 So, ladies and gentlemen, welcome. I told Colin Clary who's going to moderate here that we were likely to have, like, church-like attendance, church-like seating, that is, people sit in the back. But you, you know, so please, those of you still walking, come on, come on down here. This would be great. And while you are doing that, let me welcome you to the United States Institute of Peace. I'm Bill Taylor. I'm the executive vice president here at the Institute. Institute is, was established by Congress 30 years ago. We're in our fourth decade. We are funded by the Congress. Our mission is to focus on violent conflict and trying to prevent, mitigate, resolve, clean up after violent conflict. That's the reason that the Congress established us. We are pleased to be able to have and host these kinds of discussions. We do work around the world. We do work in Afghanistan and in Iraq. I just got back from Kyiv, which I will say a little bit about since one of the topics on today's agenda, the overall topic, of course, being corruption and anti-corruption efforts. It's inevitable that we will talk about Ukraine in that context, which is a good thing. So having just gotten back from there, I can say a little bit about that before I turn it over to Colin. Let me also recognize the chairman emeritus of the USIP board, Robin West. Robin, thank you very much for being here, who feels very strongly about corruption. Against it, I will tell you. Yeah. And also Colin will introduce the panel, but I'm pleased to have Ambassador Bill Brownfield here as the main speaker and the main motivator driver for this discussion here today. One of Ambassador Brownfield's predecessors never let it go by without complaining to us about this building because Ambassador Brownfield's room, office over in the State Department, has a great view of the Potomac River until the Institute of Peace was built, and so his president, and I'm sure he will have something to say about this, he has something to say about a lot of issues. It will not be bitter. I'm very glad. I'm very glad. We're here to support you, Bill. Let me just say a couple things about Ukraine before I turn it over to Colin, who also knows something about Ukraine. We having served together in Kiev in 2006, 2009, and Colin stayed on. As I say, I just got back on Sunday. One of my conclusions from that visit is that the success of the Ukrainians and the Europeans and the Americans and others in halting the Russian aggression against Ukraine with sanctions and low oil prices, and a, please come on down all the way down. We'd love to have you towards the front here, keep coming. But that success at blunting the Russian aggression has now given the Ukrainian government, this Ukrainian government, some breathing room, some space, in order to focus on the real problem that they've got, which is economic growth, economic development, and at the top of that list, the top of economic reform list is, of course, corruption. The range of people that I talked to just last week in Kiev, and we have people on the panel who have spent time there, a lot of time there, can talk about this aspect. But the topic of fighting corruption, in particular at the top, but throughout the society, is front and center. So this is a great opportunity today to talk about that. But they now have some breathing space to focus on those. They've got a lot to do. But at least they're not being, the Russians are still there, and they still, they're still occupied Crimea. And so I just, I want to reassure my Ukrainian friends that we haven't forgotten that, and they still have forces in Donbas, but they're not losing, they're not, the Russians are not still aggressing. And so this gives the opportunity, it gives the new government, the Porchenko-Yatsyuk government an opportunity to clean up their act and to take on this anti-corruption work. Radical transparency is one of the things that I will talk, that I think ought to be on your agenda. Every time I go to Kyiv over the past year, I have gone to see a good, young friend of mine who has been about eight or nine months ago appointed to be the district chief of Vizgorod, a district in the Kyiv area just north of the, of Kyiv city. Alex Gorgon is his name, and Alex, when he was appointed the district chief, bought two cameras out of his own money, and one he has focused on his desk, and the other he has focused on his conference table, which also goes with him when he goes around doing the work of the district chief. He streams online everything he does. So you can go right now, those of you who have your computers, you can go online right now in Vizgorod and see what Alex Gorgon is doing. And if you want to know what he's doing the next day, every evening he puts online his entire schedule for the next day, minute by minute. So if he's going to talk to some businessman or some restaurant owner or some citizen about an issue, you can find out, and you're interested in that, you can find out what time that event is happening, and you can, again, go right on there. Radical transparency. It's also proving to be popular. So there were local elections in Ukraine in October, last month ago, and Alex Gorgon was trying to build support for other reformists, and he was able to support a man who was elected as the district council chairman. So he is now an ally on the district, and the mayor of Vizgorod. And working on a campaign, campaigning on a platform of radical transparency and of economic reform. Young man, he was on the Maidan. This is a new Ukraine, and he represents the new Ukraine. Last thing I'll say is, I was talking to several members of the panel, a person that I met while I was there in Kiev in 2006-2009 did work in the government. He worked for President Yushchenko. He then left the government and has formed his own NGO that does, among other things, anti-corruption work. And he had a great metaphor, I thought, that I would share with you. And that is, I was asking about who are your allies, like what other people are there who are trying to take on this corruption issue. And I named a couple of people, and he said, well, they're pretty good. These guys are not so good. But one of the kind of members is very good. But, he said, to show the importance of systemic change, he said, you can take a fresh cucumber and put it in a barrel of pickles, and it's a matter of time. So that is an indication of the importance of a systemic change. Not just changing one or two, not just putting a person in, but it's important to change that whole barrel. You got to get that. So, Colin, let me hand this to you. I look forward to this discussion. Thank you very much for coming. And welcome again to the NCP. Thank you, Ambassador Taylor. My name is Colin Cleary. I'm a State Department Fellow here at USIP. And it's my pleasure to join Ambassador Taylor in welcoming you all on the occasion of United Nations Designated International Anti-Corruption Day. And I think it's very fitting that we tie in, as Ambassador Taylor did, the Ukraine case. And we heard the Vice President Biden was in Kiev just this week and gave a historic speech to the Ukrainian Parliament. And the bulk of that speech was dedicated to the issue of this conference, which is the urgency of anti-corruption efforts and the threat that corruption poses to national security and international security. And Ukraine is a perfect case for that. So we're delighted to have a panelist here who will address that case and other panelists who will look at the issue more broadly. And with that in mind, it's my honor to introduce our first panelist, William Brownfield. He is the Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, which is colloquially known as drugs and thugs. He was sworn in as Assistant Secretary in five years ago, in January 2011, as Assistant Secretary for the INL Bureau, which is, as it's called, he is responsible for State Department programs, combating illicit drugs and organized crime, as well as support for law enforcement and rule of law. INL currently manages a portfolio of more than $4 billion in more than 80 countries and administered by 5,000 employees and contractors. Ambassador Brownfield has a very long and distinguished career in the Foreign Service, which includes a service as Ambassador not once, twice, but three times to Columbia, Venezuela, and to Chile. He holds the personal rank of career ambassador, which is the most senior rank in the Foreign Service. And last but not least, he is a native of Texas. So, Ambassador Brownfield. Nothing least about that point whatsoever. Dr. Cleary, Madam Kalenyuk, Madam Anderson, Mr. Cohen, Ambassador Taylor, ladies and gentlemen, good morning and welcome to the day after International Anti-Corruption Day, which obviously was yesterday. I mentioned that because it gives some focus and attention, even a certain logic to today's panel and to today's discussions here at the United States Institute for Peace. Ladies and gentlemen, it's been said before, but that's no reason not to say