 Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, depending on where you're watching from. Welcome to the United States Institute of Peace. I'm David Yang, Vice President for Applied Conflict Transformation at USIP. I welcome you to this forum on COVID-19 and ceasefires. What have we learned? On March 23 of this year, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Gutierrez said the following. Our world faces a common enemy, COVID-19. The virus does not care about nationality or ethnicity, faction, or faith. It attacks all, relentlessly. Yet the Secretary-General observed, armed conflict rages on around the world. He continued by saying that the most vulnerable in conflict countries, women and children, people with disabilities, the marginalized and the displaced, are at the greatest risk in this health crisis. The SG NEXT diagnosed, the fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war, he said. And then he prescribed. That is why today I'm calling for an immediate global ceasefire in all corners of the world. It is time to put armed conflict on lockdown and focus together on the true fight of our lives. When I heard those words, the first thought that popped into my mind was October 30, 1938. No, not the beginning of the Nazi Blitzkrieg that marked the start of World War II in Europe. That would come a year later. What I thought of was the War of the Worlds, the radio drama by Orson Wells, based on the earlier science fiction by H.G. Wells. If you were an American listening to your tabletop radio that night in 1938, you would have been enjoying ballroom music broadcast live from New York's Park Plaza Hotel. The orchestra was playing a lively tango when a news flash breaks in. A professor at the Princeton Observatory has detected a huge explosion on Mars. The music program resumes as the orchestra now is playing a foxtrot. Then another news flash, this one more urgent. An earthquake-sized explosion has taken place at Grover's Mill, New Jersey. The Princeton professor tries to calm you, asserting that a stray meteorite must obstruct, and it has nothing to do, he says, with a storm on Mars. But several news flashes later, you learn that the projectile that landed at Grover's Mill is not a meteorite at all, but rather a 30-yard-long cylinder made of a strange-looking metal. And the war between Martians and Earthlings has begun. Well, I remembered Orson Wells and H.G. Wells because the UN Secretary General was in essence saying that the COVID-19 virus was like invading Martians, and that therefore our common self-interest as humans is now to stop fighting each other and to address our new common enemy. But March 23, 2020 has become September 23. Six months has passed. A bit of progress has been made on the ceasefire front, but not nearly enough. That is why Secretary General Guterres, in opening the new session of the General Assembly yesterday, provided this important history lesson. He said, we face a foundational moment. Those who built the United Nations 75 years ago had lived through a pandemic, a global depression, genocide, and a world war. They knew the cost of discord and the value of unity. They fashioned a visionary response, embodied in our founding charter with people at the center. Today, we face our own 1945 moment. COVID-19, the Secretary General said yesterday, was not just a wake-up call. He said it is a dress rehearsal for the world of challenges to come. In a world of such interconnected threats, he said, it is time to recognize a simple truth, solidarity is self-interest. Solidarity is self-interest. Note that he did not say that pursuing self-interest will magically create solidarity or even success. Thus, Secretary General Guterres reiterated his call for a global ceasefire. He said that we must make this a reality by the end of the year, noting that we have exactly 100 days left. He added, there is only one winner of conflict during a pandemic, the virus itself. Fellow peace builders, we have a choice to make. We can glumly wallow in self-pity, deeply disappointed that what should have been a grand celebration of 75 years of historic multilateralism has been neither grand nor celebratory. Or we can rededicate ourselves to our mission. As Secretary Guterres said and as he intimated, we are now all idealist and realist at once. In the face of a pandemic, in the face of climate tipping points, in the face of deepening economic inequality, and in the face of a global reckoning on racial injustice, solidarity is self-interest. Thus, as my institute colleagues argue in a new USIP special report on the COVID-19 ceasefires, we must combine clarion calls to combatants with astute conflict analysis and with support to women, nonviolent movements, and civil society as key drivers of a truly transformative peace. In this way, COVID-19 ceasefires can be the first step towards what Secretary General Guterres calls a 21st century multilateralism, one that is network and inclusive and one that combines new social contracts at the national level and a new global deal. The United States Institute of Peace supports the building of such new forms of international cooperation. It accepts the challenge of our own 1945 moment. That is why we have assembled today. Thank you for joining us. Now I hand the gavel to my colleague, Tyler Beckleman, who is Director for International Partnerships at USIP. I'd like to thank Tyler B. and his fellow Tyler Thompson, the lead author of our new report for the joint leadership on this important and urgent issue. Over to you, Tyler Beckleman. Thank you so much, David. That's an incredible way to get us started and I think certainly inspiring from my perspective. It's indeed a pleasure to join you all and to moderate the discussion. First, just a short note on housekeeping that folks can follow along at usip.org or on our Twitter and YouTube pages and they can pose questions to the panelists in the comment sections of those pages as well as follow along on Twitter with the hashtag COVID ceasefires. We're really delighted today to sort of take forward this task of drilling down into how to make good on this global call with a number of really accomplished experts and thinkers and practitioners. First, it's really my pleasure to introduce Roxanna Senior Political Affairs Officer and Team Leader of the UN Mediation Support Unit in the Policy and Mediation Division of UNDPPA. Roxanna has worked extensively on national dialogues, including in support of the Yemen, South Sudan and Mali processes, as well as on mediation process design and security arrangements and political transitions. She also co-led the MSU's project on engaging with non-state armed groups and was the lead drafter of the UN guidance for effective mediation. Thank you so much for joining us. Next, Christine Bell is a professor of constitutional law and assistant principal at the University of Edinburgh, where she leads the political settlements research program. She has been active in numerous non-governmental