 Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna sit down for this section But my name is Scott Ogden by focus here at CSIS on global trends analysis, and I work with some of their groups here in the audience So urbanization is one of these things that I've been thinking about for a long time and you could actually take a much longer view of it I mean if you go back to the beginning of the 20th century We only had 10% of the planet living in cities in 2007 2008 We finally hit 50% living in cities and that's gonna probably get somewhere in the 60s Maybe 62 66 between now and the middle of the century So we're looking at some major change still in terms of how much we're urbanizing Some things that are important to think about there Is a lot of economic action happens in the cities. It's 75% of global GDP is stuff that's coming from cities So if you're looking at these longer term trends one of the things you'll see right away Is that cities are obviously focus area in terms of long-term economic policies? Mega cities how many of you are familiar with mega cities big cities on the planet, right? There's a few of them today. We have 28 of them on the planet today The UN has it at about 43 by 2030. I have it at 56 in 2035 so you're gonna see a lot of these big cities These are cities that have 10 million or more people living in them at that period of time And so we might get to the point where we need to redefine what a mega city is again Because maybe 10 million is too low and there's so many cities on that list to pay attention to There's a lot of cities you could pull out that are really I think worth looking at the ones the military I think obviously you're interested in a lot of development experts are interested in DACA Legos another we might want to add as a kinshasa all three of those cities have increased 40 times in size since 1950 Rapid rapid urbanization And what's really important to see there is it actually triggers a lot of some of the challenges you see when you get down to Violence crime etc because rapid urbanization actually leads to quite a few of those factors it creates slums So if you look across the planet these you see a lot of these spaces where the infrastructure is not so great Maybe the government's not as as connected to the society as it should be in some of those spaces And they can be really small like little fishing villages in Legos that the police decide that they don't want to go into They could be in Mumbai, Cairo, Karachi, Nairobi, Mexico City all of them have slums of over a million people In fact you can look at some areas in India where if you combine elements inside the states of India You can actually find 60% of a particular state that's basically slums So one thing that's really important in this conversation is as you look at urbanization rates We're gonna urbanize quickly and we have actually urbanized quite a bit over the 20th century already But it's really trying to figure out what do you do with these new spaces? How do you develop them in slightly different ways? So something that Bob would be very proud of me for saying is that governance matters something he's been harping on for a long time here at CSIS is as you look at the approaches that we do for development policy you know a few other areas is a lot of times we have formal and informal in our minds and We look at the informal or things that we think are informal structures and we try to formalize them It doesn't always work Because one of the things you find out quickly is if you look at these more informal structures Is they end up providing a lot of the services in that area and that's where you start seeing a lot of the Illegal activity also taking place or what we define as sometimes illegal activity taking place to sort of fill in the gap in governance So sort of a formal informal maybe a hybrid structure trying to think through what the government's models are How do you decentralize in ways in which you can provide services in those regions? Lots of trends we could pull out that worth looking at Long-term implications of climate change food and water and security if you're interested in water by the way USAID just came out with a new toolkit on water. That's worth looking at I just looked at it this morning You can maybe throw in migration issues and that's actually kind of an area where we need to improve some analysis Because we have sort of squishy numbers in terms of how people are migrating across the planet We don't really have a really good Approach I think are really good methodology into terms of looking at the longer-range trends in terms of how people are migrating across the planet Gender lots of things you could say about gender. I'll just pick on the guys because I'm a guy Men 20 to 29 tend to take Work in these areas, and I think it's really important to think about the impact of youth If you have to question about youth make sure to ask Nicole golden in the back because I know she does that a lot of work on youth But there's a lot of really interesting things we should thinking about obviously if you don't provide jobs in these areas It's gonna lead to some more free time and the ability to go out and do some of the activities that we should be talking about today And then the last thing that's worth really talking about here in the space is who takes charge in this environment One of the things I've been frustrated on and looking at this longer-term trends Same thing you see in human Humanitary assistance and disaster relief who takes charge in the US government on some of these issues Who's the sort of main point person looking at the problems of urbanization? I think there's a lot of groups that need to be involved because the first thing that you sort of describe in this space It's very complicated. It's not just looking at some specific economic policies that fix the environment It's maybe even bringing architects who are thinking about designing some of these spaces So it's a really complicated area to get into who takes over in that role in the US government But that's sort of the big drivers that I see and there's all sorts of other things We could get into what are the push and pull factors that we see going forward But those are the big drivers that I see sort of shaping our planet over the next 20 or 30 years in terms of Urbanization and some of the violence that it might bring morning everybody Nice to see some friendly faces You're all friendly faces I just want to start with a caveat that I am absolutely not an expert in urban violence and I would also like to add I don't think there's really anybody who should honestly say they're experts in urban violence Because I think this is something we're all beginning to struggle with but I just like to Second point is why do we care about urban violence in places like Legos or Karachi or Tegucigamba where I live? Why does that matter? Creating spaces of lawlessness. We're all interconnected. I think about that CNN lady. What happens over here Impacts over here. That really is true and that was hit home Saturday reading the Washington Post and 13 members of MS-13 a Latin American gang indicted in northern Virginia Now this is one of the two main gangs in Honduras in El Salvador and in Guatemala So what happens in Karachi really has in urban violence as an effect on all of us I just want to make two points today really two points one is you need to be very clear as to the problem You're trying to solve this sounds really logical, but it's astounding how often we chase after symptoms instead of the problem and also We need to be able to learn this is a field. We don't