 Good afternoon everybody. We're going to go ahead and get started while people filter in from this really marvelous exhibit out here I hope everyone had a chance to see it Welcome to the US Institute of Peace. My name is Nancy Lindborg. I'm the president here And I'm delighted you could join us here this afternoon for an important conversation about the contribution that demining and Weapons disposal work has on the broader Field necessary field of peace building of reconciliation and security initiatives I'd like to thank The Halo trust who is our partner today As we continue our recognition of the International Mine Awareness Day and celebrate the 20th anniversary Amazingly 20th anniversary of Princess Diana's visit to the Angola minefields The Halo trust gained international recognition following that visit And it was founded in 1988 out of the desire to address the landmine epidemic in Afghanistan And I remember well my first introduction up close to the impact of landmines on on People was when I went to Quetta in 1997 and saw up close What had happened to so many women and children who Were maimed by landmines so today Halo trust is the world's largest humanitarian mine clearance Organization with 6,000 staff in 19 countries and territories, so I'm delighted to welcome the Halo CEO major general James Cowan Chair of the Halo trust USA Mia Hamway And she's not here yet, but we'll see her later this this evening chair of Halo UK and a board member of Halo USA Amanda Pullinger, and I'd also like to acknowledge some of our distinguished guests who are here with us today the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq At the Department of State Joseph Pennington. Thank you for joining us And the NATO assistant secretary general for emerging security challenges ambassador Soren Dukaro Welcome and the director of the United States man mine action service on yes marquee you Thank you for being here with us today And as many of you know US IP was founded just over 30 years ago by the US Congress as an independent federal institution really dedicated to the proposition that peace is practical and that it's very possible and we pursue a world a Vision of a world without violent conflict by working with partners around the world in conflict zones to provide them with the information the tools and the training so that they can prevent and resolve violent conflict and Critical to this conversation is the whole demining effort It's not until landmines are cleared that the space is open for people to return home to rebuild the societies that have been torn apart by violent conflict and To move forward with peace and we see that demining is a critical part of any peace effort Last year one of the first agreed upon elements of the historic peace agreement between The Colombian army and the FARC gorillas was a plan to work together to locate and destroy the rebel landmines So this is long been a part of the US IP Portfolio, we've supported research and action on demining including a major study of the socioeconomic human and environmental costs of landmines And we're very happy to have supported the production of a documentary film called the bomb hunters Which documented the effects of unexploded ordinance on the Cambodian people and actually three years after the completion of that film Bomb hunters was credited with US Department of State with influencing national legislation in Cambodia that led to a 50% drop in unexploded ordinance tampering casualties Which is a critical part of this whole effort So in a moment, we'll show a short video It's an excerpt from a speech that Prince Harry made on April 4th International Landmine Awareness Day At an event that Halo trust hosted in London, so we're delighted to have Prince Harry with us In video, but before we do that, I'd like to introduce the halo CEO Major General James Cowan After the video he will come up to introduce halo and their work and as a career military officer Major General Cowan understands the importance of dealing with the deadly debris of war and he's had a long and distinguished career beginning with his joining the black watch in 1986 where he served in Berlin Northern Ireland Zimbabwe, Lesotho in Hong Kong He was deployed to Iraq several times where he commanded the 11th Light Brigade And served as the general officer commanding the third UK division where he was awarded the distinguished service medal he also served as the head of counterterrorism and UK operations and Was charged with the military Planning for the Olympic security operations in 2012 so he knows well these issues is well placed to be the CEO of halo, which he became in 2015. I know we'll have an excellent discussion today And we're looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts. We'll show the clip first and then welcome Major General Cowan So let's run the clip 20 years ago in the last months across large parts of Africa the world is affected by the consequences of war and To a very large degree those wars are fueled by the weapons with which they are fought and landmines IEDs small arms and light weapons form in a very important part of all of that So thank you all for coming today What I'm sure is going to be a fascinating discussion this afternoon In particular like to thank our speakers for taking time to join us And I particularly like to thank the US Institute for peace for hosting this event As you just saw in this brief excerpt earlier this month Prince Harry launched the landmine free 2025 campaign Continuing his mother's legacy by calling on the international community to finish the job of clearing all landmines within the next nine years This is not simply pursuit of a target the minefields that will be cleared to achieve this will become usable fields safe roads and new homes The mine track Princess Diana walked along in Angola 20 years ago is now a street in a thriving community It shows that our work to clear landmines and IEDs Doesn't just save life and limb but allows countries like Angola to rebuild after more than two decades of war Angola is now rarely in the headlines But work goes on in rural areas of the country to continue clearing minefields that affect the daily lives of thousands of people And constrain economic development With funding from the US Department of State We also continue to destroy weapons and ammunition and support the Angolan government in improving security of its stockpiles The demining that took place before and after the end of the war in 2002 paved the way for stabilization and the long process of recovery and rebuilding Removing weapons and ammunition from circulation and Developing national capacities to manage their stocks has reduced the risks of future conflict This has recently been demonstrated in the Ivory Coast Where weapons stores refurbished to international standards by the Halo Trust and the UN mine action service Proved resistant to looters during local unrest Often when we talk about mine action It's really a shorthand for the range of activities We undertake to remove the threat from conventional weapons both after and sometimes during a conflict Halo and many other organizations in the sector long ago realized that the skills and infrastructure needed for clearing mines in IEDs Can also be used to assist nations in securing and destroying insecure stockpiles of weapons and ammunition Including explosive Precursals for IEDs and man portable air defense systems that threaten civilian aviation Many of us in this room regularly attend mine action conferences Where we discuss treaty compliance new methodologies and the other arcana of the sector I hope that today we can broaden that discussion to think deeply about how mine action can support Long-term stabilization and peace building in post-conflict communities and I would encourage you all to share your thoughts So thank you very much, and it now remains my duty simply to introduce the first panel Joseph Pennington is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq Ambassador Soren Dukeru is the Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges in NATO Daniel Avila is the Deputy Chief of Mission of the Embassy of Columbia and was formerly head of the demining authority in Colombia And Dr. Ken Rutherford is the director of the Center for International Stabilization and Recovery at James Madison University And I think it's quite telling and poignant to note that Ken Accompanied Princess Diana during that visit back in 1997 So with that very distinguished panel, I'd now invite them to come on to the podium for the first session Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Paul Hughes of the United States Institute of Peace I'm the director of Overseas Safety and Security and a fellow who has worked on the landmine issue for Number of years along with some of my colleagues here Steve Costner from State Ken from a long time ago And it's a persistent issue as the general described and it's certainly something that we need to address I want to thank both the general and Nancy for their kind introductions to the conference and as we've noted the issue of clearing landmines and UXO remains just as important today as it did 100 years ago. This is the centennial of World War one and we're talking about the consequences of war the war of the Great War World War one still exists today with us and I am an ardent champion of trying to get people to recognize that the issues we deal with today go back to World War one where peace was not achieved where Clarence of munitions was not successfully done and for farmers in France and in Belgium They today still run into remnants of that war. I Also want to thank Halo trust for their efforts to keep this issue at the front of policymakers priorities So many organizations like Halo trust especially landmine survivors network Mine action group the Marshall Legacy Institute Handicap International and so many others like the ones you see in the Great Hall here have been leaders in the field of mine and UXO Clarence in addition to identifying and and clearing mines and UXO these organizations have also pioneered education initiatives aimed at non-combatants especially children to help them understand the dangers of Munitions that they find in the field the simple adage if you didn't drop it. Don't touch it still applies And it has made a difference around the world, but there's much more that needs to be done These organizations have also played important roles in assisting victims by providing Prosthetics and job training Supported by many others including the Department of State Demining organizations deserve our collective thanks for their efforts to help stabilize fragile countries And make space for them so that they can learn to become more resilient Fragile states typically characterized by a breakdown of the social contract between people in the government they serve And also a lack of political legitimacy and resilience in their institutions Find themselves unable to sustain any sense of stability within their lands and that results in growing numbers of internally displaced people's IDPs refugees Armed militias and transnational crime Many of them have suffered such as Afghanistan South Sudan many other countries From the long-term effects of land mines and UXO which have only exacerbated their troubles and prevented the return of those IDPs prevented the cultivation of land prevented the reestablishment of stability and I'm just going to show you a Report that was recently done the fragility study group which was a group of three organizations the Center for New American Security the Carnegie Endowment for international peace and US IP to study the issue of fragility a very insightful report You can find it upstairs in Atrium level on the publications desk if you want one This is also on the US IP website to help us better understand this relationship between fragile states and The broad scope of demining activities and how that could help them build resiliency We have our four experts that will kick off our first panel of the day and all of them have been introduced So I will not repeat that but you can find their bios in your program So I'm going to ask them a few questions give them some time for their own individual remarks And then we will open the floor up to you our audience probably the most important people in Washington DC today For your thoughts and your questions There is one other report. I would also like to showcase if you have not received this yet the State Department's annual report To walk the earth and safety and we have copies of those available out in the Great Hall for you as well so I'm going to begin with our esteemed colleague from NATO Ambassador do Karoo and I'll begin with you, sir You have a lengthy experience with NATO and the emerging security challenges NATO has confronted over the last 15 or so years NATO has been committed to out of area operations now for quite some time And additionally with a resurgent Russia and its continued use of mine warfare Just as we witnessed in occupied Ukraine yesterday when an OSCE member was killed by a landmine What are the emerging security challenges that you have seen from your years of working on these issues? Developing that will utilize mines and IEDs in ways that we haven't seen before over to you, sir well, thank you. Thank you very much for the opportunity to address this distinguished conference and let me jump directly to to to the answer of your question the Addressing the emerging challenges has been at the heart of NATO's transformation for About a decade although that this division per se has been established in 2007 when the allies were negotiating the strategic concept from of the Lisbon Summit And I would say that the scope was to actually adapt NATO's initial core mandate that have collected defense To the new reality, which is why in At the Lisbon Summit of 2010 in the new strategic concept. There were two new core tasks that have been added to collect the defense one was the cooperative securities for the network of partnerships and the the mandate for Crisis management that Was linked to NATO's operational engagement. I think what's Important to highlight that the process of evolution has continued today We operate under I would say two main policy guidelines One is the one linked to the core business of deterrence and defense But the other one is the projecting stability mandate that we we have received from the last summit in Warsaw and Aspects like the mining with all its ramifications have a huge I would say relevance in this in this context I think we realize that we are living in a period where it's actually more Important and more efficient to Be able to act in a stabilizing manner while I would say this the threat landscape is defined as a lot of let's say Insecurity noise Sometimes below the threshold of warfare and hot conflict, but not definitely above what would be the ideal piece Some argue we are in a kind of constant hybrid warfare scenario I also heard the the the more optimistic who speak about the kind of hybrid priest rather than hybrid warfare, but it's this mix of highly unconventional threats that kind of blend also with the conventional ones in this hybrid mix The key aspects that we are we are focusing I would say are is the fight against terrorism and by the way our engagement in Especially in training and equipping our partner nations for Aspects like the mining or counter improvised explosives devices detection clearance and and and so on And I will give also some figures to give a sense of our engagement this and this is very much at the core of what We're doing. Yes, NATO is part is contributing also to the counter ISIL coalition from providing airwax and Or Ellen's ground surveillance data to the contribution of each single ally in this But I think where we find that we can bring a lot of expertise is in training The trainers in our partner countries and it's the expertise that we unfortunately gathered in the huge operation Engagement especially in Afghanistan, but also in the other operational theaters That has been amplified Also through the creation of a number of centers of excellence that are linked to this issue I would say that somehow we we have four Center of excellence that are linked with counter terrorism first It's the original one in Ankara that deals with counter terrorism in a broad and comprehensive Sense, but there is another center of excellence in Madrid focusing on counter ID training and disposal an explosive ordinance center of excellence in the Slovak Republic and also Joint CBRN center of excellence In the Czech Republic that addresses the the danger of chemical IDs for example, so Counter terrorism in the sense of empowering our partners to to address this issue at a source and also Being engaged with them in a long term is is is one of the key issue there. There are others. I would say Counter cyber defense is is one of the key and fast growing effort Within NATO and I would argue it is also a kind of model of how NATO was able to to evolve from addressing Cyber just like a technical issue like any other business But bringing it in the last three years at the core and linking it which is a reason of being with the collective defense and also with the operational aspects The aspects of impact of new technologies upon security WND non-proliferation And and so on and so forth we also benefit from two programs that are managed by this division one is called the defense against terrorism program of work and It's aimed to bring more capability state of the air capability for allies to You know fight terrorism the other one is the science for peace and security program Which is a partnership program where we can engage Directly with our partners in training in bringing the state idea of the art technologies and so on and Before ending just let me give you a sense of You know our engagement The track record in post-conflict Demining of NATO is is quite I would say substantive We've been working with partners ranging from Ukraine to Afghanistan from Georgia to Egypt and I also have some figures from from our database The Alliance has helped destroy more than five million anti-personnel landmines as well as over six hundred thousand pieces of unexploded ordinance and We've been able to train Thousands of experts in explosives ordinance disposal and counter ID techniques I would prepare to give some and maybe I can and can do it And the next questions give come some examples of how we engage with a couple of key partner nations such as Iraq Or Egypt or Ukraine? I even had some some slides or and videos But you know I you know when when you think it's a good moment I can go in more detail because they are very very I would say interesting and then important engagements Yeah, that's That's very helpful for us to understand what the world's most successful defense Alliance has been doing During this era of what I would call violent peace as you said below the threshold of Interest interstate war and more interest state with that I'd like to turn to Joe Pennington You know you have served in Iraq You have seen how fragile a state can become And you've seen the impact of the ISIL occupation on Iraqi cities and towns with their massive numbers of IDPs that they have in place Those IDPs have inhibited the return of Iraqi citizens to their hometowns We see major transportation routes oil fields and the urban areas have all been affected So from your experience, what have you seen that would help? Return IDPs during a time when we still don't have a peace. It's an ongoing conflict and What policy or organizational challenges have you detected from your various vantage points? Thank you very much first of all to US IP for for inviting me to participate in this this important Discussion and thanks to US IP also for its tremendous efforts in Iraq It's part of the Iraqi government's Efforts to achieve reconciliation and stabilization in the country and thank you to Halo trust for for organizing with us IP this important event I Halo trust is an organization I know well because I was in Armenia and saw the great work that that you were doing there In terms of demining related to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. So thank you Iraq I believe has the largest come concentration of complex explosive hazards in the world and That gives you sort of the macro sense of the challenge but I what I wanted to to convey today, I think is that the Way that the challenge of demining Iraq has evolved Sort of pre ISIS and and post ISIS when I arrived I was the US consul general in her beal from 2013 to 2015 and when I arrived in 2013 this is before the emergence of of ISIS in Iraq There was a lot of demining work going on much of which was supported by the US government We were chatting with our friends from the mines advisory group outside from mag which I Had the privilege of attending a number of ceremonies organized by mag to hand over Demined agriculture land back to local farmers in the Kurdistan region of Iraq and that So traditional demining if you will That was left to address mine issues that were left over from the irani rock war from the US invasion and and the subsequent military conflict That was a a real challenge Even before ISIS emerged so ISIS came on the scene in in Iraq in the summer of 2014 and once the coalition Or in the Iraqi security forces with the support of the coalition Led by the United States started to push ISIS out of The land that it occupied in Iraq and particularly out of the urban environments Such as Ramadi which fell or was was retaken by the Iraqis in December 2015 If the scope of the what I would call the new Demining problem became painfully obvious What we found was in places like Ramadi where during the course of the the fight Almost all civilians left the city the city of maybe four or five hundred thousand people and so the only people left in the city as the battle unfolded were ISIS militants fighting against the Iraqis and so when they were defeated and Iraqi security forces managed to get into the city center what they found was that every single building every single piece of infrastructure every water water pumping station every electrical substation was Not only contaminated with explosive devices booby traps or mines But with multiple examples of such and so it even to demine a one particular facility or one particular building would take many many days and So this was something that was I think not anticipated in the planning for stabilization in the Post-liberation environment and particularly in the urban environment. It was not budgeted for frankly, and so we and our partners had to develop the an approach and a capability and a funding mechanism for supporting the demining of those Urban environments that would allow the displaced families and we're talking about hundreds of thousands of people and in many cases and more than three million across all of Iraq to allow those families to return to their homes to to Reestablish basic services such as water electricity Some semblance of economic life That would enable those communities to to flourish and so the United States government partnered with a Private US company called Janice global which has been on the ground in on bar and Minoa, which is province of Mosul for the last for more than a year now working on Decontaminating these urban environments and although the work is painstakingly slow. It is also Achieving results on the ground. So now you see a situation in Ramadi Which was the most heavily mind of all of the urban areas that have been liberated Which now has more than 200,000? Residents have returned the town of Fallujah, which was liberated subsequent to Ramadi has more than 90% of