organizations, including the Bell Fast-Based Human Rights Committee on the Administration of Justice and was a founding member of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. Her research focuses on the interface between constitutional and international law, gender and conflict and legal theory with a particular interest in peace processes and peace agreements. She continues to train diplomats, mediators and lawyers and has served as an expert in transitional justice for the UN Secretary General, the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights and UNIFM. Next, we're very pleased to be joined by Ashish Pradham, who is the International Crisis Group Senior UN Analyst. He joined Crisis Group's UN team in New York in September 2015 and alongside the Chief of Policy represents the organization at the United Nations. He's responsible for Crisis Group's engagement with the UN Secretariat, Security Council members and other member states in his work primarily focuses on African and Asian crises. Ashish previously worked for three years in Crisis Group's Asia program conducting research on the constitution writing process in Nepal and is an expert on constitution building ethnic conflict, peacekeeping and multilateral affairs. Finally, I'm very pleased to introduce my colleague and fellow Tyler at USIP, Tyler Jess Thompson, who is a senior expert on negotiations and peace process support. Tyler has advised conflict parties and governments on peace agreements, civilian protection and other negotiations. Prior to joining USIP, Tyler served as the senior peace process advisor at the State Department and as the atrocities prevention advisor at USAID. Before joining government, he was policy director at United for Free Syria and counsel for the Public International Law and Policy Group. Thank you all so much for joining us. Tyler, as David mentioned, we've had an opportunity to reflect in the past six months on the Secretary General's initial call and why it failed to get significant traction in the early months of the pandemic. You recently authored a really exceptional report that distills some of these lessons with country specific examples. You know, mine will start with you and ask you to please walk us through some of the key findings. Excellent. Thank you very much. Thank you, David and Tyler, and thanks to all of our guests for being here. The core takeaway of our report is that the virus is not going to do the work for us. Peace builders at every level should not expect parties to fall online and suddenly agree to stop pursuing their deeply held interests simply because there's a public health crisis. Remember that cholera, malaria, famine, Ebola, and a whole range of more manageable health crises have devastated modern conflict areas, and parties have not responded with common solidarity to protect civilians from them. We cannot expect the presence of a health emergency to fundamentally alter the behavior of belligerence, and we must remember that HIV and AIDS killed more than 1 million people per year for 10 years. And while HIV, AIDS led to paradigm shifts in governance and culture and security and economics, in fact, conflict increased with the prevalence of HIV, AIDS in Africa, the continent hit hardest by it. So COVID-19 ceasefires and any ceasefire effort must focus on the interests of the conflict parties if they are to be successful. Actors and not the virus will make our opportunities. Ceasefires can vary considerably based on their purpose and their duration. And in general, humanitarian ceasefires, which is the kind that we're talking about today, are those intended to allow civilians either access to life-saving goods or safe passage. Humanitarian ceasefires are among the most common types of ceasefires, but they rarely set the stage for substantive negotiations, and nor are they intended to. They sometimes have a bonus benefit of building trust between parties, but we should consider a COVID ceasefire successful if it achieves the immediate humanitarian goals. So only in a few already ripe context should we expect COVID ceasefires to blossom into comprehensive peace efforts, and even then it takes hard work. So in our report at USIP, we reviewed 15 countries where we are most active to take stock of peacebuilding efforts during the pandemic. And we can get into examples in the discussion, but I wanted to hit the top lines here, or some of the top lines rather. Number one is that we need to focus on parties' interests. Conflict parties are going to adapt to any circumstance to protect their survival and secure their interests. And while the virus won't end conflict, it can force tactical or strategic shifts that create windows of opportunities for us. In many conflict dynamics, we're seeing that parties are seeking to leverage legitimizing dynamics, meaning that they're trying to increase their own legitimacy and they're trying to block legitimizing efforts of their adversary. So for example, one armed group may seek to lead COVID response in their territories, thus boosting their legitimacy, while another armed group or the state may scuttle those efforts in an attempt to tear down legitimacy and impose their own measures. The most promising dynamics, though, are where parties are seeking a pretext to justify their already formed conclusion that fighting is no longer their best option. And as can be expected from these reasons, a ceasefire normally benefits one party over the other. And this is the reason why we have seen a prevalence of unilateral ceasefires called in response to the global call. A healthful ceasefire approach is going to address the interests and needs of the parties in order to push for pauses. The next big takeaway is that we have to ensure that a humanitarian response is ready. PPE, test kits, ventilators, therapeutic meds, and related materials are desperately needed. And peace builders should induce compliance with ceasefires by showing that these materials are ready to enter the conflict space as soon as the ceasefire is agreed. This will be doubly true when a vaccine or therapeutic is discovered. Parties will not simply stop fighting indefinitely because there's a virus present. They'll need to have that humanitarian inducement to show constituent populations possibly to increase humanitarian outcomes that they can take credit for. The next takeaway is that we need to be taking advantage of changes in support from foreign conflict backers. COVID-19's first wave disproportionately affected countries that have traditionally supported conflict parties outside their territory with weapons and materials support. These countries include Iran, Russia, China, Turkey, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. Peace builders can leverage the security, economic, and political fallout of the pandemic to discourage further support for conflict and shift conflict backers to promote negotiation as a, frankly, cheaper way to achieve their interests. It's easier said than