 Good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning. My name is Johnny Carson, and I'm a senior advisor here at the United States Institute of Peace. On behalf of USIP, I want to welcome all of our participants, panelists, and speakers this morning. I am going to be moderating most of today's activities, and will be the clock and timekeeper. So you'll see me up here at the podium from time to time. Before we begin our formal program and introductions, I want to ask all of you to put your phones on vibrate or turn them off so that they do not interfere with any of the discussions or conversations that will take place. I also want to let you know that we will have a system of chimes and bells outside that will announce the start of our programmatic activities after breaks. I also want to encourage everyone throughout today as they ask questions to keep those questions short and succinct and to the point, and also always identify yourself before raising those questions. We have a full program today, and we will have a number of keynote speeches and addresses, panel discussions, and just plain conversations with key African personalities. So on behalf of USIP and our co-hosts, the National Intelligence University, the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Intelligence Council, and the Institute of Defense Analysis, we're extremely pleased to have all of you, and it is my great pleasure now to introduce Nancy Lindberg, who is the President of the United States Institute of Peace, and she will start our program now. Thank you. Good morning, everybody, and thank you, Ambassador Carson. It's my great pleasure to welcome everybody this morning to the US Institute of Peace. For those of you who are joining us for the first time, USIP was founded a little over 30 years ago by Congress as an independent national institute dedicated to the proposition that peace is very possible. It's very practical, and it is essential for our national and global security. And so we work around the world with global partners, with community leaders, with national governments, with our partners from defense, state, and USAID to look at what are those practical ways to apply tools and methods and information to prevent and resolve violent conflict. We are delighted to be able to host everybody for this very important conversation today, and as Ambassador Carson said, we have an extraordinary lineup of people and different perspectives. And even as I look out, I see more and more folks who are here with us today who have deep backgrounds. I'd like to extend a special warm welcome today to Undersecretary Tom Shannon and to General Thomas Waldhauser. We very much appreciate you both being here with us today. We have an old friend, Ambassador Don Yamamoto here with us today. And I really want to also acknowledge Ambassador Johnny Carson, an important advisor for us here at USIP, Ambassador Princeton Lyman, who's also a wonderful advisor, and our Africa team. As Ambassador Carson said, we have an extraordinary set of partners in putting this day together. So I would just quickly thank, again, the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, the National Intelligence University, the Institute for Defense Analysis, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. And our Africa team works in 14 countries across the continent, with particular priorities in places like Nigeria and South Sudan and Central Africa Republic. We work to promote inclusive peace processes, to bridge divides, to bring together state, local and national state, as well as with their citizens, and look at the underlying drivers of violent extremism. And our commitment to the continent very much reflects our nation's understanding that the future of the world will be greatly affected by what happens in this very dynamic and hugely influential continent. So today is a wonderful opportunity to have a discussion about the evolution of the United States' partnership with Africa, with the continent, and the many nations within it, and a partnership that matters greatly to our country. We've seen over these last several decades how we've been able to work with our African partners to support political reform, greater democracy, to ensure fair and free elections. And we've seen just in recent years the ability of citizens to transform autocracies in their countries, often through voting. We've also seen how many African nations have become really important trading partners. We know that the economic potential of Africa is enormous. And its importance as a trading partner will only continue to grow. And of course, our military and security cooperation in battles against al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, other armed groups across the regions remain a pillar of our shared commitment to peace and security. We've seen the value of these partnerships reflected in the very strong bipartisan support that we see for engagement in the halls of Congress. And we also know that despite the power of this partnership and the many great indications of progress that the continent still faces significant challenges, the democratic gains cannot be taken for granted. And although we've seen an overall level of decrease in violence, we still see complex and deeply rooted conflicts in places like DRC, South Sudan, Central Africa. And many of these countries continue to appear at the top of a fragile state's index and levels of terrorism. We've seen the specter of famine and new waves of refugees in Nigeria, South Sudan, and Somalia, all caused by conflict. So as we look at the trends, overall it's positive, but there are challenges that we must pay attention to. We're seeing a heartening increase of action of African nations working together to tackle these challenges. The African Union is taking a greater role to resolve the conflict and to deploy peacekeepers. So today is an opportunity to reflect on those lessons, on those experiences. What does our future relationship look like? What are the avenues for more robust cooperation? And what are the constraints in forging those deeper partnerships? So it's my pleasure to now welcome somebody who can help us set that stage and who has a deep understanding of the relationship between the United States and various African countries. Ambassador Shannon is the current Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. He's had a long career in the State Department. And although he has a strong reputation as somebody who knows Latin America well, he's also spent many, many years in Africa, including posts in South Africa, Cameroon, Gabon. And he just told me that most of the last four years has had Africa as a priority for his attention. We're delighted that he's been able to join us. Thank you, Ambassador Shannon. And please join me in welcoming him. Good morning. It's a great pleasure to be here today. And thank you, President Lindberg, for your very kind and generous introduction and to you and to Ambassador Carson and to the US Institute for Peace. I'm very grateful for the invitation to participate in this important and timely symposium. And it's a great pleasure to be here with General Waldhauser. Thank you, sir, for taking the time to do this. You've done incredible work at AFRICOM, and we're very grateful. We were last together in London at an event on Somalia with Secretary Mattis. And it's always a pleasure to be with you, sir. Thank you. It's a tremendous pleasure for me to cross 23rd Street and leave behind the 1950s federal architecture of the State Department for the soaring beauty of the United States Institute of Peace. USIP has proven itself to be a unique and vital institution within our policy landscape. It is not only the keeper and dispenser of remarkable expertise in the practice of peace building and conflict resolution, but it is also a convener and convoker of first category. USIP brings together some of our best strategic thinkers and most interesting organizations to discuss, debate, and shape American foreign policy. Today is one such occasion. I'm honored to help open this symposium on the relationship between the United States and Africa with a special focus on the emerging partnerships that will define the relationship in the 21st century. As Nancy noted, I'm long in tooth as a diplomat. I've served our great republic for 34 years. Curiously, I've spent 17 years of that career in the 20th century and 17 years in the 21st century. This fulcrum has allowed me to witness and participate in some remarkable moments of transformation and change. It has also taught me that history does not end, it accelerates. Today, change has velocity, driven by technology and connectivity. My experience has taught me that American power and American values can have a transformative impact on global change. I believe this is especially true for Africa. The partnership that we offer is especially relevant for countries in the midst of profound transitions, from authoritarian to democratic governments, from exclusive to inclusive societies, from autarkic models of development to ones based upon open markets and regional integration, and from global isolation to intense participation in world events. As we consider the purpose and nature of our relationship with Africa, it is important to note two things. First, Africa's emergence as a point of global interest and strategic convergence. What happens on the continent over the next few years will shape the world's economy, security, and well-being. Africa is no longer an addendum to global geopolitics. Instead, it is a bridge from the Indo-Pacific region to the larger Atlantic community, while also connecting directly to Europe and the Middle East. In the State Department, it touches every geographic bureau, and at the Defense Department, it connects to every geographic command. In short, Africa's centrality makes it immediately relevant to our success and demands attention and engagement. Second, as far as the United States is concerned, Africa is already a continent of allies and partners. With a few notable exceptions, the vast majority of African states share our commitment to free markets equitable trade, democracy, and the rule of law, secure borders, and effective responses to global terrorist threats. African states' progress towards open markets and free trade have spurred economic growth and development and tremendous opportunity across the continent. Indeed, six of the world's 10 fastest-growing economies are in Africa. By 2030, Africa will represent almost a quarter of the world's workforce and consumers. And by 2050, Africa's population is projected to double to 2 billion people. And our balance of trade with Africa is near parity, thanks to booming demand for infrastructure investment, aircraft, consumer products, and services. African states consistently attract strong investor attention from American companies. Democracy and the rule of law are also advancing on the continent. Competitive participatory elections are becoming the norm. Just two weeks ago, we witnessed the Supreme Court of Kenya's decision to overturn the August 8 presidential elections, and President Kenyatta's mature decision to respect that ruling. The independent legal process and broad support and respect for the court's decision reflect the strength of Kenya's democracy. Finally, African allies and partners are stepping forward to lead regional initiatives to address long-running conflicts and humanitarian crises. In the Lake Chad Basin, Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon formed the multinational joint task force to fight Boko Haram and ISIS West Africa in our coordinating military operations, civilian security, and humanitarian assistance. The United States is proud to support this and other regional initiatives to bring security and stability to citizens affected by conflict and food insecurity. Though there is much to commend in recent developments on the continent, we all know that African states continue to face significant challenges. And any relationship, however strong, requires care and nurturing if it is to grow. As President Trump, Secretary Tillerson, and our national security team engage with our African partners, they will be guided by four strategic purposes. First, advancing peace and security. Doing so yields dividends for citizens in Africa and advances our own national security. We are looking to African partners to take the lead in resolving regional conflict. And we will continue to partner with the African Union and regional organizations that lead successful efforts to end violence and prevent mass atrocities. While our hope and commitment to seeing an end to the devastating man-made crises in the DRC, South Sudan, and other locations is enduring, the long-term sustainability of our financial commitment requires continuing contributions from our assistance partners. We will also require greater political commitment from African leaders who want peace and stability in their countries and in their region. This will ensure that our support and investment is effective and enduring. On the continent, we are working to build the capacity of regional peacekeepers, whose numbers continue to increase in Africa. In the past year, we have provided training to peacekeepers from over 20 African countries actively engaged in UN and African Union peacekeeping operations. This engagement has allowed more than 10 battalions to deploy more effectively into some of the world's most dangerous operations in Somalia, Mali, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic. Generously, Africans now comprise over 70% of the peacekeepers in Africa, up from 40%, just 10 years ago. We acknowledge that peacekeeping comes with tremendous risk. We both mourn and honor those Africans who have given their lives in peacekeeping operations. The United States also addresses peace and security through humanitarian assistance to vulnerable populations, such as refugees and internally displaced people. In 2016, we provided more than $1.5 billion US dollars to UNHCR's humanitarian operations with the support of USAID and the Department of State's Bureau of Population Refugees and Migration, for example. An estimated 1.8 million people in South Sudan receive lifesaving humanitarian assistance every month. Our work to advance peace and security is not just regional. Increasingly, it is global. African states are partnering with us to address the danger that North Korea presents to the world. We asked African countries to join us in restricting political and economic engagement with North Korea, shutting down North Korea's illicit trade networks, and publicly opposing North Korea's reckless missile and nuclear tests. Numerous African partners have taken concrete action, but more needs to be done. Second, countering the scourge of terrorism. This administration seeks to partner with African allies to confront and counter terrorism in Africa, including defeating Boko Haram, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and ISIS West Africa. In recent years, African countries have intensified their regional and domestic efforts to take greater ownership on this front, often with great success. In Somalia, the African Union and Somali security forces are driving out al-Shabaab. Working through AU leadership, regional peacekeeping partners such as Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Burundi, and Djibouti are helping to lead the way in this effort. Military law enforcement and intelligence tools are vital to defend against these threats, but military force alone is not enough to sustain peace. We must work with our partners, including civil society, traditional authorities, and religious leaders, to address root causes of conflict, combat marginalization, and create economic opportunity. There is no long-term solution to terrorism absent this comprehensive approach. Any progress in our counterterrorism efforts, however, will be undone by abuse of an illegal behavior by security forces. We will continue to hold our allies to the highest standards and ensure that individuals who fail to respect human rights in this important fight are held accountable. The challenge now is for our African partners to complement their successes on the battlefield with trained law enforcement personnel to provide civilian security and economic policies to kickstart more abundant local economies. Third, promoting prosperity through economic growth and investment. This administration seeks to do business not just in Africa, but with Africa, moving the focus of our economic relationship with the continent from aid to trade and investment. Trade will be free, fair, and reciprocal. And our investors will be more competitive. This is about creating jobs for both Americans and Africans throughout the continent. One of our most important bipartisan endeavors in the economic arena is the African Growth and Opportunity Act, or AGOA. AGOA has been the cornerstone of US economic engagement with the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa since 2000. To highlight a few of the achievements, US investment in Sub-Saharan Africa increased from $9 billion a year in 2001 to $34 billion in 2014 and created over 300,000 jobs across Africa. US exports to Africa rose at an even faster rate from $6 billion in 2000 to $25 billion in 2014. And US imports from Sub-Saharan Africa under AGOA totaled almost $11 billion in 2016, a 14% increase from the previous year alone. These successes and the knowledge that trade helps strengthen democratic institutions and reinforces regional stability are prime reasons the US Congress overwhelmingly approved legislation in 2015 to reauthorize AGOA for 10 more years. We remain committed to our economic partnerships with Africa and will continue to seek opportunities to strengthen two-way trade and investment. USAID, for example, has established three trade hubs to help the African private sector take advantage of AGOA and expand exports to the United States. Additionally, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, or MCC, provides economic assistance to governments that have already established good policy environments. Most of the MCC's work has been and continues to be in Africa. Finally, promoting democracy and good governance, efforts to secure enduring peace are undermined when governments fail to provide good governance and uphold the rule of law, the foundation for security, and the driver of inclusive economic growth in free societies. We see the corrosive effects of corruption as fundamentally detrimental to the future success of African societies. An AU study estimated corruption costs the continent roughly $150 billion US dollars last year, or per year. Bribes and low-level corruption worsen poverty and inequality and harm citizens' faith in government. Corruption, particularly at the highest levels, deters foreign investment, foments instability, and diminishes the capacity of security forces and other institutions to deliver basic services. The United States will continue to partner with regional organizations to advance good governance and the rule of law. In the Gambia, when President Jammé reneged on his commitment to accept the results of the presidential election in December 2016, the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, stepped up with other regional leaders to take a principled stand for democracy. ECOWAS and regional leaders organized a strong diplomatic campaign to influence President Jammé to give up power. He ultimately stepped aside, peacefully ceding power to his democratically elected successor, President Barrow. This was an excellent example of an African-conceived and African-managed effort in strengthening democracy, and then one that we are proud to support. Luckily, our acting assistant secretary for African Affairs, Ambassador Don Yamamoto, will talk later today in a deeper and more detailed fashion on the importance of good governance and democracy. So it's not my purpose to take from him his speech. But I do want to underscore that, as Nancy noted, I've spent most of my career in Latin America and Africa. I spent two years working in the African Bureau on Central African Affairs, and four years in Johannesburg as a regional labor officer traveling throughout Southern Africa, but also working directly with the South African trade union movement from 1992 to 96. I learned a lot during this period of time, but I learned a lot about democratic development. And the thing that has struck me and that I have carried with me from Africa is not just the importance of civil society and grassroots development to democracy, but also that our understanding of democracy, the United States' understanding of democracy, must move beyond the institutional and electoral aspects of democracy, and must understand the importance of building democratic societies and states. Because ultimately, our purpose is not just to allow citizens to have a voice in determining their national destiny and creating a mechanism for peaceful transfer of power. It's also to help countries ensure that individuals have a voice in determining their own destiny. In other words, in having not just the opportunities, but the resources necessary in order to achieve what they want to achieve, what our founding fathers would call the pursuit of happiness. There's remarkable people in this audience today. I see dear friends like Linda Thomas Greenfield and others who have worked so hard on Africa. And I've been lucky enough over time to work with groups of diplomats who shaped my understanding of diplomacy and shaped my understanding of the world. And many of them have worked on Africa. And my time in Africa has added to that education because it was not just a diplomatic education, it was a political education. And I learned from the Africans I worked with. And it is knowledge that I have carried with me across an entire career. And as I noted at the beginning, I understand and recognize the profound impact the United States can have in helping societies shape themselves. And as we look deeper into our future with Africa and the partnerships that we have already and that we will continue to develop, it's absolutely important, it is absolutely important that we become relevant every day to Africa's success. And again, I thank you all for your patience this morning. I thank you for the opportunity to speak to you. Let me conclude by saying that Africa is a place of trusted friends and partners. We must continue to journey together in our quest for peace and security, inclusive democracy and good governance, a trained workforce with economic opportunities and an empowered civil society. As an old African proverb says, if you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. We plan to go together with our African partners. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ambassador Shannon, for those very good and comprehensive opening remarks. We are going to move immediately into our first discussion and I would like my two discussants to come up and sit here with me at the front. Everyone has a program. We will stick to that program throughout the day. You will probably note on that program that it says that Ambassador Princeton Lyman is going to be the moderator of this discussion. Princeton is at home today, probably listening to this broadcast and recovering from surgery several days ago. We all here at USIP and I'm sure his friends and the audience wish him a speedy recovery. And Princeton, I do as well. I'm going to go over here and begin our first discussion. This morning we have two commentators with me to talk about the perception of the United States in Africa. The first discussant is Dr. Michelle Indayé who is the director of the African Peace and Security Program at the Institute of Peace and Security at the AU in Addis Ababa. She is a citizen of Senegal but is resident in Addis Ababa. Our second discussant will be Yvonne Akoth who is the founder and director of Impart Change. She is also associated with USIP, is a generation change fellow. She is based in Kenya and has established there one of the most dynamic programs for empowering youth to promote peace and stability in her country and in the East African region. I'm going to start this discussion with them by quickly asking them a couple of questions about their views and perceptions of the United States and the partnership relationship that we have. Michelle, how would you characterize the US relationship with Africa in 2017 and how do you think that relationship has evolved over the last two decades? Thank you Ambassador Calston. I am pleased to be here. I've been with USIP for the past two months on a small sabbatical which is great. I would like on the onset just to say that this conversation should not be about a stop-taking exercise. I think your first question on perception really will set the tone of this conversation because we work at the intersection between civil society organization, decision makers in Africa, academia, the youth and it's important to look at issues of perception and the impact it has on the US-Africa relationship. But I would like to first of all say when we talk about perception, I think it is important to look at it from an African perspective and of course the perception are always subjective but they are important to not. So I will just look at few issues around perception just quickly to set the tone of this conversation and the first one when you talk about to policy makers, to young people, to women's groups, civil society organization what come to mind is first the donor-recipient relation. And I mean by donor-recipients the interlinked bilateral, multilateral, political, economic, social, military relationship seen through the eyes of the work that the US-AID is doing but also through Africa for example for the security cooperation. And it's actually meaning and I will quote recently on a conversation a prominent African decision-maker who said very clearly we currently have no engagement with the new administration but it's a good thing for us because it means that we don't need a father, we need a partner. And I think that ease can summarize what some of the decision-makers in Africa think about this partnership. We need equal partnership a partnership where we are on equal footing we don't need a father. That is quite important. The second one I think on issues of perception is and I'm saying it across the board again working with different groups and actors on the continent. The second one is short-term priority long-term commitment. And with commitment we know the long-term commitment and I think Ambassador Shannon said it very clearly that Africa is quite important on the US foreign policy agenda and it's been 50 years of very important engagement and official engagement. But the nature of the engagement follow different trends and it's driven certainly time-to-time by contextual imperative and I think that is quite important to mention here. But it has been always policy choices to address the complexity of the moment but it has been always focusing on short-term priority and this is one of another perception. Short-term priorities but long-term commitment. How do we turn that around to make it a long term to align those priorities with the long-term commitment? And I will just give you an example when you talk of USID, AID for example well it's the symbol of the donor relationship the donor recipient relationship and this is despite the massive investment on HIV aid, health issue, democratization on the continent and so on and so forth trade and investment and so on and so forth but those are perception again subjective but important to mention. Can Michelle, I'm going to try and turn this into more of a broader discussion and I'd like to jump if I could across to Yvonne and ask her the question of how do Africa's elites and civil society groups view the relationship and partnership with the United States? What is the sense of relevance of the United States to Africa today among its elites, among its youth and especially among its youth you work with young Africans what are their perceptions and views of the United States? Thank you so much Ambassador Castle for giving me this opportunity to uplift the voices of African youth specifically Kenyan youth who would have not had this opportunity. Our view as young people in Africa on our relationship with the US is that there's a lot of mutual interests for instance most of the programs that are being implemented by US partners focus on poverty, eradication good governance, peace and security and these are issues that concern as many African youth concern many African youth all over the continent. This relationship is also not only mutual but it's also progressive. It is progressive to us because we've seen that in this decade starting from I can say 2010 when the US government unveiled the Young Leaders Initiative Program that is the Yali Young Africa Young African Leaders Program and the program that I'm also here in the US courtesy of the US Department of State Community Solutions and the Generation Change Program that is supported by USIP. These are programs that have been brought by the US to help young people in Africa to work on the same issues that they are passionate about and also that the US would like to see a change in. So as young Africans we see the need for this partnership to continue though there are challenges that come in when it comes to investment because we observe that there is a lot of investment in terms of technical expertise, capacity building which some of these programs actually all of them are fantastic at doing but when it comes to financial investment there is a lot of bureaucracies for African youth who really want to partner with the US and other international partners without going through a lot of bureaucracies and for us we've noticed that this is a challenge because the investment is done mainly through the government but African youth organizations especially local organizations and regional organizations we have so many youth networks in Africa that have beautiful documents strategies of how African youth can shape this continent or shape our continent. Some of them are like the African Union Youth Commission the network of young women African leaders Rojul Nuu, a Francophone youth organization that has done fantastic work in addressing HIV just using youth ideas and youth structures but lack funding yes once in a while we are able to get funding from international partners like the US government or other partners the United Nations but this needs to be done in a way that is really accessible to these young people who have brilliant ideas but cannot sell them so well because of bureaucracies that are set in place or institutional structures that they cannot penetrate through May I jump in and ask you both what are the programs that are carried out by the United States government and by United States institutions that most align with the interests of Africa today and what are the programs that don't align with the interests of Africa and what should the US be doing in Africa today that it is not doing from your particular vantage points I would look at for example the area of peace and security and I do believe that there has been a sustained investment in supporting the African military institution or security institution to in terms of training but also improving capabilities and so on and so forth I do believe that investment in the democratization process is another important one but when it comes to development aid and I think issues of aid effectiveness will kick in and I do want to to emphasize that it is important that and I'm happy that Ambassador Shannon has said it on the third pillar of the priority the US priority that it's important to move from aid to from development aid to more investment in Africa and I think that is precisely where we should be heading less aid, more investment and I think I'm quite pleased that that happened is happening and it's part of the the priorities. I also think that issues of of justice and human rights abuse corruption are also I think very important on the agenda for both the US and Africa and I do also think that issues of corruption should be pushed more to be a top priority these are I think very critical from both both sides. Yvonne do you share those views about the alignment? Yes, yes I agree with Dr. Dayer and for instance some of the programs that I can share that are working so well in Africa like for instance for me I'm a peace advocate by profession is what generation change program is doing in Kenya and in 10 other countries in Africa and in the Middle East the skills that are giving young people who are from different sectors not necessarily peace and security is really playing a big role in their countries and in their communities by giving young people the skills and the knowledge to address conflicts when conflicts are small as interpersonal conflicts to intergroup or intercommunity conflicts so the generation change program is one program that is in my view is working so well the other program is the young African leadership initiative that was started by President Obama this program has reached young people from rural areas who never have had the opportunity to get the skills and the knowledge and the information that they have because it's easy for them to apply the process is very transparent it's not for elitist youth and it has reached thousands of youth all over West Africa, East Africa, South Africa and North Africa so for me this program is really working well in addition to the Mandela program and I can see this especially looking at how the youth leaders what youth leaders are doing now with their life post the program the other program is community solutions the community solutions program it brings young people from I think 55-54 countries to the US Africa could be around 10 countries and these are young people that work on issues that are affecting the world right now like tolerance and conflict resolution climate change and environment transparency and accountability we know Africa sometimes we have so many issues of governance those are some of the programs that are working for us because we are able to get practical knowledge and also gain a lot of experience from US partners but what I really agree with Dr. Daya is when it comes to investment well it is good to invest in hard power yes but soft power is also important for us when you look at issues around social entrepreneurship social innovation for young people and innovation sometimes what makes it confusing for Africans African youth it doesn't have to be technological always it could be just a different way of doing something that does not involve technology so if we can get ways of working together and empowering young people to improve their economic status issues of poverty would not be a problem issues of engaging in violent crimes or conflicts being radicalized into Al-Shabaab will be an issue that is not arising and yes some of these opportunities are there but as I shared earlier the process of getting support it can be a bit too technical especially for youth who for instance have not gone to university or are from rural areas and may not have the experience of the exposure where do US and Africa interests differ where is the the difference in the conflict if there is any with respect to priorities and interests and activities where does Africa see the United States doing less than it should or being less engaged than it should be I think there are a number of sectors that we could look at where I believe that again coming back to the issue of perception that when we started the conversation there could be more investment on strengthening security institutions for example and I think this is in line was a common thinking that is the only way to be able to face security challenges that the continent is currently facing the second one I think is more on democratization and I am also happy that Ambassador Shannon said very clearly we should not electorize democracy let's shy away a little bit from election and invest more on the other aspect of democracy but I do believe that issues of governance has to be looked at more seriously I think we need to do more on that and that is perhaps the common position where there could be sanctions for example for against corruption and a number of countries will call for those sanctions to happen but they are yet to come when it comes to election for example I think there has been a lot of support and we seeing the result and tangible result today the Kenya case is one of them and we look for more of those headlines but quite important when you discuss democracy and democratization process in Africa I also think that there is one area particularly that is quite important today is the support to young people and when we talk of investment and trade earlier which is the third pillar of the strategy that Ambassador Sharon just outlined I think it's important to determine the actors that are the most important on the African continent today and the youth is one of them and more investment on that sector would perhaps help as we know the demographic boom is a dividend for some particularly in Africa but also could be a bomb a ticking bomb for some of the actors who are familiar with the African continent so we need more investment to support the youth and I think that's really one of the one of the particular actors that need to be targeted in looking at the global picture those are the issues that are quite important and of common interest currently Ivan any thoughts on where there is a not a set of common interests between the US and Africa and I'd also like you to maybe comment on the fact on the issues that Michelle just raised are African leaders in African civil society in the same place when it comes to issues of democratization are they in the same place when it comes to support for Africa's youth and are they in the same place when it comes to issues of dealing with corruption and government malfeasance what I can share about that for instance for now African youth really like a lot of American programs because these programs have opened for them numerous opportunities but looking at what happened in Kenya the other day it is becoming young people are feeling like especially if you read the comments from social media and other platforms that as much as we really appreciate the knowledge and the skills and the resources we are getting from international partners international partners also need to take time and really understand our context without maybe like I don't know this may not be politically correct but telling us what to do or just agreeing with that without really understanding what is happening that is one of the challenges because Africa has really grown a lot especially the young generation now is not like even a generation a decade ago they are more informed they know what is happening on the ground so it doesn't matter if someone from another part of the world or an expert comes to tell them that this is what is happening and this is what you should do well they will listen but deep down they know that this is not right and in as far as civil society youth elites are in the same let's say in the same platform have the same thinking in terms of democracy with the government that is very relative now because young people in Africa now that they are more informed and educated and exposed they want to see a lot of change and specifically change that can improve their lives for the better so they want to have leaders who are accountable they are tired of seeing corruption going on and on and that is why you find like in countries like Nigeria where they started the campaign of not too young to run the campaign also took over in Kenya where we had so many young people standing for electoral posts and at least this time we had a much bigger percentage than the year before so these are issues that we are still discovering rediscovering ourselves I'm sure for many African governments they are also learning that these are not the same African youth Kenya at this moment is setting a precedence because this is something that nobody would work but the fact that it has worked it has made African youth more stronger and made African youth to have a mind of we really don't need to listen to what someone else tells us we just need to know that what we are doing is right so for African youth it would be a situation where the US and other international partners really need to understand what is happening on the ground before giving a comment or before supporting because they could be supporting the wrong thing without knowing