 Greetings from Dharamsala and welcome to our roundtable discussion on the unity of peace, justice and inclusion. We're gathered here in Dharamsala in the studios of Radio Free Asia. So my thanks to RFA for their collaboration on this program with special thanks to Libby Lu and Calden Lodo. I'd also like to thank GHR Foundation for their invaluable support for our program. And we're here in Dharamsala with 26 youth leaders from 12 different countries affected by violent conflict. All of them have made commitments in despite conflict, hatred and violence to be peace builders in their communities. And at a time when we are facing global crises with record levels of displacement, civil wars and violent extremism, it is more important than ever to engage the young people who hold the key to building a more peaceful future. We're gathered here for a week of leadership training as a part of the USIP Generation Change Fellowship and the centerpiece of this program is a two-day dialogue with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. We've had two days of dialogue where the youth leaders have shared their stories, their challenges and they've heard from His Holiness the Dalai Lama inspiration and they've taken great courage and hope. We thank His Holiness for the four years of partnership and we look forward to a very thoughtful and lively conversation as our panelists reflect both on the week as well as the challenges to building peace, justice and inclusion. And with that I'd like to introduce Vice President David Young from US Institute of Peace who will moderate tonight's discussion. Thank you for joining us. Thank you Nancy. Hello everybody and welcome. Hello to our in-house audience and hello to our online audience. In the house tonight here in the RFA studio here in Dharamsala we have our two dozen fellows or Generation Change Fellows from conflict-affected countries around the world. Along with them are four expert Generation Change trainers who've themselves gone through the Generation Change program and we also have four thought leaders, well-known international experts in peace building who've joined us for this week in Dharamsala and then along with Nancy, several of our other USIP colleagues who have helped put on this program. So I give you a warm welcome from beautiful Dharamsala. The unity of peace, justice and inclusion. I was inspired today by our second of two days with His Holiness the Dalai Lama to provide sort of a Buddhist interpretation of our topic. What I mean is the unity of peace, justice and inclusion is these three beautiful concepts go together in our peace building efforts. We'll also be talking about how this unity is expressed in the UN Sustainable Development Goals 16 and how we can use so-called SDG 16 to advance our peace building work around the world. To explore this topic we're very fortunate and very honored to have four amazing peace builders. Before I introduce them I'd like to give you a brief background to our topic tonight. Nineteen years ago at the UN in New York City September 2000 world leaders gathered at the dawn of a new millennium and they declared and pledged to spare no effort to pursue human security, human rights and human development. Indeed those were the three founding pillars of the United Nations. Shortly after that historic summit the UN created the Millennium Development Goals. They were eight goals to be pursued over 15 years. They defined the new international development agenda for the new millennium. They were extremely innovative but from our peace building community's perspective they lacked three important ingredients peace, justice and inclusion. So for peace builders and human rights activists alike for the next 15 years we advocated to address this gap. So in 2015 at the Millennium Summit at the United Nations the world leaders created the new 2030 agenda. Seventeen goals now replacing the 18 Millennium Development Goals. In particular SDG 16 we believe is a historic opportunity to make peace, human rights, democratic governance and the rule of law integral parts of human development. They're especially important for fragile and conflict affected states where the social compact is broken down and SDG 16 provides a catalyst for a new social compact. Last month in New York world leaders gathered for the first quadrennial review of the SDGs overall and SDG 16 in particular. So it's a good time for all of us in the peace building community to take stock of SDG 16. In New York everyone agreed that progress on SDG 16 has been uneven. Civic space continues to shrink around the world. Our peace tables there are still too few seats for youth and for women. Violent conflicts indeed abide and the overall journey from fragility to resilience for many countries is yet stymied. Therefore we believe youth must be a key part of peace discussions. And so we're going to discuss today how to make SDG 16 a reality for countries and local communities. We are inspired by our dialogues this week with His Holiness Dalai Lama where he told us that youth are the seeds of future peace. So let me introduce our wonderful panelists. To my left is Rauan Khafala. She's a peace builder from Libya. Her organization is Together We Build. They support the twin agendas of women peace and security and youth peace and security. Welcome Rauan. To her left is Victor Ochin. He's one of our thought leaders this week. He's an internationally recognized peace builder from Uganda. He's the founder and director of the African Youth Initiative Network which provides crucial support for war victims, transitional justice and youth leadership. To my immediate right is Dalia Fernanda Marquez Agnes. She's a peace builder from Venezuela. She's the founder and secretary general of United Youth in Action. Her organization builds bridges of peace on gender equity, on the environment and on youth leadership. And to my far right is Steve Killalaya. He's equally renowned as a peace builder from Australia. He's the founder and executive chairperson of the Institute for Economics and Peace. The Institute's Global Peace Index is one of the world's leading measures of national and global peacefulness. Welcome to all of you and thanks for joining us. Good to be here. So we're going to start off the discussion by rooting our discussion in our Dharmsala experience, our beautiful experience this week. So I'm going to ask each of the panelists, why were you motivated to participate in USIP's Generation Exchange here in Dharmsala? And could