it again. There is no greater corrosive threat to democracy and prosperity throughout the human race than corruption. It kills investment. It lowers economic growth. It increases the costs to the economy and to governments everywhere that it exists. It also sucks up as much as $2 trillion, that to be repeated is $2 trillion a year, larger than all but the two largest national economies in the world, lost to the effects of corruption. It weakens institutions. It hollows out democracy. It turns people en masse against their own governments. And in fact, you might ask yourself who in the world might conceivably support corruption, and I give you two people who do. Organized crime and terrorist organizations. They love corruption. It is the fuel for what they do for a living every day. Ladies and gentlemen, we are in the year 2015. We have not just this year discovered the perils and dangers of corruption. In fact, even more, we have a pretty clear idea of how we, as the international community of nations, can and should deal with this global threat. First, we build international integrity standards. Standards that all nations, all communities can agree that we are trying to apply in our nations, in our business communities, in our societies. And we find them inscribed in documents such as the United Nations Convention Against Corruption and other UN conventions in certain domestic legislation, such as, for example, the United States Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and its counterparts spread through many different nations around the world. By institutions such as the international financial communities, governing institution, the financial action task force, an entity created and designed to apply sanctions to those financial communities that engage in corruption and entities within international civil society, NGOs, such as Transparency International, build international integrity standards. The second principle that we have learned over the last 40 years, wait for it, implement those standards. It is one thing to write them down on a sheet of paper, and it is another to get governments, institutions, businesses, and community leaders to apply those standards. Now, we do this not just by naming and shaming, although I have no objection to that, but we also do it through technical assistance and technical procedures that forces certain things into open and transparent visibility that previously were done behind closed doors. We do it partly through capacity-building, making institutions capable of doing and performing their mission in a transparent and non-corrupt manner, and we do it partly by enabling and strengthening civil society and those parts of civil society that are ready to take on the anti-corruption mission. And the third principle, ladies and gentlemen, is build political will, because as everyone in this room knows, you may have the strongest possible standards and you may push for implementation as hard as you can. If there is no political will within governments, within community leadership, you are not going to succeed. Let me take a country as an example. It is the Republic of Ukraine. Dr. Cleary, could you shoot me the first photograph of only two that I promised to show you? What you see up there, ladies and gentlemen, is one view of what corruption looks like. This was a photograph taken, I believe, several weeks, perhaps a couple of months before what came to be known as the Maidan Revolution. Those are citizens of Ukraine. Notice where their right hands are. They are symbolically, and these were some among thousands and thousands that were doing this at this time, not only protesting what they saw as a highly corrupt government that was leading their nation, but were trying to use a certain amount of irony as in signaling, oh, we can't believe what is going on. There are a billion other photographs of corruption. I like this one because it's a nifty contrast with the next one, which is what does an effort to combat corruption look like? May I have that one, Dr. C. What you see there, ladies and gentlemen, I can tell you precisely when that photograph was taken. It was taken mid-morning on the 4th of July 2015. This is a small segment of about 100 of what was in fact 4,000 members of the new patrol police of Ukraine who gathered in Kyiv's central square to be sworn into office by the president of Ukraine. What this photograph does not show is the totality of the 4,000 officers and the thousands of family and common citizens who came out that day to actually express some hope that as they place their right hands not over their heads in frustration but over their hearts as they took their oaths that these men and women, 35% women, were in fact going to represent a new Ukraine. Ladies and gentlemen, Transparency International in the months before the Maidan Revolution, if I may use that word, assessed that Ukraine ranked number 142 out of 175 nations measured in the world in terms of corruption. They ranked Ukraine 134 out of 142 ranked nations on lack of judicial independence. The year before the Maidan, two-thirds of the citizens of Ukraine in surveys assessed their government as not just corrupt but ineffective, and one-third acknowledged to having personally paid a bribe in the preceding year. And at the Maidan, as the distinguished lady seated to my left would probably say, at the cost of 100 lives, the people of Ukraine stood up and said, enough, we want change. Now, some of that change since then, ladies and gentlemen, has been technical in nature and by no means insignificant, the implementation of an online property registration system so that you now register your property in a manner that is transparent because you must do it online. Or a government contract procurement system that is now done online so that things that previously could be done behind closed doors must now be done in public. Or new rules in terms of disclosure for campaign finance and media ownership. These are technical solutions, ladies and gentlemen, and they are good solutions. They contribute to the ultimate solution. But at the end of the day, the solution to corruption is not just technical, it is also in the institutions themselves. Their strength, their ability to perform their missions in a transparent and non-corrupt manner. And if I may be allowed ever so briefly and in a very un-texan-like manner to toot my own horn, I will tell you that I am extremely proud of the $25 million which my part of the State Department, the INL Bureau, has spent on this project over the last 18 months in Ukraine. May I say now for the record, it may be the best $25 million that the American people have ever spent on any foreign assistance program since the dawn of time or at least since the year 1776, I suppose when we would date our birth as a nation. I am proud of our efforts to train and equip the Ukrainian border guard service. I acknowledge that obviously much of that was related to Ukraine's ability to defend its own sovereignty from external threat and aggression. But ladies and gentlemen, let's not kid ourselves. Transparency starts at the border. If you enter a country in a manner that is not transparent and in fact is subject to corruption and bribes, you can assume that as those humans work their way deeper into the country, they're going to bring that experience with them. I am proud of our role in recruiting, vetting, training and equipping a new national patrol police force which you see in the lower photograph behind me. A completely new force. The concept of the government was eliminate the existing police force and replace them from scratch, building up from point zero. The four largest cities in Ukraine now have completely new patrol police and the surveys suggest that their population, their popularity rating right now is clipping along somewhere around 85%. That would be about the same level that most of us would assess mom and apple pie. I actually don't like apple pie but to put it in some perspective for you, that's about where you would be in the United States to get an 85% approval rating. I am proud of our support for a new inspector general's office in the Ministry of Interior. I am proud of our support for an NGO vetting center that will vet all police, all law enforcement officers and personnel throughout the government of Ukraine. But ultimately, ladies and gentlemen, to have an impact on corruption throughout a nation, you must have an impact on the criminal justice sector of that nation. There is today a new inspector general in the prosecutor general's office, that office responsible for prosecuting all criminal cases in Ukraine. There is today, in fact, after some confusion over the last two days, an anti-corruption prosecutor in the PGO. There is today a National Anti-Corruption Bureau in the city of, or the oblast, or region of Odessa. There is a now not so new anti-corruption team focused on addressing corruption throughout the Odessa oblast. There is an e-procurement system for jobs, for