done as we can discuss. Next, and finally, one of the most important findings is to support local efforts and actors. Now, this is something that the international community, we all should be doing already, and that we should be doing better, that is supporting the work of women, nonviolent groups, and local peace builders. These are the key sources of pressure to cause violence. The pandemic presents a moment where these actors are taking the rightful place as leaders while the world's donors have been pulling back to deal with problems at home. Budgets are being cut, and restrictions are making their work difficult, and we should support efforts to reverse this trend, elevate their voices, and create environments where they can do their work safely, at least in terms of virus exposure. So, there are many more lessons in our report on usip.org, but I'll leave it there so that we can jump right into our discussion. Thanks a lot, Tyler. Thank you. Roxanna, I'd love to turn to you now for your impressions of the lessons that Tyler just mentioned, but really to hear more broadly from your perspective about the challenges and opportunities that you faced in trying to turn this global ceasefire call into reality. Thanks very much, and thank you for the invitation to be part of this perfectly timed discussion, I should say. As outlined by David at the beginning, the Secretary General made the call for global ceasefire in March. The idea being that it would silence the guns as a means to help create the conditions for the delivery of aid and open up space for diplomacy and bring hope to the most vulnerable affected by COVID-19. This was followed sometime later, and I know this is going to be explored as well in a discussion by UN Security Council Resolution that didn't come out till the first of July, which went broader than a global ceasefire, but did support the global ceasefire with caveats around ISIS, al-Qaeda, and al-Nusra, and others listed as terrorist organizations by the Security Council. And then, as David mentioned yesterday in the opening of the General Assembly, the Secretary General has pushed again for the international community to work together to make a global ceasefire reality by the end of the year, so 100 days, 99 days now, counting. And overall, we saw a lot of positive endorsements for the concept of a global ceasefire. Some 180 states have endorsed the ceasefire, quite a number of armed groups, but the difference is whether we've seen this actually translate into concrete results and going beyond the kind of rhetoric. And I think one of the points, and Tyler touched on this, is we're talking about context with really deep mistrust, years of fighting and entrenched animosities and grievances. And also, we're talking about contexts where there's not necessarily a realistic appraisal of the impact of COVID-19. This is something that continues to evolve. And in some instances, a group might see it as playing to its advantage, undermining the legitimacy of a government, or the armed group, a government might consider an armed group to be more exposed because of the way it operates, or there simply just isn't an understanding of the impact or it doesn't actually impact them militarily. And it's continued, I think, the key aspect, and again picking up on what Tyler was saying is everything is still seen through a political prism. So the impact or potential impact of COVID-19 is added to the mix rather than being a determining factor. And it's very much, I think, us and peacemakers from the outside trying to add it to the mix in and the kind of calculations. So still, the conflict dynamics and often short-term objectives are still the overriding factors that we're seeing play out on the ground. And even where we've seen sort of positive responses to the call for a global ceasefire, need to understand what the motivations are behind that, and if they're actually really feeling the bite of the pandemic. In some instances, as Tyler said, it's an attempt or an opportunity to explore or resuscitate a peacemaking channel. And it's a signal and sort of saying here's an exit strategy for a conflict party who maybe was trying to find a way out and this gives them that pathway. But in some instances, governments have seen this and the reference that our groups have made to COVID-19 and that global call as an attempt to internationalize a conflict and put it on a higher field than it was before. And so there's been some reaction against that in some settings. Also, it can be seen used as a means to claim some moral high ground or political relevance and legitimacy. And Christine is going to talk later about a track and you'll notice some very little known armed groups popping up who have supported declared support for a ceasefire. And in some instances, we weren't aware that they were actively fighting, albeit that such support is very welcome. And as well as part of a strategy, it's a means to freeze favorable setting on the ground or avoid potentially unfavorable military action that they might see in the pathway. So protecting battlefield gains. We haven't seen a lot of sort of concrete support on the ground for COVID-19 ceasefires because of real concern about the impact of COVID-19. In some settings, there's a little bit of collaboration on access, but in terms of really moving with ceasefires. And I think that's partly because of an understanding about what the impact could be. Tyler touched on this too about the important nature of the ceasefires that we're seeing. So in most cases, unilateral ceasefires with 15 to 90 days. In some instances, they've been extended. Most of them have lapsed now, unfortunately. And some set quite difficult conditions that it was difficult, that was hard for the other side to reciprocate. A challenge in trying to build on those ceasefires when a unilaterally declared is they're not very well defined in terms of scope or have credible monitoring. And that results in claims of violations and the rights to respond. So in some cases, you can see a bit of an escalation. We saw some of this play out in Yemen, Libya, and Ukraine. And I think as well, another issue in terms of responding to ceasefires, and Tyler touched on this, is on the one hand, we're looking for this as an opportunity to build towards a political settlement. But there is a problem when you conflate humanitarian principles and the need for humanitarian ceasefire with a bigger political agenda. And that can set suspicions off and also whether the parties are ready for that kind of political dialogue, or whether it's a very contained humanitarian ceasefire. And it's a different character, again, of ceasefires and how they're perceived and how they play out in the sort of broader strategy of conflict parties. So I think that my concluding point is we're not really seeing a fundamental change in calculations. And Tyler again referred to the opportunities, particularly backers of different armed groups who may be feeling the