you tell us briefly about your experience this week with your fellows, your thought leaders and of course our dialogues with His Holiness. So, Dalia, please start. Well, thank you so much for the opportunity to share with everyone my experience. So, I was motivated to participate in this program because I have a real commitment with myself to learn more and more each time. At the same time, to be a better young leader and being a better peace builder. So, at the same time, being here with so many young people living in different countries in conflict as I, it seems like a real good opportunity to learn from them experience and at the same time share my own experience and teach us between us how can we deal with the conflict and how can we act against all the violence and how being better and being a peace builder in our countries. Thank you, Dalia. Rowan, please. Well, thank you, David, for having me on this panel. Well, the Generation Change Program has a lot of components that compels you to participate. But first, mainly it works on the self-development and the self-awareness of the young leaders from these countries. They believe that self-development is the essence before taking any step to develop your community and mitigate or solve the issues that are going on. It also provides the opportunity to have a dialogue or a conversation with one of the most recognized leaders out there, which is His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. And I personally, from the past two days, have gained so much knowledge that no one can comprehend a few words. But also, when you see the word Dada Masala also in the program, it has a very good vibe, a good energy that also compels you to participate and really experience the culture and what surrounds it. Yeah, and then that's for me what's the main reasons why I like to participate. Thank you. Victor, thank you for your leadership. What brings you to Dada Masala this week? Oh yeah, it's a great opportunity to be in Dada Masala. I think I come from Africa, which in many instances is a continent that has been through the longest series and layers of violent conflict around the world. In many ways, Africa is a continent that is calling. If there is any continent that is so much in need of peace and justice and inclusion, it's Africa. So coming in, getting to meet fantastic young people doing massive work on peace building in different parts of the world gives so much a reservation. But also, my colleagues, my fellow thought leaders, these are people who are tremendously engaged in doing great stuff around the continent. And I, in so many ways, I carried with me the passion, the feeling, the commitment that my drive from the continent is what I'm coming forward, not to showcase how badly Africa is affected, but I'm coming to this platform as a proof of what is possible in the continent. Of course, meeting with this all in this Dada Lama is compared to nothing. Everything I wanted in life was always to have the opportunity to meet him, hearing his personal experience in percussion, such rejuvenation, to be in this community around your field of holy. So I'm up again. Thank you. Steve, you're a busy person, you're a busy peace builder, a busy entrepreneur, a busy philanthropist. Why did you take out a week to join us? Well, look, to be honest, David, I just jumped at the opportunity. Having met the Dada Lama on another occasion is just always marvel at his wisdom. But also for me, when I look at peace, because that's what we study, most of the time when people are talking peace, they're not actually talking peace. They're talking violence. They're looking at how to stop violence even when they think they're talking peace. But if we're looking at peace, particularly personal peace, that's something really quite different. And so dialogues with the Dada Lama, what you get at it is the assets of personal peace. And I think for all the change makers and peace builders here, you can only go so far out as you can go in because you always hit incredibly tough situations and that internal resilience is what causes you to bounce back and keep going. And the Dada Lama, I think, is the best example on the planet of that. Thank you, Steve. And thanks to all of you for sharing your thoughts about our week in Durham, Salah. So let's turn our thoughts to Sustainable Development Goal 16, and in particular to this UN slash Buddhist idea of a unity between peace, justice and inclusion. So Goal 16 represents this trio of values and it embodies them all within one goal. So I'd like to ask all of you, in what sense is the idea of this unity relevant to your work and how does your work reflect this unity? So why don't we start while we're on this time? Yes. Well, I work with a national organization called Together We Build It. And the core message or the core objective of this organization lies within the SDG number 16. Together We Build It was originally founded to support the transitional process after the Libyan Revolution in 2011 and by supporting that process or the peaceful transitional phase, it's by empowering young people and women. And Together We Build It does that under the framework of 1325 resolution and 2250 resolutions. And we work a lot on advocacy, we work a lot on awareness and consultations. But really what we're trying to do is to keep all the core messages of our work, also the approaches of our work on a lot of levels. So we believe that the target group is also very important. So what we do is when we advocate for women inclusion in the peace process, when we advocate to include youth to be on the table of the decision making, we do not only talk to the national government, we talk to the community, to the national government and the international community. As you may know, after 2014, a civil war broke after the revolution in Libya. The international community became the main mediators for the peace process in Libya. And this is when we've also noticed women were even more systematically excluded from this process. So what we try to establish is to try to include them in and have their presence on the table as well. Because when we thought about the idea or the perfect idea of a social contract after the revolution and when the whole sense of freedom overcame us all, you think of a social contract as a living document that includes all the people of the society. And when we speak about the entire society, we're speaking about the women, we're speaking about the youth, we're speaking about