purchases, for contracts in Odessa, which we very much hope will migrate to other parts of the Republic. There are grants provided by INL to several civil society organizations to monitor these efforts, report on them, and offer recommendations for greater solutions as the government of Ukraine advances in its reform efforts. Ladies and gentlemen, I will conclude with a stupid but nevertheless truthful statement. Anti-corruption is not a 100 meter sprint, it is a marathon. But unlike most marathons, it does require some quick and visible victories. It needs those victories in order to motivate the reformers themselves and to maintain the support of the people. I, unless I am corrected by the distinguished lady to my left, feel some sense of optimism and progress in the Ukrainian context. I would say by way of closing comment that I agree with those who say not in our lifetimes and perhaps not in the lifetimes of the next 20 generations are we going to see in the corruption perspective heaven on earth. I do believe it is realistic to expect in our lifetimes that we could make life a hell on earth for those government officials who engage in corruption. That, Dr. C., is my presentation. I thank you. Thank you very much, Ambassador Brownfield. One of the things that gives people hope in Ukraine when they look at the very difficult situation is civil society, because while institutions in Ukraine are weak and have been deeply corrupted, civil society offers a great hope of a new generation who get the points that Ambassador Brownfield outlined. For that reason, it is a pleasure for me to be able to introduce our next panelist, Daria Kaleniuk, who embodies many of the values that we would like to see succeed in Ukraine. Ms. Kaleniuk is co-founder and executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, a prominent local NGO in Ukraine. She's an expert on international legal mechanisms in support of anti-corruption efforts, including issues related to stolen asset recovery and anti-money laundering activities. During the Euromaidan era, she ran the Yanukovych.info campaign aimed at freezing the assets of Yanukovych and his associates that were kept in western jurisdictions. And in line with what Ambassador Brownfield said, the Anti-Corruption Center is currently implementing an INL grant to assist the National Anti-Corruption Bureau in selecting, vetting and training new detectives and analysts, as well as in monitoring the overall activities of the new bureau. And so with that, I give you Daria Kaleniuk. Thank you very much, Colin. Ambassador Brownfield is an honor to speak after you. And it's quite symbolic that in the Institute of Peace, I will be talking about war. It's clearly that the war on the east in Ukraine depends a lot what will happen in the war with corruption in Ukraine. And I believe that if they are successful in war with corruption, the situation on the east will be resolved faster and with less damages and with less life lost. So where we are now in the war with corruption in Ukraine? I would say that there are two parallel sub-wars going on there and the one we already won. This is the war on access to information, which we won. And another one where we are still fighting and where the fight is very tough and where the risk is very high. And this other war is the war for independent law enforcement agencies. Ambassador Brownfield already told about transparency and Ambassador Taylor told a lot about that as well. But Ukraine now, in year and a half after Euromaidan, turned into the heaven for investigative journalism. We have so much open information about who owns what and how public finances are being spent in Ukraine that any other country in Europe has. And I believe the country as the United States doesn't have as well. So we have first in group public registry of beneficial ownership of companies. We have opened registry of owners of immovable property where you can go online, you can put the address of the building and see who owns that building. We have extended the information accessible about the companies. You can go online with the name of the person and you see how many and what are the companies associated with this person and what is the history of these companies. On public procurement we opened almost everything we could including the bidding documents for competitors who bid in the public procurement. We are now about, there is already a law and we are about to implement the law and asset declarations which will be available online and which we could compare. And all that together and there is land conductors so you put the land and you see who owns the land and we already have a law on ownership of cars. So you go online, you put the name of the person and you see how many cars and what size he or she owns. Why all that information is important? A civil society really plays a strong role in Ukraine and the intolerance to corruption is raising too high. People are willing and people are demanding government to fight corruption but people also feel that they want to do something and they are ready to take responsibility for anti-corruption. And all this information available are practical tools for activists all across the country for journalists, for lawyers to use to spot corruption, reveal corruption and report about corruption. Paradoxically, but I don't think that it would help Ukraine in the TI corruption rating because we have now more information about corruption. We have at least four investigative TV channel programs which are released every week which report at least three cases of corruption and they reveal state officials, prosecutors, judges, parliamentarians, ministers, deputy ministers who are engaged in corruption. They report facts based on that information which is accessible online. However, the problem is that it's been reported in media people are mad about all their facts but nothing happens on the law enforcement side. There is still flourishing impunity and people who have, who have possessed very top high positions in Ukraine and especially in law enforcement they are not prosecuted and they are not the assets which are taken through illegal means are not confiscated and this is a very big problem. Even those Yanukovych guys on whom we did investigations during Euromaidan and on whom there were assets imposed by the EU and by the Americans, sanctions imposed they are not prosecuted yet in Ukraine. There is any single case of conviction of a former Yanukovych era official who would rob the country into the percentage of JDP and this is a very big problem. So, and here there is still fight. Here we are, our model of change is that it is impossible to reform what doesn't exist. So, if we are talking about impunity we should have independent law enforcement, right? We should have independent prosecution we should have independent judiciary to investigate corruption and to put people into the jail. However, in Ukraine prosecution service which we inherited from the Soviet era was used for decades to cover all this grand political corruption. And still remains as a supermarket where you can buy cases you can pay bribe to trigger the case and you can pay bribe to close the case against your competitor, political, business competitor to close the case which was brought against you so all that is still thriving in Ukraine unfortunately. And it's been for decades when leadership of Ukraine would be pleased with such kind of system as if a president has control of a prosecutor's office he has control, he has a powerful tool in negotiations with oligarchs in negotiations with political opponents but it's not a democracy and it's not a fight with corruption. So, right after Euromaidan our organization with many other NGOs we got together immediately and we thought we have this window of opportunities to change some laws to change some systems, institutions we have very limited resources we understand that this new leadership might not be willing to really do the reforms and change the country what should we focus on? And we decided that let us better focus on building newly from scratch parallel structures in law enforcement and here emerged the idea of National Anti-Corruption Bureau the separate agency with strong guarantees of independence which has criminal investigation powers and which has very narrow focus on precisely crimes of corruption and precisely on crimes of corruption conducted by senior state officials therefore for a year almost gently with support of the US of IMF, of the EU, of the World Bank we were fighting for the strong law which would guarantee all these tools of independence of the agency and which would guarantee open competitive processes of selecting new people so we knew and we still believed that people make the changes and if we create lifts and entrances for new people out of the system who have common values who have intolerance to corruption who wants to destroy the very corrupt system if we create entrances for them this will be the best investment