviors But it goes a long way to recognizing there's a reason that you're acting that way There's a reason that this happened and there are many injustices in the world that that you have to Face and work with but that there's hope that this brain that you that you're you're fortunate enough to have Can be fixed can be adjusted and that there is help to that and that you have to address it and recognize That that's influencing your behaviors. I think that's empowering in and of itself In the large scope of things while we call it corrections Unfortunately beyond deterrence. It doesn't serve any form of correction and we really need to Kind of reform our our correctional process Vaccines to control the diseases Can there be a vaccine be invented to control that violent that agitate the violent neuron in future well, so I'm going to probably say in the in some day and maybe it's not likely The contagion Violence as a contagion and I love to picture that and the cure violence people would definitely get that There's no question that violence is a public health Threat and we need to look at it in that way and it is a contagion violence Definitely leads to violence to self and to others But there probably is no magic pill no no Antibiotic no antibody no immunity that we can get With one injection, but we can definitely use boosters and help that I don't think it that it's going to be a pharmacologic intervention And if it is it probably won't be a standalone intervention It's going to be something else that hopefully one of the young minds in here will come up with but I don't think that there will be One injection, but it could be in a more philosophical level. Yes, we could be Actively pursuing all those protective factors that will have a very profound Almost immunization effect on our on our community in our culture One final. Yes Thank you very much. I wonder if you can talk more about the on the negative risk side. You mentioned violent media Is there a way you can study the impact of violence in the media say? There's the video games. There's the entertainment, which I think is significant But what about our politics world affairs are our wars, you know these these ideas that sort of legitimize state violence Is there how do you measure that how can is there a way to how do you measure it? But also what could be done not in a vaccine sense, but in a preventive or the positive side What a great question and in the expanded version of the talk I go it really into detail about that and when I ask people and I told them violent media Leads to is a great risk factor to violence and I asked what media am I talking about almost everybody says video games But importantly, we do know how to study the effects of media violence on increased aggression and Purposeful aggression being violence From 1960s to present there is countless Scientifically solid peer-reviewed journals that show the very clear positive correlation with the news Television in in all aspects are movies the way that we portray it That is correlated so much data in fact that two Surgeon Generals address this Saturn Coop Issuing the the equivalent of a Surgeon General warning on violent television and we've done nothing about it Now when it comes to video games you think television is completely passive you sit back You got your you tub of corn and you're being entertained a Video game is first person oftentimes. It's fully immersive. You're part of the game That's why you're playing it and when the majority of video games Well when a large fraction of them 30 40% of them are violent in their in their nature. That is what they are And and I would say you know almost every virtually every game has a violent aspect to it about 80% of them do and When you think that 95% of adolescents are playing video games That's a real problem, but the solution isn't to take them away Violent just the violent video game industry represents around 1.2 billion dollars But that's that's our Dollars so the purchase power is in your pocket if we take that purchase power and we say you know what we don't want that We want this The video game platform is such an ideal opportunity to get to our kids to help to enforce Good behaviors and we need some creativity there. I mean nobody's gonna play fun with numbers besides maybe me We need some really cool games And we need to reward those video game manufacturers that are willing to move into that space to create games that reinforce positive Behaviors because they're not going to go away and all our kids are playing them What an opportunity to be a powerful tool to educate that we have we just need to use it in a responsible fashion Well on that note, I want to thank you again so much Jeremy for being with us And we wish you great success for the foundation and hope you'll let us know how we can support you Absolutely, thank you guys. Have you noticed how neuroscientists are like the new rock stars of the peace building world? Thank you, Jeremy. That was really great And now we have a different group of rock stars here For those who've just joined you my name is Nancy Lindborg. I'm the president of the United States Institute of Peace and This this is really a terrific conference. Thank you Melanie and everyone at the Alliance for peace building for putting this together We Are talking today with this panel on next-gen fragility new Approaches to peace and governance in fragile states So our goal for the next hour is looking at the ways in which conflict violence and governance converge in fragile environments And I'm joined by an incredible panel people who have deep expertise very very thoughtful on this topic Including Sarah Cliff who's the director of the Center of International Cooperation at New York University Sarah's worked for over 20 years in countries that are either emerging from conflicts or in political Transitions she also spent much of her career at the World Bank and wrote one of the seminal works that's guided many of us the World Development Report in 2011 Still a very powerful document We also have Claire Lockhart who's the co-founder and CEO of the Institute for State Effectiveness The author of another critical book Fixing Failed States which she co-authored with Ashraf Ghani Now the president in Afghanistan