minorities, we're speaking about everyone being on the same table at the same level having their chance to participate with their ideas and make decisions also for themselves. And this is what we're trying to establish with Together We Build That organization. And I think this really lies in when you say peace, justice and inclusion. Because really, can you achieve peace if you do not include all the members of the community? Where is the justice when young people and women pay a tremendous amount of losses in the revolutions and in wars and conflicts when it comes to the formal peace processes they're not even mentioned? And what is inclusion, I mean if you leave inclusion out of the equation, then you really cannot establish the two first words. And I think this is a very important triangle that I think everyone should be having in their main visions of how to improve their own community. Thank you, Rowan, and thank you for your important work. Dalia, tell us about how this triangle works within your organization's efforts in Venezuela. Well, before I answer this question, I want to go back to the first question about my experience with the other fellows. And the two leaders. I have to say that all of them are great people. Each one has a different history, but all the histories are so inspiring histories. So I feel honoured to be here and have the opportunity to share my experience and to learn from them. And about my experience with His Holiness, the Daday Lama, I have to say that this is the most important day of my life at this moment and the most transcendental day. That's it. Now, about the question, peace, justice and inclusion as a unity and my work with these different topics. Well, we cannot say that we have peace without justice. And at the same time, we cannot say that we have justice without inclusion because we need to include all the different peoples, especially the most vulnerable people in a good justice. Therefore, we need a stronger institution and that is what we do in my NGO. We give free advice to the most vulnerable people to gain justice. And at the same time, we try to give training to the future young leaders who will be in the future politics in the country to try to garantise good institutions in the future. So if we have inclusion, we maybe can talk about justice. And if we have a good justice system in our countries where the people respect the rules, when the justice can, when anyone can get justice, so we can talk about peace. Because peace is like equal rights for everyone and the respect of the human rights of everyone in the country. No matter if you live in this community or if you have this religion or if you have this political idea. So therefore, we want to try to have a stronger institution and give the opportunity to get justice to the people of the most vulnerable areas. Thank you very much. Victor, you started one of the most important peace-building organisations in Africa. So please reflect with us about this unity of ideas and how they relate to your work. Yeah. Again, I am directing an organisation called African Youth Initiative Network, which is an indigenous African initiative started 15 years ago in 2005. And we are happy that along the years we have seen so much, we have learnt so much and we know what works. When it comes to inclusion of the key players in peace-building and the whole intention, our agenda was, how can we raise a generation of leaders, a young generation of leaders with willingness to engage in politics that will make peace possible. So the whole thing is, how do we mobilize young people who have been through history of conflict, you know, myself grew up in war, grew up in the camp, and the whole motivation of getting started was, we were sick and tired of our own suffering as a result of conflict. And then we said, let's form ourselves a platform where we can come together, turn around the page of pain, and let our pain become a reason for us, you know, to come forward. The whole concept of us getting started was it started out of anger, but it turned out to be a motivation to ourselves and to other people as well. So all these years, 15 years down the road, our focus has been about restoring dignity of people who have been through war, those who have been violently abused, mutilated, gunshot, those who have been sexually raped and all these kind of people. And to date, I must say, 15 years down the road, we have treated, provided reconstructive surgical rehabilitation to over 22,000 people in northern Uganda. But that has also given us opportunity to allow us to explore what does peace mean to the victims. That's why the essence of peace, justice and inclusion led us to ask the question, who's peace? Who's justice? Who to be included? So when SDG came in, it was moving away from, when MDG came in 2000, year 2000, it came and found us in war. So MDG bypassed us. So when SDG came in 2015, I was actually requested by the Office of the Secretary General of the UN to be one of the 15 ambassadors to raise the flag as we are launching the Sustainable Development Goal. And I was given goal number 16. So SDG goal 16 actually was launched in Africa. There were two goals launched in Africa, SDG goal 16 and goal 18 in South Africa. So I did raise the flag for goal 16 two days before the launch in New York. So that gave us opportunity. But what guided our intervention the most has been precisely. If we talk about peace, justice and inclusion, we're looking at how can we create an inclusive society that is peaceful and just. So that's how we twisted on. Instead of saying peace, justice and inclusion, the whole motivation is let us use our opportunity, our network to create an inclusive and peaceful society that is just. So since then, it has been a reason for us to mobilize the young people in the continent. What I can say, it's very difficult for something good to come out of life of conflict. But only when you allow people to define what peace means like, what justice means like. Then it gives you a reason to know that I'm working for who's justice. Together we can achieve. But if we keep the definition way higher up within the diplomatic level, it becomes diplomatic and problematic. But we want to bring it to the grassroot where it's all about people. SDG was never about the better system. It was about how can we have an inclusive process that every person is a player in achieving agenda 2030. So this is how we have been driving and it has been a good reason for us to mobilize young