 So good afternoon ladies and gentlemen My name is Bill Taylor. I'm the executive vice president here at the United States Institute of Peace And I'm very pleased to welcome you here. Some of you. I know have been here before But has anybody hasn't been in this building before? Okay, okay. We got we got some some welcome guests here. You're all welcome, but some new ones here So the Institute of Peace does this kind of work around the world that is we do research Which we're going to hear about today and we apply that research To lessons that we've learned in the field and we do work in some of the places that Susanna is going to talk about here This afternoon in Iraq in Afghanistan in Pakistan in Nigeria in Burma and the range of these places where there's conflict That's what the Institute of Peace does. The Institute of Peace was founded by Congress 34 years ago We weren't always in this building as you know To focus on violent conflict abroad and the Congress wanted to have some place in the US government that focuses on nonviolent dispute resolution So that's what that's what we do and as I say the the connection of research and field experience and training and policy advice To the rest of the government is what what we do. So this is the kind of of event that we're very pleased to have here Susanna Campbell has is perfect for this I mean, she's done research in the field and she's done work in the field and she's put it together in a book that we're gonna Talk about here today, but she's been in the DRC Sudan South Sudan East Timor where Burundi? She's been around the world In conflict zones, which is the kind of work that makes it particularly relevant to us We sponsored her work earlier on as a peace scholar Which is another thing we do is to encourage the development of scholars in this field So this is a great opportunity for us her book that we'll be talking about today is global governance and local peace accountability and performance in international peace building that is That's a challenge Accountability in in peace building and accountability in of local governments for work that's going on In their jurisdictions, that's the kind of work that that we've seen is important to do and that she will she will describe so Leanna Burke From Institute of Peace. She heads up our CVE work our countering violent extremism work. She's gonna Land's gonna moderate. I've got a great panel here. We're sitting down front. They will come up here after Susanna speaks And so I'm looking forward to hearing this. So please welcome Susanna Hi everyone This thing moves It's great to see so many familiar faces. Thank you for coming and thank you To our awesome panelists for agreeing to spend this time Talking about this topic and about my book and to US IP for putting this together So I'm gonna give you the brief argument of the book here There are three main takeaways first peace building performance requires local level learning Which requires that international peace building organizations make themselves locally accountable The current accountability structure of international peace building Unfortunately, does not actually support local level learning or accountability It is focused on what New York? DC London or the headquarter office of the organization wants not what local stakeholders want To create local level learning Country-level staff often have to go around Circumvent bypass the standard operating procedures set up to make them accountable to their headquarters in Other words seemingly bad behavior or rule-breaking behavior may be necessary for good performance I'm gonna walk through this in more detail now So the basic starting point is that international peace building organizations are actually designed to fail at peace building Because they are accountable to global not local actors Organizations respond to the preferences of the people and individuals and entities to whom they are accountable International peace building aims to change the behavior of local actors not global actors This local change is experimental There's no certainty that any peace building activity will lead to the desired local level change in behavior Or that that type of change is even possible in such a highly dynamic context Organizational theory has found that in order for organizations to change Changing contexts they have to have regular feedback from the stakeholders who they aim to change They have to have feedback about what they're doing right and What they're doing wrong they have to have feedback about both success and failure Not from the producer of the good such as the country office, but from the consumer the local level people themselves So to respond to and hopefully change the behavior and preferences of local actors Country offices have to make themselves accountable to local stakeholders But to be accountable to these local stakeholders, they actually have to go around bypass circumvent as I said these rules routine standard operating procedures that were set up to make them accountable only To their headquarters. This is the way that these organizations were designed and that they function so the ability of Country offices to do that rests on the innovation The risk-taking and sometimes the rule breaking and rule-bending behavior of country office staff Now this has several important implications for peace building policy and practice The first one is that the solution is not more top-down accountability Right, so you can't solve this problem of peace building performance by forcing country offices To be more accountable to headquarters for what they're doing that actually has the perverse effect the solution is to actually empower innovation in Country office staff and give them time to listen and learn from diverse local stakeholders This type of learning this type of engagement with local actors is time intensive That means that for every dollar spent you may need more staff hours So rather than focus just on pouring money into somewhere you need to focus on accompanying the money that you give Or else you're not going to be able to ensure that it is grounded in the preferences of local stakeholders This is also not about some elaborate best practice guideline Where you have some clear plan with these 12 steps that you have to follow that will enable you to be locally accountable This is actually about figuring out how to give country staff The time the incentives to understand the local context to get out of their huge compounds to talk to people to build relationships to get feedback about both about both success and failure and To alter what they're doing in response to that This is my synthesis and now we're going to unpack it in conversation with the others So thank you for the opportunity to give this brief statement Thank you so much, Susanna, and thank you, Ambassador Taylor for introducing this I'm really delighted to have our discussants here today I'm going to quickly introduce each and every one of them and then we're going to jump in with each Discussing is going to give about five to eight minutes of their Top lines and then we'll go into Q&A first amongst ourselves and then with the audience. So Starting with Michael Barnett. He's a university professor of international affairs and political science at the George Washington University His research interests include the Middle East Humanitarian action global governance global ethics and the United Nations his current research projects range from International paternalism the changing architecture of global governance to the relationship between human rights and humanitarianism Miss Kate Savang Siri is the acting deputy Assistant administrator for USAID's Bureau of Democracy Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance known as dacha She has 20 years of international development experience specializing in democratic governance human rights political transitions and post-conflict stabilization issues Kate joined USAID in 2002 Focusing on rule of law and human rights issues in Asia in the Middle East in that capacity She helped establish USAID's democracy and governance programs in Afghanistan and was detailed to the State Department's office of the coordinator for Reconstruction and stabilization when it first started up Mike Javins is searched for common ground senior director Partnerships and engagement in this role. He oversees searches relationship with government civil society in the private sector as well as manages their