and she previously served as an advisor to the UN in Afghanistan during the bond process Pradeep Pariyar is the founder of the Nepal Policy Center, which is a youth-led think tank in Kathmandu and he's a board member of the Association of Youth Organizations in Nepal and Recently appointed by the Nepali government to the National Youth Policy Review Task Force congratulations Grace Yeh-Yeh Ni-Mason is a social worker who spent nearly a decade working on women's empowerment Advocacy and HIV and AIDS in communities across Liberia She's also the co-founder and executive director of the women's movement for sustainable development in Liberia And finally we have Eileen Babbitt who's the director of the Institute for Human Security and co-director of the program on Human Rights and Conflict Resolution at the Fletcher School and Eileen has done research that has informed many of us in very powerful ways on identity-based conflicts trust building and post-war environments and That critical interface between peace building and human rights And she's worked as a facility a facilitator and trainer in conflict environments around the world So this is an incredible panel that we have We'll take questions from everybody after we have a few rounds of questions among the panel and for those of you Who are following online be sure to use the hashtag Peacecon 2016 will also be taking questions from Twitter So this is such an amazing moment for this conversation We just as I said earlier had the World Summit The World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul where conflict was really front and center And there was an amazing moment at the round table on preventing an ending violent conflict With world leaders where the most forward-leaning speakers at the table were the leaders of fragile states Tunisia Mali Somalia They're the ones who were talking about some of these core concepts of inclusivity accountability and ending corruption I would love to have Your reflections Particularly with the sustainable development goal 16 in front of us. Hope everybody here knows what goal 16 is. Yes This is a wonky audience You know that without accountable inclusive societies and access to justice for all we will never achieve the rest of our Sustainable development goals our global goals. So Grace I'm gonna start with you when we look at the challenges of Fixing fragile states of enabling fragile states to really move forward on peace and prosperity It very complex complicated environments. What's the role of civil society? What if what do you think we've learned over the past five years of how? Civil society is is crucial on this this set of challenges Okay First of all, I want to say thank you that I'm at this very important meeting and Your question for your question one thing we need to understand is that civil society is actually like a bulldog We are the ones supposed to be looking at government and where government is going if they are going wrong We tell them. Hey, you are not doing this. And if they are not going to win good. We also compliment them But if you ask me that question civil society in Liberia or the period especially From the the from 2005 when we had our first democratically elected President civil society has been on the forefront. We have been engaged in most of all The activities in terms of reforms in terms of peace building especially focusing at the community levels So in as much as there are a lot of challenges in the work we do But civil society has always been at a forefront in these different areas and one of the things that we also have some problem with is the issue of corruption and In terms of talking about corruption from the civil society and It has been like once you talk about corruption. You are anti-government Anti-government. Yes, it means you don't like the government your and for us We don't see it that way. We think we should be telling government where they are going wrong and where they are not going wrong, but That is a big challenge in terms of doing the work we do other than that Civil society has been at a forefront in most of the things that is that are happening in Liberia our own regret in recent times has been The drastic drug down of the United Nations missions just before the 2017 elections We're going to be having elections in 2017 the UN missions in Liberia Will be joined on the 30th of June 2016 and we think this is also a challenge and that in as much as we wanted the the Secure the peace and security of Liberia to be in the hands of Liberians. We think there's still a need to have the United Nations missions in Liberia Maybe up to the elections and then after the elections we can we can move forward Pradeep I want to ask you the same question. Nepal has undergone a long painful transition What has been what has been the role of civil society and of peace builders and where do you see? The priorities going forward Thank you very much for having me here. It's okay when King took over power in 2005 2001 to 2005 when there were a political party are divided when one parliament dissolved and there is a lonely civil society very active and When political party organized rally, there is only 150 to 200 people and when civil society started Started campaign against the against the king and then there is a thousand and thousand people and that's people moments started by the civil society when that's when That happens, but after that Political party took over the power and civil society are really divided into political parties they are divided into name of the political party and Right now, there's a not really Civil society they are divided in terms of political parties and they have a little Interest to get the some appointment to get the something from the government So it's not a very strong civil society right now when there were When there was a king took over the power civil society was so active to achieve the Some common goals, but after that there is no common goals. So there is a little interest Within the civil society. So that's that's happened right now and pretty how did that happen? What happened that co-opted civil society? when there is a civil society had a earlier common goal to Throne King, but after the political party comes over into power They are