 Thank you Admiral very much for those kind words and I want to say good morning to everyone I said I know I'm back in the military environment. It's early and we're up and Adam, you know But but of course the Admiral has already been out playing hockey at five so again I know I'm back in the military and it's wonderful. It's it's wonderful to be in a military environment again But this is sort of the creme de la creme. I mean in this beautiful room and in this beautiful campus I also want to start with my thank yous besides the Admiral Thank you, Dr. Mary rum and your team for the hard work of putting this together But also helping me personally get here and a special thanks to Ambassador Mary and Peters whom I've known for a long time We've been colleagues and you're the first person who told me about this conference I only wish we wouldn't have had a furlough so that I could actually stay for the entire conference Instead of going back to this retirement job. I'm doing now It's really an honor for me to be here with the Distinguished women and men who have been assembled and I know how much I could learn from all of you if I could stay here for the entire session and I would love to come back again and Kudos to the Navy War College for hosting an event like this We talked last night at the table about being the conveners and when you can convene people It's really an important role because we all go back to our worlds. We work hard But it's where you share ideas with the other people working in the same field And I also want to say kudos for this topic Answering the how progress challenges and issues for sustaining the national action plan Because it's sort of rolling up our sleeves and figuring out. Where do we go from here? I said dr. Roma lauded 45 minutes to me That's dangerous because I can take all that time. I should have brought a pen up here So I can start flipping through the pages But before I start talking about some of my own experiences I really am impressed with what has happened with this national action plan We were talking a little bit in the car this morning coming over the fact that it was just two years ago that it was signed and Little by little the bureaucracies are sort of waking up. I think to the importance of this document and The fact that there have been six U.N. Security Council resolutions passed four of them having to do with Violence against women in conflict, which is so important and you'll hear why when I tell you some of my stories And and I say kudos to big doD for embracing this I mean little by little big doD is being brought in and standing up and and playing its role. So kudos for all of that Again when I looked at the information that dr. Um sent me I thought what in the world would I have to say to a Group of people I said the experts are the ones being invited. You're sitting out there But it was when I realized you were focusing on practical experience I thought maybe maybe I can share some of my experiences that show how important this work has been for a long time Also, you're overarching objectives And the first one of those and I'm just going to repeat the five of them because I hope I'm weaving my comments Through or these are being woven through some of my experiences Starting with the idea of national integration and Institutionalization and those of us who are a more senior in the room. No, that's what's been missing We haven't had that authority and that doctrine before so now it exists Secondly the participation in the peace process and decision-making I've worked in peace processes for much of my career and it's so important But the role of women in those peace processes are critical the protection from violence You know, we've got it codified now But it's so important that we keep pointing that out Conflict prevention, I mean wouldn't that be nice if we could prevent all the conflicts in the world But then we have to figure how to assuage the problems especially especially for women when the conflicts arise and Access to relief and recovery and I know we have some of the USA ID and other Specialist here, but it is so important to get the relief and again I've had experiences in some of these working with other colleagues. I said I've been doing some of this work for three and a half decades before the authorities and the documentation was there We've needed to be working on this for decades probably even centuries to work on more gender equality but I now want to shift and Look at some of these diplomatic Experiences, but actually start with the importance of these authorities and documentation I did carry the national security strategy with me. I said I don't sleep with it But I felt like I did for about a year and a half there when we wrote it. I have to be very careful I did not write this national security strategy I led a team of four people at the White House and then got to use the brain of Samantha power Who was across the hall from me? And the deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes who is Has written speeches for the president since he gave his speech in Berlin and his acceptance no Bella speech He sort of channels the president So my job my little team was to do the building blocks of this document Fortunately, I'd been with the military long enough to understand ends ways and means and you have to have a sort of the Building blocks to get the strategy going it was absolutely fascinating But I'm not here to talk about the national strategy I'm here to talk about what is in here that's relevant to this work But I'm gonna start just a little bit by saying We thought about the president's strategic approach and the first part of this document It's going to be so interesting to see what Susan Rice publishes here and about I mean it's it's done I'm sure it's going to be out. I think shortly after the first of the year But we started out with the strategic environment That is the world as it is and that was the world that President Obama inherited when he got there So we discussed some of the issues the problems then the strategic approach to the world that we seek What is it that we would really like to do have different in the world? And we tried in that section to describe What we as a nation needed to build as our foundation to accomplish the goals And one of them was pursuing