so a year ago we successfully for good laws and now for about a year we are trying to implement these laws and unfortunately Ukrainian government doesn't want the change in law enforcement particularly especially in those law enforcement which has power like prosecution we were in a very strong contradiction with president of Ukraine when we were protecting publicly the competition for the independent director of national anti-corruption bureau the president wanted to have a person loyal to him we kind of won that battle the new director is now hiring and already hired first 70 detectives through the open procedure and we as civil society our organization is member of the council of civil control according to the law we are members of the selection committees which select detectives so in summer for three weeks I was interviewing about 200 people for the detectives with the support of INL we arranged broadcasting of these interviews so that it would be open process we had camera we did search in all these public registries information about all candidates so if there would be something suspicious about the candidate we wouldn't select him we also we also agreed with the number director that there should be polygraph test not obligatory for taking person in or not but obligatory to have additional eye on some persons which test not well on polygraph so we supported INL we did this polygraph testing as well and we helped to train them as well and all trainees which we engaged and there are many of them Ukrainians they told that they are quite impressed with the selection so these are kind of new people which give hope then this is the second battle was the battle for anti-corruption prosecutor who would be doing this prosecutorial oversight over the detectives and with presence of whom actually the agency is fully fledged and agency can start criminal investigation and it was very tough on our side on the side of civil society we are fighting US, IMF, the EU all key donors of Ukraine who give funding and want to support Ukrainian efforts for the reform they were pointing out that for us they told is important to have independent agency and independent people there having these agencies it was not that easy, I will not go into the details probably there will be questions but from the part of civil society we did a few street direct action events attracting attention of all the people in Ukraine it is a complicated issue to understand prosecution, anti-corruption prosecutor selection commission of anti-corruption prosecutor it is hard to understand but we explained the simple messages why it is important we explained with simple messages why the independent members of the selection commission are important and we had a very laser attention to all this process of the society and again the president wanted to have a very loyal person president has very loyal general prosecutor and he wanted to have very loyal anti-corruption prosecutor the obvious person for whom president would vote for and would support didn't win the competition unfortunately the strong person whom we would support the most and who has track record of investigation of corruption didn't win the competition so we have kind of reached the compromise and there is young 31 year old anti-corruption prosecutor head in the office it's not the end we understand it's beginning of a long run race but again we will continue to have our focus on these agencies and on the processes which allow new people to enter these agencies so our next step what to do next would be to monitor every single step of national anti-corruption bureau and anti-corruption prosecutor to monitor investigations of journalists and when we spot legal facts which can trigger investigation to send it as a applications of crime to anti-corruption bureau and this is our plan for the next year and I'm happy that for the US it's also important focus what else I would say the very important message all that positive changes which are not that many there could be much more they happened not because of the leadership of president or the leadership of prime minister or the leadership of the majority in parliament they happened only because there was joint synergy between civil society in Ukraine by civil society I mean civil organizations activists in media and international partners of Ukraine once again US IMF EU World Bank so if there is a joint message delivered by all these players both non-publicly and publicly it has power and it is kind of a very huge leverage and very powerful argument for Ukrainian senior officials to actually to do some change and it is important for us to coordinate these messages if we are civil society would be alone without any support of our nationals we would never convince our parliament and our president and our prime minister to do even 5% of what was achieved and it is important to continue that synergy because it really can give the results another thing that I wanted to add and I'm about to finish it was the international anti-corruption day yesterday and the United Nations Convention against Corruption is a powerful international legal tool which can be used in practical cases the US laws like USA Patriot Act which gives lots of additional powers to prevent abuse of US financial institutions from corrupt money is for us was a kind of the last hope when we had Yanukovych regime when we understood that we can't reach and kind of when we understood that there is impunity in Ukraine and law enforcement will never touch those on the top officers we approached foreign jurisdictions we approached the EU member states where law enforcement work and we approached the US where law enforcement work and we used international anti-money laundering standards as an argument to convince the member states of the EU to convince the US to freeze assets which are of suspicious origin and there are a lot of such assets laundered from Ukraine and countries as Ukraine to the western states and for us, for countries which are developing it is probably the last hope and it's very important even if the assets are frozen or even if for a corrupt official it's more complicated to launder funds to open foreign bank account or foreign company he loses the feeling of impunity he understands that if he or she is untouchable in countries like Ukraine he or she will be and could be investigated and prosecuted outside of countries like Ukraine so I met yesterday with DOJ people and FBI people and they continued to do sort of investigations of corruption which is laundered through western financial jurisdictions and through western institutions and we have a few already interesting cases in the US where investigations was triggered abroad so for us it is a tool to shake the system and to pressure the system and just an example the current member of parliament, the head of the Committee on Energy is investigated by Switzerland and by the Czech Republic and based on this investigation which became public in Ukraine this member of parliament at least resigned from his position unfortunately he is not prosecuted yet by Ukrainian very corrupt prosecutor general but at least he resigned under Yanukovych it wouldn't be possible without investigation in Switzerland it wouldn't be possible so here I will end up and can talk for a long while and the US help for us is very important and we are happy that you are focused on law enforcement and you are focused on this issue of impunity thank you very much thank you Daria and we will save some time for questions afterwards so our next panelist is Elizabeth Anderson who is the director of the American Bar Association Rule of Law initiative she has been in that position since September of 2014 but has more than 20 years of experience in international law, international human rights and rule of law development she previously served for 8 years as executive director and executive vice president of the American society of international law she is an expert in international human rights international humanitarian law and international criminal law and has taught these subjects as an adjunct professor at American University college of law so we thank you Elizabeth thank you very much and I have a power point I don't know who is in control of that you are the right button the right button will make it appear wow, impressive well thank you very much it's a pleasure to be here and to join the panel and this effort to rally the world against corruption it's a critically important project the ABA rule of law initiative works on a broad range of rule of law problems in over 50 countries around the world but I have to say the thread that runs through all of that work is a fight against corruption almost all of our other rule of law efforts require focused attention on the cancer of corruption so I think this is a very important topic and I'm really privileged to join this panel the work that we do is in close collaboration and with generous support from INL and many countries and we're very