 Good morning everybody. My name is Alastair E and I'm the Executive Director of the Resolve Network and a senior expert for the program on vine extremes at the United States Institute of Peace. I'd like to welcome everyone to the sixth annual Resolve Network Global Forum and say a bit about Resolve's work and introduce today's event. The Resolve Network is a global consortium of researchers, research organisations, policy makers, practitioners housed at the United States Institute of Peace. Resolve is committed to better research, informed practice and improved policy in vine extremism. Our research initiatives, which span thematic and geographical areas, focus on topics such as community-based armed groups, include commissioned original research, capacity-building efforts and convenings to provide key insights on specific aspects of vine extremism, that enhance and inform preventing countering vine extremism research policy and practice. For more on our work, please visit our website and follow us on Twitter. Our work would not be possible without our ongoing partnerships with the US Department of State Bureau of Conflict and Stabilisation Operations at the Global Engagement Centre and the US Agency for International Development's Africa Bureau. We would like to specifically recognise and thank them for their consistent support, partnerships and commitment to Resolve and for championing the importance of research and growing the evidence base for policy and programmes. We are excited to host all of you today for the second public event in our annual virtual forum series for a discussion on important topics related to the role of community-based armed groups in sub-Saharan Africa. The event will include brief presentations, moderate discussions and an opportunity interview for the audience to ask your own questions for a moderated Q&A. We encourage you to ask questions to the speakers. You can submit your questions on the USIP event page where you are watching with this webcast on USIP's YouTube or on Twitter using the hashtag Resolve forum. The session moderator will incorporate some of the questions into the broader conversation with speakers. As a reminder, the event is on the record and we will be available on USIP's YouTube afterwards. For more resolved work on community-based armed groups, please visit our website. The research and these projects seek to provide information necessary to better understand community-based armed groups and the role they play in the wider conflict-eager systems. I'm honoured to introduce now my fellow USIP colleague Nicoletta Barbera, Senior Program Officer at USIP's Africa Centre to give building remarks and set a stage for today's event. Before handing over to Nicoletta, on behalf of the USIP and Resolve, thank you again. We are looking forward to an insightful conversation. Thank you very much Alistair. Good morning and good afternoon everyone. I am delighted to be joining you today for this important conversation on the roles that community-based armed groups play in conflict dynamics in Africa. My name is Nicoletta Barbera and I'm a Senior Program Officer in the US Institute of Pieces Africa Centre. In USIP's Africa Centre, we work to advance programs and inform policy that is underpinned by evidence, experience and learning. As an institute, USIP is concerned about today's conflict trends in Africa, which range from global health challenges to rising authoritarianism and major power rivalries to competition for resources exacerbated by the effects of climate change. We see threats of violent extremism across the continent intensive by state and community fragility and witness mounting social unrest due to citizen dissatisfaction with state services. It is within these complex conflict dynamics that we also see the prevalence of non-state actors who take up arms and resort to violence to achieve their political objectives. We see community-based armed groups emerge as conflicts escalate or as key political processes lean. Members of these groups, often motivated by a quest for justice and accountability, can be deeply embedded within their communities and can take advantage of community vulnerabilities to benefit their cause. And that is what brings us to today's conversation in which we seek to demystify this critical and often overlooked set of actors in conflict dynamics. In today's event, you will hear from experts who will help us understand more clearly who these groups are and why they matter. Through case studies on Central Mali and on women's participation in these groups, the discussion will delve into community-based armed groups' motivations, interests and on the multiple roles they play within conflict ecosystems. Panelists will also explore the potential that these community-based armed groups can contribute to state and community security. Lessons from USIP programs in Africa, such as the Women Preventing Violence Extremism and Justice and Security Dialogue programs, show that in the context of state fragility, deep mistrust often exists between government stakeholders, security actors and community members. We have witnessed the impact that community-based dialogues among these sets of stakeholders can have in creating new avenues of coordination to mitigate shared threats, strengthen community resilience and prevent violence. Women's civil society leaders have worked directly with members of community-based armed groups to better understand their motivations and grievances as contributors to extremist acts. In response to this, our partners have crafted strategies that incorporate these lessons to reconcile divided communities and increase understanding, trust, collaboration and empathy. While it is evident in peace-building programs that community-based armed groups are often active contributors to violent conflicts, I am grateful for discussions like the one we are having today, in which we have the opportunity to expand our thinking around the multifaceted ways that community-based armed groups contribute to the conflict ecosystem overall for good or ill resilience or fragility. In our mission to better understand the relevance and roles of community-based armed groups, today's event strives to bridge the gap between research, policy and practice, and will offer recommendations for both policymakers and practitioners. It is now my distinct pleasure to introduce Dr. Lauren Van Meter, who will moderate today's discussion. Dr. Van Meter, a former USAP colleague, is a leading expert on community resilience to violence, having conducted research and led field initiatives on building the strength and capacity of communities to resist violent actors and recover from the shock of violence. She currently leads the National Democratic Institute Peace, Security and Democratic Resilience Initiative. Lauren, over to you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Nicoletta. Good morning, good afternoon, and I think for some of our participants, good evening. Welcome to the Resolved Network Global Forum on Community-Based Armed Groups. As Nicoletta mentioned, my name is Lauren Van Meter, and I will be moderating today's session on security dilemmas in sub-Saharan Africa. I am very pleased to have on this panel Jacana Thomas, who is an associate professor at the University of California San Diego's School for Global Policy and Strategy. Also with us today is Riva Leah Mori, a research associate at the Klingendales Conflict Research Unit, as well as a senior fellow at the Policy Center for the New South. All of the panelists today have had a long-standing association with the terrific team at Resolve on a two-year and counting research initiative on community-based armed groups. In many ways, we are the bookends of this research effort. I had the privilege in 2019 of being asked to write a typology paper to define and to categorize community-based armed groups, a typology paper that we would all use later to validate and refine this work. The initial typology paper, in that typology paper, I noted that a central feature of community-based armed groups is that essentially that they're shapeshifters, that they are very, very fluid organizations that can transform very quickly from the Jalanti groups to community self-defense forces, from government-sponsored militias into criminal actors. And this shape-shifting and this fluidity is largely in response to what is happening in the external environment, whether international actors are becoming more present, whether community-based armed groups are renegotiating their relationship with communities or with state actors, or what's happening to their resource base. And these external shocks or long-term stressors fundamentally change their internal operations and how they're defined. So that community-based armed groups are defined by the type of violence they perpetrate, whether it's defensive or offensive, and whom they exercise violence against. I think that it's very important, however, that we not only see studied community-based armed groups as armed actors, their very existence and purpose is a