divided because of their limited interest because they have a small interest I already mentioned they want to get something from the political party and government When democracy restores restore Before democracy restore that time. They have only one goal common goals now There there's not common goals. I think so civil society has Divided in in terms of their political ideology and political thoughts I mean you're nodding over there You know What what both Liberia and Nepal have experienced is is trying to restore That states society confidence and because of the lack of legitimacy that both their governments suffered from you've looked a lot at that What's the best pathway back and what can outsiders do to help states and civil society? recreate that legitimacy Well the the project we've been focusing on is is asking that question and the question we've started with is what is it that creates? Legitimacy in the eyes of the citizens of the country so-called internal legitimacy Because the research shows that if a state is perceived to be legitimate by its people then it has more capacity to manage conflict to operate effectively, etc. And there's a there's a dilemma in the answer Because the answer we found is participation and inclusion Even in something as a material as provision of basic services like education health water, etc One of our colleagues did it participated in a multi-year and multi-country study of whether the provision of basic services leads to state legitimacy Because donors believe that that's the relationship that if you give money for state capacity building particularly in basic services that you then Create legitimacy for the government and it turns out not to be true Which is rather surprising finding given that the donor community in 2014 Contributed 36 billion dollars to the creation of social social infrastructure and basic services with the idea that it would Provide this benefit what the study found and this is a study funded by diffid is that The provision of services per se did not create perceptions of legitimacy What did create perceptions of legitimacy was if people participated in at the community level participated in the design of those services and Also had a mechanism for voicing grievances if the services were not adequate This was the only relationship that actually mattered in terms of Legitimacy so we all know or believe that participation and inclusion are important what we were trying to figure out is Are there is there any empirical data to support that belief and it turns out in this Context and in others it's true, but then you have the dilemma that Pradeep just mentioned which is the civil society is often fractured and What appears legitimate to some may not appear or be seen as legitimate by others and the real Challenge I think for all of us is figuring out how to enable facilitate support Multi-stakeholder discussions at the community level and at every level to work through those differences Because otherwise people end up getting left out feeling silenced and it reinforces division Rather than creating the legitimacy that we would hope do does the outside donor community exacerbate that by emphasizing creation of political parties and pushing elections It's an unintended consequence. Yes. I think so it mean it's with good intent Because we have a functioning democratic Polity here in this country and in other Western countries. Well, yeah You're right that is a laughable. Yeah, that's a laughable proposition. Sorry about that. Yeah, we think we do We will again yeah grace and Pradeep How does that resonate with your experiences in Liberia and Nepal grace did it did Was there a Mechanism that gave communities a voice and participation and development of services I think what she said resonated very well. Well, what what is actually happening on the grounds? because The need for community involvement is not is beyond the papers is beyond writing it on a paper We need to interact with communities and that is one thing that is not being present So sometimes our government may write good reports for example You had a stakeholders meeting and you had the chief wife there and you have maybe two other women The report tells you that women were involved But the reality is that who were the women that were involved? Are there women at the political levels at the community women that need to speak out? So that is very clear that the inclusion of communities is very crucial in Getting where we want to be and for Liberia. I think that is one thing that we need to do I tell you I gave you a story that In Grand Basel County There was one of these big institutions at the end of the civil crisis this county Earned their source of income from like smithing Anyone knows about blacksmith? Okay, so Usually we'll sit in our big offices. Maybe in New York or maybe in Monrovia or in Johannesburg Whatever and we go online and get these information. We don't confirm them in the communities We don't know what the processes are and we sit and write these fabulous Proposers and this group wrote a proposal to build a blacksmith For this community and we did intend that this will help the community to raise Fun to move their livelihood forward but the biggest mistake they made was not to go on the grounds because Traditionally before you build a blacksmith there must be some traditional rituals that take place In the absence of that they wouldn't use it So because they did not engage these communities and They built this big place brought all of the facilities and up to present is a forest So now we've written good reports that we did this work But the reality is that it's not impacting the lives of the communities so I think we need to Think twice on the way on our approaches to be more community driven to be more stakeholders driven So that we get the input of the people who should be benefiting from our services Grace, thank you Pradeep in terms of the legitimacy of the Nepali government have they sought community participation and engagement? Can I share my some of the pictures? No, I can I can go on if that's okay. That's fine actually when there is a What there is a war or when there is a? Yeah, yeah, I want to share some of the picture continue Just we're gonna keep this punchy