really what is happening on the ground and the US strengthened its outreach to Africa's youthful population Africa is in fact the youngest continent in the world and it is also the fastest growing continent in the world what more needs to be done in terms of reaching out to Africa's youth to make a difference a profound difference in their lives and in the partnership that we seek to build. I can look at it in terms of I think the best way that can be helped is investment but there are two kinds of investment investing in young people's social entrepreneurship projects because unemployment is a big problem in Africa and we have so many young people who are working on ideas, brilliant ideas but have no source of funding for that and that is a challenge but not focusing only on social entrepreneurship projects but also social change programs programs that focus on peace building countering violent extremism because we have so many young leaders young people working on the ground living even in places where young people are being recruited to join terrorists but these young people don't have the skills to deal with this issue but they are really passionate so there is also an urgent need to invest in this kind of programs both social change programs and social impact programs and especially financially. Yes a lot has been done on programs that bring African leaders for instance youth leaders to the U.S. but we also need programs that we really can invest on the ground so that they don't have to come to the U.S. to get these skills but these skills can be given to them while they are in the community. I just wanted to talk a little bit about the aspect on the gap between African elites and the youth currently and I think issues of technology has transformed the African social landscape profoundly and if there is a gap that is recognized today is that decision makers have not understood well that Africa has changed and the young people have changed along the line of the evolution of technology today. They are more informed as Yvonne said but also ready to take up the challenge and to face their decision makers and to challenge decisions that are made and that are not in the communities and we are seeing it more and more. In 2016 for example the number of riots on the African continent had actually generated a lot of change in terms of people understanding that young people are demanding more and more in terms of democratization process and everything is criticized. You have to be on the continent to see the change of young people and social media about almost everything not only about economic opportunities for them but also about the justice system how to reform the justice system service delivery public service delivery education, health, et cetera and I think that's the difference between those who are in power today with what the youth is demanding currently and I think that is quite important and this is I think a debate that needs to happen at the level of the continent where our leaders understand that things have changed and it will never go back to where it was 50 years ago or 30 years ago. Obviously it is important to bridge that gap between Africa's growing young population and its older leaders who may increasingly be out of touch with their youth and their visions of the future are. Let me come back to an issue where I think the U.S. and Africa are in alignment and that is the desire to see greater peace and security across the continent and into conflicts whether they are historical legacy conflicts like those that may exist in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or Somalia or whether they are conflicts that arise out of terrorism associated with AQIM or with Al-Shabaab. Clearly there's been a strengthening of the security relationship and partnership across the continent but can you both say or can I ask you how can we do more or what more can be done to work on the economic and social and political issues that may be the root causes of some of these conflicts what more can be done to align itself with the security sector partnerships that are growing? Well I believe that the long-term commitment that we mentioned that I mentioned earlier is one of them. There has been sustained investment in the area of security, peace and security in general but I believe even in that sector the peace and security landscape there's more to be done in terms of aligning the support with the needs of the Africans and when I say that I'll go back to the agenda of the African Union for example I do believe that the US could support more the development of the African peace and security architecture and invest more on that in terms of bilateral agreement through bilateral agreement and sometimes multilateral agreement providing training providing certain capabilities but I think it's not enough it's aligning that support was the current doctrine of what the African Union calls the African peace and security architecture that looks at to a global approach on how to resolve the security challenges on the continent and if you look at it from that point of view we'll be able then to touch on issues of governance the linkages between peace and security and governance democratization processes post-conflict and reconstruction particularly investing on post-conflict countries and fragile countries to avoid relapsing to conflict and I think this is an area perhaps where we should see more engagement from the US I believe that also a number of things are being done when it comes to prevention and I always say I'm not a fan of prevention because it's always difficult to prevent conflict and we should be doing more on prevention but I think it's important to look at it from a more human security perspective whereby development support or investment as we speak today should be focusing on addressing the root causes of those conflicts and this is prevention of course people will say it's a long-term perspective but in this area it can only be a long-term perspective with of course short-term priorities but longer-term priorities I think Ivana are we doing enough with youth to prevent them from drifting into conflict drifting into radicalization drifting into violence okay we are making a significant progress but what most African youth have been thinking in myself which has been on my mind for quite some time is that there's an urgent need for institutions like the AU, US partners to involve African youth when they're formulating policies because these policies affect young people and not only youth policies public policies that affect youth but at the national level in this case at the regional level because when you look at policies on security young people who for instance have background in matters social justice have ideas how this could work because it's the same young people who are engaged in conflict or in violence in countries like Somalia in some parts of Ethiopia maybe Kenya so if young people can be involved in policy review processes or policy development processes all together that would really help this situation become much better. We also need hands-on experience if it would really be good for young people to be put in to be allowed to attend missions as observer to be part of observer missions at the AU and this is something also I think the US partnership with the AU can play a big role in making successful because we don't want to talk from the sideline we really want to be part of the solution we don't want to watch these conversations on TV or on YouTube because we are forced to do that but if there's an opportunity to engage that would be important because we are also looking at what we are doing. Yes we talk of the leadership of tomorrow but it's the young people who are having these challenges both the young people struggling to find solutions and both the young people participating in violence not intentionally but of course due to a few challenges and issues are there then what the US can also do is and the AU and other institutions provide platforms to engage platforms that are easily accessible because we find that and for I really work on which is peace and security. Engaging in matters of peace and security as I shared with Dr. Daye earlier it's a bit difficult for African youth who have some brilliant ideas that can contribute to these issues because we are the same ones who work with these young people in places like Majango for instance in Kenya which has been the hub of young people being recruited to join Al-Shabaab in Somali so we have some brilliant ideas from them but we have nowhere to share these there are no structures. Yes there could be a little structures mostly aided by the government and the US Embassy but I think there need to be another platform to engage and to have as many young people know that your voices are being heard and we can work together to make our communities much much safer so I would make those three recommendations I mean bring our conversation to a close we are going to try to continue to maintain our schedule this morning let me ask you just for one last and quick comment if you had a single recommendation to make to Under Secretary Tom Shannon about something that the US could do to strengthen the US-Africa partnership going forward what would that single recommendation be? Well I would just say the relationship need no vacuum you have to sustain it you have to nurture it and I think he said it very clearly so we are waiting for something to chew on and I think that's the message that I would like to give waiting for something to chew on relationships cannot exist in a vacuum yeah my message would be more direct it would be partner with local and regional youth-led organizations and networks because they have brilliant ideas and I think they need to be given an opportunity to be had let's just find a way of also partnering with these youth networks and organizations okay thank you very very much I appreciate your comment we are now if I could thank you very very much for those comments let me say that we're about to have a 15 minute coffee break we have coffee and tea and some small refreshments outside 15 minutes the chimes will signal when we should be back here we are going to try to march along very very smartly in terms of our timing and we will resume in 15 minutes we're going to jump right into our next panel discussion on governance institutions and effective partnerships the moderator for this portion of the program will be Jud DeVermont who is the national intelligence officer for Africa at the ODNI Jud I'm going to let you introduce the panelists there will in fact be a question and answer the session from the audience following this panel Jud Thank you Ambassador Carson my name is Jud DeVermont I'm the national intelligence officer for Africa at the National Intelligence Council and I have a pleasure of moderating our first panel we put together a group of distinguished speakers to share their insights today with you Dr. Peter Lewis is the associate professor and the director of the African studies program at the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies Mr. Maletsi Mnbeki is the deputy chairman of the South African Institute of International Affairs and Ambassador Don Yamamoto is the assistant secretary the acting assistant secretary for African Affairs at the Department of State we've asked our panelists today to consider a number of questions including what are governance norms and trends that are currently predominant in Africa is there a growing disconnect between political elites and the general public about what governance should look like in the future and in what ways are civil societies political parties and the press evolving and engaging with outside actors you know these are issues that we at the National Intelligence Council have been thinking about for the past year and I suspect that our panelists will agree when I say that the governance landscape in Africa is truly shifting after two decades since the wave swept across this continent we're seeing Africans take to the streets again in record numbers pushing for better governance more accountability and effectiveness you know this is in contrast to what we see academics talk about in terms of a global drift towards authoritarianism in Africa democracy remains a potent ideal according to Afrobarometer polling 80% of Africans support democracy that's up from 65% just 10 years ago nearly this is really astounding nearly two thirds of African countries in 2016 experienced protest in fact 2016 and 2015 the scale of protests matched the protests we saw in the 1980 late 1980s early 1990s in terms of the rates and more than two thirds of these protests there was a call for democratization according to USAID study of course African governments are not sitting down watching passively we are seeing many governments resist this pressure from below there are some governments that have been curbing civil liberties restricting political space we have seen an increased number of internet blackouts government intimidation and the flouting of judicial decisions so I would like our panelists today to really think about the role of the United States during this heightened contestation for democratization Washington is almost certainly going to be asked by African publics to referee this contested area and it is equally likely that African governments are going to react poorly but they may perceive as an interference in internal affairs so I think the question for us today both audience and panelists is how does the United States navigate and shape this changing governance landscape in Africa and we have to do that while balancing a number of the priorities that Ambassador Shannon mentioned peace and security and economic investment and perhaps our panelists in the audience can share a couple of best practices too on how to work with both African governments and the public to strengthen governance and advance democratic institutions so with that let me turn to Peter to give some initial remarks thank you Judd that was a great way of framing actually my remarks and the entire issue that we're considering in this panel thinking historically we are confronted today with questions of democratic performance and democratic practice, democratic resilience and if we think back two decades we were very much in a transitional conversation and a conversation about the advance of democracy across Africa and its possible persistence today the dialogue among African citizens and among outside observers and people engaged with Africa is about institutional performance about accountability competition and of course inequality which has its own resonance and its own dilemmas as they manifest in politics, in countries as diverse as South Africa Nigeria or Ethiopia so there are possibilities for further democratic expansion democratic consolidation obviously as we'll talk about we'll talk about momentarily but we should also recognize the resilience of existing systems and the continued challenges there's been a lot of discussion as Judd referenced and is referenced in some of the materials for the conference about a democratic recession a so-called democratic recession in Africa and globally in countries as far ranging as Mozambique, Tanzania Kenya, Zambia South Africa, Burundi Nigeria, Senegal, Mali we see a range of disquieting problems, flawed elections executive overreach corruption scandals resurgent or recurrent violence suppression of civic groups or media and these raise concerns for us about the quality of democracy and general trends of governance in the region there is also a resurgent authoritarianism among some countries including Rwanda, Ethiopia and Uganda which add to these concerns but if we look at some general trends and some broad indicators and as a political scientist that's often where I start I'm going to just show very quickly a few slides using data from three different sources one is polity which is a data set at the University of Maryland which tracks different types of regimes around the world the second being freedom house which will be familiar to many people here a third which is an emerging data set and measurement scheme known as varieties of democracy which is based at the university of Goettingen in Sweden and also some mergers of data from the economist and what we see tells a very consistent story I'm aiming at something and it's not there we go there we go and let's see if we can advance the next slide is that not working? yeah how does that the technology always fails here we go yeah excellent so this is a very quick picture of the continent from 1985 to 2015 a transformation the color scheme one needs not to go into the details except to say that red and orange are less good and green and yellow are better with green being the most democratic countries these are polity data so we see the transformation across the continent this is also a linear depiction of the trends again with the democracies being tracked at the bottom in yellow smallest category but they rose substantially in the 1990s as we well know and they've essentially plateaued with some blips with the awkwardly named anocracies in green and or rather autocracies pardon me anocracy is another term and then intermediate regimes so we see a dramatic shift in the character the overall character of regimes across Africa in the early 1990s and those trends have broadly been sustained here again hard to read but the yellow line is Africa the black line at the top is the world and this is tracks the consolidation of democracy and there was a sharp upward trend in the early 1990s plateauing in the mid 1990s but continuing in a slow upward track underperforming the world but considerably overperforming the Middle East and North Africa which is at the bottom in freedom from freedom house the green bar is the percentage of African countries that are considered free the yellow bar is partly free and the blue bar is autocracies are not free we see a somewhat unsettling trend of a slight increase from 2003 but again generally speaking there was a dramatic change in the composition and this picture shows us continuity here too is another depiction it's both a map and a depiction of trends in the lower left corner from the economist using both World Bank and polity data and again the category of free countries the upper blue portion in the box in the lower left remains consistent there's some wobbling in the intermediate category and a small uptake in recent years in the autocracies but again the lines here are relatively continuous and the final picture that I want to show is simply these lines from sub regional trends in electoral democracy from the varieties of democracy dataset and again we see the similar trend so really what I'm depicting here and what I think we should be mindful of is that different people are trying to measure democracy in different ways in Africa and track it in different ways electoral more substantive diverse governance indicators from the World Bank free partly free not free from Freedom House intermediate regimes and democracies from polity and they all come out in essentially the same place that there was a dramatic uptake an exponential advance an increase in the scope and scale of democracy in Africa in the early 90s which has been sustained and so we see today divergent trends across the continent on the one hand there has been a sustained democratic trend in terms of regimes democratization has opened broad political space for protest for discourse and for information even in countries that are not fully democratic and it has fostered new social groups that advocate for rights and accountability emerging and rising middle classes and growing populations of urban youth are at the forefront of these new social groups that are making democratic claims and advancing democratic interests opposition parties have made genuine gains in Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia South Africa Gambia, Burkina Faso there's been institutional development in many democracies most recently signaled by the Kenyan Supreme Court ruling the Nigerian elections of 2015 the failure of third term bids in Senegal and Nigeria civic organizations and media are vibrant channels of information, discourse and protest in South Africa in Nigeria, in Kenya and numerous other countries but yet lest we be accused of too rosy a picture and too much of a gloss on events we need to acknowledge the challenges as well democracies that embody self-interested political classes corruption and little policy innovation intractable and rising inequalities across democracies deteriorating democratic practice and constrained space countries such as Zambia and Burundi, Mali South Africa, Uganda consolidated consolidated electoral authoritarianism in Rwanda and Uganda Ethiopia, Togo, Congo and Angola to name a few and an expanded repertoire of control in strong presidential systems constraints on the internet and social media limits on assembly factionalism of opposition persecution of selected opponents gifts and inducements for elite cooperation and mechanisms that we value as part of a democratic governance or a democratic system such as transparency and better elections may in fact not boost democratic outcomes transparency is not always tied to accountability elections may be navigated in strategies of control I'm skipping over the examples so that I can conclude by just saying that as we'll discuss in the conversation the central challenges for international partnerships today in Africa continue to be the preservation of core democratic practices the development of key institutions that are critical to democracy and these may shift and vary across countries and the defense of countervailing forces notably civic civic groups and civic activism and the media and continued engagement on political reform with countries that we see are not moving in the direction that we would all wish so I'll conclude there great thank you Peter let me turn to Moletsi for his presentation thank you very much Mr Chairman first I wanted to thank the US District of Peace for convening this important discussion on how to advance the common interest between Africa and the United States as a South African I was involved in working very closely with the United States over the many years with the common agenda of fighting apartheid and we had a struggle culminated in the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act which was passed by the US Congress in 1986 now this took many years to get us there but soon after this law was passed by Congress over President Reagan's veto the apartheid regime in South Africa opened discussions with Nelson Mandela so the question of common interest between us the Africans identifying what really are common interests which have to be solved by which party is very very critical as I point out it took us many years for us in the United States to arrive at a common understanding of how to fight a party we had a number of prongs one of which was a military one which the United States said it was not going to get involved in and eventually we persuaded the United States and it was persuaded also by its citizens to support sanctions now so to me this is a very important illustration of defining a common interest because not everything is a common interest not every sphere of problem in Africa is space for the United States to get involved in many of the problems in Africa we have to solve them ourselves as African citizens not the Americans to solve these problems for us in Africa now when I look at today what is the single most important common area between us and the United States that we have to work together it is very clearly the issue of the industrialization of Africa I know I will comment on this there is lots of discussion about democracy in Africa frankly this is a matter for the Africans the common issue between us and the United States is how to industrialize the continent of Africa there is a program which was set up by Obama which he referred to earlier in the last panel about the youth the young African leadership initiative this is a program that in my view we need to revisit jointly between us and the Americans to focus this program on the development of the world we need to promote entrepreneurship you cannot even have industrialization without so we need the support of the United States the United States is the most innovative society in the world today we need to work with the United States on how to promote entrepreneurship how to promote innovation to work on now. Of course, I understand that the name Obama is a red rag to the bull, to the current administration. So I am sure we can live with this together amongst ourselves. But this is a common interest that we share. To me, it is a primary common interest that we share with the United States that we have to pursue with vigor. And if we overcome the underdevelopment that is so pervasive in Africa, my own country, we have nearly 50% unemployment in the youth between 15 and 24. And there's no other way of solving this unemployment without industrialization of Africa. So I think this is a priority that we, to me, we have to focus on in the United States has many, many tools that we, the Africans, can learn from on how to advance the industrialization of Africa. Now, if I move to the issue of democracy, I was given one of the topics which Peter, I think, tried to address. Is democracy really retrenching in Africa? Well, when I look at democracy from what I have studied of United States history, there was an article recently in Foreign Affairs which asked, when did the United States really become a democratic country? I was very interested in this article in Foreign Affairs because the author argued that really it was only after the passing of the Voting Rights Act. So the question of the United States being a world leader with loss of experience in democracy is being debated by an American author. So the other interesting article I've seen about study, let me say, was a famous study by a Frenchman, which was published in 1835, a man called De Tocqueville, who wrote a very big book called Democracy in America. And I read this book in the Library of Congress many years ago when I was doing research for my postgraduate. And the question I always asked myself, reading De Tocqueville, was, OK, now you had slavery in the United States. And you are saying that this is a model for the Europeans to adopt the American model of democracy. To me, this didn't make sense. But this is one of the models of democracy, which is De Tocqueville's model of democracy, which he shared, incidentally, with the inventors, if that's correct, of democracy, which are the ancient Greeks. The ancient Greeks thought their societies were democratic, not withstanding slavery. That was it. So what really is democracy? And this is, in my view, democracy is something of a moving feast, or of a movable feast. And this is why the citizens of each country have to define their own democracy. I, as a South African, I cannot go to the Zimbabweans and say, my democracy in South Africa is the democracy you should have in Zimbabwean. These Zimbabweans have to define their own democracy. The question of human rights is a different matter from democracy per se. So I think this is one of the issues. But when all is said and done, I think the issue of democracy and democratization in Africa is a matter for the citizens of Africa and the citizens of the individual countries. It is not a matter, not even of other African countries. It's a matter for those individual countries, other than in the specific instances where Africans have agreed amongst themselves in the African Union, or before then in the organization of African unity, as to how to handle democracy or suppression of human rights, which is more important. That is happening in civil wars, ethnic cleansing, all those issues which happen in Africa, genocide, how we the Africans should handle. But those are extreme case or occurrences. When I look at why it is so important for me to underline that the issue of how you fight for democracy must be for the citizens of this country, one of the instances that we saw in 1991 was the annuling of the elections in Algeria, which were being won by the Islamic Salvation Front. This is what happens when you get other people involved in your democratic processes. The Islamic Salvation Front was a popular party, mainly set up by young people, many of them unemployed graduates, which won an open election. This election was annulled by the military with the support of France, and I understand with the concurrence of the United States. Now you can't call that retrenchment of democracy when elections are annulled. Secondly, there was another similar occurrence in 2013 where the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt had won an election and had an elected government, and the military overthrew the elected government. And General LCC then took off his military uniform and bought himself a business suit and then set up an election to his own liking and then declared himself president, elected democratic president of Egypt. So to me, this is why it is very important that the issues of democracy must be addressed by the people in those countries, how they fight against it. They may ask outsiders if they think they need it, but primarily they have to fight for democracy in their own countries. Now when I look at this, a point has been made already by the previous speaker about the LCC-type regimes and the Bouteflika-type regimes that we have in Africa. And we have many, many of these. I can recall, just briefly, Robert Mugabe is another one of those, PM Guruziza in Burundi, Joseph Kabila in the Congo, Bagbo in Ivory Coast, King Musaati III in Swaziland. The list is long and long. The late Meles Zanaoui, Paul Kagame, Isaias in Eritrea. So we have a lot of these regimes in Africa which authoritarian regimes, but it is for the people in those countries. It's not for me to dictate to the Rwandans whether what form of governance they have today. Lastly, let me say what governance norms or trends are currently predominant in Africa. This is one of the questions that we were asked to answer. I do not really think there is a predominant norm or trend in terms of governance in Africa. As a continent, Africa has, if I am correct, 54 countries. And these countries are hugely, hugely different and are becoming more and more different. The African countries of the 1950s and of the 1960s at the end of the colonial era are not the African countries of today. There's vast differences amongst themselves. So I think we have to be very cautious in making generalizations on the type of governance that we are on whether there are particular norms of governance in Africa. In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, I'll conclude by where I started, which is that for me, the priority area of cooperation with the United States is for the industrialization of Africa. And that's where we need your expertise. We have the money, ironically, in Africa, but we don't have the skills. Huge amount of money is flowing out of Africa from pension funds, from all sorts of things which are going out of Africa. So it's not a question of money. It's not a question of capital. But we need the skills, the design of the economic management systems, and all the things that will promote entrepreneurship and that will promote the industrialization. And many of the problems that you see in Africa today, if we succeed on industrializing the continent, we'll go away if we succeed on that agenda. I thank you very much. Thank you so much. Let's turn to Ambassador Yamamoto. Before I kind of start into the things that they prepared for me at the bureau, I wanted to just say that as I look out into the audience, I just cannot feel but great humility of all my mentors, Ambassador Moose and Johnny Carson and Linda. And my goodness, it's like even coming here, I feel very inadequate. And of course, Nancy, we're together. And my old classmate from the War College, General Woltholzer. But let me just take a couple of minutes just to talk about the United States side and what we're doing to prepare for really these new challenges for the next four years. And how we're preparing. And to kind of really kind of reaffirm and to encourage you that things are going well in a good direction. Coming back to the department, I feel like the replacement's coming in. But I'm very humbled that I was asked to come back. I was at National Defense University teaching our future leaders, not only in the interagency but also in the military. And looking at General McMaster's at the National Security Council, he swiped seven of our top rated strategic thinkers from the university. But also some of our really great thinkers coming out of West Point and the other academies and also from civilian universities. And so I feel very good about that. But one thing that is very interesting is, as I go to the NSC meetings, is that it's a very focused. It's very based on getting a very core group who are going to talk about it. But more important is, looking at my other colleagues from the other region, as I feel sorry for them because some of them have not gone to NDU, so they don't have the lingo. But more important is, on the Africa side, I was amazed at how collegial we are. But more important is that we know each other and that we're able to work with each other. And the expertise is just remarkable. And we're all blessed to have General Waldhozer at our side to help us on the military side. But just on AID, OSD, the CIA, the NSC, we've all worked together for years and years. And so we know exactly what it is that has come before, what we need to achieve now, and to move forward on. The other thing, too, that is really striking and remarkable is that what we're looking at on Africa is not to take Africa in isolation, but to see how it is in the context of other issues globally and also the trend lines. And so when we talk about Africa, we're going to talk about all the issues that are confronting the United States and also the world. And I want to say that what we're looking at on Africa is, yes, we're going to take some new initiatives, but what we want to do is we want to do an affirmation of what has been done before. We want to do expansion on areas which have been highly successful and which are critical to our national strategic interests, but also to the future of Africa. And then also to focus on things that we can make a difference. And so let me kind of go into a couple of things. The fundamental issue is that we need strong institutions and not leaders who are dictators or strong leaders, but we need strong institutions. Those are the fundamental issues that we're going to be looking and focused on. And then we're going to look at how can the programs that we've worked on, how can we expand on those? I heard Bill Gates today give a interview, and he said, you can't look at Africa and see all the good things in a 10-second soundbite. And a lot of things are kind of bad things kind of go up to the front, and that's very noteworthy. But just following up on Bill Gates's point, if you take a Kodak picture of Africa today, you can see a lot of challenges. But if you see it over 20 years, you can see the dramatic differences in transformation that has occurred, as our colleagues have said. And so the question comes is, how do we build on those good transformational issues? And how do we expand and build and make a difference? And so one of the things just following up on Ambassador, our undersecretary speech today, is to look at, we have our four pillars, but they're not in isolation, and also that they're much more expansive and evolving. So we have the counterterrorism, we have conflict resolution, economic development, and governance, but that they're interchangeable and that they're mutually supportive. So let me give you some of the examples that we're looking at right now in Africa. First is on Liberia, and really at the fundamental crossroads of democratic elections. From two civil wars, you're going into two democratic elections and now going to a third democratic election. And you're seeing a president, Johnson Sirleaf, who has a body by the Constitution to step down. And that becomes a model for other leaders across the continent. We looked at democratic countries as the trend lines are shown from just a few to even almost two dozen. And that in the State Department and the military, that has very tremendous impact. I did a data dumping for our meeting at the National Security Council. And we were looking at all the evacuations we've done over the last, you know, since the 60s. And we're looking at some like 18 to 19 evacuations of somewhere that are embassies. We have 278 embassies and conflicts around the world. And a lot of them were in Africa. But if you look at today, those trend lines, they're very different. They're shifting. It's not just countries that are in crises and turmoil. And that Africa looks, in that context, as a continent that's on the move, that's transforming, that's developing, and that's progressing. Going into Liberia, when I was there in Liberia with John Blaney, and we're looking at the transition from Charles Taylor, there's no electricity. Everything was generators. And we said, no thing on Gosgroin Earth could we really overnight start doing electrification power planning. And the MCC, and a $257 million compact agreement was Liberia, now it's producing electricity. The other issue, too, is that we're looking at a population, 50% youth, and that they're looking at what is it for them for their future. And then we're looking throughout Africa and the trend lines on Africa. In some ways, it reminds us of the State Department, how young our diplomats are, and how much oversight and mentoring is required. But if we look at 2050 as we look at the trend lines, we have Africa will be the most populous content. Nigeria will be the third most populous country. And the issue is, what is it that we're going to do and need to do to address the needs of a youth that's going to probably be 70% of that continent? How is it that we're going to meet not only economic needs but development needs, job needs, et cetera? So we're heading towards mega cities across the globe. And one of the things that we've debated at the National Defense University is you don't want to create mega-poverty zones either. You want to have opportunities. And one of the things that the Under Secretary articulated was that we're going to look at trade investment, and we're going to look at economic opportunities. In the context of how that promotes and supports democracy and good governance issues, we look at Ethiopia, which Bill Gates had highlighted has making dramatic changes in the ability to feed themselves. But more important is the efforts that AID has done to really expand trade opportunities. I remember talking to Prime Minister Mellis after he bought several billion dollars of Boeing 787s. He said, Don, I just preserved 35,000 jobs in America and your country. What did you do for us? And I said, well, we're going to work on that. And in the end, we helped create over 100,000 jobs in Ethiopia. So that was our payback. And that's what I think a lot of the leaders have asked us to do. The other issue, too, is Kenya. Kenya is probably in the threshold of a great election on October 17. But it's issues that we need to focus on and work with and just talking to over the weekend with the leadership on both sides, saying both the government and the opposition is that the eyes of the world and of this government is on you on Kenya. We're not going to get our eyes away from it. That Kenya matters if our largest embassy is in Nairobi, Kenya. That means we have a stake in that country. And Africa has a stake. And this government is looking at how the trend lines are going to happen after October 17. Some of the other issues that we're looking at is AWEP. And one of the things that I noticed from everywhere I've been to, from Somalia to Afghanistan, is girls' education and women entrepreneurs as really a fundamental program that we need to develop and expand as helping communities and helping societies. The other one is that we're doing is the YALI program, Power Africa, and also a number of other programs and projects that will continue to focus, highlight, affirm, expand, and in many areas focus. But if there's one message to convey to you is that the people doing Africa today, we know each other. We're doing the best we can. But more important is that we're listening and that however you can mentor us and guide us, we will listen very