people. Those affected by conflict, rural, urban, young, old, black, white, and we are doing this across the continent. Thank you so much, Victor. It's a pleasure. Steve, your institute in Sydney is doing some of the most cutting edge research on peace building in the world. So tell us, how does this unity of peace justice and inclusion influence all of your research? Well, you know, David, a lot of the goals within SDG 16 were based around the work which came out of the Institute for Economics and Peace. But I think we need to look more broadly and look at all the SDG targets and goals. So there's 169 targets all up within the SDGs. And if we look, that's far too many goals for any one government to be able to focus on. So there's need to prioritize where do we go. So now if we look at it and we look at the research which comes out of the Institute for Economics and Peace, there's certain things which really drive the processes which create for better societies. And so one of those is corruption. And out of the 169 goals, sorry, out of the 169 targets, there's only one on corruption. Do you know which goal that's in? SDG 16. But we look at peace. Why do we want peace? Why do we want inclusion? Why do we want justice? What we want is a society where human beings can flourish, where they can meet their full potential. So the research we've done around peace is what we find is those same qualities which create for a highly peaceful society, or positive peace, create an optimal environment for human potential to flourish. If you're high in these qualities of peace, then you'll have higher economic growth, you'll have higher measures of well-being, better performance on measures of ecology, and much, much more. So that brings us back now to SDG 16. And SDG 16 is the pivotal goal. Even development, we found in the research, is peace falls off. Development targets fall off as well. And if we look into the countries which are beleaguered by conflict, what we find with the millennium development goals, none of them made any of the targets which were defined. Therefore, peace is at the heart of the SDGs. Thank you, Steve. Thanks for making that very important point. You know, those of us in the SDG 16 community, we're very proud to get on the 2030 agenda. At the same time, in a humble way, we believe, as Steve said, that our goal, in our humble opinion, is the foundation for all of the sustainable development goals, and indeed the foundation for all human development. So that's why we are celebrating our community here this week in Durham, Salah. Before we get too deep into our technical discussion about sustainable development goals 16, I wanted to open up the floor to our wonderful participants in our Generation Change Fellows Exchange here in Durham, Salah this week. As Nancy said, they are 25 or 26 individuals across 12 countries that are experiencing conflict, and they're all doing cutting-edge peace-building work. So I want to give you fellows an opportunity to reflect on what's been said so far in our discussion. So please raise your hand, identify yourself, and make a comment or pose a question for our panelists. Yes, Salmiya. Hi. So my question is that we are talking about inclusion. We are talking about the role of young people in achieving SDG 16 by 2030. But it would be great to hear from the panelists what they think about the donors, how inclusive are their strategies are, and how inclusive their guidelines are, especially for the youth-led peace-building organization, and also the shrinking spaces for civil society organization at international platforms. Thank you. Let's, Salmiya, from India. Why don't we take another question or comment, and then we'll collect a few. Thank you, David. Thank you, all the panelists. Hey, do you want to identify yourself for our audience? Yes. I'm Hain from Yammer. I'm also working in a positive piece, and youth inclusion and decision-making process, and then contributing to our speech piece. And that's, I think one of the, also one of the main challenges I faced is still, we are trying so hard, there is always some kind of discrimination towards young people at many levels, in decision-making level, in the parliament, inclusion, politics, or even like, as Salmiya said before, like the grant kind of like donations and things like that as well. So my question to you is, what kind of suggestions can you provide us, or what kind of encouragement can you give us to face these all kind of challenges we are facing as youth piece builders in our countries? Thank you so much. Thank you, Hain. I'm going to take one more comment or question. I see Lorraine's hand in the front row. Lorraine, do you want to identify yourself? Yes, so hello to everyone. My name is Lorena Gomez. I come from Bogotá, Colombia. And my words are more common. Some days, some months ago I was talking to a friend and we were thinking about peace, and I really relate to what Victor said, because peace is normally thought or represented white. And we were saying, you know what? Peace may be multicolored. So I would like to hear what you all think about that, because probably it's more about diversity. Really, in my case in Colombia, I could say that peace doesn't really let the way that we are representing peace, excuse me, doesn't inspire our imagination on how can our daily interactions look like. So I think that leads to a very superficial, and again I connect with Victor, superficial level on how we are talking about peace-building. So it's very institutional, an institutional narrative, instead of being something that goes more at the grassroots level. Thank you for those excellent comments. So why don't we unpack them a little bit? I'd like to get the impressions of our two youth leaders on the panel. If you can speak to the points made about perceived discrimination towards youth peace-building organizations and perhaps feeling also less attention from donors to youth peace-building organizations. So from your perspective, do you have that similar experience? So why don't we start with Roan? It's a very good question because I was actually conducting a research, as together we built it last year and with the UNOI organization. And the research was basically measuring what are the challenges and the enablers of young peace-builders movement in the countries of I think Libya, Colombia, Afghanistan and Sierra Leone. And one of the main challenges that kept popping up in every interview I conducted was like, we do not have money to do anything. Donors