 My name is George Moose, and I have the privilege of serving as the Vice Chair of the Board of the United States Institute of Peace. And it's also my great pleasure to welcome all of you here this morning. We thank you all for joining us, both our participants and those who will be observing today's peace game. As you can see we have a most impressive group of experts to help us game out some very tough questions surrounding the situation in Nigeria and to explore how to counter violent extremism not only in Nigeria but worldwide. And we are looking forward to an active participation, a lively discussion involving each of the participants around the table. For those of you who may not know, the United States Institute of Peace is a congressionally created, independent, nonpartisan institution charged with increasing the nation's capacity to manage international conflict without violence. Our mission is to prevent, mitigate, and resolve violent conflicts around the world. And we do this by engaging directly in conflict zones and providing analysis, education, and resources to those who are working for peace. For USIP, the peace game is an extraordinary opportunity to advance our mission by thinking creatively about the nonviolent methods and means for resolving violent conflict. This year's theme, focusing on violent extremism, is particularly timely, I think we would all agree. Given the current situation not only in Nigeria but elsewhere around the world. It provides an opportunity for all of us to examine more intensely the drivers of extremism in Nigeria. The extent to which those are manifestations of trends that we see elsewhere around the world. The peace game will explore both the economic and political drivers of radicalization and support for violent extremism. The overall discussion will use the scenarios of economic and political drivers to seek new ideas for countering and defusing violent extremism worldwide. Now this is the second of a six-part series. I had the privilege of participating in the original, the initial one, last year on Syria. And I found it extraordinarily revealing. I can speak to the value of that exercise, not only in revealing the dynamics of violence, but also in enabling us to see more broadly the concepts and the possibilities for nonviolent solutions. Peace game is convened by foreign policy and the U.S. Institute of Peace. The support for this series has been generously provided by the United Arab Emirates as well and we're grateful for their participation and their support. I would like to note and thank foreign policy in particular and the person of David Rothkoff for their partnership in this endeavor and offer a special welcome to our representatives from the United Arab Emirates. Now my pleasure to turn it over to partner David Rothkoff. Thank you, George. Good morning. It's good to see you all. Those of you we saw at dinner last night, I'm glad the night did not take a big toll on you, on most of you anyway. Some of you look like it took a small toll on you. But we're glad to have you here and to embark on this next round of the peace game. For those of you who are not familiar with the peace game, the concept is that we wanted to take some of the tools, approaches and techniques that are often used in approaching, planning for and strategizing with regard to conflict and apply them to peacemaking and to keeping the peace. And one of those techniques is scenario exercise and that's going to be the centerpiece of what we do here today. It's not a technical war game. We are going to use the narrative of the scenario really to coax out of you your perspectives on the situation with an eye towards the best possible outcome. We are not really interested in a 35,000 foot perspective on these issues. We are trying to find practical paths towards better outcomes. So we also are not interested in enumerating ideals that are impossible to achieve or in wallowing in problems that have been impossible to solve thus far. But rather to put our brains together about what might be possible to produce better outcomes. In this case both in terms of economic and political scenarios in Nigeria but also more broadly as we discussed last night in helping to develop a kind of a discipline, a kind of an understanding and an approach to tackling the issues of counter extremism so that we might find commonalities between the various situations in which we encounter this problem and perhaps common approaches even as we recognize that each situation is different and requires approaches tailored to that situation. There are not many rules that you need to keep in mind as we go. One of them is that this conversation is on the record. So I caution you there are people in the crowd who will probably tweet out what you say at precisely the moment you wish they didn't. You need to be aware of that. Secondly, don't fight the scenario. You may see the scenario as something where you may not agree with it or you may not think it's likely. That's fine. These scenarios are designed simply to provoke a conversation. They're not designed to predict the future. They're not designed to replicate reality down to the smallest, you know, increment. So go with that. The other rule is, and this is something actually that Chris Shea has brought up before, what we're looking to do here is to get into the minds of the various groups. So let us into your mind. Don't say, well, I would never say that in the presence of the Nigerian government just because they're seated elsewhere at the table. Okay. You know, we want to see inside the minds because we think that will help us get to that problem, get to the solutions that we're looking for. Finally, the last of the rules of this is that we're anti-speachification. We want to have a conversation. We'd like everybody to interact with each other. In fact, during the scenarios there will be several small breaks and you will actually be able to talk to the other participants away from the microphone to say, well, what if we work together on this? Or is this an idea that your group would consider? So that conversational interaction is extremely useful. But when you speak, when you speak into the microphone, and this is probably not the last time today I say it, when you speak into the microphone, touch the little red button in front of you so people can hear you. But when you do, keep it brief. The best way to practice this, to get to it, is to ask you all to introduce yourselves. And what I'd like you to do is to say who you are, what organization you're with, and what role you're playing. And if we can limit it at that, we will get into the concept of brief interventions. I have absolute faith that Johnny Carson can lead us in this regard with his own introduction, and then we will follow around in that direction. Johnny Carson, Senior Advisor, USIP, Strategic Analyst. Yeah. Indeed. Rebecca Patterson, National Defense University, World Bank. Nick Kraft just recently retired from the World Bank. I spent my last time there. I was three years as country director of the World Bank based in Kabul, representing the World Bank today. Raymond Gilpin, I'm with the Africa Center for Strategic Studies at National Defense University, playing the World Bank, MF. Christopher Shays, I served in Congress for 21 years and focused primarily on foreign affairs issues. And you're playing the US government. With my partner, we are playing the US government. We're