Policy communication and development efforts in Washington, Brussels, New York, and London He joined search in 2008 as the head of search his office in the Democratic Republic of the Congo during his time He has worked on various governance security sector reform and humanitarian programs in central Africa So we have an incredibly talented and experienced group here That's going to be responding to the arguments that Susanna set forth for all of us And so I'm going to first turn it over to the last introduced Mike Javins to give our first response Thanks a lot and thanks Susanna, you know you give my bit of my bio But I think the way that I feel the most personally connected to your book as my very first job in Washington I was Howard Wolpe's assistant setting up the BLTP, which is one of the case studies in Varundi That's a really at the core of your book and It's not often that you read a book about something you think so much about And it's been so important personally to myself and have the luxury of the book actually being true And you know, I remember a number of things in the book and you describe it. Well And for this audience, I think What really strikes me and you highlighted in your presentation too is how Fundamentally broken in a lot of ways that peace building Infrastructure is in that, you know be able to be every organization that you describe in different ways and search in many places where we work Has done and continues to do some some great work But more often than not it's despite rather than because of how the system is set up and incentivized at search Our approach is to always first to begin by finding hope by choosing hope Identifying if you look in in Varundi, for example, it's very easy back in 2003-2002 to come up with the lists of things that were impossible and frankly an awful lot of embassy cables an awful lot of UN reports were spent entirely Itemizing everything that Varundi didn't have then in every reason every peace agreement would fail And the when you talk about you can never go wrong on a global stage by being a pessimist You can always, you know, and it's only you can only be a Peace builder though if you choose to find what's working in that lens is so different from how so many of our institutions governments UN headquarters Are always worried what's going wrong or what could go wrong and too often too rarely as we'll go right The second is to you know part of our approach and is about how we build trust across dividing lines Even simple things You know in Varundi the BLTP as well as search for common ground a deliberately chose from the beginning at a time of deep Violence that was characterized by who to and to see divides to make sure our staff was was mixed who to and to see 50-50 and he was Emmanuel Fabien for The BLTP sending it up And that goes against literally like every equal opportunity employment Thing to say if you have a who to in charge you need to have a tootsie deputy or you know That's not like how bureaucratic HR manuals get written That's not how you're a normal way of going about it from a professional bureaucratically incentivized way But in fact, that's the only way to get get trust and access across rebel lines across the military controlled areas You see even in the little ways and even in that you know if you follow the rules You you can or follow the incentives you can go wrong quite quickly You know the third part of our approach is really at search is really about changing systems So working in a way that that change can become enduring that is resourced locally That it's changed and measured in sort of how social norms accept Accept and shift what's expected and accepted behavior vis-a-vis elders in a post-conflict setting The BLTP was doing that at the highest levels of and still is the highest levels of Burundian leadership search That's media at that the lowest levels of Burundian citizenry But that's changed it takes time and we live in a world where The grant funding cycles the priorities shift every year every two years And you're strained together to be able to be has done this admirably search similarly over the last 20-something years in Burundi But you're strained together in 12 you're running a long-term vision of enduring change about how people think about one another How to think about themselves how they think about how decisions are taken in a society and you're doing that while funding it in 12 month increments It's a fundamentally broken Funding ecosystem in a fundamentally broken then project cycle and in philosophical cycle And maybe I'll Stop in a second, but I think though the one thing that really struck me as timely in your book is that we're at a moment in the peace-building field where It feels to me at least that for a very long time. We've worked hard to be taken Seriously at the most powerful centers of the world It used to be you knocking on the door at the State Department or the US Embassy or the UN or the British Embassy or whoever We used to have a really hard time at search I remember how many diplomats called Howard Wolby milklings former envoy was being told that he was being naive by some mid-level French Whatever But you know and how often we're being told that we're naive the way nothing to say that this is an affair for the diplomats is an affair for The armies and there's not really a peace-building perspective And we fought really hard as a community to all of us US IP with this institution They you steward to make the field of peace-building one that's taken seriously in a professional Technocratic way investing in modern evaluation investing in serious policy papers and that's incredibly admirable But at some point we're also risk losing some of the soul Of the peace-building field that came out of the movement that was really about and still is about social change And you know we fought very hard and to get institutions to take us seriously to hang our star in a firmament Then a lot of ways is crashing down And so as we think through in some ways, of course we want to maintain that excellence in performance But it's some ways also how we popularize our field It's something that I think it make it and make sure that we don't lose the sight of the people In as much as we try to try to get the ears of the policymakers Thank you, thank you for kicking us off I think you've given a lot of things for others to respond to as well, but well, I'd like Kate to speak next Thank you so I did not work in most of the places that Are discussed in your book But the parts that resonated with me So I've spent the past ten years before coming back to Washington out in the field as a foreign service officer in what you call the country Offices so the passages of the book that resonated with me were the ones where like you describe how being down and Exhausted and all the bureaucrats are because they're unable to get out their compound And they're just answering phone calls from Washington and sending cables or I mean I think we all of us who've worked in the field and I have had those moments of you know I just feel so bogged down by this bureaucracy. How do we actually get out and do that a meaningful work? So I don't I think any of us who's worked in that environment very much feels the weight of the top-down bureaucracy That's upon us, but I think it's a it's a different perspective right then when you come back in Washington You see the rationale behind it. I am I don't want to be the obviously I represent you say it I don't want to be the apologist for the bureaucracy here Nobody here is going to cheer and rah rah bureaucracy, but I do think it is important to note that you know you talk in the book in terms of the food chain and the the need for downward accountability versus upward accountability and You describe at the top of that upward accountability kind of the donors and the governments But I think from our perspective we're not the top of the food chain right as a donor and as a government We are accountable The next step up to the taxpayers and to the citizens of the United States and that's where our accountability loop lies I think it's very easy to say. Oh, the big bad bureaucracy that's out there That's kind of nameless and faceless, but when you kind of connect that loop and break that down I mean those taxpayers, you know, those are my mother-in-law's friends who are retired teachers in Minnesota And you know my mom's friends are working out cosmetic counters and malls, etc So I mean there are faces