 Friends, welcome and we're very grateful to the opening speakers who have oriented us and gotten us off to a great start. I came to my first wider conference 20 years ago or so. It was on this very topic, which was newly fashionable at the time, and it was an incredibly exciting conference. And I know Kunal and his colleagues have worked very hard to make this one at least as exciting for all of us in the room. You may know a little bit about the history of wider, but it emerged as the first of the research institutes away from Tokyo of the UN University. It was something the Finnish government had very much wanted to create. They've been wonderful partners for UNU ever since, from start to today. There were several founding spirits behind it, but perhaps the most dominant one was Amartya Sen. Indeed, the first director of the institute was one of his closest associates. He went on associating himself with wider, and the last conference I attended perhaps four years ago, Amartya attended also and was in fierce participation throughout the conference. Not long ago, I was in Cambridge. I went to see him. The only thing he really wanted to know for me was how wider was doing. So his heart is still with the institution, and I wanted you to know he's well, and he and Emma were living comfortably in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but obviously not traveling much at the moment. We have a wonderful panel, and I'd like to introduce them to you. We have next to me Speciosa Kazibwe, who goes actually by Speciosa or Spei, and we are extremely fortunate that you were kind enough to join us. It's never easy coming to Europe from Africa. It often means picking up a visa in another country. It means changing planes. It means all of the things that are stressful in international travel, and Spei was kind enough to overcome them from the outset and to be with us today. She was executive vice president of her country, held several, or her country is Uganda, I should add. She was a cabinet minister several times, but above all I think she's been an activist throughout her life, and that's what makes her the person she is. Whether she's in government or somewhere else, she's an activist, and we admire that very much. Sivrin Otaseer is in New York, normally, can be found at Barnard College. She's a professor at Columbia University and a political science chair. She writes non-stop for journals, but also helpfully with the news media, and she intervenes on the news media. She's developed one of the most individual and exciting voices in the field. Sivrin, thank you also for being with us. Yana Talas is director of the Crisis Management Institute, which is also the Marti Attisari Peace Foundation. You may remember that Marti Attisari was president of Finland for a good number of years, until quite recently, but much more importantly to the UN and to Africa, he was the man who led Namibia to independence in very, very difficult circumstances on behalf of the UN with constant threats of war breaking out all over again, which he was successful in facing down, and he also has been an activist throughout his life for peace in his case, and in many ways he incarnates Finland on the global stage still. So Yana directs the institute that carries Marti's name, and he was a diplomat himself. The institute is quite new, and it's going to be interesting to learn a little bit about it from Yana. Finally, Mirko's had a wonderful career, at least it looks wonderful on paper, but I suspect it's been even better in person. He's currently the special envoy of the UN Secretary General in Mozambique, but just before that he was his country's Switzerland's ambassador in Mozambique. So he's had a very long run of developing expertise, connection within the country, and before that he worked for the Swiss Foreign Service and also very creditably for the ICRC, one of Switzerland's greatest creations, because it was created in Switzerland, and by a Swiss humanitarian. And so it's wonderful to have you here. I thought just to set the stage, I'd turn first to Sivrin. Now it's difficult to be very brief on the subjects we're talking about, but I wanted to ask you, Sivrin, you know you have 20 years or so of experience now on Peacebuilding. You've worked in very fragile environments as well as leading cities of the world. In just a few sentences, could you tell us about the central thesis of your recent book, which is called The Frontlines of Peace? And that will tell us a lot about Peacebuilding, I'm sure. Thank you so much, Dr. Manon. Thanks to Patricia and to the entire organizing team for putting together this wonderful panel for inviting me. So it's a perfect transition from what we heard during the panel before, because the central theme of my work is really rooted in what we were talking about, the fact that two billion people live under the threat of violence, we have people living in very fragile situations in more than 50 countries around the world. And if you actually look at the numbers of war, most of half of all ongoing wars have already lasted for more than 20 years. If you go to places where people are living in fragile and war-torn countries, you see that many inhabitants are really fed up with the apparent inability of governments, peacekeepers and international institutions to end violence. And so I've written several two books and quite a few articles on what has gone wrong and why we can't stop war, but the newest book is a bit more positive and it's looking at what has gone right. And it turns out that if you want the central thesis, it turns out that elections don't build peace and democracy itself may not be the golden ticket, at least not in the short term. So what I argue is that contrary to what most politicians preach, building peace doesn't require billions in aid or massive international interventions. Instead, it often involves giving power to ordinary people. Ultimately, many successful examples of peace building in the past few years have all involved innovative grassroots initiatives led by local people and sometimes supported by foreigners, often using methods shunned by the international elite. So rather than focusing on abstract peace agreements and handshakes between president and rebel leaders and negotiations organized in big international conference centers, my latest work and my new book, The Frontlines of Peace, details the concrete everyday actions that actually make a difference on the ground. And some of them are bizarre. Some are creative. Some involve each old traditions and some are just common sense. And in my work, I explain how peace building can work better so that we can finally improve the lives of billions of people. And I show that to end violence from war and also to address violent conflicts at home, whether home is Helsinki or New York or Kampala or St. George de Montegu or Kichanga, we have to fundamentally change the way we view and build peace. Great, Sabrina. That's a wonderful intro. And now, Spay, the view from the ground. You've been on the ground your whole life. What could you tell us about what you think is important about peace building and what you have tried to do? Thank you very much. And I want to say thank you to Finland and the CMI because I've been associated with that organization at the African Union. But I also want to say thanks to the rest of the world because it's like a classroom for some of us who are activists. Now, as far as I know, if you don't want peace badly, nobody will give it to you. I have realized that since I was at university during India means days and that you do get people who want to want peace badly, irrespective of the threat and they have to be within that country and they have to take action themselves. And then other people can come into hell and I found in my little experience that when you get people across families, across villages, across communities, across borders who want peace badly, not as a career but a feeling of humanity, then I think you'll be able to create a consortium of people who want peace badly and then people will see them and live up to their expectations because they will infect them with them wanting to want peace badly. I have seen this even in the women and gender area in that you may say women have to be, women have to be, but if the women don't want it badly, you just have across generations until you again want women who want peace badly. The other thing I have seen in my experience because I was telling Severine here that I'm a perpetual student because I'm curious and I get easily bored and I like to find out what is it that I don't know that I can add to myself because I have to want it badly, therefore I have to understand it. Is the fact, she said, we focus on politicians. Do the politicians want peace badly? Or it is there, what would you call it? It's their work to not want peace so that they create all these conflicts to just stay in power because some of them say the city is very sweet. How do I actually stay in this peace? How do I become relevant? So