delighted to be that. Patrick Harvey at CSIS, at USG. Theresa Whalen, the National Intelligence Officer for Africa and the National Intelligence Council, playing the UN. Delores Brown, Department of State, playing the UN as well. Mohamed Abushahab, Director of Policy Planning at the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, also playing the UN. Michael Singh, I'm the Managing Director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and I'm playing Northern Nigeria, along with my colleagues here. John Payden, George Mason University, playing in Northern government and traditional leaders. Martha Crenshaw Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University, also with my partner's Northern Nigerian government and cultural leaders. Mohamed Berkeco, George Mason University, also playing Northern Nigerian government and cultural leader, and also coming from the northeast, the theater of Boko Haramow in Nigeria, specifically from Adamawa State. Thank you. Michelle Gurgawi, Delma Institute, United Arab Emirates. I'm playing North Africa in Arab countries, combating extremism. Graham Bannerman, Assistant Advisor of USIP and the Middle East Institute. I'm also playing North Africa in Arab countries. David Smock, USIP. I'm playing Nigerian NGO. Pauline Baker, The Fund for Peace, and I'm playing Nigerian NGOs. Perun Ula, Department of State, and I'm playing Nigerian government with Steve Schwartz. Steve Schwartz, in real life, I'm the director of the Nigeria office at the State Department, and now I'm playing the Nigerian government. And no doubt a dream come true. I'm Michael Owen, formerly Ambassador Sierra Leone, currently director for Africa in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, playing neighboring African countries. I'm Chris Fomuno with the National Democratic Institute, and I'm currently playing the neighboring African countries. Bronwyn Bruton with the Atlantic Council also playing the role of neighboring African countries. I'm Sarah Prey with the Open Society Foundation, delighted to be playing multinational corporation. Alberto Fernandez, Department of State, also with the multinational corporations. Tufik Rahim, Executive Director of Globeside in Dubai, playing the media. Clifford May, recovering journalist, including in Nigeria some 30 years ago with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, playing media. Kim Rattas, still a journalist, working for the BBC based in Washington covering international affairs, and before that I was based in Beirut where I covered a lot of conflict. Paul Lubeck, Associate Director of African Studies at Johns Hopkins SICE, and I'm representing Nigerian business interests and industrialists from Northern Nigeria. I'm Deirdre Lupin, Africa Center, University of Pennsylvania. I'm playing the role of local Nigerian business interests, and I've spent 18 years living in Nigeria. Kate Amkwas-Kannab, Director of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies at National Defense University, and I'm playing the role of international NGO. Steve Feldstein, Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor in the Department of State, also playing international NGOs. I'm Princeton Lyman, Senior Advisor at the USIP, and I'm representing today the European Union. Peter Fahm, Director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council, and I'm playing Boko Haram today. Amy Pape from the Star Consortium at the University of Maryland, also playing Boko Haram. Leanne Erdberg from the Department of State, also playing Boko Haram. John Campbell from the Council on Foreign Relations playing Boko Haram. Gary Ackerman also from the Star Consortium at the University of Maryland, also playing Boko Haram. Nancy Walker, former Pentagon, now independent, playing African Union. Thank you all. As you can see, we have a bit of a Boko Haram insurgency going on already here. Taking over the room. One of the reasons we have little groups is that periodically between the moves you break into groups, and some of you may wish to talk among yourselves or reach out to other groups to talk about what might happen next in such a move. In the context of the scenarios, by the way, I'm going to get up and walk around and pose some questions and try to coax this along in its way. I will never be able to sort of draw all of you in. So it is really your responsibility to intervene as you see fit when you have something to say that moves the scenario along. The first person who raises their hand and then they say something like, you know, I don't like the way this scenario is going. There's a trap door under your chair. We will get to that in the conversations between the scenarios. But during the scenarios, let's just see what we can do to move the scenarios along. One of the things we want to do also is we would like to get the sense of the room and as we get the sense of the room, I believe everybody has... Well, we have microphones so we can sometimes get questions from folks up in the stands. Does everybody in the stands have the little polling devices? So before each session, we are going to ask just three questions that will appear on these big screens which are just far enough away that you won't be able to read them. But I'll read them out loud. And this will just give you a sense of the room. It allows everybody to participate and there's no right or wrong answers and the way these devices work is very simple. A question will come up. There will be a couple of answers. You hit the button corresponding to the answer. Eight seconds later, it tallies it up. We know where the room stands. If somebody feels a very strong, compelling need to comment on the answer of the group, you may. Otherwise, we'll get on to the three questions and then we'll get into the session that we are on to. So... Let us go to the first set of questions that precede the economic ground. You can't read them all, but it says here, what is the primary economic driver of extremism? One, lack of access to education. Two, youth unemployment. Three, poverty. Four, income inequality. Five, inability to access natural resources like water or energy or six other. We know that all of these contribute. The idea here is simply to get what do you think is the most important of the primary economic drivers of extremism. And we have here 50% of you say poverty. 