economic bite and the impact actually of mitigation measures, that maybe that could influence how they engage and continue to support different conflict parties. I think what was interesting to me yesterday, a few speakers after the Secretary General, President Erdogan of Turkey also addressed General Assembly and expressed regret in his words that the UN Secretary General's call for a global humanitarian ceasefire, which Turkey had supported, had not produced concrete results. But then he went on to say, as Turkey, we are looking for ways to eliminate threats to our country and humanity by taking any kind of initiative if required. And with that flag, the importance of its fight against the PKK and YPG in Syria. And that was on the back of talking about support for a global ceasefire. So that idea of the solidarity is self-interest. That idea of combating COVID-19 as an overarching calculation and that sort of solidarity between nations, we're not really seeing that play out yet. And where there is support for ceasefires, there's often a caveat attached to it. Thank you. Thanks very much, Roxanna. I think that summarizes the fundamental tension quite well. Christine would love to turn to you to pick up on some of these points. We've been very happy, you know, pleased to partner with you and your organization on the setup of this tracker. But, you know, you're such an expert on these and would love to sort of hear your thoughts on some of the lessons that we can draw from the first six months of this process. So thank you very much. And I'd just like to commend the Tyler's report to everybody. Really interesting and really important, I think, to help us all regroup and think how better to support the call. So one of the things we've been doing as Tyler Beckleman mentioned was just tracking. And we've talked a lot about what has happened, but we've sort of collectively working with you that documented 16 unilateral ceasefires of which five were ultimately reciprocated. There were three bilateral or multilateral ceasefires and eight affirmations of existing ceasefires. So groups, for example, in South Sudan, saying that because of the pandemic, they would definitely stick to their ceasefire. As just to sort of, again, put some of the data around what's been said more anecdotally, a lot of these ceasefires took the form of being temporary with specified dates. 14 days was the norm of the dates, but a lot of them were at the longest a month. Some of them were framed not so much as ceasefires, but as no first strike policies. And actually, interestingly, even when the ceasefires were then terminated or lapsed, sometimes the group then said would say, I think the L ended this at one point in Colombia, we're going to continue no first strike. So they officially ended the ceasefire, but they kept in place essentially what the ceasefire had been. So it does show, I think that there's some group sort of wanting to ceasefire for their own reasons. And this is, as Roxana mentioned, a useful peg to hang it on and a bit of momentum behind it because of the Secretary General's ceasefire call. Interestingly, it raises the question of what is a COVID-19 ceasefire. So in some cases, groups have ceasefired expressing a link, but we know that the negotiations were ongoing and that we're reaching free action part of that. But the groups have found it useful to say, and by the way, we're also doing this because of COVID-19 and building a health response. And some of them, groups of especially have actually disavowed that it's connected to the UN Secretary General's call or a state, for example, wants to show that it's sovereign and it's doing it. So I think President Duarte and the Philippines expressly sort of disconnected, but was really a reciprocal move to ceasefire from the call at one point. So in ways, we're finding it more useful to talk about ceasefires during a time of COVID-19 because they're happening for all different reasons and sometimes they're being attributed to COVID-19 when they're not so much to do with it and sometimes they're being severed from COVID-19 when they fact are to do with it. So it's just interesting that there's a level of gaming, even around how people express and connect their ceasefire to the call. Interestingly, Ackled's data on violent conflict and events shows a reduction and whether you challenge Ackled's data, people love to debate whether data is accurate. It is consistent across time and at least with reference to prior to the pandemic shows a reduction death. It would seem to be it's not so much the ceasefire call that's caused that, but actually groups focusing on pandemic relief and issues in movement and prioritization. So quite a lot of non-state armed doctors, for example, are trying to outpace the group. This has even happened actually with the mafia in Italy, trying to deliver public goods and public services as a legitimacy building device. So that may have had some sort of dampening effect on conflict. Non-state actors, as Roxana said, have endorsed and responded to the ceasefire call more than state actors. And I suppose what we also need to parallel, look at in parallel to ceasefires under conflict deaths are uses of states of emergency by states. So most states, including Western states, have had forms of state of emergency in place. However, those states of emergency are sometimes for pandemic relief. And there's sometimes general suppression methods that are playing out very differently in some in conflict zones. And I suppose a critical issue will be how those states of emergency and if they lift after the pandemic or whether they're perpetuated because we know from really long history that states of emergency, while called as temporary, are often left in place for very long time. So there is going to be a parallel monitoring job to ceasefires, I think, around states of emergency and what happens, whether they are really pandemic related or not. We've collected the text of some of the ceasefires. And interestingly, none of them refer to gender explicitly. This is not unusual. Ceasefires tend to be quite specific around armed conflict and tend to mention gender less, for example, and women's rights less than comprehensive peace agreements. However, given that women have been quite active in the support for ceasefires, thinking about why actors could be supported to deliver some forms of community relief and response to issues like sexual violence would be really good if people could think about how gender matters, not just at developed stages of peace processes, but at ceasefires. And finally, I suppose, just to say that we know also from long standing data that ceasefires and peace agreements often need third party guarantees. Those are often provided in the form of observers and people on the ground. Research we did, that was very crude and quick in terms of just going out to the field and our partners and asking how they saw their peace processes being affected by conflict. One of the