its residents Have returned it was not as heavily mined as Ramadi, of course the largest challenge Of any of these urban environments is going to be Mosul Which is not yet safe and secure To allow the return of the or the introduction of our demining partners into those that environment But it will be quite soon The United States has just to give you a sense of the Challenge that we face the United States since 2003 has spent more than $330 million To fund demining efforts in Iraq including a significant portion of that just in the past 18 months in the in the liberal areas liberated from ISIS There's also a UN effort through the UN mine action service That is active in these areas as well, and it's not only decontamination But also training of local communities and training of development of capacity demining capacity In Iraq to enable the Iraqis to multiply The effects of demining efforts. Maybe I'll stop there and happy to make additional comments. Okay. Thank you Joe so We're going to turn to a country now that has a glimmer of peace Columbia Sir, mr. Avila Hopefully Columbia has reached the point in your history where we can see peace return after a very long insurgency with the FARC and ELN you once led the long-term efforts of demining and And in doing so You have helped contribute to setting the ground for Increasing the stability of Columbia How would you tell us about Columbia and how it managed its mine action plan and conducted? demining during the time of open conflict and now that you're on the verge of Peace how have you worked into the peace treaty? demining aspects and and such and as You begin to deal with ELN will demining be part of the solution with them as well Paul, thank you very much and first of all, I'd like to thank the Institute of Peace for inviting Columbia to this very important and timely panel on This key strategic issue not only for Columbia, but for the global community also like to thank a halo trust For the organization of this event Let me address very quickly. Let me take one minute Paul on the very same title that we have in this panel Which is demining and fragile states? Just to highlight the importance of the transformation of Columbia in the last 20 years 20 years ago, maybe Columbia was considered a fragile state a failed state or near failed state Due to the conflict that that we were presented with park with the ELN the height Homicide rates that we had in the country cities like Medellin and Cali were considered to be Perhaps one of the most violent cities in in in the region and in the world And that's what that characterized Columbia Perhaps two decades ago Then came plan Colombia plan Colombia an important initiative of the United States working together With Colombian governments under a bipartisan approach We've been able to transform the country with the important results. So Colombia is no longer a fragile state Colombia is a country that has transformed itself Thanks in part to the assistance and support of the United States and the international community in important issues Such as these ones that that we're discussing today demining and plan Colombia contributing importantly to help build the national Capacity in in in the mining. So having said that on how Colombia has been able to transform We now have a peace agreement in the country in which the Colombian government led by President Santos Last November we're able to conclude and sign a peace agreement Now, let me highlight the importance that the mining has played on this Process negotiations and an agreement that we have today I think at the beginning the mining was one of the key efforts that allow for Confidence-building measures between the two different parts that that were negotiating the the agreement and therefore we see demining as an important peace tool that can be used for not only Reconstruction and development of certain areas in the country but at the same time as a tool for the restitution of land of people or Thousands of victims that we have in Colombia due to the conflict the mobility and the Socio-economic development of these far distant areas in the country You're asking about the how we had the situation before during the conflict And how is the current situation now that we have a peace agreement? I think there is a strategic importance and difference in what we had before and what we have now Before it was very difficult to reach certain areas of the country Not only because of the geography of the country in itself, but because of the security in the conflict in itself so the Areas that we had available due to security reasons were very limited They were not accessible and it was in the framework of that conflict that we have with the FARC and ELN Now that we have a peace agreement in which we have this historic opportunity To implement and one of the important issues that we're implementing is that the mining now We have access to those areas that previously were difficult to have access Because of the security situations so now we're working with Several FARC members and that's part of the development of the agreement that that we have on how to build this national Capacity and how this is special program that we're working with FARC members as part of the rain corporation or rain Integration of FARC members into society by the way of doing the mining and obviously that will have special consequences at the same time Colombia continues to build its national capacity to fold first of all our national governmental capacity President Santos has been very clear in highlighting the capacity in that we now have close to 5,000 men from the army in which obviously we started initially with nine units Almost eight seven years ago and now we have more than five thousand men in which we are being trained and provided the Information and training that that's needed for that. Now the same time we have the presence of nine civilian organizations All those nine seven have been accredited in Colombia The first one was a halo trust that was accredited back in 2013 and I think that's an important Complementarity that we have in the country to be able to address the humanitarian concern that we have from antipersonal landmines That were previously used by FARC members and continue to be used by the ELN Which was the other part of your question and and and to reiterate the importance of confidence building measures That's one of the issues that are being discussed with that ELN on how to identify possible pilots or projects to Demine together with the government as a way of showing science that we are able to work together on this specific issue but the There is no doubt between the differences that we have before During the conflict with FARC and more than 50 years of conflict with that group And now the situation and the historical opportunity that we have to implement the peace agreement with more information coming from FARC members Partially and at the same time working with them But working at the same time with the civilian organizations with the support and assistance of important agencies such as the United Nations and the Organization of American States. I want to leave it at that foot foot thought and come back. Okay. Thank you That's that's fascinating how you have Used demining as a conflict or I mean a confidence and security building measure and we should discuss that more later on Can I want to return to you now as our civil society? Representative you're a man who has worked these issues For many years not only at the civil society level, but the personal level A fellow for whom I have a great deal of respect and I'm glad that you're here representing JMU and Landline survivors Network Tell me how has civil society changed how have those organizations changed over the last 20 years and adapted to the new nature of Conflict this violent piece that ambassador to car who was describing in his presentation and that we have seen Exemplified in two case studies here And what do you see for the future of civil society responses, especially in the form of how to better return? IDPs and refugees Great Paul thanks nice to see you again after so many years yeah almost 15 years since we last saw each other I believe was in New York maybe Thank you to US IP halo for co-hosting this event The question that I didn't know I was getting but I'm gonna address anyways about civil society and NGOs So some of my prepared remarks Sort of addressed that question which was Early in the 20th century the first major Weapons law entered into force, which was the mind-band treaty specifically prohibiting Antipersonal landmines and it was an incredible achievement and accomplishment and back to Paul's question There's no doubt in my mind or anybody's mind actually that this would not have occurred And we want to be sitting here if it wasn't for civil society and some of the leaders During that time period are here in the room as we speak I might name later on It was the first time that a majority of states Banned a weapon that was in military use by nearly every country in the world at the time Nobody thought this was possible Especially since the major powers including the United States did not support This movement to ban landmines everything that we're talking about now A civil society has evolved from this experience knowing that it could change country's policies In 1995 the first country in the world to ban landmines was Belgium Within two years over 120 countries joined now I teach international law now and I could tell you that is light speed in international law academics diplomats civil society representatives and The Nobel Peace Prize committee has recognized the movement of civil society especially in 1997 with the mind ban Treaty or the international campaign to ban landmines and its coordinator Jordy Williams being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 never in the world's history as such a coalition of civil society received such an award Arguably the most prestigious award that this world has to offer This panel's topic demining fragile states Is important today as it was then and what I hope to do back to Paul's questions What is the civil society do to bring this message to the world? And it was exactly what civil society was doing in fragile states 20 years ago that brought this issue Literally to this room right now It was halo trust in Afghanistan Minds advisory group in Afghanistan and Iraq the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation in Vietnam Cambodia Medico at a Frankfurt Germany in Central America Who brought the stories of these rural areas? Where thousands of people were being maimed and killed by landmines to the media to Capitol Hill? And to the United Nations a Figure struck me in the early 1990s that Cambodia which had Millions of mines at the time in 1991 or one out of 236 people were amputee in Cambodia as a result of a landmine That only one government representative knew there was international legislation Restricting mind use in those civil society who brought this to their attention Now the State Department in the early 1990s came out with a report called Hidden Killers Which estimated that 26,000 people a year were being maimed or killed by these weapons? More people have been killed or maimed by these weapons landmines than chemical biological nuclear weapons combined And it was actually a State Department that highlighted this issue So I'm going to dive straight to the State Department for like 60 seconds and I'll go back to civil society because I think it's all interrelated A lot of people don't know this but it was the State Department who produced Hidden Killers in 1992 Really the first major study in the world's history to highlight this humanitarian problem And the State Department was also part of the first ever export moratorium on landmines the Leahy Evans moratorium in 1993 With the United States becoming the first country to do so Now mag halo trust Legacies of war martial legacy Many of the NGOs in this room Are combating this problem on a daily basis and there's nobody more at the forefront than unmasked for example Who's also represented in this room trying to make this world safe from the landmines that were banned 20 years ago Now on the fragile state front and civil society. Why are we here? What happened Amara my belief after almost 20 years in this field is Fragile states and civil society. How can you repatriate? Afghan refugees in Pakistan, which is the largest refugee population at the time to Afghanistan When they're getting blown up by the thousands Mag was there halo trust was there. I think it was the first United Nations program for mine action was in Afghanistan 1988 89 90 two years later 1992 We're repatriating Thousands of refugees from Thailand at Cambodia after the peace agreement 1992 they're getting blown up the United Nations decided We cannot do this. We're committing murder. How could we repatriate refugees to Cambodia when the vehicles are being blown up And we can't even hold elections. So this is all civil society driven and at the time Many of us Believe that this could not happen There's a study in 1995 that 28 to 87 percent of households in four countries Afghanistan Bosnia Cambodia Mozambique Cannot conduct their daily lives because of landmines and if landmines were removed Mag halo the other heroes in the room Marshall Legacy Institute unmasked Ag production would increase without mines in Afghanistan by almost 200 percent Bosnia by 11 percent Cambodia by 35 percent and Mozambique by 6 percent So civil society Has changed how we behave towards landmines, but as you heard Prince Harry in the video that opened up Victims are the ten-year high We're going through the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland if we think that this problem is in our rear-view mirror It's rising again, and that's why the events in London in April 4th That halo trust and Mack a host with Prince Harry was so significant for the first time Since 1997 there's been a time marker on how to make the world Mind-free, and that's what we need that speech was seminal Landmine use is changing and rapid and predictable ways It is increasingly difficult to protect civilians as you heard from this table We meaning the global society civil society who are at risk of losing our normative voice If we don't keep talking about this and that's why this event at US IP is so important we're at a profound moment and Back to the question civil society is going to be instrumental in delivering a more peaceful world With the support of the United Nations the US State Department At the forefront of this issue This issue is not going away, and we'll probably be meeting here 20 years from now Talking about this issue, but there's no doubt that the evolution of social society from being outside the room to be an inside the room With is the major change? Okay, thank you very much So before we open it up to to the floor I'm going to let you all start to collect your thoughts for the lots of questions. You're going to ask I'm going to turn back to Ambassador Dukaru and the emerging threats perspective one of the things that terrifies urban people is the notion of a weapon of mass destruction and You had mentioned earlier Some insights regarding Chemical weapons you have a center of excellence that focuses on that. What is the likelihood that you see for? The emergence and I suppose it's just inevitable of a chemically based IED It's one of the Important concerns because with the evolution of technology the possibility of having miniaturized labs That mixed together different precursors that could be with a smuggled from places where they were supposed to be Destroyed but have not been They could emerge in Chemical kind of weapons rudimentary, but still deadly and extremely harmful so I think from from this point of view I would echo the point just made of team importance to Strengthen the international regime and we do have an in quite I would say Articulate international regime in terms of non-proliferation the key issue is to Determine concrete Action and compliance There was big discussion that for example bringing Syria into the international chemical Weapons convention was was a big success, but now we're seeing that there were a lot of stockpiles of if not Some some some of the dangerous precursors or even chemical Substances that were the preserved and we're getting more and more intelligence on on this and we're getting actually also the effects of the the use so This has to to be that the regime has to be In enforced otherwise we're going to continuously run behind the track It has to be also as I say constantly modernized to look into this new technologies as I said small labs and so on that Were not there where the regime was was was put together and let me give you another scenario That would be the link of all these Kind of be their minds or chemical potential IDs with the cyber threat with the Internet of things That will shift I would say and would make a stronger link between the virtual world the digital With the physical there will be new new techniques whereby Kind of let's say dirty bombs could be triggered through the internet or where civilian harm harmless theoretically Let's say items Could be the the surfer potential what I would call the bombs in the different places So that's why I think we need to to to look at these emergent threats in comprehensive approach and look at all the the potential links to make sure that either Substances that otherwise could be harmless and you can find on the shelves in in supermarkets or gadgets That would be hooked to our boilers or whatever you you you find the logistics of airports or fuel tanks and so on are appropriately secured so it's it's one of the Aspects that were very much focused and I think We're also ready to to be part of the debate with the think tank community with Organizations that are in a kind of norms setting they have a norm setting mandate NATO always Has assumed is defensive mandate and also acting in accordance to international law and norms and we would support strengthening stability through this Norm be there in cyberspace or be there in the in the non-proliferation regime in terms of modernizing and advancing Okay, thank you. Okay by a show of hands if somebody raises a hand I will call on you and a person will bring a microphone to you So do we have someone out there who would like to ask a question of the panel? Right down here in front, please Is are the mics on? Yes Good afternoon. My name is Rodney Robin with the Department of State Office of Weapons Removal and Batement and listening to your Presentations think thank you for that but I'll kind of build a question off of two of your Comets ambassador Dukeru your reference to violent peace and Hybrid wars around the world and then leading into ambassador Avila your discussion your description of The peace with the FARC and the ELN and I believe integration of the same into your demining program If I understood correctly, are you have there been any incidents of conflict between your your military Diminers of which I believe you said it had about 5,000 military diminers And you're bringing the the now Do demobilized Insurgents into the demining forces. How's that? How's that going and I asked because Afghanistan of course experience similar similar issues and reintegrating former Taliban Surgeons and fighters and Halo trust Had the lead on that So there were there weren't without issues So my question is to you Well, thank you. Thank you for the promotion not yet. I'm as earned Just make sure the pay office knows but an important question is a historic opportunity for Colombia for the implementation of the peace agreement and I think the Peace agreement that we have been able to build for so many years now Could be also could serve as an experience for the international community as an example and on how to Negotiate perhaps under certain different circumstances internationally And one of the aspects I highlighted obviously demining and how humanitarian demining Serve the purpose to build confidence between the parties and trying to identify Projects or issues that could be worked on before Engaging in the formal negotiations This is something that's taking place with the ELN and now that we have the peace agreement Obviously one of the key aspects is how do we work and provide opportunities for these FARC members? And how do they reintegrate to society to civilian life? So obviously one of the key issues is the mining and how do you provide those opportunities? currently the National Office for Mine action in Colombia is working together with FARC Previously they have worked together that pilot project in Lodigón in one of the States or departments of Colombia and it worked out really well with important results now What we're trying to do is how do you train the trainers within FARC members? So they are able to replicate this information to approximately 200 initially and we would expect to get to a thousand members of a FARC that will be able to be trained with all the Proper procedures and be able to go out in the field and be able to do technical surveys non-technical surveys The whole issue the whole process of humanitarian demand. We think he has challenges And I think it's important for communities to work with them to explain to them That this is one of the measures that we're trying to work on from no repetition Truth and reconciliation, which is important that we need to highlight So I think it's going to take some time and and what we're trying to do is build the national capacity But at the same time providing these opportunities for these FARC members that are trying to reintegrate To civilian society as you know quite well from that formula DDR DR it perhaps is the most difficult aspect of the whole formula So I think he provides an especial and good opportunity to work with them We will continue to do so until we get the Special training that they have and if they're not going to be working on the field on technical service or non-technical I think the provision of information will be key for the rest of the Brigade that that we have established and the organizations are civilian organizations that are working on the field So I think it's an historical opportunity that we're trying to utilize Thank you Right over here, please She's coming down this side. Hi. Good afternoon. I'm Jeff Abramson. I manage the landmine monitor for the international campaign to ban landmines I want to say thank you for hosting and being part of this panel. We don't have enough of these Conversations in Washington DC. I'll have questions for other panels, but I'm curious since we have some of the major funders of demining and recipients And the new pledge from the United Kingdom It's all very promising. I'm wondering how people feel about sufficient resources to reach this goal of 2025 and then separately we know that it's not easy to do this work and and in in the communities and I'm wondering how When we were talking about post fragile states are getting a fragile state from being a fragile state to a more successful state Demining is just a piece of that package. It's got to be wrapped up in so many other things and how you assess this field as Integrated enough into doing all those pieces So where does this fit and where could it improve or where could that the field of work that needs to be done to move from a fragile state? Make progress. Did you have somebody in mind for that question? I mean, I think all of the panelists could could touch on it to some extent. Obviously Columbia is a Country that is now so hopeful and a lot of resources are going towards it But it's it's at one stage in this big long line of