though. Yeah Yeah, look at this picture I want to stop in this picture. You can see the few few I Have a huge respect on all the generation In previous picture, there's a you you can see the all the rest all the cast group people in this pictures But in this picture you can see after this when the peace agreement signs a sign By these two leaders after that all the inclusion is not there when there are fighting was there when there is a war was there There always inclusion all the people there all the cast because there they have a common goals to achieve Restores restore the democracy, but after this peace agreement sign There is a not inclusion perspective in that they're in the leadership. I want to give you examples When they speak peace agreement sign after that there is a new government fund, but that there were not Young people participation. There was not marginalized people participation in the government. So When we have a new election happen, that's a vice of marginalized people heard and then there's a many marginalized people in the Constitutional assembly, but the one that decide main things and main points in the in the what should be in the constitution But only five male leaders decide Only five male leaders from the same cast groups. So there is a 601 representative in the Constitutional assembly, but the one they need to decide and do agreement They don't ask with their carers or leaders because they felt that we appointed you We appointed because of us you are here. So that's kind of mentality in the leadership So that that's how going on is still and then we have a first Constitutional assembly dissolved and then we have a second Constitutional assembly and there are also 601 members when they decide now we have a new Constitution but it's still there is not marginalized voice. It's not heard and then Madeci people delete delete a so-called low-cost groups and then women and marginalized groups are still continuing fighting with these leaders When they were together to fight restore the democracy now We need to fight with these leaders that kind of situation over going on when they are Interim constitution we have a we have an interim constitution They wrote beautiful things in interim constitution now We have a new constitution, but they took out our rights from the new constitution That's why now it's still more than 50 people already died and then still fighting going on that kind of situation I don't know why this kind of mindset with our leaders But it's still that kind of situation going on and and Pradeep does does your appointment to the national youth policy Task Force signal any change of heart? The fact that they have such task force. Yeah, we have now tax force as yesterday. I also mentioned with the in previous panel Before coming to Washington DC one of the minister called me and then said you did a really wrong thing And I said why and then we put in the national youth policy 50% women participation We ensure 50% women participant participation and now They need to fulfill the youth council with the 50% women participation But political party are really afraid to Offer it to include all the 50% women participation in the council and they are threatening us like why you did all those kind of things and I said to minister Look at how it's impacting near future So that's kind of situation going on I don't know why these people are like that, but we still need to fight and then we called This justice is a really race really race. So we need to sometime tired We but we need to fight continue So Pradeep lack of inclusion lack of consultation lack of legitimacy Claire I know that that ISC is looking at what are some of the successes and failures from The last decade or so of trying to do the state building transitional exercises How does how does this Compare with what you are finding. We're just some of the highlights of that Well, it tracks quite closely to the conversation so far and I'll highlight maybe just a couple of lessons that are emerging one is the absolute centrality of citizen and community engagement and Especially the youth which as we know are the absolute majority of so many Dynamic and growing countries around the world and I think you know in part It was one of the mistakes of the Millennium Development Goals We spent a lot of attention on primary education and very young children but we forgot about the teenagers and the youth and You know then there was an agenda of including them through sports and through activities Which was one step forward, but I think that's not enough for the youth It's not just soccer matches and and so on that it's going to include them They want to be included politically, but what are the avenues for political engagement? What are the avenues for economic engagement in the society that need to Really make that a real real avenue of inclusion So that's the first The second is I think the field has made huge strides in some people call it thinking and working politically Of course peace processes and transitional process are intensely political But I think there are some real dilemmas and issues that need to be confronted here Part of the field has now moved into to recognize the importance of the political settlement and the Grand Bargain And many of the grandees of the field absolutely rightly you know You need to do these deals to stop the fighting and I think one can recognize the imperative of that But too often then the deal stops there. So what about the inclusion and Having much more inclusive and broader processes that follow I think the UN is recognizing this now with the sustaining peace report that's just come out So what what do we mean by thinking of working politically and how can it have that much much? broader sense of Participation and political processes and I think that does mean about you know, how do national political agendas get set? Do they get set by a few? men in Smoke-filled rooms or what are those processes for setting a national political and development agenda? How do you engage people not just in the capital city, but in the cities around the country and in the villages? How do you engage different stakeholder groups and what kind of political processes that are not only top-down? But bottom-up as well Sarah