things that to me was maybe most surprising and unexpected was the extent to which in many developing countries experiencing conflict, it was seen as a city disease rather than a rural disease. This may have changed since it came out, but I think it hasn't changed entirely. But it was also seen as a European disease and a developed country's disease. And in fact, people were reporting quite high levels of forms of racism and xenophobia, but also suspicion of internationals, including international delivery and aid and involved in peace building and a feeling that, and in fact, we did research in Cox's Bazaar, this is quite a big phenomena, people not wanting to go near internationals. So I think in that sense the pandemic poses some really fundamental challenges to how we're doing peacekeeping and peacebuilding and what the support mechanisms and third party guarantees are. And there's some interesting responses. I was going to share the ceasefire tracker and I've run out of time, but I'll just give a quick glimpse. So you've all got the link to this and you can explore it in your own time, but we have created a tracker in conjunction with use of a series of organizations. And indeed, we're very welcome if people know of more ceasefires than we've got here, other things we think should be here, just contact us. But we have a timeline version of it where you can flick through or filter. We have a search mechanism if you want to see more of the facts and the figures. And we have a map version, which again can be filtered and also shows the John Hopkins infection data, if I turn that on. So just hopefully that contributes to just monitoring what's going on and is something that people can interact with as well. Thank you. Thanks so much, Christine. That really is a phenomenal resource and I would encourage everyone, both practitioners and researchers to take a good look at it and to utilize it. Ashish, we'd like to turn to you and sort of, you know, it's very difficult to have this conversation without sort of considering dynamics at the sort of broader international policy level and in the Security Council in particular. And in his latest call, of course, the Secretary General has called on the Security Council to lead the way in bringing about the little ceasefire the next 100 days. I mean, wouldn't mind telling us a bit more about some of the dynamics in the Council and what the Council might be able to realistically do in the remaining months of this year to reinforce this appeal. Thanks, Tyler. And thanks to USIP for having me on. And congrats to you guys for the new report. Again, very timely intervention, especially with the Secretary's speech yesterday, kind of re-energizing the Council dynamics for response to COVID is really the interplay between some of the big powers. And I've now covered the Council for over five years for Crisis Group. And I think, you know, over the course of the spring, we saw some of the Council's worst tendencies. And I think, you know, at the end of this, the key determining factor, I think Crisis Group's view is local dynamics like, you know, other colleagues have already said today, you know, or remain the key determining factor in seeing the receptivity around the ceasefire call across the globe. But still, the Council's role wasn't helpful in the end. And I remember thinking back, you know, in March and April, it seems quite quaint that, you know, maybe this is the time for the Council to step up for the Council to make a useful constructive intervention. We'd already started to see some of the big power tensions play out. And I thought maybe this could allow for, you know, Council action to be the forum where those big power tensions are coming, that there's, you know, from the Council where, you know, we were from March. Sorry, I think we're, I think we got a little bit disrupted there. If you could repeat that last point, that would be the connection to the table. Thanks, Tyler. Maybe, you know, the reason for Crisis Group is partly to do with the Security Council, and there were a few specific elements of that. The first was obviously, you know, the U.S.-China tensions. And that's been covered quite widely and quite widely known. And the way that the U.S. antagonized China and the WHO was really seen, you know, quite transparently among other members of the Council as a development that had more to do with domestic U.S. politics and the upcoming U.S. elections rather than international peace and security, the actual pandemic and conflict, you know, for all. But that really was only one part of what we saw as a bigger pattern of powers using the pandemic to try to tilt the Council towards a direction which served their own national interests. So, of course, I already, you know, I spoke about the U.S. But China is as well, I think, a bit of a quiet enjoyment from Chinese officials who saw that the U.S. was really isolating itself, you know, from other members of the Council, from, you know, the wider UN community in its response to the pandemic. And, you know, China didn't go out of its way to make, you know, too many constructive proposals itself. I remember, you know, there was a point where in May, it seemed like, you know, we were close to a breakthrough in the negotiations that eventually led to Resolution 2532. The U.S. basically put a stop to that from Washington. But there were some really last-minute but really, you know, good faith efforts from the likes of the French Intermesians who tried to get the resolution over the line when it was still, you know, the ceasefire call still had some timely resonance. But, you know, again, that ran up against the inflexibility of views from the Chinese who will tell you that, you know, they went above and beyond in agreeing to things that they agreed to. But in reality, I think there was a limit to what they were willing to give up. And, you know, the prioritization for them was still, you know, national interests first, and then the interests of the Council and the global ceasefire calls second or maybe third. And in the midst of this, you know, you also had other big powers like Russia, for example, pushing for very narrow things like sanctions relief. And that's been a consistent talking point for Russian diplomats at the Security Council from March onwards, pretty much. And we see almost every discussion that involves sanctions will include a long invective from Russian diplomats saying that, you know, COVID-19 is the right time to start to repeal some of these measures in the interests of humanitarian assistance. Now, they have a point. But, you know, it also seems quite your coincidence that, you know, they're making these points when it comes to conflicts like Syria, you know, and other areas like Venezuela, which has led to diplomats theorizing that, you know, Russia is basically trying to get some concessions. I just saw your note. Let me turn my video off and see if the sound is better. Hopefully that's better. So essentially, you