moving from a fragile state to a more successful one We certainly talk about it. Yeah, Joe, why don't you take this sure? I mean and I was struck by when Mr. Avila was talking about the situation in Columbia. I was struck by the fact that his Highlighting the connection between demining and other Aspects of peace agreement and political progress and you can see that in Iraq. I mean, it's absolutely clear that without Demining all of the other things that the government has based its strategy on for political reconciliation long-term political stability are not possible the government believes that the key to Political stability is first and foremost getting displaced families back to their homes Reestablishing communities carrying out local reconciliation on the ground a building trust in the in the government but the first step in all of that is is Decontamination of urban environments that have been liberated and because of the particular way in which Isis has chosen to fight and in this case Target specifically target civilians for no other reason than to target them It has presented the challenges that we've talked about and so the The demining organizations whether they're private companies NGOs or the UN have had to adapt to The environment that they found the environment that Isis has unfortunately created to Address a phenomenon that really hasn't been seen before the extent of the contamination and so the speed with which those Adaptations take place is key to unlocking the next steps in the stabilization process Which is again a key to the longer term political stability in Iraq And so Columbia obviously much further along in a much different context But I think you can certainly see the connections between the kind of work that needs to be done on the ground And the larger issues stability I just wanted to highlight the And I think I mentioned that initially the importance of coordination Effective coordination at the national level Certainly, that's one of the challenges that we always have and we continue to improve Initially with the victims law that was enacted back in 2011 and Restitution of land the issue of demining provided to be key and fundamental to be able to implement that law Before we were able to assign these Lots of land to different farmers that they had lost it because of the conflict We had to make sure that there were no mines and there were no Areas that were supposedly contaminated so it was center piece for the application implementation of other policies in the country and certainly Victim tried has been a key factor for our improvement that we've been able to have in the country Just a very basic Concept of reconstruction obviously, how do we clear land and make sure that we bring development to certain areas of the country? How do we continue building infrastructure roads? How do we contribute by demining? Making gains in the fight against drugs so the counter narcotics a strategy It's always important the issue of demining making sure that these area these fields Coca-fills are no contaminated making sure that we're able to eradicate so that's the comprehensive approach that we're looking at it and Know in an isolated capsule of only the minors per se, but the importance that that brings development to the areas Of the country and to your question of resources They're always difficult But I think one of the issues that we had in Colombia is how do you build national capacity? By ourselves with the assistance and help that's been provided by the United States international community United Nations Organization American States So I think that's important that national ownership that we've been able to build to make sure that in the future We're able to share it with other countries that are interested in those areas But I think it's important to highlight the solidarity that we've been able to find with international community Always obviously asking for more and how do we build that national capacity? We have a question right down here in front and then one up there As she's coming down working good afternoon and yes mark a you and Mars In this panel in this conference dedicated to my next year We hear from the representative of a country affected country supportive country Regional arrangement that is very actively involved in the issue and an imminent representative of civil society that everything Related to contamination Mine action I would go further than demining which is basically clearance and there's much more than clearance to it All of that is a precursor to the rest It's a sine qua non condition for the return of people for stabilization for the delivery of humanitarian assistance It's really the first thing you do before you blow up in trying to help somebody else in The treaty conferences you refer to we hear all and the same What I would like to hear here is in all your respective capacities What? Can you do to make sure that all the good words? We are we hear here? I Are also or the understanding you have acquired is shared with your colleagues in the security council in the General Assembly in The budgetary committees of the United Nations board members of halo trust mag etc there is in my daily life a disconnect between Those who are already converted and who have been exposed to the threat and those who Somehow in a in a different capacity Will decide on the priorities of the action of the international community Civil society included would you be able to tell me what you are engaged personally in doing so that this issue is Back up on the international agenda and not only when Prince Harry speaks for five minutes You know on the 20th anniversary of halo. Thank you Yeah, okay So thank you for your question in terms of And there's a number of ways I could respond So once thank you for your question great questions. How do you convert to unconverted? I think this room were pretty much to converted So how do we go outside this room? So in terms of practical outcomes of what we do at JMU Center for International Civilizational Recovery is number one is we produce a journal on conventional weapons destruction. There's issues out Outside it's we've been publishing it for 21 years three times a year It's funded by weapons removal and abatement at State Department and the R&D section is funded by the Department of Defense Department of Defense unexplored center of excellence. So we've been doing that for 21 years It's a long list running publication on landmines in the world and it's all available on the web You go anytime you want and look at the experts unmasked has contributed many significant articles halo trust Mag so that's one we also published to walk the earth and safety which is also available outside the front Which is the annual report for the State Department's weapons removal and abatement office or representatives in the room The largest budget in the world for what we're talking about is with weapons removal and abatement and that report highlights What NGOs and some commercial companies are doing around the world with funding from the US government? Me myself It's a story that Was new to me as some of you might know I was I lost both my legs to the landmine fundamentally alter my life I thought I was a freak. I thought I was a unique accident. It doesn't happen anybody and Then testifying here in May of 1994 here in Capitol Hill in the research for that testimony Realizing that there are 26,000 people a year being maimed or killed by these weapons And my story was actually quite boring and repetitive and it wasn't unique at all really dramatically Impacted me and fundamentally altered my life to try to make sure that story is not repeated Everywhere, I'm sure some of you heard me speak, but I live and breathe this issue So more theoretically speaking about how we convert is this issue touches on so many lives It touches on farmers Herders those are unreported statistics on land denial I mentioned some of them are the animals that are killed quarter of a million at one time a year We're being killed by mines it crosses religious grounds. It crosses ethnic grounds I've interviewed hundreds of survivors around the world in most cases the men Leave the female victim Doesn't matter how rich you are what religion you are what religion you live in what religion you are what country you live in black white brown purple the male is going to leave a female amputee in most cases and the reverse is It's counter is the the female stays regardless of religion or culture or skin color rule So that's another as a societal angle. I try to preach to my students like there are numerous cutting ways There's also history is trying to Repair or how do you repair a country that's been bombed, but how do you? Fix what was done in the past So Southeast Asia and the American involvement in the US governments very involved through a lot of work halo mag legacies of war in terms of The Southeast Asian Wars, so that's history or the politics. How does civil society fundamentally altered the world? When I went to college in international relations governments ran the world governments control the world, but really for the first time like in the last Several years civil society's been increasingly more powerful to change the rules to change how politics is done So that's a that's another angle I just think to your question that has touched so many people in all facets. They're indiscriminate weapons They don't care who you are or what you are and that's the story that needs to be digested and then tailored and customized To the audience you're speaking to outside this room Ambassador if you could make it timely, I got one more question to do and then we just just to add to what was said and then use the opportunity to Really express high appreciation for for a great cooperation that we have with unmask We rely on the presence on the ground native doesn't have this kind of present like unless we rely on expertise data and and so on a couple of programs within the science for peace and security project that that Unmask was a key key partner. I Responding directly to to your question I think we realized the the need to to bring this first At the top of the attention of leaders so because of the let's say a Stronger focus on counterterrorism the the mine aspect counter ID aspect has been very much as Risen in the food chain of strategic political attention You will see the discussions now at ministerials at also agendas of Summits and the point is that these leaders will bring this with them in the UN framework another thing is that for the first time it was a Year and a half ago that I was had to have the chance to brief the counterterrorist committee within the Security Council it was under the Lithuanian chairmanship of the CDC and That was really useful and interesting and quite constructive I would say and last but not least very much the engagement with the civil society the NGOs the media that would would raise the let's say public profile of How much this is a priority and I agree? We are still running behind the curve. I wanted to give an example for example pointing to Egypt as a matter of fact where we are engaged both in actually helping them get rid of some whole legacy World War two legacy of You know mind clearance and at the same time being now engaged in helping them in the counter ID training and I would say disposal especially with What I said the affiliates do in Sinai and and so on so we need to not run just behind the curve We need to invest much more resources. Okay. Thank you, and sir. You're the last question Okay. Hello. I am a student at Howard University. I'm Jordan Sellers My question is I'm with him and what he said So, what is the Halo's trust blueprint? I would direct that probably to the Halo trust table out here in the great hall We don't have Halo trust here on the panel right now So I will defer that answer to the coffee break that's going to take place next out here in the great hall And there is a table set up for Halo trust and they'll answer that question. I bet they'll give you a map Ladies and gentlemen, let's thank our panelists for their excellent insights And now coffee will be served in the great hall and please take a moment to see the various displays out there And it's my honor to host and moderate this distinguished panel our three panelists have Decades of experience in post-conflict work around the world with some of the world's most prestigious institutions and government bureaus our panel is demining in security and Examination of how demining and disposal contributes the security goals by removing IED precursors and weapons from circulation and helps to reintegrate demobilized ex-combatants My understanding is that the panelists bios are in the program So instead of going into their biographies You could see them in the program and in the interest of time would like to introduce them their titles their Organizations and offer each a few questions to consider in their response I'd like to thank each of the panelists for agreeing to participate in today's panel As you know, this problem continues to remain a challenge for peace builders and civilian communities throughout the world During a time when both the nature of war and its technology are changing more rapidly Then we can't keep up with our own changes in our prevention and mitigation efforts with that in mind I'd like to introduce our panelists and offer some questions and I'll go in order of the program that I received Jerry Gilbert office of removal and abatement of the US State Department Angus Markelu director of the United UN mine action service Otherwise more famously known as unmask and Jenny Bovar senior advisor US Institute of Peace So we'll go in order, but I'll like to each offer some questions So Jerry you're first on the agenda and if you don't mind going first Okay, so Jerry is with the weapons remove on abatement office and as you heard earlier from me actually The largest Budget in the world for conventional weapons destruction is out of the Bureau jet Jerry is part of Jerry what are your countries meeting the United States of strategic goals related to addressing the hazards of IED? contamination Do you? Project your country's funding of IED clearance programs increase or decrease in the coming year Okay, and how does your country distribute funding to implementing partners for removing IED? precursors and weapons from circulation and helps to reintegrate demobilized ex-combatants the floor is yours all right I'll try to address Those simple and easy questions Time I've available. Thank you Ken. It's really a pleasure to be here today And I'd like to take just a moment to reflect on the title of this panel You know demining insecurity and examination of how demining and disposal contributes to security goals Because I think it really highlights a critical dimension of humanitarian mine action that in my view does not get nearly enough attention or recognition today is humanitarian mine action about humanitarian goals Absolutely, but it's also much much more than a purely humanitarian activity Rather when demining and related activities are plugged into broader foreign policy priorities It can be a key tool to advance crucial national security goals First off it might be helpful to explain a little bit about what I mean when I say demining We're not just talking about removing manufactured landmines from the ground But we're talking about everything else that goes along with that Including removal of IEDs unexploded ordnance and other explosive remnants of war that are left behind after combatants move on The United States is fortunate in that our demining assistance is part of a broader conventional weapons destruction program The conventional weapons destruction program is meant to enhance civilian security That's two tools in its toolbox to advance that aim Not only does include those humanitarian demining programs But it also works to reduce the threats associated with stockpiles of at-risk small arms light weapons and conventional ammunition Stockpiles of excess small arms and low weapons pose obvious security related threats terrorists insurgents and criminals exploit poorly secured Munitions to fuel instability and violence that imperil critical US security interests Where poorly secured stockpiles include manned portable air defense systems also known by their acronyms man pads The consequences of theft or loss could have wide-ranging catastrophic outcomes Further poorly maintained stockpiles may explode without notice devastating nearby civilian populations Conventional weapons destruction programs assist partner countries around the world with destroying their excess unstable and at-risk munitions including man pads Improving physical security at munitions storage facilities and bringing stockpile management practices into line with international standards Additionally many conflict affected countries are littered with abandoned caches of arms ammunition and IED precursors Caches that essentially are free for the taking In places like Afghanistan the conventional weapons destruction program is proud to partner with organizations like the halo trust On weapons and ammunition disposal teams that work with local communities to identify these caches and destroy them before they fall into the wrong hands Having both demining and stockpile management or in destruction components The u.s. Conventional weapons destruction program allows us to reduce the threats from improvised explosive devices from two different lines of attacks simultaneously Not only can we dispose of IEDs that have been left behind in threatened civilian populations But we can also prevent key IED components such as artillery shells or homemade explosive from falling into the wrong hands to begin with Today dozens of countries remain littered with landmines UXO and IEDs Placing untold thousands at risk as they go about mundane everyday tasks like farming collecting clean water or even playing And the unfortunate reality is that large stockpiles of at-risk conventional weapons Are far more common than we may care to think The need for conventional weapons destruction assistance throughout the world greatly outstrips available resources Into secretary tillerson noted during his opening remarks to the global coalition to defeat isis just last month When everything is a priority Nothing is a priority For the state department's office of weapons removal and abatement our job is to employ conventional weapons destruction resources Selectively ensuring that we're using the resource these resources to advance key national security aims And maximize the taxpayers return on investment President trump has been very clear Defeating isis is the united states top foreign policy priority So how to conventional weapons destruction programs contribute to that aim? Well as noted in the previous panel discussion Portions of iraq and syria that have been freed from isle control Isis control pardon me are littered with IEDs and other explosive remnants of war With many IEDs intentionally placed in areas to target returning refugees or IDPs And the civilian actors who would work to clear those devices These explosive hazards are killing and maiming civilians while preventing key humanitarian actors from providing badly needed aid Clearing IEDs and other explosive hazards then is a necessary prerequisite for a broader humanitarian response Restoring key infrastructure such as water Electricity hospitals and schools helps to reestablish stability in regular order It makes fragile societies a bit less fragile and helps ensure that once isis is pushed out isis stays out Given the key role that demining plays in stabilization efforts Clearing IEDs and other explosive hazards in post isis areas has been a major focus for the conventional weapons destruction program for the past year plus Clearing key infrastructure sites like those hospitals schools water and power facilities Has been a top priority for us and indeed just this past december congress appropriated an additional 77.5 million dollars for post isis stabilization clearance in iraq syria libya in yemen But beyond clearance We're also working hard to prevent conventional arms and ammunition from falling into the hands of isis and other bad actors Who would harm u.s security interests and those of our allies We've stood up new programs throughout africa's sahel and mugreb regions To identify at-risk state-held stockpiles Destroy excess munitions and help our partner countries to better secure those stockpiles that they do retain We're expanding existing stockpile destruction and management programs in the Balkans and africa great lakes region We're continuing to invest in destruction of abandoned weapons caches in afghanistan And in the western hemisphere We're exploring opportunities to prevent state-held stockpiles from falling into the hands of those who would take the threat of violence up to and across our very own border Going forward as we work to allocate limited resources to achieve maximum effect We must first look to sink our conventional weapons destruction assistants with top foreign policy priorities We must ensure that our programs directly serve key u.s interests in a clear demonstrable manner accordingly Clearing ied's and explosive hazards in areas liberated from isle control Particularly in iraq and syria is likely to remain a major focus of us conventional weapons destruction assistants For at least the next year if not longer And as we identify more stockpiles of conventional weapons that are at risk of falling into the hands of isis and other actors Looking to attack us security interests Our stockpile destruction and security programming is likely to become more prominent in the months and years ahead Especially in the regions i just mentioned Continuing to strengthen u.s government interagency partnerships also will be critical to advancing these goals We're fortunate to enjoy strong working relationships with the department of defense working closely with their humanitarian demining training center at fort lee The night vision and electronic sensors directorate which hosts the humanitarian demining research and development shop down at fort belvoir The office of the secretary of defense and the various military officers and civilians Assigned to the demining portfolios at the geographic combatant commands Today we're also working with the defense threat reduction agency to establish a joint assessment capacity Working with partner countries to identify stockpiles of conventional munitions that are at risk of winding up into the wrong Winding in the wrong hands and then designing assistance programs to deal with that threat We also enjoy excellent cooperation with a network of over three dozen implementing partners around the globe many of whom are represented here today We execute our programs through a of ngo such as the halo trust minds advisory group or we gent people's aid handicap international and the marshal legacy institute just to name a few educational institutions such as james madison's center for international stabilization and recovery have been tremendous partners As have international organizations including united nations mine action service NATO the organization of american states and the organization for security cooperation in europe And we also work hand in hand with commercial contractors such as jannis global operations in tetratec ec Overall u.s. Conventional weapons destruction programs play a key role in advancing u.s security interests Are these programs humanitarian in nature? Sure, absolutely But they're also much more than that Conventional weapons destruction assistance isn't taking place in a vacuum It's plugged into key