25% say youth unemployment. And 25% of you have fallen into our trap, which is saying other. And I only say it's a trap because when you say other, I'm going to then say who said other and you've got to say what you meant. So, who said other? What did you mean? Kind of social vulnerability of youth, I think as a primary driver. Okay, social vulnerability of youth. Good point. Anybody else? Yes. I'll get back to your question. It was off the record last night. Ideology, if you're talking about some young person from London or from Minneapolis going to join the Islamic State, they may be going because they think they're part of a great effort to build the next caliphate, the caliphate of the 21st century. It is for in their view a positive thing. They're not necessarily running away. They're running towards. And I think to ignore that is to ignore a very important part of what this is all about. Ma'am. I don't think I hit the button fast enough on income inequality because it still says zero percent. But because in this context with Boko Haram it's such a Nigerian phenomenon when you have some of the same economic aspects that are in the entire Sahel region and even into Chad and Cameroon. I think the Nigerian context of the perception of income inequality from the wealth is really an important part in here. Okay, and it's important. You have seven seconds. You have to move for the button. Yes, Nick. Within the context of income inequality I would actually say exclusion. Exclusion. You got to lean forward a little bit more. Exclusion is probably the most important factor. Anybody else? Yes. Political or social marginalization which should be differentiated from poverty or because there are those who are well off or also feel politically or socially marginalized. For regional, tribal other reasons. Yes, one more. Yes, someone in my world, bank colleague. Economic inclusion. Okay, economic inclusion. Okay, next question. Which of the following should be the top priority to combat extremism? This is on the economic side obviously. Short-term job creation, structural economic reform. Both are equally important. If you think you want to comment on this or add something to it, we can do that afterwards, but... Okay, so both are equally important. Although structural economic reform has the edge over short-term job creation. Does anybody want to comment on this? All right, we'll get to it in the round table. Oh, sorry, Nick. I just want to say, I think it's a myth that governments are capable of doing job creation. And so I think that's not a relevant issue. So you think it's a myth that governments... In short-term can create good jobs in the short-term? By building roads or... That's not short-term. Okay. Then it's a definitional issue with regard to short-term. Next. What is the most productive way the international community can confront the economic drivers of extremism on the economic side again? One, job training programs. Two, economic development projects led by international NGOs. Three, monetary support for local NGOs working in the region. Four, infrastructure projects. Five, micro-enterprise development. Or six, something else. Let's vote. Then talk. Okay. So 40% say micro-enterprise development. 22% say infrastructure projects. Some of you said other. Who said other? All right. Go to you. Referring specifically to the case of Nigeria, the country is far wealthy enough on its own. The marginal position of the international community is nothing compared to the political failure within. So I differentiated my answer from micro-enterprise because I think small and medium-sized businesses are far more important. And I think entrepreneurship more broadly would be my other answer. Okay. You wanted to say something earlier, Paul. Just on other. If you're talking about youth unemployment, you have to deal with health and reproductive health and the enormous population explosion. The average woman has 7.4 children in the 12 Sharia states. 46% of girls between the ages of 14 and 19 are pregnant or have a child. You'd have to have an economic growth rate of 20% to absorb that. So there has to be, in other, there has to be health, reproductive health, and raising the status of girls and women. Okay. So the next thing we want to do is we're going to have a little roundtable discussion on this issue to kind of frame people's views and talk about what's on their mind. Paul's one of the people that was identified to speak on this as was Pauline and Raymond and Nicholas. I want to pose a question here at the very outset that may not be one that any of you have specifically thought about, but it's just on my mind. And so I want to pose it first and then we'll get into it. So any of the four kickoff speakers on this may want to jump in. But we've seen something rather extraordinary in the past couple of months in the price of oil. And it's not something that's in the scenarios or whatever, but it, you know, the Nigerian government yesterday has changed the way it's benchmarking the benchmark price. They've budgeted it down from 73 to 65, I think. It's clearly going to squeeze the government's budget. That's going to squeeze their ability to do a lot of what they do. Do you have a comment on how you think that is affecting this equation and can it make the next 12 months be especially different from the past several years because of the squeeze on the government? Do you want to, Raymond, do you want to take a shot at it? Yes. Countries like Nigeria, particularly hard hits by the drop in oil prices. In the Nigerian context, there are two important considerations when it comes to this drop in oil prices and its implications for the North. The first is that the Nigerian economic growth over the last four or five years has been anchored on a stable Naira, which is connected to both international reserves and the strength of the sovereign wealth funds. Those have diminished precipitously over the last six months to the extent that we now have a new benchmark. What this means is that, not only have they diminished because of the fall in oil prices, it has also been a capital outflow because of the amount of concentrated easing over here. What this means is that the government is now in a position where its currency is severely weakened. A lot of the expenditures that it planned for both development and military uses are going to be a lot more expensive. The fiscal space, it once had to intervene more meaningfully in things like small and medium scale investments, infrastructure, the window has also closed on that. The capacity of the government to do a lot of things he was able to do last year is gone in that context. This means that if we're thinking infrastructure, we're thinking entrepreneurship, et cetera, yes, Nigeria is rich, but from a fiscal perspective, they are severely weakened. This is where both the international community and multilateral, multinational corporations should come together in a more meaningful way to support Nigeria. Okay, Pauline, do you want to jump in? Yes, there's another facet to this, I think that would be to the scenario, and that is that there is talk now in Nigeria as a response to this that they're going to end the oil subsidies. This is a very explosive issue in Nigeria. The only time that you've ever had a kind of occupy moment where people came out across ethnic and religious lines to band together in opposition to the government was when they tried to do this two years ago. They were pushed back and they cut it only in half. This is now going to provide the government the justification for ending the oil subsidies. This will hit the north extremely hard. That's the heart of the poverty area. And it could come at a time where things are heating up because of the election. So it is a very explosive thing, and it could generate a new dynamic in Nigeria because of the confluence of these things coming together. Is it fair to say then, based on both sets of comments, that the issues that drive extremism, division, and tension in Nigeria are almost certain to get worse over the course of the next year? I think so. And as a result of the lowering of the oil price, which also is going to hamper the ability of the current government to finance the election, support patronage, et cetera, it's going to enhance the opportunities of the opposition to appeal to the grievances that exist not only in the north but throughout the country based on the oil price. Okay, so in the context of our scenario, what we're trying to do is we want to look at the economic roots of extremism