manifestation of state and of local politics, culture and power. They are a reflection of the political dynamics in their region, as we see in Rita's work on Central Mali and in Jakana's work in West Africa and in Northern Mali. So this is going to be one of the themes that we explore in the panel today with Jakana and Rita, which is how sea bags interact with and affect conflict ecosystems in the Sahel. I think however, one of the most thrilling aspects of this research for me as one of the original members of the research cohort is seeing how the follow-on researchers like Jakana and Rita have really advanced our thinking and understanding about community-based armed groups. We now understand that they are multi-dimensional governance, economic and justice actors. They are not just security actors, and this is another theme that we'll explore in the panel today. Jakana's research, duty and defiance on women and community-based armed groups has really added another strong dimension to our understanding of sea bags around intersectionality of the complex identities of the women, youth and men that support, serve and demobilize from sea bags. But mostly as I turn the floor over to Jakana and Rita for their presentations, I think this project, the most important aspect of this project, is that it has elevated the importance of seeing and understanding community-based armed groups as very critical actors in these complex, conflict environments. Their community roots, the fact that they are an extension of local politics, makes them distinct actors from insurgent and jihadist groups. And we really must and should increase our understanding of their uniqueness, part of the issue again, that we will explore in this panel. So with that, Jakana, I would like to turn it over to you for opening remarks. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for having me, and thank you, Lauren, for a great introduction. So just in the way of background, my research broadly focuses on political violence, and most recently I have been focused on understanding gender dynamics in a variety of violent political organizations, including rebel groups, terrorist groups, and most recently, community-based armed groups. And so while it's become increasingly clear over the last several decades that women play significant roles in rebel groups and terrorist groups and other types of violent extremist organizations, it is believed that women play very minimal roles or very minimal actors in community-based security groups and politics. However, my research for Resolve, the report that Lauren just alluded to, shows that armed groups, like armed groups and terrorist groups, sea bags have quite a bit of women's participation in their significant variation in what women do for community-based armed groups. So for example, like Nigeria's force and their Nigeria's hunter groups, as well as Mali's Dandakoy and their patriotic resistance forces, women actively take up arms in these organizations and maintain formal memberships within militias. And like their male counterparts, we see that women are appear to be motivated to engage in violence in order to advance their own political interests. At some points, but other times, they're narrow self-interest. So in other words, women are fighting to secure their communities to advance their political aims, but they're also fighting for their own survival. And even when they're not directly wielding weapons as formal members of these militias, they're participating by supporting, facilitating, and sanctioning the work that these militias are doing and that these sea bags are doing. So one of the main insights from the report is that women often do significant work within sea bags that is either unseen or underappreciated. And moreover, women's work is often denied and diminished, sometimes by sea bag leadership, which makes it hard to see women's contributions. So another part of this project was really to kind of tease out some of these contributions that women are making to these sea bags. And what I find is that whether they participate formally in militias or informally, women are quite consequential to sea bag politics. And in some ways they play very central roles. So again, for example, in the CJTF, women are used to apprehend, search, and interrogate female Boko Haram suspects. And this role is actually particularly important in Northeast Nigeria because it allows them to fill a very specialized role that men can't necessarily fill. Right. And so in this area where it is viewed as relatively improper for men to be in close physical contact with women they're unrelated to, this creates this niche role for women within these militias to fill that again, men can't necessarily do. Additionally, in Nigeria's Hizba, women have the important role of policing other women's behavior and their morality and propping up community values. Again, a thing that a role that women are well suited for that men may be less suited for. And even in when again they're participating in informal capacities, they're able to use roles as arbiters of morality to guide the behavior of their communities, which has important implications for conflict and conflict behavior. And when they've participated in counterterrorism efforts, like I alluded to a few minutes ago, we've seen that they've improved military operations and outcomes. And most importantly, I think, is that when women are present in these sea bags, we've also seen that they've had the capacity to change the behavior of these violent organizations in certain circumstances. In particular, they have the capacity to quell the violence against women and civilians that are used by some of these sea bags, which is quite similar to the role that female peacekeepers have played. Again, I find it quite unfortunate that women's participation in these groups are as woefully understudied, which means that it remains poorly understood and we don't really yet have a good grasp on how to leverage women's participation for some of the good things that the international community is interested in. I'd also say that recognizing women's participation in the perpetration of community-based violence suggests that we really need to have a more nuanced understanding of women's interest. The policy community often likes to believe that integrating women into conflict processes will only have a single impact, and that is always to strengthen peacebuilding efforts. However, this narrative has to be complicated by the fact that women sometimes push male community members into violence, and in other instances they join in on the violence themselves. And we find through this report and through other research that women and men seem to be motivated to participate in violence for very similar reasons. And so this suggests that women's roles and their interests are more complex than we often give them credit for, and more work needs to be done to understand why women are disposed to peace at some times and why they choose violence at other times. And I'll expound on these particular remarks throughout our discussion today. And my final point here is that it's that that Seabag politics are intricately related to state-level governance efforts. And so in my research, many women and men have joined these militia organizations in the Seabags to protect themselves from violence perpetrated by militants, but also by state militaries. Women often decide it's safer for themselves and their communities if they take community security provision into their own hands. They find it, they believe that it would be better if they could physically provide for their own protection as opposed to waiting for a state that may never come or that if they come might prove more detrimental. And so their participation in their grievances are often motivated by what women perceive as inaction or the negative actions of the state. Moreover, we know that states often collaborate with support or turn a blind eye to the violence that Seabags perpetrate. And so if policymakers, practitioners and stakeholders have an interest in quelling the local violence that includes Seabag violence, they also have to find credible ways to address some of the reasons the groups emerge in the grievances on which these groups continue to recruit. So that is to effectively manage and transform Seabags, if that is our interest. States have to do a better job of governance in ungoverned spaces. And so as long as these grievances exist, it's hard to imagine individuals, including women, demobilizing willingly. A recent anecdote was that a Dogon militia leader suggested that if the state was going to try to disband their militia after some of their recent abuses, they also needed to take guns away from their perceived enemies. So this suggests that as long as the state is viewed as incapable of addressing the security crisis in a satisfactory way, Seabags are going to be able to recruit and remain in the conflict game. And finally, Seabags are often inextricably linked to local traditional political structures, which means they're not going to