carefully. And so thank you very much. Great. Thank you, Ambassador. We have about a half an hour left, so we will open it up to questions. We'll probably take one or two at a time. So if you just raise your hand and we'll have someone come by with a mic. I see in the back there, maybe we'll take it in quadrant. So why don't we do the back and then the gentlemen right there for the first two. Well, thank you very much for holding this event. My name is Ni Akwete. I work here in Washington looking at US-Africa relations. My question is for Mr. Mbeki. Excellency, I spent more than a decade in the anti-apartheid movement here. And of course, I got to meet Mr. Mandela the first day he got to Washington. And I agree with you about industrialization and economic growth being needed in the continent. But what startled me is your point that democracy should be left for the citizens of each African country. It brought back to me memories of what the apartheid defenders were saying, that the US should stay out of it, that other African countries should stay out of it. It seems to me that the fight over apartheid was a fight for democracy. So if at that time international involvement was important, could you please explain and clarify for me why now democracy should be left to individual countries when we have countries like Rwanda and Uganda and as you mentioned Egypt. If we leave it to those citizens, what would they be able to do? I hope my question is clear. Thank you very much. Thank you and let's do a gentleman right there also ask what we ask him as well. Hi, my name is James Carlson. I work at the Office of Naval Intelligence and one of the things I'm looking at speaks to the last two speakers. There's something called the cascade effect occurring in the maritime shipping industry. Not sure if you two are aware of it, but what's happening is that the shipping industry is creating larger and larger ships. What that has done is changed the model of shipping routes from what used to be called milk runs up and down the African coast from small ports like Duala to a hub and spoke model similar to what we do with airlines to where they're trans shipment hubs. Right now there's only really two in Africa, one of them being Durban. You mentioned industrialization is important and I concur and that's something that I do agree that the US can do something about and I do agree as well that democratization should be left in the hands of Africa. Does the United States have a plan in place or are we looking to know which countries to focus on? Because when you pick winners and losers you're gonna make enemies and friends. Mombasa versus Dar es Salaam is probably the best example. Which of the two countries do we support in their economic development? Because for example, they need to increase the number of gantry cranes they have to move containers. They need to dredge the channels, they need to lengthen the terminals. All these things cost hundreds of millions of dollars but they impact the lives of millions, tens of millions really in the region. And so I was just curious if you two could talk to that from a democratization standpoint, do you think that Africans can economically integrate at the same time so that customs unions, not just free trade zones can develop so that the economic benefits of international intermodal shipping can be shared? And then for Ambassador Yamamoto, do we have a plan in place? Thank you, let's do one more question before we turn back to the panel. Yes, please. Thank you very much. My name is Mukawasi Hall, I'm a writer. I'm also a documentary center trainer in culture and current affairs in Africa. One question I have, it's for any of the gentlemen, is about the youth. When you look at Africa through a keyhole, the one thing you see we all agreed on is a lot of youth. And if you're asking what America's interest in or common interests with African countries in, I would think that the first thing you want to look at in the next five to 10 years would be resources, human resources as opposed to the resources in the ground. When you have multinational country, multinational corporations in America going to invest in Africa, what is more important right now, I think we'll be looking at how much they engage the youth because that is where the wealth is in right now. Now my question is, what are the kind of things that America is ready to do to engage the youth so that they are actually the resource that Americans are interested in? Yali is not enough. It is small, but it's good, but it's engaging a very small percentage of African youth. So what are the programs that you are ready to invest in? One of the suggestions I'd say is really have a permanent position for African youth. Every African country should have a diplomatic seat in the US directly linked to Congress so that it's not a one-off all the time where African voices are heard just once and they go. So that's one of the ways. Thank you. Thank you so much. Panelists, I'd like to take a stab at some of those questions. Don, you want to go first? Let's see. Oh, here. Okay, well, let me tell you, they are in the world extraordinary circumstances, like, for example, the Second World War. The Second World War needed the whole world to unite to defeat the Nazis and Japan and Italy. So a massive coalition was created. That coalition did not have the license to decide on which party should rule Britain, for example. Winston Churchill was very close and worked very close with the Americans in fighting the Nazis. But soon after the end of the war, the British people voted against Churchill and put in the Labour Party, which in American eyes, there was frowned upon as a socialist left-wing party. So the point I'm making is the fact that we needed the world to support it, to defeat a party doesn't mean the world had to dictate to us or should dictate to us or even wants to dictate to us on what kind of a regime we should have in South Africa. That is for the South African citizens to decide upon. So I think that, which doesn't mean, for example, we saw after the Second World War, the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan was not there to dictate to the Europeans what kind of society or what kind of regimes they should have. It was to help them reconstruct their economy. So there is a huge difference between explaining to the English that we will give you a Marshall Plan as long as you vote for the Labour Party and this type or that type of democracy. And the same applies to the African countries. We no longer have these extraordinary systems like the apartheid system, which overwhelmed over two or three centuries the people of South Africa. So they needed the support of the big wide world in order to defeat that system. Today, South Africans have to decide for themselves what kind of a democratic system they want. On the issue of the youth bulge, I think the youth bulge is both a threat and an asset. But if we don't industrialize our economies, the youth bulge is going to be a mega threat to Africa, mega threat to the stability of Africa. So the question of the industrialization of the continent, in my view, is the only way we can address many of these problems that we have on the African continent. And most importantly, as I said, we need America's insights. We need the United States' expertise and so on. But actually, the African countries have a lot of money. South Africa, it's been calculated that last year or sometime early this year that the corporate sector in South Africa is sitting on 600 billion rents of cash. They are not investing this because of a whole lot of internal problems of business uncertainty, lack of confidence, and so on. Nobody can solve that problem for us. We have to solve that problem ourselves. Just a couple of things. I don't think you want bureaucrats and diplomats making economic decisions for countries. But you know, after the tragic attack on the USS Cole and Dubai World and Sheikh Mohammed of Dubai came in and with the Djiboutian President, Gillay really created a deep water port that handles 80,000 ton cargo ships. So those are decisions that the countries themselves made with the help of other. I know that Qatar is there, UAE, Turkey. Where the United States has played a significant role will be power Africa and creating other economic opportunities. The other area too is looking at expanding our OPIC on risk insurance to encourage American companies to engage. Those are areas that we can do. The other thing too is that we are working very closely with not only our European colleagues, but also our African partners to identify areas that we can have a significant, make a difference in helping them achieve their needs and goals. And I think power Africa goes to a $54 billion initial investment commitment. AIDs program on the trade hubs. Those are starts and those are things that we can build on. So I think that's beyond going to those areas. I think we will be open-eared and look at all opportunities where we can play it and make a difference. Comments? Yeah, on the question of domestic foundations for democracy versus international influences, virtually every other region in the world has adopted some degree of norms about governance in their regional institutions and their regional discourse. Certainly, the Organization of American States has an ironclad prohibition of recognizing coups in the contemporary era. And that extends to places like Venezuela, where in 2002, other heads of state in Latin America went on the record with The New York Times saying that the attempted coup in Venezuela should be reversed and vetoed and suppressed by the regional organization, even though I think that Chavez is a jerk. I mean, you can find this in the open record. So other heads of state could make clear distinctions between another leadership and the way they were governing and the principle of democracy. South Africa, Nigeria, Senegal have signed on to the peer review mechanism and global and continental norms of governance. And we know that in every country, regardless of whether it's an authoritarian regime, certainly among democracies, no two are alike, the electoral systems differ, the party systems differ, the political culture differs, varies. And people have different views toward discourse, criticism, debate, polarization, consensus, and so forth. So for a country with as many forms of engagement as the United States, there are choices to be made about human rights, about political rights, and political stability in the various countries with which we have relationships. If the government is shooting down protesters, are we neutral on that? Or do we want to speak up if there's a strong movement against corruption and there is very visible corruption at the top? Again, is that a purely internal matter or do we want to show common cause or sympathy for those who are making a campaign? So it would hardly be possible for the United States to be neutral or disengaged from these things. And we have deep and diverse relationships with people in most countries across the region because of our own history. So when we're engaged with young people who are pressing for better governance, pressing for more public goods, pressing for jobs, and for human rights, do we disengage and say, look, you guys will all figure it out. It's really not our business. Or do we choose ways of engaging that are in line with our values? In terms of dictating a common model of democracy, I think there's no sentiment for that and there's no justification for it. In terms of thinking about how to be partners and how to engage in line with our values and our history, I think it's complicated. But I think that's where we should be. And in terms of the youth bulge and the question of youth, I will just say that I spend most of my time in Nigeria. And whenever I am back, which is multiple times a year and something interesting is happening, it's youth that are leading the way. Whether it's the emerging burgeoning service sector in entertainment and information and communication technologies or startup enterprises or new social movements or movements for ethnic assertion, identity, and equality, youth are really at the forefront of these things. And you can always look to the more senior generation to have a conversation about policy and about history. But I think that there's a lot of space and a lot of opportunity for us to be engaging more with younger people who are really at the innovative forefront. Great, thank you. Let's do another round of questions. OK, Tony, I saw a man right there and then at the very top for the first three questions I have hands, I saw pop up. Hi, Tony Carroll. I'm a colleague of Peter's at SICE and also Vice President Manchester Trade. Mr. and Becky, famously about seven years ago, you said that China's interest in Africa is fueled by its need for commodities to build this industrial base. Africa needs to take advantage of that interest in China's interest in Africa to get more out of that relationship. Here we are seven or eight years later. I think you said that that appetite would probably start to wind down by about 2023. Well, if you look at some of the recent commodity trends that's starting to wind down even earlier than that, do you think that there's been a successful engagement with China to get, shall we say, more investment into Africa and more job creation, more job growth that you talk about as being needed? And then just as a comment, I think capital is a coward, as we've all heard. Innovative capital that you think is desperately needed from this country is going to flow into those countries and markets that are more open, where you have labor flexibility, where you have media access, where you can get good, reliable banking. And those are, I think, prerequisites, really, to attract the type of innovative investment that you call for. And therefore, I think we can't sit on the sideline and not at least support some of those institutions that are going to attract the type of capital that you think is needed to grow the African economies as you wish. Deirdre Lepin, Africana Studies, University of Pennsylvania. My question has to do with both youth and also economic development. The deficit in infrastructure and services in Africa is well known. At the same time, we've also talked about the large number of youth who are very well educated in many cases and who also have a yearning for the development of their own countries, as well as for economic opportunities for themselves. Now, the US has had some excellent experiences in the past in putting the energy and intelligence of youth together with the needs of development. We did this back in the 1930s during the Depression. Have we continued similar programs since that time? What does not offer a model if the US could support African countries in creating youth works programs? Now, this is a public sector approach, but it could also be a nudge to the industrialization and the engagement of creating more jobs for young people in Africa. It would seem that this could be a US program that could offer some specialized experience to Africa and also help to resolve the issue of the youth bulge and youth employment. There was a gentleman towards the back who had a question. Hi, I'm Greg Pirio. I'm with EC Associates. I want to give kudos to the US government on something. Its support for public health in Africa has made a huge difference in the lives of millions of people. I'll give some, and this fits in with industrialization. You're not going to have industrialization without a healthy work force. The Presidential Malaria Initiative, for example, has really reduced malaria. We have to understand that 25% of the wealth of an African family typically is lost because of malaria. I've talked with African businessmen. I have a friend in Uganda. He is a very prominent businessman. He said previously he used to have 20 workers out at a time with malaria. Now he has zero. And this goes on and on and on. So when we're talking about investment, we're talking about development, the health of people is a cornerstone for all of us. And it has one further consequence. In taking responsibility for their health, people leave behind fatalism. And they assume responsibility at a level that is really incredible. And I've seen this in so many countries. So I want to urge that this be continued with this administration. And I know we probably have sympathetic ears at the State Department of that. But it's really very important. And one final note is for the youth bulge, we have to look in partnership with Africans in dialogue to increase family planning. Because it's unsustainable, the growth in population, given the rates of industrialization, et cetera. And Indonesia is a great example where this occurred with US support. And today, there are 200 million less Indonesians because of the programs that we work together with in Indonesia. Anyway, I know it's not a question, but I wanted to put it into the discussion. Thank you so much. So I'm going to ask our panelists to try to answer these questions, perhaps through the lens of governance and democracy, which is the topic of this panel. I'm glad that there's a lot of audience for next panel. But if we can talk some of these issues through that lens, I think that would be fantastic. Who wants to go first? Let's see, do you want to try it again? I think you started this with the industrialization point. Yes. Let me just deal with the issue of China. Last year, South Africa exported 60 million tons of iron ore to China. In the same year, the African continent imported 30 million tons of steel from the rest of the world, 9 million tons of which coming from China. Now, when I saw this information, I went to the president of South Africa, and I said to him, this is not the right way to use our resources. Irrespective of what the Chinese think, this is not the right way to use our natural resources. So I said to him, we should set up a steel company which has African investors from all over the African continent, and we tackle the issue of the 30 million tons of steel that we are importing from the rest of the world. It's not just China. It's the Russia. It's the European Union. We're importing steel. For example, there's a railway line built last year from Mombasa to Nairobi. All that steel is imported from China. There was a railway line built from Djibouti to Addis Ababa. All that steel is imported from China. So the question of the Africans addressing their issues of industrialization is very, very central. We will probably come up to the United States to look for partners to build the steel company. Because it's not a government company that we are going to be building. It will be a private steel company. So the Chinese, incidentally, have made it very clear. I had a meeting with the Chinese in Beijing when I raised this. They said they will participate in an African steel company, because they don't want to be left out. So that is what I mean, that we have this problem, the problem of industrialization. We need support with putting together an industrialization. So our old friends, like the United States, we need help from them on those issues. The point of public health is, I agree completely, you have to address public health issues. President George W. Bush started a huge HIV AIDS program in South Africa. And this program is still going on. And it has had a huge impact on the health of the population. So I'm not recommending we build a wall around Africa where nobody else participates. And we know what cooperation with the United States has produced, for example, in the issues of public health, in the problems of apartheid, and so on, and so forth. Thank you. I'm going to turn to Ambassador Yamamoto and then Peter with the final remarks. I'm going to the base for this meeting today, is the greatest impediment, just not in Africa but anywhere, is going to be the absence of good leadership, good governance, and the rule of law. Once you have those in place and the respect for democratic values, and not specific or hyphenated democratic values, but core values of democracy, then you can talk about the context of what we're talking about, health, development, economic. And all of it is clearly interrelated and mutually supportive. And so once that is in place, then you can have it. So I mean, if China is also going to support the democratic values, that's great. I don't think so. They want money. But that's important. And you can't have one without the other. And that's, I think, one of the issues that we're looking at is, how do all these issues interrelate, interconnect? And so that's why we're looking. Africa is not an isolation, but Africa in the context of what's happening around the world. What happens in Africa affects everyone. What happens outside of affects Africa as well. Thank you. Peter? Yeah, it's interesting that the discourse rapidly shifted to democracy, which I can agree to a large extent, is the critical challenge before the continent today. To think that democracy, pardon me, that development is unrelated to the quality of governance, of course, is not a proposition that anybody in this room would accept. There are various forms of governance across the continent. We see industrialization and some incipient structural change being attempted in Ethiopia and in Rwanda under non-democratic auspices, although many other dictatorships or autocratic regimes in Africa have much worse outcomes than those two countries. And we see some positive changes under democratic auspices, but also many countries that are struggling and that are experiencing stagnation and are not really moving forward in the ways that we would like. So clearly governance is one dimension here. And then democratic governance is another dimension. And whether or not the United States is involved, people are protesting. People are pressing for connectivity and for voice and for jobs. Elections are occurring. Different opposition voices are contending over the future of their countries. And so that does present a challenge for the United States about how we're going to engage. Seems to me does not necessarily mean and has never meant that we, in some kind of monotonic way, try to impose or urge one uniform type of government. But it does create challenges in terms of thinking about how to advance democratic values, democratic pressures, or to meet democratic claims and demands in various countries, and to link that with the essential welfare and development of many countries across the region. OK. Please join me with a round of applause for our panelists. Judd and your panelists, thanks very, very much for a lively discussion on governance and democratic institutions. I'm going to now invite our next panel to come forward. We are going to continue to move along. We have one more panel before we have lunch. Our next panel will focus on prospects for enhanced economic partnership. I want to remind everyone that following this panel, we will move to move outside where we will have lunch and where we will hear a keynote address from General Waldheiser, the commander of AFRICOM. He will be our luncheon speaker immediately after this panel. And at that session, we will have box lunches. There will be a certain number of individuals who will have indicators marked for their tables. I think you know who they are. Otherwise, there will be free seating. I'm going to turn this over. Our next panel is going to be cheered by Jennifer. I'm going to do it looking down by Dr. Jennifer Cook from the Center for Strategic and International Studies. And she will introduce her panelists. Again, it's on prospects for enhanced economic partnerships. Jennifer? Great. Thank you so much, Johnny. And thank you to the organizers of the conference. Really great discussions so far. We're talking about prospects for enhanced US-Africa economic partnerships today. This has been a hot topic in recent years. There's been a great deal of optimism, I would say euphoria even, on the Africa rising narrative, rising economies spurred by high commodity prices, by Chinese investment, by new technologies, new sectors opening up. And new attention from global partners. With the fall of commodity prices in China restructuring its economy, that euphoria has been tempered somewhat. But the opportunities are certainly there. They're there, but they won't materialize in a vacuum. And I think that came up very much in the first conversation panel. These opportunities to be maximized, I think both sides, both Africans and the United States, are going to have to work a lot harder. Look at Africa today. The big three economies, Nigeria, Angola, South Africa. All three, Nigeria is just emerging from a recession. Angola and South Africa are kind of bumbling along at a fairly low growth rate. Certainly not enough to keep up with demographic growth. Some of the promising economies in East Africa. Ethiopia has just ended a year-long state of emergency that was aimed at kind of quashing internal dissent. Kenya is about to go into political uncertainty, having to rerun its entire presidential election process. Tanzania, we've seen a significant curtailing of civil liberties, media, opposition protest. A leader of the opposition was just gunned down this past week. You've seen nationalization of diamond mines. So even Tanzania, which has been long held up as kind of this promising target for investment, for development, and democracy, you've seen some real problems in recent years. Corruption, state capture, massive outflow of illicit funds, those remain major challenges that are styming the potential of African economies. So African leaders and citizens are going to have to take some hard looks at themselves to remain competitive, to undertake some of the very difficult and politically difficult reforms to make these opportunities work. And then on the US side, the US is going to need to work a lot harder. There's a lot more competition out there. China is a big one, but the European Union is getting very strategic and economic partnership agreements that aren't always favorable to US investors. India, Russia, Malaysia, South Africa, these are all looking strategically at the continent, thinking ahead longer term than sometimes the United States does. US needs to support US businesses. The US government needs to support US businesses through information, through institutions like OPIC and XM, which is so important. They're under kind of political scrutiny, but they're functioning well below what their potential capacity could be. And they're designed exactly to help US businesses succeed in going into these new kinds of markets. Commercial diplomacy, you look at a Chinese embassy or a European embassy, a lot of their staff, a lot of their mission is there to do commercial diplomacy, to help their national companies navigate what are often difficult circumstances and tricky regulatory structures to make good on the opportunities in Africa. The US can do a lot more to be supporting the voices for reform in Africa to take on those difficult reforms, diversification, helping constituencies for reform. It doesn't need to dictate the kinds of reform, but it can support those voices for reform. And in international norms, on transparency, on tax havens, on kind of some of the dubious shell company transactions that really are robbing many African economies. And finally, and again, this came up in the first conversation, the issue of relationships. And getting business done in Africa requires relationships. Disengagement from Africa, whether it's at the most senior levels of the US government, to the mid-levels, to kind of the much lower levels within government, they have costs. I was very disappointed to see that the US Africa Energy Summit that was scheduled for this month has been canceled because African participants were not able to get their visas in time. Similarly, a trade conference last May, March at the University of Southern California, was canceled, or it was held, but there were no African participants in it. Students' visas, which have dropped precipitously, matter, bringing young people to US universities. They will become champions. They will enrich the universities in terms of technology, in terms of innovation, in terms of new perspectives. But they also become ambassadors for the United States. And those kind of relationships create the kind of foundation for partnerships longer term. So I feel strongly about this. I'm sorry to talk a bit length in an introduction. We have a terrific panel to go into some of this. First, we have Kingsley Mogalu, who was a late addition to the panel. We're so delighted to have him. He is really one of the foremost opinion leaders and analysts on economic dynamics on the continent. He's founder of the Institute for Governance and Economic Transformation, a think tank focused on effective public policy and inclusive growth. He's a political economist and a lawyer by training formally with the UN, formally with the Fletcher Business School. So Kingsley, welcome. Next, we have Oran Waiji Shah, acting senior deputy assistant administrator for Africa at USAID, and coordinator of the Trade Africa program. Was, OK, yes, with a long career in the private sector, in finance, and in the nonprofit sector. And then finally, Andre Pinar, who's founder and chair of C5 Capital, a South African lawyer by training, a founder of G3, an entrepreneur and investor with a long background in international business intelligence and strategic advice. I think we'll start with Kingsley to perhaps look forward at some of the big opportunities and challenges of these partnerships. We'll turn to Oran to talk about what the US has done and what it is doing and what is it planning to do in this arena. And finally, we'll turn to Andre, who is looking well forward into the cloud for some of the new emergent sectors that maybe are not happening right now, but are certainly on the horizon. So Kingsley, we'll turn to you, and thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Jennifer. I'd like to thank US Institute of Peace for inviting me and for organizing this very splendid event. I'd also like to thank my brother, Molletsim Beke, for being a very effective member of this panel. And in return, I might be tempted to become a member of his. But the issues are all interlinked. That's the point. And you really cannot discuss one without the other. You can't discuss the economic framework without the governance and political framework and so on. But let me just give my sense of where the economic landscape is that forms a backdrop for US-Africa economic partnerships. You've heard the phrase a lot, Africa rising. And I think Jennifer mentioned it. I don't believe Africa is rising. I believe Africa is emerging. I think that's a correct statement to make. When you talk about a rising continent, you're talking about rising Asia. You're talking about China. You're talking about economic transformation that is taking place with industrialization, as Molletsim so correctly said. But can we rise? Of course we can. And so the question, I think, we should be discussing in the context of partnership discussions is how can those partnerships make an economic rise for Africa possible and even probable? And how can it support transformations from within the continent? I think that's really what we should be discussing. Of course I have a lot to say about this. I won't go into all that. I have this book here, Emerging Africa, which I think anyone interested in the continent should read. I was told to plug it shimlessly. And I told the person who advised me that I wouldn't disappoint. But I think what is happening in Africa today? We can see very clearly that commodity-based economic growth is going down. The countries in Africa that have done very well in the past two years are the countries that actually do not rely on commodities. And so this is the foundational core of what should be an African world view of economic engagement with the rest of the world, that its massive mineral wealth does not guarantee its prosperity, except it is turned to finished value-added products that are exported to the rest of the world with value and insight added to them. That's the basis on which every other continent has risen. Why would Africa rise on any other basis? I have to ask that question over and over again. So now, if you look at the basis of US engagement with Africa, it's mainly in two things. First of all, AGOA, as we all know, the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, which is very good, I think a very good agreement, where you have duty-free access to the US for 6,400 products from sub-Saharan Africa coming from about 40 countries. But AGOA is often talked about, but it has a very fundamental problem. Number one is that roughly 70% to 80% of African exports to the US on the AGOA have been exports of crude oil. That's the number one problem with AGOA. And so you have to ask whether then the partnership, which is founded largely on AGOA, is serving the function of promoting economic transformation or mutually beneficial relationships, or if it's serving one part of the partnership mainly and another part of the partnership only superficially. So I think that's a very important point. And you will notice that AGOA exports to Africa have dropped over 50% since 2011, since the US became much more active in its own oil production. So that's an important problem concerning AGOA. Now, AGOA has also stimulated a lot of foreign investment in Africa. You'll find companies like GAAP, like Target, like Old Navy, they're taking advantage of these opportunities to source goods from Africa. And that's a good thing. But again, the structural weakness, I think we find in AGOA, it underlines the challenge that African countries face with global trade and with foreign investment. And that is that in both areas, you find that the trade and the foreign investment are not allowing the development of economic complexity and value-added products from Africa. That's the whole problem. When you invest as a foreigner, what are you looking for? You're not an NGO. You're looking to make money. You're looking to make a profit. So for Africa, in having partnerships with advanced countries, they should be looking out a little bit more for their own interests. But the problem is they don't do this enough. Foreign investment helps economic development when you have skills, when you have skilled labor in a country, when you have infrastructure in a country. If you don't have these two things, what's called foreign investment is mostly economic extraction that's going on. That's called foreign investment. So I think this is, you have to address this side of the partnership, Africa. And that's the policy question for African leaders. The problem we have in Africa with this whole proposition is that a lot of African leaders, with some exceptions, are profoundly economically incompetent. I'm sorry to say, but that's just the truth of the matter. You talked about South Africa, you talked about Nigeria. Nigeria has gone through the worst economic recession in 25 years. It's supposed to be the biggest economy in Africa today, but how inclusive is the Nigerian economy? It's not inclusive at all. What's the GDP per capita? It's an average of $1,648 since 1960. So why should I, as an informed Nigerian, or as an informed African, beat my chest that Nigeria is Africa's biggest economy? That's not some, because I can understand that in reality, there is 62% poverty. And that that's what really matters. It's not these statistics of economic growth. It's about GDP per capita, that's what matters. So when you're talking about foreign investment, when you're talking about economic partnerships, that's what we should be talking about. Now, so the first challenge for economic engagement between Africa and the rest of the world is how do you develop political leadership in African countries that gets it in terms of economic development and economic partnerships? In Rwanda, you have it, in Ethiopia, you have it, in Mauritius, you have it, even increasingly in Kenya, and in several countries in Mauritius. So they may be, their political systems may be controversial or contentious, but you cannot doubt the economic worldview of a Paul Kagame of Rwanda or a Meles Zenawi as a professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. One of my favorite reading assignments to my students is a very powerful essay written by Meles Zenawi on industrial policy. And he defended his position powerfully. It's not, industrial policy in economic orthodoxy, liberal economic orthodoxy is not very popular now, but he stood his ground and he made the point. So how do we make political leaders on the continent much more competent to provide economic leadership to support democracies in Africa and engage in mutually beneficial relationships with the United States and all the powers? And also with China. Someone talked about China. We find again, this lack of a worldview undermining Africa's global partnerships, not just with the United States, but with China as well. And so the question is, yes, you're having economic partnerships, but you've got to make sure that people are not eating your lunch. That's very important in my own mind as an African. Now, what are the, I just want to wrap up with the new vistas of opportunity, I think, that exist for Africa's economic partnerships with the United States? In the whole question of, it's not extraction, it can be turned away from extraction. Solid minerals, huge opportunities in a country like Nigeria. But if you want to invest in solid minerals, can you make sure that there's value added in the country of origin before it's exported? That would be a win-win economic partnership in my view. Power Africa, very important program. What's the goal to add 30,000 megawatts of electricity to African countries before 2030? I think that goal is not ambitious enough. That's what I think. I think it needs to be more ambitious and that's a very, very important opportunity. So Power Africa is a very important partnership for Africa and the United States and could potentially be far more transformational even than a gore if it's robustly executed. Infrastructure, there's a huge infrastructure deficit in African countries. So African American companies that want to invest in infrastructure on the basis of public private partnerships especially stand to gain huge gains in the continent. Again, education. There's a skills gap, a gap of skills and productive knowledge. So and this is what loops into foreign investment. So American investments in education would yield huge benefits for both sides. Investments that target the production or the training in skills. If you want to set up a Boeing plant, if you want to set up a Boeing plant in Nigeria today you can't because you don't have the skill sets to support it. So if you invest in education that produces the skill sets that supports the manufacture of the parts of Boeing airplanes, everybody's smiling. So these are the kinds of investments that I think we need to talk about and two final areas of possibility are the IT sector, the services sector and as well venture capital finance. This is a huge area of opportunity for investments in the continent because the cost of capital remains extremely high and the reason that is so is because of infrastructure problems. So if you can bring in capital cheaply to Africa you would stimulate a lot of production, small and medium enterprises, you will smile to the bank, lots of Africans would smile to the bank. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much, Kinsley. All right. Thank you. I too would like to thank the US Institute of Peace for convening this meeting. I think it's timely and certainly we at USAID are rethinking along with our partners at say our colleagues at state about how we can be more equipped, more efficient, more effective at dealing with some of the problems and issues that have been addressed here and raised here today. As the US government's international development and humanitarian assistance leader, our investments are being made to save lives, foster growth, inclusive economic growth, reduce poverty and strengthen democratic governance. I've just come from the first town hall meeting that aid had with its new administrator, Mark Green. And I will reiterate what he just said, that our assistance is a hand up. And we are all working at USAID and throughout the government toward the day when our partner countries will no longer need our assistance that the dynamic of our relationship will change. It will not just be giving development assistance but really being partnerships. And so that is what aid has been doing and certainly the dynamic, the nexus of how we go forward will be emerging as the redesign exercise and some of the other things go forward. I'd like to share a few statistics that my staff put together and probably everyone in this room knows it since you're all African followers. But between 2015 and 2030, 29 million new entrants have joined the African labor market. That is huge. That is enormous. That is almost a tsunami. Even for the United States, that it would be an enormous population to try to absorb. And by 2050, there will be 2 billion in Africa. And you compare that population of potential workers with the labor market and it becomes very clear that there is a disconnect between that population that is growing and the labor demand in Africa presently. If you look at Nigeria, the official unemployment rate is 12.1. The government itself recognizes an additional 19.1 are underemployed and specifically the young people, the situation is even worse. The youth unemployment stands at 42.2%. However, these statistics do not paint the whole picture. Good news is the continent of Africa is primed to be one of the great economic success stories of this century. How? Through investments in infrastructure and technology, the introduction of new technologies, being able to leapfrog some of our older technologies to go into the global economy more competitively. Africa is home to 700 companies with revenues over 500 million. So again, that industrialization is beginning, but certainly there is need for greater acceleration of it and the consumer spending is on track in Africa to climb to over $1 trillion over the next four years. That's a very attractive market for any company or set of companies and certainly for countries. So by 2050, it is possible that the continent will make up a quarter of the global economy. That's the potential, that's the hope. So what does it mean for the economy and business growth in Africa? Well, it means that it will have a fast growing middle class, but is that growing middle class going to be as inclusive as it needs to be for some of the issues that you have raised? There will be an expanding urban population. That's sort of a natural evolution of development. We experienced it here in the United States from being an agricultural country to being an urbanized. That will inevitably happen in Africa and is happening in Africa in various pace throughout the country, the continent, sorry. And there will be an enormous number of new young consumers who are watching MTV who want to be part of that world, that global world. So the private sector in Africa and is making a crucial input into the continent's economic development. Certainly more than a decade ago when I was in Abidjanar, when some of us were working in Africa. However, African countries, those governments are looking to private sector because we indeed have said private sector has the technology, it has the skill sets, but the African governments also are challenged to make economies of scope and scale for those companies, whether it's for producing, whether it is for importing and having larger markets, or whether it's for labor movement. While there will be a huge population growth in Africa, the job market may not match where that growth is taking place. I mean, if you look at Niger, it has the highest population growth in the world. It is unlikely that Niger will be able to create the jobs needed for that population growth. And so for Africa, African countries to be able to really accelerate growth inclusively there has got to be movement of labor as well as products and services. Narrowing the sub-Saharan African infrastructure gap will be critical also. And you've talked about power Africa. Power Africa has been a stellar in our way of thinking, certainly. The US government led initiative of 12 agencies. This is probably one of the better interagency initiatives that have taken place and is taking place. There is a diverse coalition of 140 public and private sector partners. We also have partners with other countries who are involved in the power Africa initiative as well. We have created the power Africa toolbox, which is a menu of 160 tools that can range from financial to legal to advocacy to try to make sure that the business environment that is needed for those investments will be there, as well as providing governments with the technical assistance to effectively negotiate with those private sector partners so that they don't have this balance in the partnership. For example, in Malawi, power Africa is supporting a series of reforms that are helping the government of Malawi improve conditions for private sector investment. It's supporting ranges from helping the government arrive at cost-reflective tariffs to increasing the creditworthiness of Malawi's energy off takers. And the result is in December of 2016, the government launched the country's first ever competitive tender in the power sector by using the procurement framework developed with the support of the Millennium Challenge Corporation. There are 21 international companies that have submitted bids to develop 70 megawatts of new solar capacity. That is an achievement to get to that point by the Malawi government and it sees itself on a path to diversify its generation mix, to bring down costs for its consumers and population and to open the door for further rounds of private investment, not just in power but to expand it into other sectors of the economy as well. With USAID support, African governments, civil society, the US and African private sector are able to better realize the benefits of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act. We partner with African companies to ensure that they meet the stringent US requirements to import into the United States to meet the grades and the standards. We partner with companies such as Phillips Van Huisen, which is the largest shirt manufacturer in the world to allow them and their other companies to source from Africa predominantly in East Africa, creating thousands of formal, predominantly for women jobs. Walmart is expanding upon the 2.5 billion investment it made in Africa in 2011, slowly moving out its mass-marked chain across Southern Africa. G, clearly with Power Africa but in other domains as well, is seeing greater and greater business opportunities. And there's a US Equity Fund that recently acquired an African Trout Producer. The way USAID is engaged with AGOA is that we provide the three trade hubs, which are, if you will, the technical arm to allow greater access under AGOA by African companies and also to make sure that American companies know the opportunities that exist on the continent and to work with both to come up with transactions that are sustainable, that are to the benefit of all. Another transaction that I will just throw out there because it's not always textiles, we said to always think in terms of textiles, but Namibia, working with our colleagues at USDA recently within the last year, received the approval to start importing beef into the United States. That's huge. There's been no beef imported from Africa and yet Africa has an enormous amount of beef on the hoof and we are looking to see how we can expand that further. So there's lots of opportunities. It does take work, not only from us, but also from the African governments. While indeed it took 45 days to start a business in Kenya and it now takes five, that needs to come down. Competition Africa is not a binary investment opportunity for many things. It is not coming from the private sector. We don't just think in terms of do I invest in Africa or do I not invest? It is do I invest in Africa versus am I investing in Latin America or am I investing in Asia depending upon the product? And so Africa has to recognize and really arm itself against its competitors globally. Finally, I would say that China is indeed recognizing the investment opportunities in Africa and it has made 150 investments per year in the manufacturing sector in Africa up from only two in 2000. What does that mean? It means that again, we have to recognize our competition. It is not just the competition that Africa faces going out, but it's the competition coming in. And we have had many discussions within the interagency about how we can best tool or retool what we are doing to be more effective and more efficient in reaching out, making sure that the African countries are well-tooled to be competitive and recognize their competitive advantage, recognize the need for the regionalization so that there are economies of scope and scale which in turn improves their competitiveness as well as talking with the diaspora and private sector here in the United States about those opportunities. And with that, I think I will stop and be very happy to answer questions. Thank you so much, Orin. Andre. I also want to start off by saying thank you to the USIP to take the initiative to convene this conference. This is really a conference about the future. Demographics are destiny. And with Africa producing a court of the world's working population by the year 2030 and a billion young people, as we heard by 2050, the demographics of Africa is due political destiny. Today I want to talk to you about a future that's cloudy. But I want to qualify this cloudy future. As a child, I spent a large part of my childhood growing up in the Kalahari Desert in Africa. And there when you said the outlook is cloudy, that was good news because it meant that there was rain on the way. And in this context too, when I talk about a cloudy future for Africa, I want to contextualize this in the context of good news and as a potential future pillar for an economic partnership between the US and African economies. Today the US is the leader in cloud technology worldwide. The first 15 companies in cloud technology are all American. And to give you an indication of the scale of this vast computing power that is being built on an industrial scale by American companies across the world, the leading cloud computing company, Amazon Web Services, is 10 times bigger in terms of its computing capacity than the 14 competitors combined, and that includes Microsoft and Google. Cloud computing is really transforming the way in which we are scaling the digital economy because it's reducing the cost of computing power to the cost of a utility. To give you a very good practical example, in the 1990s when you wanted to launch an internet-based technology company, the average cost of a startup, scaling a startup would have been in the range of 20 million US dollars. Today that's been reduced to potentially between 50 and 100,000 dollars. And that gives a very clear indication of how cloud computing is opening up the potential to very rapidly scale digital economies and open up the potential and opportunity for entrepreneurship. And young people are voting where they feed. Today 90% of all startups in the US get born in the cloud platform, 70% in France, and more than 50% of all new startups in Africa get born in the cloud platform. And this is potentially transforming the potential for economic growth in Africa in the same way that the introduction of mobile phones during the 90s accelerated the growth of many African economies and opening up a third wave of potential transformation. I want to give you some practical examples of how cloud computing is helping to change Africa for the better. One very good example is in the field of healthcare. As you all know, Africa recently grappled with the threat of a major pandemic in the form of the Ebola virus and following the successful combating of the Ebola virus with the support of the international community, a local early warning center for pandemics have been established by the Africa Union and at the heart of the predictive and early warning power of this new center will be cloud computing and the power of big data analytics that are cloud based. Another very good example is in the field of education. To accommodate a billion young people over the next 30 years, we have to change the model on which we educate people in Africa and we have to find new models which enable us to scale the skilling and the access of education in a way that's been never done before. My colleague of sight at Walmart and Walmart is using the same startup company that does all its e-commerce fulfillment. In other words, all its e-commerce deliveries to make sure that educational textbooks get delivered effectively, efficiently and transparently in South Africa. The US is a leader in the field of EdTech and the EdTech sector in the US economy forms a very important part of the digital economy and more and more EdTech startups are opening up their MOOC stage, massive online courses to African students. The third example is in the field of stability, security and governance and I'm pleased to report that here at the USIP we've established a Pistek accelerator to help scale up startups from Africa that have technology, innovative technology that can help prevent, predict or mitigate conflict and recently we, for example, hosted a young startup from South Sudan which got a very innovative and addictive mobile game that helped bring about reconciliation and better understanding between the communities in Sudan and that is just one example of how scaling startups from African countries where young people want to make a difference and grasp the opportunity of technology can be done effectively. The question is what more can be done? I want to cite five areas of opportunity where we can help to scale the digital economy in Africa and build a very effective partnership based on US cloud leadership. The first one is to help build the venture capital sector. The US is the leader in venture capital worldwide. In 2015, Africa had about $185 million worth of venture capital transactions. That doubled last year, more than doubled, to $385 million that was invested in 77 startups. The US is already a very important source of capital to listed companies both in Europe and in Africa that have exposure to the African market but opening up US venture capital investment to the African market can make a very important difference but also sharing the know-how and the skills of how to build a venture capital ecosystem. What are the key components of a venture capital ecosystem that does not require capital will be tremendously helpful. The second area is another area of opportunity and these are specific sectors of venture capital that's growing and blooming in Africa. And one for example is the FinTech sector. In Africa, we have more than 330 million people who are still unbanked, adults, who don't have access to core banking services. And this is a key area where US investment can make a difference. The African FinTech sector is booming more than a third of all venture capital investments last year was into the FinTech sector. In many ways, Africa's leading FinTech innovation. Mobile money in Kenya is a very good example where more than 50% of Kenya's GDP now pass on mobile money and mobile payments. And this is a tremendous opportunity for growth in the future. A third area is new models for transferring and sharing skills. Again, in this area, the US is leading the way. A very good example is a startup called Andela that's been funded by Mark Zuckerberg and other venture capital firms. Andela takes young African high school graduates and within a period of one year, they skill them in ICT skills that can be marketed globally in key sectors where there's a shortage of skills and they ensure that the graduates of that school also have access to jobs and employment. And I've seen a similar model being implemented by a US not-for-profit called the Digital Divide Dimension who have led a similar program in Kenya and with the support of Amazon have created a jobs board for these young graduates to ensure that they get jobs for the future. A final area is to share our know-how in the field of regulation. The US is one of the leaders in how do you pass effective regulation to stimulate not only venture capital but also the growth of the digital economy. Any country that has a deregulated telecommunication sector can build a cloud economy. Many African countries have deregulated telecommunication sectors and sharing our know-how how one builds on this opportunity with effective regulation, with effective laws can stimulate the growth of the digital economy is another major opportunity. Data is the oil of the 21st century and the US is a leader in the field of data and how to monetize data, how to create value from data how to innovate from data and how to create better lives from data. And I think this gives us a very strong pillar for economic partnership with Africa for the future. Great, thank you Andre, fascinating possibilities there. Let's turn to the audience and take a few questions. I think we'll follow Judd's model and take a few at a time. Please raise your hand, identify yourself and if you want a particular person to answer, let us know. In the very far back, the mic is coming. Hi, thank you, my name is Bethany, I follow primarily West Africa and I wanted to ask about corruption. So people often talk about corruption as an impediment to business. It seems so entrenched in Africa. I'm wondering kind of a maybe outside the box way of thinking about it, is there a possibility of just leaving corruption alone and having economic success without it or is it really something that we need to get rid of? I also wanted to have a second question about how kind of in America where you don't have state controlled businesses, companies are going to invest only if there's opportunities to make money. China has a slightly different model where the government can be a little bit more directive but in the absence of that, what can we really do to convince companies not to be extractive since you can, in fact, make money that way? Thank you. Other question? Yes, sir. David Chu, IDA. Much of the conversation about economics is focused on the industrial sector. My question is, what are the partnership opportunities to the agricultural sector? Ms. Wai Shaw mentioned beef exports. I raise it in part because if you look at the longer arc of recent economic history, several of the economies that have been very successful whose national endowment facilitated as strong agricultural sector have built their prosperity on that. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United States, Argentina before Peru. So are there opportunities in the agricultural sector that will be part of the partnership conversation? Great, thank you. One more up on the aisle and then we'll come back to our panel. Thank you, Kawasi Hall again. Just one comment on the diaspora. I think when it comes to US-Africa partnerships is no way the US can not consider partnership with the African diaspora, which now sends an average of $80 billion to African countries. Kenya now sends about $160 million a year. And this is a lot of money. When it comes to partnerships, you can consider social impact programs where you can use the diaspora to impact development directly in their countries. This is happening, but it's happening at a very small scale because the diaspora has not yet gotten platforms which can effectively help them create the large social impact programs. To Dr. Kingsley, one of the fastest growing economic sectors I think is the creative arts. There's Norley Wood, which I think is growing pretty big, and there's also a nascent theater and film industry in Kenya. There's one in South Africa. Now, I think one of the things that's making them grow is that the governments have decided a certain percentage of it has to be, of consumption has to come from that particular country. I believe in Nigeria is 80% has to be consumed, has to come from Nigeria now. My question is, are these considered products under a goal that can also be imported to the US? Can Nigerians, South Africans, Kenyans, films from Wagadougou, can they be imported to the US so that they can be exposed as much as American movies and music is exposed to African countries? Great, so we have the corruption question, which I'd love to hear from all of you on that. Kind of encouraging US companies to kind of take the risk or assess the risks. Growth in the agriculture, diaspora, and then this last point on film and kind of cultural exchange. Dr. Kingsley, why don't we start with you and move down? Thank you. I'd just like to make a few comments about corruption. In the world before now, BN, as I would like to call it, there was the world BC, there was the world AD, and there was the world BN, which is current. Corruption and political risk was seen as an exclusively global South or emerging market or developing country phenomenon. I think we should understand, of course, that it's a huge global problem. It's a problem in Africa, certainly in Nigeria, it's a problem in Asia, and it's a problem in many other parts of the world, including developed countries. But the key to addressing the challenge of corruption in Africa specifically, I believe lies in two things. One is in encouraging and supporting the emergence of a new generation of political leadership in African countries. Members of a generation who've been very widely exposed around the world and operate on the basis of global best practices and therefore can contextualize corruption's corrosive influence on development and economic growth. If you're dealing with members of a generation, mainly, that hasn't had that type of exposure, they can preach it, but doing it is different because there's a cultural dimension to corruption in Africa. There's a cultural dimension of it. So I think encouraging the young, the youth, to go into politics, not too young to run, one of the things that is fueling them is their anger against the prevalence, the widespread prevalence of corruption in the political systems in Nigeria today. So therefore, I think the leadership development cycle is one way to tackle corruption. The other big way to tackle corruption is to build systems that make corruption difficult. And here you now have the digital economy as an opportunity. You know, when you digitalize a lot of things, a lot of processes in the procurements, in the management of the economy, the possibility for corruption is quite significantly reduced. And then the third and fourth elements of fighting corruption, just as important, are the elements of accountability and the whole element of leadership. So, but if you talk about leadership, it comes back to the question I raised earlier about having leaders who understand what leadership actually means and that part of what it means is to co-educate citizens on value systems and so on. So for example, in Nigeria, there's a big noise about fighting corruption, but it's controversial because people say, how many people have you actually convicted? It's very theatrical, but what's the result? Yeah, so I think that's the comment. There are several dimensions to fighting corruption and we should come at it from a number of areas. So now, should I comment on the Hollywood question? Yeah, and I wondered if you might want to say something about agriculture. Oh, sure, absolutely. Yes, I mean, agriculture is hugely important. I mean, it's about average GDP component of many African economies is about 30% and in terms of employment, about 60 to 70% of many economies in Africa depend on agriculture. Now, there's a very important question about agriculture. It's a conceptual question, first of all. Can you achieve economic transformation on the back of agriculture? Because by definition, economic transformation means a shift away from agriculture-based economies to industrial economies or digital economies. So there's a bridge between these two. It's not necessarily either or, and that bridge is the value chain approach in agriculture. Developing agriculture as a value chain from just planting the crops to processing agricultural produce. So if we can move more towards the end of processing agricultural products, then we are addressing transformation even inside agriculture. We are using agriculture to address that. But also, we cannot run away from agriculture totally for now. The reason is because of the employment dimension. Many African countries, again, as some of my fellow panelists have mentioned, have serious problems with employment and certainly Nigeria does. So you want people to have jobs for now while you work on modernizing the economy. But you've got to be strategic. Just saying to people, go to the farm. Like I've heard a certain president say, I shall not mention his name, is just not. It doesn't work. You are encouraging a general, you know, that is just 40, 50 years ago thinking. You need to be looking at, you know, how do you use high quality crop yielding seeds to develop agriculture because of acreage? How do you use less area to produce more? And this is the type of thinking, I think, that should be going into agriculture in Africa's economies. And then, of course, making sure that at the bottom of everything, you've got to be able to export. That's what makes you competitive. Great. Thank you. Let's turn to Oren on the diaspora and encouraging US companies. OK. First, I just want to say just a quick note on corruption. Kingsley has talked about a number of elements that need to be taken into account to try to address corruption, leadership, new youth. All of that is absolutely true. But institutionalizing these things as opposed to it being individuals is going to be critical. The other factor that I would say would need to be considered as well as the judicial system. That regardless of what's the laws on the books, if you do not have confidence when corruption comes up, that you can go to the courts and have a transparent, objective process, it sort of doesn't matter who you may have the wrong people that you've been talking to and the young leaders or what they're in the other area. So the judicial system for me would be another one. On feeding in agriculture, absolutely. It's a huge employment, although it is an employment that in general has very low income. I mean, that's the problem. In addition to which, even with our Feed the Future program, which we are doing for increased seeds, for drought-resistant seeds, I think we have to always step back and look at it from the private sector's point of view. I worked for a company that owned Del Monte. The way the global market companies see it, you start with the market. What is demanded? What can you sell? And then you back into it. In the case of our Feed the Future, we're looking really at two areas. One is Africa being able to feed itself or at least get out of the humanitarian crises. Other is export. So at our trade hubs, the trade hubs and the Feed the Future program work together. We work together with Feed the Future to work on policies to open borders so that when there is food shortage in one country and surplus in the other, you can move it forward. And that actually has private sector, obviously, dynamics to it because the transportation, the treatment, all of that is part of that value chain that Kingsley was talking about. So part of it is for domestic, and you have to make sure that you're competitive. Just because Africa can do it doesn't mean it can do it as competitively as someone bringing something in, whether it's China or India. So it's looking at just not what you can do but how competitive are you in the global market because you can't put that wall around Africa. And then the other side of what needs to be done is indeed encouraging African companies to link up and partner with US companies, explore the opportunities here. One of the things in textile, unfortunately not in agriculture yet, but in textiles, we make sure that we bring over African entrepreneurs, African businesses to the magic show which takes place every year in Las Vegas. It is the biggest textile convention exhibition in the world. Every American buyer is there. One, we do it because hopefully we have worked with some companies that can actually meet the requirements, not just in terms of quality and standards, but quantity. The US is a huge market. So when you're saying you wanna export textiles, you're talking about a lot of textiles for most companies. So one is working with companies that can meet those needs. And the other is it's a learning opportunity for companies who think they can, but really can't. And so that encourages them to start thinking about joint relationships among themselves to do it. So yes, agriculture, that was a deviation from agriculture, but indeed agriculture and getting those relationships going, absolutely critical. Andre, maybe you can talk a little bit about corruption and kind of the digital economy, kind of the possibilities there, even ag. I think the dispersion of technology and in particular mobile technology in Africa has really aided the fight against corruption, combating corruption across Africa, particularly two areas, the area of transparency where citizens are taking the initiative to call out corruption and to call out daily examples of corruption. And also in the area of accountability, as more efficient systems get built around technology to administer both private sector but also state-run companies. But corruption is a huge challenge in Africa and we can't see it in isolation. At the moment Europe sources 85% of its drug supply, it's a legal drug supply, through Africa. This is a massive dislocation of an illicit trade from Latin America through Africa into Europe that impacts business standards, principles, values, politicians, business people. And all of this adds to the challenge of combating corruption in Africa and corruption is part of the global economy. Although we have the benefit of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act today as an accepted international norm of combating corruption, thanks to the very effective enforcement of this act by the US Justice Department, a lot of the corrupt transactions that we see in Africa are inextricably linked to either the illicit or sometimes the illicit part of the global economy and one can't see African corruption in isolation. Absolutely. We have 15 more minutes, so let's take another round of questions and come back to the panel. Yes, sir, up top. Great, period, again. Oh, thank you. I had tried to get a business deal going between Kenya and Ethiopia and there was a demand for powdered milk in Ethiopia and Kenya has a lot of excess powdered milk and at a good price. We couldn't compete with the dumping of powdered milk from Europe onto the Ethiopian market, so we had to cut it out. The other thing is on other projects I've worked on from a business side, one of the problems is in competing with the Chinese and Mozambique, for instance, there's nothing to stop them from bribing but for American corporations, that's illegal, so that's a disadvantage. Those things have to be brought into focus and my research also in this whole area is that there are just networks of international corporations that are such a corrupting influence in country after country that act with impunity all the time and there are Russian subsidiaries in Europe and a lot of Swiss companies, so I think that this has a huge impact on economic development and I'd like to see how this can be addressed. Great, thank you. Yes, Senator. Hi, Robin Sanders. We've talked a lot about the youth demographic but I wanted to hear some comments about what should be done on the economic side for African women in particular. African women have just edged out the population being 50.2% of the continent's population so without fully bringing them more into the economic dynamics that you've all talked about, I would like to hear some examples of what you think should be done and what you might be doing because that really is going to be the key to turn the economy around. If you're not addressing the women at that population rate then you're still going to have challenges on the economic front, thank you. Again, towards the back, we'll take those two and then we're going to turn back to our panel. Hi, Issa Sivian and I'm from NDI. I wanted to bring up Chad which just recently had round tables in Paris for investors and they're working on a development program for the next few years and I thought it was interesting actually that they have taken their projects now to investors. They apparently got promises of up to 20 billion dollars and of course these promises are based on further engagements if the government will accommodate to things such as a justice system or taxes, stuff like that. So I was just wondering what you think of a lot of the countries that are in economic crises and I think they're being forced by these crises to adjust to what a lot of people have spoken about as governance and democracy and transparency, all of these things. Great, thank you. Thank you. And then there's someone right next, yeah. Hello, Oluwatu will be your shopper collaboration Howard University. My question really is regards to the area of infrastructure development and skills, expertise. Usually when we have companies come and build one form of infrastructure, I think not the other, then there's a need for the skills to manage, there's a need for the expertise to manage what has been built, I'd say ports, airports and things like that. The fact that the US is not really making a lot of investment in the area of infrastructure. What's the relations therefore with skills? We're having a lot of the infrastructure development from China who are building the ports, the airports, the roads, and these things need to be managed and they're gonna use their own technology. What's in relation to skills, thank you. Great, why don't we start at the far end of the table and work this way this time? We have the question on dumping, the question on other powers, we're doing okay, but on corruption, but what about China? The youth and particularly the role of women, the question on kind of does crisis, has crisis prompted efforts at reform, and then this infrastructure question. So you can tackle whichever one of those you... I'm not an expert on dumping, but to your point about corruption, say that there are certain enterprises and individuals at the center of most large scale anti-corruption, most large scale corruption or corrupt transactions in Africa, I think there's a great truth in that. And if you were to do a big data analytics of the largest corrupt transactions in Africa, cross-border transactions, you would find that there are certain corporations and individuals and certain countries at the center of it. And I think that can be shown empirically. And the question is, how does one protect US corporations? How do you give US corporations a level playing field and protect them from the sharp practices emanating from these criminal networks? I think that's a challenge for both policymakers, but also for US government agencies that have responsibility for anti-corruption enforcement and also for the intelligence agencies. Why don't I start with women in economic development since I'm one? Clearly, without incorporating women in Africa's development, Africa will not develop for a number of reasons. And it's the entire length of education, skills, as well as entrepreneurship. I think we know that women who are educated, African women who are educated will have better health results for their children, will themselves be more independent in going out and starting their own entrepreneurial businesses or getting together. And so in all of our projects, I would say to a one, women are a central part of USAID projects. Whether it is a grant where we make sure that, and measurable, 50%, 30%, depending upon what that project is, that is part of the design of our projects. Even when it is a private sector grant, we also specify women and measurably so. So whether it is a contractor that's doing work, whether it's the government itself, it is recognized within our agency, and I think within the US government as a whole, that for African development to be inclusive for some of the issues that have been raised about population, an educated woman will tend not to have as many children as one who is not. Making it more inclusive so that poverty when the husband dies, the family is not taking everything, his family is not taking everything, and that woman has the resources to continue to support her family, her children. That's key. I mean, we have lots of, we could talk about the various programs in terms of Feed the Future or Power Africa, what we did in trade in Africa, but women are included explicitly in all of the work that we do. With respect to the infrastructure development by the Chinese, I would just say that the perception, and I am not in any way making any excuses for China, but we recently in the Africa Bureau actually had a report done by McKinsey to determine how Africa, how Chinese companies are behaving in Africa, and it was surprising to us to find out that 30% of their middle managers in private Chinese companies are Africans, that there is more skills and training taking effect than it was say 20 years ago, which I think, which indeed, they came with their own labor, they built the road, they built the stadium, and they went out. That is evolving, and so that's something that we found in the report that we had done by McKinsey, is what are the trends now? And there is a trend, because the Chinese themselves recognize that they can't continue to have an effective business platform in an African country where you are continuously only using Chinese labor and Chinese management. So surprisingly, there is a slight trend among Chinese companies to do that. With respect to the dumping, to some extent that gets back to corruption. It also gets back to governance because you can't bring something into a country unless the government and the regulators allow it. One of the things that we have been grappling with, we in the trade arena of the US government is the disparity between AGOA and the EPAs, the European... Partnership. Exactly, partnerships, because where AGOA is unilateral, i.e. African companies can import into the United States without tariff, the EPAs are bilateral. So European companies have negotiated to start bringing their products in, which is why US companies feel at a disadvantage. And so again, the discussions we're having now is, how do we move beyond AGOA? That is the key thing that USTR is trying to grapple with because it is unlikely AGOA will be passed again in a one-sided approach. And so getting back to the trade and the dumping, part of it is going to be having that partnership but it being a fair partnership and having the governance in countries to be able to stop the dumping. You can only dump if a country allows you to dump. I'll be brief. Yeah. Let me start with the women, women in economies. This is so fundamental. Why is it fundamental? It's important that USAID prioritizes women in its programs, but that's not the reason why it should be most important. It should be the most important component of our approach to development in Africa that comes from inside African countries based on the cultural development of African economies. When you talk about capitalism in Africa, pre-colonialists, who were these capitalists? Mostly women. African capitalism in African culture was built on the back of women. Therefore, and this is part of what I say about the absence of a worldview because that includes understanding every man and his uncle and every woman and their aunt in the world today are capitalists. But capitalism is successful only in certain countries. It hasn't created the wealth of nations in Africa. And one of the reasons is because we are not interrogating capitalism properly. There are different types of capitalism. State capitalism, welfare, entrepreneurial, crony. And entrepreneurial capitalism is the best type of capitalism for African countries because it ties into African cultures. So when I was deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, we decided to do something about this. We set up a sort of venture capital fund, if you'll call it that, for micro and small enterprises for women with about a billion dollars. But we had a problem with access to this fund because when you set up a modern fund like that and you set up all sorts of accountabilities, bookkeeping and all that, there you now find a lot of the small business women challenged. So training, empowering African small and micro business women in terms of modern bookkeeping and how to run a modern enterprise is very important for them to be able to access the economic opportunity from some of these funds. But I think it's a very important part