foreign policy priorities And it's playing a direct role in keeping american citizens and those of our allies safe While it's clearing the way for stable secure and prosperous futures and countries that are key to long-term u.s security interests Thanks Thank you, jerry Our next presenter's director of the united nations mine action service also known as unmass agnes marquel you Agnes here are some questions for you to consider What are the mo in your opinion and unmass opinion? What is the most important issue currently facing removal of ied precursor and weapons from circulation? And to help reintegrate demobilized ex combatants What is your approach to request for support and how does unmass initiate projects? And for those in the room governments NGOs organizations sponsors How should those seeking partnership or support with or support for unmass? Approach you or your team to make the request Thank you Thank you very much karen. I don't know if I should thank you actually Questions um Thank you. Thank you for having the united nations participate in this uh in in this event You make me feel younger that reminds me of my days back at university when I had to I had to be smart of the cuff It is it's been said but i'm going to say it again. It's been 20 years that this issue has Finally emerged. It's also been 20 years since The member states of the united nations The general assembly of the united nations Decided that it was also time at that time when we were discussing landmines To create a un agency to deal with this issue. And this is how unmass was established. So We didn't have Prince Harry. We had Daniel Craig But we uh, we celebrated we started the celebration of the 20th anniversary of unmass in april Since april 4th of april was Declared by the general assembly of the united nations international mine awareness day Which in the recent years has become international mine awareness week and One day we may not even need to have that. It should be a continuous dialogue Most of you i'm sure don't know what unmass is about So yes, it is the mine action service of the united nations. What does it mean? It means that somehow listening to jerry I felt that we were the WRA of the united nations With everything it implies The constraints and the opportunities We are sitting at the junction of Peacekeeping we are integrated in peacekeeping operations and there we are really working on together and with Together with the force I would say we prepare we protect we train we advise we assist We are fully integrated and embedded in the The corpus of the blue helmets the military and the civilian side of peacekeeping We're also supporting the political side of the un The spm we call that the special political missions somalia and libya Afghanistan they are not real peacekeeping operations. They are political missions in there We are bringing like in the case of libya. We're bringing the arms and ammunition advisory services We we bring our expertise to the un presence for a political solution To a given situation We support the human italian side of the house or cha human italian affairs un it's here refugees whp World food program. These are the emergency responses that have as we discussed earlier at their core a protection component that That mine action supports. I'm saying mine action. They're not saying demining mine action Dim if I were discussing demining I would only be with the uniform personnel here We would be talking clearance Or we would be in a in an expert room techie room discussing the right method Mine action is about clearance. It's about the other save a life-saving activity. It's about risk education risk awareness in iraq in syria in yemen in in somalia People will not wait until the budgets come and are translated into teams They're going to go home no matter what and they die So the only life-saving activity that we can think of in addition to clearance is to educate them We will never have enough people fast enough to do house and house house the house clearing of the of the houses So this is why it's not just demining now coming back to your question Ken You're talking about reviewing ideas. You're talking about removing precursors and you're talking about Demobilize and combat Removing ideas. I think jerry made the point What the point I will add is that these points are well made But you heard me earlier when I say great Everybody here understands that erw cleanup Is a first measure one of the first measures you take to reduce the availability and the access to the bad stuff that we land up packed in a car in the truck or more sophisticated Device that we that we find more and more often But actually in real life in my real life When i'm sitting with my other un colleagues in sdg security counseling and company This issue is not even enough to thought We have to fight in order for members to remember that oops, you know Or maybe a given government has to put that in their national priorities Afghanistan Karzai, he forgot about it. Iraq. Is it top of their priorities? Somalia, is it top of their priorities? Peace talks negotiations on Yemen. Are we talking about demining? That has not come to my ears But erw cleanup, that's one thing The education I tend to say looking at the NATO analogy of Counter ied we don't do counter ied counter ied is Prepare protect attack the networks the united nations is not attacking the networks. We leave that to Countries and other, you know operators that are equipped and mandated to do that The countries have not mandated the united nations to do it. We don't do it However, what we do is we disrupt the activities of the network The more we plan we program the more we educate the population the more We survey assess build the capacity of a government The more we raise the awareness in the population the more we give them employment The less vulnerable the country will become to this ied threat. So what we do is a little bit what you said We participate in Mitigating the threat reducing the threat posed by ied's components of ied's That's what you may call the precursors actually There are There are many Actions that can be taken and I would say at the level of member states It has to be first and foremost with complying with the regimes that already exist We don't need another international conference to invent another set of rules or another set of Countries for the private sector Let's look at what we have collectively all countries And let's look at whether it is being enforced and complied with the security council has sanctions committees Very seldom do I hear in these august expert conferences? Somebody mentioned the sanction committee on al-qaeda and affiliates. It's a very short Sorry, well, they go after individuals. They go after the entity the private companies And it is not about europe investigating itself It has to be implemented by everybody. It is a sanction committee Of the security council and it has to be enforced It is not the panacea, but it's gonna it's gonna bring things forward Awareness legislation harmonization of legislation Where are the fertilizers and the pesticides coming from in which quantity? You may be very rich if five years ago You bought stocks from a couple of companies in the world Which have seen their production just skyrocket Do I have access to intelligence? No, I'm just reading the Bloomberg of the day And then you look at the stocks and you see who is faring well What we need is The the we need to strengthen as Jerry said we need to strengthen the national management of stockpiles The primary source of diversion Of weapons and ammunition from a legal market to an illegal illegal market is a government stockpiles Everywhere do we need to do that? We need to do that. We need to educate. We need to train We need to make sure that the international standards and guidelines are adhered to and it is possible We've done it en masse with you guys in cote d'Ivoire Because that was cited earlier Cote d'Ivoire is at the top of the international standards And I would say most likely the best country in Africa not too sure about South Africa But cote d'Ivoire is top of the line. Was it done by Internationals who do the job put the contract money in their pocket and go no Cote d'Ivoire my vision for cote d'Ivoire the vision of the united nations for cote d'Ivoire Colombia Somalia Iraq and others is one day to own their expertise their skills And for the international money to go to a colombian angio Cote d'Ivoire an Ivorian angio to do the stuff and the Ivorians have the capacity to train other countries You know as I know that we are not the halo trust mag united nations Our faith is not to be in a country forever We need to teach and train and educate and transfer the responsibilities My office I signed on en masse living afghanistan. We're done We're done. We've been there for years We've been there thanks to the money of the international community And we were hosted by the afghan government and now we're saying goodbye In my view they equipped they can do it if they need a help if they need a hand from the united nations We can send somebody we're not leaving them hanging But we are out of there and other countries the same cote d'Ivoire. We're living cote d'Ivoire has everything it takes To do it and then when they trip and they will trip like we all trip Well, you know the united nations will come back. Give a quick hand a quick advice Deploy a few people and then they do it. So this is what we have to do and it goes with the precursors It's education. It's training. It's assistance It's giving a couple of experts and looking at the national legislations and making sure that it's done It is mobilizing the private sector and the private entities They have a responsibility in there and we need to enlist them In my days on chemical weapons, I spent a decade working a decade working on chemical weapons We worked with the chemical industry lobby We needed the chemical industry to understand what we were after In order for them to mobilize their own industry Now the extracting industry Cannot be perceiving that we are making their job difficult in controlling When giving them another set of rules and explosives and detonators and cords and whatever We need to get them on board in my view in order to get their support But that can be done and that must be done Sharing information has to be done We need to share what is shareable I mean, you know you you you share that according to a degree of classification and it does not go Everywhere, but at least everybody will work together to make it happen You have a resolution that was adopted last year that says Encouraging states to respond to the needs of today's peacekeepers to operate in new threat environments Involved involving improvise explosive devices Including by providing training capabilities information knowledge management technology It's all about working together and building our own capacity. That's what we need to do about precursors Are we going to clean up the world most likely not but we will make it more difficult to operate There is a space for the united nations. There is a space Created by the united nations working together with the right member states And then there is what member states can do bilaterally and all of that Response to a common agenda that we have The u.s. Administration of today and the u.s. Administration of yesterday and the world administration 193 member states today have only one common agenda We cannot afford at many levels to have a middle east that is You know blowing up in flames and we we cannot afford having these humanitarian catastrophes these Refugees with nowhere to go it costs money if you're only looking at the money side There is a way to reducing this so this is what we do reintegrating former combatants I would say the mining is is Part of the answer and I will give you concrete examples of what we do Uh when we first started Engaging in columbia. I don't know if daniel is still here um We en masse we actually started engaging on the track to level with the park Nobody was really talking to the park that we were not invited to really In the negotiations, but the the whole magics of the u.s. That we find our ways and It was Obvious to us that one day these people will have would have to be reintegrated in their society It's going to be difficult. It's a complex operation, but it was not if it was when now We thought and I thought and that's my exit strategy for columbia That we needed first and foremost we needed columbia to accept the principle of civilian demining organizations Hello would not be in columbia if Unmass had not worked on the accreditation process of civilian organizations If we needed a decree passed by columbia, that was done. That was the first step And that was the first step towards having civilian organizations that will start being international But that one day would be national Now what does an organization like fart needs? Well, they need to understand what it takes and we've worked on that and I understand that now You you've you've taken wra has taken An initiative with another partner of ours itf to actually do it father with the fart But teaching them the basics. What is a commercial organization? What how do you manage an NGO? What is an accreditation process now? We need to be the capacity of the government It was daikma that time under daniel How do we make sure that daikma does not take three years to accredited? Hello, and that can do it faster. So today as daniel said we have nine organizations and The the vision realistic. It's not a dream is that one day These guys will be able to be reintegrated in their society with the new status They will have gone from a terrorist organization to commercial organization that's going to get some of our international funding Those states that can give them money and and and they will be reintegrated in their society In doing good job for their country. So that's one side in Somalia a couple of years ago three years ago I My colleagues and I Saw that there was a minefield at the border of Somalia in Ethiopia frankly Was it such a priority? I mean Somalia was such a big problem that it was not on top of the priority But we had the potential to employ a big number of young Somali Men age 18 25 for a number of years Giving them and working on the halo and mass model of Afghanistan Giving them a job skills A status an income that would go back to the society You're talking countering violent extremism. You can at least anchor what we call youth at risk So this is something that we are looking at in a number of countries. It started with Afghanistan It was before me and and we are expanding it to other countries It is a pilot that is worth being explored in other countries But again, this is not a panacea at one point some countries were turning every african Demobilized man into a fireman. There's just so many fire brigades that you need in a given country Well, there's just so many Demining team that you will need but that would be one way of going about it Thank you so much. I hope I have answered your question. You did. Thank you so much And you know I had a statement, but No But thank you. That was uh, fascinating Okay, our next speaker is a senior advisor to us institute for peace for demobilization and reintegration of x combatants in Colombia and jenny. Thank you for being the third and final panelist. I have some questions that you may wish to consider Um, I had emailed all these to the panelists before so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise What are the most important issues facing lay in mind and I the clearance operations in Colombia? And also the region What role do you or usip plays in removing ied precursor and weapons from circulation? And helps to reintegrate demobilized x combatants and finally How can civil society groups in implementing partners become involved with these efforts? The floor is yours jenny Thank you so much and thank you to the halo trust and usip for hosting this important meeting on demining war zones Opening space for building peace and I would echo some of the comments that have been made previously To the importance of thinking about this linkage between the construction of peace and the clearance of lands of mines um And other unexploded ordinance ied's etc I've been asked to talk about the most important challenges to mine action of I'll borrow the term Which i've learned today in Colombia In doing so I hope to broaden the conversation beyond the technical and military aspects of what's involved So I may not specifically answer your question in the way you had expected But I hope that I can offer a broader perspective from a civil society perspective, but also from a peace process perspective President Lindbergh and others have suggested this need to reflect jointly on the ways that the process of demining And weapons disposal work can help lay the ground for peace For post-conflict reconstruction and for safety as well as security or I added the safety for security But also for safety for communities and dr. Rutherford has underscored the historic and the increasingly important voice Of civil society and the quote risk of losing our normative voice Which I think is really important to acknowledge After afghanistan Colombia is the country that has the highest number of people in the world affected by landmines ied's and unexploded ordinance Its victims include some 2 000 people dead and some 10 000 wounded of which 38 percent are civilians Half of columbia's 1100 and two municipalities have landmines And plans are in place to clear the lands by 2021 Though most expect that this is an impossible task that it will take at least 10 years for this clearance to happen In addition more than 7 million columbians the second highest number in the world have been internally displaced by the conflict That's 7 million people who have registered with the government officially And there are probably many many more who have not registered Jody williams reminds us in a prologue to the new study on landmines in columbia being released tonight in columbia By the historical memory center that landmines remain after peace accords are signed They have been called the eternal soldiers the mortal seeds that continue to sow death After the soldiers return home They are weapons of mass destruction in slow motion. She tells us So while we celebrate the signing of a peace accord between the government and the park last year late last year We also recognize the hard work of building peace that is just gearing up And mine action is a critical part of these tasks to come columbia reminds us of this nexus between landmine challenges and confidence building My colleague danielle avila noted that demining is an important peace tool for reconstruction and development And for the restitution of lands and I would just note in looking through the peace accords some 310 pages worth of them Demining is an integral part And really integrated into the many different elements that are laid out in the peace agenda in columbia And I would acknowledge first in the ddr process We're in the middle of the the park turning over their weapons to the united nations now This week 900 caches of arms were Turned over by the park to the un unexpectedly And the issue that came up and that has come up is given the timetable that's in place With the expectation being that all the arms will be turned over By the end of may This new revelation creates a real problem because the caches are surrounded by landmines that need to be cleared first So the impossibility of this timeline is now being recognized. There's a need to go back a little bit to reconstitute strategies for addressing this issue Things seem to be on track, but they will be delayed and the landmine issue has become central to that ability to keep to a timetable In other places within the the peace accords there are references to the security conditions and the need to clear the landmines for security for the x combatants There are security conditions for the communities themselves where the x combatants are expecting to live There are questions of job opportunity here clearing landmines and participating in crop eradication and working on environmental Safety issues are areas where the FARC is expected to to look for jobs and to have jobs made available to them There are questions of guarantees of security. How do you guarantee the security of the people who are living in these in these arenas? How do you guarantee the security not only from I guess you could you could go down the whole inventory of the armed actors in Colombia There are paramilitaries or successor paramilitary groups as they're known. There are criminal bans There are other insurgent groups who have not signed peace accords the eln being one of them and epl being the other Those are the two primary ones There are dissident fact FARC factions that have not signed on to the peace agreement All of these groups are armed and have the capacity to undermine Processes that are going on in favor of peace and you have landmining landmine Destruction and clearance taking place in areas that are primarily coca growing areas Where many of these other armed actors operate So you have a security risk to those who are going in to do the removal of the mines and To do the mine action, let's say You also have as part of the solution I think the the Demining is also seen as part of the solution to the drug problem because because it provides work because The solution that is anticipated in the accord actually looks at rural development for these areas So ideally there will be other opportunities that will be created for people who for peasant farmers in particular who won't then need to grow Grow coca, but there's still the issue of clearing the mines in these regions and the coca is grown Intermittently with food crops so clearing these mines becomes Critical to sustainable livelihoods for peasant farmers in rural territories in columbia In addition, there has been in the peace accords. There's a program on demining and Clearance of mines that's been created and it integrates the cooperation of ethnic groups Which I think is a really important element We're seeing in the columbian peace accord as the result of much civil society activity and lobbying and incidences Trying to make sure that their concerns are heard we see throughout the throughout the accord The mandate for civil society participation and engagement and it's a mandate that is also gender specific And it is ethnic specific and it's regional It's based on a concept of territorial peace Which means that instead of having bogota design and write and shape the accord and send it out to the to the regions The accords are supposed to be integrated into the process. So they're giving inputs So i'm actually heading to columbia tomorrow to participate in um a two day one one day in the region in many regions and one day in bogota Of the political pact for peace that's being developed at the regions to say how the political how the Accord will be integrated and the demining is not Um a central part that's separated out It's an integral part that is that touches on everything that goes on in the accords And I would just say in addition the transitional justice provisions have What's been a somewhat controversial model some people want more justice some people are are Satisfied with what they have because they feel it ends half a century of conflict and that it's it's a cost that you might have to pay This the resolution that came that was resolved or the resolution that was determined was a Situation of restrictive liberty of the of the not necessarily only the FARC of whoever goes through this system And