be easy to disband without undermining community norms and traditions and all of the things that come along with that. And so this is going to pose some significant challenges for DDR in a traditional sense, which again I hope to expound upon throughout my remarks today. Thank you. Hannah, thank you for very thorough remarks in the short amount of time you had. I'm very pleased now to also introduce Rita Leah Mori, who will present his opening remarks. In many ways, these opening remarks are Rita's report launch Resolve Network just published two days ago. And Rita's report on Central Mali Armed Community Mobilization and Crisis, which I highly recommend to you all. But Rita, I will turn it over to you for a short summary. Thank you. Thank you Lauren and thanks to Resolve Network for having me and it's a great pleasure to be here today, even virtually. I would not, I would not speak too much about my report, but I highly recommend that you read it and come back to me with any questions you might have. But I will just very briefly, when we talk about community, we automatically talk about identity, which has became a major point of debate in recent years during the conflicts on the Stahel in general, and in particular recent recent years in Central Mali. And that's why I was very interested to look at Central Mali as a case study because it's very interesting case as we know today is the epicenter of violence in Mali, not anymore northern Mali as he was in the previous decade. So to speak specifically about Central Mali and when we talk about the identity, again, when we look at the history of the use of identity in Mali, this is nothing new. Historically, identity have been used for to resolve or to resolve the conflicts at the expense of other identities. And this has been used not only by armed groups but also by the state. I would go into the examples, I think the example of the divide in Tuareg, Songhai communities in the north, as well as the creation of recently the 2016-17 of the Dogan Malaysia, which was backed by the states until later on the states decided to distance itself after the Dogan Malaysia committed several acts of atrocities. Another example, and also more recently, how Jihadist groups also started to use identity as a driver as a way to gain power, influence and control. And again, not only armed groups are using identity but also the state. And I think there is enough written and well documented all these examples. I think there is enough research, enough documentation about that. But to speak about today and how Katiba Masina in Central Mali used the identity and the card of playing the Fulani communities, this started just brief on the background. This started 2013-2014 when Fulani communities were victims of a bond tree, of mishandling, mismanagement of natural resources. And there were no fair resolutions to address their concerns and Jihadist groups came in and provided some of the solutions, provided protection, provided support to the Fulani communities perceived themselves as victims. That being said, when we speak about today doesn't mean necessarily they are only recruiting and integrating into the ranks Fulani communities. They are also looking into Dogan communities. They are recruiting from the Dogan communities and more recently, there was even an audio where a high ranked G&M leader went as far as saying Dogan are more genuine Muslims than some of the Fulani's. And this is a very interesting to see how he went that far so that he can gain control but also to gain support from Dogan communities. But also, this comes at the time where the G&M, which is al-Qaeda affiliated group, also fighting with the Islamic State affiliated group in Central Mali and in Mali and in the Sahel in general. This was a way of trying to contradict what the Islamic State is trying to do, trying to say that the Dogans are not Muslim, they are not part of our community, but G&M said otherwise. They said no, they are also a Muslim community and that is used, so the identity and also the perception being used so they can recruit in their ranks. It is also fair to say that today because of the tactics that Qatib al-Masina and G&M in general managed to weaken the Islamic State in Central Mali and continue to have a strong grasp on control in Central Mali than the Islamic State. Islamic State remains like controlling and have small cells throughout Central Mali but Qatib al-Masina remains the main actor in Central Mali. And I will stop here but without going further and with details and I'll let Lauren, if you have any questions, I'll be more than happy to expand on. Thank you, Rita. This first part of this panel, Rita and Jakana and I agreed would really focus on the conflict ecosystem in the Sahel and how seabags are both affecting that conflict ecosystem and being affected by it. And so we get following up sort of on that thread of thinking and the remarks that you just made. As you do mention, there's some very interesting contradictions in your report around seabag identities in Central Mali. You've noticed that the Qatib al-Masina, the local affiliate of J&M in Central Mali is recruiting among the Salani groups, but one of the more interesting parts of your report is that they are oscillating in that recruitment between recruiting based on an ethnic identity versus recruiting on a jihadist identity. Can you talk a little bit about what important alliances are they trying to maintain by recruiting along dual identities? Why is this balancing important? And more importantly, I think one of the more interesting aspects of your report is why do some Fulani groups reject Qatib al-Masina and J&M regardless of its appeal along dual identity lines? Yeah, I would try to answer just questions by saying that J&M right now through the Qatib al-Masina, we can say that is one of the most active J&M brigade units and not only in Mali but I think in the Sahel because of how much control they have over the community, over the Central Mali. And this thanks to the alliances that they built with local communities. Mainly, he started off with the Fulani communities, as I mentioned, by coming in and presented themselves as the protectors. We are here to protect you. They recruited, they trained, they armed Fulani communities so they could protect themselves against Tuareg, Dugan and Bombara militias and armed bandits in Central Mali. And they also provided them with, they empowered certain Fulani communities that were marginalized and controlled by certain Fulani elites that were backed by the states. And so they give them that power, they empower them and they built these alliances that now are becoming really difficult to break. And so that's why they continue to expand, they continue to exercise control in Central Mali and where the states with the Malian states and international partners are having difficulties to have similar type of access. And so J&M, Qatib al-Masina, J&M are aware of how important to continue to have these alliances with Fulani communities. But simultaneously, they are also have been providing protection to Dugan communities that are opposed to the Dugan militia then ambasogo. So they are exploring other opportunities. So while they're strengthening the existing alliances with Fulani communities, they are expanding and exploring other alliances so they can continue to expand. And this has been proven to be very successful in Central Mali and some of the Dugan members have managed to even achieve high ranks at the local level of Qatib al-Masina and J&M in Central Mali. And that's what's given them this power in the region. The other question about why some of the Fulani's rejects, of course, you would always have not all communities are supportive of the ideology and the mission of Qatib al-Masina. So you have some Fulani communities, Dugan communities, Mambara communities that reject the ideology of J&M, the presence of Qatib al-Masina. But look what happened. A lot of members from Fulani and other communities have been executed and targeted by J&M who are opposed to the presence of J&M or Qatib al-Masina in Central Mali. They either have been targeted or they have left and they have been forced to this place and be located either at the key centers, key towns in Central Mali or to the capital in Bamako. So that provided the space for J&M to come in and establish themselves with those that are willing to support them. And personally, throughout my research, I'm struggling to identify as many Fulani communities that are opposed to a J&M in Central Mali. I hope I answered some of your question and thank you. You did. Thank you, Rita. Although I do have a follow-on question around the Dugan. As you've mentioned, there's been a big effort by Qatib al-Masina and J&M to recruit Dugan, even appealing or shaping Dugan identity in order to enhance that recruitment. Well, what tensions do you anticipate in trying to manage Fulani and Dugan units within this larger conglomeration given sort of the historical tensions between the two groups? Sometimes we think that the identity is the only factor, but