of our approach or should be to Africa's true economic transformation. Now on trade policy, on foreign dumping, I think it actually goes to the core of the issue of trade policy in Africa. I talked about it just slightly that global trade is actually keeping Africa down because what's the basis of global trade? The basis of global trade is 55 to 60% manufacturing. So if you're not a productive economy, if you don't have economic complexity in your economy, you cannot be effective in global trade. What does that mean for us? What it means for us is that we need to begin to think about smart protectionism. I know that this may not be politically correct, but let me explain what I mean. In the World Trade Organization, in the World Trade Organization, there is a provision for that. So you're actually operating within the framework of global trade where you can ask for a special and differentiated approach for your economy for maybe up to seven years if you're a less developed country. I think that African countries need to make better use of this to give themselves room for their infant industries to grow. Everybody, it's called kicking away the ladder. That's how the United States grew up. They were protectionists. That's how the United Kingdom and so many other developed countries. But of course, in the world now, it's different. Now, just to round up, let me mention one word on infrastructure. I talked about it as a major opportunity for American companies in Africa. And I think American companies should really take a very close look at this because by not focusing on infrastructure, they've created all the room and all the space for the Chinese. And the Chinese have been able to overwhelm the space because they're speaking to what many African countries see as their most important need and that's infrastructure. So that's just my last word on it. Thank you. Thank you. I believe we're gonna break for lunch. This has been a great panel. I think it's looked at kind of some of the challenges and the responsibilities that African governments and the US government have, but also some of the promising sectors on the horizon. New models of education and skilled building, venture capital sector, the fintech sector. So I wanna thank all of you very much for joining us. Thank you, thank you. Jennifer, thank you and your panel for an excellent discussion on economic issues which I am sure will continue over lunch. Lunch is going to be in the great hall to my left, your right, and there is free seating except for at the reserve tables. There are box lunches, three or four different kinds of sandwiches to choose from. We have approximately 15 minutes to get our sandwiches, drinks and take our seats. We're going to have a speech by General Waldheiser, the AFRICOM commander. So we've got about 15 minutes between now and when our next segment of the program begins. So I'll invite everyone to join us for lunch in the great hall. I'm David Chew. I have the privilege of serving as the president of the Institute of Transcendencies, one of the co-sponsors of today's event. And I have the further pleasure of introducing our luncheon speaker. But before I do, let me add, if I may, my welcome to those of our co-sponsors. It's delighted, I'm delighted to see the kind of exchange that has occurred already today, very heartening. Indeed, it was the reaction to the first event like this that we helped co-launch last year, focused on Africa, that led us to believe it's useful to repeat this kind of convocation. And I am convinced that it would be useful to contemplate at least trying to do this on an annual basis, hope that we can persuade all the corporate organizations to that end. It's especially heartening that we have the opportunity to hear from the commander of the United States, Africa command, General Thomas Waldhauser. General Waldhauser brings to that position, of course, the range of talent you would expect, a man of extraordinary military accomplishment, as you would forecast, of someone who reaches the four-star rank, he's commanded every level in the Marine Corps, platoon, company, battalion, Marine Expeditionary Unit, Division Marine Expeditionary Force. Perhaps equally important in forecasting his present responsibilities, he served one of the most, in my judgment, most challenging positions in the department, position that requires extraordinary diplomatic skill in the military bureaucracy. That is serving as the military assistant to the Secretary of Defense. Not a position most Americans know exists. Everyone in the department knows it exists because he's the gatekeeper to the Secretary. That means you have to deal with all the barons in the department, each of whom is convinced that his or her agenda, his or her issue or item is the most important thing the Secretary should consider. Of course, favorably accept the recommendations advanced. Of course, that's not always the case in the military assistant's job, is to try to make an outcome occur in which the barons depart, perhaps not satisfied, but nonetheless happy. And General Waldhauser successfully navigated that treacherous terrain. The other characteristic I think that you need in this kind of demanding position that for which he is responsible is the kind of mental acuity and energy that comes from being a talented athlete. And that perhaps the less known aspect of General Waldhauser's background, he is actually a champion hockey player. He helped his college team to a national hockey championship. Now, his outlook on his present responsibilities is perhaps exemplified by some of his testimony at the Center of Services Committee earlier this year, and I'm hopeful that the conversation that Nassim Mbogor is going to moderate that we'll be able to explore his thoughts on that set of points a bit further. And in that testimony, he said, and I quote, small but wise investments in the capability, legitimacy and accountability of African defense institutions offer disproportionate benefits to America, our allies, United States, and most importantly enable African solutions to African problems. General Waldhauser. Dr. Chu, thank you very much for those kind words. I really appreciate that. And Nancy, thank you for inviting me to come here today. And I have a confession at the outset that I must make. When you asked me several months ago, if I was interested in coming here today to make some remarks, I told you I'd get back to you. But the reason I did that was because I had to check the Washington Nationals baseball schedule to see if they were in town during this event. And they are, they played the Braves and the Dodgers over the weekend. So that was a huge impact, had a huge impact on me accepting the invitation to come from, so I'm based in Stuttgart for some of you who don't know. So I'm a big Nationals fan and this is an opportunity to see a game over the weekend. So I appreciate that very much. But thank you, thank you for asking me to come speak to you here today. Look at the outset, I would simply like to say that the men and women of AFRICOM, including our service components, our civilian workforce and our inter-agency partners, are all dedicated to tackling the many challenges on the African continent each day. And we are all very fortunate to have these fine people serving our nation, whether it's in Stuttgart at the headquarters or on the continent in various capacities. This afternoon, I would like to comment on two very broad subjects that hopefully will be of interest to you. Clearly, there are many topics that I could address today, but I thought the two that would be worthwhile are, first of all, talking about how the United States military, in this case AFRICOM, uses the military tool to support our ongoing political objectives on the continent, and I'll use Libya and Somalia as some examples there. And then the second topic that I would like to delve into is our strategic approach alongside with our allies and partners, how we build our primary mission is capacity building and development on the continent. So those are the two broad topics I'd like to discuss with you this afternoon. Now let me briefly begin with some background. 10 years ago, US AFRICOM was established as a stand-alone combatant command within the US Department of Defense with the overarching purpose of fostering long-term and strategic national interests on the continent. Now 10 years ago, I suspect many of you in this room were already working on policy matters in Africa, and you remember that there was quite a bit of discussion about how AFRICOM would complement and reinforce the broader US government engagement. Since that time, AFRICOM has made great strides over this relatively brief period, maturing into an organization viewed by many today as value-added to the challenges that we face on the continent. In this first decade of service, the command has contributed significantly to our national interests by working closely with countries' national governments and by building trust with partner national militaries. Our mission statement describes really three main tasks, to build defense capabilities, to respond to crisis and deter and defeat transnational threats. So I would like to begin this afternoon by talking with you about deterring and defeating these transnational threats. And again, I'll use Libya and Somalia as examples, as these two African countries have been top priorities for our command, certainly over the past year. And our discussion will show how US military operations are only a small part and by no means the only part of our strategic approach to Africa. In 2016, Prime Minister Faiz al-Sarraj, publicly and privately requested assistance from the United States and our European allies to rid the country of ISIS-Libya, which had seized territory and established a foothold in the western coastal city of Sert. ISIS had, for several years, imposed their oppressive will on the citizens and certainly destabilized an already fragile network. So over the course of about five months beginning in July of 2016, AFRICOM assisted Libyan forces aligned with the government of National Accord. US forces provided expertise and niche capability assistance such as advanced technology, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Moreover, our accurate and consistent close air support augmented ground forces that supported the GNA for a much needed capability. In all, we conducted over 500 precision strikes around the city of Sert during that five month period. In doing so, we supported the United Nations brokered government, that of the government of the National Accord and the militias who did the very heavy lifting in the restricted terrain and urban confines in the battle of Sert. Between AFRICOM, our US ambassador and the country team and the fledgling government, we established a strategic and trusting relationship based on the shared vision of a peaceful political resolution led and implemented by the Libyans themselves. Now our assistance had two important effects. First of all, it caused our Libyan military partners to redouble their efforts and sustain the fight in spite of some very serious and heavy casualties. All of the partners focused their efforts around the common goal to expel ISIS from Sert. Second, by putting the remaining elements of ISIS on the run into the remote deserts, we bought time and space for the Seraj government to take a stronger leadership role as the United Nations had intended. Today, we are focused on continuing to support the government of National Accord. We also are working to prevent all-out civil war in that country. We've opened a line of communication with General Haftar, who is the leading figure of the Libyan National Army, and we also, of course, are keeping up the pressure on the counterterrorism fight in that country. Again, all of these efforts are geared toward a political solution by the Libyans. Our work in Libya illustrates how the military instrument of power can be engaged as an element of stagecraft and in support of a strategic framework to make a positive contribution. Let me illustrate another example in Libya. This past June, in support of our ambassador's efforts to reaffirm the U.S. commitment to a political solution, we, AFRICOM and the U.S. military provided the necessary security for him to fly into Tripoli, where we visibly demonstrated U.S. presence and continue the dialogue. This was the first time in nearly five years that senior U.S. officials were on the ground in Libya. And without overstating the case, this was a significant event, especially in the eyes of the Libyan people and, of course, the government of national accord. As the Libyans turned their attention to the ongoing concerns, such as bringing oil production back online, we will continue working with the international community and other U.S. agencies, such as USAID, to foster the stability. We'll continue to monitor the transnational trends. As ISIS comes under increasing pressure in Iraq and Syria, some fighters continue to attempt to establish a foothold in Libya. And while each day, without a civil war, is a day of peace, a number of questions remain about how Libya will sustain this effort and move forward. What will Saraj's future be? Will Haftar attempt to take Tripoli by force? How will the efforts of the Egyptians, the Europeans and the Russians influence the future? Will there be democratic elections in 2018? Will the recently-assigned U.N. Secretary General Special Representative Salome make a difference in his efforts? And how should AFRICOM best support Libya's neighbors and the multinational coalition known as the Sahel G5, as they work to protect their borders from terrorism and trafficking emanating from Libya? I could go on. But as this story unfolds in the days and months ahead, the message from AFRICOM is that we are working hard to ensure the military tool is in step with and supporting the political process. And while the U.S. can help, as we've heard several times this morning, the resolution must come from the Libyans themselves. Let's move on to Somalia, because that's another example of our military efforts that are in support of a national government. In this case, the recently elected federal government of Somalia. From next door in Djibouti and inside in Mogadishu, we are working closely with our embassy and country team to ensure our military actions support President Farmuzza's strategy to defeat El Shabaab and allow the federal government to eventually take over security requirements for the country. This January, President Farmuzza was the first president elected in Somalia in nearly two decades. And he is making every effort to strike the right balance with the tribal and clan dynamics in order to establish legitimate federal government. Now, I've had the opportunity to engage with President Farmuzza on several occasions over the past months. He is fully aware of the challenges he faces and he is fiercely committed to making the federal government of Somalia relevant for the people. I also was able to accompany Secretary Mattis when he attended the London Conference on Somalia with the leaders from the international community this past spring. The purpose of the London gathering was to accelerate progress on security sector reform, build on the international response to the ongoing drought and the humanitarian crisis and agree to a new international partnership needed to keep Somalia on course for an increased peace and prosperity by 2020. Additionally, at this conference, President Farmuzza unveiled his national security framework for a national army, a national police force, and federal and state security forces with the intention of providing for the country's overall security architecture. AFRICOM's efforts are a component of the federal government of Somali's commitment. We are focused on coordinating and synchronizing international military assistance through the Somali-led strategy called the comprehensive approach to security. We also partner with the Somali National Army and provide training, advice, and equipment as they continue to develop their counter-terrorism expertise. This past spring, we recognized the need for our operations to have greater flexibility in a country the size of the Eastern U.S. Seaboard. Accordingly, we have been given enhanced authorization to keep up the pressure on the Al-Shabaab network, which continues to conduct terror strikes on Somali citizens. We have used this authority in a very judicious but very aggressive manner with the intention of providing legitimacy and support of President Farmugia and his government. This is the first time in many years in Somalia where our military kinetic actions are specifically linked to a strategy of a federal government. This is a very important point and, again, provides a roadmap to the use of the military tool in support of overarching diplomatic objectives. Recently, we assisted the Somalis through our intelligence collection capabilities as they facilitated the defection of Makhtar Robo, a former top leader in Al-Shabaab. In a boost to President Farmugia's leadership, Robo publicly swore allegiance to the federal government of Somalia and said he was committed to taking down Al-Shabaab. This particular defection offers some important insights. First, the Somalis led each aspect of the Robo defection operation, overcoming friction and hurdles along the way, which in the past may have derailed this mission. Second, they are now in a position to leverage this tactical victory for a strategic effect. We can help them get the message out and encourage more Al-Shabaab fighters to disarm, defect, and take advantage of President Farmugia's reconciliation efforts. This initiative has been made widely known through an information campaign that encourages education and jobs for the former Al-Shabaab members who pledge their support to the federal government. Overall, by facilitating improvements in security conditions, our military efforts in support of the Somali strategy for a stable governments in a stronger economy as well as an objective of holding democratic elections in 2021. So again, a legitimate federal government elected by in this case the Somali people provides the framework and the legitimacy for our military assistance. In sum, I hope you can see the common thread throughout our efforts in Libya and Somalia as well as across the continent that it's a collaborative approach with the African nations in the lead. We believe this is the best way to make the greatest contribution towards peaceful solutions. As indicated, a core tenant of AFRICOM's strategic framework is a commitment to use the military instrument of power not on its own, but in support of diplomatic and development efforts. In fact, very few, if any of the challenges the U.S. faces in Africa can be resolved with military force as the primary agent. Instead, our strategy places an emphasis on U.S. military capabilities employed in a supporting role with nations that have compatible objectives. On that thought, I would like to transition to my second main topic of the afternoon, which is to explore the capacity building and development aspect of our mission. And I'll begin with the idea of the framework that sometimes is phrased as by, with, and through, but I want to talk about it from the operational and strategic perspective. So let me talk briefly about how we broadly conceptualize this approach at AFRICOM. Security operations are conducted almost exclusively by the partner nations' security forces and specifically not American service members. Avans and Burkina Faso provide a very good example of this concept. In January of 2016, a group of terrorists attacked a hotel and held a number of hostages. The government received criticism for the slow response and appearance of relying on Western forces to resolve this situation. Since that time, the Burkina force counterterrorism forces, Burkina Faso counterterrorism forces have continued to train with AFRICOM military forces to be able to better handle these types of threats by extremists. A few weeks ago, a group of armed men attacked another hotel in Burkina Faso and in a real world test of their readiness, the Burkinaabe security forces responded much more professionally and much more quickly. They effectively mitigated the situation. And what is interesting is that in this process, they turned down offers of assistance from the US military medical team and from a French counterterrorism force. So when we compare these two attacks 18 months apart, we can see how Burkina Faso successfully enhanced their counterterrorism forces' capabilities to handle these emerging security situations. AFRICOM served as an enabling role in this progress. And by doing so, we support the president's stated goal, President Burkina Faso's stated goal that bolstering his national security forces is one of his top priorities. In terms of the second element of by, with, and through framework that we talked about, with these forces based on their request and their needs, we work with these forces based on their request and needs. Our efforts may include training, advising, assisting, and where we have specific capabilities, perhaps some high-end technology, which when partnered with these forces gives them a higher capability. In other instances, we help with our equipment or simply education programs. A good example here would be in Tunisia, where leaders of the Tunisian Defense Forces are steadily transforming their military into an agile counterterrorism force. Through such arrangements, such as the State National Guard Program, or the State Partnership Program with the National Guard, soldiers from Wyoming have worked with their Tunisian counterparts in a long time and an ongoing effort. This program, by the way, started in 2003. So the continuity that it brings is certainly significant. Now, one of the collaborative initiatives was between Wyoming and Tunisia, was the establishment of an academy for professionally developing the Tunisian non-commissioned officers. This type of relationship supports our aligned objectives for the long-term growth of these defense forces. In the third element of AFRICOM's strategic framework, the compatible strategic objectives of both the US and the partnered nations are achieved through a cooperative relationship in which AFRICOM plays a supporting role. A couple of months ago, a severe storm took place in Chad where the Chadian Air Force had significant damage to their aircraft and hangar facilities. In a country about the same size of Alaska, their air mobility is obviously very, very vital to missions such as border security and the like. However, Chad is a poor country with limited flexibility when it comes to meeting unanticipated expenses. And by the way, Chad is a very vital partner and a member of the multinational joint task force for protecting civilians from violent extremist organizations in the Lake Chad Basin area. Now, the US has some means to assist Chad and we work very hard by stepping in and providing assistance to help repair these facilities that were ruined in the storm and we are helping them keep up their efforts to maintain their regional security. This is the issue of by, within, through. So in some, this framework rests on two key elements. First, US partner nation strategic objectives are compatible and aligned. And second, operations are conducted primarily by the partner nation and the US is in a supporting role. African leaders often tell us how important it is to develop African solutions for African problems and we can appreciate how difficult it is for a proud nation to accept help from the outsiders but the concept of by, within, through recognizes the importance of host nation ownership and a fostering enduring relationships based on trust. At the same time, Afrikaans interests are fully vested in the approach of diplomacy, development and defense to synchronize our efforts and make the most of our collective talents. In addition, we work alongside our allies from historic Western friends to non-traditional partners in Africa such as Turkey and the United Arab Emirates and members of the European Union, the African Union and United Nations. All that said, our greatest investment is the long-term objective of enhancing the capacity of our partner nation's defense forces, ideally with our partners with a through a whole of government approach. This tenant reflects our view that prevention is always better than intervention. And of course, over the course of the year we conduct over 3,500 exercises and programs and engagements on the continent. And these efforts are tailored to span a range from training soldiers who serve as medics to exercises at sea to respond to piracy. So for example, we recently conducted an exercise named African Endeavour which focuses on cybersecurity and communications. This year's event hosted by the Malawi Defense Forces brought together a truly diverse group representing 42 African countries, experts from business including Microsoft and Barclays Bank, academic organizations and training centers, such as the United Nations Signal School and even the Dutch computer emergency response team. African Endeavour focused on how to improve communications between various organizations and countries during peacekeeping and disaster relief operations. This focus on cybersecurity also created an opportunity where we all need to approve upon. And this type of exercise and the accomplishments of the 5,000 to 6,000 US service members who are on the continent daily will make a significant difference although perhaps not a lot of headlines around the world. Nevertheless, the bottom line is that day in and day out these efforts proactively and consistently build the capacity of our partners to protect their own citizens and respond to crisis and threats. Now before I conclude this afternoon, I just wanted to take a minute to talk about China. It was brought up this morning, but it's something that has popped on our radar screen and I want to spend just a few minutes on that. As most of you in here know, China has completed significant and much needed infrastructure projects as part of its one built one road strategy which it likens to a modern day silk road connecting markets of the world. Trade between China and Africa in 2016 by some accounts was estimated to be over $300 billion. Before the United Nations in September of 2015, President Xi announced $100 million in aid to the African Union and to supporting US peacekeeping operations with additional 8,000 Chinese police officers. This investment has the capacity to transform the African continent, improving households, providing livelihood and the like. Better ports, better roads, better railways, better power grids, these are all desperately needed. The Chinese also recently completed construction on their first overseas military base located several kilometers from our base at Djibouti. And as you would expect, this presents unique challenges but also unique opportunities found nowhere else in the world. This summer, China assigned the first soldiers to this base in Djibouti and expressed interest with us to conduct amphibious training between Chinese forces and US Marines. Across the continent, we have shared interests with African stability. We see many areas where we can cooperate with the Chinese military. For example, we both support UN peacekeeping missions and training with African defense forces. The fact that we have mutual interest in Africa means that we can and should cooperate. This fact does not obscure the reality of fundamental worldwide policy differences. However, we don't see these differences as being insurmountable. Earlier this year, Secretary of Defense Mattis pointed out that our two countries can and do cooperate for mutual benefit. And we will pledge to work closely with China where we share a common cause. So in sum, our goal is to work with China and Africa as fellow stakeholders in peace, security and stability for the continent. In closing this afternoon, I hope I've given you a better sense of how AFRICOM approaches the main tasks in our mission statement, building partner capacity, and primarily we talked about defeating and deterring transnational threats. When we consider how Africa will need an estimated 20 million new jobs each year to keep up with the pace of the growing youth population that we talked about this morning, we realize how compelling the reasons are to work together to create conditions for jobs and of course also hope for the future. Today's symposium certainly accelerates our understanding of all of this and the organizations we represent, how we can best develop our thinking and come up with innovative approaches for the continent. So let me just close once again by Nancy, thanking you for the opportunity to come and speak today. And I found the discussions this morning very, very invaluable. So once again, thanks very much. Thank you, General. And I will send a thank you note to the NAACS as well. Very happy that worked out and that's a good tip. As long as we can get Harper back here for the playoffs, we'll be okay. We'll open up the floor to the audience for some questions. But I wanted to lead off, if I may, you spoke quite a bit about, and thank you for that, that was a wonderful tour of the horizon. You have an interesting and expansive command. You spoke a lot about Somalia as one of your priorities on the continent. Actually, we recently here at USIP hosted a tabletop exercise in partnership with AFRICOM, with State Department, USAID, academics and NGOs to look at the future of Somalia, particularly in light of the transitions underway and the potential withdrawal of Amazon. And you talked about the critical role of security as Somalia moves through this transition. How do you see that withdrawal of Amazon and what impact will it have on the role that AFRICOM plays? Well, thanks Nancy. First of all, the withdrawal of Amazon is something that's been discussed kind of on and off again now for quite some time. And I think it's important to remember that Amazon has been on the ground for well over a decade now. They've taken many casualties and they've really beaten back Al Shabbat from a high watermark several years ago. So there's no doubt about the fact that they've made significant contributions. But to be quite honest in the last couple of years, the offensive nature, meaning taking the attack to the enemy really has not been there. The key though is, and this was brought out in the London conference, is that the Somali National Armed Forces, the Somali National Security Forces have got to step up and take ownership of this problem. Because one of the challenges of course has been the training of these Somali National Army forces and there's been a lot of training and a lot of people trained over the last decade as well. So one of the things that we're concentrating on right now is to try to pull together all the efforts because we're not, as you well know, the people in this audience certainly know, we're not the only ones there. So we have international partners, the European unions involved in training, the Turks are involved in training, the Emiratis are involved in training, we're involved in training. But we've got to pull all that together and synchronize it and we've got to get the Somali National Army to take ownership. And of course one of the key elements there is the institution building of the National Army. You've got to have a headquarters. You've got to have an OSD like situation where not only are you generating forces that can go out and fight and go out and control, but you've got to have the institutions that can pay them, train them and decide when to use them. So it's a very, very large task. The concern obviously is the next election cycle in Somalia is 2021. And the goal is that Somali National Security Forces will be able to take over security for that election. Meanwhile, there's ongoing back and forth from the AU about whether or not the extension of the pay of the troops and so on and so forth, and that continues to be there. But I think I would just sum up by saying that Amazon's withdrawal, they'll withdraw at some point in time, but it needs to be some kind of transitional phase where certainly around the Mogadishu area, you just can't leave. There's gonna have to be some kind of transition. And the Somali National Army and President Farmuja is very well aware of this. The National Security Forces have got to step up to the plate and take ownership here. And I would just finish by saying that in the last few months, we kind of joked earlier about trying to have Somalia and optimism in the same sentence because it's inch by inch. So I can assure you of that in one step forward and two steps back, which you all know. But we've taken on some operations that we're trying to get the Somali National Army out front, have them take ownership. It's a slow process, but in some, Amazon is still needed there. Their withdrawal is one of these things that's talked about quite a bit, but I think that Somali National Army needs to step up and everyone's aware of that and that's where we're trying to go. Great, thank you. Open for questions. Please say who you are and wait for the mic, which will come running towards you and we'll start right here. And we'll take a few questions and gang them up. I don't know, I can't remember. Good afternoon, sir. Chris D'Amisa, the Office of Naval Intelligence. I was wondering what the three conditions or benchmarks that you will, that you'd like to see from Libya in 2018 to show that they're making progress to coming out of the Civil War and the Revolution. Can I just take that if you don't mind? Yeah. So thanks for that question and let me just tell you that one of the interesting things with regards to Libya over the last year has been is the close relationship that AFRICOM and the trusting relationship that AFRICOM has made with President Siraj, the trusting relationship that we've made with Ambassador Bodhi and the country team, located of course in Tunis, and we've really been in this together. And one of the things I've learned from my good friend Ambassador Bodhi is that when it comes to Libya, trying to lay out a roadmap of a way ahead is something that's probably an exercise of futility. And the horizon is, we talk about long-term horizons and a big plan and so forth, but I think if Ambassador Bodhi was here, he'd probably say the same thing that if we can get out about six weeks at a time, we're probably making progress. And I think that over the past, and let me just put this, and I'll just say this too, I think that the new Secretary-General's special representative and the UNGA talks next week or next week in New York, there may be something there because they have been waiting for someone like Salome to come and pull all this together. We've had very interesting discussions with Haftar. We've had very interesting discussions with the Egyptians. There are a lot of people trying to solve this problem, but at the end of the day, it's just to say, not to be trite, but the Libyans had to do this themselves. And I think that getting together, Siraj and Haftar, first of all in the UAE and then later on in France, those are two huge steps. They don't just not gonna be the end all, but again, those are two huge steps. So every day, this issue of civil war in Libya is one that's real every day. And I think that our efforts over the last six months, and when I say this, I mean the US government, political efforts primarily, that we obviously support have gone a long way to keep Haftar at least not taking Tripoli by force. And they've gotten together twice, and I'm by no means trying to paint a rosy picture here, but they agreed on elections sometime in 2018. And there's probably two or three things that are important if those elections are gonna either go or be successful. First of all, the Libyan population needs to want to have the elections, and there needs to be security that will allow elections to take place. Those are two very fundamental things that if that's gonna be the next kind of focal point, the next measure effectiveness to get things moving forward, those two things have to be in place. So in sum, Libya has been an extremely interesting endeavor. It's very complex, a lot of people and spoilers trying to work their agendas and so on and so forth. But I think that through the leadership of our ambassador, and they want us to be involved by the way. I mean, one thing that there's two things that I think they're all interested, that everybody in Libya can agree on. Only maybe there's more than two, but so far I've only found two. And one of them is they don't want ISIS there. They don't want ISIS there. Whether you're GNA, LNA, Ms. Rotten, Zintan, they don't want ISIS there. They agree on that. So we've leveraged that. We use that as we move forward. And I think that the second thing I would just say is that they want to find a solution themselves, but they want to find a solution with US leadership involved. That's the second point, really the key point is that they want US leadership involved. That doesn't mean that the US has to be out in front of everything. I mean, one thing I've learned, the UN special representatives has a very, very unique place in this. And all indications are that Salome has been, he's well-liked by all sides, and I think he's gonna make a difference, but they all want the US to be engaged. So when we flew back into Tripoli in June, you know, it was to a certain degree, there's the optic is there, we all understand that. But the point that was made is that the United States is there, interested, we haven't left. And that to a large degree, it'd be hard for me to ever prove this, but to a large degree I believe that has helped this idea of trying to make Haftar and Saraj not go at each other by trying to keep the negotiations ongoing and keep it moving on a positive path. That's a long answer, but it's six weeks at a time. As far as I've ever seen Ambassador Bode and he's had a lot of people ask him, what's your plan? I don't have a, you know, I got a plan for the next couple of weeks. And if we can get through that, then we'll get it the next couple of weeks because that's where we are. You got a lot of appreciative nods on that point. In the back, gentlemen, straight, yep. Bob Berg, Alliance for Peace Building and former senior advisor to UNS Economic Commission for Africa. Very pleased to hear about your capacity building with militaries, another area of capacity building need is related. We can relate to this in the United States as well helping police forces be more protective of their people. Do you have a perspective of what the United States might be able to do best to help police forces in Africa? No, I'll just take that one real clean of mind because I can only remember like one at a time. I don't wanna, you know, because if you take four or five then you start talking, you don't know what you're talking about, you know. Of course you might say that anyways about me, but I don't know. Listen, so a couple of things. One of the things that's unique about AFRICOM is let's just start right at the top. And I've said this to several people, we have two deputies. We have a military deputy, three star, admiral and now it's the Air Force Lieutenant General. And we have a former ambassador who's our other deputy. And when I came into this job, I was somewhat skeptical about that because I'd never worked where you had two deputies and didn't really see the need. But I say that whoever's idea that was at the birth of AFRICOM 10 years ago is a great idea because we utilize our civilian ambassador in ways that I don't think we could communicate with our embassies, country teams and the like because he speaks their language. And he's in a great position to advocate our intentions and try to make sense of that to the other ambassadors on the continent. So that's very helpful. The second thing is this is what makes us different than something like CENTCOM. I mean, we don't wanna be another CENTCOM. Yes, the kinetic actions that we are involved in, they take up a lot of our time every day. And I think that's one of the things that over time has probably changed in the AFRICOM mission is the fact that there's really only two combatant commanders who are actually dropping bombs today on ISIS, CENTCOM and AFRICOM. Life kinda got on the way and things change and we devote a lot of time to that. And we're very, very conscious about what that means. I mean, we understand our striking of El Shabaab or rice and so forth. It's gotta be tied to a political effort and we're very cautious about that. But the capacity building is where we really need