I say we have to want peace badly and I think you can feel me because I have seen so much conflict even in my personal life, in my village, in my country, in my region and internationally and that's why I still look young because I want to go when I have seen more and more people wanting peace because we all know here and it's been said without peace you cannot have development, you cannot have everything. In my country, one of the reasons people continue to vote for President Mosevine I don't think that should be the issue. I also say let me also get some people want peace badly for my country and leave others to do something but they say we can sleep. What does that mean? Without sleep, your whole body is completely gone. You get disease. We sleep, which means we can think when we wake up. We shall know what we want. Really at the root of it, what this village is saying is I want peace so badly for me to be able to do other things. So this is... Apologies for the interruption. Yes, I thought that, you know, I love dancing. The other thing, if I may say is that we have to also learn that we need to embrace diversity. That diversity may be anthropological diversity which means bringing expertise in that area. That diversity may be in cultural or even language diversity because language carries us forward especially for us in our countries where we don't write much. The cultural, the language. So at the end of it all we are now saying let's decolonize every profession, every element of life so that we are able to embrace and get hold of that diversity which we can put on the table. And I believe researchers can speak to that in a more coherent manner. So finally, you as a peace activist and this is where I... Can I call you my daughter? My new daughter? She immersed herself in DRC and entered the shoes of these people. And that is where I tell my sisters and the support we get from CMI that, you know, let us get these people to teach the experts, the villagers to teach because many times I'm now a community worker and I sit in the village and I speak to these people then the government comes and says we are going to put so much money in this parish or this village but the people say, no, for me it's education for my children. That is where I... Because when I know my child is going to have a future even if I have that little income because usually it's really peanuts which won't make much difference. It's the health. How do I get healthy? Let's get down there and get people to start with where they are and then I think we may be able to make some little difference because we can never make all the difference and this is where you, the professors have a lot of work to do. Immerse yourselves there and don't work in silos. Don't work in silos. The villager does not know this. They just know that this is what I want and they see us in the same picture. Great. Thank you very much, Spee. Now, Yana, there are many organizations around the world but each one tries to find a clear mission and because yours is relatively new and it's an opportunity to introduce it also to our audience and our audience online as well with whom we hope to be connecting in a few minutes. Could you tell us what its core purpose is? Is it a research organization? Is it an activist organization? Over to you, Yana. Thank you. Thank you, David. And thank you, Vidar and David, for putting together such a great panel. I'm very honored to be sitting here and listening very carefully as the great colleagues are telling about the CMI that I have had the honor and pleasure of leading for about a year. It is an organization that its core belief is that every conflict can be resolved. And that's something I want you to stop to think and can commit yourself to that idea because that is something that is very central for us and that stems from President Ahtesari's legacy and his work. That is what he believed and that's kind of the only thing you have to believe. That is the litmus test of getting to work for us. If you don't believe that, it is just because you would need to have a certain degree of optimism in order to engage this world. We have enough people, a lot of people believe that. We have 70 people working in Helsinki. We have been working and steadily growing for 20 years. I've been learning for one year, but the CMI has been around for 20 years. We are quite... We are one of the independent actors of the conflict-building actors. We are the top end. We are one of the leaders in the world. Our yearly turnover is about 12 million euros. We work in many areas of the world and with many experts. We have some great experts here on the podium who have worked as... What sets us apart is really that we believe that every conflict can be resolved. Another aspect that is very dear to us, we are very kind of cooperation-oriented. This, I think, stems from the president's own background with UN. We typically work with UN, with EU, with OSC, with African Union, with the ASEAN. So we attach ourselves and work together. Sometimes I jokingly say to my colleagues that if we cannot build the peace, we strengthen the multilateral organization. And that is very much in our DNA. And I see David smiling at me because he gave me one more than 10 years ago. We share one piece of history together. He was a deputy ambassador of Canada in New York and I was of Finland. And I remember when I got the job, David told me that's one of the best jobs in the world. You can do whatever you want and you can really change the world. And I think that's something that we very... Also in the CMI, we see that kind of multilateral solutions and more and more we work in teams as we are promoting peace. But enough of that. I think we go into details as the discussion goes forward. Thank you. Great. Thank you very much, Jana. Now, Mirko, we all thought about 25, 26 years ago that Mozambique had reached a lasting peace. A great Italian man helped the parties in Mozambique come together in Rome, actually in the Catholic League community, if I remember, San E. Judeo. And we thought peace was breaking out in Mozambique and we all rejoiced. It seemed to be doing very well as a country for the next 10 years, perhaps even a bit more. But more recently, the country has become more troubled and I suspect your appointment by the Secretary General has something to do with that. It's been a low-key business, but clearly he invests huge confidence in you. So perhaps you can tell us a bit about your mission and how you go about it, which must be mysterious to many of us in the room. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me and thank you to Finland to organize this event. You said right that Mozambique was going so well, but maybe they didn't want so badly peace. And my job today is exactly that one, is trying to give voice to the people that they want badly peace. We were facing a lot of challenges. Mozambique, I would say, is strongly today really and I would say is really badly looking for peace. And with my team, we were challenged by many, many different problems, but we always got the full support of Mozambique at every level, I would say. In the last year, as you could see, Mozambique was facing different problems from economic side, from peace, from the problem in the north, but today I think is really the fact of really wanting, the fact that they want really badly this peace is making probably Mozambique successful and a successful example. My job is building bridges, building bridges between the parties, trying to make possible that every solution is shared and that we come to a win-win situation. I think that one of the key of the success probably of the work we are doing is the fact that we were capable, or we were, thank you to the Secretary General, I hope he's right to trust me. I hope at least. It was the fact of giving continuity to the fact that, for instance, as you said, I've been ambassador for five years in Mozambique. We negotiate for three years, more or less, the agreement, and then we commit with that and we could go ahead and implement the agreement with the same team. This, I think, was one of the important key elements that will probably bring Mozambique to the final, I would say, peace, if it's like that. That is true. We need, and it is true that you need to really want peace badly to succeed. It's not just a matter of being a good mediae or a good news. You need to be there at the right moment. Great. Well, thank you very much for that. I hope you've all been thinking about your questions for our four guests. Also, that those who are following us online may be beginning to formulate questions they want to ask. Their website is being monitored and we'll be able to go to a couple of them. I forgot to introduce myself at the outset, mainly because I'm the least interesting person on the panel, but my background is as a very bad student, so I started work at the age of 20 and it was work that made me curious and I started going back to school because I knew there were things I couldn't learn at work that a school I could perhaps learn from and I worked in diplomacy in the NGO world, in the think tank world and now in a UN organization quite late in life. And I think actually, in one respect, my career is typical of what younger people will be experiencing. I think many of you will do many things in your lives rather than have one linear career. In fact, none of us have had one linear career and that's very exciting because it's not because you're engaged in something you're enjoying that you're going to go on enjoying it forever and trying out other things might be fun. Now, I'm opening the floor. Might any of you with questions please put up your hand. My colleagues with microphones will be looking for you and those online, please enter your questions on the site and they'll be monitored. So who is going to be the brave first person to ask a question and you can direct your question to any member of the panel or to the panel in its entirety. So please, I see a question over there. Could you keep your hand up otherwise the microphone won't find you. And please introduce yourself. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good morning. I'm Benjamin Petrinian from the International Institute for Strategic Studies based in Washington, DC. I have a question for the panel and maybe for Severin primarily but I will begin to hear from others. Your approach and your point about the local level and the grassroots initiatives, how do you then bridge that level which is obviously needed and necessary and very important with a more higher level of a political settlement in a country, for example the role that the UN Special Envoy plays in Mozambique. Thank you very much. Great, so Severin will you pick up first on the question? Absolutely. Thank you so much for asking that question because that's one of the most difficult questions at the heart of my research and that's where I think we need a lot more research. What I've seen when I was studying grassroots peacebuilding is that it's really, really hard as we all know to move from the grassroots to the higher level and the best example of success that I found is Somaliland. Somaliland which is a fascinating place of the world. I could spend like five hours talking about Somaliland but it's the best case I've found of grassroots efforts actually making a difference on a very large territory with a significant population. So given that we're in Finland, I looked up the stats and everybody tells me, oh Somaliland, I mean first people don't know where it is most of the time so it's this autonomous region in the north of Somalia in the Horn of Africa and it's a territory that's larger than Finland. It's 137,000 km and it has a population of four million people and they've really managed to build peace from the ground up by working with insiders, by following their own customs and their own beliefs and they've organized peace conferences for 20 years, they've organized peace conferences but that were really led by local leaders that were supported by ordinary people, by the diaspora and they've built a state and they've built a functioning democracy and they've done that again by relying on their own customs and beliefs and timetable and there was outside support but outside support on Somaliland's term because Somaliland has never been recognized as an independent country yet apart from two places, two countries that have recognized it and so to me what it teaches us about how to connect grassroots to higher level efforts is that it really has to be case specific and so I know I sound very much like an academic when I tell you, oh well, it depends but it does and I've looked, I've really looked at all of the grassroots efforts and all of the successful efforts not only in African countries like Somaliland, like Congo, etc but I've also looked at initiatives that make a difference in the United States, in France, in other parts of the world and every time I saw that there was no pattern that there was no template that I could give you but that there were only a series of big principles or big commonalities that were that all of the efforts, the successful efforts were led by insiders so they were led by ordinary people and by people like Dr. Spey who really, really badly wanted peace and who managed to rise up so led by ordinary people sometimes supported by foreigners but again, foreigners who stay in the background who support local efforts and definitely don't try to lead them and efforts that were usually very long time we have to realize that as someone told me in Columbia, you know peace-building is not instant coffee it's not the kind of thing that yay, in two years it's gonna happen peace-building is really something that you have to work on every day basis and maintain for 20 years so yeah, I'm gonna stop because we're talking a lot I think each of the panel members would have something to say Spey, why don't you kick off? You know, peace-building is not romantic conflict resolution is romantic because you are talking to people who are at the top or who carry a gun who has peace-building like Severine says is really with the ordinary people and I want to say that you talk about Somaliland and that beautiful village in DRC in your book, please get hold of this book and give her some money for it yes, she has given me a free copy but you have to buy it now, you know, sometimes we have very short memories and also because of the new technology I'll go back to my country Uganda and I can talk to issues in Burundi where I spent a whole year examining what was wrong with our region I spent 2015 in Burundi now, in Uganda people know about the current times we really had terrible, terrible situation we had changed presidents I don't know how many times and when the government of Moseven whom you've all heard about came I belong to the Democratic Party we had the Uganda People's Congress we had the Kings Party and we had the Ordinary People I'm coming to think that these are also parties are also like tribes of same-minded thinking which is nepotism of the highest order the Ordinary People actually don't belong to any party and we think multi-party democracy is democracy in Uganda we came together I was a young woman of 20 in my early 20s just started my family and I joined the Democratic Party the war continued after multi-party elections if you see the apartment where I was living you see gunshot wounds so I feel it when I see cities where people's homes have been shot because I have lived it now having been a multi-party activist and a woman leader from a very early age and this government came in and said we are not going to go multi-party we want every village to elect the people they think think for them are a part of them so they elected us I personally was doing my master's degree in surgery I went back to my village I had put my name on a piece of paper on a stick and lined up behind me to be part of the village leadership so we went up like that it was not possible to become a member of parliament if you had not been elected by your village those are the people who know you and we agreed that no parties in the video merit come and speak for your people that's the time when our parliament was most dynamic when it wasn't asking for raises in salaries and where ministers were not paid an allowance for their constituency I want to tell you when we went multi-party now the parliament is the most corrupt the parliament earns salaries higher than even the chief justice and you know so the democracy what is that democracy which speaks to the village the small person how do you bridge that how do you bridge that I think we need to go back to that villager the person how do you support that support education because if I'm in my village that national resistance council which I belong to we didn't have illiterate people the elected speciosa who was doing surgery she knows us inside out you know she knows us inside and she feels for that and she was a student activist the youth elected youth who were working and active in the village but now you need to be in the bush you are now you are part of Boko Haram and they are negotiating for you with you your business is to traffic people they are negotiating for but the people I was in the Gambia last month and the people in the villages are just keen to go about their business but who cares about them now that's why I love CMI because when we tell them we bring we shall talk about that I think later so how do you bridge that we get researchers like her they go in find out what are the people talking about in an objective manner don't get politicians or even NGOs in the villages they are just smaller business people they are smaller business getting but researchers that's why I'm advocating for researchers to get involved at every level because they have been trained to be objective then we shall move up I think that's why I'm I have fallen in love with you right Mirko please I would like to say building peace is true is how to say you said it is you said the building peace no