to that that we have to be accountable for Not to say that the bureaucracy and the structures and the reporting should be as heavy and as tense as they are But that's obviously the purpose and the rationale behind them And that from a donor perspective is the constraint under which we live So I think we need to be kind of realistic too and true to that spirit as well That haven't been said there's a lot we do wrong and I think you capture a lot of that in terms of the incentive structures I think most people work in this field You know as you alluded to care deeply about the field and want to be engaged in the spirit of it Right, I think we'd like nothing more to be living in the community speaking of the local languages Engaging community day in day out and really being very in touch with what's happening on a very granular level The reality is some jobs allow that and some don't and to be able to institutionalize some of these changes You need some of these structures and so finding a way to do that better So I first admit there are a lot of things we do wrong and this book is really helpful in in how we go forward a Couple of things I think we've learned over the past decade or so in this field and in terms of moving it forward I think Many donors in this field. I think you say included, you know We obviously understand the importance of local accountability. We've developed programs Local works etc. What used to be called you say forward in terms of trying to engage more Lighten the burden of our procurement systems to be able to engage more and incentivize Getting out and building relationships and making working with us easier. I think it's certainly a part of it Another part I think that I would say Susanna in your book is kind of this This this issue of you know Upward accountability versus downward and I think one thing we found is that they don't need to be mutually exclusive Right and what we really try I think within this field It says the donor community is where is that overlapping intersectionality and One example. I promised Bill a Ukraine example on this I was posted in Ukraine for four years during the Maidan revolution and the annexation of Crimea and we've been very often You know what a strong vibrant civil society Is there and we were met very often with local civil society partners and we'd always thank them for their time But they always say time and time again to us of course We want to meet with you because our government won't listen to us our government only listens to you So the only way we get the government to listen to us is by meeting with you And yes, we can all say that's not the way the system should be that is a perfect example of the broken Accountability systems that being what they are what we can and should continue to do as donors and as governments is Exactly that is to amplify those voices to listen more listen better and then feed that That's not fixing the system But that's using the system for what it is to amplify those voices and and to create that feedback loop So I think that's a big part of what we need to do within that So last thing I'll say on this is then going forward. What do we do about it? Right there things we do wrong. There's some things we've been trying to get better at Waiting for it. I think the book comes at a really good moment at least for us bureaucratically and as many of you all are aware in the room in in terms of USA at least we're going under going some pretty systemic transformational changes Our administrator has talked very frequently about the journey to self-reliance which very simple term means our goal is to end the Need for foreign assistance to work ourselves out of the job What does that mean in terms of accountability systems and these feedback loops? We're talking about is ultimately we want to be in be strengthening the local systems local actors etc and To work with the country alongside the country in such a way that we don't need there to be there anymore I think that's the ultimate in terms of transferring accountability if we're not there as it as a donor Right will be there in some other capacity as the relationship transform But in terms of transferring that ownership completely over is what ultimately what we're talking about in this in this journey In the meantime, we know that's a long road to get there Some other reforms or undertaking that I think is is touched on in this Big part of this I think for our partners and others where the rubber hits the road procurement reform right like it or not procurement is kind of the bread and butter of how these Relationships and are cemented. So we are and we need to be better at, you know, I don't know about breaking the rules I think I would say rewriting the rules to make it to make it easier to work with Donors and governments to lighten that burden to do more co-creation with local partners, etc And then the last thing in terms of going forward is I would say on the conflict And peace building note specifically within USA ID as we stand up a new Conflict and violence prevention office. I think we really welcome these exchanges the learning from this book What other panelists are sharing and thoughts from those of you in terms of how we can be better as we take this forward as we rewrite the rules together Thank you so much, and thank you for ending on that note about more to come because I think that there's so many different pieces To unpack and how we act as a better community of practice together So last I invite Michael to speak Thank you. I just want to say thank you to us IP. I've actually been the recipient of various grants So thank you, but I've actually never been to the building So this is actually a great time for me to be able to say thank you I also have to begin with a caveat Which is that we agreed that I would go last because I've never I've never been a barundi and I actually don't do peace building And but what I have done over the years is I spent a lot of time on Humanitarian action and global governance and many of the themes that obviously Susanne is I think very Provocatively bringing forward in the book are ones that sort of connect to my world and my hope is that you know my reflections themselves may actually provide a different perspective on The kinds of conversations that we're having today So just to recap I think there's good news and in the book The good news is that there are moments where actually peace building stumbles into success And that you know, that's another way of saying experimentation But it is trial and error. It's by hook and crook and it happens sometimes The good news though is that Successes oftentimes, you know, Susanne I had these conversations is really measured in terms of learning as opposed to effectiveness and outcomes So we can say that that's been a success of peace builders learn and learning can be if they've learned what they do right But also maybe what they do wrong Which which is important at the same time though The bad news is that more often than not and this is kind of what we've gotten from a lot of peaceful in cases is that You know peace builders don't actually know oftentimes what they do which is it is complicated Which is why they experiment But Susanna's line is very provocative, which is that we basically need rogue peace builders I mean that's that's you know breaking rules is sort of like going rogue and So what Susanna wants is for peace builders to go rogue, which You know, we that that may be good if these rogue peace builders have a heart But I study a lot of places where the peace builders and the peacekeepers Actually don't have much of a heart And they actually go rogue in ways that are profoundly destructive to local populations So I actually a little I'm a little worried about the Suggestion that peace builders go rogue But that does suggest that you know her central point of accountability is very important I Want to take the remainder remaining minutes and actually just sort of poke at what I think is a real profound tension in The book and its intentions aren't there to be resolved They're there to actually provoke us in that way and and this is almost a it's from the book But it's almost verbatim from from your comments is that we want peace builders to do two things that I think our intention One is we want them to be change agents We don't want them to put Humpty Dumpty back together just like it was we want them to make things better On the other hand, we want them to be