at the same time, I think a lot of Dugan that joined, not necessarily because of identity, they joined because of convection. And because they have that conviction, they are more important to Qatib al-Masina's expansion in Central Mali than the identity. So I anticipate and we have seen tensions among Dugan community themselves because we are seeing some of the Dugan, even if it's a smaller number that joined Qatib al-Masina. It's still relevant because, as I mentioned, because they are joining because of convection and that is more dangerous and more vital to Qatib al-Masina than just recruiting members who are joining because of other reasons, because of economic or reasons or because of violence and access to weapons. So those joining with convection are really that we are seeing and that's what is going to be one of the key drivers for Qatib al-Masina to continue to expand and exercise its power in Central Mali. And that's what it's given us also an advantage compared to the Islamic states in Greater Sahara, which continues to see the Dugan as non-believers, as non-Muslim community. Thank you, Rita. Before I move on with questions for the panelists, I would really like to encourage our many audience members to put in your own questions. We have 30 minutes reserved for you all with our panelists, and we would love to see you given an opportunity to ask the questions that are important to you. So please fill up the chat. Thank you. Jakana, I'd like to turn to you. You know, we studied a bit how this conflict ecosystem is driving identity shifts among community-based armed groups. But I'd like to turn a little bit to how identity shifts within community-based armed groups. And the conflict ecosystem in the Sahel is rapidly and deeply affecting men and women in their traditional roles in communities. Rita's research has talked about how the most marginalized of young men, the fulani, are finding empowerment in being men with guns. This is redefining masculinity, leadership, and authority on the ground. And his report also describes how women play a powerful role in central Mali, given their linkages, sort of their familial linkages, as wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters of armed fighters. But Rita also says that women's roles in the conflict are, as you have put it, thus far hidden and need to be studied farther. Based on your research on these hidden roles, what are the likely roles that women are playing in central Mali, northern Mali? What does it mean for the local conflict ecosystems, and how do we really need to elevate our, and why do we need to understand, elevate our understanding of women's roles? Thank you for the great questions. So I think we can generally say that women play, again, a diverse set of roles in seabags. And so drawing, I guess, inferences from the northern Mali case, we've seen that in some instances women formally joined some of the militias. And those are especially in communities where women's roles were less circumscribed. However, in more conservative communities, we've seen less formal women's participation. So we didn't see women join armed groups in Islamist groups or in the Tuareg insurgent movements, nor in the self-defense militias to great extent. But that hasn't necessarily meant that they were absent from these movements or that they could be considered non-participants. So Tuareg women from particularly conservative communities have used their leverage over younger members and their families, younger men in their families and communities to influence these conflict dynamics and to push their own preferences for peace or for conflict. And so due to the respect for elders in Mali and so the gerontocratic norms, older women are generally able to influence juniors, younger women, but in some cases even younger men. And so given that Mali's median age is about 16 and youth are increasingly being recruited by violent actors, this kind of gives women, especially elder women, a unique space to influence what's actually happening on the ground. And so in some cases this is going to mean that women are putting intense pressure on their communities to push for peace. However, in some cases we've seen that it means that they're sanctioning and supporting local violence. And so my work with Hillary Mattfist is examining this question of why we're seeing some women pushing for peace at certain instances, other times they're completely unengaged or disengaged, and other times they're pushing for violence. And so I think as I noted earlier, we can't always take women's preferences for pieces given, right? We can't necessarily say that where women are involved, whether formally or informally, that is going to have a positive impact in peace. And outside of Mali, we've seen very similar dynamics where in conservative communities, women are leveraging traditional roles in their families and in their communities to influence conflict, sometimes for peace and sometimes for conflict. And in Hillary's report for Resolve, she talked about that a lot in East Africa. They participate in these conflicts by directly pressuring males within their communities to engage in conflict or peace building by directly participating in linked traditional political structures. So for example, secret initiation societies often have links to sea bags and their participation in these initiation societies can give them insight and leverage in these security roles. And sometimes by throwing their support behind specific conflict actors, other times we've seen them participate by leveraging interpersonal connections with other women, right? And so that is to glean information, to press women to get their relatives to engage in violence or not engage in violence. And again, as I mentioned, sometimes this is to directly perpetrate violence on behalf of sea bags. And so again, the research that I've done and that other people are doing is suggesting that even where we're not seeing women directly or we're not, we're not, we're not necessarily looking in the places that they are, right? And so even when we don't, an active can take on a variety of roles that may mean picking up a weapon, but it may mean pushing somebody else to pick up a weapon or put that weapon down. And my guess is in Central Mali, these are the roles that women are taking on. And we know that these are the roles that they did take on in Northern Mali for sure. Thank you, Chikana. So a little bit then just have a quick follow on question for both you Chikana and Rita, which is that, you know, we think we have had a lot of thinking about how do we secure a piece in Mali. And the recognition that this is going to take both top down and bottom up approaches, and that local peace accords are going to have to be supported by greater state presence. But if you think of these local peace processes and these peace accords that need to happen, and you think of the fact that many power relationships right now are being transformed on the ground. Chikana, you've talked about women's power relationships that have been transformed on the ground as a result of armed groups. Rita, you've talked about young men. How are these new power dynamics going to affect our ability to form and sustain local peace processes? So how are we going to have to take into account these new power relationships on the ground if we are going to sort of craft any or support any locally crafted peace process? Rita, do you want to? Sure. No, I think you have turned on a very important point. These areas that where the state is almost absent would exist through certain actors like traditional authorities, for example. And as Chikana mentioned earlier, like ungoverned space. I mean, I'm afraid to disagree. I mean, it's not ungoverned, but it's governed differently. It's governed by the actors that remain there. Not everyone left, not all the population, not all the authorities left. But what we are seeing, we are seeing that these authorities are negotiating deals with whoever is in power. Either be it a community-based armed groups or Jihadist groups or other types of armed groups. So there are negotiating their existence so that they can move on with their lives under these conditions because they are somewhat lost faith on the states because they have been in this situation for quite a while. They need to go back to their economic activities. They have to go back to educating their children. And we are seeing that they are negotiating deals where they allow the schools to reopen under certain conditions. They are allowing women to go back to their economic activities, to go to their fields to work, to go to the market to conduct trade and sell their spices or dry fish. So they can continue to generate income. In some instances also providing health support services. And on top of, as you mentioned in the opening remarks, it's not just about providing security, but we are seeing these other types of governance provided by different CBEX. So what does this do is making it really, really difficult to the states when they return, who they're going to talk