do not trust us. The national governments obviously do not give money to small projects, well not in an extreme extent anyways. The international communities also does not provide money. So they were speaking that there are certain limitations to what they can do to improve the community. Also there are like just lately a couple of cleaning up campaigns that are happening in Tripoli because we have a lot of environmental issues going on and a lot of trash is piling up in Tripoli streets. And a lot of the people who started the cleaning campaigns do not have funding and they paid from their own money. And I think like in Libya's case going deeper into the analysis of the research when we spoke about it they claimed that these young peace-builders lack experience. I mean obviously the Libyan civil society is still not mature enough. You're speaking at a civil society that was established after 2011. You're speaking at a society that only knew freedom and peace and human rights after 2011. So I mean obviously young you were or old you wouldn't be experienced enough honestly. So it's not exactly an age-related and we're trying and we're trying to actually do something. And a lot of I NGOs are investing a lot and they're trying to provide a lot of programs. But still it's quite difficult and it's quite challenging for young Libyans to get funds. This is for certain. This is guaranteed. But still the good thing well at least about the young peace-builders I know in Libya that doesn't stop them. Like I said only like just a couple of weeks ago actually like young people paid from their own money to do a cleanup they pay from their own money to throw an art exhibit. They pay from their own money to do a workshop or like a debate or something like that. So it's also about the don't let limitations get into you because if it's only a matter of money it can be resolved. I mean like a lot of young people who were proven themselves and they done and conducted a lot of active work in the civil society. They were able to gain the trust at least from the international community and you and entities to get funds and donations. Thank you. Dali what's been your your experience there are many needs in Venezuela in the current crisis. I will start saying that since my NGO it sees it sees six years ago we never have been working with financial support from any institution. And even with the lack of money we still working. How how can we work as young leaders without money. Well it's easy. There are many other NGOs working like your NGOs trying to find other NGOs to work together. So please don't see money the lack of money as a problem. See it as a challenge and keep working. We have been developing several projects at the same time you can try to fight support by the universities. By example it's a good idea for us. It's works at the same time from other NGOs. That's it. It's possible. We do it because in our country and yours are under persecution. So it's impossible get financial support. Thank you. So Victor even though you're still very young you're one of the elders on our panel. So as the former youth current elder you both you and Steve have both been around the block many times in terms of working with donors whether they be bilateral government agencies or multilateral agencies like the UN or the World Bank or private foundations. What's your experience do they even though they sign on rhetorically to SGG 16 other SGGs do they truly take an inclusive approach do they truly take a diverse approach in the way that Lorraine asked. So first Victor and then Steve. Yes thanks a lot and I appreciate the question that Lorraine asked about the need to to stretch the thinking beyond the board rooms beyond the you know the spaces beyond dialogue beyond statistics. We do need to understand that when you talk about trust trust is very limited towards the global south. You're in Africa you're in South America you're in Asia there's limited trust and this worst is double tragedy if a youth if a young person unless we know our friends in the U.S. and in Europe to get some support although they are young they do get some support because they have a system you know economic industries do support them but when it comes to the global south trust is zero. So in a way I would think like this is a very good loud commitment by international communities the donors and even the U.N. must be taking responsibility that how can we translate and transform the rhetoric into action because if we know young people are the key players in current conflicts then we we don't support them there's so much money for war and there's no money for peace building and then we are saying when are we going to help United Nations you know our countries all these big shots to realize that as long as we don't pay attention to the legitimate owners of the future SDG say it is their dream but we need to pay attention to the young people who are the legitimate owners of the future because we can't talk about 23rd and 24th without having people who are going to be there active in 23rd and 24th taking lead in thinking and engagement so in terms of financing that's agreed as a general outcry of lack of support to the youth initiative but also in terms of we do think there is a very strong contrast between theoretical success and practical success. My two sisters talked about how hard they find it to get money in the community. I started working 15 years ago most NGOs as well the youth initiative do not see their 5th anniversary they start well as good dreams good thinkers and all that but along the way challenges come you know you need money to facilitate the process but if there's no resources you can't there's so much money for war but there's no money for peace building and we are saying can we reframe move away from this post-mortem mindset of peace where we only want to come when there's war we only want we are ready to respond to the next humanitarian crisis but we are not ready to prevent. The world has got the capacity and I'm happy that we are talking with a U.S. government support you know in the U.S. government supported platform. America is a big player in the global peace and security. How do we get ready so much to respond to the next humanitarian crisis? We know what is going to happen soon but we don't step into prevent. So young people are saying in our approach we do think that the best way is to prevent conflict are from by engaging diplomacy let's engage dialogue among the young people