accountable and listen to local populations That's difficult to do simultaneously It's real difficult to say I'm gonna actually Make you change in ways that I like but at the same time I'm gonna listen to you and and acknowledge sort of your beliefs and preferences and So that raises I think a series of questions if in fact that's an important tension Which I think it is in the book And the first one is I'm actually not sure Let's take first for the moment that in fact peace builders are supposed to listen to local communities The big question that is what role do peace builders play if that's what they're designed to do And if the measure of success is to learn Then I think that raises a really important question about what it is that we want peace builders to do when they're on the ground and I I don't know if we have a lot of good explanations There is one possibility which is that we don't want them to be change agents And I just have to say this is something that sort of I picked out of Suzanne's book on page 121 when she talks basically about humanitarian action and emergency relief she calls them stagnant actors stagnant players stagnant players Which you know, I wouldn't want to be stagnant But I actually think that you know this stagnation actually might be a good thing in many cases So I'm just not so sure I would want to get rid of stagnation in in you know in lieu of Action, but anyways, there's this question then about what peace builders do the second question is That if they are to be change agents that I think we have to acknowledge something very important and Susanna has heard me Rail on this for a long time, which is we have to acknowledge that peace building is fundamentally paternalistic It's what it is And paternalism may not necessarily be a bad thing paternalism from an academic, you know Legal point of view is basically one actor trying to change the behavior of another actor Because the first actor believes a second actor if they change will be better off So we're paternalism. I'm paternalism to my dissertation students Parents are paternalistic to children Peace builders are paternalistic if they're doing their jobs right They're paternalistic visa v the local community And they have to be I don't know if they can do their job without being paternalistic That's kind of what they're paid to do and so I think one of the questions then is You know that gets raised by the book is when is paternalism bad and what can we do about it? The other question is do we need rule breakers and actually this is another big We need them to go rogue and I'm not sure they that the incentives are for them So much that they're not allowed to talk to local community actors. They're allowed. It's within their rules They could use their discretion But the incentive systems as you so clearly point out are not necessarily lined up with Encouraging them to go and engage the community So I you know this might be another way of saying what we really want peace builders to understand Is that they have a job to do and they're not doing it? well and The job that they're asked to do actually allows them and permits them and maybe actually stipulates that they must engage with local communities and then finally and this is you and this is the issue of accountability and I have to say I've spent a lot of time thinking about accountability and which for many people is an incredibly boring topic But one of the things that has deeply impressed me about accountability with peace building humanitarian aid public health you know any kind of intervention for the local good is that there is no accountability system it doesn't exist and I just want to use this to push Susanne a little bit because I'm not sure that what she envisions would be a complete accountability system either Because for me the ultimate measure of accountability and whether it's going to work is whether there are sanctions If someone breaks the rules or hurts someone else's welfare Will they be sanctioned for it? We don't have any sanctions. There are no sanctions in peace building. They're looking at Rwanda and Haiti in the cholera episodes There are no sanctions for peacekeepers They still don't exist and So I guess my question is that if when we talk about accountability to local populations Are we also talking about giving local populations the ability to sanction those who come into their communities? To change their lives in ways that outsiders think is demanded Let me end there and and I look forward to the conversation Thank you so much and I thought Susanna's book was provocative and you have just So I'm very excited for us to spend a few minutes answering a couple questions I also want to offer to Susanna if you have any kind of comments back from the from the first three discussants Can I just respond to my yeah Please so this is why the book I for I refer to it as informal accountability, right? So local accountability will never be formal because these organizations will never be Formally accountable to any local actor meaning no local actor will ever have the capacity No local actor other than the host government will ever have the capacity to formally sanction a Country office or an organization, right? So this is a field that is void of accountability Which is a fundamental problem right but I Think that in the way that I talk about local accountability in the book the I the the reason why it is is Informal which means that the organization never actually has to listen to it But once you give authority to a group of local stakeholders and local doesn't only mean community level Local means the individuals who have a stake in the institution that you're working with so local means domestic But localized so I'm if I'm working with the security forces local means the key actors in the security forces And who are affected by the security forces, right? So it's not only community level, but if you actually give those actors a stake in your project and give them some Authority which means that you turn over some of your decision-making to them Then you are giving them the capacity to sanction you in that they could give you the wrong advice Right they could take you in the wrong direction so they can sanction your performance, right? but they can't necessarily sanction you by Kicking you out of the country unless they're the host government So I'm hoping that we can kind of continue in the anecdotes and experiences Part of this and so I'll kind of maybe turn to a mic first To give us can you give us an example of where you saw something happening at the local level that you just really wish could be translated to a Global level of accountability Something that was never going to be monitored or evaluated or seen as a success or a win at the local level But if it was you would see some sort of change at the global level in the understanding and then hopefully the effectiveness of the effort Sure. I mean I think You know it's very easy particularly when you're looking at things from the sort of the 300 You know from the global level to forget that what we're dealing with their people problems You know and you look at South Sudan or the Central Africa Republic It's very unclear how the crisis in the Central Africa Republic will end But it will end with four and a half million Central Africans choosing to live together in a different kind of way Then they do now and then they did before the crisis You know and so you know the belief is quite easy to lose sight when you're looking at sort of the peace negotiations at the EU and the interests of the select and if only we slap five more sanctions on these guys and if only The these five words were in the minutiae mandate You know it's easy to get wrapped up in that and lose sight that that ultimately people change public opinion changes And it's a process of one by one You know the Central Africa Republic is one other French diplomat mentioned it's it's two thousand is it's two thousand villages Right. Well, at the end of the day, we're talking about two thousand villages four million people who have interviews on the country And so you know the input of a woman who? after after church organizes a film screening to talk about reconciliation with her her Congregation or with her husband's congregation to beat sort of what it means to forgive After the war what it means what accountability looks like accountability in the sense of war crimes That's something. It's not a capture something that we've seen again