not his emotion you say something else sorry not romantic it is right it's not romantic but building peace I think is quite emotional at the end in bringing the voice of the grassroots to the table it means also going to the bush and listening to the people we didn't build the peace by staying in a five-star hotel we went to the bush we talked to the people and we understood that these people had badly peace as you say this is right we went many times we came back we were at the end we found many times that fighting would have been easier sometimes to sort it out making peace was difficult was more difficult we spent time it was long it was very long it was long but when you see you go to the bush you see people suffering you see people struggling you see how war is destroying you come back and you fight you fight for peace because you have to take out your shoes and put boots and then run and then go and see how people they are suffering really in front of the daily problem they have a chest to get food because everything is destroyed everything is broken so when you see that and you don't stay in your hotel you will fight for peace you really fight great Janna I have a two-part answer for how to get the local people involved the first is the kind of conference room answer the other one is a practical answer I think starting with the conference room answer if you look the CMI strategy we made the new strategy last year and we aim for three things first we support peace processes informal and formal second we support agency of local actors and third we support kind of solutions or methodological solutions and number two is the local part this is something after 20 years we have realized that this is clearly an area that we have to work more build local agency that in a kind of conceptual terms that is what is required support the local actors that want the peace and that is something that is clearly what is needed more and more and we just came out a year ago to say that in a practical terms as a CEO of a peace building organization I see some of my colleagues here that working on practical projects when I meet my people a project officers project managers I tell them I am not building peace you are building peace all the solutions that come don't expect me to tell them what to do you have to listen to local people you have to be there in the bush to get the sense what needs to be done they have to have the ideas they have to get to know the people and this is really that is kind of a very practical point and I ask my people really that I can ask me ask more resources for me something like that but really the peace building issues the peace building the really important decisions they are happening at the very low level and I think that is I push them that don't look at bring me ideas bring me the people I need to meet we need to work together forward and what I said for them kind of in a very practical terms one thing that you keep in mind don't take your problems in these processes start from the problems of the local people that is the capacity building that if you are in Afghanistan don't start to resolve your own problems in Afghanistan try to resolve the problems of Afghan people I think that's we got wrong we were so wound up with our own issues that we did not see the problems that the people had but these are the very practical points that I give to my people that go and try to build peace great now who would like to intervene next I see several hands up in the back could we first go to the gentlemen who seated there keep your hand up if you want to speak good yeah my name is yeah my name is Darryl Sequer I'm an environmental ecologist and I have a question for the gentlemen concerned with Mozambique sorry was it Manzoni we all know that in the north of Mozambique they have a huge gas and probably oil field which is being financed by Total Oil Company the French company and the people at the moment living in that area are mostly below the poverty line recently it was announced that the Total Company has given the government of Mozambique 350 million I suppose euros for what it wasn't said now with your knowledge and connection with Mozambique I would like to ask you how much of that would be spent on bringing about peace in Mozambique and bettering the life situation of the people who live in the area where their resources are possibly going to make Mozambique extremely rich who will take that money Total or Mozambique or someone else my second question goes to the lady from Uganda thank you for a very entertaining presentation the question that emerges in my mind is when I hear that oh you're from Uganda the first thing is oh yeah Idi Amin and surely he wasn't a man of peace in my opinion anyway now it's a long time has gone by and today we can ask considering the history of Uganda since Idi Amin today we can ask how different is Uganda today in view of peace in view of integration of minorities and so on to the current question that we are facing today now a number of people want to intervene but these are interesting questions so if each of you Mirko and Spey could be quite brief in answering we can get to more questions so Mirko please I will be relatively brief first the problem in the north of Mozambique it's not just due to gas and oil in a sense poverty in Mozambique is also in Niasa is also in Gaza in different provinces and Mozambique is one of the poorest countries in Africa anyway so it's not just because of oil and gas but then sometimes I just would like to be clear we will benefit much more from oil and gas than Mozambique so the question should be asked we have to ask Total to be responsible first helping Mozambique in using in the best way but it's not only Total any industry exploiting resources could be any could be Total, could be Exxon could be Glencore this is much important we are the first benefitting from that so let's ask them to be more to be responsible in that sense I would say Great Spey over here what I can say is that too much peace can also bring problems yes people again like I said they go to sleep now what happened from when Idi Amin was thrown out and we got changes in between of re-educating ourselves what we have gotten is now multi-party democracy which has ended up into party oligarchy which has been in place since by my generation what I can tell you is that we are back to the time of Idi Amin where young people are now coming up to say we want this so I think what I see being positive in my country is because some of us who continue to want peace badly we see a new generation I think that is the positive thing one can say about this because human beings are human beings you will always have people wanting to exploit others but if you can keep that culture alive through this kind of interactions and research and getting people to speak within the decorum of knowing what is within the law and changing those laws to conform to what is appropriate at the time I think is what is wonderful so certainly Uganda is much better off whether it is at its best is also now raising the question is what would be its best and that is what we are working towards great thank you very much there was another question at the back there is a lady here at the front she is going to go too please and then we will go and see if online we have some questions so please sir go ahead good morning my name is Salam Al-Obaidi I am from Al-Mayadeen Pan-Arabic media network and I want to focus on my question on the situation in Ukraine I mean we deal now with a new sort of conflict in Europe maybe it's different from other conflicts it is a conflict in which involved superpowers with nuclear weapons don't you think it is very dangerous for the peace for us when we have such a conflict and when we isolate Russia don't you afraid that maybe get us to nuclear war thank you very much good thank you so the question is is isolating Russia a good strategy and could it lead to nuclear war any of the panel members wish to address that I think those who are close to Europe I will also have my say on that one after I listen to them okay Yana and Mirko perhaps Yana first and then Mirko I would use the same word of the secretary general and saying that this war must stop because first of all I don't believe that isolating one of the party will be the solution for sure and as I said like it was in Mozambique most of the time even if dialogue should prevail and dialogue will be the solution it is the most difficult step it is where it is difficult really to but this is what we have to work for at the end of the day I don't have the feeling that today we are working too much for dialogue in that specific conflict and I think this is really where we have to make much more effort sometimes I would say easier Yana I have been asked about Ukraine many times we all hope for peace negotiations and peace negotiations require two things they require will of both sides you have to want the peace this is what I am not sure yet I think the parties might not be willing to