it can be third parties. It can be military. It can be police. It can be the FARC And the restricted conditions of liberty Would include the the notion that there would also be a Restorative justice element which would mean working with the communities and in many many cases It's anticipated that demining will be part of the so-called punishment or the restorative Justice that will be will in fact take place How am I on time? You have about two minutes, okay two to three minutes. Let me let me just underscore a couple of other challenges I've mentioned the paramilitary groups and other Other armed actors and I wanted to note there was a question asked To my my colleague daniel avila earlier about how the how the process is actually going with the joint The army and the the FARC as part of the peace process and and long before the actual final accord was agreed to As part of a process of trying to create trust between the FARC and the army Two pilot programs were set up one was for jointly demining three different areas in columbia It was a pilot project and it was anticipated that if this worked it would be replicated at other municipalities And it in that in fact has happened that was about a year and a half ago that they started the pilot As far as i'm aware actually it was two years. It was march 2015. They announced it And as far as i'm aware that has continued to To expand to different regions particularly in antiochia and meta which were the two most affected by landmines And they also had a joint project between the army and the FARC to go in and eradicate crops With an element of consultation and analysis that was done with communities So in this is a very concrete example of how the demining has been used to build confidence and how Before an agreement was ever met. There was a real effort in havana where the peace talks were taking place to try to bring The FARC and the and the the army who were the parties after all that had been shooting at each other for 50 years To try to bring them to some understanding that they could work together in a future columbia peace So it's pretty astonishing when you look at the sequencing of events that the army was actually on board working with the FARC Much before the civilians were able to come to agreement now that kind of of confidence building mechanism where you have two parties Two adversaries working together toward common ground Is a very common strategy in in conflict resolution in the conflict resolution field But unfortunately it has not been done widely. So there are still sectors of the military who Understandably are skeptical about FARC intentions. There are still large portions of the population Who are also very skeptical? I think this is going to be a long-term process people don't change their Perceptions of the other overnight they they change when they see that good things are happening Sometimes they don't change very fast even if they see the good things happening There's always an element of of reserve But I think that over time As an opportunity is given for the FARC to show what they're willing to do for peace And the government to show the FARC what they're willing to do to have peace I think everyone's going to have to work at this and it will take a long time But the landmining I think will will continue to be one of the critical elements in making sure that That path is followed in the correct direction. Thank you. Thank you. Jenny. That was awesome I saw that you wrote handwritten notes if you could write that up and we would love to publish that what you just did that was Pretty good published it in our journal So I thought I'll give each panelist maybe two minutes Max to say something that you wanted to say Because these are questions I was assigned a topic and I send you questions So if there's anything that you wanted to say that you haven't said then we'll open up for questions So, uh If there's nothing you want to say don't say it if you're someone and say say it I'm a diplomat. I always have something to say Two minutes, yeah I'm a diplomat so it's going to be two diplomatic minutes You coming back to your first question, I'm not of the of script When you said the most important issues I would say in the removal in in your own terminology the removal of aides To start with it's important for you to leave the room in knowing That We have come with an international lexicon Defining or explaining what an IED is In the mid nineties We had the record number of landmines because we had the record number of victims because because there were victims But also because everything that was exploding was called a landmine And remember that usually it happens in non-english speaking countries or where English is not their first language So When you hear the I would say the white man called that a mine everything becomes a mine And the reporting got better and the the the evidence based analysis became sharper Now we are in the mid two thousands and everything is an IED Well, not everything is an IED. We even have an emergence of a new terminology There's goes an improvised landmine as if the context or the terminology was not complicated enough So just remember you have two two types of things you have victim operated Devices you work on them or you lift up its Preciopleted and then it blows up could be called a landmine And you have the real IEDs and I send you to the website of the un en masse And you will see in the lexicon what it is and it is very important Not from an academic perspective, but from the the bill you're going to pay Because when commercial companies or others come to you and say it's Completely infested with IEDs The expertise is very restricted. This is not a job for our matters Those of you who have served in Afghanistan 20 years ago. I would say you're no longer current When you see what we see in syria iraq somalia and We need to really fine tune what we are talking about in order to target the right expertise And to pay the big bucks to Those who really have the expertise and this is why We have embarked the united nations in the elaboration of IED D disposal standards Because right now it doesn't exist. You come to me and you tell me I'm an IED expert And I would say says who because you have an american uniform so Uh, I'm a center of excellence, which is my favorite example and my colleague from neto is not here says who What's the center of excellence? We didn't have any benchmark And a military demining is not a humanitarian demining you don't Clear up a road when you have to go house by house So the terminology is important for those of you working on this issue to support and partnership two minutes Partnership the first partnership is with the affected country You need a compact with the affected country. You need to be working with them. They need to they need to Want you to be there and not only do they want you to be there But you you need to have them Actually invest in that relationship Otherwise there is no end to the problem. So we need a compact with the country And we need a compact with the community In those days of what is called violent extremism or terrorism or whatever at one point the compact with the country has to be extended partnership with the donor community Well, they need to put the act together Because at the end of the day you can have 15 dollar conferences in the world. It's always the same checkbook that that is being used so Coherence harmonization coordination, whatever you need, but then this is where I've been advocating for for years the fact that We need to agree on who is doing what and this is where my office has a role to play Because we are the center not to boss people around but just to make sure that Halo and mag will not find each other at the same place funded by Two neighboring countries that would be stupid because it would be a waste of money and then it creates tensions So we're just mapping and trying to see where the added value of comparative advantages of each and everybody is partnership with the private sector private sector I mentioned it with the precursors, but private sector as donors of expertise of equipment and of creativity We need to jump there unmask is is is the lead of the sector from the un perspective also in the reflection We need to look at What do we do in columbia? How do you detect what is there? You cannot turn the earth around To find out everything that is being planted and you'd always have the maps and what has not been said about columbia Is that it is an extremely difficult terrain with slopes steep like this And that it takes eight hours of walking through the mountains to reach the minefield And this is why it's expensive. So this is where the the the support is is about and uh, then uh, The the partnership is with the u.s. Administration u.s. Government nato African union and all of them and all of that forms the one united nations Everybody has cited their boss including president trump and the secretary of state tillerson I have to quote my boss the secretary general of the united nations. He said Peace without mine action is an incomplete peace And if I had written his quote as everybody suspects I did but I did not I would have added and that incomplete peace is a bloody one So this is something that needs to be remembered. Thank you for your indulgence. Thank you Jerry Thanks, can I I think building off of uh, on yes's comment about Definitions and how we define things one thing that I think is important too as we talk about clearing IEDs and In stabilization related demining in areas that are cleared from isis control Is the fundamental difference between the type of demining that we're doing in say Romadi and the outskirts of mozal Versus traditional humanitarian mine action that's taken place over the past few decades The kind of stabilization Clearance that we're talking about in these isis liberated areas is very targeted It's about getting key infrastructure back up and running getting key services back up and running So the people who are moving back into these areas or who are living there all along Feel a sense of progress and understand that things are going to get better Under the new administration that's coming in and following What we aren't doing is going house to house. We aren't clearing a lot of homes. We aren't clearing farms And the reason is there's so much contamination Clearing houses clearing farms that's hundreds of millions of dollars in a decades long prospect Right now we're focused on very targeted clear stabilization Basically fostering Light construction to take place at electric electrical generation sites and that sort of thing What we aren't doing is clearing Romadi or clearing mozal. That's that's something that is bigger than the international donor community can ever tackle Let alone right now with the resources that are currently available Thank you, Jerry And not just money resources for people to not think leave this room just with money in their eyes But we don't have the capacity We don't have the people we don't have enough people So we need to build that capacity As we we we work together on an emergency response Jenny I'd just like to say a couple of words about gender Because I think the risk of gender blindness in any of these programs is very high And the risks of not having gender engagement and inclusion of the dimensions of gender can actually under undermine Any pardon the pun undermine any mining action you might want to undertake and I would just mention a couple of things Um There's a need at every step to think about what is the impact of this policy on men women boys and girls? So looking at both the age And the gender becomes important as agreements establish the lines of disarmament or demobilization The demilitarized zones concentration points cantonement camps even Demining zones engaging women and analyzing questions of gender is key to ensuring the protection of the women and girls In particular and in particular local and regional contexts We know that the more concentrated the demobilized are in the same zones The more in the greater the impact is on women's lives and security We know not just from columbia, but from the united states and many other places that when ex combatants go home Violence against women increases. So we need to be thinking of preventive measures The participation of women in analyzing monitoring and enforcing mechanisms for demobilization Sometimes provides early warning alerts for potential trouble spots For example when the FARC were in their final stages of coming out of the jungles and going to the concentration zones Turns out there were 200 Women who were either with infants Or pregnant with newborns to come and there were absolutely no provisions that had been made to think ahead To medical care that might be needed to prenatal care that might be needed to doctors that could take care of newborns Or those being birthed at the time to engaging young young kids in You know different different educational and medical activities that they might that they might need It's also interesting just a side note when the FARC When it became clear that the FARC was really in for the peace long haul I think was the moment when they instructed the Their troops that they no longer had to refrain from having sex and having children And I think the fact that you have some 200 new babies Coming into these peace camps is a sign that the FARC really mean this. They're really invested now I think there is absolutely no turning back But what do you do about these women? What do you do about the kids? Think about families think about the father and the mother's protection of their of their young ones If these kids are not taken not protected I think that may be a serious psychological moment where you're going to see some flare-ups So it's really important to think this through and make sure that there is adequate attention To all of the family and all of the different parts of the the those who are demobilizing Um, I would also add let me see Well, maybe I would I would just go to another another comment that processes are political and that divisions and Discrimination that exists within a society are replicated and oftentimes that are causes That are drivers of conflict Um are often often will emerge in the process of trying to address those same conflicts So what you'll have if you don't have a conscious consciousness about these differences What you'll have is a reinforcement of the practices of discrimination In the new society that you're trying to build to be more equal and to prevent a recurrence of the conflict Thank you, jenny Now we'll open it up for questions and what I propose we have 15 minutes left Just take a list of questions and each panelist would have about five minutes to address the questions that are Pointed to them. Uh, there are microphones on each side We have a question down here, sir It may be introduce yourself The name and affiliation maybe My name is Eddie Harris. Uh, FBI TDAC terrorist explosive device analytical center And my question is actually more for the group. I'm first from glad you guys got into discussion on the definitions No ied versus landmine With that in mind listening to the discussions, um, so far. It sounds like the group, um, defines IED precursors more More in the lives of conventional ordinance being used in another fashion. Would I be would I be accurate in that belief? Yes, and also well And some commercial products too with that in my actually sir with that question in mind a lot of the IEDs that I come across that I see in reporting press whatever Um, usually isn't in that area of converted military ordinance How does your organization said question for the group? How does the organization has taken into account non converted military ordinance IEDs as far as trying to attrit them or Prevent precursors for those types of IEDs from getting into the wrong getting the wrong hands. Okay, great question. Thank you so much Uh, let's all write that down. Is there any other or do you have more questions or is that? I guess one last question Going back to columbia Get another question for the group regarding demining actions I've read in open source articles a number of times that a major problem with demining columbia If the FARC really didn't map their fields where they place IEDs and in many cases the individuals that placed them Forgot where they put them. Is that accurate? I think a couple of articles that a little bit dated That's one of how big of a problem that is Great. Thank you so much Is there any more questions before we turn over to the panel? Oh right there Hi Jordan Wilhelm from Janice When we're talking about clearance in Semi permissive or post-conflict environments protection is obviously a large issue And when thinking about an authority that can self protect that's not the military I think of the police and I'm curious why Maybe it's that it's a later phase than our organizations are involved in this but when and how The police would be involved in and train up if that's a capacity that is a priority to build Okay, great. Thank you. Is there any more questions? Okay Jenny when we start with you Sure, let me take on the the specific question on the On the challenges or on the question of whether it's possible that the FARC had forgotten where they put their minds It sounds funny, but I think if you think about a conflict in terms of decades And if you think of troops In movement throughout a war and throughout a time period, I think it's quite possible that the FARC don't know where things are I think there are also climactic conditions and geographic conditions that would interfere you have mudslides going on in columbia right now You've had a tradition of mudslides during the winter storm months So I think there are also On top of um, you know, I don't know that I would attribute any Any bad faith to it, but I think there are really very real Issues around locating minds for their They're disarming So, you know, I'm not sure I have anything more to add on that one On the question of what usip does in terms of non-converted military ordinances We don't do, you know, we're not in on the in the terrain Working to to clear land mines. We would support research. We would support Training and education. We would we would try to incorporate as I did analysis of the issue into larger Larger scopes of how we analyze the process itself and where land mines might fit into it We have given grants to groups in particular to To misangre foundation that is the foundation of juanis. He's a 17-time Grammy winner A rock kind of pop rock star There's a little video outside that we made with him when we had him come by one time and Talking about his efforts on behalf of land mine actions He has a foundation called misangre that we have supported That does programming with young people using culture To look at particular issues of land mining but also Preventing recruitment of of youth to armed groups There are a number of other other grants I could I could talk to you about but in in columbia I think that's our main one that the main one that we have invested in And beyond that I think We we do We work with every level of society Civil society as well as government as well as internationals who are In in country we try to be a bridge between those efforts oftentimes we're working with People in local communities. We're sponsoring a Network of women mediators at a local level that's become national These women are not necessarily tied to central government structures that we have ties with so we try to put them In touch with different levels of society to make sure that government as it's making its policy and implementing its policy Has support from from the local level population and has not necessarily support but has inputs So that whatever policy is being designed. It's based on the realities on the ground So we're a kind of we're a convener We're a and we do a lot of a lot of different things But we try to have a little bit of a hand in everything in columbia to be able to help link people so that they can be more effective In the piece the peace processes that are going on at every level of society Here Addressing the the ied precursor question first For for the purposes of our program where you know our office oversees the u.s. Conventional weapons destruction program So our our sort of mandate In legal authority is limited to going after Stockpiles of conventional munitions conventional ammunition. So to the extent that we can contribute to Sort of the broader counter ied mission overall By going after those stockpiles that are at risk That's what we're going to concentrate on and I think it's important to also differentiate talking about definitions differentiate between counter ied Versus ied clearance, which is the type of thing that we're talking about mainly Counter ied, you know defeat the device disrupt the network train the force We generally aren't going to be involved with disrupting the network And we are going to be training the force to a certain extent to deal with the devices they find In the field in that humanitarian clearance context We depending on who our implementers are we may be involved somewhat in disrupt the network by Providing information back to the authorities that may be on the types of devices that are found But beyond that when it goes to you know precursors that are not converted military ordinance and that sort of thing That's not something that our office deals with but the state department does have other organizations That work on those types of issues. There's the bureau of international security and nonproliferation They they have the export control and related border security program for example They'll work with partner governments to prevent those other types of precursor materials from crossing international borders And then there's the state department's conventional arms threat reduction office Which works on a lot of policy issues related to that making sure that governments Are taking appropriate measures to deal with those precursor materials in a responsible way And aren't allowing them to fall into you know the hands of bad actors Switching to your second question about the FARC You know, they they didn't map their minefields and how big a problem is that? Unfortunately, that's sort of the norm for mine action in most parts of the world Where you had a regular military force that laid it out, you know a regular combat engineering force that laid it out and mapped everything To some extent those maps are only going to be so accurate But most of the time if you're talking about Some sort of insurgent force or terrorist organization, they're planting stuff They're moving on and they're not keeping track of what was what was put where So it's part of the the broader mine action process. How do you how do you find mines? How do you conduct surveys to figure out where is the contamination and how do you hone in on that contamination and clear it? Because it's important to remember too when it comes to landmine contamination It's not an actual it doesn't even have to be an actual minefield that might close land to productive use It can be the rumor that mines are on that parcel of land that will essentially put it off limits for productive use And then switching over to the third question about you know at what point is it appropriate to train Say local police to deal with contamination and semi-permissive security environments That's something that we are always Looking to do how do we build local capacity? Whenever we execute a program in a country be it for small arms, light weapons threat reduction or demining The state department wants to make sure that we're following two