again. It's not a project. It's not funded by anybody It's maybe the church gives a little room in that kind of informal stuff, you know the Guy one of our colleagues who used to lead our office there at night would show the Mandela movie on the the rugby Mandela movie on the wall of the of the house You know at night and talk with the neighborhood kids about and that kind of thing in one hand, you know It can seem soft, but it's human and it's really you know, it's easy even you look at like the selected kids the You know anti blockers the kids under arms. You have all these guys talking about what they want What do you know what do they want? These are the negotiating positions But no one goes out and like puts a radio in front of a microphone in front of the kids What do you want broadcast? You know like in Sierra Leone. They did that But no one is actually putting the humans at the at the center And it's very easy then if you're not actually trying to throw the rebel guys on the radio and have them talk and Participate in a national conversation. It's very easy to say well How can we possibly negotiate with these guys or what are the incentives of these five five leaders? You know, so there's a different level of humanization I think that that we've seen through our work and that really gets lost When you're sort of doing the macro political analysis And Kate, how would you say? There are ways within Development professionals and others to to make those connections more real what's happening at the very local level and trying to make that a more policy relevant Part of our of our discourse in capital to make sure we're having that type of as you mentioned accountability to the taxpayer But that that eventual accountability is driven by what the needs are at the local level as defined by those living in it So I don't I don't think that it's it's not that these interactions or the the the very You know day-to-day human interactions are not happening and it's not that there's no transformation at that level. It's just that It's it doesn't get necessarily get translated up amplified out and and you know and actually if we try to I think in some ways I mean the best way of representing it, you know, you read a newspaper story That's an antidote and then it's you know, it's compelling It's gripping and things but as soon as you try to move it up and I think there's there's this saying that you know What when you hear about one story the story when you hear about ten thousand people as a statistic, right? So any time you try to ratchet up or amplify it to another level like that I think it gets lost in that so I think there is a inherent It's just just inherent in whether it's human nature or anything else, right? So how do you transfer these very human stories to a policy thing and I do think it's important To be able to do it in terms of telling stories and telling compelling ones And I think that's something that as a peace-building community You know to your point that the community has come a long way And I think needs to continue to do is capturing and not only telling those very compelling stories But also I think something that we've come a long way as a community on is in terms of also developing the evidence base For how that is actually working if it is actually effective what's being transformed how I'm doing very rigorous impact evaluations that's set around that and using that and packaging it in a way that Policy makers can digest and then at least either change policies or more funding So I think that is something that we need to do better, but not lose sight of the the very real human impact Yeah, I think that's a really important point one of my favorite quotes from a friend of mine Who was in the intelligence community said to me at one point the plural of anecdote is not data and Remember thinking like that's a very powerful statement But the flip side is also true the breakdown of data does not always Allow us to see the human sides of each and every statistic So I think there's a lot there that we can be learning from both the top down and bottom up So I won't put you on the spot with anything At the local level evidence But I would love for you to unpack a little bit more of what Susanna's response was to you on what? What are informal sanctions that actually can change behavior? So if we're thinking about informal accountability, what are informal sanctions? That might be able to help us in this space Yeah, no, I Two things first I think one is that Susanna has put forward I think what are the exactly the important issues that we need to be having a conversation about so it's a it's an important book The informal versus the formal although I think is actually Challenging and I think you know part of what I hear in Susanna's response is that You know if you're looking for that kind of accountability system Michael, you're not going to get it And then at the end of the day What we're hoping that is in fact that individuals who occupy these roles on the ground Actually have a sense of professional responsibility And that they have a very clear idea about what their role is and that One of the things that we know is that there should be peer groups around them at that sort of level of authority in the field Office that support them and actually give them Encouragement to do these things because we know that actually is a very important element for keeping people accountable and the And that there also be then at the upper levels of the food chain that there be individuals who understand What that professional role is and what it means to be a a successful and Professional peace builder, which is partly why I say what role are we expecting the peace builders to play? because I think contained within Susanna's book is Actually a very detailed and very ethnographic study about and I think she could probably you know identify it when Peace builders are doing the right thing and what they're doing. What are those practices that? They should be doing when we think that they should have you having that discretion I do think though that there has to be some mechanism for accountability I'm not I don't know if it's accountability for let's say the irritants or programming gone wrong or things like that But what we do know I think at this point or we should know at this point Is that accountability on the big issues on the human rights issues and so on have to be in place? So that there are mechanisms there are channels by which these can be reported up and around and Make sure that action is taken place You know and for me the problem is in a lot of these big whether it's the aid agencies or in the UN is that the people Who actually end up doing the most harm are never punished for what they do and in fact what happens is they're oftentimes Then move to a different location that shouldn't happen and There we can put the mechanisms in place. It's not difficult. We do it in this country It just has to be done at the global level Well, I want to make sure that we're leaving time for the audience to ask questions and so maybe we'll start taking them in rounds of two to various panelists and so There will be folks who are coming around with microphones and so Right here in the first row my third row sorry, so two points, I think this is pie in the sky and I would say first because To break the rules requires courage and if you have courage you can't Be part of the system you have to trade in your courage for cowardice to get inside They might as well put a note. No nobody with courage need apply But I would make a concrete example Are you willing to break the rules in the institution that you're part of? academia as the beating heart of the Idiocracy is Fundamentally obsolete. It's what the Catholic Church was when Luther showed up and we're due for another complete reimagining of a system that takes Fairly smart people and destroys their imagination So if you change the rules in your institution within the next year or so, I'll buy into this Hi, my name is Jessica Trisco Darden I'm a Jean Kirkpatrick fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and while I don't disagree with this gentleman I will raise a different point Two things that haven't been mentioned are one the international legal system and the role of the international legal system in limiting or Empowering various actors. So for example, we know that different NGOs are able to operate differently and interact with different populations