to have the, and those are short-term solutions. Killing ISIS this afternoon is a short-term solution. We hope over time it'll accumulate, it'll support a strategic objective, but as you well know, we've been killing ISIS al-Qaeda for 15 years now. So it's obviously, we got a lot of work to do. But the capacity building is the long-term solution for Africa. The capacity building, in our case with other militaries, is to hopefully provide a secure environment where the development or education where businesses wanna come in. That environment will start from that security and all those things we talked about today in terms of development will be able to take hold. Now, the gauge that I use is a real simple one when it comes to training other militaries. And I'm gonna talk about the police just for a second at the end. It's the old adage. If you've got an African military walking down the road in a village, if the mothers and children are running inside their huts, those guys aren't doing their job. If when the African military walks down the road in a village and the women and children, the mothers and children are coming out and shaking their hands and talking to them, then that military's doing its job. So in a very simplistic way, that's how we measure success in terms of capacity building for our militaries. To be quite honest on the police business, when it comes to police, that's really not what the military does. So that State Department programs and EU for the most part, European Union covers a lot of the police training is something that we as a, for the most part, don't engage in. We engage in training the militaries and do very little, if any, on police activities. But US Institute of Peace does, if you wanna hear more about that work. Woman right here, beautiful headdress, yeah. Good afternoon. I'm Amira Woods. Thank you for all the organizers that put this incredible symposium together. I'm also a Nats fan. But I have to say, there are a lot of concerns that many of us had 10 years ago when AFRICOM was established. General Ward is in the room, so I'm sure he remembers many of these debates. And 10 years later, I think many of the critiques have borne out in terms of particularly the resourcing of the Department of Defense, almost privileging it over state and aid over diplomacy and development. And I guess the quick question is, is there a review 10 years later of AFRICOM? Can there be one? Is there an inspector general, for example, that could lead an independent review? Because I think many of us, particularly in this administration now, what, as Africa analysts, are concerned as we see so many vacant seats in many other places in this town, we see DOD fully staffed, fully functioning, fully resourced. And the concerns are many, but primarily that the privileging of militaries as we hear environments where young people are rising up, political repression is increasing, militaries are often on the wrong side of history. And unfortunately the DOD has not had a very good track record, whether it's Libya or Somalia or Mali or many other places. So many questions there, but to thank the organizers for creating the space for the opportunity to raise those concerns and to really push back to see the extent to which there can be some kind of an independent assessment 10 years in. Thank you. Well, first of all, thank you very much for all those that we could probably talk the rest of the afternoon on some of those items. I think the issue of an assessment 10 years, that's a very fascinating suggestion. So I'll take that on board. There's probably some ways we can do this ourselves. And I guess the purpose would be is to see kind of how we've contributed, how we can do better. Is that kind of the thought behind your question? Yeah. No, that's, yeah, that's very good. Look, I'll just, let me just say this. Interestingly, and I hate, in testimony last fall, it was very interesting to me, this was right, it was in March and I testify with the combatant commander from SENTCOM. And this is just as the first budget was coming out, talking about reductions in all the development piece and so forth and sitting there on one side of the aisle on the, let's just say on the left side of the aisle, General Wallace, don't you agree that we need, we should not cut the USAID and development budget on the other side of the aisle from the right? General Wallace, don't you agree that we should not cut the budget and so on? And that's about the time. There was a couple pieces written, Bono had written a piece, there was a letter from 25 General saying we shouldn't cut the budget and Secretary Maddus' famous quote, if you cut the State Department's budget you got to buy more bullets for me, that was all going around at that time. And one of the things that didn't take really a lot of prompting for me was to certainly underscore the need for the development side of this, the need to not decrease the budgets for USAID, State Department and the like, because that's the long-term solution here. And I came away from that hearing rather optimistic that both sides of the aisle realized this. And I remember talking with our ambassador, Ambassador Rubenstein in Tunisia, the Tunisians were all very upset because they were going to get hammered in terms of their marks, but his guidance of them was just wait and see what the final number turns out to be. And so for the Tunisian example, I think they didn't lose anything, they may even gain a little thing after all the drama about cutting. So yes, it's year to year, understand, but the military guys, I'll just tell you this, the military guys realized the necessity for development perhaps more than most because we see this day in and day out. We have been striking El Shabaab and Al-Qaeda for quite some time, and we're still at it. In Africa, the long-term issue with this youth bulge, and you know, your people, you know it better than I do, what education for young girls does in terms of their ability to earn money, to have a livelihood, all that kind of stuff. So you'll never have a problem with the military guys saying development is important, I can assure you of that. Let's go over here. Thanks, Kim Dozier. Sir, you mentioned in your speech what sounded like a jobs program for El Shabaab. If they pledged loyalty, then they got employed. How successful, can you go into some details? How successful has that been, and how is that at fighting the ideology? I mean, do you need a separate program as well to fight the ideology, or can you sap Shabaab's strength by employing people? Thank you. I mean, I would start to answer that question by talking about the drivers that put young men, young boys into these extremist organizations. And you, I don't need to preach to this audience, you know what the drivers are, and we've touched upon those this morning. Education, jobs, a livelihood, a hope for the future, these are all things that are necessary, and in the long-term way, has to do with individuals not being attracted to bonus money, or even being kidnapped, or promises that come from extremist organizations. This is the long-term solution. Look, when it comes to the whole issue of defection and so on, it's a centerpiece of President Farmouj's strategy to try to get some of the key leadership of El Shabaab to defect, and then the theory, of course, would be the rest would come. There are four centers around the country of Southern Somalia where these locations are to defect, but the truth is, you gotta have a lot in place. I mean, it's one thing to say we want you to defect, but you've gotta have a lot in place, not the least of which is the culture and the communities where these people will come back to, they need to be accepted. Some of the cultures, as you well know on the continent, won't accept, regardless of what you actually did as a member of the violent extremist organization, in some cultures you would never be accepted, in other cultures you would be. So it's a very, very complicated issue. It's part of the strategy. We continue to work with our USAID from AFRICOM. We try to have the discussion of how we can help President Farmouj, because what if the dog catches the car? What if tomorrow El Shabaab in mass decides I want to defect, and by the way, you promised jobs and education and the like? We've gotta be able to deliver on that, because I think one of the other elements I would say, when somebody like a guy like this Robo who just defected, there are a lot of people who are watching. There are a lot of other high level leaders who are observing how he's treated. Is the government, does it stand up and do what they say they were gonna do? How is this guy treated? And if he's treated poorly or they don't do with him, then that might hurt the effort. So the long answer to the question, defection is complicated. There are a lot of things that have to be into place. Promising jobs and education is part of that, but the country needs to be able to, the country in this case, Somalia, needs to be able to deliver in that regard, because once this happens, there's no second chance. So it's a strategy that certainly has some risk to it if you can't deliver on those things. And of course, Nigeria and Tunisia in particular are facing similar issues of returning fighters or people leaving terrorist organizations. Are you able to help bridge with lessons and practices in the country? Well look, I think one of the examples I would use here and I don't think Dan Mazina is here today, but Dan Mazina is the, he's not a special envoy because if he was, he still wouldn't be in a job, but he's a special somebody and he's not an envoy. And he's in charge really of the whole government approach to what's going on in the Lake Shad Basin region with regards to Boko Haram at ISIS West Africa. And there are several examples, in fact some of my team is here from Africa, but in Niger, in Difa, in Niger, the governor there has got a very good program to reintegrate these people back in because look, it happens all the time. We'll get 25 guys who come out of the woods and they'll ask, why did you join Boko Haram? And 24 of them will say it was a job, it was livelihood, I needed to feed my family, that's what it was. And so we have some examples and I would say right now if you ask me on the continent, the best place, the best program in place that's hopefully gonna gain traction is Lake Shad Basin and it's primarily a personal, it's Dan Mazine's personal involvement here which has all the elements of government on track to try to deal with the whole Boko Haram ISIS West Africa problem. Okay, way in the back. Hi, Dick Parra from the Institute for Defense Analysis. Thank you for your comments on Libya, it's very interesting. You talked about reaching out to General Haftar and the Libyan National Army and so forth, but you didn't mention Russian support for General Haftar and the Libyan National Army and how significant that's been in the past year, perhaps enabling General Haftar and the LNA to take control of the oil fields. Has this changed your calculus? Is it a game changer in the area? What does it mean for the future? Does it make peace and the GNA more possible, less possible? If it has changed your calculus, could you explain how? Well, thanks very much for the question. First of all, to be fair, Saraj has visited Russia too. So both Haftar and Saraj have visited Russia. And I think that if you had to characterize it, when Saraj visits Russia, it's about help to the peace process. It's about help to get a political solution. When Saraj, when Haftar visits, if I may, it's all about support and weapons and that type of thing. The Russian government in public has stated that they support the Libyan political agreement and they don't want to have the weapons embargo lifted and that they want to have a political solution. Now what they do behind the scenes is a different story. But the issue on Russia has to do with influence, influence in the Med, influence in that area. And it's something that we're very interested in. We watch very closely. But there's no doubt about the fact that, but like many countries, I mean many countries that are, the French, the Italians, certainly President Saraj is the compromised candidate, the UN-backed GNA. But most countries have a line of communication open to Haftar as well. And that's designed to be able to talk to both of these individuals. Because if I had a nickel for every time I either saw or read or was told that a Libyan political solution is gonna require to deal with Haftar, okay. So if that's the case, if that's the case, then we have to be able to have a discussion with Haftar. We need to be able to talk to Haftar, not only to, if you get to a point where he's part of the political solution, but also this whole idea of just trying to stop civil war inside Libya as well. So in some, I guess the Russians have been involved. But both have visited there. But I think that you can draw your own conclusion in terms of support that they provide Haftar and the LNA. We have time for two more questions back here. Is this on? Yes. Thank you sir for coming. My name is James Carlson. I work at the Office of Naval Intelligence. This is a two-parter. The first is I don't often get to see my customers up front. So I just wanted to know, are we serving your interests? And the second one is that we talk about partnerships all the time. You probably got the most rigorous partnership agreements in the entire DoD. You got to borrow stuff from Sankam, U-Com. You got NAV, NAV-UR for the Libya crisis, for example. Could you give us one, two, maybe even three ideas on how do we build coalitions within our U.S. government itself and just within our workplaces? Okay, I'll try to do that. So first of all, the intelligence in AFRICOM, in the African region. You know this, but maybe some in the audience do not. So the intelligence organization for AFRICOM is located primarily in two places. We have maybe a third of our intelligence force in Stuttgart and the other two thirds or so are located in the U.K. And it's a very interesting setup. We've got a lot of really smart young people who are extremely motivated in terms of their desire to try to wrap their arms and heads around these challenges that we face on the continent. 1,000 languages or whatever it is, 800 different nationalities. There are some significant challenges that we have and we can't find enough people that can speak all the languages that we need to have and so forth, some significant challenges. So look, this is what I would say. We have to be innovative in our intelligence collection. We're never gonna have what we would like to have and we understand that and that train has left the station. So instead of sitting around wringing our hands and become paralyzed that we can't do this or can't do that, we really are aggressive in terms of being innovative and smart in how we use what we have. And I think that there's probably not a combatant commander who would come up here today and say I have enough or we know everything we need to know and I certainly wouldn't be one of those. But what I would say is that the intelligence community, the intelligent professionals do magic with the assets that we have. And I'd call our assets adequate. We gotta understand that and there's a mindset that we have to try to get into our workforce, both military and civilian, we are not the main effort. Core ISIS for example, if we're talking about kinetic operations, core ISIS in Iraq and Syria is the main effort. We're global ISIS and so we're kind of the supporting attack out there. Okay, I got it. And if you understand that and if you kind of take that mindset into this, I think that if anybody who's incorporated that or inculcated that is certainly the intelligence community. So we'd always like to know more, but it's kind of funny, Siraj, he always comes to us and asks us who's supporting him. I said, hey, you need to figure that one out for yourself. I can't tell you what militia is doing what today. But anyways, that's that. Look, when it comes to building coalitions, I don't know how to answer that right now today other than the fact that there are certain partner countries that we work with either clandestinely or intelligence collection wise that we've got very good relationships with. And I think that those are well established. We continue to nurture those. Look, let me give you maybe an example here. So we talked about by within through and we can't be everywhere in the continent. You know the size of the continent, you know the threats. So the French, quite frankly, the G5 is a hell crowd in that area, Mali and the like. The French have been there now for, I don't know, four, five, six years. We, so they're doing the work and we provide them all kinds of support. We've been providing them support for years and sometimes it's intelligence and that's not a secret. So that's a partner with by within through. It's in our best interests that they kind of keep the organizations JNIM and don't ask what that stands for, but that's the collaboration of the groups that are there. They're taking that on and that's good. So we help and we foster and we provide support and we, I don't know if you would call that a coalition but in a by within through strategy on the continent, they are taking care of an area that certainly we have interests in but let them do it because there's only so much of us that can go around. One more. I think we need to close to, I'm getting a nod from Ambassador Carson, but I want to thank you. You've had enough. No, because we have more, don't go away, we have more discussion to happen this afternoon but General Walters, I cannot thank you enough for coming and joining us today for sharing with all of us your views, perspectives and experiences on the continent and very much appreciate the approach that you described in terms of how you are handling the challenges and the opportunities. So thank you for being with us. Please join me in thanking General Walters. Alex, how's the note-taking sure going? The note-taking is going well. See you there. Thank you. Hope we don't lose our audience. Thank you. Thank you. We're almost there. General's coming back in. So I said that General was coming back in. So I'm going to go ahead and take a picture of him. He doesn't have to take a picture of me. I mean, maybe I should do it. He's coming back in, so you don't have to worry about me. He's trying to get you in. Hello, hello, hello again. We're going to resume with this afternoon's session. This panel is on opportunities and challenges in the security sector. Ambassador George Ward, who is a research staff member for the Institute of Defense Analysis will lead and serve as the moderator for this panel. We will go straight through now, so if anyone needs to leave to get a cup of coffee or to use any of the facilities, you should slip out easily and come back in. We're going to do this panel, and then we're going to have a closing conversation following this panel with Ambassador Ruben Brigady, with Ambassador Jindai Frazier, and Kate Almquist from the Africa Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University will be the moderator of that session. After that, we will have some closing remarks from a Deputy, Principal Deputy over at ODNI. But we're going to go straight through, and I'm going to turn this over to Ambassador George Ward to lead the next session. Johnny, thank you very much, and welcome to the panel three and to the afternoon session. As Johnny said, we are going to focus on opportunities and challenges in security sector cooperation. We have the advantage of taking the floor immediately following General Walthauser's forward-looking and very interesting account of his command's challenges and opportunities in promoting security on the continent of Africa. He's certainly given us a lot to chew on this afternoon. We also have the disadvantage of starting our schedule after five and a half hours of presentations and discussions and a good lunch. So I'm confident, however, that the quality of our panelists will overcome this challenge. We live, as they always say, in a time of change and perhaps a time of transition in the way the countries of Africa and their external partners look at the continent's security challenges. It's a time when initiatives such as the Sahel G5 and the multinational joint task force in the Lake Chad region are providing hope that there can be African solutions to African problems. It's also a time when challenges such as migration and terrorism have sparked greater attention by Western partners to African problems. But it's also a time when questions of resources for the support of peace operations are being raised and those resources are stretched thinly and being looked at very carefully. So our panelists will focus on the U.S.-African relationships in the security sector. They'll speak to a variety of questions, including how effective have those efforts been? How can Africans help the United States mesh effectively with recent African multilateral security initiatives? And looking toward the future, what are the key challenges inherent in the security relationships between the United States and the countries of Africa? You have the biographies of our panelists in your program, so I'm not going to recite those distinguished backgrounds in detail. Just to say that Ambassador Liberata Mula-Mula, at my far right, your left, has had 35 years of diplomatic experience and served as the ambassador of Tanzania to the United States and Mexico from 2013 to 2015. Amanda Dorey is a member of the senior executive service and currently a faculty member at the National War College. Most recently she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs, an assignment that followed her service as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Strategy. And our friend Emmanuel Quasianing is the director of the Faculty of Academic Affairs and Research at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Center in Accra, Ghana. He's also held several high-level positions with the government of Ghana, the African Union, and academia. I'm going to ask Quasie to set the scene with an initial presentation. He'll be followed by Amanda, and then Ambassador Mula-Mula will be the cleanup hitter to continue that baseball and analogy gonads for our panel. Quasie? Well, thank you very much, George, and let me thank those who invited me to come here. Let me state something very clear right from the beginning. I work at the Kofi Annan Peacekeeping Training Center, but I don't have the diplomatic swagger of Mr. Kofi Annan. So I'm going to say things as they are. And also because, you know, my 35 years of experience I've worked with the military. So my parents' greatest fear is that I've almost become like a soldier. So I'm going to speak like General World House and date. It's great fun being an African now experiencing that Africa now has some priority of sorts, recognized for its geopolitical significance, and of course the challenges that it faces to itself, but increasingly its inability to respond to those challenges affecting the whole world. And therefore the world is now beginning to wake up. If not for anything at all, the Ebola crisis did show that neglecting Africa is a dangerous business. But it's not only that. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic background is beginning to threaten not only the Sahel, but it's also threatening the countries above the Sahel and further down south. The general told us that the Libyans don't want Islamic State. But if the Libyans don't want Islamic State, where would they go? They will come down south, weak armies, useless borders, disenchanted populations, a youth group bulging that watches the suave videos of Islamic State in Al-Qaeda and Islamic Maghreb. Getting them prepared to sell their skills to anyone who will pay for them, and particularly when they have the capacity to strike a blow against the African State. That gives them cashier with the larger population. It makes them role models. Without your respect, nobody in this room is a role model for any of the African youths. We are perceived as part of the State. And George, let me take one minute to explain this thing about the State. The African State, as we all work with, is not what represents the people of the continent. That is the modern State, corrupt, bogus, unrepresentative of the dreams and aspirations of the majority of the population, failed to deliver on the optimism of the independence movement. And it is this State that we deal with that has been superimposed on a traditional State that most people relate to, that they respect, that they dignify, that they fear, that they go to for their problems to be resolved. The nature of their relationship has become inverted. And it is located, and it is within the interstices of the struggle for influence between the modern and the traditional systems that we need to understand where those who want to undermine the State are located. So what is this African realism that I am talking about? What I'm talking about is an appeal for new thinking and approaches about what we perceive to be the challenges of this continent, and to be frank, there are multiple Africans that we are talking about. There's no one single African. I think the general said thousands of languages, hundreds of nationalities, and that poses particular challenges in terms of how we understand and appreciate these problems. And therefore, in talking about partnerships and response mechanisms, we need to talk about two crucial things. One type of partnerships are we talking about, and what should be the content of the partnership. The basic argument is very simple. Africa does matter, and it continues to grow to matter, and these security challenges are no more African security challenges, but global challenges. But the way that we understand this African realism evokes what I term as multiple diverse and sometimes extremely confusing and contradictory characterizations. The most positive of them as we see as an emerging continent and the hopeful continent. So George gave me four questions to answer, and I'll start. How effective are Africa's multilateral arrangements? On paper, they are fantastic. The rhetoric is good. The continent has some of the greatest protocols and conventions that you can see anywhere. An African Heads of States and Government Summit has about 35 to 40 Gulf Stream 4 jets packed, but translating the rhetoric into operational responsiveness is a challenge. And General Warthouse knows this, and a couple of the ambassadors in this room know this, that we've worked lyrical about an African standby force for years, but there's no force that can fight, because underpinning armies themselves have been hollowed out, underfunded, politicized, ethnicized and incapable of telling the political class that they are issuing wrong orders. The police service that the general didn't speak about, there's nothing much to write home about. So there's a problem. And this is where the capacity building staff comes in. There's an unwillingness from our partners to recognize that the armies and the police and the uniformed forces just can't deliver except when they are giving specific targeted nuanced and differentiated types of training. Two, there's a huge dissonance between the voluntarily agreed principles inherent in these documents and the operational actions of the uniformed forces. And it's not just the uniformed forces. The political class needed to drive how the uniformed forces function, playing that oversight role themselves don't know how the security and intelligence services work. Across board this morning we spoke about democracy and transforming the political systems. If you read every single political manifesto of Africa's political parties, the security sections don't fill more than half a page, possibly with the exception of Mr. Imbeke's country. There's a problem with the political class that does not understand how security forces work and therefore cannot play the oversight functions and roles that it's expected to. The argument is very simple. African states may have certain similarities, but their needs are often very different. And therefore the arrangements needs to be entered into very cautiously and be accompanied by a process where they are diffused also locally. The fourth point here, George, relates to leadership deficits. Having leaders who can reform or transform the institutions, strengthen internal accountability and increase transparency to effectively respond to crisis in a timely manner is lacking. The time that it took to understand the Ebola crisis on the continent was because there was a continental deficit, political deficit, in understanding what the crisis was and what ought to be designed to respond to it. So both the African Union and ECOWAS in several emergency meetings saw Ebola as a developmental crisis and not as a health, not a security threat. And the leadership deficits. We see the legitimacy deficit of some leaders also undermining the credibility of some African institutions. This morning Ambassador Shannon being an ambassador they want to talk about Togo, but I am not an ambassador. I'm only a poor academic, so let me speak about Togo. Togo has the chairmanship of the economic community of West African states. Togo's president is involved in the crisis that is engulfing his country and therefore he has no interest in calling an extraordinary meeting of the heads of states and government. That has paralyzed the ECOWAS in responding to the Togolese crisis that I argue is being exploited by radicals from Yemen and Saudi Arabia, possibly with Islamic State also coming in because a particular ethnic group who have been pushed to the wall have all of a sudden organized, and that is the rhetoric that you hear amongst ECOWAS and African Union leaders that they have organized suddenly. Nobody organizes that suddenly. So we have seen a lacuna in the leadership leading to a worsening security and eventually a political crisis. So general, I think we are going to have one more big problem on your hands because we have Burkina that you spoke about, we have La Côte d'Ivoire that the French are trying to make something about. We have Togo that is going to explode in a big way. Of course my own country Ghana is then caught up in the MIMEDO, so hopefully the US can start looking at Ghana and how to support it. The fifth point relates to the politics of foreign rapid consensus on major security issues on the continent. The diversity of African states, their political interests and the latent rivalries among quite a number of the member states often times impede the effective functioning of the institutions in responding to the emerging crisis on the continent. We see a country like Burundi in which Incurinziza managed to intimidate, to murder, to kill, to paralyze and hold an election and win while the Union stood on the sidelines and clapped. Second question from George, what is the capacity of the AU and its wrecks to take on additional security-related responsibilities if you are in support of peacekeeping declines? This ties into some of the later points that I will make, but for the issue of the problems with time, let me just hope over one or two things. It's increasingly becoming the norm for African regional organizations to look internally when crisis arrives, which I think is very good, we've seen it in Somalia. However, the AU and its wrecks will traditionally look to the EU and when they face challenges, that relates to capabilities and often times logistics in dealing with crisis on the continent. Very few of our countries have the capabilities to lift their troops and I think Chad, as the general said, is one of the few countries. By hearing lies a moral issue. The Chadian army is very effective, terribly brutal, an abuse of human rights, but of course it's an effective army, nobody wants to send armies into the theater for them to die, so now we deal with the Chadians. The question really for us to discuss is whether this is the kind of army that should be in the forefront resolving our crisis and our challenges, or whether we want to ask ourselves alternative questions and to say how do we bring some of the more disciplined forces through targeted capacity building for them to be able to deliver on what we expect them to deliver. I have serious problems when international community diverts its responsibility to an armed force like the Chadians. So we've seen a necklace mission in Guinea-Bissau, we've seen an army some that has proved that they can get this job done. But we are seeing two other developments that I think are very fascinating. One is the regional task force for the elimination of the lost resistance army that has struck some successes, then of course the multinational joint task force and the group of five. A typical, bureaucratic intervention alone will not solve these challenges. For another question from George, how can the U.S. and other partners assist? Three very quick points. Over the past couple of years, let's say since independence, at least 55 years ago, the most successful business has been the capacity building business. But as billions of dollars have been poured into capacity building, there's considerably less capacity on the continent. It means something is not being done right. I work at a training school in which we train 1,400 people every year over the last 10 years, trained about 14,000 people. What can the U.S. do much better? I think the U.S. has got to learn to listen to its partners. Here we come with a desire to partner you and to help, but how best do you understand your own problems and how best do you think we can help? That humility to ask these basic questions don't always happen, George. Finally, it's about the need to provide basic training in cultural diversity and understanding the nuances of the multiple cultures that you deal with so that trust can be built. Because molesty knows himself as he travels around the continent that this can be a very tricky problem, challenges. Plenty of them, we've spoken about them the whole day, but let me talk about demographics for 30 seconds. When we talk about the demographics, lack of jobs, education. We are seeing a different type of challenge related to the demographics. Highly educated, highly skilled, highly frustrated young people who know the IT world and are able to get into the dark sectors of the web. That is how the demographics will transform to become an even bigger problem. Because when the state refuses or is incapable of creating jobs, anyone who comes with a rhetoric and discourse that creates hope, they will follow those people. And for those of you who work on the continent and know the slick videos and the rhetoric from Islamic State, that is attractive, that provides hope, that creates the impression that there's an alternative life. And as at the Kofianan Center, we do with preventing violent extremism and we hear the stories. I can tell you that the challenge is not about industrialization. We can grow the economy. But if it doesn't trickle down, the hope for most young people is that they will take up arms and strike a blow against the state. Let me leave my comments here for now. Dr. Quacy, thank you very much for that comprehensive and candid overview. Your view is a great beginning. I will now turn to Amanda Dorey for a point of view of America. Thank you. And a point of view as an American academic at this point. So that's very liberating in some respects after so many years of being in the policy hot seat. But I appreciate the opportunity, George, to participate in this symposium this year. It's bigger and better than last year and that's already a success. So thank you for giving me the opportunity and I'll do my best to answer the questions that were posed in contrast to the speaker who does free form and picks other topics of interest. The first one that you asked me to address was how does the United States view the effectiveness of its support for African efforts to defeat violent extremist groups and African efforts to further professionalize their military forces? So just as Quacy has outlined, there's not a monolithic Africa. Of course, there's not a monolithic United States either. So this is one person's perspective on effectiveness of support and there are many other perspectives, whether they're different entities within the U.S. government, whether they're those who are outside the U.S. government as well. But I'd just like to remind that I think the two major elements of support to African partners working to defeat violent extremist organizations are first, preventing radicalization in the first place and then second, disrupting and degrading extremists when those preventive efforts don't take root. And for each of those elements, I think we need to think hard and listen carefully to partners about how the U.S. can be supportive in those regards. On the prevention angle, first and foremost, looking for some inspiration from external sources, I came across the 2016 plan by the UN for preventing violent extremism and I was very taken with the description that radicalization is driven by a mix of personal, societal and ideational factors whose manifestations vary from one individual to the next. And I think that is the essence of what we have read in so many different reports and what we have learned from so many different conversations, that there is no singular approach to prevention. Prevention requires deeply localized activity in a particular social concept, particular social construct within each community and within each nation. And so the ability of the U.S. government leads stakeholders who are involved in this and that's primarily the State Department and USAID. Their tools and activities are being adjusted in the past five or six years to really focus on how this can be done. And so some of them are new tools and activities, some are adjusting existing ones. But some examples of things are working to create venues where state and sub-state actors can share approaches and engage with one another. I think that reflects the understanding that Quacy identified in terms of the modern African state and its distance from the people at times. Prevention includes work on communications and social media, working with partners on criminal justice and all different aspects of that, working to strengthen institutions of civil society in particular, the roles and opportunities for youth and women. So really multi-faceted activities involved in U.S. government support on the prevention line of effort. A lot of this work is very new and I think it's difficult to judge the effectiveness at this time. And that's really George the question that you have asked. And I think it's going to be difficult even five years from now where we have even a greater track record to be able to test the preventive interventions that really are happening down at an individual level and a community level. And I know there is an entire universe of people working on monitoring and effectiveness of activities that are trying to crack this nut and figure out how will we demonstrate the effectiveness of these approaches. The second aspect of U.S. support is with respect to disruption and degradation of those who have radicalized. And the leads for this are those U.S. government entities who are engaging with law enforcement and other elements of the security services including the militaries of African counterparts. State Department has the lead for the law enforcement dimension and that's something that General Waldhauser touched on in his earlier comment. And Department of Defense takes the lead when it comes to engaging with African militaries as you know. The basic tools at our disposal include training activities, equipping activities, advice, assistance. Additionally at operational and strategic levels there are opportunities for education and institutions strengthening. So your question was how would you evaluate the effectiveness of our engagements? I think it depends on what you want to use as the yardstick. If you're judging from a perspective of preventing the fall of governments to non-state actors who have ambitions to establish alternative governance structures or if you're judging by the yardstick of creating time and space for political and diplomatic efforts to address sources of conflict, we can see some signs of success. And the examples that come to my mind, some of these have already come up with General Waldhauser earlier, but the CERT campaign for example has created time and space for the Libyan protagonists to engage with one another on a solution to their political