to, and also how they are going to perceive the communities that managed or to negotiate deals with Jihadists or other CBEX. So we are going to be perceived as regular population or they're going to be perceived as traders. And we are risking here, if it's not done appropriately, we are risking of seeing acts of extradition killings, arrests against these individuals because they are perceived as supporting and interacting and working with Jihadist groups and other CBEX. So these deals are being negotiated so they can continue to exist under these difficult circumstances and the return of the state is going to be very, very difficult and it's going to be really messy going forward. Thank you Rita. So the caution that instead of a peace process, we're going to see more of the retributive violence if we're not careful in how we conceive of or support these local efforts. And I'd really like to open the question up to you as well in terms of how these shifting local power dynamics need to be considered in a possible local and even nationally supported peace process. Yeah, so just to say, I don't disagree with you at all Rita there's no disagreement here actually when I mean ungoverned I meant, I meant to imply ungoverned by the state, which has any build an emboldened local sea bags and local actors to fill what are perceived as power vacuums where the state is not providing security and governance. And one of the potential hitches the concerns here is that where these sea bags are recruiting along ethnic lines or along identity lines. Those who are providing the power and the governance have governance and the security end up having the power. And this might be at the expense of those who are not providing governance and power. And again, when these are along identity lines, this might mean that enabling this type of hybrid security to take root where just groups are protecting themselves means that we're just further perpetuating inequality and we're incentivizing groups to try to buy for power. And so all that to say is that I think without focusing on the role of the state and where the state is, it is relatively absent or is allowing these actors to fill these spaces, we're further perpetuating this the state is further perpetuating this kind of violence. And we've seen sea bags and form morph and grow in response to this kind of absenteeism, or the state refusing to provide security and other aspects of governance. So obviously one solution to that would be that if it was an impact if it was of interest to the international community the policy community to decrease some of this violence. They would also need to remove the need for these groups to operate right and in order to do that the state would need to have a much stronger role in these places. I'll speak specifically more about how this influences bottom up approaches. And I think there's wide acceptance that bottom up approaches to peace building are preferable to those top down approaches and these need to have community buy in because these are community conflicts, you know. And so I, in some cases, it is really important to have or actually it is full stop really important to have women's buy in in these conflicts and women's participation in these peace building efforts, because in aggregate women have been shown to push for more equitable and durable solutions to conflicts that typically move beyond just military concerns and address inequalities on gender lines but also in cases also along ethnic ethnic lines. Other studies have also showed that women are more willing to work across the aisle to kind of solve conflicts. And so in Mali we have seen women from civil society arm groups and government come together to try to push for greater implementation of the peace process to to push for greater role for women in peace processes and we've seen similar types of initiatives at the local level. And so I would say there are potential benefits of including women in both of these top down and bottom up approaches for peace building. But again, it's important to note that not all women are going to necessarily push for the peaceful outcomes and work of my own work and work from scholars like Millie Lake and Mary Berry show that adding any women from any background to a peace process is not necessarily going to be the same kind of outcome right. It's important to understand that interest and incentives for different women from specific communities and backgrounds are going to be central to what they're pushing for as spoils from peace are not going to benefit people from all communities and all backgrounds equally. And this is because women like men are self interested actors and sometimes their gender is going to be front and center and the most important cleavage. In other cases, it's going to be religion. It's going to be class is going to be ethnicity. And so when we include certain women in these peace processes, they're going to be pushing for provisions or provisions that are along those lines as well. And so as I'm sure I mentioned at some other point, it's really important to not just think about including a woman or a couple of women, but that we are very considerate of who these women are what their backgrounds are and what kind of incentives they have to kind of push for a more equitable piece, because without attention to those things, we're replicating some of the inequalities that are already there and we're not going to make the situation necessarily better by by, you know, this attention to gender and buying being gender inclusive. Lauren, if I might add very quick, I think on on your question you talked about so you asked about youth. I think we we tend to focus on youth that they are the problem sometimes but also like let's not forget the influence that elders have on youth that I think that points I just wanted to to remind ourselves like something that's to keep it to keep in mind. No terrific point Rita and if we're talking about intersectionality we should include all identities and the older generation should definitely be included in that so thank you for that. Um, you know we we sort of really explored almost every dynamic of this conflict ecosystem in Central Mali in the style, except for perhaps one important actor in there which is the international community. We often think of community based armed groups is sort of, you know, receiving their identity from the community but we know from all of our research that the presence of international actors can shift that identity. Probably one of the most profound effects it's had in the Sahel is the erosion of the influence of traditional leaders, Rita that older generation that you're talking about that often played a very important role in constraining community based armed groups. Um, can you talk a little bit about both to kind of Rita how how we do no harm that we're already seeing the erosion of some of the constraints on our groups. Most likely because of our activities in the in the area and can you talk a little bit about what do no harm for the international community would look like, especially these to be community based on groups. Sure. Yes. So as you you mentioned, Lauren we're seeing the erosion of a lot of traditional institutions and traditional authority, which wasn't often had an important conflict resolution mechanism attached to its communities were able to resolve a variety of contentious issues through these mechanisms that existed through the through these institutions but as they are becoming less salient and less important as they're being ignored as they're being threatened by violent actors. We're also going to see fewer ways in which the traditional authorities are able to solve conflicts in the way that they used to which means that they're going to have to, they're going to have to be new ways to to solve these conflicts or there has to be a way to reinforce some ways traditional traditional leadership and authority. And I think in from my report one of the ways that this is disadvantaged women, which I believe also disadvantages communities is that women often have some carved out role within traditional authorities and traditional political structures and institutions, which allow them in some places to engage in conflict resolution to guide the morality of the community in some ways, it allows them to place constraints on their neighbors on community members on the youth. And as these institutions become less important women's roles are minimized as well and their ability to engage in like engage in civic engagement and engage in politics will also be less end and so I think the the risk of, I guess, eroding this traditional these traditional institutions is manifold, but it has specific impacts on women's ability to engage in politics and in constrain that their communities and in ways that I've seen through in other projects. Rita, would you like to expand. Yeah, sure. I think first to to avoid doing any harm I think it's to not get involved with local actors, especially seebacks, because I think that's number one it's avoid that all costs