When you think back on your groundbreaking work of the world development report in 2011 and then CIC just did a really terrific evaluation of How we're doing with the new deal for fragile states which has these five peace building and state building goals and One of the things that the president of Somalia said in Istanbul was You know Somalia is just now 20 years later getting to the point where it was 20 years ago And it's critical to fix the politics This is really hard. This is hard inside the country. It's really hard from an external perspective So from all the work that you've done Where do you see? The greatest struggle and the greatest opportunity particularly for civil society and external actors to Provide the kind of support that gets at this core issue So if we think about the moment now and the world humanitarian summer in Istanbul It has to be said that in terms of outcomes We're not looking at that good a picture Conflict deaths from violent conflict have gone up fivefold in the last five years I always hope this is not correlated with the publication of the world development report But certainly the performance the performance since then has not been very good And I think that there are really two key things we need to look at why we're not already Why we're not implementing what we already know Which is what many of the other panelists talked about and what is new that has emerged in that period so on what we already know the balance in legitimacy of Capability of states capacity of states Inclusion of states and accountability over issues like corruption We keep on getting our external support to this balance wrong So for instance in Iraq in South Sudan We quite clearly supported a kind of capability led Agenda and we didn't push very hard on issues of inclusion and accountability With quite disastrous Results that's not an easy balance. So for instance in Somalia There were some external programs to hold accountable the government through Parliament three or four years ago when really the government didn't yet Exist so you can't also support accountability before you have some degree of Capacity, but I think we get the balance wrong the second aspect is what we invest in and Eileen mentioned this So the the first three of the peace building and state building goals political institutions Justice and security we don't invest in very much 4% of our aid in political institutions 3% in justice 2% in security sector reform separated from defense Cooperation so for instance in a country like Burundi There was some investment in military reform But almost nothing in the justice system the police Political institutions which we now see is leading to problems and the third I added listening to you But the the emphasis still on fast elections from external actors Absolutely goes against all the lessons we have that we know that without the surrounding institutions Pushing for very fast elections with a full handover without checks and balances has really severe drawbacks So I think that's an issue with the drawdown of the mission in Liberia It should in fact be waiting until after the elections probably not even at the election It's a huge challenge for us if a ceasefire proceeds in Syria if there is the beginning of a political settlement How would we avoid a situation of pushing there for very fast elections? Just finished by highlighting what is is new. We've seen much more middle income countries in conflict I think that relates actually to us applying these institutional indicators more broadly and in the end in the context of the Sustainable development goals. We really need to see that as applying across high income middle income and low income that fragility is not Constrained to the lowest income of of countries We've seen a rise in geopolitical tensions and we've seen of course the rise of violent extremism Those things are linked ISIS obviously has gained territory and ground in Countries that already had civil conflict that already had very weak institutions geopolitical conflicts have always exploited That kind of circumstance But we really need to do more to think about how our different types of prevention from the violence prevention Our first speaker talked about this morning to conflict prevention to prevention of violent extremism linked together USIP is try is tri-chairing along with Carnegie and the Center for New American Security An effort Working with a senior study group Claire as one of our members To identify key recommendations for the next administration on how can the US government be more effective on Addressing fragility, so I'm gonna shamelessly exploit each of you I'm gonna ask you really quickly give me one great idea to include in this in this study Aline Agenda should absolutely focus on the multi-stakeholder process and Not simply as grace said as a box to check off But really understand what is involved that these are political processes people have to do analysis They have to understand the local context, and they've got to put money into it It can't simply be again a checked box. It has to be something with integrity Yeah, there's a great need for community community involvement and for community inclusion into these processes Because context are different from different places So you need to understand what is happening in this context in order to come up with what you're so I totally go For community involvement Before coming to here There's a in Nepal after the earthquake reconstruction is happening hugely and then I asked with the Nepal government authority to ensure young people participation in this process and they are not listening our voice and then I went to SN development Bank, and they are funding for for many many part of the country and then I went to them and then I asked with them in When you are doing agreement with the Nepal government ensure youth participation In in all the process and then they asked with the Nepal government official to to ensure young people Participation in reconstruction now they are doing that sometime when we ask for many things with the government They're not listening us, but sometimes donors Asked with them that they will listen so we need to we need to channel in different ways So that that's the there we need to