with an idea towards how do we address them? How do we counteract the factors that lead people towards extremism in that context? And that's where I'd like to direct the next round of questions for this group, and then I'd like to open the discussion to everybody, but let me turn to you, Nick. What do you see as the core economic roots of extremism in this case, and what's your outlook for the factors that are driving those things over the course of the next 12 months? Just to go back to a comment I made earlier, I think that the issue of exclusion and lack of perceived social justice remain at the core of what's going on here. What I think you have in Nigeria and in many other states is essentially a predatory government as seen by the population. This is a government that's more interested in fostering wealth and capturing the rents from the oil revenue at the exclusion of the poorer people. So I think unless you can address the issues of governance, good governance, and reduce the predatory behavior, I mean clearly having more money means you can spread some level of wealth to the poor, but doesn't really address the basic issue in my opinion. Just to give a very specific example in Afghanistan with which I'm much more familiar, one talks about Karzai's half brother, AWK, who was always supported by the donor group, but in fact what you had, you had a leader who donors, national governments like to talk to, they sort of kind of understood him, but he controlled an area in which people did not feel secure. If you belong to an ethnic group and you misbehaved, you could have your land taken away, you could have your jobs taken away, it could be played out like this, this basic insecurity that you have through poor governance is I think at the core of what's doing this. So putting in more projects was one of the things on, I don't think necessarily helps, I think you've really got to get in and tackle the issues of governance, and I think in Nigeria it's critically important. Price of oil clearly, more oil, you can spread some wealth, but you've really got to address the issue. Let me ask you a question, in the context of what we're trying to talk about, which is best possible outcomes, where there may be structural impediments and cultural impediments and personal impediments to doing that at the national level. If you value governance in that way, does that then mean by extension that you think it needs to be done at the state and local level, at some level providing this? Do you follow my question? Yeah, no, I mean I think one has to do it at all levels. I mean I think it's really important to enhance the voice of civil society, so that you have some level of opposition through civil society where people can feel that their views are expressed, as opposed to feeling they're excluded, their voices are never heard. So I think you have to work at that level, but I think you also have to work at the levels of government and so on. So I think one of the things that's really important is developing good public financial management systems throughout the government. It's not easy because when donors, and here I would say very often the United States, and I'm thinking about Afghanistan, lends its heavy hand and says you will do this and you will do that, immediately everyone reacts, the entire population. So it's very difficult to build up the governance side. But I think of your list of things that you had there before, projects and whatever, I think the thing that was most lacking there was this issue of governance. Paul, same question. As you look at the economic drivers of extremism in the context of Nigeria, the context more broadly, how are things, what's most important and what's likely to change over the next few months? I said as you look at the economic drivers of extremism that you think are most important, how do you prioritize them, which of those are most important to you and looking forward, how are those likely to change? Yeah, in terms of the economic drivers, the push factor here is an enormous demographic crisis where some enormous proportion of the population is going to be under 25. The fertility rate I just described means that every 14 years there will be waves of young men coming into cities. Urbanization is increasing. So that has to be taken into account when you look at employment opportunities. So the problem is to try to get as much labor absorption into existing industries. There needs to be an emphasis on agro-industrial linkages and the revival of agro-industrial linkages like cotton for the textile industry, food processing, especially meat. Price of meat grows to about 8% controlling for inflation in southern Nigeria. It has great opportunities there and this needs to be organized. States need to create regional development agencies to work with private investors to increase investment, presuming that security can be reestablished. Okay, same question to you, Pauline. I think the emphasis on labor is important but I agree that the structural issues have to be addressed in inclusion and I think there are new governance mechanisms that have to be created that do allow the expression of the frustrations on the ground. To your question as to whether or not it should be done at the state or the federal level, I think that it has to be done at both levels. At the local government level the capacity just isn't there yet. There are states and there are institutions in Nigeria that are in a position of having credibility with people who are frustrated at the lower levels and I don't think these institutions and state mechanisms are being used enough. Some of them are traditional leaders, some of them are some governors who have governed fairly well, some of them are non-society institutions. I think we have to think a little bit more creatively and in a sense pick and choose those candidates through whom the investment would be well managed. I think that's an issue, the corruption issue is part of the exclusion issue, the perception that where there is wealth in Nigeria it's stolen. So it's got to be kind of a coalition to make opportunity. There have been so many master plans and so forth that nothing has happened, it all gets back to governance. But we can't just go through the existing institutions because they lack legitimacy. Okay, this gets to a really critical point here and I want to frame this in a way that guides us during the course of the day. There are prescriptions for fixing countries in this kind of situation that are undeniably correct on the economic basis or the political basis, but which take long, long periods of time and require kinds of leadership and kinds of governance and kinds of international cooperation that may not exist. Fundamental structural change happens slowly. Extremism happens fast. The issues that we want to discuss here today are what things can actually happen through mechanisms that actually exist that can make a difference fast enough to counteract the spread of extremism. So we have to wean ourselves away from ideals or best cases and work down on the ground of reality. Now I want to open this to the rest of the group in a moment but I want to just one last question to Raymond which is, in that context, what do you think is there that could work now? I think it's a really difficult and complex issue. The nature of extremism in northern Nigeria is really entrenched, has a long history but you're looking for quick fixes. I