getting involved with with this actors. I think we need to do more of investigations and accountability accountability. We have to demonstrate to the local population international community has to investigate and hold accountable those responsible for atrocities. Either either be it for security forces, state actors, or members of this or the seebacks, we have to send some sort of message to local communities local population. So the the international community and the and the national government and the state itself can gain some sort of trust for for from the local communities are not make the matter worse. And as I mentioned in my open end remarks the the continuous using of identity as a way of weakening another opposition, it's just kind of continue to this this endless cycle of violence. And I think this some of the examples when when you see in central money that we are seen as a central money like security forces that are supported trained by international community are responsible for some of this atrocities. And that's that's something that local population are increasingly becoming aware of. And therefore, we are going to see more resistance towards international communities intervention than than actual will comment. I hope I provided some insights. No, I think that's terrific. Both of you all in terms of some wonderful words of caution to the international community. I'm just going to head quickly started to the last area, or one of the areas that I know Chicano and Rita you would really wanted to talk about was just how does all this rich research turn into policy and practice recommendations I would like to turn Rita to to to really press you a little bit more on this issue of accountability. You said in your report that you would recommend a sequencing Well, in terms of moving towards a peace process that DDR and SSR reform may be too premature that accountability as you mentioned must come first. But there is an interesting issue around accountability and see bags in the sense that see bags, take their values and in many times their local community. And so if we want to think of accountability in terms of decision making and authority. How do we hold see bags accountable when those authorities and those values perhaps came from the community themselves. Thanks for pushing me for and that's really hard question. I just, I just don't see a personally I don't see that we are at the stage on this level of the conflicts in Central Mali especially that we are at the level where we can see this communities are unified and they're going to accept seeing certain members of communities from either from other communities being integrated into security forces, or being not being held accountable, and whether we will like it or not and unfortunately because we are seeing that we have seen this historically, they are going to be some advantages given to one identity at the expense of another. And as long as we are not at the point where everyone is being identified as Malian, or as Nigerian or as working day, we are going to continue to see this differences and this, this, this injustice and perception towards different communities and that's not then it's just going to result further damages among not damages but we are going to have security forces that are going after different interests rather than protecting the local population. And that's what I'm afraid of because at the moment we are not, we are not at that level at that stage where we can, we can forgive and reintegrate and reintegrate those members into a security forces. When we are still another example, it's frightening that certain community member of the communities, they don't even know what the Malian flag looks like. And that's how severe and that's how distanced that there's some of these communities from from the reality from the state. And as long as we are not at that level. So I think any efforts of this way we have to be realistic, things that look really good on paper are not necessarily are going to be looking to be the solution for the situation on the ground. So Rita, you've talked about accountability in terms of atrocities committed between and among communities and even if you look at some big atrocities committed against their own community. So the other important set of violence that's going on right now as a result of sort of this vigilante violence that's breaking out in Central Mali and that's the high rise and increase rise and gender based violence and sexual based violence. And I'd like to talk about accountability in terms of that, in the sense that, you know, we don't often bring gender based violence into the accountability process. And Jakana, I'd like to ask you, you know, you've talked a lot about the different roles that women play in our groups, affirmers of men's participation, informants, etc. And if we think about these different roles that women play, how could that be brought to a process of accountability around gender based or sexual based violence which I think needs to be included in the accountability equation. Yeah, so I think that as Rita suggested, maybe they're not at a place where where DDR is exactly what is going to happen in the immediate near future. However, I do believe that there's a place for local constraints to be placed on these actors and that are derived from the community. And these, these communities have always been diverse, and they've always had ways of managing and being in peaceful coexistence that I think the maybe what needs to happen is that there needs to be a return to those previous status quo, where societies could coexist. And one of the ways in which they did that was societies and communities policing themselves. So not only policing outside actors, but policing the activities of their community members. And this is where I believe that women actually have played and can play a greater role, especially as it pertains to sexual exploitation abuse, gender based violence and sexual violence against women in their communities and outside of their communities. And so in sea bags. Nigeria is a good example we've seen increasing attention played on, you know, sexual exploitation and abuse perpetrated by the military and also sea bags, including the CJTF, and women have been increasingly vocal about about this type of violence. And so this is spurred protest in that has gained international coverage in Nigeria and Cote d'Ivoire and Mali, but we've also seen specific actions that women have taken to kind of push against this type of violence or this rising tide of violence. So women in the CJTF and the VGN have noted that their participation within these militias have actually helped to deter abuses among their ranks. And in the VGN women have received special training, which has allowed them to spot and deter sexual and gender based violence again among people within their ranks and so just by being there, kind of in the way that we have seen sexual peacekeeping forces where when women are among the peacekeeping forces we see reduced reports of violence and actual reduced incidents of violence there. There's preliminary evidence that this also happens when women are within these militias, and they are able to constrain their own comrades. I've also, I could also say that in Mali, women have certain communities have put in place mechanisms to deter or to I guess report and escalate instances of sexual and gender based violence where we're put that put women in the center in the forefront as focal points and so when they see these types of activities taking place or when they see these atrocities being committed that women are trained to go to local authorities and escalate these types of abuses but this doesn't always happen right and in a lot of communities the stigma around sexual abuse and gender violence, which makes some women reluctant to report it and reluctant to take any action on it but I think there needs to be a two prong approach. The first approach is possibly giving interested women and I'll say interested women training and how to spot these types of abuses and how to deter them. And another approach is having, I guess, changing the norms around acceptance of sexual abuse and sexual violence and violence against women more broadly. And so if the norms around silence around these types of things changed, we might expect more women to take on more active roles and trying to deter this type of violence. Thank you to kind of sow some very innovative and provocative recommendations there which I think build on our theme of of local local people managing and being involved with conflict resolution and conflict management. I would love to turn this portion over to the audience now again we do have some questions from the audience we would love more questions from the audience. And so please, the USIP team is standing ready to move your questions from chat into my mouth, so that I can ask our panelists, the pressing issues that you would like to hear about. So I would like to start with a really great question from our audience and I think one that we have have