comprehensive engagement. I thought about that because I remember we discussed Imagine if we could have a negotiation with Iran. I mean we discussed that in 2009 But and we talked about a new international world order These were all the things of the strategy going forward Now those of you who are students of national security strategies and we lined up I think about 15 table of contents and what a surprise Many of the elements are the same because our national security interests are the same Year after year our our national security our Economy our you know public policies But what had never been in a document before had been the element of our values And it was President Obama who insisted, you know, and I remember saying we don't have values as a national security interest And I mean I was saying that to my team not to the president And the president filtered back no this is important And I read you the quote that we put in the document Because I think you'll believe this as well We uphold our most cherished values not only because doing so is right But because it strengthens our country and keeps us safe Time and again our values have been our best national security asset in war and in peace In times of ease and in eras of upheaval Fidelity to our values is the reason why the united states of america Grew from a small string of colonies under the writ of an empire to the strongest nation in the world And that Is what the president believed and he said we've got to elevate our values in the national security strategy And hold those up as something that we represent around the world so democracy human rights Were tucked under this but the paragraph and I again i'm sure many of you know this and have cited it That is that is in here is one about women Women and children and the protection of women And so they get the special mention here And that women should have access to the same opportunities be able to make the same choices as men do Experience shows that countries are more i'm quoting now what what is in this document without reading at all Experiences show that countries are more peaceful and prosperous when women are accorded full and equal rights an opportunity And when these opportunities are denied countries often lag behind So that plus another section under the international Order that talks about preventing genocide I think and deals directly with the human security that I know I think you even have a panel on human security and civil society I feel that this offered the documentation that then Not too long after that Secretary clinton had the first q d dr the review Internally of of the state department and then the national action plan came along And so i'm going i'm fast-forwarding a little bit to the secretary's policy cable I don't know how many of you on the outside are aware of policy cables that go out in Go go out to the embassies in the state department show me your hands if you're aware so You're you're quite aware of this policy cable Well, I have to tell you after 30 years of being a diplomat I mean this was one of the strongest clearest messages ever to be sent, you know, and it was sent to each and every diplomat I mean you get it It was called policy guidance on promoting gender equality to achieve our national security and foreign policy objectives And so that meant that no matter what other priorities you had for your mission as an ambassador You had to take this mission on as well That's a policy direction that is really important Um, and I said I know that many of you like me have followed secretary clinton's Career for a long time. She has dedicated herself to this issue for for decades But it was wonderful that she was at the department and Was there at a time when the authorities were there and she could move this ball forward I think it was back in her 2009 congressional testimony And this leads this policy cable when she said if half the world's population remains Vulnerable to economic political legal and social margin marginalization Our hope of advancing democracy and prosperity is in serious jeopardy And she went on to say that the united states must be an unequivocal and unwavering voice In support of women's rights in every country on the continent Because this was issued just as I was leaving my very last post there in cartoom I left the very last day of february and this cable was sent out to all the embassies in march of 12 Generated from the national action plan that you're working on That was signed in december of 11 I don't know exactly the reaction in embassies. So i'm only supposing, you know that it was met with varying degrees I mean i'm sure it was embraced by some embassies and some ambassadors and country teams And maybe not so much by others, but it also has to do with the bilateral relationship in the country you're in The environment, but it is so important that she directed The embassies to do this. So i'm all for institutionalizing And I think it now is policy and I think we can all say thank you to secretary clinton I said i'm still waiting for the day. We have a female defense secretary. Don't you think that'll shake things up admiral Yeah, it was a close one this last round, wasn't it? um Anyway, I only wish that I were Still in charge of an embassy so I could have received this cable and called my country team in and said well We've got some work to do, but um, I know that's going on all over the world Um now since you're going to let me go on a little bit of a memory lane trip Um, I want to take you through some of the experiences I had where I didn't have these authorities, but we knew it was right And so you worked with women The admiral mentioned my time in barundi for all the three years I was there from 99 to 2002 the country was at civil war between the hutus and the tutsis And I watched the women and children become the double victims, you know of both military abuses And the abuses of the rebels Approximately 300 000 were killed in that war It was a tragedy. It was forgotten in many ways I used to think it was a hangover for our policy makers because of the Rwandan genocide of 94 But you know, I'd kind of say yeah, we're out here. We've got a lot of problems still going on in barundi But I learned early on To go and visit projects aid projects And of course, we didn't have aid anymore