think you do have a few leaders that are emerging. For example, the new Emir of Cano. He is embraced not just by his peers but also by young people who see him as a champion, an anti-corruption champion because he was formerly the governor of the central bank and he fell out with Abuja because he unearthed major corruption scandals. Using him as an interlocutor and putting people to work and also re-energizing the economy. Perception goes a long way up north. If people believe that things are moving in the right direction you would see a lot of the small and medium scale businesses coming back. You also see distancing between the communities and the extremists but at the moment there is no trust between the communities and a lot of the folk at the state level. Another issue related to the drop in oil prices is that the oil sharing formula is what funds the administrations up north and with a drop in oil prices there will be a drop in receipts by the state governments and what we also need to do is build on a lot of work that has been done in expanding the tax base up north and I think using leaders like ex-Governor Sanusi who is now the emir of Kano is critical. Go ahead. It was just Johnny, I know you had your hand up a little earlier and I know you spent a lot of time thinking about working with the governors and we've hosted a couple of events here and I wanted to just following on David's question to Raymond. What do you see in those state leaderships that might offer some possibilities, some promise of short term responses to the situation? The governors in northern Nigeria are a mixed bag. Some of them represent reform and progressive thinking. I'm thinking of the governor of Kano who has done a lot to model himself after the successful governor in Lagos and he is regarded as someone who is close to the people and who has the interest of the people. There are other governors who have been linked to corruption and misuse of state funds and there are some who have been alleged to have had ties with some elements of radical fringes in the north. So they are in fact a mixed bag. I think that it is important not only to identify governors that you can work with but it is equally important to identify projects that have a direct impact on improving the lives of people demonstrating that there is an opportunity out of the morass and economic and social immiseration that they have been suffering from. What's useful to us in these last couple of comments is a particular focus on individuals who might work because we are looking for what might work. Go ahead, Prince of Nigeria. It seems to me that the decline in the oil prices is going to exacerbate the regional rivalries in Nigeria between the southeast which is always demanding more because it is the oil producing area and the others and I think it is going to produce a much more intense and violent electoral system coming up but out of crisis comes opportunity because it does, it seems to me, offer the opportunity in Nigeria to say wait a minute, we can't keep going on the way we are we don't have enough resources to keep playing this game and things are getting worse and that's where it seems to me the international community can play a very important role to provide forums, to provide opportunities through IMF World Bank other international structures to say look there are ways to deal with this crisis and with the leadership in Nigeria coming together there are ways to solve a number of these problems and there are people in Nigeria, there are governors, there are business people there are others who understand exactly what needs to be done and as we move toward what I think is going to be an increasingly crisis situation in Nigeria over the next six months, four months that we breach out and open doors for that kind of thinking informal forums and then formal ones that say there's a way out of this crisis and we'll encourage the Nigerians to come together around it and I think that opportunity makes this I saw Nick first and then I'll come back down there I just wanted to make two very quick points I think the issue of governance and corruption is really paramount but you cannot tackle it unless the leadership is itself interested in that and that I think is one of the lessons I learned from Afghanistan that if the president or the senior leaders are really not interested in tackling major issues of corruption you will have no success as a donor body so I really support Raymond's view that if you can find people through whom you can work, that is the leadership is really essential that doesn't mean if you don't find those you can do nothing because there are lots of things you can do to build inclusion education projects, health projects and so on which can function very effectively so I would say you need to do both together but if you're not going to get the leadership you're not going to be able to tackle governance and legal reform in a meaningful way I just wanted to say it seemed that we were maybe going down too far a path on the role of economic determinism in this issue I mean I hear words like trust, keywords like trust like leadership, like the state, like forums these are not inherently economic concerns I think that there's the economic role there's economic roots but there's something else why are countries like Niger and Chad which have large populations, poverty, corruption, etc why do they not have problems of violent extremism so I'm a little leery when I hear about large families and fertility and micro enterprises that we're going too far down that path if we get the economic stars alight the problem will be solved that's a good point but I do want to say this is the economic part of the discussion so this is when we talk about that and as we said last night ideology, social issues, political issues, leadership issues economic issues, security issues all play a role in this so it's not so much economic determinism as it is the agenda but I get your point perhaps building on Alberto's point for a moment the socioeconomic conditions we're talking about are not unique they're not just in northern Nigeria so there's something else going on as to why there is this tremendous extremism problem there and I think it goes back to one of the comments Princeton made last night on the weakness of the state and institutions and to Raymond's point about building trust we know from research and empirical evidence on how recurring cycles of violence end that restoring confidence in the state is of utmost importance so if we're talking about economic development projects and activities we have to think about how to do them in a way that restores legitimacy restores confidence in the state and local actors and part of that is Raymond's point on borrowing legitimacy from other institutions or actors that do have it and trying to get state whether local government leaders or national government leaders to work with those institutions that are seen legitimate whether delivering services or trying to address some of the underlying economic issues I think these are very important points I do want to say that very often you encounter extremism in places that are failed states or failing states where you actually don't have these ideal conditions and the question is how do you counter that extremism in those places when a condition of the situation is that you don't have the effect of governance and that you do have the institutions not