challenges. Similarly, this degrade and disrupt activity has created an opportunity in Somalia for the government there to extend its governance outside of what used to just be Mogadishu and to many other parts of Somalia at this point. A different example would be the French prevention of the fall of Obama-Co to AQIM and affiliates and essentially underwriting the continued existence of Mali as a unitary state at this point, creating the time and space for political solutions to take root. So that's one yardstick you could use to measure effectiveness. Another yardstick could be preventing attacks on the United States homeland as well as harm to Americans and U.S. facilities overseas. I would say we have a favorable track record for the former and a mixed for the latter. So the only incident that relates directly to the U.S. homeland was the infamous 2009 Underwear Bomber episode, which was disrupted because of the failure of the bomb device itself. Clearly, some issues there in terms of the ability of screening when it came to air travel to the United States. But there have been no other incidents with respect to the U.S. homeland. When it comes to Americans, American facilities overseas is a mixed track record. Everyone's familiar with the attacks against our diplomatic personnel in Benghazi as civilian deaths that have happened in the hotel attacks in Mali and Burkina Faso, the occasional kidnapping of an American and the very regular attack plotting against U.S. embassies in many different locations. So that is a constant challenge and that's a yardstick by which to measure disruption of violent extremist organizations as well. The final yardstick that I put out there is really the most concerning from the perspective of the number of VEO groups, the number of civilians killed or injured by VEOs, the number of attacks, the amount of terrain that is contested between governments and VEOs. And this picture is very concerning with increases across the board. VEO groups are continuing to morph and splinter and fuse to form new groups, JNIM being the most recent of those and surely not the last in affiliation variously with Islamic State or Al-Qaeda in a major contestation for terrain and power in various parts of the African continent. Islamic State having gained more ground in the Maghreb at this point and Al-Qaeda affiliates more prominent in sub-Saharan Africa but important inroads by Islamic State in Lake Chad Basin, Horn of Africa and the Sahel. I'm very appreciative of the different academic groups that take the time and make the effort to try to track all of the incidents of either political violence or terrorist attacks. Some of these are happening on global scale. Some of these are more focused. University of Sussex and University of Maryland have two of the most prominent of those databases but overall the deaths have decreased relatively speaking from a high point in 2015 if you look at it on an annual basis but I was very taken with a recent report that was released by UNDP in the context of their extremism in Africa study and they used a figure of 33,000 African fatalities, 4,000 attacks over the last five years. So even if you want to be quite equable with the data which always happens, those are huge numbers and by that guard stick I think there's a problem. So your second question was from the US perspective how effective are African multilateral arrangements such as those cited above in improving security and how can the United States and Africa's other partners best promote the success of these arrangements? I would say from a US perspective the existence of multilateral arrangements are unparalleled when it comes to a high degree of legitimacy and of ownership and that's really what makes them very attractive. The effectiveness of these arrangements can be correlated from my perspective with the number of actors or participants involved because you need an alignment of national interests and of resources. In other words, a level of political will for the partners to work together effectively. So some examples of these types of arrangements, the multinational joint task force has already been mentioned that's focused on Boko Haram with four primary partners and Lightshed Basin, a central headquarters where they are working together and where external partners have been able to plug in. I would mention as well the G5 which has been evoked already that's addressing JNIM and other AQIM affiliates in the Sahel. This is a new entity, a very deliberate effort being taken by those governments to address a comprehensive approach to violent extremist organizations. So not just looking in the security space but looking in the development space as well. And then the third I would mention, of course, at the continental scale, the African Union, which gives the greatest level of legitimacy, sometimes takes the most amount of time to align all of the various interests, but faster than the UN. And I think that's one of its great advantages for the various African crises that manifest from time to time. I would take as an example where before you had the UN mission in the form of Manusma and Mali, you had, of course, the AU mission in the form of Vifisma. Similarly with respect to Central African Republic, and of course, Amazon has already been invoked earlier today as well. I think there's an opportunity that we need to continue to focus on with respect to burden sharing between the United Nations and African Union. That's very important. The special rep for the Peace Fund, Donald Kauruka, I'm sure is working overtime up in New York the next few weeks on this subject in the context of the UNGA. In terms of external partners, the things that we can do, we focus on sharing institutional expertise, providing information and intelligence, and I think importantly, avoiding contributing to distortionary resource flows. So in that regard, I wanted to quickly mention a trip that I was pleased to be part of that was led by the State Department to visit the G5 secretariat in Noakshot earlier this year as part of a fact-finding mission by the U.S. government to understand the G5 and its aspirations and to identify ways that we could be supportive. And there were a couple of things that impressed me about the G5 Sahel approach. The first I mentioned already was the comprehensive approach not just on security but development as part of this approach to addressing insecurity in those five Sahelian nations. The second was to have a lean structure with a secretariat to avoid creating its own dynamic and resourcing needs to just simply staff up a secretariat headquarters and their decision not to manage money at the secretariat level but to continue to have resources come in to the partner member states where they can be absorbed and managed there. And then the third dimension was the cost sharing that had been put in place both in terms of member states contributing forces and their contribution at this point of 10 million euros each into a common resource pool demonstrating that there is not only political will but resources that are being brought to bear. I think in the interest of time I'll leave African security challenges of the future to the Q&A discussion and give the ambassador a chance to speak. Thank you very, very much. And we'll turn to Ambassador Mula Mula. Thank you very much. And you promised what we know most is to thank and thank and thank again. Allow me to really thank the African Center for Strategic Studies, the Institute for Difference Analysis. I don't know how they fished me out with my hideout. So I'm so pleased to be here but I'm also very pleased to see in the room many of the retired ambassadors that gives me hope and inspiration that there is life after retirement. I see ambassador Cassaud, I see ambassador Judy, I see ambassador Linda, I see ambassador Gengenhei Fraser. All the ambassadors retired. So I'm really quite pleased that in the midst of the swamp in Washington, we are all swamp creatures but then you came out with this very good initiative to bring attention of Washington and the international community. Of course, with the social media, I think this I think is which is beyond Washington on this important subject of U.S.-African partnerships advancing common interests. When a doctor's question started, of course, he was saying he can say anything he can be blunt because he's not an ambassador or a diplomat. For me now as a retired ambassador in the academic world, I could also try to be blunt but I want to put a sweetener and as you say the ambassador George Ward that I clean up. Let me try to clean up. You posed to me before you gave me the task of cleaning up some questions. I would try to address them as I clean up. But what was fascinating to me during lunch hour that you had the African commander himself here and talking to us and as my sister, Emira, saying we had a storm beginning with Africa. By then, of course, I was in the minutes of foreign affairs and when Africa came and wanting partnership, but with the conditionality. I think you remember very well about the Rome statue at Coutain and all those stuff. But I'm so happy that we are now celebrating 10 years of partnership which actually has opened opportunities for so many countries of our countries in the defense security sector. Again, let me also be blunt. When I was listening to the general, he just chose only two countries for Africa that for the entire year you are focusing on Somalia and Libya. My question is where does this leave these other countries? Especially for me in my former capacity, I was the executive secretary of a very long named organization. This was the international conference on the Great Lakes region. This was formed out of the ashes of the Rwanda genocide. And I was appointed to pick up the pieces and have an institutional framework to see how best we can bring peace, security and stability in that region that was torn apart. Of course, with that process and institutional arrangements, we always turn to our friends. We had a group voluntarily put themselves together as group of friends of the Great Lakes region. This included of course the United States, Canada ready by Canada, the Netherlands, all the development partners. So there was a lot of momentum. This was in maybe the first, of course, initiative started in the State Council with the French in 1998. And then, of course, the U.S. by then trying to see how they can put back that beauty of our genocide and coming in the forefront to help put in place this mechanism. So I was given this very difficult task to ensure that this interest that was generated, the momentum that was generated, how can we use that energy to be able to transform the Great Lakes region from a war torn region, genocide prone region to a peace of zone, to a free and peaceful region. So this is when I turned to the Americans. One thing, which also the general, I think you mentioned, you were trying to explain about this special invoice, the invoice special representative. So my interlocutor was the special envoy of the Great Lakes region. Unfortunately, it is now dismissed, Ambassador Wolpe. So that was my connection. But as my brother, Dr. Quest said, of course, Ambassador Wolpe may God rest him in peace. He thought he knew the region more than ourselves. And those who knew him, I mean, with my size, said, Wolpe, 10 to 10, he said, yes, you have been upon this position, but listen to me. I said, can you also listen to me? I've been given this mandate, let's see how we can work together. It was not easy, but I was happy. Because this headquarters is in Wujumbura, Burundi, for those, the ambassador of the U.S., in Burundi then, was a lady, Ambassador Patricia Moran. And fortunately, she was my size. So we teamed up. We teamed up, we said, let's have this project, not die on us. And then, of course, Ambassador Wolpe, he meld in, and we came up with a program. We signed a memorandum of understandings, you know, how it sees those papers to see how we can move. But also how we can move, because with any of these security challenges, there is no country, even the U.S., can go it alone. That's why we are talking about multilateral arrangements. And it is more critical in our region, because any sustainable solution, whether it be security or defense arrangements, you cannot do it outside the regional framework. And when we were launching this initiative of the Great Lakes region, because I talk more of the Great Lakes, because that's what I know most. But also, Dr. Kwes's question that there is multiple Africa. So I'm bringing one of the multiple Africa here. So we decided that to make it easy, people to understand that when you talk of Tanzania, it is Tanzania. But it is Tanzania that its own security, stability, is predicated on the security and stability of the immediate neighbor. And unfortunately, unfortunately, a country like Tanzania, like Ghana, has been at peace with itself and with its neighbors, but surrounded by these neighbors. I don't want to mention any name. But then we thought that to be consistent and systematic, let's divide the region into what we called triangle zones. 12, we came up with 12 triangle zones. We said we have limited, maybe, resources. Our partners have their own interests. But let's give you these zones. And then you see which ones you want to engage. So the 12 zones, I want to mention because I don't think we have that time, but then they are critical zones. There's zone one, which is Uganda, Rwanda and DRC. General, place yourself in that zone. You have a bundle in Somalia. Then you have another zone, DRC, Burundi and Rwanda. What is it in your strategy? Then you have, of course, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi. We are now struggling with Burundi. Then there's Central Africa Republic, Sudan. Those they cover almost the reasons. Sudan, Central Africa Republic and DRC. And then you have Sudan. This is zone four. Sudan, Uganda and DRC. And then you have Congo Republic, DRC and CAER. There we are. So now the whole point was if at all we have to engage. There's no way you can say I will deal with CAER and I have no interest in Sudan. Or I deal with DRC. I have no interest in Rwanda. Because you know the game shifts and the dynamics of the region, you cannot say I choose, select and choose. They are the ones on the soft ones. And then that you find Tanzania now being caught in between. Left to Tanzania, deal with the problem. So this is what I wanted to bring to you. That what I suffered was always this falling in love and falling out of love with these countries. But the problems remain. So now we had a crisis in Burundi. Everybody there was stampede in 2015. I remember that's when I was called from here to go back to the Islam. That I should be in charge of the ministry of foreign affairs at the time when we had the crisis of the Burundi. Because they said the Liberator, you were in charge of this region. You did maybe well but come back and deal with the Burundi. I must say when you were organizing we had about five summits maybe in three months and everybody wanted to be there. The European Union they will bring observers and then we are trying to raise and then of course it was at the summit level you cannot bring anybody everybody inside. But you should have seen the stampede outside everybody wanting to be there. But now to be honest with you, is anybody following developments in Burundi? It's forgotten. Dr. Quest mentioned about the area I said it is progress. I'm not sure about this task force what they are doing but the United States it is during my time spend so much time and resources working in partnership with Uganda with the rest of us pursuing Connie. When Connie went through these borders I don't know where he is it's now forgotten. But if there is a crisis you hear now that Connie has resurfaced you will see everybody the general will also be following pursuing pursuing Connie. So there is always this excitement of following this crisis situation. When we had a crisis in Congo during there Saint-Depin-Kunda those who remember general so-called the general I don't think if we could fight to be called a general but he was a general and the almost he was the Eastern Congo was succeeding. I could see that we are in a in a problem. I called on everybody including the second general by the Nibani community. If I could be able to be on the agenda because it was towards the general assembly if we could have this issue on the agenda they say there's no way ambassador the program is full and there's no way we can this would be a distraction that's what I was told. But when Connie started advancing everybody was in the Goma including Hillary Clinton was on them all the questioners everybody was in the Goma so maybe the best part is to create a crisis and then you get attention when there was DC I mean reports of sexual gender-based violence the UN adopted a resolution on zero tolerance to sexual gender-based violence because like Congo was called a capital city of rape even when I was asked to come and speak about always even I was here in this hall I could talk about the sexual gender-based violence what is happening in your region you sit there everybody says like you are you speaking as a victim or as an activist because everyone of us the statistics was like all who are being raped so they passed this resolution of zero tolerance but I must tell you it was zero attention it continued so I can go on and on I don't know how much time I have yeah please close now I'm closing I am closing because one with most of the ambassadors I hear and the politicians we always know where to start you don't know where to end but in conclusion because I was asked to say what the key challenge is and how to move forward my only message to you the United States is how sustained attrition sustained engagement to have sustained solution sustained peace and security thank you ambassador thank you very much for those words of wisdom especially the last ones we have about a little more than 15 minutes for questions what I'd like to do is find the first questioner and then after we've taken that if there is a second question that is like unto it we'll take that one so that we'll have the same same general themes for questions sorry the annual question once again James Carlson office name intelligence what level of interest have you seen from african countries in developing a strategic lift capability obviously from my end strategic sea lift but just in general overall airlift and a sea lift and just land sort of like our us transcom thanks is are there any other questions about military capabilities such as that is your question up there uh jason warner i'm a professor at west point and the director of the combating terrorism centers africa profile my question is really related to uh the the institutionalization of collective security mechanisms in africa more broadly of course given the highly transnational nature of the threats that states and populations on the continent face we look to institutions like the african union and the regional economic communities uh for for assistance but particularly because we've seen the institutionalization of institutions like the african standby force not quite come to fruition there have been some people who've been advocating that we should institutionalize a non institutionalized approach to security which is to say to look towards these ad hoc uh peace support operations like the mnj tf uh and like the a u led uh fight against the lord's resistance army so i'm asking sort of where do we stand from from the panel's perspective on those do we continue to really fight for the institutionalization of these regionally based collective security institutions or do we say look we've been doing this since the advent of the a u they're not coming to fruition let's think outside the box thank you thanks very much for both those questions they're both very interesting uh in fact uh on the question of strategic lift it's it's a question that arises so often in peace peace operations in which african nations have capabilities but they lack the lift and oftentimes turn to the united states or france or other outsiders or the united nations for that lift so it's interesting uh it's interesting in itself and then secondly the the question of uh of collective security mechanisms ad hoc versus the a u or rex uh is uh is worth considering i think i'd like to ask a man to lead off on the former and then perhaps quacy on the uh and the ambassador on the on the second one thank you on the uh on the lift question it is the type of capability where we've seen successful pooling arrangements in in different regions that seem like they would be a good model and african union itself has has focused on this uh seeking to to learn more about how to do it for several years now and one of the things that african has done is engage with a u in a logistics forum for several years now on an annual basis and i would say those conversations are are moving forward led led by the the a u level interest the i think we're some some ways away from having an operational capability like that just given the limited assets available to to pool and the need for for robust sustainment resources to to underpin that and and those are in places in in some countries that that have the kind of full life cycle support for their lift capabilities and others that don't so uh that that has definitely been identified as an opportunity and work is underway but i i think it is probably some years into the future in terms of coming to fruition and just i'll take a quick stab at the other one even though you didn't assign it to me to to say from a us perspective i think we're in in the midst of an all of the above type strategy when it comes to institutions or or non-institutions and so so some of that is lots of engagement with with the a u uh on and off engagement with recs depending on which ones are robust and and which ones are willing and interested in engaging with the united states and then as came up in in the earlier discussions the more ad hoc or or non-institutional if you want to call it that arrangements are some of the ones that are the most dynamic and promising and a lot of effort looking at how those could be supported yeah thank you it says um i think let me put it this way we are not short of institutionalized collective security or defense mechanisms we have plenty of those within the african union uh i can name i don't know many 10 because all coming from the african peace and security architect within it you have uh the stand by force you have um the rapid response to crisis mechanisms so they are we tell them solutions we have no problem if at all it is about the collective defense mechanism there is not of course at the level of the nato but we have it whether it's within the the institutional was leading because we have the part that includes the non-aggression and defense parts we have within sadik this is the southern african development community so we are not short of that what we are short of i mean what we have as adioc is initiatives today you hear that um they have launched this initiative for example when i was here we had a u.s african summit and there are so many things that came out of that summit this was august 2014 and one of the initiative that came out and was very exciting was this um wrong name again african peacekeeping rapid response partnership program and a lot of money was played under this program but then they selected again the selective approach six countries to start with crunning tanzania senegal and others but i don't know i've been out of government for a year i don't know where we are on this one and then you have other initiatives african combat operation training and the assistance a quarter they know you know it so we have all these initiatives i have my defense advisor listed about 12 of these operations initiatives but so fragmented this is where there is a problem but the institutions we have them but these initiatives of come and go is where the challenge is so to i don't know that i've answered your questions it's not your question of lacking the institutional are there any that you would say should be prioritized yeah yeah because depending on the context for africa of course we all look to the african union but then if you ask today the the u.s the general i'm touching on the dinner because the one i recently i was in there in the morning is whether they are working crossed with the african union because when you work with the african union then you reach all these countries all the priorities are known but then you might also if there is a problem of burundi maybe the closest organization can work with is the self and community if there is a problem in the soto the the closest at home close to home is the sade so it depends on the context but then you would like to see it is a comprehensive approach if it is within the african union because even in your reports i don't think you have anything that appears about the african union it's about countries and this original original frameworks well thank you very much jason for me i think what should be the defining question here is what are the principles and the values and the norms that underpin the institutional mechanisms and this institutional process you know because if there are no shared ideas about the principles and the norms and then it becomes a problem okay so we have all these multiple institutional frameworks some permanent some very ad hoc some driven by specific challenges and problem that they need to be really resolved to but what drives the establishment of these things okay well what is it that is shared among those who desire to resolve that problem that brings them together and i think until such a time that is those principles values and norms that drive what people do and what states do then we wouldn't get the institutional frameworks right but institutions do matter and because institutions do matter and the challenges that we face transform metamorphose and then in opportunistic forms change to threaten us even the african standby force doctrine itself must begin to change and this is where my problem with the african union has been when i served this several years ago the lack of willingness to say this has appeared on a piece of paper probably it is not the most apt framework let's have a conversation around it and then let's begin to change it because if you look at the dark trend that underpins the african standby force it's about fixed static forces very ponderous slow-moving almost non-reactive okay the challenges that we face now are highly mobile swift with a lot of speed IT savvy you know with the rhetoric that appeals to people's you know day-to-day lived experiences and challenges you know so what i'm looking for it's a framework that allows both the union and its wrecks and the collectivity of member states to be driven by particular shared values shared norms and shared principles this spaghetti idea of amanda and i being friends against george and tomorrow to be against and i'm just basically forming at-home groups that don't achieve anything simply that's not help our cause but i think you and i can have a conversation i think we already have no conversation about is it drax or something in two of our articles and i think we've challenge yeah 20 i'm a bit of a neophyte when it comes to military affairs but i do know something about education and perhaps traveling with the incomer recently has given me a little bit pause to think about this for generations african military leaders were sent to san herce on seer and other institutions for training that created networks interoperability common thinking wondering whether or not in perhaps with or without the involvement of african whether we can africa africa grow its own institution of military training maybe in south africa i mean i think it's fair to say that south africa has the most advanced thinking and sophistication in terms of military and education as leading universities is there now time for looking ahead and not just solving problems that are rising tomorrow but looking at how we can train up a force and great greater cohesion among africans in terms of military can i take it up before the the i must say it is happening if i speak for tanzania before i came to the georgia washington university i was teaching at the national defense college there's national defense college and the peacekeeping training center and they train not only the tanzanians but all the military police security from the region as far as nigeria we had the students from nigeria of course people they go to big names and he asked maybe if you have a certificate from the tanzan national defense college you know the same as was point but i couldn't see that this was very localized they have been trained to be able to cope with the terrain of our area of our region and they are these are the people some of the big generals who have retired and they come in and teach they have been in the field so what do we need and that again building that patina capacity because they're trying but then if they have to deploy that's when we come to our patinas who can be able to help us to deploy and the equipment but it is happening it's not only south africa even tanzania we have it luanda they have it and we would want you also to come and train them could i just mention that there is i think a reasonably robust two-way street when it comes to professional military education as the ambassador was was mentioning you have peer-to-peer relationships between us pme institutions and african ones that are focused on curriculum development and pedagogical technique and things like this and there's a state department program and dollars that underwrite some of those activities and then the the dod knowledge and professors but the same thing at the at the student level in in both directions and that's one of the things at war college this year that is very impressive is the number of foreign students from all across the world and then of course we send students as well so but there's always room for expansion i think well the military education is going on but i think there's we need to ask ourselves some very tough questions do we need these militaries as they were established 50 60 70 years ago what purpose and what roles should they play in a modern african state and even more importantly what are the motivations and attitudes that drive the second third generation of african militaries so i think probably there are many more questions than i can answer here right now but we can have a check after this yeah the timing deed is they're telling me that we're out of time so we'll have to close and i apologize to those who had other questions perhaps you can ask them during the cocktail hour afterwards but please join me in thanking our panelists you yep come come up i'm just wow Just don't follow me first. Perfect, perfect. We're going to continue to move on to our closing conversation and our moderator for this conversation will be Kate Almquist North, who is the Director of the Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. Kate, I'm going to turn it over to you and you have a very distinguished panel, which I will let you introduce. Thank you. Thank you, Johnny. And good afternoon to everyone. Thank you for enduring with us. We've had a very full day of conversations and touched on a number of themes. In the interest of time, I won't try and recap all of them, but I am going to try to draw a couple of threads across our closing conversation here. For this conversation, we do have a very distinguished panel that we're fortunate to have with some familiar faces and some new faces. We have Ambassador Ruben Brigady, who is now our Dean at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, but of course known to many in the room as our former U.S. Representative to the African Union, I think from 2013 to 2015. And many other positions besides that at the State Department and senior leadership as well. We're honored to have Ambassador Gendai Frazier, who is currently an adjunct senior fellow for African Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, a visiting professor at Columbia University, and of course our former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from 2005 to 2009. And many other distinguished positions besides that. Full bios are of course in your program. But I wanted to take a moment to introduce Mr. Victor Ochen to everyone here. Victor is the Executive Director of the African Youth Initiative Network, and he's also a United Nations Global Goals Ambassador for Peace and Justice. His organization helps thousands of victims of the Ugandan Civil War to obtain treatment and overcome the traumas of the war. He has lived some of those traumas and experiences himself personally and speaks from firsthand knowledge. And in his capacity now as Executive Director of the African Youth Initiative Network, he also organizes many other youth programs with the goals of making wars less common in Africa. For his work, he has been nominated already for the Nobel Peace Prize and was endorsed for the prize by Muhammad Ghazendi's family. He is the youngest African and first Ugandan to be nominated, so that in itself is an honor and a recognition of the experience and the perspective that he brings to our discussion here this afternoon. We've heard over the course of the day a number of important points in terms of our theme, which is U.S.-African partnerships. I want to acknowledge from the outset, and I think we've heard many of our panelists and discussants get at some of the issue of partnerships. It's a loaded word. What do we really mean by that? Is it not more of the donor-recipient relationship whose priorities and whose perspectives are driving these relationships? We also heard, I think, several pleas for sustained engagement from the United States with Africa in our relationships and to have substantive relationships, something to engage about. And we've also heard quite a bit about the broad megatrends confronting the continent. The demographic had challenged an opportunity that Africa faces as it looks forward in its future over the next five, 10, 15, 25 years. By 2050, one in four people on the planet will be African. And all the challenges that we have now and all the opportunities we have now will be magnified and compounded many, many times. And so we have the opportunity to reflect, I think, across the conversations that we've had today on economics, on governance, and on security relationships. What is the sum of that for our collective relationship with the continent recognizing it's a very diverse place with many dimensions to this discussion? So I wanted to pose an opening question. We're not going to do opening statements per se, but I hope to make it a little bit more interactive here and as well to recognize that we do have a finite amount of time for this last conversation. And just to invite first a reflection from each of our colleagues here on thinking big picture long-term for the continent. What are the key opportunities that the United States should take care not to miss as we think about our relationships on the continent and with African institutions and partners? And I also want to challenge us to think not just in terms of our normal bilateral nation-to-nation relationship construct. We've had a little bit of discussion just now about multilateral and regional approaches on the continent. Of course that looms large on the peace and security architecture side of things, but also equally important for us to think sub-national as well as sub-regional and societal as well as governmental when we think about what are these opportunities that we should be careful not to miss. So, Victor, I'm going to put you on the spot first to give us a perspective from your vantage point in Uganda in the East African region. Thank you very much, Kate, and thanks everybody. And I appreciate so much the patience for staying that late to still attend to us. In most cases, people give speeches and they go away, but we're honored that you stayed around. And I thank you very much for saying that this is an opportunity for us to reflect on how best to move on and strengthen the partnership. I must say my coming here will not be from a very strong academic point of view, but I want to bring the community perspective, you know, what we're talking about, the experience of day-to-day struggle in Africa and also working with the people that we are all seeking corporations and partnership for. Yesterday when I was boarding the plane to come to America, for once I was the most excited person to come here. I come to America often, but I was quite excited because 67 days ago, while organizing the Solidarity Summit in Kampala for refugee, I got a call from a young man from South Dan who asked me and said, are you Victor Chen? I said, yeah. I said, I want to meet you in Kampala. I met with him and he told me that I have a group of youth in South Dan who wants to meet with you. You'll meet their leaders in hundreds, but they're in thousands. And I said, where are they? Are they in Kampala? Are they in Cuba? Then they said, yes, they're in South Dan, but they're not in the city. They're in the jungle. I said, who are they? They said, these are militia youth groups, the tribal militia youth groups. They are harms, they are rebels, they are fighting, and they want to meet you. I said, okay, I don't have any military background, so what do I do? I accepted. We organized a program, so they fly to Cuba, then they travel from there. Or do I do? Then they said, it's not too close to Cuba. It would be, on a good road would be three hours drive, but on a bad road would be seven hours drive. So the best is to go through northern Uganda. And when I got to the border of Uganda, northern Uganda and South Dan, I had four motorcycles border, border. You probably know about that. All waiting for me. And I said, okay, this is interesting. On every motorcycle, there were three passengers. A cyclist and two other people, each of them carrying a gun, protection. I was put in one of the motorcycles. And they said, we could follow the main road, but it's very unsafe, but we are going to take the shortcuts. We're going to leave the motorcycles at some point, then you go and meet these guys. I looked through my phone to the pictures of my two little twin daughters. I said, I may lose them or they may lose me, because I'm going into something I don't understand, but I trust that I should go. I went. For two hours, we were in a motorcycle. We reached the point, but the road, as it was, crossed the small river, then we got to the point where they were seated. And as we got under the big tree in the forest, I saw over 80 young people armed with all sorts of weapons on them. And then they said, we are the one who have called you. I want to tell that we are the representatives of over 2,000 militia groups who are fighting in South Sudan. And I asked them, are you from the same tribe or different tribes? And then they said, initially it was one tribe, but now we have so many tribes. We are actually militia groups protecting the community, not the tribe. And I said, but why did you call me? And then they said, yes, we have heard about you. We've been following you. We admired you. And they pulled a picture, a poster, of when we were launching the Sustainable Development Goal in Uganda in 2015. They pulled my picture and the global goals with my contacts and other contacts and said, we got your contact from here, but we've had so much about you. And then they asked me, why did you trust us to come? And I asked them, why did you call me? And they told me, we called you because we trust you. And I said, yes, I trusted you. And they came because I also believed that you are living the life I lived not so long ago. And then they said exactly that's why we called you because we knew you are one of us. You grew up in Northern Uganda. You grew up in the camp like we did, but you're doing some work. We want to know, how did you not fight even when you were suffering? Because we are fighting since we are suffering. I explained myself. And then shortly in the discussion, they said we cannot talk for long. We can't be here for more than three hours. We risk being bombed. And then as we were discussing, what they told me was, people don't trust us. Everybody hates us. Our government calls us rebels. They call us violent extremists. We are called terrorists. Nobody listens to us. But we are young. South Deniz, who feels rejected by society, both home and abroad. International communities brand us as terrorists. And all