us a id in barundi when I got there in 99 But there were NGOs working there and I must say the women working with women I will never forget these italian nuns and lay people and they Went in trucks in the morning and picked up the women and children sitting in banana leaf huts And brought them in they did not have food clothing. They'd been raped. They've been victimized They brought them down to this little camp and they literally lined them up by You know the ones that were the most malnourished, you know, because they had to feed them in different ways and those that You know could still eat a full meal And I you know, I went back from this experience But the most encouraging was those who had been there for a month or two and were physically stronger The women have put them all to work. So it was women helping women, but they were sorting donated clothes They were playing games with the children. They were doing education with the children So I went back to the embassy and I thought I have got to get more money for programs like this, you know So you take on that advocacy that action role because you know, it's right and I also know that You know as the months went by The women had been victimized. This was another very sad story Um in 1996 when the uh coup had happened USAID by our government regulations had to leave But of course the hiv aids program we had going the social marketing program we had going Then was abandoned So, um, I thought how in the world are can these women now be being victimized by the fact that they don't have any protection You know, they're out in the hinterlands. So I decided how can I become the proverbial squeaky wheel And I was capable of doing that I sent I sent a cable into the state department of the title of it was condoms condoms condoms and I got to tell you They they hadn't seen many cables coming into state, you know With that sort of title It got read I had emails coming in from all over Um at any rate and then I decided um That that I needed to go to cdc because I was watching with jealousy the millions that were pouring in on hiv aids money into Rwanda and I thought look it we've got the same mix here. We've got some of the same problems Um, and and these women have nothing Um, and I don't think cdc, you know had very many ambassadors dropping in on them And so I said look it we've got to do something better about this It took and that's another bureaucratic lesson, you know, you referred to it takes time to change things By the time I left about two and a half years later There was a hundred or there was 1.5 million which is peanuts in some worlds But not in barundi when you were trying to restart social marketing 1.5 million and there was about two million more in the pipeline and I thought squeaky wheel That's a lesson, you know, it doesn't hurt use your voice and your power when you have it Especially if you know your your cause is right and just I think you can Speak up The admiral mentioned my work with nelson-mandela and I have shed a few tears in the last week But it was an absolute honor and pleasure to work with this man in the barundi peace process And there is a link to women in this work too First of all when I was trying to get money for aids and other things my seniors in washington say Mary your job out there is to work on that peace process. That's what's important. I said, yes, we can do two things at one time but I would go to these peace talks in arousia about once a month and at first I thought this is just absolutely hopeless But nelson-mandela Had the most amazing moral authority. I mean, I've said that about it for a long time I read it in tom freedman's piece yesterday in the new york times It was the moral authority to say to the hutus and tutsis who just wanted to Stand up give their speeches being a diatribe about you have it all this way you have all the power And he listened to them. He listened and listened and I thought there's an important lesson there And I thought this is taking too long. I mean, you know, I just wanted to go get things organized No, he built a framework He knew that they had to be the stakeholders in the issues They were going to decide on and when he suggested that one of the committees be reconciliation You know, they listened to him, you know, they didn't want to talk about reconciliation Some of them they just wanted to get on with cutting the pie up so that they you know, the The haves and the have nots could redivide it But I think that watching him and learning to have patience in peace processes Learning to listen to everyone and I actually took that lesson back to barundi with me You know, he would sit with these groups, you know Endless groups and they'd go on with the outrageous request, but he would listen and he would listen No, I mean, I know people of those of you have been in iraq and afghanistan and other places It's the same story. They have to become stakeholders and actually the amazing thing was Over the two years. I mean I went there for two years and it went on about another year before We actually got the transition government, but the people got to know each other So they couldn't demonize each other anymore They had to deal with each other as human beings and they also found in these groups that they had some shared goals as well So they began sort of pulling the oars in the same direction Um, anyway, I mean I you would watch uh, maddella. I mean it's just an honor, you know And he'd shake his finger at him, you know, I mean he was sort of that old school teacher But I think that's exactly what these hardheaded people needed They needed someone to crack their heads like that together I wasn't going to tell this story, but I said every time he came even though he had bad knees He was only a little over a year out of his presidency when he took on this job in december of 1999 And he would go through and greet like in a hall like this He would greet every single person, you know, and they just felt so honored So he established his authority in a sense and he came up and I'd met him a half a dozen times He came up and he said ambassador. We have something in common. I said mr. President I can't imagine what and he touched his head. He said quite hair I said last week I thought about that. I thought oh What an amazing man. I thought well, that's