actually addressed in our community based arm group research, which is around sort of the historical presence of the historical precedents and community based armed groups. And the question is, to both of you, how does colonial the heritage of colonial governance. How has it impacted impacted still today, the security governance landscape across regions and communities. And how has it shaped relationships between state and non state actors and we really do see that with community based armed groups, which are not a new phenomenon in this region. And then the audience is really asked you, you guys are both deep experts in particular regions in Africa that you also provide concrete examples. So could meet maybe you start us off with, you know, the colonial impact on the the conflict ecosystem and see bags that we're still seeing today. To be honest and say that something that I have not looked at so I have not looked at the how the colonial and the history of, especially the French, and it has an impact on the emergence of sea bags. But we're looking at it today I don't see, I don't see the impact so I don't I don't see the relationship of trying to make the connection between the colonial times and today. It's not, it's not the result of what's what's been the, the impact of colonial times but I think it's more of what is the situation, how the situation evolved in recent decades. How the national and regional states managed the domestic issues how the governance structures exist in some of these areas of the conflict. The example of Molly, since the 1990s. How the Malian government managed the the the the twerking issue in northern Mali, how they managed manner continue to manage it all the way to the early 2013 1415 I think it's been the same by trying to weaken one side by create by supporting one side. And that's, that's why we are continuing to see this more community sort of community based armed groups and based on identity they are either twerk or even a fraction within the twerk, or either the Arabs in the Timbuktu region and now we are seeing this in the past six years. And we are seeing this trend as well now until a very entire regions of of Niger, the emergence of more local self defense Malaysia so I think this is more of the what it's where the result of how things are being handled and in this areas in recent years but not. And I see, at least from my end, the relationship between what's happening now and colonial times, and in terms of the sea bags, the creation and the emergence of sea bags. Chicana, would you like to add to that I know you've looked at West Africa, Northern Mali. I think this is a very, very difficult question to answer because, again, I will say this is not my specific area of expertise, but just thinking about it for the last couple of minutes, I would imagine that it's important to really think about the colonial roots in Africa, particularly in Mali, because it's informed the interventions that are in place today right the French are in part feeling responsible for what's happening in Mali because of the colonial ties. And so I mean, I guess, if I were to think about potential potential research to do on this topic, it would be to understand how the French colonial administration, emboldened specific groups, and, for example, how they're dealings with the Tuareg during colonial times influenced their Tuareg claims for self determination and how it influenced their willingness to align with specific groups in society. And so, I mean, I've had to think a little bit more about this, but I don't think it's irrelevant. It's just not exactly obvious the ways in which the colonial administration impacts what's happening today. But I'd imagine that it really is an important thing and I'll give it a little bit more thought and hopefully by the end of the talk, we can circle back to this question and we can think about exactly this question. Sure. And on behalf of Resolve, I will say there is an excellent report by one of our authors on sort of the historical legacy of sea bags that I'm sure we can put up in the chat. And to kind of the next question to you, I'm going to combine a few of them are specifically around the role of women in sea bags. And there's two questions. One of the audience participants asked, you know, what are the sources of sea bag legitimacy and how does that affect women's involvement in those sea bags. And then, given that how might the role of women and sea bags differ from that in other armed groups or conflicts. So that's two questions. What is the legitimacy of the group and how that affects women's involvement and then how that involvement might differ from other armed groups. So I'll answer the second question first. So the second question is how might women's participation in sea bags be a little bit different than in other armed groups. And there are, and I think these two questions are actually linked, which is why I'm taking one before the other. Women's participation looks somewhat similar between sea bags and between sea bags and rebel groups and terrorist groups, right? Women join these organizations, primarily when we're looking at the supply side, so why women join these groups. They look at they join these groups for personal protection for political gain in the same way that men do in some cases for material gain. And so women join rebel groups for these reasons, they join terrorist groups for these reasons, and they sometimes join sea bags for these reasons. The biggest difference I would say between rebel groups, terrorist groups, and then sea bags separately is that groups are anti-status quo, right? They want to push against the status quo and which often creates a revolutionary role for women. It allows them to transcend the status quo gender norms and maybe change and transform their roles. And so what that would mean is that they're departures from traditional roles that women have played in society and they have these new opportunities to do really interesting, innovative things. In some cases, that is to participate in violence, participate in politics, that is to take on more agency within these groups in rebel groups. Whereas we don't necessarily see that with sea bags because of the strong ties to existing traditions and existing communities. Because these come from communities that actually have an interest in upholding the status quo, which is preserving the community, they often don't create when they have these strong links to communities. They often don't have or allow women to take on these expansive roles. And when they do, they're retracted at the end of the immediate security need. And so one of the primary differences, I think, are the implications after conflicts for women that maybe they might do some of the same types of things during conflicts. But what that means at the end is a little bit different. And so the question about the sources of legitimacy, this is a hard question only because sea bags is a very diverse term and it means a lot of different things. And so when these sea bags are relatively unaffiliated with conservative or very traditional authorities, women take on all kinds of roles. However, when the source of legitimacy is preexisting traditional institutions, so again, as I've mentioned in the report, when they're aligned with all male hunter societies, secret societies, women are less able to engage on equal footing as men within these sea bags. However, when they're not really as strongly aligned with all male traditions and patriarchal traditions, I would say, women are able to take on a lot more, I think, a lot more roles. So the sources of legitimacy vary from sea bag to sea bag, but in some cases they are rooted in traditions that have been passed down. They're rooted in a culture they're rooted in a religion, and in other times they're rooted just in the moment the legitimacy comes from the fact that they need security that a community needs security and in militias take the initiative to provide that security. And so their legitimacy can be long standing and tied to long standing traditions, or they could just be very ephemeral and that we need this right now. And so this is why you're allowed to do these types of things. And I think the reason for the sea bag in and of itself is going to have implications for what women are able to do. And again, there's the long term impact of these changes that are wrought by women's participation in these organizations. Thank you to kind of I agree with you the questions were highly related and you've done a great job of tying them together. We have some very specific questions around Molly and the situation there, and primarily around the, the role of the state and the role of elite. And the question. Rita, I'm going to ask a primarily to you but you kind I know you're also in an expert on Molly, but one of the questions is, as the government and Molly is delaying elections, and many are boycotting the assets national, what will be the changing legitimacy of the state in central modelist Molly. And what does it mean for the legitimacy of these