want us for death. They want us to kill. They want us to be. Yet we've been denied security, education, health. The guns we have is our house. It's our shelter, our government, our food, our future. All this discussion went on, but there was one young man, 19 years old, who got up. Generals made no better. He was carrying in the back a rocket propelled gun with anti-tank planted. Young as he was, he got a small megaphone we were talking using. And then he said, we have over 2,000 people not far from here who are equally armed. And this young man spoke so bitterly. He explained how he felt hated since he was born. He explained how he sees international communities coming with all the big man in the name of building South Deniz. In fact, war continues and escalates. The young man spoke for nearly five minutes, nonstop. And he started crying so bitterly, so painfully. I looked at the young man and I wondered, say, imagine if he had transferred his anger into his weapons. He was carrying a huge gun in the back and had an AK-47 here with chains of bullets wrapped around his body. But he decided to cry in a small megaphone. I did what I did. It was the most best-riskest decision I've ever made. Why? Because to take a move to go to the jungle, I did not go as a a delegate from UN, from government or what. I went as a private African citizen who is working to try to address a common African problem. And he said, that's why he preferred it. And then meeting with them, it was a risk. It was trust. As I talked, I said I bodied the plane up yesterday because three days ago in our discussion I told them that I understand your pain, understand your struggle. I've been through your situation. But nothing would be more tragic than the riskiest feeling that I'll lose you. If you can, you can walk away from the battlefield. You can choose peace. And three days ago I was informed over 50 out of nearly 80 young people, youth leaders I met, they have already crossed to Uganda. They're staying in the refugee camp. Because of our dialogue they walked away from the battlefield. I don't know what they did to their guns, but they walked away from their guns and down with their refugees in Uganda. And yesterday when I was coming they said 200 of their followers have also crossed. Because their leaders went and said it's okay. We're staying here, we're being supported. It's not very nice, but at least it's better than being in the bush when you're being hunted for killing. When you're being called terrorists and all that. So bringing us to all this and prolonging the discussion the question is who is a terrorist? Are we giving enough audience? What I can say, these people they don't need money, they don't need fame, but they need a voice. They need to be trusted. I think trust has been mentioned more than ever. We need to get a way of trusting one another. And if our partnership, Africa, American partnership it should focus more on trust building among Africans themselves and towards African people. This is what is important. It may not be political, but it has to be human. Giving the human face in our military intervention is what will make our work effective and sustainable. Thank you very much. Thanks Victor Yufa. I think really touched all of us with a profoundly personal story. I think it is important to make sure that the human face of many of the dynamics that we are talking about are unfolding on the continent and of course South Sudan in many respects is one of the greatest tragedies on the continent at the moment and greatly impacting Uganda and countries in the region. But reaching youth who can choose to be part of the insecurity and to find their own answers. But then what? Then they are in a refugee camp in northern Uganda and we still have this great challenge in terms of the levels of migration and displacement on the continent of course overall far far exceeding any outflows that we have off the continent. How can governments and societies and regional institutions best grapple with this and what is our role as the external actor as the United States and being a friend on a trust based relationship. So maybe Jenda you have some thoughts from your vantage point. You had asked about key opportunities and we shifted a little bit but let me just say one thank you for being here and thank you to the institutions for inviting me. I think that to my left we have just seen one of the key opportunities in fact the young people and those young people and their leadership capacity. I think really that the future of Africa the hope of Africa lies in people like Victor who it is their continent after all. The demographics are on their side age is on their side and I think the energy and innovation are also on their side. Clearly the work for instance that the Obama administration did with the YALI program and the Mandela Fellows that should be a sustainable institution. It's absolutely critical. One of the good things about U.S. Africa policy has been it's bipartisan nature and the fact that we can create institutions that persist and are sustained across administrations and I think that all of the Obama institutions I for one as an American citizen in Africa feel most proud about YALI and again the Mandela Fellows and so I think that that's absolutely one of the key opportunities. Secondly I would say that the digital economy we were hearing earlier about the digital economy, FinTech really the opportunities in Africa are vast from an economic investment and trade perspective and we need to be able to grab that the Chinese made a strategic decision to do so. It's not by chance that the Chinese are there they made a strategic decision to be there and they poured the resources behind that effort and whereas we were talking about earlier in many ways they're creating the physical infrastructure the United States actually has the advantage of the technological innovation to be a strong partner to Africa and work with young Africans who are the Savannah Valley or whatever there's the Sahara Valley that really are going to be the inventors of the types of instruments the types of products that fit the environment in Africa and that's where as a person who spends money who lives now in Kenya and you really can't get by without Impessa the United States is so backward I just hate dealing with the banking system in the United States they're charging me so much money to send money anywhere doesn't make any sense whatsoever but Kenya is way out ahead and that was the decision of people who said let us try it we're concerned but we can be engaged with that transformation of the sort of digital economy we have the United States has the advantage really with our Silicon Valley and other we've been in the lead of this and we can continue India of course is very important as well and China is on our heels and we can work closely with China we do need the physical infrastructure but we have a lot to add so I would say that's a second big picture a key opportunity that this administration can mess up or actually advance very fast second the third one that I would say is the security issues and really what I'm talking about is Africa's ownership of the security challenge on the continent you know African leaders and former leaders and young people now are mediators they are the ones who are in the forefront of trying to do the mediation between conflicting parties African forces are the major forces in peacekeeping operations on the continent as a matter of fact in 2014 they were 37% of peacekeeping forces globally and Ethiopia is one of the top four contributors globally of peacekeeping forces so they make the majority of this discussion about how can you know the AU which goes in first often is faster but can't sustain itself and then the UN rehats how can we make that a real institutional model started way back from my time with Burundi when AMEB the South Africans Mozambicans and Ethiopians went in and stabilized Burundi until the AU the UN could actually come in so how can we make that a model and just to pick up on that I'll say again this administration can make that happen or can mess it up take it backwards with the way in which the African Union has now taken on the issue of self-financing and the decision to finance 25% of an AU peace fund to be able to have those sustainable operations and to be ready to move out quickly with the SESTU 75% coming from the UN and the US in this administration's response will be very important to that ownership and how we move forward we can come back into that discussion and then I would say the fourth area of real opportunity is with our own analysis of what's going on in Africa we have the technology now to actually know in detail what's happening so we can go local instead of always going in aggregate and big pictures and the country is a unit of analysis not only is the country not the unit of analysis not even the region within the countries need be the unit of analysis we can get right down to the municipal level with data and with information and with satellite information we talk about issues of accountability we can hold individuals accountable now we don't have to do we'll take three people from this rebel group and three people from this government and then we're going to put sanctions on them and maybe we have some data about them we actually can go some of our former colleagues as an example Bobby Pittman who was a senior director at the NSC and Treasury and Ben Leo who was at the center for global development and also a treasury department at the NSC they've just created a company called Frame that has access to all the satellite data and they're doing big data analysis that can get them down as I said to the municipal level about what's going on in this region so we can make decisions based on real facts and real information and ways in which we have not been able to do in the past by leveraging this type of new technology and information that's available so I think those are probably the four big picture opportunities that I would point to okay and Ruben I'll put you on the spot and then I'm going to come back and ask the harder questions so opportunities first though what do you see well thanks very much Kate it's an honor to be on the panel here with such distinguished colleagues it's wonderful to see so many colleagues and friends and mentors here in the audience before I give you my opportunity I need to beg your forgiveness I had hoped to be here for the vast majority of the day my hometown Jacksonville Florida is as you know experiencing record level flooding we evacuated my parents and they decided to go back today so I spent a fair amount of my day helping to arrange that so I apologize the reason I apologize is because I also want to apologize in advance if I repeat anything you've been talking about all day because I wasn't present let me actually offer one big opportunity that has significance not only for our international relations our geopolitical position but also for security and it's an opportunity that is not often discussed particularly not often discussed in context of African security and US-African partnership that is one that I believe that Africa has the potential to be the largest democratic region in the world and it has that potential for a variety of reasons the first obviously is that it has the most number of sovereign countries in any other region compared to it but also more significantly if you take African pan-African documents and treaties at their word they actually call for democratic governance in support of human rights I would argue that one can find examples of so-called sort of backsliding on democracy in the last sort of four years but one could also find some frankly really quite inspiring advances on the continent in that regard which suggests that the continent I would argue is on something of a knife edge in this respect and the other reason why it's important to talk about this is that as we all know there is a live debate going on in the continent right now about how individual countries should govern themselves and whether they be individual parties or individual rulers that we could all discuss that are looking for alternative models of governance principally to our friends the Chinese but also looking to South Korea prior to the advent of democratic governance as a means on which to model themselves. The final reason why this is so significant is that I think it's for the reasons that Victor articulated and that we were seeing the demographic bubble in Africa starting to come of age and we will have to have a decision series of decisions which will form a broader mosaic about how individual countries will choose to govern themselves while this massive group of young people have more of a voice in their own governance and see an opportunity for them to come out of the bush or come from other places and to engage in their own ability to govern themselves or will they see themselves further under the thumb of more repressive governance systems which arguably I would argue would lead to more potential violence. Now here's why this matters obviously from the security perspective. We all know that there is a fair amount of literature that is much debated that democratic countries tend not to go to war with themselves and there's also another body of literature which suggests that the very act of elections tends to elicit the kinds of challenges which can lead to conflict in and of itself. In the long term, as an American I believe in democracy and the other reason why this is particularly significant in the context and why this is both an opportunity and a challenge is that if you take a look at how all of Europe ultimately became a Europe that is largely whole and free after the Cold War is that those countries that were in the east had not only a choice but frankly an opportunity to join Western Europe by adopting amongst other things democratic forms of governance because they wanted, because they had to in order to join the EU and because they wanted to do so because of the benefits of that provided there is no similar flywheel, internal flywheel as it were in the context of Africa and that is why this is such an opportunity for the United States because the United States and its other similarly situated partner nations that are also dedicated to democratic governance can serve as that sort of external flywheel to support indigenous African institutions and indigenous African commitments to advance and support democracy. The alternative and there is an alternative is that democratic space will at best always be contested if not actually violently challenged and suppressed in the decades ahead and speaking as a completely private citizen not as a representative of the government of the United States any longer for a while my frankly deep worry as a citizen is one, particularly as a citizen that is interested in Africa is the at best ambivalence of the current current administration with regard to democracy promotion broadly speaking in Africa in particular and just as Jen Dye noted a number of places where the Trump administration either could get it right or could get it really not right I would argue that how we think about supporting democracy in the context of Africa absolutely should be at the top of that list and it's one of the ones that also have implications not only for near term security but also frankly for longer term partners in the world that like us will continue to support or not democracy and democratic forms of governance. Thank you. Thanks Ruben you've actually picked up a theme that has come across some of our earlier discussions but I think it's fair to say we've had a mixed perspective on how much we should focus on democracy from the United States vis-a-vis our African partners and what our best contribution could be to the extent that it is appropriate or helpful for us to do that and I think it's helpful to hear your perspective of having sat in your seat in Addis but looking at the continent from a variety of angles for some time and I'm going to put Gendai on the spot to comment on that in terms of it's not just democracy promotion in the form of USAID programs that do supportive things around democracy and governance but it's really the sum of our policies and our assistance programs across all the sectors we've been talking about and long been a discussion for us on the inside the US government if I can speak as a former not as a current official as well in terms of the sort of hydraulics I call them across our 3Ds defense, development and diplomacy and where democracy comes out in the midst of all of that I think is still an open-ended question and one that our African counterparts feel very strongly about in terms of where we should be where we should be more back leaning what is our voice in legitimizing authoritarian regimes on the continent versus giving space to civil society to a rising generation that wants to pursue maybe new forms of governance and engagement with their governments Sure I mean it's a complicated question and and execution is even more difficult my own view of this is that ownership for everything whether it's democracy or how one governs or how one runs one economy or how one secures one population and delivers services and is accountable comes from within the country itself first and foremost you know so that's my starting point of every discussion and then the second part of that is the context of Africa's just thinking about how to govern themselves and I think we've heard some discussions about how you have two systems right you have a traditional system and then you have a modern or colonial post-colonial state that's on top of it and the interaction between those also has to be considered we tend to jump to the modern when those traditional authority relationships are extremely strong and can be leveraged positively or negatively so we can't forget that under the surface of the water there's this whole other stuff going on that is probably primary in the lives of most people on a daily basis so that said but you know these countries are about 50 60 years old from the point of view of being self-governing and over these 50 60 years they have been presented with many different models of governance and I mean external forces so right after independence you know there was an eastern or west model there was sort of a multi-party and then there was actually our development and this is sort of the debate that's going on today we need to fast track our development through one party states socialist models we need to have inclusive development that's called socialism back in the 1960s it's not today but it was then so there was this debate legitimate about what type of system are we going to actually put in place when the United States beat the Soviet Union thanks to Ronald Reagan I must say all of us but Ronald Reagan fought that war with devastating consequences in Africa let's be clear the Cold War was fought globally we talk about propping up dictators and others they've served our interests in our global struggle but in 1989 it all fell down the one party state was no longer in fashion there was no support for it because the Soviet Union wasn't giving it George H.W. Bush came in and said we have to find a way to reconcile we're going to have a rapprochement between the east and the west and we're going to do that in Africa as well but the west had essentially won the push was against towards multi-party democracy and so that's what you had up until now when China is re-emerging onto the continent in a very big way there's also the Singaporeans and others who suggest that maybe the sequencing that Africans were getting the sequencing wrong and that you needed to have a strong economy and you needed to have a middle class on which democracy could be built because actually the western experiment wasn't democracy out of the box it was a long process as well and these 60-year-old countries are going to go through a long dynamic process of developing what system of governance meets their own needs meets their own social fabric and they're not all the same we talk about the continent in a very broad fashion Ethiopia, Kenya and Rwanda look very different and they just went through some different types of political transitions or political contests or whatever you would like to call it so I guess I think that I'm with you Ruben that the issue of governance and accountability and democracy insofar as the citizens are sovereign and should have the say over who governs them is absolutely the principles that I support that I believe should prevail and I think are the ones that create sustainable peace and stability over the long term but how they get there I think we can be a little impatient and directive and not self-reflective about our own journey to some type of stable outcome which we're not stable yet even now we're talking about what about this electoral college it doesn't seem to be working how rich is our democracy with the questions about freedom of speech versus hate speech and what about the central government versus local governance and state rights we're going to all constantly grapple and I think we should give Africa some space to do that while still trying to in a respectful dialogue one that you know because right now they really look at us and say are you kidding me and that's what they're saying I'm there are you kidding me you're going to lecture to us right now because our congress seems broken our president is tweeting all the time and it doesn't look our democracy is looking probably from the point of view of our lecture from the point of view of our ideal of what we say it's supposed to be versus the practice and that's really the point which is we have to admit that this process of democracy and governance is messy sloppy and it's not one directional it's not going to be all good and so I think that really to me is let's be a little bit more in the context of what was said earlier while we at the same time continue to stand fast with our values Victor does it feel like we're impatient and directive coming from the United States towards Africa from your vantage point or does it feel like we're too patient and too tolerant in other respects or is it something altogether different in terms of how you see Africa I think just to add one opportunity which you were mentioning Africa is still a nuclear free continent so which you have a wrap about that what I think is necessary to understand the tribal and the political nature I mean the tribal nature of politics and conflict in Africa is something that may not be well understood outside a lot of people from within the continent how this defines their day to day governance whether politically traditionally or economically the tribal nature of conflict the tribal nature of development and tribal governance is one thing that is really complex in the continent and it has to be kind of looked down with a more give more vocal position at the local level approach to governance is key but also somewhere we either United States far ahead in terms of what language how much are we using the language of change of security of peace if you're looking at peace with the military lens all the time then we are going right we are militarizing the all concept yet you know in Africa Ambassador talked about it very well that world war took place somewhere the impact is in the continent but everyone when in Africa we manufacture weapons not as much as you know but all these 47 and everybody killing everyone so we need to be able to approach in a more friendly language if you use the word counter violent extremism the word counter is already a militant itself and then I'm talking to young people saying we are misunderstood we are politically misunderstood we want to live a free life like other citizens but it's very easy for United States when they say there's a terrorist here so this kind of things maybe we need to get the way of dealing with the terror language or how we approach it how do we address the extremism we are calling it you know and then maybe we also need to appreciate that in Africa there's a generational growing generational distress it won't take so long before maybe across the entire sub-Saharan there's a very strong standoff between the generation there's a young generation who are under pressure for change they've waited for change for too long all ups becoming up less and all ups gone but yet we have a generation that has been in power they are extremely powerful they're well connected and they are trying to do all it takes to upstrap change so these two generations won't take long before it's a very big clash probably bigger than the Arab Spring and all that so I do think what we need in Africa if United States could focus on partnership one, you should support what we consider difficult dialogue a difficult dialogue in the context that how do we engage the two generations to tell the truth aware of the tribal nature of their existence aware of the historical differences how can we tell truth to one another but tell it with respect and love as opposed to fighting because also I must say this because there's a way that the western world have a very clear special commitment towards supporting anything that supports their own government sometimes we are giving rebellion legitimacy which is not necessary because if we come into support political opposition all the time in the country we are legitimizing that for you to be supported by the west you have to rebel against your own government you have to stand against something of course we need to have the voices of independence but it's better to balance between the government and the opposition when I was in the bush people were saying also that sometimes we are told that when you start fighting against your government you're going to get foreign support Americans will come and support you you overthrow the bad government so this is the kind of information that goes to the poor people who have never even been to United States and all that and maybe lastly that I think it was mentioned in the previous session the need for homegrown diplomacy I think this is key because whether it be anti-Balakar in Central Africa or Seleka or in Congo or where some of these people have never been to school they don't understand the geopolitical system but they understand their local traditional aspect so giving space for local diplomacy local mediation scale, local and promote the spirit of tolerance something which is locally driven locally supported meaning we need to come waving our checks but know that as we're giving money we're supporting the local capacity which was really the emphasis before let's give the local diplomacy opportunity let us support they might not be educated but they are mediators in their own communities which is very very important so let us build trust let us trust people with the resources we have to support the local capacity well with that Victor we're going to take your words as our final thoughts I'm going to let Gendai and Ruben off the hook from my last question in the interest of time and I think you've given us a compelling point to end on which is the basis for trust and relationships is that we have to know to be together with each other I want to appreciate what Gendai and Ruben have done over their careers to to steward those relationships on behalf of the United States and our citizens with our African counterparts and we look forward to carrying on those opportunities and I know many of us in the room to being on the continent with African citizens at all levels as we continue to try and find solutions to take advantage of the opportunities together so thank you all for the words of wisdom and for our closing conversation here we're going to turn back to Ambassador Carson for our final closing remarks thank you Kate and your panel thank you very very much for a very stimulating discussion greatly greatly appreciate it we do have one last speaker this afternoon and it is my great pleasure to introduce the last speaker of the day and it's Sue Gordon the principal deputy director of national intelligence in the office of the director of national intelligence Sue is a career intelligence officer over 30 years of experience working in the intelligence community both at the CIA and in other areas around Washington Sue welcome and we look for your closing remarks I'm so pleased to be here today although it's a bit daunting to follow that panel but I feel better because I heard kindred spirits Victor on the issue of trust the best advice I was ever given was by a former colleague who reminded me that around the world everyone thinks they're the good guys and I've kept that in my heart when we look at intelligence and try to understand what we're seeing that's the perspective that I carry I'm a data girl I believe that the availability and ubiquitous of data made democratically available will solve so many of our problems knowledge is power and the availability of that all the way down will make the difference and then Ruben so many of the things you said but quite frankly the fact that we both have family my in-laws have been home with me and I just sent them home so you and I same place listen I'm so proud to be representing the intelligence community today so much of our work is necessarily classified it happens behind closed doors but the intelligence also intelligence community also has a responsibility for transparency and for a conversation with the American people that commitment is more than just releasing documents it's showing up and engaging in the important conversations that are shaping society and global trends you've heard from a variety of experts today I'm not one of them but you've heard from top policy makers on Africa and as an intelligence offers I can tell you that even though we are not the people who decide on the policy we do believe it's our responsibility to have the best intelligence available in order to support the act of decision making intelligence is fundamentally about advantage it's about knowing a little more a little sooner a little further a little deeper at exactly the right moment so that that decision can be made with the best perspective we are to use a word that was used on the panel definitionally bipartisan we do not have an opinion other than the best knowledge we have in order to bring it to bear our role in the intelligence community is to study the region and develop deep expertise, identify trends and threats, explain the implications for the United States and enable good decision making so what I want to talk about today are the trends that we see in Africa and why these trends matter for the United States I also want to briefly discuss and briefly is the important part I said it was daunting to follow that panel there's nothing worse than standing between you and the traffic that you're going to face on the way home but I want to discuss a minute why the community of Africa experts and practitioners are critical to support the decision making for years now we've been looking at the world's growing interconnectedness and I don't think there's any more interconnectedness than there is in Africa particularly across several trends with profound implications the first is population growth I think Kate said it by 2025 a quarter of the world's population is going to be African this presents an opportunity for the United States to attract new sources of talents build new relationships and find new technological advances at the same time that same substantial population growth poses significant challenges our global trends looks at those potential scenarios that population growth may have on the region including strains on food and water healthcare educational infrastructure and limited resources in turn force other things to happen in terms of instability and migration to the west second is the economy as you know Sub-Saharan Africa remains a critical source for commodities introducing including oil and precious minerals farmland and labor the region is a growing market for US companies with investment in sectors like agriculture technology and resource extraction and the third of the factors is political instability 18 of the top 25 countries on the fragile state index are in Africa and unless these trends reverse unstable governance political instability will produce humanitarian crises violent conflicts and terrorism that spill across borders and they frequently require intervention the United States currently provides support for 12 UN African Union and regional peacekeeping missions and as was mentioned our competitors China and Russia have recognized the same opportunities and challenges are stepping in with their interests and it's interesting for good and for difficulty they are present and they are attacking the same opportunities and moments that we see and that's an issue that we have to address and as US decision makers grapple with how to formulate policy toward Africa and meet the challenges and opportunities posed by the trends that I mentioned they rely on experts and professionals quite frankly you to generate the information they need as a leader in the intelligence community I've seen this action in action with great expertise I was the before I had this job I was lucky enough to be the deputy director of the national geospatial intelligence agency those are the people that produce satellite imagery and have a history in knowledge of the earth based on geography mapping and cartography before I arrived in 2015 I was the national crisis facing us because it was in fact a global crisis and the president said all hands on deck and reached out including the intelligence community and said what can you do and NGA kind of screwed up its courage and decided you know we have information that will be useful to help identify not only the overall trends but quite frankly the very specific activities that were on the ground where are their outbreaks where are the clinics and this is the weird part we figured out how to make that data born of a classified intelligence organization available on the world wide web not with a FOB not in a classified network heck not even in the password available openly to be used today exactly as you suggest and the best part the partnerships that we included in that did not involve just giving it to the hundred and four airborne but it actually was teaching the Liberians how they could use that data so then we have seen them take off and understand what Geospatial can do more recently I've seen expertise in the IC feed into the ongoing deliberations on South Suzanne last June the U.S. signed the 5 track engagement plan with the government of Sudan laying out a roadmap for the prevention of most sanctions in return for Sudanese progress on five criteria identified by us our analysis intelligence helped inform the administration's decision in January to suspend most of the most of the sanctions and as well as the decision in July to postpone a further decision to permanently remove the sanctions our analyst insights continue to guide the policy making process and prepare for a decision in October and again I stress we have no vested interest in the outcome our vested interest is in presenting information so the best outcome can be achieved the best part when we are on our best day in intelligence it's because we established partnerships and not just partnerships with government entities or the intelligence community or even with the military we need those traditional partnerships it is the more emergent partnerships partnerships with the institute of peace partnerships with our foreign states that are going to make the differences we go further as I say at NGA the Ebola crisis was a perfect example of that kind of partnership because it wasn't just national imagery that came from our classified sources it was a U.S. company digital globe they made its information available as well different partnerships all for the purpose of advancing national interests differently but with the same outcome in mind we will position the U.S. very well if we continue to explore them as I say the intelligence community study trends and evaluate the implications for the United States and her interests as well as for global security and in our view the activities on the African continent present potential threats but seriously possibilities for human advancement across economic development health governance and security and the consequences are profound for us and our allies in Africa we see an intersection of population growth vast economic resources political instability and great power consumption it's a combustible mix of man-made issues and mother nature that is inherently and largely unpredictable it needs all of us the United States and Africa are bound by a complex history and in this continent its people, its states its ideologies, its economies will only grow more important for us in decades to come I leave you with three messages for those of you in the room I want to remind you that while your work may sometimes get lost in the maelstrom of other national security issues it is not lost on the people who benefit from your work your diligence your expertise are critical to policy makers without you the dynamics of Africa will remain opaque and without clarity suitable policies will remain out of reach thank you so much for participating in this, thank you to USIP for hosting and for sponsoring along with the Institute for Defense Analysis the Center for African Studies the Office of National Intelligence it is my great honor I am pleased to be in your company and will spend my career working to represent our collective interests thank you so much thank you, Sue thank you very, very much for those closing remarks before I invite all of you to join us at a reception outside I want to again extend my thanks to all of our participants this afternoon and throughout the day we're extremely pleased to have had General Waldheiser here from Stuttgart we appreciated the clarity of your remarks at lunch we were also very pleased to have with us this morning Ambassador Tom Shannon the Under Secretary of Political Affairs at the State Department who in fact gave us the first real clear outline of the administration's policies towards Africa we're also pleased as well to have Ambassador Don Yamamoto the Acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs with us Dr. David Chu whose organization has been principally responsible for driving these sessions over the last couple of years David we certainly appreciate your commitment to this this program but we're also extremely pleased to have had all of our participants whether it is Mr. from South Africa whether it's Ambassador Mula Mula or our former Ambassador Gendai Frazier also former Assistant Secretary of State Ambassador Ruben Brigady and others who were all with us today this has been an extraordinary opportunity to hear from a lot of folks about their views on Africa today and where it should be going in the future a lot has been said today and I am not going to attempt in any way to recap it I did and did have the pleasure a year ago to do so and I'm still living from those 15 points that have continued to circulate but I will ask your indulgence really only for four last sentences the United States recognizes the growing and increasing importance of Africa not only to Africans and to the countries and continent that they occupy but the growing importance of Africa as a part of an increasingly interconnected global community where Africa's issues are our issues and our issues are frequently Africa's issues whether it involves the fight against violent extremism or whether it is the fight against an Ebola pandemic that can strike the United States as easily as it can strike Liberia Sierra Leone or Equatorial or Guinea Conakry so we have to recognize that secondly the US is committed to forging stronger partnerships with Africa because we know that it is on our interests to do so and I also believe that it is in Africa's interests to forge partnerships with the US and it desires to do so the great challenge that we all face is that we recognize and understand the challenges the partnership that we seek in a common way we have to understand what Africa seeks out of this partnership and we have to understand better what we seek out of it and the partnership that we forge must be a partnership of mutual interests based on mutual respect and mutual collaboration I'll stop right there invite everybody to come upstairs and have a refreshment of some sort here and we'll close this day again by thanking all of you for your participation thank you