grateful to that and critically important also is partnership with justice sector actors and particularly civil society in all of the countries where we are working and so it's particularly a pleasure to join with Ambassador Brownfield and Ms. Kaleniek in this discussion I'm going to widen our focus a bit talk a little bit about Ukraine but more broadly about the trends that we see in the anti-corruption field offer some examples of programming that we see making a difference and some takeaways for our future work together I am going to give you a relatively optimistic take it's my nature I'm kind of a glass half full gal I think you have to be in the rule of law field but I want to also hasten to say that this is not entirely a good news story it's a good news bad news story I will start with the bad news and take that bitter pill quickly fortunately Ambassador Brownfield in particular has already flagged a lot of the bad news here and that is much of the progress we are making on anti-corruption is a function of the stakes the import of this problem and the growing realization among politicians, policymakers, business and civil society across a wide spectrum of industries, fields and interests that the costs of corruption are simply intolerable and corruption is undermining all of the other things that we care about and that we are working on whether it's combating crime working on advancing environmental interests and advancing peace and it's important that we are here at the US Institute of Peace because corruption is really a major driver of conflict and undermines efforts to build peace wherever we see it so that's the bad news got that out of the way let's move to the good news the news is as Ambassador Brownfield mentioned we have important new tools and norms at our disposal and this is the effort of many in the international community over a couple of decades to really develop an infrastructure of international norms it is quite powerful these include the UN Convention of Against Corruption of course and all of the tools that it provides the UN Convention of Against Corruption review process is now helping us identify and prioritize needed reforms to target specific corruption risks such as environmental crime or the pilfering of state assets and transnational crime and the UN Convention of Against Corruption together with other international tools the financial assets action task force gives us powerful anti-money laundering systems to detect and disrupt corruption to recover looted assets and importantly stigmatizing tools such as the FADF blacklist which are making the costs of corruption much more obvious to a lot of actors and creating important political will to tackle the problem we also benefit from US leadership in the enforcement effort and particularly US foreign corrupt practices act and similar criminalization in the UK and elsewhere making bribery to win contracts and intolerable risk for international firms regional and multilateral initiatives in the G7, G20, APEC among those states we have seen concerted campaigns launched to tackle corruption and associated transnational crimes an example in the APEC context with strong US leadership from INL we have seen an effective multi-year campaign in the APEC anti-corruption working group with Australian and Thai support hand in hand with ABA Rollies Bangkok based regional anti-corruption advisor to make anti-corruption agencies throughout the region realize the power of following the money trail finding the ultimate controllers and beneficiaries of corruption and removing their ill-gotten gains based on this work many countries have frozen and recovered hundreds of millions of dollars in proceeds of corruption and finally new whistleblower protections here in US law and around the world are helping flush out evidence of corruption so that is an important set of norms and tools at the international level now here are some examples of how those tools can be operationalized as Ambassador Brownfield said the key is implementation I'm going to give you a couple of examples of our work in two places that I think are instructive of the lessons we are learning first I'll take you to Moldova and I want to flag here some top-down efforts institutional reforms with INL support we have taken a multifaceted approach that's having important albeit stutter step impact first we have worked to strengthen the law supporting efforts of the Supreme Court of Justice to better define corruption crimes and articulate common standards and interpretations of the law that have contributed to an increase in convictions second we have provided assistance to the prosecutor general's office in improving practice in investigating illicit enrichment that has contributed to the authorities opening two such investigations in the past 18 months and we are working to train judges prosecutors and criminal investigators leading to nine new cases against corrupt prosecutors and judges rooting out corruption in the criminal justice system is a high priority and that is starting to see some progress third we are providing support for the national anti-corruption body the integrity commission strengthening its systems for government officials financial disclosures bringing that critical transparency and in turn then educating government officials about this tool these systems resulting in many filing and refiling their disclosures to enhance transparency all of this is against a backdrop of a large governmental corruption scandal that has people protesting in the streets underscoring the importance and urgency of this work and we are hopeful that the government will continue to press forward on it my second example is a partnership again with INL in Morocco and I'm not just going to focus on M countries these are two M countries in Morocco we have been working closely with INL for ten years to address corruption and this case reflects well the changing global environment and the political will that is emerging against that backdrop ten years ago when we started corruption was an unutterable word it could not be freely addressed only one civil society organization was working on it and the closest that we could get to addressing judicial corruption in Morocco was to talk in vague terms about judicial independence today is a very different story corruption has made it into the royal discourse the king has called for measures to address it Morocco has first created an anti-corruption commission under executive authority and then in 2011 that became written into the constitution with new powers and in February 2015 enabling legislation was passed to transform that into an effective body a number of questions remain about how it will exercise those powers but these are certainly positive developments we are also seeing this effort at combating corruption play out in judicial reform in a royal commission the ministry of justice underwent a year long process of studying judicial reform and the preface of its recommendations states clearly as a number one goal combating corruption that kind of formal recognition of the problem it was simply unprecedented before this and now we see this commission recommending a code of judicial ethics and an agenda for reform there that is quite promising the Morocco case also highlights another important aspect of a successful strategy to combat corruption and here Ms. Kaleniak's work is also illustrative in Morocco a key element of our work again with the support of INL and also from the Dutch government is the emphasis on public outreach and education working with civil society to create demand bottom-up demand to complement that top-down institutional reform civil society has been incredibly creative and effective using a range of tools from theater productions to radio spots and caravan outreach explaining in accessible terms the complicated issues that Ms. Kaleniak alluded to about effective efforts to combat corruption this also is a focus of our current work in Ukraine working with experts in Daria's network and the no bribery campaign we are helping civil society educate the public and giving them the legal tools to hold government accountable to flag any of those police those newly minted police who may stray from the course it's important that they be held accountable and that be righted and here civil society is critically valuable you see in the slide the no briberies online pledges soliciting citizens to commit paying no bribes already more than 3,000 have signed these and the movement is growing another example I'm fond of is bribe spots work and you can see their website here a vehicle for crowd sourcing instances of bribery citizens can put in their GPS location of where a bribe has been solicited and we can aggregate that data it informs civil society the light on corruption it informs law enforcement and policy makers to root out that cancer without this kind of demand much of our supply side institution building comes to little let me leave you with my takeaways