working and so one of the things we're looking at here is are there other tools, things you can use it's not going to solve the problem might it impede the speed of the spread of the problem might it impede the degree of the problem that's another way that we can get to the best possible outcome Leigh Ann, then I'll come to you one of the things that I think in the economic discussion is incredibly important is the perception of the economic gain so it's not necessarily that you have to go from zero to ideal but there has to be some sort of perception of increase and so one of the things that we could think about in terms of central government like Abuja is trying to help diversify what the economic incentives are to work in really difficult places whether it's tax breaks or loan rates or things along those lines there's a reason why the Legos Abaddon corridor is so attractive for investment it's because everything is already working there but if nothing is working up north and all of the tax rates and all of the loan rates and every way in which you borrow is the exact same why would you invest up north if you're a Liko Dengote or someone else in this field and this is a really important governance economic development question which is how do you incentivize getting that economic development so people have a perception that things are changing and a quick anecdote on that is Governor Michi down in Port Harcourt trying to get a mono rail they don't need a mono rail in Port Harcourt per se but the perception that Port Harcourt could have a mono rail has a huge perception impact of the people down there like are there cement corruption issues with building a mono rail? Of course there are but it's outweighed by the idea that people have this hope it's a vitally important point that when you are in a peacekeeping situation or you're in a critical situation and you're doing emergency economic intervention it's not the same thing as development and so there may be long term development goals that would lead you in one direction but if you are trying to stabilize the situation you might choose something like a mono rail in a place that doesn't need it because it has a political consequence and you're trying to make a political point and I think that's an important distinction I'm going to go here and then here go ahead I'd like to come back to your question David what is it that could be done now on the economic front and I think we ought to look at ways in which the Nigerian government has lost resources in the past and I'm surprised that we haven't yet raised the issue of oil bunkering because effectively there is ineffective governance, there is corruption and a number of other economic ills but one of the ways in which the Nigerian government has lost money in the past and in huge amounts has been through all of the oil bunkering in the Niger Delta and in the oil producing parts of the country and so with the downturn in oil prices that could provide an incentive because while in past, in previous years the government could look aside because the public treasury was awash with cash it no longer has the luxury and if its security services especially the navy could be rendered more professional and more effective and maybe the fight against oil bunkering would increase the overall resources that Nigeria could gain from oil sales despite the reduction in oil prices Okay, good point ma'am you have it Yes, thank you I think going back to what Leanne Hold the microphone a little closer to you there Thanks Going back to what Princeton and Leanne said I think the fall in oil prices will in a sense make the chickens come home to roost because it will be a wake up call in terms of how much Nigeria has been depending on oil revenues and so much of the conversation that I've heard in Nigeria is people fighting over the scraps at the table in terms of who's getting the oil revenues and I also saw that northern leaders were really focusing on diversification what kind of industry or projects or economic development would be successful in the north and so I think that question is really key what is the diversification and going back to what Leanne said how can that be supported through various incentives it's a very key question and maybe the oil prices will force it I do want to sort of put a parenthetical around this this oil price thing that we're talking about here is a kind of a big deal not just in Nigeria it's going to be a big deal in Russia it's going to be a big deal in Venezuela it's going to be a big deal in a bunch of countries that depend on the price of oil but don't have a lot of reserves when we talk about sort of OPEC countries they've got a lot of reserves the core countries that we talk about for example the countries in the Gulf a lot of US supply coming on stream they say well we can test that we can endure a couple of years but for example yesterday Vladimir Putin made his State of the Union address in which he talked about his budget what he didn't say was that the budget is all based on $100 oil and he hasn't adjusted away from that and so he's got a budget crisis you know right now Nigeria has a budget crisis right now and I think that's got a big consequence okay we'll go to Chris and then I'll go down to you yes you're coming in the beginning about extremism happens quickly it also can end quickly and I'm struck by the fact that if we think of the short term game it will be a weak game and it seems to me it has to be more long term and I think of Sudan oil is fool's gold for countries sometimes because when they have it they think they are incredibly wealthy I'm not talking particularly the Middle East and they ignore their other strings Sudan can be the bread basket of Africa and it's beginning to now focus back in that way so my point is I think long term games are more important than short term and the fact that oil has come down it's going to force governments to re-engage with its people okay yes sir I just want to reinforce the point about corruption the USIP along with the Clean Foundation and the budget did a survey in six northern states interviewed more than 600 people about why young men joined Boko Haram and corruption was one of the high factors in pushing people toward joining Boko Haram so the exposure of corruption and cleaner government would make a long make a great difference you know an important point associated with that by the way is the difficulty of disaggregating these reasons if you say corruption to one person that may be the answer it might be alienation it might be interpreted as a social thing it might be interpreted as they're having a lousy job and somebody having a good job and these things all connect in the middle some place so as we talk about them we need to sort of walk slowly around them to see what they mean yes it might be useful to recall what happened in Nigeria the last time there was a major oil drop in price and that preceded the sudden demise of Sani Abacha and his removal from the government and so it can have very important effects where there's a great deal of excess in the government budget and where patron-client relationships within the government become fractured by the lack of money that's circulating and then this also means that the governors of the various states who are an opposition party can begin to switch parties depending on which one they feel is most beneficial to them and also can increase pressure from