engage we still see a military option as to way forward and that is very difficult to do anything in that situation when we start to see that the parties are willing to engage in negotiations then it is about trust we have to start to build the trust between the parties and this is something that it is not huge it starts from the small practical things of evacuations of humanitarian corridors small things that parties start to negotiate and start to deal with each other and start to trust that I can trust that if we have a corridor here they won't be shelling but we are not there either so the two things what we need to somehow build is to support the parties to get willing to get engaged and then to increase some sort of trust in the short supply if you look what is happening right now so I am quite pessimistic of the field about the peace process right now but it will happen as I said every conflict can be resolved and we still believe that even if this is very difficult one if I may I'll have something to say but then Spey will have the last word on this one to speak on it I think one of the very big problems raised by this absolutely senseless war is it is diverting a lot of money from the development of developing countries that's obscured in the western media which is extremely excited about the conflict but actually amongst the victims of this conflict the many people in the developing world who will not receive the support they deserve to receive so focusing only on Ukraine or Russia or Europe is a big mistake because the rest of the world is affected whether they are actively involved or not so over to you Spey and then Sivrin will have the last word I have very little to say but let me say this in my short experience and I'm 67 years old that is quite short a mere youngster compared to me now when you look at what's happening in Africa and you look at what's happening now unfortunately in Ukraine one sees at the end of the day there is no developing or developed country and when I look at the issue of the question raised by the brother on the resources in the northern part of Mozambique I have not addressed myself wholly to Ukraine but having been a geography student and wanting to be a chemical engineer at one time Ukraine is not different from DRC is not different from Mozambique so at the end of the day it's really about resources and the ordinary person has not been educated as to what the real cause of war is when the big powers come in to show their might it's about resources and it goes down to what my brother's CMI is all about saying empower the women and as a medical doctor I say it's about testosterone at the end of the day yes and this is why I say that countries being led by less testosterone should not get near this because we need a reference point for us to even in research say countries led by less testosterone or women opposed to those ones what is their reaction and response in issues of conflict like this so I know that part of what is in the African Union we started FEMWISE and because we've been so keen on peace security in Africa and the world and linking up with our sisters in Europe and Asia and South America we have said let's address ourselves to the real issues bringing no peace and looking at these pockets of no peace in Africa how are they related to the issue of resources and there's a very big association which you can even say one causes the other so I think in these meetings we should also seriously look at the issue of resources underground resources which nobody has actually put under there for us to really say why have you hit Libya when the African Union was keen to have that problem solved why are you so much in DRSC why is France there why is Russia going there yet the African Union is in a position to solve those problems so at the end of the day it will also help us to determine the levels of international engagement for real peace where we can have proper coexistence that is my small observation thank you so much and thank you for the question I was told you're the academic voice on this panel so as a good academic I'm going to question the question because that's what we do and the US is isolating Russia the good way to go are we going to go toward a nuclear war and to me this is a new thing but to me it sounds very old it sounds like the very approach that we've been using all the time negotiation with elites it's trying to resolve things at a state level as an elite level working with governments etc and you're asking is that going to work of course not, it's not going to work and we've seen that over and over and over again and last year I was talking with Ukrainian grassroots activists they invited me to present the new book The Frontline Self-Piece and we had a discussion for two heros the idea of top-down versus bottom-up peace building and why elite level, you know that the war in Ukraine has been going on for many years and they were telling me oh you know what you're saying about top-down peace building and the fact that people ignore bottom-up grassroots actors and ignore the work with ordinary people and don't put ordinary people in the driver's seat it feels very relevant to what is going on in Ukraine and my host she's a grassroots activist still and she said you know in 2014 when you remember the whole conflict actually started she said in 2014 when the whole thing blew up it felt like the whole world descended on us and everybody was coming to Ukraine and telling us oh we're going to help you we're going to help you we're going to build peace last year I think the number has gone up but she said last year they had 2000 international non-governmental diplomatic organizations in Ukraine and she said everybody's coming and they're all saying yes put local actors in the driver's seat local ownership local people blah blah blah blah she said everybody's talking the trope but nobody's walking the book out of the 2000 organizations that she could see in Ukraine only two of them were actually working the work meaning supporting grassroots actors staying behind not putting not resolving their own problems and not putting their own priorities but actually listening and doing what people tell them if they tell them we want education then helping provide education if they tell them please get out and don't talk to me ever again then getting out and not talking to them ever again for me the problem in Ukraine right now is something that has been building up and that has been building up because we've used the field what I call Peace Inc. Peace Incorporated the field approach that we constantly use to try to resolve conflict and of course it doesn't work and of course it blew up and now we're seeing what we're seeing in Ukraine great let's move to the question here and then we'll find out about what's been going on online my name is Grazia Pacillo I'm from CGIR CGIR Focus Climate Security and my question actually follows what the SPA was referring to the natural resources and in particular the relations between climate crisis, natural resources and peace and security we've all seen that the APCC reports could you slow down a bit perhaps that's very difficult to internalize all of this absolutely so the latest one of the latest IPCC report has clearly pointed out that the link between climate and peace and security exists albeit being indirect, complex and non-linear so I wanted to pick your brain on the role the climate and the climate crisis is having on peace and security across the globe I wanted to understand whether you have any idea in terms of how do we make peace building and peacekeeping operations more sensitive to the climate crisis and vice versa how do we make our climate action more sensitive to the root causes of conflict, thank you great which members of the panel would like to respond it's a question essentially about climate conflict and relates also to food which is the bread and butter of C-G-I-A-R why don't you go ahead I think I spend sometimes in different places of conflict and sometimes in Africa and I think it is true unfortunately it is again links to resources the future conflicts there will be links to food security to water to this kind of problem that they are of course linked to the climate change but we and I'm sorry I'm speaking that way I will not have so many friends but we from the western side sometimes we are a bit far we just look at our perspective and we don't therefore I'm saying ask total first instead of asking what they would like to do so exploiting resources need to take on board the country where the resources are first of course and I think it will be key to combine climate change and the use of resources but what is important is to establish a partnership with these countries not just going exploiting and leaving we experience this a bit in Mozambique and I have to be honest Mozambique just to answer again to the question that was asked Mozambique made effort to impose his view but when you impose your view sometimes you are left a bit aside so they stop