and speak among you know among the peers but we talk about the diplomacy and mediation is two way higher up in the political rather which young people doesn't get there and yet young people are the key players when it comes to that the tools for fighting the tools for war and we don't engage them in become tools for mediation and dialogue. I think that's where we are missing a point coming to the Ram Sala makes a lot of difference that we are trying to nurture the thinking the mindset that we move away from the post-mortem approach to peace to a pre-mortem where we research and see that the next war might break here what do we do upfront we know climate change is coming who are going to be affected the young people how are we going to manage and share the little we have if you don't have capacity to tolerate one another to dialogue to engage in diplomacy to engage in inclusion a lot of people are struggling on their own there's money in the world but there's no will everything's rhetoric on how to support we need to change that mindset if you want to see sense in the community. Thank you Victor. So Steve your current elder but. Young at heart. Former youth peace builder, former adventurer, former surfer on the sands of Australia's beautiful shores so and you have no conflict of interest your philanthropist so please give us your unvarnished views about the current donor landscape that you see. So I think the issue is money so if we look at the cost of violence to the global economy it's about $14 trillion a year so to put that in perspective that's about 11% of global GDP we took 1% of the cost of that that's all the money which is spent on overseas developmental aid in one year just 1% just 1% we just looked at violent conflict and ignored other forms of violence what we find that's about $600 billion a year now the amount of money spent on peacekeeping is literally 1% of that and that peacekeeping comes after the effect and peacebuilding is even less so there's matter of priorities around what do we want to do and where do we want to spend our money so if we look at the overseas developmental aid in many other countries in the west are shrinking so it's becoming smaller and so the question for the international community and those ones who are interested in this how do you actually reverse it but I know from my own experience and we've been out of my family foundation we've conducted about 200 projects around the world and through the Institute for Economics and Peace we've run all sorts of workshops in many many places around the world on positive peace and so we look at the developmental pie at the moment women and youth get quite a substantial share and you're right it doesn't not doesn't go very far we all feel poor so the question is how to actually change this and this comes back to one of the questions is peace how do you actually market and publicize peace and I think that's one of the key things for the international community for peace how can we actually do it better so the work we've done is trying to take indexes and use them as ways of being able to promote peace and so let's say for the global peace index we launch that each year and we did it in June this year so we had about two billion media impressions globally and 240 million social media impressions and so that's one of the ways we do to actually publicize peace but the thing with peace is it's a non-event most of the time because when there's peace what is there to report on whereas the media likes to report on violence violence has something which is immediate peace something which is sustainable over the long term so the questions now really is how do you actually take peace and now find things which can actually use as an event peace when we sign let's say contracts on peace let's say like happened in Columbia for example a peace agreement that's an example of an event but we need to get much much smarter on how to actually get peace into the news thank you Steve yes so a lot of hands up I'm going to though I'm not going to call on those that have already so I'm going to go first to Idris in the front row and Dami next to him and then I'm going to go in the back and then we'll take stock of where we're at but please if I haven't called on you yet keep your hands up oh I'm sorry so all right thank you so identify yourself yeah thank you so my David my name is Ari Moen from South Sudan I am a generation change fellow and my question is to David sorry to Steve and and Victor Victor when you mentioned the idea of preventive diplomacy as one way of approaching peace I I really connected with it and when David mentioned that sorry when Steve mentioned that their research showed that most of the countries that have violence are actually not developed and he says peace is the heart of it I really understand that because I come from a country where youth are marginalized and youth have been used as a means of violence and when you try to understand the reason behind that it's because these youth as you as you know Victor there is issue of poverty there is issue of less of education you know that is happening in their own countries so the politician see them very vulnerable and use them actually to fight one another and I want to say that the few of us that I hear are the fine ones within our communities the other few that were privileged to be educated and that's why we are here and our organization such as mine for example is looking at bringing peace through helping the youth the few youth that we represent with a few that come here and how do we have through education you know it through provision of basic services to them it is through employment it is our organization that can help with the youth that have come up and founded organizations that support the youth within the communities but we get the challenge you know with support you know they have mentioned UN, USIP and the other global peace you know organization there is an issue to really redirect the energy towards how can we use youth better in order to bring peace to their own countries so I would like to hear from Steve what is the link between you know economy in terms of resources lack of employment and actually using youth to bring peace within their countries I'm sorry my question is long but I felt I had to take time to explain this thank you thank you all so I'm going to ask all of the panelists to store in their memory banks the reflections of our young fellows and because I want to give the voices that came