simultaneous tracks The first thing we want to do is deal with the immediate threat What's the most dangerous thing that's going to pose a hazard to either civilians or u.s security interests? And we want to deal with that directly by funding implementers to either clear the ids or destroy the stockpiles But the second thing we want to do is make sure that we're developing local capacity So the host government can take the problem on in the long term and it's not the backs of the u.s taxpayer They're ultimately you know Solving the problem. It's that host government itself In iraq for example Right now we're still dealing with that number one priority, which is address the immediate threat What do we want to Spin up the capacity of the iraqis to deal with this problem long term? Absolutely. It's an iraqi problem It's going to have to be an iraqi solution but right now the Most emergent need is providing stabilization and humanitarian aid to these populations that are trying to recover from what they just went through And to do that we don't We don't necessarily have time to train up say local police to do the job themselves Nor do we have the resources to do both of those activities at the same time So we're putting all of our eggs sort of in the clearance basket for now Not to say that we aren't actively exploring ways that we could look at capacity development long term And I know that's something that that anis is is Considering very much currently as well Thank you. We are We have actually started doing it I wouldn't just talk about police We do In the countries where we are Pretty much 20 right now we do train the police in In basically taking care of their issues But in the context of what police force is needed to do usually this is This is within a security sector reform Program, but we take care of the the explosive hazard side of the training and information of the police. I can give you One good story. It's the police of Mogadishu because there are good stories We have reached the stage Over a year ago Where when there is Vbi ed going off in Mogadishu that's pretty that's too often Unfortunately, but the Mogadishu police deploys without us now. We're not mentoring We went from the train the accompaniment with a close mentoring the training the mentoring to Having occasional mentoring and now we don't mentor anymore. They're handling it as I would say bomb squad in Mogadishu we train police contributing countries in that deploy as part of UN operations in I mean most importantly in post blast Investigation techniques and this is where our friend from a TDAC will will you appreciate that? Actually, we we support low enforcement Investigative techniques in order for judicial processes to to take place properly if Happy if if hopefully they take place And this is where the definition of the idea is important This is why I see my colleague from UNDP here whom I want to recognize We together at the UN we put together a policy on victim assistance Which created a lot of discussions because the humanitarian and development side was very cautious On ways to handle the IED issue that was new But when you think that Once these IED victims are recognized by the UN Then they will be eligible for compensation in a given country And I would say you look at european countries these days my own Being targeted all the time now Um, well when the judicial process is successful These people should be eligible for compensation and that victim assistance has to be part of the UN policy So the police is good. We work very closely with Interpol although we have different mandates a little bit like the fbi Fbi Interpol they go after individuals and people we don't We create an environment that is conducive to these people doing their job We don't exploit the data we get they will have the the means of doing of doing it Great, thank you. I just have a couple closing comments To our self plugs in a way one is the current journal of conventional weapons destruction just came out last week It's out there the title is what's in the name improvised explosive device Improvised landmine victim activated artisanal and IED So that's out there. We're talking about these definitions Just as hot off the printer Second is uh, I have a book coming out this year called america's buried history use of landmines in the civil war Six different types of terms for landmines in fact the first american to die from a landmine Was 150 year 155 years ago next week in virginia And americans were not going to face landmines for another 50 years or use landmines for another 70 years for about 60 different places Finally in the military precursor and commercial precursor um, I see this as a conflict between the humanitarian mine action community and the military security community one is protective of avoiding piercing of its Intrality shield in a way and the other in the counter IED community is looking to attack the network and looking for evidence And there's nothing better than the existing piece of evidence of a weapon that didn't go off That's it for this panel. We have a coffee break and thank you very much for the panelists appreciate I I Okay, if you could take your seat, please for the next session there isn't in fact a coffee break Uh, it's on now. Uh, welcome everyone. I'm steve cosner. I'm the deputy director for policy in the office of weapons removal in abatement at the state department We cover the policy issues related to various conventional weapons issues including the the treaties agreements And other arrangements that are relevant to the topics we're talking about today As well as of course the conventional weapons Destruction programs and humanitarian mine action Which I won't go into because you've certainly heard about that already from jerry gilbert on the previous panel But I will just reiterate if you're interested in learning more There is plenty of uh, of this out here the talk the earth and safety if you want to pick that up on your on your way out You know the title of this panel is the future challenges unconventional conflicts And and I would say that The future challenges are not future challenges. They are now current challenges and Have been for some time And I think we'll we'll continue to grow as as the nature of Warfare and conflict has changed over the years Uh, in fact over the years humanitarian mine action has moved from a predominantly post conflict effort To increasingly include working on the margins of ongoing conflict Uh, afghanistan, iraq Libya and syria, I think are for the prime examples of this, but certainly not the only ones Similarly implementers have increasingly faced ieds as part of their humanitarian mine action efforts This has particularly been a threat from isis We've already talked about uh efforts that started last year in mozal Or excuse me in ramadi and efforts that are going to be uh ongoing in mozal as as uh mozal Is eventually liberated but are already going on on the outskirts of mozal, but Uh, this increasing use of ieds certainly isn't limited just to isis And uh, I would say the question is not whether Humanitarian mine action implementers should address ieds They're doing so already is an established fact And it is likely the threat from ieds will increase in the future Instead the question is how should the humanitarian mine action community address this challenge? As already put forward in the agenda Where does and I would add where should The humanitarian space begin end to end in dealing with ieds While the extreme ends of the spectrum post-conflict peace on one side Uh and being in the midst of a shooting war on the other Are clear there certainly remains a large gray area in between To what extent is the humanitarian challenge from ieds different technologically? From what is considered more conventional humanitarian mine action and to what extent is it different? From conventional humanitarian mine action If at all with respect to the security and political concerns Now uh a lot of these thoughts have already mentioned have already been bounced off of our uh Our panelists, so I hope they're not a surprise to the extent. There's a few new ideas in there I certainly don't expect anyone to To toss their prepared statements out, but maybe to the extent Some of this is not addressed in in prepared statements. We can talk about it during the question and answer session I just want to jump in and say that uh point out that steve works for Mike I'm not sure if this might be rigged is that he might have been given a fair Unfair advantage, so he's heard everything and all the surprise questions I'm going to ask during the you know the planet questions everything Um so I also I don't have specific questions unique to each panelist, but I would posit that I I think this should be an interesting discussion because We certainly have A wide range of perspectives Coming to this issue We have a panelist who of course is the ceo of Of wanting one of the leading implementers That has representatives out in the field every day addressing these challenges And and you know real literally life and death Scenarios We have a representative from the major donor to humanitarian mine action efforts a representative from a u.s. government agency that deals not only with with this specific issue related to post-conflict and stabilization efforts, but a wide range of issues Of which this is only one part and a representative that Uh Brings a wide breadth of knowledge both from uh government private and non-governmental Institutions to a wide range of related sectors Now, uh, you've probably seen so far. We begin been given a bit of a latitude the moderators how how we address the panels I'm going to do one thing a little different. I am Going to provide some brief biographical information because uh, don't worry. I'm not going to read the long bios That have been made available word for word, but I think it it is important to uh to touch a little bit on the experience So I will I will summarize what's in those bios, but we're we're going to start with Major general cowan and I will not do his bios since we've already heard it today and probably once is enough So, uh, general I turn it over to you Steve thanks very much Well, I'm going to start with a quote from a famous thinker on peace carl von clauswitz The first the supreme responsibility of a leader is to understand the nature of the enterprise Upon which he's engaging now they're mistaking it for nor turning into something that's alien to its nature I would argue that too few western policy makers spend enough time thinking about this Actors whether state or non-state will find themselves employed in much more complex circumstances Than in previous eras the battlefield has changed It's no longer the clean place swept clear of all distractions where armies can slug it out This increase in complexity has not been matched by thinking The last 30 years have been marked by intra-state conflict in which the binary relationship between friends and enemies Has been replaced by multiple antagonists actors and audiences And I thought dr. Bouvier brought this out extremely well in the last session And in the last five years this area of interest state conflict has been joined by a renewed interstate hostility Notably in ukraine syria in iraq with russia and the west Increasingly at loggerheads In the mine action sector the trend of recent years has been towards the funding of in conflict and away from post-conflict operations While halo has always operated in both kinds of environment. We've been in afghanistan since 1988 We worked in Sri Lanka during the war. We were in Eritrea and chechnya The trend is undeniable the west priorities are increasingly syria iraq afghanistan ukraine libya yemen the sahel and the maghreb The weapons of choice for insurgents in these environments is a mix of small arms and ied's When I was a soldier as a brigade commander in afghanistan in 2009 to 2010 By way of example, I suffered 64 fatalities 32 to ied's but those numbers were actually dwarfed by the numbers of women and children who were killed in consequence of that conflict That was precisely half of my casualties. The others were coming from direct fire weapons in syria iraq the indirect Rocket and artillery threat is also prevalent along with air delivered systems such as barrel bombs all adding to the mix So how do we the mine action sector fit into the space? I want to look at this from four perspective security tactical technical and social Tying all these four together is what I believe is the center of gravity Consent consent either can either be gained voluntarily or it can be achieved by force I don't think achieving something by force is necessarily what you want to hear but it can be done Consent either way is essential without some sort of consensual environment Unprotected humanitarians will simply become victims As a former soldier, I have my concerns that a lot is now being asked of NGOs Victim operated ied's are not inherently different from mines They aim to block or deter someone from entering an area by killing or maiming The difference is that the russian who laid a mine in the 1980s in afghanistan Will not object to them being cleared in 2017 but a talib or daesh fighter may want his id to remain in place Organizations like the halo trust are funded to clear up the debris of war This is the equivalent of mopping up the floor after a roof leak But if the roof is blown away and the rain continues to pour in It's not a bucket and mop that's needed but a new roof Despite their complexity the campaigns in syria and iraq are essentially battles for control of territory Once territory has been taken by conquest then halo and others may be able to operate successfully But that security environment first needs to be created Ied disposal cannot take place in an inherently hostile environment Moreover, the likelihood is that enforced consent is not really consent at all And that an insurgency will develop behind the front line I'm not seeing enough thought being put into the orchestration of means to construct the new roof And too much energy is being expended on mops and buckets Turning now to the tactical another difference between mines and ids is that mines tend to be laid with a broader tactical purpose in mind Blocking and fragmenting in advance by formations of troops Because they have a higher tactical purpose in mind They are often symmetric in layout and susceptible to methodical clearance IEDs by contrast are often laid to deter much smaller groups of counterinsurgents And are therefore placed in much more cunning ways asymmetric in layout to catch the unwary And supported by booby traps and secondary devices The likelihood of casualties is therefore much higher than with mines Turning now to the technical The term IED covers almost everything from large truck-borne suicide bombs through to victim operated devices And we've talked a lot about that in earlier sessions Mines are factory produced and tend to react in predictable ways IEDs are homemade and less predictable because the term covers too broader range for the purposes of this discussion As I think we agreed in earlier sessions I'm going to focus on simply on victim operated devices So let's turn now to the social The fourth area is indeed social and is where I think the most valuable insights are to be gained If the center of gravity for successful IED disposal operations is consent Then success will only be gained if D miners operate within the local political ecosystem The mine action NGOs success can now translate into the IED disposal arena for the following reasons The first is mass we employ lots of people we deliver jobs for local people which creates local consent And therefore local humanitarian space Where a local actor is motivated for non ideological reasons Often the case in afghanistan or in samalia then humanitarian space can be negotiated But where the actor is ideological in motivation, for instance, most Daesh commanders This will be much less easy and consent may have to be enforced with all the attendant risks I alluded to earlier These locally recruited D miners are also a lot cheaper than their western equivalents Not just because they earn far less money, but because the security that must surround them is far less expensive This also has the benefit of creating a disarmament demobilization and reintegration Virtua circle in which former FARC Taliban or Tamil Tiger fighters in our case can be given new nonviolent employment And successfully reintegrated into society We also have the capacity to flex our workforce quickly from one country to another And halo has done so on the west bank and in ukraine with georgians And we could do the same again with our very large afghan workforce Which could be moved quickly elsewhere in the world for less cost than donors are presently experiencing So let me now qualify all of you above in some important regards First it's not true to say that all our work used to be post conflict And now it should all be in conflict My personal belief is that donors will continue to get much easier returns on their support by clearing post-conflict countries Like angola trillanca cambodia in columbia It's worth finishing demining jobs in these countries And it is easier to prevent a return to conflict than to stop an active conflict from In the first place Secondly the distinction between counter ied and ied's disposal as we talked about earlier needs to be carefully maintained Counter ied is inherently a subset of counter terrorism or counter insurgency It involves the defeat of the ied threat through military police and intelligence means and is not the proper place for charities such as halo There is however a need to orchestrate technical advances and information to better effect If donors want ied's to be cleared then they need to be as open as possible with information and technical assistance Thirdly the humanitarian mine action sectors wholesale approach to demining translates well into simple victim operated ied belt minefields But there will still be a need for high-end skills Either because halo and operators have their own in-house capability and we do or because we work in partnership with others Either in the commercial or the not-for-profit sectors halo is increasingly seeing the value of such partnerships And is in several consortia now and is not operating on its own Fourthly we all need to think about our own exit strategies Mine action operators have large workforces around the world And when our demining operations end we're increasingly looking at ways of migrating the workforce Into new roles either in the agricultural sector or in road and bridge construction The delivery of a national capacity to manage the residual threat is also vital Fifthly halo has always valued a career structure based on in-house training rather than hiring contracted skills This requires a training base which produces high quality staff We're increasingly adjusting our syllabus to meet all of the skills of ied disposal We would like to offer this training capability to the broader sector Finally the term mine action is increasingly seen as a shorthand in this piece I've explained why traditional mine action skills translate well into ied disposal But our work needs to be equally responsive to other requirements notably in the control of direct fire weapons Finally and in summary we live in an age of man-made humanitarian crisis These skills have never been more necessary and the thinking now needs to be put into how they can be put into effect. Thank you very much Thank you general, uh, we'll next uh turn The microphone over to mark swain who is acting deputy assistant secretary for Stability in humanitarian affairs Do a blank on the acronym for a moment. I got to watch my own notes. I was sure either. Yes And in that capacity, uh, he oversees uh development of defense policy for embassy security humanitarian assistance peacekeeping stability operations international rule of law prevention of atrocities and women peace and security retired from the navy in 2008 And mark has worked on defense policy issues both active duty and as a civilian since 2002 Military tours include special assistant to the commander of african in stuttgart deputy polo ad for african at uh for africa at ucom Director for african affairs at the national security council and congressional fellow to senator john warter active duty tours also include flight officer assignments including serving as Admiral's aid to the commander of the second fleet Over 2,500 hours flying as radar intercept officer in the f-14 and his bombardier navigator in the a6 intruder As well as ford carrier deployments flying over iraq basnia simalia and leading combat missions over iraq mark turn it over to you, right? Hey, thanks very much and It's very it's very nice to be here today. And I'd like to thank usip And halo trust for uh convening everyone together to talk about these important issues and i'm looking forward to seeing the displays outside afterwards to To see that important work that that we have going on as a community What I'd like to talk about as the this panel is unconventional conflicts And uh explain to you what the department of defense does in this area of uh humanitarian demining DoD humanitarian demining efforts were originally developed for the permissive post-conflict Situations where active hostilities have ceased and when all explosive remnants of war erw that we've hear so much About now have been cleared It's very difficult in hd humanitarian demining is very difficult in areas where active conflict is ongoing or nearby And that's the challenges that we're facing right now as we are working closely with ngo's and With the military of where are the ngo's going to be operating next as again as we talked about it's it's more Familiar when in the post-conflict environment and then what we have before us right now is sometimes there are as active conflict or just Close after erw after the Segment of hostilities Recently in iraq and syria we can see that that demonstrates where humanitarian demining activities are required in a less permissive environments and that's a challenge to the international community syria especially Where in a place where the united nations is not operating and where it is up to the rest of the international community to Determine how we deal with erw For the department of defense to just explain our roles and authorities We're given to us by congress Our demining activities are governed by under title 10 section 407 and that law stipulates that members of the us armed forces Cannot directly perform humanitarian demining activities But us personnel what we can do is we can train and assist others to do that important work Two programs that we have the first one is the humanitarian mine action Program is administered by the defense security cooperation agency dsca That organization works for osd policy And that is where i uh my office resides and i work for osd policy the under secretary of defense for policy So we coordinate those activities for humanitarian mine action and the funding comes from the odaka the overseas humanitarian disaster and civic aid appropriation and the importance of that uh for our funding each year And this last year congress has Increased that of funding odaka is generally a 100 million dollars a year It's a fund that we use for our steady state all humanitarian assistance And in a time of a disaster when there's an earthquake in napal or there's ebola in west africa when our military response odaka is the authority in funding that supports those activities and For humanitarian mine action that's a subset of odaka so we can spend Used to be 10 million dollars a