based on International legal norms in the country's funding their work But another issue that hasn't been mentioned is kind of industrialization of peace building and kind of the Expansion of aid and development more broadly and into an industry and so I was not able to find search for common grounds annual operating budget I know that similar organizations have budgets, you know upwards of 250 million dollars a year These are very large and very powerful Organizations even when they aim to do important on the ground localized work. They're also part of a very complex international Legal and organizational landscape. And so when we're talking about local actors, you know My understanding based on Dr. Campbell's research is that we're not in fact talking about foreign NGOs that we're really talking about Empowering individuals from local communities. And so I was wondering if you could speak more to that differentiation Okay, well, we'll start with those two and then we'll keep going So I'm gonna take the opportunity also to respond to a couple things here that I wanted to as well so I just want to I Think one of the biggest challenges in peace building is that failure is likely, right? And so if you're reporting to Congress and you're like, hey, we're doing all this peace building work And we expect to fail 75% of the time, right that reduces the incentives to actually be accountable for outcomes and Increases incentives to be accountable for deliverables. Well, I spent the money in the right categories of the budget on Time with the right people in the procurement system, right? So there's something about what does peace building require in terms of accountability Because the system all international aid systems have shifted toward Compliance focused accountability, right, which means doing what the accountants want. That is the primary measure, right? And then results hopefully But the real question is are we going to get a bad audit? That's the real risk And so I think that while we need to be concerned about being accountable to taxpayers I think that the taxpayers are kind of out of the loop of this conversation And maybe if the taxpayers were really brought into the loop Right, then maybe the conversation and the accountability system could be shifted to take on more of a human dimension I mean if we're really gonna close a circle, what does that look like? one other point I think that you know This kind of lost in translation ladder of a abstraction thing is really interesting, right? Is that you know something that makes sense at the country level you talk to one person, right? And you get a sense of what's going on, you know, you hear about a thousand battle deaths You're not able to internalize it, right? And as somebody who reported on battle deaths when I was a human staff person even in Burundi. I know what that feels like So what do you do if your accountability system and your real measures are abstracted and synthesized at headquarters in DC or whatever else you're always going to make things Or take things to a level of generalization that loses the real human element, right? And so the only solution that I know in that sense is to Actually trust country staff more to say that we'll accept that the only people who can really Interpret and understand what's going on is the people at the country level who can connect to that human element That requires delegating a lot of authority within the organization itself to those country-level stuff One last point. I think that the question of is bad behavior always a good thing is still an open question, right? In the book I talk about bad behavior that leads to informal local accountability But I've also worked with lots of rule breakers who are not necessarily doing good and so the question and Chuck Cole and I are working on this as well is How actually this kind of rule-breaking behavior can be constructive and Destructive and under what conditions? Maybe I'll take some of the questions about sort of the role of international NGOs and international civil society groups First of all our sources annual budget is definitely not anywhere close to the number you said Perhaps some of our board might wish it were the But the truth is I mean, I think it's it's it's a real question about the role the international organizations play Within this within the environment of every community or institution as you cite search We have about 750 colleagues around the world about 95% of people working in their home country And we're very conscious that we're an international group registered in the US But we're not just as the UN is based in New York We're based here and we're not any more an American NGO that we are you know a Belgian or a Congolese or a Yemeni In the sense that you know that that's where we we are this or who our people are as well But there's a role for you and there's a role for for locally registered peace-building organizations a role for unregistered as a role for individuals The thing you know what struck me is You know there's an awful lot and often an awful lot of local knowledge and wisdom that doesn't get brought to bear Whether that's because it's with women's organizations and they never got a chance to read and write in that society Or because they weren't really appropriate whether that's with religious institutions whether that's with just individual entrepreneurs and There's not a lot of wisdom but there's often an awful lot of need for creativity to solve new problems every conflict that we deal with It is a new one It is there's wisdom for for how people have dealt with crises in the past in Burundi before this was wasn't the first But it was a new one and it created some of them were same old solutions Some of them were new solutions They're created some of them were things that people had thought about in Liberia and shared to the Burundians So it's a creative process and one where you know, we have 1200 partners All of whom have a different kind of role most of whom are you are from those societies and it's a creative process I think just to your question sort of about sort of the international bureaucratization of this whole enterprise and sort of the Bureaucratization of do goodery around the world. I think with You know with USAID reform and other kinds of efforts I think it's it's a very ripe time to to ask questions about how the whole Infrastructure exists how we I want to balance the legitimate interests of taxpayers With the need to not only be accountable to people because it's the right thing to do But also because it's the more effective thing to do In the communities where we work around the world We're you know post-seager in Afghanistan and all that we're in an age where There's a strategy of sort of Minimizing fraud by maximizing waste And so we have a system that's built and piled on layers of accountancies and layers of approvals and things like that That's a prevent fraud to prevent wrongdoing, which is good But also comes with the cost And so I think there's a lot of time You know there's a lot of ways that we can give you about something that we certainly can can improve And I guess maybe just the last to Get another round of questions that with any one of these conversations It's super important to think about how we can do better There's a danger of also being a little bit solipsistic I've worked in and out of Congo now for 15 years. I was talking to a UN guy They said wow gosh like you search have been working there for 10 years you've been working there for 15 I just feel really stupid that there's not peace in Congo And like fair enough like there's a million things I wish I did better in my own life There's a million things I wish search had done better and there's a million things we learned but like I mean You know how much have we said in terms of peacekeepers how much have we spent in terms of like you know How much do we do on the minerals trade? How you know there's an awful lot of great big forces at play in any one of these places And we can play our we could play our role play all of our cards perfectly And there's 20,000 other cards out there that are getting played at the same time And so you know we have to play our cards perfectly. We could also use a couple more cards Thank you, I'm Dan Whitman at American University. I used to work in the granite building across the street Paternalism, thank you so much for raising that Yesterday John Mirsheimer not my favorite person Gave a comment at CSIS