to Darbzala as much opportunity as possible so I have a list of Idris Dami, Naomi, Ferris and Luis I'm going to ask each of you to be very brief and so I'll go in that order and I'm not going to call on those that have already spoken unfortunately so Idris please start first of all hello to the panelists the fellows and the audiences which are watching us from their television at their homes my name is Idris from Afghanistan I have a comment and a question my question referred to Victor and my comment is to Dalai about comments you know I agree that we can do something with without money without financial aid but the point is here that we can do greater things with money with financial aid it hasn't been happened many times that me and my team in our organization we didn't have any money to pay for rent to rent a call to to just have a travel to the villages to have training for them this is the point that we have to consider and my question from Victor 15 years ago you have established your own organization and I'm sure that in that 15 years ago you were really young I'm really appreciate I really want to know that how did you start how did you find financial and how did you start and what was the point I really I really appreciate to know that from you thank you thank you thank you Idris so Dami then Naomi and so everyone please be brief we're starting to get down to the end of the hour thank you my name is Dom Dami Nala Babatunde from Nigeria I really love the literature that was raised about you to be in a school date when it comes to dialogues discussions that I have to consider when it comes to the suffering parts we also find it but then when it comes to we find a solution we're talking about how we feel about what we're passing through we're not giving the opportunity so I believe that if we're just waiting on maybe they will be a space for us at the level for us to communicate our feelings what are the particular steps that I can take that they can take that usually doesn't work and take to make sure that we are to measure that we can communicate what we feel we can communicate our own ideas and we can contribute to discussions that thank you thank you Dami Naomi thank you very much my name is Naomi I'm from Nigeria well when I was listening to Victor a talk came into my mind when he was talking about some parts of the world that have more inclusion than some other parts when he said the global south there less opportunities for youths so I'm directing this question to Steve because you do research on these what do you think about those places that run extractive political institutions because like a lot of countries right now that are close to peaceful I don't mean peaceful peaceful but close to peaceful run inclusive political and economic institutions but most of the countries that suffer violence a lot currently run on very extractive political and economic institutions so how do you promote peace justice and inclusion in a system of government that is already fixed as an extractive political institution how does that work that's an excellent question so I'm going to take two more comments and then give the last words to our panelists so Ferris and then Luis hello this is Firas from Syria and I want to ask the respective panelists about brosy wars so we are living or been observing the brosy wars through the last 10 years or more my question here that since the main the main funders are usually we are we observe that the main funders are usually main actors as well and this compact of interest is really affecting the maybe let's say practicality of having the peace building approach implemented on the ground what do you think how we can promote peace without war so this is my question thanks thank you thank you Ferris and then finally Luis hello everyone my name is Luis from Venezuela everybody says that in this moment that we as young are change maker I don't think that our age is the only thing that define what we can do and it's define that we are the change maker you know what other another kind of resources and different to money we need to be a real change makers and I'm talking also about soft and hard skills thank you thank you so we have just over five more minutes I'm gonna ask Victor Steve and then give the last words to our youth leaders and then Dahlia and Rowan in that order to briefly reflect on the comments have been made and understand we don't have pieces of paper in just share whatever reflections you can within just a few minutes please yeah thank you very much for the wonderful questions and my brother from Afghanistan Nigeria and South Dan I think to begin with we have to commit ourselves to promote peace during peace and we will promote peace during war the world as it is they talk about peace only when there is war and if the countries at peace nobody would think about how can we have a peace building program or something about but as young people it ties to the economic benefit war is so profitable there are so many war profitors you are suffering is a big business to some people so we got to be able to tell the world that whether you like it or not we are coming forward we are stepping forward so much love and trust and respect to tell you that war has become so profitable that talking about peace makes you an enemy I also want to say when you are promoting peace know that you don't don't underestimate it you don't have enemies you even if you're a peace builder you have enemies you are worried you have enemies so you have to you get to know that the worst enemy is the one who hates you not because you're doing something that makes you know something bad but the worst enemy is the one that hates you because you're doing something good that makes them look bad and in this case you're promoting peace in the face of war that is so profitable you've got to be very careful to know that how I became who I am today after 15 years my brother from Afghanistan asked I think it's good to share personal stories like this so that you can compare notes I said I was born in war in northern Uganda life was all about conflict I didn't know anything I grew up I spent 20 years of my childhood in the camp my education I paid myself in school I burn charcoal I cut trees like everywhere sometimes the very charcoal I cut I come and find the rebel planted landmines around it and he asked what did I do I'm just cutting trees to get $20 to pay myself in school some of you might be lucky that you despite the hardship you still secure