probably about where it stops too Well, I forgot you're taping all this um anyway Anyway, I I think that I learned a lot from mediba and what I started to say is I went back To the embassy and we had just as many problems with the leaders there In the country and everyone thought that the u.s. Government wasn't exactly doing the right thing in barony The right thing in the great lakes area But I thought I'll listen to you and that led to a lot of late nights sitting in my living room Listening to french for two or three hours when they went on some harangue, but it was okay Because I heard years later. Oh ambassador. You were always so accessible. We were able to talk to you So I mean I I think listening in situations like this and I also think women are very good at listening so One other thing that happened in barundi that links to some other experiences I had those of you in the state department or know of the state department's international visitors program Where we take people from around the world and send them to america for a three to five week programs And they're very popular Well, I knew about this from other countries and and I said, you know I think there's an african women's leader Group coming up and I said to state department. When was the last time you let barundi? Send people on an international visitors program. They said, oh, they're just going to jump their visas You know and forget that idea mary. I said no I said and I want two slots. I want one for a hutu and one for a tutsi And so I was able to get them out of the country They did come back and they did come to my porch And give a good talk about their experiences and I invited a mixed audience of hutus and tutsis And so I thought those women telling their story Was so much more powerful than any message I could have delivered, you know about america And they had met wonderful people in america and seen what American women were doing in many different venues I am going to move along here Um, oh last night someone mentioned swanee hunt and I was going to drop that paragraph But she was another person who now we're talking 99 2000 she just established the institute that w i always get the alphabet super on w a p p p at harvard In 97 98 after her ambassadorship in austria and of course she listened and learned about the the victimization of women in bosnia And has taken off from there, but this was her first trip to the great lakes region And again people in washington saying mary don't give her country clearance You know you don't need that on top of everything else you're trying to do out there You know one of my favorite things is we had those old cell phones, you know And sometimes the cell phone went dead, you know because I just hung up on people who were telling telling me what to do From washington. I said, oh that line got broken again but but um She came and she was so dynamic and she was also so touched by the stories Of the barundian women and I think of what she's gone on to accomplish Since then and every time I see her publicity and she has groups of african women I can remember when you first came Let me turn to gana for a moment. I still okay on time. Oh, I better move on along After three years in barundi to go to a country like gana where everything is just wonderful You know the gdp now is rising more and more of the ganayans are coming into middle income They have had successive democratic elections and peaceful change over of power You know so you think what could be what could be wrong in a country like this But again when you go and you listen and you live there I heard so much about violence against women, especially in the homes I thought isn't this strange and you know, I would then Ask um The male leaders with whom I'd meet, you know, is this really true? Is this an issue in this country? No, that's nothing you have to concern yourself with you're an american You're a woman. You're not an african. You don't understand this is internal This is in intra family issues and problems, you know But then I realized this really was a serious problem And uh, but the ganayans were smart enough and educated enough They had whole institutes on gender studies and so I just spent some time getting familiar with that I can also say that of the 50 Ambassadors of the missions there only two of us were women myself and the japanese ambassador And it opened up incredible doors because the women's organizations came to you And I think my lesson from that is you know, you don't just we were having the conversation in the car this morning You know if you get tagged with all you're doing women's issues, you know People sort of just dismiss you or marginalize you But I don't think you can deny the fact if you're in a position and women come to you You need to listen to them as well And try and figure out what resources you have that can help them move forward in their agenda And and I was impressed with what so many of the women did there I said I I was I was the second female ambassador in gana The first one was surely temple black several decades before me. She hung up her dancing shoes and then Went out there for a diplomatic debut. I could not compete with that Um And but but just to mention because I was in a country where we had very well developed and sophisticated programs in our USAID the mother-to-child transmission. We had education programs Women and girls programs So I mean I had resources and assets there to try and help But also what one of the problems that I learned about that was vexing was And there would be headlines in the paper about how many middle and high school teachers Male teachers would prey upon their middle school students, you know, and I thought this is just You know so wrong in any society, but so prevalent So the peace corps director a male peace corps director Asked each and every one of his peace corps volunteers to learn a training I mean to do a training of just some simple blocking techniques And each and every one of them then went out to the hinterland and taught that and I thought It can be something simple like that. They each had their their own role as the peace corps volunteer But they taught this in the schools throughout um I'm still on memory lane for a little bit longer here A couple minutes Went in gana Liberia Was at civil war