saying we're overextended. Don't get involved. You're familiar with the Mirsheimer Narrative and he said among other things Don't try to redo other people's culture. It's arrogant now I Couldn't accept that statement. I made me I didn't my question to you is how would you answer that argument? we're talking in some cases about Communities that are dominated by a handful of elders that tell women when they can and cannot leave the house That do not permit girls to be in school I mean, how do you answer the argument that it's arrogant to tell other people how to change their cultures? Gentlemen here. Hi, Carl Golvin. I'm a retired special agent US Custom Service I was a 9-11 responder and in 1995 a sanctions monitor in Macedonia for six months with OSCE and When we think of accountability one can't have accountability without an honest unit of account and the gentleman from George Washington mentioned the word caveat and it immediately brought to mind one of the most important things I've ever read and I'd like to give three three texts as references a caveat against injustice or an inquiry into the evils of a fluctuating medium of exchange By Roger Sherman or he wrote that in 1752 you provide the foundation for our honest constitutional monetary system second a history of central banking and the enslavement of mankind by Stephen Goodson and last Confessions of an economic hitman by route by I was named slipping my mind right now a Perkins John Perkins and collectively what these point to is When we abandoned our obligations under the Bretton Woods agreement in 1971 ultimately We lost accountability to an honest monetary unit internationally And my question would be whether we really would benefit from a new geopolitically neutral Bretton Woods agreement And the only geopolitically neutral place in the world I know to base something out of that from his Iceland actually Because it's a differential inflation of two or more systems of credit that facilitate the theft of wealth from countries through Well those inflations of currency. Thank you So in the interest in time, I'm gonna actually take one more question So the woman over there Thank you, my name is you pizza and equally to now my graduate student at the School of International Service at American University So my question is given that a lot of the international Organization states and institutions have this top-down approach and have had it for so long How do you see them gaining trust with the local community in order to change that? Maybe we'll take those and if we have time we'll take more if not We invite you to ask questions when we go out to the reception Am I starting? Anyone's welcome to start. I might have been for you. What do you think? Professor Woodman's culture. Yeah, I mean I think I mean to come in first of the question of culture and then International because I think in some ways it's linked Culture is something that's constantly shifting. It's not static in any society and in a lot of ways of shifting more now than it ever has Before and certainly people who declare themselves sort of rulers of culture are often just sort of simply the rulers of the place Where they're they're dictating it out? I think you know but to concretely with search for common ground at least our approaches that it's really not about It's not about arrogant bossing people around or or paternalism in that sense so much as about voice So if you run a participatory theater you run a theater play in it that mocks out a child marriage for example in a village it's a fictional play and then Play it out as a hypothetical scenario and have a conversation not this is good. This is bad. This is appropriate This is unappropriate but say here's a play. Let's have a conversation there's That culture changes through not through through telling people that your culture is right or wrong it's about giving people a chance to express their views on on a common playing field and when a young girl gets up in front of a 200 of her villagers and say this has to stop and not because anyone told her to not because everyone even said Let's get together and talk about how bad this is But just because you gave everyone an even you know a chance to talk culture can you know culture changes because you know Cultures every bit hurts as it is Someone who has a different perspective And then you know to the question about how global institutions can sort of you know Gain the trust from the grassroots. I would say you know two things one is You know listening is key There's you know some you and if you look at the peacekeeping missions around the world some of them have public approval ratings of like 17% Right, and it's not you know someone was saying well, you know They should really be investing more in strategic communications and PR It's like the last thing they hate you like they don't want to listen to what you have to say like he's not about PR It's about like you need to get out there and listen to the people They know us you know when you're you're in the global institutions I think can do an awful lot more in many ways of listening to people But they have a role as well This is a creative process of problems, you know and as much as sort of grassroots Peacebuilding had a huge impact in in Burundi It wouldn't have been been possible without some of the international architecture within which they're working So there's a need for both sort of There is a need for bottom-up solutions, but it's about sort of where the top-down approaches can sort of sync up Yeah, I just add briefly on that one. I think I couldn't agree more in terms of listening I think the other thing to note is also in terms of as far as international organizations that work in many of these settings I I Vast majority of organizations actually Employ local staff in the places where we work and I think there's that's a really important so I Always hesitate with these conversations because we say global local as if they were the you know Kind of we need to find with that really unpacking You know what does local mean who are the different actors a center and all the go because I think there's a lot more Cross over and I think it's really important to look at that in terms of in terms of an international organization Actually empowering your local staff within many of these countries that we work to be some of those key decision-makers And I think that's part of what Suzanne is saying in terms of decentralizing authority to the field That also means and that field staff isn't all you know All from the international headquarters as well. So I think that's one component of it I think talking about person I mean if you think talking about accountability is boring or bureaucracy is boring talk about HR personnel system I think everyone goes to sleep immediately But I think that's really at the core of a lot of this in terms of incentivizing systems in terms of who are peace builders hiring The right people retaining training giving incentive structures and empowering the type of people need to be making these decisions So a plug for more boring stuff on that And then the last thing I'll say in terms of the question on culture and arrogance I think it's something we've all you know as a Peace Corps volunteer in a Paul 20 something years ago Right, that's the question you get as soon as you walk in is like you know What are you doing trying to change us? Who are you blah blah blah? But I think we need to own the fact that if you're working in this field you're fundamentally talking about change And yes, there are ways to do it in ways of you know leveling playing field giving voice giving representation It's not imposing an external outside views But there is an element to picking winners and losers which voices are we trying to amplify which voices? Are we trying to muffle? You know, there's there are kind of international norms that many by by et cetera So I think we need to really be honest with ourselves on that as well because for working as a peacebuilding community somewhere We fundamentally believe there's something that needs to be changed there Yeah, just So I'm not gonna defend academia I agree that you say make and that's why I like it The You know on this question of IO and account one of the questions I think fundamentally in terms of the law is and this goes more to international organizations Although it could increasingly be applied to international non-organizations is that a lot of them especially on the