the opportunity to study but some of us had to work that way even to look at when did I start working I was 13 years old when I decided to form a peace club in the camp very naughty 13 years old guy who chose to choose peace in the face of child soldiers recruitment and primarily my move was to mobilize myself and my friends to the campaign child soldiers recruitment that was being done by the armed forces and I became the common enemy for both child soldiers recruiters from the government side and also from the from the rebel side and then along the way 15 years ago on the peak of war on the peak of suffering you could see that everybody had given up hope there was no hope at all when I formed this initiative to just help us come together as those who have been through through war reintegration of former child soldiers and then without money I remember moving from one UN door to another UN door asking for $500 nobody gave me anything there were so many international organization all driving the heavy humanitarian fleets of heavy humanitarian cars vx land cruises and all that asking nobody gave us money but we chose to stick on the side of peace we started working to support the victim mobilizing money and that has been able to help us move on to where we are today I could say we are now somehow funded but we continue to do more so it's going to be difficult thank you thank you so we're just about out of time so I'm going to ask just 30 seconds or less if you can just give advice to our right just really quickly 8 of the 11 largest arms exporters of Western democracies but without armies ISIS and Boko Haram would have never been defeated so the answer around an arms trade is very very very complex we come back we look at what creates for peaceful societies there's one has to look at a society as a system and so many many different things need to come together to create peace but one of the things which does come with peace is economic prosperity and so we're getting a message tying economic prosperity in to the people who are the leaders of your society if you can get that across it's a message which resonates one well it's one we sell but there's a whole range of things like low levels of corruption a equitable distribution of resources acceptance of the rights of others and strong business environment but in final saying what I'd say unless we have a world which is basically peaceful we'll never get the levels of trust cooperation inclusiveness necessary to solve the problems facing the world thank you Steve so Dahlia and Rowan please take us home and we just have a few minutes left well I am totally agree with Edris at the end we need we need money to do better things but my reality as Venezuelan is really different especially talking about receive money for another country so for me it's a risky thing but I will give you an advice when you want to get the attention of the sponsor you must say that you as your leaders are representing one of the major groups that the 21 agenda recognizing as one of the main groups that have to participate and being included in all the different strategies of United Nations that includes the 2030 agenda that will be a good idea to get their attention especially if you are trying to get the attention of an international agency and another example this is an opportunity the USIP bring us here to Dharamsala so we have to keep this in mind to remember that it's not all about the money it's about the opportunities to thank you Rowan well I mean in conclusion because I heard the word media Steve talked a lot about how we should use media to promote peace and also like how a question came up how to promote peace even during conflict and during peace but I think like so I go back to one thing I said it's like knowing your target group and youth is a majority we are a majority in most of the areas we live in and stereotyping youth here for a little bit but youth use media a lot so basically media is in our hands we know how to use it it's basically how to use it correctly to advocate for the right things and one thing we did it's like we try we always try to go out of the box when it comes to our media platforms and so one of the awareness programs that we're doing on gender-based violence we illustrated gender-based violence Libyan women are subjected to into comic stories and that gained more attention and more people are reading them rather than just for instance writing stiff lines or long sentences that no one that will grab no one's attention so I think it's also about how to mobilize and take advantage of the tools that you have so I think pop culture it's something that we can really like structure it together and like an advocate for our causes through it because basically everything happens through pop culture in my opinion what they were speaking about movies, art, comics, music everything is advocated through that and we have the capacity and the ability to advocate peace through that as well so I think as youth leaders and as youth organizations we I think we can really pull this off when it comes to the media coverage and it will also be a good way to advocate for your messages and also like when targeting the international community and targeting you and entities and targeting the national government I think it's really just about taking different approaches based on your targeted group but doing them all as a collective as a collective attack it's doesn't happen on a separate terms. Thank you Rwanda thank you all our panelists our time has come to a close I just in closing want to share these thoughts our youth leaders came to Dharamsala to be inspired by each other each other's work you know of course by his holiness we've spent a good six seven hours over two days with his holiness this week and they have indeed been inspired by him I saw it within my own eyes but I also saw in his holiness his eyes how he has been inspired by our youth leaders by their courage by their work by their sacrifice by their hope by their optimism by their knowledge and in his eyes I saw in all of the eyes of the elders in the room that SDG 16 all of the sustainable development goals will be achieved by 2030 because of our youth of our youth leaders and all of your colleagues around the world who are doing incredible peacebuilding work so on that note I think of our panelists I think our youth leaders and my colleagues from USIP and Radio Free Asia and I bid you greetings from beautiful Dharamsala thank you for joining us