the projects because they can exploit somewhere else instead of establishing a sound partnership and say okay fine let's sit and look at the problem series let's look at what how the community they will benefit how we can do it better we just look at our perspective we need oil and gas and then we lift we need to establish a serious partnership with these countries Great Anybody else on the panel Jana? Thanks I'll start and this is guesswork we are entering a new world in many ways my take on the actual conflicts how the conflicts evolve and I'm dealing with the conflicts they might not be that much influenced by the climate change I would argue that they might be more the actual what is the conflict dynamics they would be more influenced by geopolitics and technology but we can get into that the actual how the conflict plays out but then where do they happen how they intensify what are the issues what are the triggers it lowers the triggers it brings to the new areas it brings new people into the conflicts so this is all what the climate change it just kind of upends maybe not the core dynamics of the conflict as it seems to me right now but really everything else around it who are the people where and how and the kind of the speed and so forth but that would be my kind of short answer to your extremely pertinent and difficult question, thanks Please Just to say that I was in the Central African Republic and when you read in the media they would tell you Muslims are killing Christians and Christians are killing Muslims and when we went there the real issue is exactly what you are talking about the people there some are Muslims some are Christians the daughter is married to a Muslim it's but internationally there is a fad as Christians versus Muslims but the real issue is livelihoods and yes other players coming to feed into that but the people know exactly what the problem is because you see the cardinal of the Christians and the Cardi and all these religious leaders telling you we have no problem our people are not killing each other they've been living like this for years but the desert is coming down and the cows are eating you may even kill each other whether you are both Christians because your maize has been eaten consistently and the desert is coming down now who will stop this it's the local people being supported to do that how do you encourage them to modernize the way they do things and to get better from what they have to change their means of livelihood so at the end of the day we go back to involving the local people and a lot of these issues they get internationalized with international agendas for specific issues that they can link to what is happening in that country or in that region to divert their attention of people from what it is that they want to do if I may add about 55 years ago in a country my parents took me to Nigeria there was a very murderous civil war and the whole strategy of the federal government of Nigeria was to isolate the rebel region and essentially starve it it was highly effective actually and this is something that hangs over us still people don't remember that conflict it was hugely murderous and by the way the punchline of the conflict was the leader who had started the rebellion led his people to disaster helicoptered out at the last minute and led a rich life in Abidjan until Nigeria actually allowed him to return home where he died but many of his tribal kin's people were not so lucky so starvation as a strategy of war isn't new it's actually quite recent and it's a terrible thing when it occurs now I understand we have some questions online so please go ahead with at least one thank you so we have received quite a lot of comments and questions in the online chat so it's just picking one so Hany Alamigari asks how can we rebuild or regain trust in the global peace building processes as we have seen many mistakes in the past and double standards which have contributed to many conflicts and social unrest it's difficult it's important perhaps thank you I think that's a fantastic question and that's one of the questions that motivated my latest research because frankly when you work on war and peace it's absolutely depressing not only to see all of the horrible things that happened in war but also saying all of the double standards and all of the failed efforts and the way I regain peace in I regain, sorry it's 1 a.m. in the morning according to my bioretical clock and so my body and mind are not there so the way I regain trust in peace building is by seeing what I call the model peace builders people who really inspire me and whom I've met all over the world working for all kinds of different organizations or working at the village level or working in cities in rural areas people who do things differently people who have found a new way to actually decrease violence and they don't necessarily call themselves peace builders sometimes they call themselves activists or community organizers or different things but to me they have a few things in common and the first and the most important things is that they don't think that they know better that they have the the theories, the most relevant skills that they bring the answer to people's problems but instead there are people who listen, who are humble and who understand that other people have a different understanding of peace, democracy, development, different priorities and they're also there for the long run so for example like Niko they stay on site for years sometimes decades, sometimes their whole life can I continue? please they don't place themselves at the forefront of peace efforts and when they're not when they work for an organization they don't put their logos everywhere and visibility but instead they take the backseat and they turn the spotlight on the efforts of ordinary people on the other local activists on grassroots members of the community and the last thing that's really really important is that and it's really sad it's that they understand that not all good things come together so for example peace and democracy sometimes conflict and peace and justice sometimes conflict and we cannot have it all together, we cannot promote peace and democracy and development and thinking that everything is going to work out in two years but rather they know that sometimes there are hard choices to be made because sometimes we have to choose between peace and justice or peace and democracy and the best peace builders have seen they understand that they are not the ones who should make the decision but the people who should decide are the people who are going to live with the consequences of that decision great, anyone else? I think that how to make possible or to regain trust in building peace because today we have to be honest there is a lot of processes that are failing is really to educate our people and to become critical to challenge politicians because what is missing sometimes is just basic values to be honest just be honest and don't we speak about propaganda we all have our propaganda we all have our propaganda when I was very discreet when there was this vote at the assembly of the United Nations but I can understand the Africa position sometimes having worked a while there I feel that they have a voice and they start now to speak finally, to speak out we need to be honest and then we can bring back trust in our work but we need really to be honest it is a difficult exercise great, Janna? thanks, there have been excellent answers how to rebuild and I'll add one aspect and my point is that there is a lack of individual sports I think that's a fundamental issue rules of the game have changed so this is that we have to realise this is a team sport and different players have key roles and important roles international organisations really need to up their game the two sport metaphors they really need to really work harder the strategic choices they might not international organisations need to be able to make them the last 10, 15, 20 years we have seen the lack of capability of really taking charge of certain issues really at the strategic level and that's something we are lacking I see the independent actors that I represent is somewhere we are filling in the holes we are acting as international actors we try to bring what we can do bottom up looking at the inclusive piece and all that but clearly if we lack that overarching sense of what we are doing where we are going it is the problems we have seen at UN the problems we have seen in AU the problems we have seen OSC I can continue forever these are really something that is what I see as an independent actor we had a record level of requests for us the CMI to involve this is something when the international organisations are not capable of doing their strategic level work then we are asked to do more and that's something we can do something but not everything but I think my point is really piece building as a team sport and we have to all know what is what we are required to do and I see especially international