know, the narrow way that Russia has gone about pushing for sanctions relief at the Security Council, for example, I think really captures how this debate has kind of gotten sidetracked, that it's not so much about the ceasefire, it's about what sort of concessions you can get for your friends and your allies. And, you know, I was surprised, in a sense, to see, in a pleasant way, to see the Secretary General reiterate his call at the General Assembly yesterday. Obviously, there isn't much time if his call is to really resonate across the various conflict zones between now and the end of the year. You know, 99 days isn't much, especially when you consider that the Council took, you know, the best part of four months to come up with just one resolution. And, you know, in early discussions with Council members, there's already doubts about how much more they can do and how much more they're willing to do. There doesn't seem to be, you know, speaking to some members, even yesterday, they were questioning whether, you know, that she was expecting much from the Council, you know, by way of more action, more resolutions, versus, you know, more that he could do from, you know, energizing his special envoys, special representatives, you know, the various UN missions around the world. So already I hear indications of passing the buck a little bit, a little bit of hot potato. From Price's group's perspective, you know, we wrote last month that it actually might be a better time for the SG and the UN Secretariat to maybe take the ball forward, because the prospects of, you know, consensus Council action are really quite limited. So I'm curious to see how the next couple of months go. I'm skeptical about Council action, but I would be, you know, very, you know, and encouraged to see, you know, what the SG has in store, whether he is planning to mobilize his, you know, his envoys, his staff around the world in a more coordinated manner, because I think that would probably be the best prospect of this re-energized, he's far called, resonating rather than the Council itself. Thanks, Ashish. That's great. I think all of that came through well despite the connection hiccups. If you wouldn't mind, maybe I'd like to turn back to Roxanne, you know, in light of those dynamics at the Council, what are your sort of thoughts and suggestions on what peace builders, in particular mediators, peace builders more broadly, you know, might try to do differently this time around to building on the lessons in the dynamics that you've discussed? Thanks. I think I agree with Ashish in terms of what the Council as a collective body, especially with the challenges that we've seen in the past few months, what they can do. I think the message is also in terms of individual member states and using their influence and individual leverage in passing that message. And a lot of what we do in mediation, there's a lot is behind the scenes and the back channels. And I think that messaging and Christine made reference to it as well as some of the calculations around the economic cost and impact to a number of these countries and Tyler as well, and how that might play out. And this links as well with what Christine was saying. There has been a big and ongoing push by the UN's envoys and missions to really move towards ceasefires, be it in Yemen where they're trying to get the parties together for initial joint declaration around a ceasefire. We've seen some movement in Libya on this supporting, although it's not a UN led, but the Afghan talks. And again, it's one of those I think is bringing COVID in trying to bring that into the calculations if it can have an impact. But I think it goes to Tyler's first point of it. You always have to look at how the parties are looking at their interests and what what their concerns are and their needs. And maybe trying to influence trying to change their calculations, but you can't impose on top of it and say, actually, COVID is a bigger threat and they immediately turn and see it differently. As Christine said, sometimes it's dismissed as a much more threat to the West. It's playing out very differently in different contexts. So I see it as an additional issue that we raise. It can be a channel to try and build confidence when you just focus on the humanitarian aspects of access. And there were some, for example, during Ebola, there were already discussions going back in South Sudan and Uganda between different groups because they were looking at the possible threat there so that you sometimes have these very quiet channels develop that then maybe can be a building block. But it's seeing it in its first instance is that sort of pure humanitarian response and trying to get their access. I think pushing through on access for COVID relief. The South Africans as well talked about in the GA sanction relief and they mentioned Sudan is in Bobway. So I do think we're going to hear more people bringing in the arguments around COVID and sanction relief. Again, it ties up with a different kind of interest, as Ashish said. But it's one of those things where, I don't know, maybe it's UN or speak, but also everyone talks about redoubling efforts. And I think sometimes we need to do that calculation of how many times we redouble efforts and it becomes a sort of mathematical challenge because there is this big push. It's not like that sense of urgency in Yemen predates COVID. And I remember being on a call with some Yemeni actors and they were getting mixed up between cholera and COVID because they'd be having to deal with deaths in an emergency with cholera and the international community had moved the conversation to COVID. But they had major water shortages so where cholera can be addressed in some settings. In Yemen it was posing a massive challenge as well as famine and everything else. So it's the different calculations in different countries and different stress points. Thanks very much. And I want to continue on this theme of international dynamics versus local dynamics and maybe go back to Christine a little bit to sort of think about these potential moments of rightness and how we can most sort of effectively see those. And within that I think we'd be very curious for your thoughts as a practitioner in this field. One of the challenges of the COVID area is doing a lot of this remotely. And so how have we adjusted and what are the most sort of effective strategies to work with local partners in this sort of new environment? Well, I mean, I think there's sort of from how we've been looking at this. I think there's been a lot of relatively recent interest in localised peace agreements which are quite a mixed bag as well in themselves. And also a recognition that mid-level actors that bridge between local situations and often mediate between that and the more sort of international level diplomacy are really important. So in ways this offers an opportunity to think better how we do that because in fact a lot of international support is going