groups these community based groups. So how is state legitimacy affecting local legitimacy. I think the answer. The answer is simple I think they continue to lose legitimacy towards the state because of what's happening and the elections obviously are not going to resolve the the issue in center Molly, but at the same time, also the legitimacy to the sea bags, including jihadist groups in center Molly and other parts of the country, because then the narrative is look, you know, the elites are focused on this on other things on power influence, rather than trying to address your issues to provide you with protection. The focus remains security focus, including some of the initiatives in center Molly, they are led by individuals who are security minded individuals and that continues to be the trend, rather than trying to address issue and as we saw in farabu go did the example of a town that was that was controlled by by jihadists and including even that the state was present in the city in the town and security forces. I think they, they couldn't, they couldn't do anything for the local population and jihadist groups managed to to establish their themselves there without without being bothered and the local population are continue to see that the state they cannot rely on the government to provide them with the protection necessary. So, so the answer is, is, is clear is that can the state continues to lose legitimacy as we continue to see this, this political issues in in bombaco. I do there are a whole group of questions that are related here. And so I'm going to sort of group them under the rubric of RC bags, good actors. Do they contribute to hybrid governance, hybrid security. Are they bad actors, do they weaken, do they further weaken fragility in these communities. And along with that, you know, how can they be engaged, you know, in these different roles and what ways can they contribute to local and national peace can we engage them in DDR and SSR efforts. And if so, how should that engagement be managed and you volunteer so who wants to take that first. I can jump in. That's a really difficult question and I guess it really the answer depends on your in your imperatives but I would say that among the sea bags that the sea bags that I've examined, none of them are inherently bad actors. A lot of them have good intentions but they do bad things to further those intentions and so I think that, you know, again, because some of these sea bags emerged for other purposes, as legitimate political movements in some cases as hunter groups and other cases as vigilante security organizations to secure communities, we can't necessarily say that they're bad at their core. However, there is unequivocal that they exacerbate security situations. They do not necessarily make things better. The question though is if there were no sea bags or if certain sea bags were, you know, demobilized. How does that improve security for the communities. And so it's there's no easy answers here there. They do bad things. However, in some cases they do good things. Their intention to secure communities are good, but the way in which they go about it are absolutely bad. And so the question is how do you leverage some of their positive strengths to to maybe do good and the lesson some of the bad things. And that is a really good question. In some ways it's important to engage them in and I think it's important to engage them in peace building activities, because right now they are some of the primary actors, causing insecurity. And so just like we would never leave a primary rebel group or terrorist group out of well maybe a terrorist group but a primary rebel group out of discussions of peace agreements you can't leave sea bags out of agreements. And academic research has recently shown that where while we prioritize including violent extremist rebel organizations in peace processes, we often leave out militias specifically pro government militias. And that's detrimental because they have the support and they have the means to continue conflicts, even after they're resolved right and they have the means and the incentives to further instability, even when we otherwise think that conflicts are resolved by ex-side lining them and excluding them from peace building. We only give them more incentives to so so conflict so further conflict and so they have to be roped in. The question is how and again how to harness maybe some of the positive things that they do and lessen some of the negative things and and that I will turn over to Rita because I don't exactly know how to how do we do that. Yeah, I mean, they are good or bad. It depends who you ask. Of course, if you ask the communities that they protect, they're going to say they are good because they are providing all sorts of governance that the state is supposed to provide but they are not providing. They are good to them but it's bad also because they remember that the name community based so they represent only certain communities they don't represent the population. So they their interests might lie elsewhere other than the population elsewhere so that is the bad news because they are looking for very specific interests to serve their own community. So that's why it's bad and also it's bad because there is no legal framework and they are they can they can behave the way they see fit and the way they want so there is no control. So you can, they want today there might be supportive of the state they might be aligning themselves with international community under the banner of counter terrorism. But once that is over tomorrow, then it's a different story they might turn to other activities that could be illicit, illegal, etc. So that's that is the bad, the bad thing. So, they are part of the problem but also as the kind of mentioned, they are part of the solution. How this is going to look like we have to go beyond the identity label if we want representation when we process into the to the security reform and to the So on that note of ambiguity around feedbacks which I think is a common thread throughout all of our research. I would like to thank on behalf of our audience on behalf of me, our panelists for a terrific terrific discussion today. I would like to thank our audience for a terrific set of questions. And with that Bogey, I will turn it over you to wrap the session up. Thank you Lauren and thank you very much to Kana and Rita for this fascinating discussion. My name is Bogey and I am executive coordination and network manager at resolve. It is so clear from this discussion that there is much more to learn about community based armed groups. If we want to better understand local security conflict ecosystems or violent extremism. By definition, of course, these groups are an integral part of the community, but not just as security actors. They are part of political life and civil society. They reflect the values and interests of stakeholders in the community and have the means to transform individual and group identities and conflict. Appreciating the intersectionality of identities, especially key when looking at the diverse formal and informal roles that women play in conflict affected communities and in society, culture, politics and economics. Getting involved in the security sector through armed groups can be an expression of agency or a means to survival. Women's involvement and visibility are often influenced by social norms and collective values, which of course has serious implications for security and development programming. Through events like this and publications like those of Florence, Chicana, Rita and many more. Resolve will continue to expand the knowledge based on community based armed groups, bringing this unique perspective on conflict and peace building. We are committed to researching the gender and women, peace and security aspects to these groups to gain a more nuanced understanding of women's actions, interactions and relationships with conflict actors, the community, the state and the variation of their involvement and interest in and beyond security. So be on the lookout for new resolved network research reports in the coming months that will explore women's contributions in community based armed groups in East and West Africa based on field research by local researchers. We hope that these reports will add further contextual insights for future policy and programming. As always, resolve is grateful for the long standing partnership of the US Agency for International Development Africa Bureau throughout this and other research initiatives on Sub-Saharan Africa. In closing, thank you to our excellent speakers to the amazing team resolve, especially Michael Darden and the US Institute of Peace for making this event possible. Thank you to everyone for joining us today from around the world and learning together with our lead experts. We hope to see you at our next virtual event of the 2021-22 Resolve Network Global Forum Series. For more stay connected through our website at resolvenet.org and via Twitter at resolve man. Have a great day and take care.