the population on the governors to find funds usually they will do this by loans to complete projects which they've started but find they don't have the government funds to finish so that's one possible scenario now on local institutions I agree with Pauline that this is very important and in the north there are several kinds of very local community institutions that can be useful one is ward development committees this is sub-LGA these committees are actually mandated constitutionally and they do work on areas like health development and so on there are also very important church-based or mosque-based institutions that are extremely powerful and can have a great deal of impact on people's decision-making and they're recognized by local traditional rulers who are very respected in the north so these are all possibilities okay that's very helpful I've got six people here we've got 15 minutes so I'm going to ask everybody to keep it to about a minute then Steve I'll keep it short I know we're not in the scenario part of this event yet but I'm going to pretend that I'm already playing the role of the media and the first thing that comes to my mind when I hear talk about a monorail project for example that is meant to give the perception that there is upward movement possible the first thing that I would do as the media is go find out why that project was created when it's not really needed I think that the short-term impact is indeed possibly a sense of optimism for the local community but if it's not needed in the long-term I think it feeds mistrust and we've seen that too often with big shiny projects around the world implemented by various governments that are meant to give the local population a feel that things are improving but it doesn't always translate into actual improvement for the local population in the long-term the second point I'd like to make is I feel that so far when we're talking about the economic drivers we're not talking enough about the role of women and how important it is to empower women as economic drivers to improve the situation for local population there are so many programs that are very important and I do think that they have a very immediate impact for communities I'm going to go to Steve, then Bronwyn then I'll go to you guys over here I'm Paul I would just ask us to consider for a second who it is specifically we're trying to target when we think about this problem set in the northeast I think there are complicated structural and corruption reforms that we should contemplate in the long-term I don't think though for the core Boko Haram the immediate communities who are at risk or either at risk for mobilization or recruitment and potentially are providing passive support that demands a very complicated near-term solution I would say we should also think about what specific economic tangible measures in the short-term for those communities and those who are most at risk for being recruited into Boko Haram would have the greatest effect and I think part of its perception and part of its targeted assistance generally I think it is important to not treat the whole of the northeast as one problem but to really think about its constituent aspects and who supports whom when it comes to Boko Haram and the insurgency there Okay, Bronwyn Did you want to say something? Did you want to say something? Did you want to say something? Okay, go on Just a point on corruption and this picks up actually on Steve's point if we can look back at efforts to combat corruption in Nigeria you know there's been a few lessons I think that we can extract one being having a supposed reformer, somebody like Nuhu Ribadou take over the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission that really did almost nothing to really get at the root cause of corruption and it's not enough just to have one leader or even indeed to have international efforts like we had in the UK or here in the US to go after these sort of grand corruption cases so I would frame it more that we need to do it at much more local level and that's by empowering local civil society organizations and working on rule of law and justice issues at a very local level so that you start going at corruption like your local police officer who doesn't get paid unless he gets the bribes and then you know feeds them up the chain that that will be the start of this rebuilding and trust that people who feel that corruption see it being tackled at a very local level and hopefully this feeling of impunity will be sort of trickled bottom up because it's not coming top down. Okay, Paul is next then I'll come back. Yeah, I want to get very concrete because I've been working on this is that there is a silver lining with the oil crunch because food imports will not will be more difficult given the shortage of foreign exchange. There are agricultural potentials in northern Nigeria for supplying southern Nigeria would much who have much higher incomes with agricultural products meat leather products agricultural food grains all of this can be organized by local industrialist in cooperation with states and agencies like the World Bank it's already happening with Don Gote has invested in sugar in Jagawa state and tomato paste by developing contracts with farmers and guaranteeing prices we need to work with local business people at the local government level that point that Paul in and others have made it's extremely important to revive local government and to cooperate with traditional authorities there to have much more legitimacy than the local governments as they are now and they can promote this linkage industry textiles are really important there were several hundred thousand in textile workers at one time in nineteen eight before nineteen eighty six cotton is no longer being produced all of this can be done through reasonable levels of management and planning. Okay by the way one of the things I'd like you to keep in mind as we go through this is as we get into the scenario we need to take this and apply it right we need to say okay in this circumstance if we want to do this thing at the local level with whom and how so that we get a little bit more granular and we're not just coming up with you know prescriptions we're coming up with plans yes Tofi. So in twenty thirteen Nigeria's GDP is five hundred and twenty two billion dollars when Boko Haram is going on you know it's rise from two thousand nine B is a hundred and seventy billion dollars we're talking about a GDP that goes from a hundred and seventy to five hundred and twenty billion so there's definitely not a problem of resources. Now I think all the solutions are interesting I've worked a lot in international development and we're having a conversation in many ways of saying how do countries economies grow generally it's not really about Nigeria people saying micro enterprise etc I'll tell you the truth I don't think we all have the answers in this room if we've cracked the nut we would be you know really revolutionizing a number of economies around the world what I would say is we should look at what indicators we should be tracking to see if progress is being made whatever the solutions are being put out and I would say the primary indicator to look at is economic mobility and the ability to increase economic opportunity as individuals and the very last Chris point I would make nobody around this room is going to make that happen we're going to kid ourselves saying