the entire time So I had enough to do running my embassy in gana, but because the peace talks were in a craw Um, I was asked to sort of help and oversee those negotiations well, uh, the women were not part of the formal negotiations in The Liberian peace talks. They were on the margins and Somehow this network of powerful women who seemed to be organized got wind of the fact that I was having a discussion at My residence with the p5 ambassadors to figure out what we could do about Liberia And lo and behold the women came to the gates of my residence protesting and who was leading the protest But ellen johnson surleaf So that was the first time I ever met her. I had to go out and say thank you very much I understand you've been marginalized from these talks Um, I had nothing to do with bringing them in it was their own organization It was having the piece of paper was being able to show that they were value added to these peace talks So they got inside and it was actually my Embassy representatives who would go and say they always had the best ideas. They were the most organized You know because they listened to what the people on the ground needed So, I mean, I think there's a real role for women and of course when she was elected Um One of the first things she wanted Um was to have security sector reform. That's another whole subject And I think I'm just going to eliminate that from my conversation today But I I was fortunate. I mean it's so important security sector reform It is intimidating to a lot of women I think women need to understand more about it So anything that you're going to do in your panels here It's I think it's very very important and I see civil society as the wedge for women to get into security sector reform because Through civil society they can raise the consciousness of leaders military leaders and other people parliamentarians people in in responsible positions to say These issues matter for women and for security and for your daughters as well So, I mean I I um Anyway, I'll skip that section and go to my closing here Which takes me to Sudan coming full circle. I said people say to me now Let's see you went from advising the president on Africa to being interim chargé in In cartoon. How is that a promotion? I said it wasn't a promotion It happened because I hit retirement age at the white house and you couldn't work there anymore They had just had independence between the two sudans in july of 11 And the president of the united states asked me to do it. So I did it and it was absolutely fascinating to go to cartoon And I had all my preconceived notions. I've been running the discussions at the white house on sudan And to get there and again the complexities on the ground talking to people on the ground. It's totally different The women in sudan also the victims both the south and the north but my job was to run the embassy in cartoon And ironically and I'm going to just pull a couple of themes together Um a group of international visitors young sudanese women had just been to the united states first week They said would you like to come and and uh, you know meet them after work I was so amazed at these young women when they left to go on the trip They were part of one nation They were in the united states of america when their two nations separated. They continued on this trip together They met with many people. They went on homestays with america. They came back and they were telling me the stories But what I never realized is those that were studying at the university of cartoon even as a tall denka Woman, you know from literally from south sudan She had to finish her studies at cartoon if she wanted her university degree And I thought we don't see that complexity, you know, when you're there as policy makers I mean and and they on the ground have to find ways to work together and solve these problems and So I went then to a thawed women's university where usa id had a big grant Because they were teaching The muslim women there how they had to go out and understand Those that as we say the nilotic and the non-nilotic tribes those who were outside of the capital how those Muslim women lived which was like of another century And so we were paying for this gender education through usa id even though washington wanted to cut off all usa id I said it's not the regime. You've got to help the women and some of these other programs And you know one of their incredible woman i met who had a battered woman's shelter that she started Herself so before I left and I'd met with some of the parliamentarians who also they were separated They're female parliamentarians who are from the south and the north and the ones from the south had moved to juba In july, but they had a way to continue their networking and I think this helped and I'm just going to read from this last business See how many pages i'm skipping After I returned And started my retirement I was invited to come down and meet with a group Sudanese and south sudanese women Who had put a coalition together and gone to the peace talks that were happening in adis ababa? And I was so impressed with what these women had accomplished The men could go to this meeting and argue in fight And even president kir walked away from agreement after the handshake was done But these women took it upon themselves And first they met together to determine The primary shared concerns from the current situation they could easily the women of both sides list those priorities for creating a peaceful future Then they did a gender-based analysis of the documents the agreements already signed and they found it lacking a great deal Then they produced a communique and they sent it around they sent it in both capitals and they sent it to adis Then they went to adis and they asked to see the senior leaders They made a difference and now they and this came from princeton lineman our wonderful onway at the time He said they were the most incredibly powerful force because they got organized in this peace process So that's a little quick tour through my life. But what I want to tell you is this is important work I'm impressed. I'm impressed with everyone who has taken the time to come here I wish I was able to listen to all of you and thank you for giving me the honor Mary, thank you for letting me speak with you here today