and next steps for all of us working to combat corruption first after years of norm creating and tool development as ambassador brownfield flagged the focus needs to be on operationalizing these on implementation second these efforts need to be tailored to each context and target the areas of criminal activity that pose the greatest threats in any different context third there is enormous demand and need for technical assistance we are just finishing the first round of the uncack review mechanism and it is revealing great need for technical assistance both on uncack and on responding to its findings countries need help and their self assessments there is need for strengthening the peer review process and for civil society shadow reporting to make this process more meaningful and effective tying such technical assistance to broader rule of law assistance programming would leverage the expertise and justice sector relationships necessary to make it successful fourth these efforts need to support multi agency multidisciplinary programs and network these across borders it is not just one actor that is going to make a difference in this you need government agencies responsible for legislation, for policing for intelligence, for investigation and prosecution together with civil society and the private sector all working together breaking down barriers and sharing information and intelligence to pick up ambassador brownfield metaphor of the sprint versus the marathon I think we need to think about some sort of more of a team based idea here perhaps a relay team a long ultra marathon relay is what we are about here is something that will tap all of these different actors and bring them to the effort I want to end with one cautionary note and this is appropriate today yesterday was international anti-corruption day today is international human rights day the 67th anniversary of the adoption of the universal declaration of human rights and I want to flag a real danger and that is that as momentum builds behind these efforts and in particular civil society becomes more effective in advancing this agenda we are seeing a backlash and closing space for civil society in this arena making anti-corruption groups an important focus for programs such as the president's stand with civil society initiative that is a big agenda I look forward to discussing how we can advance it together thank you very much Ms. Anderson appreciate it our cleanup batter is USIP's own James Cohen and he is a program officer for governance law and society here at USIP his work focuses on security governance and anti-corruption he previously worked at transparency international's UK office involving in their security program prior to that he worked at the Geneva center for democratic control of the armed forces international security sector advisory team he is also consulted with the UN office of drugs and crime and the global organization of parliamentarians against corruption James? Thank you Colin and thank you to the panel this has been an excellent conversation very insightful it is a pleasure to be doing the cleanup batting as Colin said and doing a little bit of summarizing and also going on a bit of a down note after Ms. Anderson's up note as we've seen corruption is finally being recognized for its impact on hindering development and driving conflict in this sense addressing corruption is specifically a target of the sustainable development goal 16 along with reducing illicit financial flows and developing accountable and transparent institutions while there's debate about how to concretely measure this goal it is still a big step that SDG16 to address corruption along with other tools like UNCAC are around because we have to remember that not so long ago corruption was seen as benign or even beneficial to development it was buttressed by the old phrase as we've been going through a number of metaphors corruption greases the wheels of bureaucracy the problem is as we've come to see is that if you grease the wheels of bureaucracy with corruption you wind up getting grease fires no country is free from the risk of corruption but from Ukraine as we've seen to Afghanistan from Nigeria to Iraq these corruption grease fires as we can call them have made themselves known and in Indonesia we actually see real fires being caused by through corrupt land deals that made the country more susceptible to other phenomena the impact of corruption is often discussed in terms of numbers as we've heard as ambassador brownfield said the value he cited the value annually of all corruption to 2 trillion dollars the UN sites developing countries losing 1.26 trillion dollars annually through bribery tax evasion and theft now this is in comparison to the 135 billion dollars that were spent on international development in 2011 1.26 trillion taken compared to 135 billion invested that's almost 10 times as much taken as put in today though I want to focus on corruption's impact on governance and the rule of law and how this drives conflict from a USIP perspective corruption drives this in grievance and mistrust towards the state by quoting the rule of law institutions corruption compromises the security sector rendering it unable to respond to threats or making it a threat itself as ambassador brownfield pointed out finally corruption enables rule of law spoilers criminals terrorists and kleptocrats to thrive while the panel is diving into Ukraine cases and we heard cases from the American Bar Association I'm going to be looking a little bit at Tunisian Mali as two poignant examples of states that reached a breaking point due to the vicious cycle of the corruption in their system the outcries of their citizens grievances became enmeshed with and fed into regional insecurity governments and citizens are working towards avoiding these breaking points striving to convert these vicious cycles of corruption into those cycles of accountability and rule of law on corruption undermining the rule of law citizens are generally aware of the extent of corruption in their countries although as pointed out they can know about corruption even though it can be complicated within a context to understand how it works specifically but they do encounter it on a daily basis through small and large interactions they know to expect bureaucrats to ask for bribes for basic government services they see their government officials riding around in fancy cars and living in villas while the promises of foreign aid are yet to be invested and while the public works within corrupt systems in order to make ends meet their grievances and a sense of injustice builds in Tunisia as an example entry into the market economy was limited to much of the population under the former president Ben Ali with his ruling family exercising a heavy hand in controlling the economy on the surface ahead of the Arab spring Tunisia had good indicators had a decent economy had good education levels however the rig system of the economy and the repressive authoritarianism that protected that led frustrated Tunisians to peacefully revolt against the old regime in the case of Mali although former president Tory and Mali were hailed as development darlings by the west for a long time the explosive rebellion in the north in 2012 demonstrate the level of grievances and marginalization that the population felt and that security personnel felt even a sizable proportion of the population was very happy to see president Tory's exit this was all built on years of resource mismanagement and impunity as official corruption at the top corrodes and captures government institutions corruption within law enforcement and the justice system undermines the rule of law in particular police become predatory and courts become inaccessible as citizens can't pay the bribes to access courts the courts and the police are often perceived to be the two most corrupt institutions around the world in perception index in a recent study by transparency international and afro barometer of 23 sub-saharan African countries it was found that over 25% of users of the police and courts had to pay a bribe to access these services as was the case in Tunisian Mali the state loses legitimacy as citizens see the face of the rule of law self-serving endemic corruption in both Tunisian Mali was constructed by governments more interested in self-preservation and less than so in an equitable rule of law to their own peril and the stability of the West African region of the Maghreb and Sahel the resentment over a corruption was left to simmer until one young man had enough and let himself on fire and we're still feeling the ramifications of that today moving on to the security sector in addition to creating security threats by undermining governance and building grievances corruption also compromises the security sector's ability to address threats the military police intelligence and border guards all face forms of corruption through patronage the sale of positions the plundering of salaries and