we're going to go in and do a project in Kanu or I mean in the center or the northeast and make the change it's only if the government has very particularly leadership and goes and does things I think a lot of people here have spent time in Nigeria and probably have advanced many of these very particular ideas there and we have seen the outcome so I think once we move forward on saying how do we enact some of these policies I think that's going to become critical it is critical but I again one of the things we have to keep in mind is that if we prescribe something for a government that we know the government's not going to do it it's not going to work so you're right but then you need to find a different prescription Teresa and then come back to it so I hear everybody talking a lot about development short-term long-term but I've heard no one talk about security and it's really difficult to do development in an insecure environment and witness just yesterday or the day before yesterday I've lost track of time the second attack in a month on a French-owned cement plant up north so when you don't have basic security it's going to be pretty hard to develop the economy I don't think I'm giving away too much to let you know that in the economic scenario one of the moves in this scenario has to do with an attack on a factor now so you know security does play a component of it and you know I was once involved in this kind of work in the US government and the saying we had was you can't build an economic house on a political or security sinkhole you've got to stabilize the ground in which you're building Leanne and then maybe Raymond you had something to say we've only got about five minutes so if we get time we'll come right back to you I'll be brief one point is on corruption and just to get back to the entire point of the game is to not be too idealistic about these things one of the problems with corruption that we've seen with the Jonathan administration is the real concentration of corruption and it's not that there's an inherent there are a lot of people who are probably okay with some sort of corruption being present in Nigeria but it's been the extreme concentration of the corruption within a few elites and if we think about how the northern elites used to have a corruption network that looked much more like a patronage network that actually had its own checks and balances within it so not looking at corruption here and now in the short term as being a we must get rid of it all but trying to think about diversified corruption New frontiers in corruption will be the goal of our next I want to just say a few things about employment we've talked a bit about youth employment and a lot of the narrative usually correlates youth unemployment in the north with susceptibility to extremist ideology and extremist groups but we also tend to look at the youth population in the north as one homogenous group it is not you have just speak very briefly about a small subset that some of you might be familiar with the Almadres and the Almadres are young people who are sent to Islamic school and because of the decline in the north economic hardship in Islamic schools I put these guys on the streets the challenge then becomes we have with the Almadres not just an economic but a confluence of economic and societal inequality and so when we talk about targeted employment it's not just your usual let's find jobs for them and also realign them societally so that they could reintegrate into society and then go back home once their Islamic tutelage is done point is a lot more complex than just a straight line we have unemployment there for jobs we have to look at how best to adjust it to the realities in northern Nigeria go two minutes Princeton look on this corruption question I'm reminded in South Korea at the turnaround in the 1960s an international economist said look it doesn't bother me that the party takes 15% off the top of every project as long as they pick good projects and they're doing that and that's why South Korea turned around problem in Nigeria is they take 60% off and there is no good projects there but the question is not so what we're saying is we want to diversify corruption and improve the way the corruption works because frankly trying to wipe out corruption in general is not the way you want to do it what you want to do it seems to me is create incentives for political leaders to do good projects and there's going to be some corruption and how do you do that well there are a variety of ways just talking from the international point of view of bringing investment because you don't need a lot of foreign aid in Nigeria whether it's power Africa or feed the future or a variety of other international programs to those governors or those ministers who are prepared to do good projects and you don't ask them to be angels and you don't ask them that they're not taking all 5% for the party you're saying is this a good project and is it going to deliver and if it delivers you're going to get re-elected that's the way it seems to me you go and we have to remember there's a lot of sophistication in Nigeria you're not dealing with a society that isn't sophisticated lots of very talented people you want to encourage them in that direction okay Peter last word here just for briefly agreed with much of what has been said about the silver lining in the crisis as Paul has pointed out but many of these issues that we're talking about whether it be corruption institutions or working with institutions that are legitimate to bring about economic development agriculture all those things require time and what we haven't talked about is the economic crunch that's coming to marginalized and vulnerable populations now you know a couple weeks ago in Malam Fatturi fell to Boko Haram upwards of 20,000 refugees went over into Niger a country that certainly can't absorb that many and so we're talking about people who need economic opportunities and programs now not even a crop cycle away and I think those are two things that need to be disaggregated the medium to even relatively short term and the now aspect okay this has been extremely useful it's been extremely useful to do what we set out to do which is to give you some principles some guidelines to frame the scenario that we're going to have but I want to give you another set of principles and that is that our purpose here in exploring these scenarios is countering responding to eliminating where possible violent extremism and that doesn't mean our purpose is improving the state of the Nigerian economy which is something we wish for or improving the state of Nigerian governance or Nigeria as a whole what we're trying to figure out is what are the best steps that we can take to deal with the spread of extremism as it stands right now can we slow it can we stop it can we reverse it must we choose to just contain it where it is and try to coordinate in these are practical choices that we have to face and I think we need to view it in that practical context that's what we'll try to do in the context of the scenario that will take place the scenario has little breaks in it so you can talk among yourselves but it does last 2 hours and 15 minutes and that's why as a humanitarian gesture we we take a 15 minute break before we get to the scenario thank you all for getting us off to a good start and we will begin at 10 o'clock sharp right back in your seats thank you very much