ensure young people and marginalized people In the decision-making process, but sometime we we ask all the time, but they are not listening We need to channelize in different ways have external support support. Yeah clear So I think I think and hope this is what the report will do But I think it's that US leadership on this issue really matters And and now's the time for a sort of renewed bold vision that Sarah's reports at the World Bank did to really mobilize people I think understandably in the US especially the media in the public and some policymakers There's a lot of lack of confidence, you know Iraq and Afghanistan with tough experiences And this is really demoralized people, but now is the time to also look for grounds for confidence And I think US leadership whether it's in Colombia of the last decade South Korea all around the world that when the US has put its resources and leadership in partnership and through multilateral institutions with others it matters and Try to find a way to to mobilize this US public and policy establishment for the next decade Sarah I Agree with that and with the previous speakers I would just add that I think if you were able to work out what is common and what is different between our discussions on violence prevention on conflict prevention on prevention of violent extremism And on prevention of mass atrocities. Those are four different communities that use the word prevention But that actually don't cross over very much that would not only be useful here It would be very useful to other countries who are grappling with that to create a typology in terms of the kind of Work out what's common about those challenges and what is actually different and requires quite distinct Responses and where can responses contradict? Between the different which has happened. Yes indeed. I want to open it up and enable The audience to ask questions. We have mics If if we can come down front we have a questionnaire right here, sir And please if you could just tell us who you are when you ask for a question Yeah, right down here Somebody has to be first I suppose we appreciate it My name is Peter Dixon with associated with an organization called concord is international Thank you all for your for your comments and for your wisdom We talk about fragile and conflict affected states as a as a kind of acronym and and we talk about states and sometimes we see them as pariah states But it's very state-based we live in an international society which is System which is It has the sort of inadequate shorthand of the Westphalian system very state-based Fixing failed states is a is a concept a book and All about states, but we Do the professor next to me might well suggest that the state is a very open system not a closed system and I just wonder what you might have to say about fragility as an international concept rather than fragile states as such How do globalization for instance and fragmentation? Affect the fragility. Thank you Anybody want to tackle that Eileen? Just to say that another part of our project Not on basic services, but on a security sector and reform of the security sector is a Project done by our colleague Alex Dual in looking at peace missions in Africa and how they create or don't create Census of security and one of the things that that they've found in that research is that not surprisingly the conflicts that are Nominally state conflicts within states are not at all that they're more regional that there is cross a lot of cross-border relationships and Things that pass back and forth there the parties are much more multivariate and that these processes need to Be seen as regional problems rather than state-based problems again It means reconceptualizing who is at the table and at table metaphorically Who's included when we talk about inclusion it may be that you have to bring in a larger group of people that rather than just the state people themselves because the It not just interested actors, but the important actors in making decisions and Changing political processes are larger than within the state. So Sarah I Think it's important when we talk about institutions to think about whether our international Institutions are geared to actually prevent and redress these newer types of conflict So if you think about the Security Council now the Security Council is not a capable and inclusive an accountable Institution in its current form or necessarily effective indeed. Yeah, no, so capable definitely I think the results in the last few years speak for themselves to some extent But so the institutional arguments at national level you can mirror regional or at international level Now that's not going to change Realistically in the next few years So one needs to think of ways to work around that what mechanisms can be set to create more inclusion to create Pressure for some accountability on results Let's take a few questions Sir right here Hello, you're you're on sorry William Anderson former USA senior Foreign Service officer Senior Development Advisor at US European Command and African Command and a formerly USA to represent it to European Union So the WDR the World Development Report of 2011 which I thought was a wonderful piece concluded in in brief that to prevent recurring violence in conflict-affected states You need citizen security jobs and legitimate institutions And it takes a generation So how do we get stakeholders? national international especially Governments and donors in the US whose horizons are barely a day To act plan act and adapt accordingly good question Over here in the white shirt. Yep, and one other we want to tee up Raise your hand if you have one go ahead, sir Andrew Tomlinson from the Quaker UN office in New York, and thank you for a wonderful panel So we talked about a lot about inclusion this morning and of course inclusion comes up very strongly in the 2030 agenda And I would emphasize that we're not just talking about goal 16 to go 10 and other places and actually some of inclusion language is probably more transformative longer term than everything we have in goal 16 But the question that arises I think as we focus more on inclusion is can we switch our thinking from Inclusion as part of a sort of a democratization Project and eventually a regime