year for humanitarian mine activities and now we spend up to 15 million dollars a year for those So i wanted you to be aware of that and then the second agency Program that we have is the humanitarian demining Research and development and i will talk about that in a little bit Right now We believe that the un in the field the un coalition local partners in u.s. Should assess and look at ways to accelerate Explosive explosive remnants of war And ied's and demining risk reduction education and other explosive hazards um, this is a specific intensifier that we're at that uh is affecting our defeat ices campaign throughout the world and As you look at what is happening around the world where are the most Who is perpetrating the laying the mines and leaving there and and leaving the erw it Is focused on Many by ices. I think we have a common goal as an international community that we want to rid the lands of Those erw and i think this is an area of unconventional conflicts of how do we how do we do that? For our humanitarian mine action program what we have done in the past It's worked out of fort lee It's the humanitarian demining training center And that program again is up to 15 million dollars a year and we work closely with our combatant commands on how we Go about Prioritizing what the humanitarian mine activities are and we use that funding and we train our partners on the ground in those affected countries with partner militaries to train them in weapons and eo d The erw and the eo d removal For those activities we work on training the trainer And we work closely again with the state department and i'll let Major general rosting will talk about state but many activities that we have with hma the humanitarian mine action We do hand in hand with state and where our priorities and activities go about The second proposal the program that we have again is the humanitarian demining research and development And that team is down in the front here charlie is leading that team today and i'll let them Talk about their issues when you go to the displays next door but This is an important Activity and operation that was started in 1995 by our congress It's funded by my office within osc policy at about 10 million dollars a year it's a Modest amount of money But the expertise and the people that are behind that That support is really the extra value Those individuals work with the halo trust and other NGOs that work for humanitarian mine demining and They take their expertise To develop demonstrate and validate existing off the shelf cost effective and internationally shareable technologies for use in humanitarian demining by civilian government organizations foreign militaries and NGOs In layman's way to say that is they take those existing if it's a demining tool if it's some kind of Large vehicle that goes in and digs up the ground and pulls things out. They might up armor that vehicle They might put a small uav Attached to this off-the-shelf technology to try to show try to be more effective And keep those deminers safe. So I think that the The work that they do is incredibly important What they bring to bear again is their expertise the level of engineering and technology is very Important to work with those NGOs who every scenario is different. I have never pulled up one mine in my In my own experience, but they have done it many times and every situation is different every country is different the soil is different and Having their expertise working with those NGOs Is very important Since 1995 they've conducted 163 technology evaluations in 36 countries The technologies developed by programs have cleared more than 23 million square meters of the world's toughest minefields And destroyed more than a hundred thousand mines or pieces of unexploded ordinance Right now they're in 50 ongoing mine and unexploded in ordinance detection clearing technology evaluations in 12 countries throughout the world And they again work closely with the state department department On their demining activities I think what I want to leave everyone with from my time of speaking Is if we go back and look at the unconventional conflicts And where do we go in the future? I think that we have in the department of defense Two programs that are important and modest in their amount of Dollars that we spend towards that, but the expertise that our humanitarian mine action Trainers and down and forth lead work with foreign militaries and also the level of expertise that we have through hd r&d In fort belvoir working with ngo's We bring a lot to the fight but As we look to the future for unconventional conflicts, how do we work together and coordinate those and manage those? How do we work? We work closely with the state department But how do we in the future? Can we work more closely with the state department or the un or who is that overall? Clearinghouse for the activities that are going on again I think we do a lot of great work, and I think that in the future we'll have to work More coordinated In this space To try to get effects. It's not just the amount of money that we put towards things I think it's the expertise and how we coordinate To be more effective. So thank you very much Thank you mark, and I would just like to reinforce what he said about DOD's humanitarian mine action activities and that They've been a very close and valuable partner with us on these range of activities for years and The 12th the earth and safety is not just a publication covering the state department's activities But the DOD activities that were alluded to are are laid out there as well And I'll also note as I look around the room. I see several people that were in Santiago chili at the end of 2016 for the annual meeting of state's parties of the Ottawa convention or mine band trainee and for those of you who went On our Chilean hosts field trip up to the northern border with Peru To see some displays and performance Of some of their demining technology as we stood on the bluff looking down Down in the valley at the three pieces of demining equipment that performed for us two of those three Uh, we were there as part of the program from Humanitarian demining research and development that mark mentioned so We see that as a as a highly effective and valuable a program in a way to both Help out these countries that need the technologies and also uh to as a way to help develop and further perfect those technologies Uh, next up is uh, major general mike rosting Who is deputy assistant secretary in the bureau of political military affairs at the state department for plans programs and operations And in that capacity he oversees usg US government global assistance programs and policies Such as the global peace operations initiative and the global security contingency funds as well as a range of our Uh, as you've already heard conventional weapons policy issues and our conventional weapons destruction and humanitarian mine action programs and funding As an active duty, uh, air force officer, which he still is He has been a command pilot with over 2,500 hours of flying time primarily in the f16 And has led nato efforts to develop the afghan air force While is commanding general of the train advise and assist command of the 438th air expeditionary wing in cobble in cobble He's also commanded an air force squadron group and two fighter wings And we've already heard the department of defense Out the department of state and note that he is in fact my boss So when we get to the question and answer session I need you all to come up with brilliant and engaging questions to make me look good in front of him So with that, uh, general I turn it over to you. Great. Thanks Steve Well, you know, I'll I'll echo everyone else's sentiments. Thanks to usip. Thanks to halo for putting this together And thanks to all of you for having an interest in this area because it is important And unfortunately it is not going away I think we all know that as much as uh, we would like to look to a mine free world in 2025 I think the odds are against that So I think this business is going to continue And as I look at the the lens of future conflicts and unconventional conflicts, I think I'd like to lay them out for you Through the lens of what's the same as I look into the future and what's going to be the same of what we've been doing Maybe what's going to be a little bit different and what are some of the implications thereof So what's going to be the same? Well, we're still going to have implementers out there doing work all over the world Uh, they're going to be doing important work. It's going to be dangerous work And we're not going to have enough capacity. So like jerry talked about in the last session both at the macro level whether that's at uh at Funders whether that's donors or states or the un We're going to make choices about where we put resources and then even within the context of a given country You're never going to have as much resources as you want So you're still going to have to make those same hard choices About where do you get the most bang for the buck whether that's litter of literally or figurative So I think that's going to remain the same As we seek to do that within a country I think another thing that will continue is that From the perspective of the u.s. State department As much as practical continuing to do that through some sort of local mine action authority Whether you're dealing with u x o Whether you're dealing with traditional landmines whether you're dealing with ied's or all the other names that ken talked about That is the best recipe for success is to still try to work through a local national authority And as things pop up and if we start to hear about efforts to go we might need a separate ied authority I would suggest that we resist those efforts because I think the overall process as anus and I talked about earlier today It's still erw right is it still explosive remnants of war and the framework for which you do it needs to be the same Again, that's an organizational framework not necessarily the tactics of what you're doing in the field because clearly That will be different And as you do that not only from The overarching organization right from a policy perspective in the country from pointing out How you get accreditation for ngos or other implementers in there? Also though how you build a local capacity, which is also touched on We can we see as we look in the future to be a framework we need to continue so whether that's a local capacity to Diffuse landmines or diffuse ied's you still need to build that as well And then I think what's different Well, certainly the tactics are different right as you look into this prevalence of ied's you're going to deal with them differently And you know james talked about That quite a bit you're going to draw on different as the military says tactics techniques and procedures because they're not the same I think we're seeing a migration Where traditional landmines tended to be laid, you know because the nature of them Potentially on lines of communication or in rural areas because they're doing blocking mechanisms for traditional traditional military force Certainly, you see some of that still With ied's or the you know just to throw one more term out for you I'm starting to call them locally manufactured mines Because many of these places we're seeing you know You know there's 500 of them. They're the same. It's not a classic factory, but it's you know It might be a garage factory, but make no mistake It's a bit of a factory. It's not one guy out there You know doing it one time or making it different every time But we're seeing the migration into urban areas, of course And that has a different set Of things you need to think about and so that's a little different So it's not just a rural issue not that it always was but tended to be I think it's starting to be a little more urban and we need to pay attention to that because the impact On the population becomes more immediate Now in a rural setting, of course, you still have farmland You still have you know land you need to try to return to use But for the most part you can still figure out how to get daily living while you do that But in some of these urban settings The impact's more immediate. So I see that as a different Difference that we have to look to for the future as we do that And then also A difference that we've talked about some already, but i'm going to go ahead and talk a little more about it Is working on the edge of conflict or as James said in conflict on the edge of conflict I'm not trying to I'm not trying to parse that term at all And we're going to be doing more of that And certainly as I look into the near future of where the US government's mind is we're going to see our resources Pointed primarily in that direction, you know, Iraq, Syria Libya, Afghanistan But there's implications of working on the edge of conflict James hit on a few Security certainly being one of them and I want to touch on a couple pieces of that from the security standpoint One is money So if we have to spend more money protecting D miners And I say that in the broad since the term of demining That's less money that's available to actually get work done and it tends to be more expensive You also have this interesting security piece that was touched on in that many of our implementing partners Values their neutrality in the humanitarian space And the closer you get or the farther you get from a post conflict where now you're working in a peaceful area in the closer You get to being in conflict The more their neutrality might come into question And certainly as the state department we have to respect that and absolutely do respect That which means they may not be comfortable working there and then also from a practical standpoint That even if you have someone who might be comfortable more comfortable working closer towards the conflict If their neutrality becomes in question Then they become potentially a target to someone perceived on one side of the conflict or the other more likely who Who we as the u.s. Government would see as the enemy they become a target and that has the secondary secondary effects Let me give you an example of that and I think it's a halo example This is back a few years ago in afghanistan You've got a local police force that terms turns to one of our implementing partners I'm pretty sure it's halo james for correct me if Someone correct me if i'm wrong and this is back in 2013 and they've come across an ied on the road And they are trying to get local lawmakers Through this road and so they come to the folks out in the field and say hey, we need help moving this ied The people in the field we won't Figure out or or dissect how and why they got there but ended up going out to help It ended up being a command detonate a command Activated ied and that person was killed and their assistant was injured Two things happened there of course not only do we lose a valuable well several things happened lost a valuable resource Certainly made that implementing partner rethink where they wanted to be in the conflict and third You've got an enemy now who potentially sees that implementing partner as part of the other team rather than a neutral force Now compare that to someplace like uh Mozambique or something where we're you know, we're clearly in a post-conflict stage and when you're out there demining You know, there's no one out there going. Oh, we got to stop him from doing that or stop her from doing that So that's an important difference The other thing is this uh edge of conflict tends to be more dynamic Right that when you get into a post-conflict Uh situation The tactics are dead It's out there now you may have to solve that you may have to figure it out But the tactics are not so much evolving anymore But what we're seeing in iraq and syria is we get out there and do some work But the enemy is still engaged right so they're seeing what's working. What's not working So the next minds you come across May be very different because they're reacting to what just got done last week or last month or a couple months ago And that dynam dynamism can be a problem And then of course another difference Work in the edge of conflict is there's a greater chance that the battle lines may change You know, we were doing some work in syria right now And there was a conversation that went on where we were doing some work and then at one point It looked like the front may change in places that we were about to go work You know made no longer being a place that we thought was relatively stable Although it's serious. So that's all taken with a grain of salt And so that that dynamic is also there too But as we do this work in these unconventional conflicts And jerry talked about in the last session where I see the head of the u.s. government right now And the state or I should say the state department. I shouldn't speak more broadly than that But for the state department doing this is we are going to focus on those areas of stabilization We think first that can leverage other humanitarian efforts We are not as focused on going door to door or field to field right now But what can we do that has good bang for the buck that has secondary secondary effects water infrastructure schools hospitals And you've got to do that in coordination with the right group And in that conflict environment it can be a little difficult sometimes finding that right group We think in iraq right now. We've you know, we've got a model that's working We think fairly well for certainly not perfect You know, but we've got a good coordination group that includes the unb at un d up on mass It includes the u.s. Embassy where we've got folks forward includes local government Whether that's up north towards mozal or down in anbar and in chords and of course Implementing partners as well be it contractors or NGOs And they're coming together to get a good prioritization of efforts on that And that communication has got to be good And one of the things too I think james touched on Is we've got to break this wall down Especially in these areas between the military And the civilian workers in mine action be it on the technical aspects. I think that's real important You know, here's the classic thing is NGO goes up takes a picture of an ied and posts it to the web because they want to share that information Now with everyone go. Hey, here's what we found here. So we diffused it This works the same guy next to him is a military person goes up and labels it toxic And no one can see it We got to try to break those walls down Because I think there's an information sharing here on the side and we're doing some of that in the field And I think but we got to continue to to do that on there And then I'll touch I'll touch briefly to I've also talked about it on this distinction between What I'll call humanitarian mine action and counter ied and I know we've touched on it before But I would be remiss if I didn't pound this one more time Is that we see an important difference between the two We see counter ied is primarily a military mission Could be police or other security forces But primarily a military mission to work in conflict to do those things again To defeat the device to get after the network to train the force to do all those things to include the intelligence The secondary effects of all of that But it's primarily a military mission in focus or security mission in focused That is not the space that state department per se is operating in so much We are primarily operating in the humanitarian mine action again. Sometimes It is close to the counter ied mission There certainly needs to be I think some overlap on information sharing But if we get confused on what we're doing in the context we're doing it in I think we can find ourselves in trouble and it's important that all of us I think as a community Start to be disciplined about how we use those terms and how we think about them So we don't unnecessarily conflate what can already be a confusing issue And then lastly of course a major difference is the tactics You know dealing with ied's Things james hit on already Is going to be a lot different than dealing with mines But I think we can have many of the same members out there will evolve those things We'll hire the right people to train the folks whether that's experts coming from out of country or training folks in country So those are some of the things I see as a as a big difference Going forward the sieve mill cooperation on the edge of conflict I think it becomes even more important than it is in a post conflict and I would key that Sort of as a last thought for future conflicts. Thank you Thank you general our fourth and final speaker on this panel is Karla couple vice president for applied conflict transformation here at the us institute for peace Karla has 25 years of experience working in a wide range of sectors and public private And non-governmental organizations internationally Before joining us ip she was chief strategy officer for the u.s agency for international development And while there served a senior coordinator for gender equality and women's empowerment and as a senior advisor advisor To the us aid administrator Before aid she directed the institute for inclusive security and the dc office of the hunt alternatives fund and Before that was senior advisor and interim director of the conflict prevention project at the woodrow wilson international center for scholars And she also served as deputy assistant secretary for international affairs At the us department of housing and urban development. So karla the floor is yours. Thanks. Good afternoon I'm uh, i'm glad to follow the general because um or the multiple generals Because really mine is a perfect counterpart to your last comment about how's the civil and military come together and and a little bit About how you do that the us institute of peace Really focuses a great deal on Bridge building and how you bring together military and civilian counterparts around a problem set related to conflict transformation and peace building And when I was thinking about this conversation this afternoon, um, I Focused on a discussion. I just had when I was in senegal and I used senegal as a case example. It could be lots of different countries But since I was there recently I will build on that In senegal you have over 400,000 square meters of territory in khazaman's region that still has Mines and active mines and there's a process of demining underway And while that's more of a classic environment, I think I would Say that in some ways to Refer back to stevens point earlier the past is prologue in many ways for the kinds of challenges that are faced And there you when I was Um in dakar and speaking with your colleagues in the state department. They said well, we have an opening for the peace process We're looking for ways to build trust between those who are returning from having been displaced over decades of conflict And we're looking for ways to Bring the communities and the government together And in some ways I I when I was thinking about the conversation this afternoon Seemed like a perfect opportunity not only to say that you need that kind of collaboration between civil military authorities and local Local individuals, but you can benefit from it in other ways as you're engaging in the peace building process Because really having conversations around what local priorities are where you get biggest bang for the buck Enables you to start to create an atmosphere of trust at the same time that you're able to remove Unexploded ordinance IEDs or other weaponry And that's exactly the kind of activity that can be taking place in these places around the world when you are