organisations lacking for the geopolitical reasons kind of not being able to provide the leadership we would need right I agree with my colleagues that I want to go back to my grass road professional area and that is medicine and I want to say Covid has taught us a lot I have been part of the Covid strategic committee for my country as the presidential advice on health and population issues so I poke my head in every sector because health is everything and what happened in the beginning is that ministries of health which I call ministries of diseases were really focused on the medical epidemiology as if something new was actually on the table but medical epidemiology there is nothing new the masks were there way back in the 19th century washing hands social distancing so I said you know the variable here is the human being and the fact that they are the ones who change depending on where you place them then they began to wake up and say let us involve local government let us involve the village chiefs so at the end of the day after Covid the multi-sector and international arena has been opened up for every sector which needs to peace or whatever you want to talk about so we involve Rotarians now you have Rotarians for peace you have architects for peace things to do with the climate change the engineers are organized globally architects are organized globally now what we have to do is to actually get the peace experts work side in side and these are the silos that I was talking about yes we work as silos within the peace arena but we work as silos as if the space we want to occupy is actually empty so at the end of it all I believe we can achieve much more within the shortest time I'll take you to my small country Uganda I keep telling people that even with matters of village interventions you have the growth rate of people 60 and above in our last census we had moved from population of my age group from being less than 6% to 10% and where are we we are back in the villages and we are educated we have seen so much of this nonsense we don't want to die and not go to heaven how do you use that population look at the literacy rate look at the professional areas how many engineers do you have in each locality so there is so much we can do to get a new architecture for peace building across the world because we tend to professionalize and say I'm professional here I'm professional here I agree with you I am a jerk of all trades you know and that's why I said I get bored so let us all get bored with what we are doing and let's all work with other people and see how we can improve the way we work great now another question online and could you please let us know who is asking the question if you can say that yes yes so there's a question from Sarataksen Gupta asking about how artificial intelligence can be instrumental to combat peace building challenges and develop decision support systems for deciding policy solutions thank you Yana you've probably dealt with this thank you excellent question this is what we are what we are grappling what we know for sure is that next 10 years the peace building sector will be upended there will be kind of changes that will be created by technology we are not sure what would be the changes how that will play out and I think artificial intelligence is one aspect before I get into that and I think what I am being very disappointed is that the peace building folks the peace building industry peace corp has been late on picking up on technology it's actually adversaries the war corp has been much more effective actually being able to really harness the technology much more than this side of the the dark side has been more effective in harnessing the technology that's something these are the facts that we know so we have to we have to be better in getting ideas what we can do artificial intelligence and really the huge tools of data that we can have there have been some work it has been a very slow process there has been early early warning issues there have been some sort of which has been kind of relatively successful I think the UN Global Pulse has been one that has been working on these issues but we are not as good as we should be and I think my kind of answer is trying to be better that we are really admitting that we are not where we should be we are in the CMI thinking how this technology could be more honest we are not at the artificial intelligence level yet to be honest we are really looking for the communication that really I think one of the for me the low hanging fruits of the use of technology is more digital inclusion I would like to see the artificial intelligence applied for the conflict resolution but what I see would be more doable in the next few years is digital inclusion millions of world people could actually be meaningfully engaged politically through digital means that's what I mean with the digital inclusion I think that would be not saying that we shouldn't do artificial intelligence but I think this is where we try to focus on the CMI right now how in the practical terms we can do and also bring some ideas together with the kind of technological community and I think my final point is that what we need more I mean lamenting that we are bad one thing what we need more in the peace sector in this peace building is contact with the private sector because that's where the technology is developed we have been quite active pushing and trying to find new technologies because we are not going to turn to technology company we could adapt and get ideas from the company so I think one point we try to do is really reach out to the private sector and for example Finland we have a very vibrant ecosystem of tech companies and we have established partnerships and we are talking with several of them looking for the technologies that we could use in our peace work, thanks if I can add from a different angle completely because Yanai I'm no expert and it's great to hear you're on top of this my experience of negotiation and I used to chair negotiations at the UN is that ultimately it's a very human business so we will be helped by artificial intelligence but there is a very high emotional content in negotiation that I think artificial intelligence will be hard pressed to how can I say master so to speak so I think it's full of promise but I think the human dimension in mediation, negotiation will go on being tremendously important and Sebrin was there something you wanted to say on this yes it's building on the idea of digital inclusion when I hear questions about artificial intelligence reminds me of a report that was written last year showing that with COVID as you said we learned a lot and we learned a lot also about the dangers of relying too much on technology and the fact that in many cases the turn to online so online peace building online everything has actually increased exclusion discrimination and basically reinforced the fracture lines and that in many places the people who got excluded from from from political processes were people who do not have access to technology or who do not know how to use technology because of generational divides or because of educational lack of opportunities and so I think that if we want to think about how to use artificial intelligence we have to be extremely extremely careful about not further worthening the situation and further excluding many people many communities many age groups who just do not know how to use technology and who feel even more disempowered and who feel that they lack even more of a voice today than two years ago or ten years ago great now more questions let's go to the middle of the room now the gentleman in the middle here and then we'll come over here to the gentleman and finally the lady here in the middle also please and could you keep your question as short as possible thank you very much sir my name is Ishaq Ghazama from Conflict Research Network Nigeria we do know that if the poor they are hungry they cannot sleep also they reach they will not sleep because the poor are awake in this respect we also know that peace is the fruit of justice just like fruit to a tree I want to ask a question here concerning grassroots initiative in my country Nigeria Proph from Uganda just mentioned that in her country there is community policy from the villages I want to conquer with her then I want to link it to our politicians in Nigeria for the fact that communities in the rural areas have felt the severity of violence in northern Nigeria for instance to protect themselves but the government is not happy matters they are forming state policies could we get to the question okay the question is how can we bridge the gap between grassroots development with that of the government in Nigeria because the government they are doing perpetrating conflict the people in the grassroots they are trying to help themselves because they want to protect their leadership positions I think we get the point could we now hear the other two questions we'll take them together because we're