to have to shift shape and how it's achieved and we all pay strong lip service to the ideas of local ownership. So this is in ways a moment where that has to be creatively looked at. Support always begins with listening really I think and understanding how people see their local needs. One of our sort of very impressionistic feelings in the field not just talking to local actors but some of the sort of quite local based projects supporting them are people playing don't let this all be completely disrupted because of COVID and a focus on COVID, the regular peace building and modes of support for long-term projects that have embedded and have traction need to continue. One of the big fears from the little quick survey that we did was a feeling that peace processes when everything sort of moved out of COVID that peace processes themselves would face a lack of support. People were really worried about that right across the board and I think there's a perception and it's true that there will be an economic consequence among donor states in particular of COVID. If we look at the UK the aid budget is protected but it's linked GDP and GDP has fallen through the floor in many of our countries already the hit is there and it's so I think you know for me maybe by getting to a meshed and COVID responses we're thinking about the crisis but we need to balance that with long-term stability of regular nuts and bolts peace building activity. And then I suppose the last opportunity I see is really that for health professionals and conflict and peace building communities to work closely together I mean this was really important during Ebola. Localised responses to health also need to factor in conflict dynamics and that if the state comes along with a vaccine or with medicines or even with aid but that's perceived very differently by different communities. Using militaries to deliver aid might not be the smartest thing where the military has a role in the conflict. We know that from previously we did some research in the Kurdish area of Kurdistan and Iraq and people had a much higher level of trust in health ministries and message is coming directly from health people and from politicians where there were political trust issues across the board. So again thinking about high health responses need to be conflict sensitive to be effective regardless of what the peace building dividend is if there's an intended health dividend I think is something that peace builders can contribute to as well but that takes sort of interdisciplinary partnership and for us to bring forward learning from crises like Ebola and cholera where we know how these things play out but of course they'll play out differently in this context. Thanks very much Christine and Tyler we haven't heard from you in a while but I know you wanted to come in on this point as well so please. Yes thank you you know I think it's David did a good job of framing the mood in the beginning of this of the pandemic that maybe this would be an opportunity for for coming together but as we're seeing I mean the maybe the more productive approach is to look at this as a potential obstacle right to to existing peace building efforts and so that means that we need to be doing work to keep momentum going and as Christine said one of the most discouraging factors that has come come to fruition during the pandemic is the reduction in resources for these local level local level peace builders you know here in the United States in the beginning of the pandemic we had this this framing of of certain forms of of labor as essential work right and one of the takeaways from our report is that peace building is essential work it cannot be the virus can't be used as a pretext to stall or to take the wind out of the sails for peace processes and so in these conflict contexts we should be doing as much as we can to support what momentum already existed and not necessarily expect for new momentum to materialize just because of the the existence of of the virus thanks and it's mostly important at the local level of course I mean that's that's where a lot of the efforts have been stalled absolutely ashish I know you wanted to come on to come in on this as well so over to you thanks Tyler yeah just to quickly piggyback off of what fortunately ashish I think we I think we lost you again if you wouldn't mind maybe switching off a video sure yeah sorry about the sorry about the connection issues but you know I think I I really agree with you know what you know set about the important peace building were perhaps you know deeming that will allow the midst of a pandemic and I imagine you know maybe this is the kind of practical area where the UN can helpful role maybe not so much the security council again but as far as being able to to report back to the council you know based off of resolution 2532 you know on the impact that COVID conflict conflict zones so if he is able to bring back information that look you know these these governments aren't agreeing with our envoys in saying that you know peace builders should be able to operate as essential workers American citizens you know no we're not we're not we're not aiming for big picture resolutions but more sort of pointed messages to specific governments saying look we as a security council think you should allow for for these steps that make a practical matter of a peace building and mediation a little bit more you know achievable on the ground I think that's the kind of there may be sort of slightly small scale measure I'm going forward from both the UN and the security council no thanks very much Ashish and it was a little bit choppy but what I think you were saying was you know consistent with what crisis group has written previously in terms of using the the mandate authorized in 2532 to establish a sort of ceasefire reporting mechanism that that reports back to the council on on sort of different dynamics to help incentivize you know the pressure on local parties to come to the table is that is that correct exactly exactly and you know starting small but you know instead of trying to get another big picture resolution which I think is quite difficult at this stage no that's that's an eminently practical suggestion I I realized we're we're coming short on time I think I would love to be able to maybe do a quick sort of tour of the table with all of you and as we come to a close and as we look to you know to you know to the greatest extent possible make good on on this on this effort what are the sort of big things and the big lessons that you would want to to to leave us with as as you consider how we move forward on on these issues so maybe you know Roxana if you if you don't mind putting you on a spot here we'll start with you and then and then go around so I realized we have yeah there's short time I'd say two things really that I would also partake from this conversation that's the the emphasis on on the local the emphasis on what communities can do and how they've