international Organization for and have immunity legal immunity Try piercing that the Haitians tried to pierce it with the UN and you know the federal court in New York said no So this is a real problem And then the question is if you can't actually hold them accountable by virtue of the courts or the law Then how do you do it? And and maybe that says that we have to figure out ways to pierce Legal immunity to hold these institutions Accountable, but it does suggest that there may be a role for the law as we've seen in other areas of let's say human rights the Tier, you know, I'm not gonna support. I can't support me or Shimer. It's just part of my religious So, you know, but I think you know, it's real easy. It's a it's a real easy kind of throwaway Well, we shouldn't change people which who's gonna really disagree with that Okay, well, okay, but then I'll get to that in a second But I think artist part of it has to do with what is it we mean? And there's a huge difference between let's say something on the order of Responsibility to protect which is a stop a genocide and then other things that are more forcibly You know forcible interventions that are designed to actually do nation building and we need to differentiate between the two and there's actually then a whole range including which is what I hear you saying in terms of Promoting let's say human rights change and the question is sort of how you do it and the one thing I think we do know at this point is that imposition doesn't work and that what we've seen You know going in and telling mothers That submitting their chill their girls to FGM means that they're evil is actually not really a great way to convince a community To undertake a cultural change That rather it has to be undertaken with a form of with basically sitting down on persuasion And that that's frustrating, but that takes time The last thing I so I do think that you know it has to do with sort of what You know what kind of meat mechanisms are you going to play and the more forcible in course of it is You know less likely it's going to stick We know that The last thing I want to I just sort of raise as a sort of insight from the humanitarian community Which actually wrestles with a lot of the same issues and questions of accountability efficiency and things like that There's been a move over the last several years to move to cash transfers You know just basically I don't want to say it's basically giving people money, but in many cases that's the that's what we're talking about and You know They're sure there's going to be some fraud in some ways, but you know Guess what more money gets to the people then when they go through the bureaucratic chain starting with You know the US government and moving through the layers of the bureaucracy And this is actually and we're finding that it's you know under certain conditions. It's pretty effective I don't know if there's something like that for peace-building. I know it's a much more complicated animal But it does suggest that but and the thing I actually find actually I'm not a big You know, I I don't want to sound like I'm celebrating markets But actually giving people money to build people money so that they can actually make decisions for themselves about what they think is important is actually kind of liberating and That calls for a whole change in the way we think about our obligations to others Susanna, can I have your last word? Excellent comments I Think I mean the question is what is the cast what is the equivalent of cash transfer for peace-building? And I think the equivalent of cash transfer for peace-building is cash transfer actually There is no Replacement for that right in the sense the equivalent of cash transfer for peace-building would be attaching some informal local accountability To some cash transfer right meaning that if you're doing peace-building work that is focused on socioeconomic development outcomes Right then think about what is the peace-building component? What is the kind of social change component that you're trying to actually accomplish in addition to giving people money? But a lot of the kind of hardcore development people would say that's just good community level development Why is that peace-building right? This is what we've been doing and trying to do for many years So what's new here and in essence it's not new it's responding to the same problem right and with the same system So cash transfers are a great idea I think that in some ways they haven't been done to the scale to where we really know what What's the kind of bad side of that as well and how does that feed into the the existing incentive structures? I want to say something Look Mike when you were talking about voice I thought this was really important because The work that I observed of search for common ground in Burundi that was the most powerful was actually the work that gave Burundians voice right it was the creation of studio a jambo which was a radio station that trained essentially a couple of generations of Burundians that actually were key counterpowers to the government even in the most difficult time and so I think there's a sense of Almost getting to the heart of what peace-building is that as peace-building has become bigger and professionalized And it's kind of everything and nothing at the same time that we lose what the point is Right, and I think that search has kept that in mind in the work that I've seen very clearly This is about voice. This is simple. This is about listening and That for me is one of the main messages here that in some ways although our discussion about my book in this research may seem kind of pessimistic is actually hopeful amazingly sometimes this works Wow because look at all of these things going against it And it works when you give people voice and the right people and that's not going to be everybody and maybe that is about change Right, but you're already kind of there. So if you're there and you're not trying to change the system then you're supporting the system, right? So what's the counterfactual there? Maybe you shouldn't be there, but the people that I know like the Apple Deos the human rights organizations and Burundi who have been fighting for their life They need that support right that that is about supporting a set of norms and foreign policy a foreign policy agenda That this that are at the basis of at least the United Nations and a lot of what what foreign aid was about So I think that you kind of have to you do have to accept that this is a change agenda and then ask Whether you're achieving it or not and why? So just being there and not trying to change can actually do a lot more harm than not being there to begin with And I also think that the point of my work that I didn't even talk about was that money matters, right? that this is about if when peace building organizations learn and Are likely to actually achieve their outcomes more likely to achieve their outcomes because of that learning It's because there's this alignment between the top down and bottom up because you have Local level feedback where people are actually empowered to make decisions about what the organization is doing thus giving them some sanctioning capacity and because Peace building as a priority so the information that is paid attention to is information That's relevant to peace building aims if you want to have humanitarian aims Then humanitarian aims need to be the priority that it's all about what the incentive structure is for that particular office And so therefore you can't do everything at the same time You need to decide What your what information you're going to listen to and what type of action you're going to take? And so that's the role of the top-down piece is to be super clear about what it wants and why Just actually the book is currently sold out But hopefully to be in reprint and so for those of you who haven't had an opportunity to buy it and read it Please do so you will be thought provoked at the very least But thank you so much. Thank you so much to everybody who has joined me on stage We here at USIP have been delighted to host this conversation And we hope that those of you who had questions that weren't able to be answered that you come up to the various Discussants and have more of a conversation as we move to a reception There are folks that are going to help lead us the way out at the top of this auditorium and out to a reception So thank you so much for joining us and please join me