change project to thinking about how we actually encourage more repressive political Circumstances to actually work on inclusion in those not and not as a road to some kind of big-scale political change But how do we actually if you like sell this in in the less than democratic Circumstances in which most of the world lives What does actually inclusion look like in in a less than democratic political environment? And I think so I'm really interested in how the panel could think about this and perhaps help us What is really the key issue in implementing the inclusion project in so many countries around the world? Thank you the ad campaign for inclusion And what final question down here of this round the woman in the left. Did you have a question? No, okay over here Hi, my name is Sophia Giddens and I'm with the global nomads group and my question is on your Experiences or if you could cite examples of best practices of youth in civic engagement Either training or within the actual political process. Thank you Okay, so What pretty do you want to start with the youth question? We we are running the campaign against the corruption. I'll give example a Corruption if we talk about the corruption it start from the house Usually I talk with the young people. Have you ever asked with your Parents, how much money they are earning or how much money they aren't look let's let's give an example In young people they want a motor bike But their parents on like every month like hundred dollars, but young people wants $100,000 motor bike So how your parents can give you motor bike, but you are asking With your parents motor bike or iPhone So it's corruption is start from home you are Encouraging your parents to give something what your parents doesn't have so that's a start from house So we ask with the young people so please ask if Your father giving motor bike or iPhone Us with the your parents first start from the house and then ask question to your government or wherever Asking question is one of our campaign Ask how it's not happening or how it's happened so from the house So asking question is our one of a campaign. That's it's really good campaign So when we talk about this and then young people realize oh, I'm part of the corruption Society and then when we ask with the family and then a family who is aware oh my my Son or daughter asking these questions if that really happened so I'm going to jail or somewhere else so we are the country like 16th in the More than 167 countries transparent international does survey and we are on the 16th list So now we are educating young people to ask the questions on this issues I just want to not really answer but democracy and inclusion That's questions all but I want to answer Now we have like more than 16 years. We don't have a local election Every year more than 100,000 young people can participate in in the election Process in a one-time election now three times. We don't have election so more than 500,000 young people couldn't get chance to involve in the democratic process so that means They can't involve in the decision-making process when they can't involve in the decision-making process Inclusion is not happening Even though we have a democracy. We are federal democratic republic League country But we don't have a local election from 16 years So that kind of situation is happening inclusion is like buzzword No one want to do really in in in a in a in a real real situation Look at this. I saw the sum of the picture of the our leaders When they were demanding the democracy and then they were like we include you you you all When we have a democracy registration But after that they forget all of them and the next election They are going going to happen very soon, and they're also giving same agenda. We are include you So it's not happening when you are in the position to giving position You are very very very reluctant and you don't want to give so you third This leader third. This is our like own assets or something like that So we need to challenge especially young people need to challenge the authority challenge our family We need to ask the question you have a little bit more culture in us and this part of the world asking a question But we don't have a culture of asking questions to our authority or our own family So that's why we have this kind of campaign asking questions to our authority. So that's a good segue other thoughts on how you Convince particularly more authoritarian or close societies to to take on an inclusive approach clear I Think it's a great question So one of course is inclusion in the political processes But what are the other avenues for participation and one of them is the functional which Eileen has already mentioned So the co-creation and the participation in service delivery whether it's the health system and the way that health services are delivered the education system agriculture and there's been a lot of tremendous learning and expansion of the community driven development approach where the at the village level People take responsibility and make their own decisions on the allocation of resources We're seeing and I think the other is when we look at the different levels of governance and where are the avenues for participation and particularly given the pace of urbanization and the role of cities participation whether it's through the election of mayors election of city councils It's going to be just is already a tremendously important avenue and will continue to be I mean some of the great examples that I've seen as as We've launched this this new processes You know getting and I understand it in the power because you've had the delay of local elections It hasn't been possible But for example in Kenya terrific work being to help young people stand for election At all levels of governance in this new way It's new generation and now having both political and technical representation in this way And how do we then keep people engaged if it's generational? How do we how do we keep you? We're pulling out just before your next elections in Liberia What Sarah you you're the one who made the statement. How do we how do we address that? So that that piece of research that you quoted basically looked at every country that had made a transition in the 