at the end of our time nobody has a monopoly of the microphone sir can we please there was a question over here there that gentleman and then the lady here thank you I'm from University of Sussex my question is to Severine you've been emphasising the local and the virtues of ordinary people in terms of conflict resolution but I wonder if that is a way of not talking about certain more thorny topics for instance the role of elites in fomenting so called local conflicts and the role of the arms trade or predatory extractive capitalism and so on so I was wondering if you could address that great and ma'am here I'm from the World Bank so I want to continue with the importance of innovation technologies so my question is how do we explain the role played by social media in inciting people to violence so because there also is an exciting factor to more violence and war so how could we challenge this issue thank you great so we're very close to the end of our time could we respond briefly to whichever of these questions we feel we can respond to Severine there was one directly to you perhaps you'd lead off so we're too directly to me and the two of them are related the reason first to our friends from Sussex the reason why I emphasised the role of grassroots initiative bottom up and working with insiders is because we talk too much and we talk always at these kind of big conferences we talk a lot about elites about elite level, about working with governments and even more than talking thankfully there are many researchers who are in this room and who also talk about grassroots bottom up etc but when we look at what's actually going on in peace initiatives that's where we see really the focus on top down on working with elite on discussing all of the topics that you mentioned and that our friend from Nigeria was mentioning the idea that elites have their own vested interest and want to stay in power so my remarks today were meant as a corrective to this usual emphasis on top down on elite level I'm not saying that we have to do a way with top down I'm not saying that working with elite is completely useless because of course we need top down and bottom up we need insiders and outsiders and that's what I say in the entire book is that we really need both and we need to merge both and for that that's where I see a link for outsiders and for the huge role of international organisation but we need to change the way we work and that's what I was trying to get at in the previous question when I was saying you know staying in the back seat taking our time understanding understanding coming with humility etc that's something whether you talk with elite level where you talk with the most bloody corrupt leader you can meet or with the angel person who you meet in the next room all of them will tell you I don't want an outsider who come in and tell me what you do I don't want someone who come in and think that they know better I want them to listen and I want them to work with me rather than work for me or work on my behalf and so that's why I think okay I've been taught but that's why I think all of the things that we've learned about long time involvement about being humble about staying in the back seat about learning local languages local culture etc that's something that works just as well when we talk about elite with your the bloody leaders you were referring to or the capitalist leaders you were referring to but that works only when you go to the most remote village in Congo or in Timor-Leste Great others I wanted just to answer to the question related to inciting violence I think it is true in Mozambique we tried to build up a process where we were very much in the back seat but then is the role for instance of an envoy to stand up when is the right moment and speak out at that moment you have to play the best role of neutral neutral voice and then try to let's say say the truth again to the people because we face a problem like that with the military junta that was emerging in Mozambique of course they were sometimes also speaking about issues that they could have been manipulated and used to incite violence of course and that was at the moment the time where as an envoy you have to stand up go to the press speak out clearly that is one of the role of the mediator at the end of the day I think Spain and the last thought you know we have not talked much about the youth have we and when we talk about artificial intelligence and social media we talk about the youth my worry as a grandmother of the world is that humanity is going to go because the youth in my country I was minister of youth so they remember how we used to interact with them and I was a youth at the time is that the cultural elements have gone because we have sort of romanticized this issue of social media how do we communicate we are not talking to our youth at home we are not talking to the young people we are pushing them to teachers to professors and each of us has our own way of defining what would make me dignified and also understanding why one needs to want peace badly or to want ethics badly or to want to relate to other human beings in a positive manner so that's my worry about social media I was at Harvard when all these WhatsApp started a good number of years ago I had gone to do my doctorate in global health and population so people imagine that the young people are putting there what they haven't got I learnt that in technology how are we helping these young people to put quality things into what they actually communicate the other thing is they are redundant they have no jobs I relate to youth so young people who are very busy they will tell you they don't go to social media all the time but there are those who have something to communicate and they are calling out to you people who are peace builders to communicate with them so that they can talk the language of the young people so to me social media is a wonderful asset which we should capture as a peace agenda for all of you and research needs to be done I'm not a professor by the way I'm just a village professor and for me I communicate in the local languages so I started a program on the science of health now I'm going to start a program on the science of law in the local language in other words are we talking the language the youth understand going to my first presentation of anthropology and diversity the language we use we find that our young people whoever they are even those who have migrated even yesterday when I was coming from the airport there is this young Somali he's been embraced by Finland but he still feels Somali but he doesn't know the language and how do you talk to that young person to understand his role in supporting the Somali because if you must him there he will not understand the language the language of peace and that is the language you put in the social media so you get conflict those in the villages don't understand the language so at the end of the day we have a lot of research I'm looking at the professor here and the university so that we can really do more research on the ground to understand the fundamentals of what we are what grounds us and that will tell us the technology that we need and to also understand that this artificial intelligence is going to take away jobs of our young people and it may create more conflict that is the little I have to say about that. Thank you. Two brief ideas first on youth kind of some clue me views from here on the podium but I think one thing I really want to emphasize what we heard so much encouraged by if you look at the youth they are so good I'm confident that the world would be a better place because if I look at the youth now they are so much better that I was on their age so this is somewhere we are going to the right direction so there is a real room for optimism I think let's embrace the youth and really see that the kind of real the force of change they can really be it is a crucial element of conflicts nowadays we know that the next unfortunately I say next genocide will be led by internet, by social media it's not the radio anymore this is what I'm afraid is there something we can do now to prevent that clearly there are issues of norms or really certain practices for these platforms that we can do we can push the platforms to really do something about that the second thing is what we are doing as a CMI is a capacity building this is a part of the agency I described work with women's groups and others to really be able to work in the social media but I think the bottom line is what Severin said it's the bottom up this is the digital world it's the bottom up all of us are responsible what we put there and what we share and I think that sense of kind of global citizenship what you do in a digital world what you are kind of encouraging that is something that we all and I think that we should be pushing and I think that's a crucial I want to leave with that thought great thank you all very much we've had a wonderful panel coffee break so panel thank you very much