engaging Engaging the wide range of stakeholders in defining a path forward for Anti-mining activity in the case of senegal you see that the fact that there are these These mines is is preventing recovery is preventing the return of displaced populations Is stunting economic development and hindering increases in governance by creating frozen zones and places where there cannot be development And that kind of challenge continues to exist in some ways Because there's an inability for the various stakeholders to work together It reminds me Of the work of a former colleague Ambassador don steinberg who was ambassador in angola and tells the story and I see you nodding So you've heard the story tells the story of how when he was involved in the negotiating process They negotiated the removal of mines along roadways And proceeded with that because they thought that was the biggest priority for economic development When in fact after removing those mines along the roadways and inviting communities backed in They saw the kinds of huge Female and children casualties that were unexpected because they were going into the fields And it refers back to What general count was saying earlier on in terms of the the ratio of casualties depending on the choices you make when you're doing mine removal And you have the same problem today in senegal Where there is a big priority by the government on removing mines along roadways But that isn't going to lead to the kind of peace building recovery And stabilization that you would want to see within these communities that would allow a trajectory to peace and prosperity in the causamance region Now I was I was in Senegal actually For a project that we have underway called the justice and security dialogue which focuses on bringing various actors together around a problem set defined by local local Communities and government authorities and the police and the military when necessary To determine their priorities and there we were working gageway To around an anti radicalization agenda and around an agenda for violence reduction And those were the priorities that were defined by By the people living in that community But what they had identified and the results of that Process identification was a set of priorities That led not only to reductions in violence and reductions in radicalization It also resulted in better communication between The community members and the police force better communication between local government authorities and the police There and better communication between civil society organizations And the government authorities from which they were trying to get service delivery And one might envision a similar process for the identification and prioritization Of where to remove mines when they are located around Civilian populations that could result in a lot of unexpected positive externalities in addition to Reducing the violence associated with unexploded ordinance, whether those are IEDs or classic mines and I think that To general rosting's point earlier this becomes even more important when you're dealing in urban areas Because you have a set of circumstances in which those margins are even smaller and where the risks are even higher And I hearken back to examples that didn't deal with mines in the past But where you heard about weapons caches or prison breaks First from Individual civilian populations Because they knew where Individuals who were either loosely associated with radical or military forces Were more likely to see what was going on or because they were active in different parts of the communities And i'm thinking particularly in afghanistan Where you had the the sort of infamous kandahar prison break first announced by women within the community And the identification of caches of weaponry in iraq, which were also by civil society organizations who were first located close to those Those sites and were moving in parts of the area where Military authorities and police authorities were not present So I would just re-emphasize that I think that as we move forward and think about the Unconventional and new challenges or whether we think about Those of the past and those that are more traditional That the opportunities for civil military collaboration and for a mission focused Collaborative process that involves involves a wide swath of actors and the identification and prioritization Of actions for ied or traditional mine removal will result not only in more saved lives But it will also result in a trajectory for peace and prosperity that is more likely to deliver the kinds of benefits That maintain long-term stability and peace in areas affected by affected by mines. So thank you very much All right. Thank you Paul Hughes. Let me ask first I'm supposed to wrap up by 5 25. So there's room for concluding remarks. Is that correct? Okay So that leaves us about 15 minutes for questions and given that I'll withhold Any comments or summaries so we can jump right to the questions to make sure we have enough time We'll start at the very top and work down Hello, thank you. I'm jordan sells. I'm a student at howard. My question is What Are weapons of mass destruction? Well, I think we know where you're going with this, but who would like to take a cut at that Well the weapons of mass destruction is That's a very difficult question to answer especially since I'm the person that works on the demining and stabilization And we have a whole office for weapons of mass destruction in the department of defense. So at least for me, I won't Try to define what a weapon of mass destruction is but certainly On the standpoint of humanitarian demining Mining Mines that are laid in the Fields that children and women can run into if that's Effects your family and it's your wife or your daughter your son And that's certainly a devastating mass destruction for you and your family. So Um, my little part of the world we work with humanitarian mine action and hd r and d to make sure that we don't uh that we Don't allow that to happen, but I'll let the others talk. I'll pile on just just real quick I Typically in in the mine action world We don't often refer to as mines as weapons of mass Destruction now what you will sometimes hear is collectively over time Those small, you know weapons over time can certainly lead to a lot of effects But I I think as a general rule I don't hear too many people talking about mines as a weapon of mass destruction or even an ied Um and on there I I like the full naivety of the question and if your inference is That I mean I quoted klaus witz early. Let's use his other famous quote war's extension of politics by other means If war has any purpose at all and let's face it war is evil Then it must achieve a political purpose And if it's not achieving a political purpose if it's killing people A long time after the event surrounding the original Uh prosecution of that conflict let's say a russian mine in afghanistan then it is purely evil Some evils are worse than other evils and maybe war is occasionally necessary But in that particular instance it is clearly entirely unnecessary And that is why it has been prescribed by the bulk of the international community and that's why people want to get rid of them I would also just add briefly to the extent that You know what the question is getting at is total casualties From what are typically considered wmd Versus what is really killing more people the conventional weapons Including things that last for years afterwards landmines ux o Clash munitions that that didn't explode. I I think that reality Wherever you stand on the issue of what Is proper to use or not use as a weapon is what drove civil society to begin this movement in initially with The mine ban movement back in the 90s and then would that success went on to You know look at other issues like uh un program of action on small arms lie weapons or the Clash munitions convention. I think that was uh, you know, as I said, wherever you stand on the issues Uh That was a large motivating factor behind that movement I'd just like to point out that the uh humanitarian people and the state department through dod And to answer the weapons of mass destruction to have dod solve it first should be other people So I hand over here or well, we'll go ahead write that one right next to you first Hi, my name is cori wegener. I'm with the smithsonian institution And we're working on a project with the department of state education and cultural affairs bureau And uh the iraqi ministry of culture to assist with cultural heritage that was intentionally destroyed By isis. We're working on the uh ancient assyrian site of namrud, which was blown up by isis in 2015 And we're we're very aware that there is probably unexploded ordinance You um and possibly booby traps and mines there wondering about your thoughts the panel But maybe particularly general rathstein about uh cultural heritage prioritization as part of humanitarian infrastructure Yeah, certainly. I I think uh, that is something that needs to be considered I think that's got to you know be looked at on a case by case basis, you know within the context of a given country and priorities And and certainly I mean the fact that you're teaming with the state department on this tells you that you know Our government believes that that's an important issue. So I think the answer is is yes, I don't want to give it unqualified It's the most important thing of course, but I think certainly something that That needs to be considered and and I see our government and other governments doing that Very purposefully at times, especially as we've seen, you know What this particular threat of isis is is doing on on cultural heritage artifacts If I could just add and I think it is hard to prioritize something cultural over something humanitarian But the halo trust is working on one particular project in the moment in the Middle East, which I think is relevant Uh at the site of the baptism of christ on the on the banks of the river jordan Eight churches or christian different denominations were mined booby trapped By the israelis at the time of the sixth day war We've got the israelis. We've got the palestinians We've got all eight christian denominations to agree That it's time to clear those eight churches and restore them to their proper use I think at a time where elsewhere in the world people are blowing up sites of Religious significance It is great to be able to do something that runs counter to the trend And I think although it is not strictly humanitarian the symbolism of it Matters to the broader humanitarian work of the mine action community This one next and then we'll get some of them over here Thanks, um camille wallon from the halo trust I promise this question is not a plant and Carla I was really interested in the point that you came up with about the difference between the short term priorities and the life-saving priorities versus the longer term economic development and stabilization and there was actually a report Um that is going to come out soon The final version will be out soon that was a study that was conducted by the london business school and uh brown university on the economic impact the macroeconomic impact of clearance of the whole of mozambique And that has seen that it's something that as Individual organizations we will never be able to to measure the macro impact of that and the longer term impact But as we know mine action takes a long time clearance takes a long time and seeing the stabilizing impact and developmental impact of that takes even longer But this report is fantastic in the way. It's shown The economic impact to far outweigh the cost of clearance um and that clearance of Certain towns has seen not only an impact in that area, but an exponential impact in the areas that are connected to it and on the The economy and I don't want to spoil their thunder and the the report will be out in a couple of months But I would I really recommend that everybody here reads it my question is in In a time of competing donor interests and changing foreign policies among Donors How can we Try to enhance the stabilizing impact the long term stabilizing impact that we have Through mine action compared to the shorter term priorities Thanks for the comment and the and the site to the study. It sounds really interesting. I mean, I think that in part the answer to your Question is in studies like the one you mentioned that is um It's extremely important that we try to capture the broad set of Impacts and benefits that accrue from things like mine removal Whether that is the long-term economic benefits Whether that is the trust in a government coming out of conflict Whether that is the preservation of historic artifacts and try to bring all of that to bear when you're talking about The cost of removal because I think that is what makes that's not easy, but that's what makes the case for looking not just at the short term, but at the long term and the more that we can Classify and quantify Both of those and I don't think it's a purely quantitative exercise, which is why I say classify I think the more we build a sort of business case around it that becomes crystal clear So as I think of of long term versus short term priorities And it may not be whatever wants to hear but i'll give you a sort of my honest opinion Is that you've got to start with your short term priorities Not only uh because there's oftentimes a political necessity for it Especially in the stabilization efforts you you've got one of the things you're trying to do is not only You know get the humanitarian impacts, but also the political impacts thereof So you can allow people to come back so you can get some faith that the The local governance is doing things that can take care of people because that has second and third order effects And that typically means focusing more on shorter term Then longer term and even though we all might know academically in the perfect world You might plot some of those longer term priorities because in the end you're going to get great return on investment down the road on it If you don't pay attention to the shorter term stuff up front, you're never going to get there in the political environment So I see it as starting on the short term Creating enough Cache if you will that there's enough confidence that you can then focus to start to shift some of that towards the longer term Now again, I think every situation is going to be different And I think you've got to work with the local government of whatever you're doing to find that balance within the political context of what they're working But that's my take on it. I don't know if that addresses your question Thank you. My name is mo. I write the blog land mines in Africa and my question is about The sharing of knowledge that You know, I see from From Somalia around the arc to molly There is a significant number of improvised explosive devices being used and There are different operators working in all of those countries and there are different You know, but the question is with Transnational networks and with, you know, a lot of the groups claiming Allegiance to ices or to another or other sort of transnational organizations How are we sharing the information about those Weapons that you're finding how, you know, we classically know factory made land mines there they can get a lot of similarities in terms of clearance and in terms of Addressing their contamination, but as you see IEDs Are you able to share the information about how they're constructed? What their materials are how you find them or are you getting the situation where you know the You know the NGO guys taking a photo and the military guys making a top secret and that top secret means that you can't share that information And therefore, you know possibly making it harder for someone else to Do their clearance work. Well, thank you. I'll jump in and answer and start and I'll let state Answer for that for for the Department of Defense how we do that as for uh, humanitarian demining research and development that team that That we work with closely They are a part of the department of the army and they can all of those things that you talked about the the what's in the cutting edge of Mines that are actually in the field right now and how our u.s. Military people are dealing with them They can take those lessons learned and then they can fold that into what they are doing in hd rnd to support the The halo trust as the general talked about the halo trust is in on the jordan river right now with the The baptism of christ for that Facility for that geographic location hd rnd is supporting them so as they work there or any workplace else where hd rnd is working with ngo's They can one of their uh Core competencies is bringing that expertise that our u.s. Military has in combating minds and how we can bring that Information and help ngo's as they do humanitarian demining As an operator We cry out for this kind of information and as a former soldier. I know that the the ability to store and conceal information is so much easier than sharing it The the problem isn't simply technical There's a there's an operational Need to share for instance the the deadly incident in Mazar al-Sharif over the weekend in which over 100 afghan soldiers were killed We have a very major part of our afghan operation near there now We were mercifully not affected by it, but we could have been the ability to share that kind of operational information Is necessary, but then it touches again on the impartiality of ngo's do ngo's want to be Privy to military intelligence or not And there's some really difficult issues that need to be thought through here But when it comes to the technical aspects of ied's if a donor wants to fund an operator It's got also to fund the appropriate to provide the appropriate information so that we are not putting our D minors or our ied operators at risk If I can add or ask general to what extent is there Direct sharing of of information on on these issues and technologies found directly between ngo's particularly Where in in a number of these countries, you know, several of you were all all working in the same country So I mean we have The director of the you and my national service here. So that is the obvious Um international organization We also have the Geneva institute for humanitarian demining And of course many operators are now in consortium one sort or another so Halo's main consortium is with the british government With the mines advisory group and with norwegian people's aid Where the lead for that consortium and we have a duty to make sure that all three operators are operating in a safe way So there is a need to share Between operators and vertically to the international organizations, but I do also think the donors have a part to plan this I'm going to squeeze one it's 525. Let's do one last question Thank you. My name is brian sand. I'm with unmask Right now we're developing with 11 member states of nato including the u.s international or excuse me un ied disposal standards for Humanitarian ied clearance The chapters that we're writing touch on a lot of the aspects that you've you've talked about today from training clearance information sharing Across ngo's organizational risk analysis how to operate on that battle space at the edge of conflict if you will Doing a lot of the things that imass has done for landmine clearance for the last 20 years And I guess my question is with imass having been paired with the mindband treaty That really made it effective for the clearance of landmine. One was the strategic global Mechanism to get rid of landmines. The other was the tactical Pragmatic clearance on the ground. So we're developing ied standards as that tactical level on the ground What do you see as the mechanism at the global strategic level to try and get rid of ied's because it's a situation where you can't really Band them like you do mindband Excuse me a landmine band. Do you see a mechanism out there? What would that approach look like? I'll take uh, you weren't You're right. We don't have you know the ied band treaty and and we're not I mean I think uh, I think it is still possible to get traction for it. I think My my understanding is you know the mine action community Will be receptive to getting that and uh, it's maybe it doesn't Carey the same gravity toss as the treaty itself But if I recall correctly The call to work on this effort was from the un secretary general included in his report on ied So, you know, there is a hook there. I'm sure the the plan is once it's agreed upon To get it endorsed by a consensus un resolution Uh, so we can point at that and I I'd say I'm not sure if there's anything else we can hook it on other than that But and other than I I think the implementers, you know, are going to be motivated to To have standards where in fact there's a vacuum right now My understanding from talking to people that are involved in this so far and you two certainly know this more than me that some of the Standards that are being looked at really aren't going to very Very much if at all from imass Maybe qaqc Survey things like that, but maybe some of the things related to the Clearance of some of the more technologically challenging ids would So I I think there's recognition that there that the need is there And which I think will make You know everyone more receptive now also the willingness of of the donors to Hold their you know implementers to that standard will be part of it as well Just with one thing, you know, I think the the key underlying fact in this is state versus non-state actors, right? you know, so That that's a huge change most of the folks who are dealing with ids are non-state actors very difficult obviously to hold them accountable You know under any sort of international law and that sort of thing so that's It's going to make it a very difficult problem. I mean there are two sorts of terrorists Ones you get old and ones that die and The ones that get old get reasonable they lose that young man's instinct to go out and cause trouble And they may become like the ira or phak or etta and become You know peacemakers or they may just be like Al Qaeda or daish and carry on fighting till they die And you'll never create an international order That can legislate for that. I I just think it's impossible We're four minutes over. Let me thank the panel. I think uh, we covered a lot of issues Just two key takeaways amongst many is there I think there was a lot of agreement on the need to increase civil military cooperation on these issues as as we move forward but also agreement on the importance to maintain the distinction between military ied defeat and humanitarian ied efforts With that, I know there were some hands still raised. I'm happy to answer questions afterwards I I'm going to speak for our panel and I presume if you can catch them afterwards They'd be happy to answer any further questions as well. Thank you and we'll turn it over to paul Let's give him a hand So on behalf of halo trust in the u.s. Institute of peace I'd like to thank all of you for taking the time to attend today's session the the plague the the issue of Landmines uxos ied's all of that is going to be one that will continue for the foreseeable future We all represent different various parts of the answer And so the need to network the need to synchronize the need to complement To complement each other's efforts Goes on and I would urge you all to to make those contacts today if you have not yet done so We have a reception next door you are all heartily welcome to come and enjoy it and to Just get to know one another and ask those questions of steve and the others so again. Thank you all for coming The wine bar is open