20th century And how long it took them to go from the institutional level of Haiti to the level of roughly Ghana and it found it was on average 20 years so our three-year time frames or five-year time frames are well That was the most unpopular recommendation we had in Washington, I must say So clearly this is not easy to change I have a little bit hopeful because it's come up through an unanticipated angle recently on the humanitarian side Where one of the major themes in Istanbul was when the average person is now displaced for 17 years How can we keep having these annual funding appeals? We need multi-year programs So I'm hoping that will be a bit of an itch and all pressure But in the end as I'm sure everyone here knows that's a political challenge within donor countries to get agreement to make the Changers and donor countries have legislative and policy constraints to doing it just on Andrew's question 20 seconds, I think we also need to do a better job of publicizing the experiences of countries that have gone from authoritarian governments to More inclusive systems without a war in between and two of those experiences would be Indonesia I think very relevant for instance for different countries in the Middle East now and Ghana in your neighborhood, which while by no means perfect on every front Avoided a major civil war in the transition that it went through and Tunisia is now and Tunisia is providing another Absolutely, yeah Yes, sure about the question about the the incentives and the Especially us agencies that have this short time frame and have to see results If there's anything that in your report on advice to the next administration, whoever that might be if if we could finally get around to changing the incentive structure for Aid assistance and where people's careers and promotions are not based on outputs But are based on the processes that they put in place to do the kinds of things We're talking about if we know that this is what is needed Why aren't those the parameters on which people are given? incentives to perform putting processes in place and and having them be politically Sensitive and based on good analysis. Why aren't both the parameters rather than how many dams do you build? How many clinics do you set up and the boxes that you check we have to change the incentives and the institutions? Thank you I'm being told we only have two minutes left I will take one final question and then give everybody a chance to wrap up All the way in the back gentlemen beard Aaron chassis Catholic Relief Services. Thank you all for talking about inclusion and challenges and trying to increase it Could you now shift a bit and talk more about access and influence? And how civil society beyond just the community level can be a very active voice and channeling citizens concerns and their preferences at higher levels And and and more importantly connecting those different levels So it's not just the community or just working at the national level for social political change But setting up the processes Eileen said to actually be able to work at all levels Grace that might have your name on it Well In as much as we want to do all of the work at the community level It will not be very essential if we don't link it to the national level Needed to the international levels. So everything we do at the local level must be Transform must be sent to the national level and the way we do that is that we try to engage different stakeholders Based on the kind of situations we are working on for example, if you are doing a peaceful elections project And you are doing the peace building initiative at the community level The best thing to do is to engage different stakeholders that are in the sector for example the elections commissions The library national police the transport ministry the out of the security sectors You need to get them involved because this is a situation that they actually supposed to be involved Since you are doing it you need to get them linked so that they send it at the national level and from the national level Our own government has to take it and send it to the international level So there must be a link and clearly agree that there is no way that we can survive at the community levels With all of the good things we are doing if it is not linked at the international levels So the processes are in place we do that by connecting different stakeholders based on the the issues We are working on Thank you So I'm just gonna do a check find out there. Is there anything that? Absolutely, wasn't said that we would be remiss and leaving out final comments I Just want to say the last thing there's a huge international community here When you travel to like our country and then you meet the certain kind of people that means elite That means who has access of information who has like network So you got one kind of impression only so that most of the time our project and our Campaign failure because of the you have you can't get chance to meet the those group of people who never heard So let's try to meet other kind of people those who can give you different perspective that would be lead to our campaign or our programs in different way and then change will happen slowly, but we We are we want to change very fast because young people want to change very fast And we don't want to wait change until we die So we want to in this generation. We want to change in this generation. So let's make happen. Thank you. Thank you, Pradi Claire you wanted to add something just just one thought and I you think you know What is it that the US peace building can contribute to the peace building state building field especially as we now mobilize around goal 16 One of the things we didn't hear but I think it's worth mentioning is what the science and technology community can bring to the field that vast innovation That America brings and whether that's you know as Yemen hopefully moves towards a peace process solving the water issue in Yemen And bringing this agenda back into the peace building field as we look to the decade ahead I think would be very important to do Great, thank you. Please join me in thanking our panel for the research the energy We appreciate the knowledge the experience and the impatience Thank you everybody