really galvanized around this both in terms of covid response but also in terms of ceasefires and they've been a very powerful voices pushing and trying to leverage this of community action around support for ceasefire so I think having that attention and not only at the international level and then the second point that I think came out from from the the the conversation overall is that it you know covid is a reality that it has changed how we work and it's added a new challenge to what we do but it shouldn't be the only determining factor or the overriding determining factor to everything we do and we can't if we switch all our attention to towards covid response then other things fall through the cracks and other opportunities are missed so we need to think in terms of if we're talking specifically about ceasefires but where there is that opportunity of building on a humanitarian opening around covid but not the detriment of other possibilities and not for it to become our defining framework for everything we do because there are still all those other challenges are also still there climate change among them thanks excellent reminder thanks very much Christine the same question for two well the analysis that Tyler gave at the beginning really resonated with me um I mean we see covid 19 is not a game changer in terms of high peace processes are doing but what it is doing is putting a stress down that is widening acts that were already there and those cracks so in some senses I think one of the ways of you know bringing together the covid response with um normal peace building is to understand better how to address um those cracks not all of them would have widened in the way that they've widened um conflict dynamics are slightly changed by facts that non state armed actors and state armed actors are affected differently in terms of movement and things um but in some senses um it has sort of exposed the fault lines and certain peace processes and those are really what needs short up anyway um I think I think I think it has also forced us as a community to think better around you know we talk a lot about humanitarian peace building and respond nexus but in some senses this is a sort of case study in how to get that nexus right and how to use it constructively and so for me the global ceasefire call was really the right thing to do um I like that it was coupled with a domestic violence ceasefire call um and I think it has focused minds on it it has created a space um and yeah and you know just really um I can't say doubling down on our efforts because we say that a lot but you know I think um I think we need to listen to local communities find ways to support them and and hold on to some of what we do anyway in what is sort of both a personal and political crisis in many of the places that we live so thank you and thanks to tyler for the report thanks very much pristine that's that's excellent uh ashish you know same to you what do you want to to sort of leave us with as we as we think about uh how we roll up our sleeves and and continue to push on this issue thanks tyler I mean two quick points that the first one really is is is more of a reflection I think I've been encouraged to see that you know the the ceasefire call is something that uh is is actively on people's minds outside of the the small yuan bubble that that you know people like myself you know and Roxana are are in so I'm glad to see you know USIP and Christine and others really engaged on this I think that's important but second I think you know it's to reiterate one of my my previous points I think it's the more we see this issue stay away from and this pains me to say let's stay away from from politicize of you know for elect the security council and instead you know in the hands of practitioners the people actually doing the the grunt work you know that includes the UN secretariat but also people on the ground you know actually working on mediation uh I think that the better uh and the better prospects for the the ceasefire call so low expectations from from from the council and the big powers given the the current state of affairs and geopolitics and and hopefully uh that that doesn't keep the practitioners from taking this forward absolutely thanks thanks very much Ashish I think tyler over to you any any parting thoughts or last words yeah I mean from a from a top-down perspective I would say too I mean one of the one of the troubling trends of this pandemic is that it it comes at sort of the hopefully near the bottom of a 10-year stretch of the erosion of international norms protecting humanitarian workers and health sector workers health sector infrastructure so along with the with the call for a for COVID ceasefires also the call to reinforce the norms of of of war when it comes to protecting humanitarian actors and protecting health health sector infrastructure is going to be hugely important as we move forward and then from a bottom up approach I mean whatever efforts we have have succeeded thus far we need to do a good job of sharing them and learning them from local level actors because there's an opportunity on the horizon here when when Bible vaccines become available and when breakthrough therapeutic treatments become available there really is going to be a major lifesaving opportunity and so we need to be able to get our ducks in a row about what actually works and what we've learned in the last last six months will be important so I I look forward to Christine's writing others writing on this stuff so that we can really have have a lot of good tools to use as we move forward thank you everybody no thank you and you know I I will you know in the interest of time won't even attempt to summarize the the richness of this discussion but let me just say a word of gratitude and thanks to to all of our panelists for for sharing their exceptional expertise and perspectives and and let me end maybe just on a note of of sort of encouraging all of us including the people watching and those in the audience to do our best to keep the pedal to the metal so to speak on on bringing about the spirit if not the full scope of of the secretary general's appeal I think it's you know it's fair to say that the the call for global ceasefire isn't isn't just an appeal to our better angels as we've heard today it's it's a it's a pragmatic it's a pragmatic step that you know even despite the challenges that that we're sort of currently facing in the you know across the international system ultimately does have the potential to to make a real difference in people's lives especially as the pandemic continues to spread and as we all look towards a towards recovery so on that sort of you know note of of hope and and optimism let's all continue to to to keep pushing on this so thank you all and please continue to to to tune into usip.org for further updates and analysis on this and we look forward to working with all of you to to to continue the good work thanks very much