the plundering of procurement funds transparency international's defense and security program where I work before as Colin said did a study in 2013 recently updated it but the 2013 study of 82 countries found that 70% of those countries had a high or critical risk of corruption vulnerability patronage in position and positions for sale enable cycles of corruption where security leadership is primarily concerned with trading favors and for debts for their positions as many people to move up the ranks had to pay to get up those ranks as opposed to a merit system this leaves underpaid staff at the front line without proper equipment and leadership prepared to prepare to or is unmotivated to address threats this was the case with the confluence of circumstances surrounding Molly's military collapse in 2012 demobilized soldiers who had their equipment funds pilfered by top brass were up against well armed and well motivated rebels coming from the north the Molly and soldiers retreated in frustration mostly at their own leadership Molly is an example that demonstrates corruption's ultimate end in undermining the security sector but run of the mill corruption among police and border guards also undermines security by creating gaps in their ability to detect and stop threats as Ambassador Brownfield says corruption starts at the border right now in Tunisia in response to the attacks in Seuss and the Bartow Museum new construction of barricades along the Libyan border are being set up to prevent terrorist networks from getting in but all it takes is one or two border guards that have corruption within the institution to let low level smugglers that are allowing terrorists to get through undermine that system the Kenyan government has in fact acknowledged that this problem allows al-Shabaab militants to get from Somalia into Kenya finally as we looked at the point of view of system grievances as the point of view of undermining security corruption does allow spoilers of the rule of law to thrive the Sahel and the Maghreb hold pathways for smugglers moving drugs people and weapons to West and Central Africa to the Mediterranean but sophisticated smuggling routes and the cover of the desert's open and sparsely populated terrain still require corruption to effectively allow movement it is in criminal and terrorist networks interest to undermine governance and create a weak rule of law bribes and cuts of the money allow for officials to turn a blind eye or even give these criminal and terrorist organizations cover the former Mali government played with this dangerous temptation to its own detriment colluding with organized crime in the north of the country who wound up working with terrorist organizations during the 2012 insurgency corruption also allows the theft of the state and impunity amongst officials that drive citizens to grievances as miss has definitely shown with the Ukrainian case in the Tunisian case where we saw the Tunisian government and the Ben Ali regime managed to steal millions of dollars through global financial systems and opaque banking systems their assets so far that have been recovered are 80 million dollars US planes and property and this is only considered to be the tip of the iceberg the Tunisian government is growing so frustrated with trying to find these assets that they're now starting to strike amnesty deals with government officials who are stealing these assets before which is driving new frustrations in the population in this regard as it's been pointed out we need to look at corruption also within a global network not just within borders if you've seen the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index map it will show you deep reds within Africa, Latin America and Asia light yellows within Europe, North America Australia and this is to show that no country is free from corruption and this hides and reveals a truth it reveals a truth that yes on a day-to-day basis you'll face corruption in these countries but it also hides the fact that this money this 1.26 trillion dollars it's stolen rarely stays within these countries as has been pointed out it moves into offshore islands into national capitals into financial centers so moving from a vicious cycle or a vicious cycle to a virtuous cycle I'm just going to give a few recommendations on the top of the recommendations that have already been pointed out an institutional level effective an independent oversight is crucial to upholding the rule of law this includes ensuring oversight bodies have the appropriate mandate funding staffing and legal framework to carry out their jobs budget transparency is a further crucial component to accountability with open data platforms as a positive trend however security and defense budgets remain difficult to open while there's a need for some secrecy these budgets are often notoriously used for theft due to their lack of public oversight and it also goes into the point of after military dictatorships well they were brutal but they were efficient and clean this isn't always the case as the Pinochet government was found out to have over 20 million dollars in stolen assets overseas after investigations were found and many other military dictatorships can find that money civil society as we've been pointing out and citizens at large need to be involved in oversight as well citizens resigned to believing not much can be done about corruption or only that a fool would stick their neck out find ways to work within the corrupt system until a possible breaking point this is working within the system it's very different from saying people like corruption as is sometimes dismissed corruption is just part of that system they like it people don't like it they just find a way to live within it to make ends meet civil society needs to help articulate the kind of good governance and rule of law citizens want to create and groundswell to show citizens that accountable governance is possible as we've been seeing the examples of Ukraine especially to explain the complications of corruption especially in the defense and security sector which most people don't understand about defense procurement and issues like offsets within the defense sector access to information additionally government information needs to be accessible while open data initiatives or progress citizens need to be able to use data to make change further information for accountability comes from access to information laws and freedom of the press these tools create a robust oversight system but are often under threat due to the impact of on corruption and authoritarian regimes there's currently a troubling trend towards more laws that are suppressing freedom of the press due to secrecy and due to security concerns at the global level the impact of illicit financial flows on the rule of law and security are gaining traction governments need to continue to dismantle these tools of illicit networks exploit such as tax havens and shell companies without harming beneficial illicit financial flows such as remittances and finally tackling corruption just like all reform processes is a political process as we've heard challenging a deeply corrupt system will create powerful losers who will commit human rights violations to hold on to their network this should not cause avoidance due to sensitivities but rather it implies a smart and tactful approach to grand corruption part of that tactful approach is doing context specific programming learning how corruption works within specific contexts learning how networks work learning where the sources of corruption are and learning people's understandings we can't go in with cookie cutter assumptions of how corruption works within each country and finally the vicious cycle of corruption is already undergoing a global change in perception thankfully people in other countries saw Tunisians demand something better from their government and results are waiting to break this cycle until a dangerous point are playing themselves out moving to a virtuous cycle of good governance and rule of law helps to avoid a worsening downward cycle of violence great thank you James so that's our those are our presentations we are going to now open up for questions and we have some microphones coming around we'd be delighted to hear from you and please state your name and affiliation we might start off I don't know Ambassador Taylor mentioned Mr. West a former chairman of the board here if he had a comment or question we could start with you if now we could yeah we and then we could open up to everybody else we are pressed for time but we'll in other words keep it short I I think this is terrific and I have nothing to add you all are the experts the only thing I would say is that I hope that this is the beginning of a process and that if the Institute of Peace which is there are two things one is a very powerful convener in Washington and if there are other parties that can be brought to this and a process put in place I think we can I'll talk to the management and see what we can do about that the second thing is that the Institute of Peace is not a think tank think tanks are in the business of generating policy what the Institute of Peace is trying to figure out now what to do but how to do it and I think that the extent you all are serious practitioners and I think this is one of corruption is one of the great evils on earth and it affects everything and so I would encourage you and everybody here if you can think of ways the Institute of Peace to be helpful this process let us know thank you okay questions yes with the green scarf there thank you thank you so much my name is Kay Bateman I'm at the special inspector general reconstruction and we are working on we have a lessons learned program there and we're working on a comprehensive report looking at 14 years the international US project our intervention in Afghanistan and looking at anti-corruption and corruption specifically and so my question to you is is in environments is where the US and other donor countries have critical security interests we have we often see that counter-terrorism or political stability objectives might compete with our longer term governance goals including anti-corruption and how I'd love to hear the panel's thoughts on on how our decision makers foreign policy decision makers in the field can balance these you know our anti-corruption objectives with our you know critical security interests you know IE how do we put pressure on these governments to take anti-corruption to make progress on anti-corruption and yet still maintain access to these governments for to pursue our own security objectives thanks I'll start I'll start since obviously I come at this from at least in the Afghanistan perspective from both directions one I am supporting programs that are designed to have specific law enforcement counter narcotics rule of law and justice objectives second I come at the problem with an anti-corruption and transparency perspective there's no as you well know there's no simple answer to your question part of the answer is one size does not fit all and there has to be a different approach to individual country societies and communities based upon the set of concrete realities in which they are operating or dealing second national leadership or at times global leadership has to establish what the ultimate priorities are and there will be times and you have kind of laid them out already where the national leadership will say this issue involving security or this issue involving terrorism is the lead priority it is the reason the principal reason why we are engaged and then we must figure how allowing that to be the priority we try to accomplish other missions third as you no doubt are aware based upon the organization the entity with which you are affiliated as we provide assistance support cooperation on the entire range of issues we have to take the steps that we can to ensure that that specific cooperation assistance is in fact consistent with desires to reduce and eventually eliminate corruption in the government in its institutions accepting as well that in many countries such as Afghanistan the ability to actually monitor visit and have direct engagement with your program is limited by the security situation that there are large amounts of say using the Afghan model of the Republic of Afghanistan that for the most part we cannot get to and yet if we don't have a program that has some impact there it is going to have at the end of the day you're not going to succeed with whatever the national or international leadership has established that's not a good answer to your question I suppose it's a long way of saying you have to allow your national leadership and governments to determine what your priorities are then you try to accomplish those objectives consistent with your anti-corruption objectives and try to accomplish what the realities on the ground will allow you in certain places such as I would suggest subject to correction by Ms. Kaleniek anti-corruption is the priority I mean and the national government this is the fundamental issue you're trying to address when that's the case it is a much easier project to kind of take on if may continue of course I don't know the particular case of Afghanistan but on the example of Ukraine I would say that international financial assistance is very contingent and we from civil society right after the crisis after Euromaidan we met probably all international assistance organizations who came to consult what to do and we begged them please don't give any money until you they do until government does very specific conditions and these conditions shouldn't be vague they shouldn't be just fire corruption reform prosecution they should be if you say that the agency should be independent you should state what do you mean by that selection procedure and the members of the selection commission should be known people in the society whom society trusts and who are professionals you should put that there should be independent funding guaranteed every year by the state and it should be publicly known why it is important because we are civil society recent guys if we will not receive the next IMF loan and for Ukraine it's important now because of the complicated economic situation the reason why we didn't receive it is just because the president and the government don't want to fight corruption they just don't want independent national anti-corruption bureau and again it is very important to that institutions which have both security interests and reform interests and they coordinate their messages like in Ukraine the EU has strategic interests IMF US have interests and it is crucially important that they do coordinate their messages if they do not and we have some sort of bad examples in Ukraine it turns against civil society so civil society continues to say listen we don't trust this selection commission independent but EU comes and say or the president in front of Mogherini says we implemented all the EU requirements and she is silent this turns against us because we look like a few crazy ideas saying that we don't that we think that the president lies so important to coordinate thank you maybe again another question yes in the brown thank you my question is kind of shifting this conversation about corruption more towards Latin America I mean right now we see that Venezuela each time there seems to be more evidence that it has become kind of like a narco state with relatives of the president being involved in drug trafficking as well as allegations of certain army generals so I kind of wanted to ask you how what steps could be taken to combat this and then on the other hand we have neighboring Colombia which is on the verge of signing a peace treaty and despite being described in the past as a failed state is now basically moving in a very different path than what Venezuela is so I was wondering if you guys have anything to say about that Ambassador Brownfield right you're picking on me mostly due to my past not to my present but I'll take a quick bite and I will offer you this this set of observations I've been involved often on in Latin America now and it's going on 37 years I first went to Latin America in official status in 1979 so I am approaching 37 years I will say to you with uncharacteristic honesty that I have never in the past one third of a century and more seen the Latin American region more focused on the corruption issue than I do today for example the largest country in Latin America is today engaged in a major national self assessment as to what and I take no position as to what is true what is false what the outcome will be but the extent to which members of the government of Brazil were engaged in corrupt activities the two of the larger and more important countries of Central America have recently in the case of Guatemala gone to the extreme ladies and gentlemen of removing their chief of state and head of government because of corruption charges and in the other case Honduras have gone to the point where they are attempting to establish an internationally supported mechanism through the OAS to perform the anti-corruption mission you have pointed your finger at two other countries in the South American continent that have pursued this issue in different manners I prefer not to engage in conversation on both of these in order to avoid becoming part of the discussion but I would say the very fact that the discussion is occurring shows that this is a matter of considerable importance and I cannot point to a time since 1979 when that many countries in the Latin American region have taken the corruption issue and raised it to such a high level of priority that would be my response well thank you I think I'm looking at the time here we've run over our allotted time so if we want to thank our panel and thank you all for coming today and perhaps if you didn't get a chance one of the panel members in doing so so thank you all and thank you to the panel