know much about it and as soon as we learn about it It's already changed so we need to have ways to Get in it do carry out some experiments to analyze those experiments learn Document share that information and then shake and repeat and over and over and over This is something that we as institutions as government we need to be able to have this ability Really quick. What is urban violence in Honduras look like it's primarily in three cities. They're not mega cities They're tiny little cities of about a million people Homicide is the homicide rate in Honduras is the highest in the world It primarily takes place in low-income slums, but low-income unplanned chaotic Places that are have very very poor services and very little presence of the government, especially as security forces In Honduras 70 to 80 percent of this astoundingly high Homicide rate are caused by gangs primarily the two gangs ms-13 and 18th Street Young men are the primary perpetrators and victims Almost 80 percent are gun related Here's a really terrible statistic if you're living in one of these low-income areas 98% of the murders in Honduras or any crime in general, but specifically murders are go unpunished So there's 98% impunity rate People don't trust the police who are sworn to bring law and order and even if they did the gangs are in a much better Position to impose their will than the police. They have more guns. They got better communication equipment They have better transport. They have better everything. So it's a pretty grim scenario. So that's Honduras and I think you could Karachi we had somebody from Pakistan recently with us. It is so much more complicated in Karachi It is so much more complicated. So learn learn learn. So getting clarity as the as of the problem I often think about this as I show up at the doctor. I have a really bad cough. He gives me cough syrup The problem I have is tuberculosis. He didn't touch that. He went after the symptom and so often we do that I Learned this in Columbia where the Colombians spent Four decades chasing after the the FARC gorillas and chasing after coca as the two main problems turns out They were not the problems. They were the symptoms of the problem The problem was and they learned this after a year of analysis Was that there were vast parts of the country that were ungoverned and that permitted the FARC and the coca to be present So once they figured out reshape the problem, which was lack of state presence then they could Come with the solution which was state presence. So getting to Honduras. We were very clear We need to be clear as to what the problem is. We quickly pulled together two focus groups One of civil society one of international community. Tell us what that what is causing the violence We heard a whole bunch of stuff. It was education. It's poverty. It's high unemployment It's family violence is high levels of inequality. It's weak institutionality. I'm thinking can't be all those But most of those are got to be symptoms. Let's just take a simple one a very logical one Which you made reference to I'm a young man. I can't get a job And I live in an area that's flooded with guns and drugs and I'm extorting people are extorting Of course my logical solution is going to be to turn to that except next door Nick at Agua is even poorer than Honduras has a just as high an unemployment rate and they have a Homicide rate that's only slightly above the United States. So it's not a direct cause and effect unemployment and Poverty do not lead inexorably to to violence. So what is it? We ended up settling on institutionality coming back to the 98% impunity rate. The police can't do their job But they have to do their job. So we thought we decided that for us. It's going to be bringing helping Bring to a very local level the state institutions specifically looking at the police and the justice sector What are the challenges that we face and that I think we as development practitioners dealing in urban violence phase One is a big one is well-financed criminals are always going to be two five eight steps ahead of us They're learning faster. They're their business models are much more efficient. So we're always behind The security and justice sectors are constrained by rule of law if you're a bad guy And I don't like your look because you're my problem We can't do that as Davoma workers. So that puts us another step behind the criminals We tend to think linear as human beings. We think in cause and effect and That is a really good thing if you're looking at measles or food security or getting girls into school If we put in some technical assistance and some inputs this will inexorably lead to that But unfortunately the systems we're dealing with are complex and what happens over here Certainly will have an impact over there, but it's going to go through a series of gears and shifts and clouds to get over there It's very complex. We think as human beings in cause and effect. We as Institutions think in cause and effect. That's a big challenge to us another big challenge is related to cause and effect is If the problem is ninety a percent impunity, why don't we make them more like us and how do we do that? we give them computers and cars and training and we get new laws and They'll become more like us the Woodrow Wilson Center recently did a study two billion dollars over 20 years in Latin America of Rule of law assessment rule of law assistance and reform almost nothing to show for it because the problem is not It's not technical. It's a political problem We as institutions have a hard time dealing politics. It's so much better dealing with technical stuff. So that's a big challenge we have and the last one I want to mention as a challenge is that Once we come up with a solution in Honduras, it's not going to be that useful anywhere else because It's very different Karachi is very different than to goosey gal But there is hope and really quickly what I want to do is get to start with a quote as I wrap up here Cultural quid critic Wendell Berry. The problem is that we are terrifyingly ignorant The most learned of us is ignorant the acquisition of knowledge always involves the revelation of more ignorance So ignorance, okay We I think we all agree with that so we need to learn and we need to keep learning and we need to systematize We need to institutionalize and we have to learn in real time. We as government institutions have a very hard time learning in real time We're always learning about stuff that happened two years ago Analysis part of learning is analyzing We are really good at analyzing cause and effect. We are terrible at analyzing complex systems We are terrible. How do we become better at that? We need to become better at that We need to challenge conventional wisdom Sounds pretty obvious, but when we got to Honduras we were told Communities and police are never going to work with with each other. They never will don't even think about it We challenge that and turned out to be absolutely wrong. Who knows how many other conventional much other conventional wisdom out there is constraining what we do Okay, this is a really simple and learn from the past instead of implementing the same Inconsequential wasteful programs. We heard that today. I was at a presentation two weeks ago with a European country I will not name that was talking about what they're gonna do with the Attorney General's office They're gonna give them computers and cars and training and make new laws and I felt sorry for them because they were young I said, how is that different from what? AID just stopped doing because it wasn't working and how is that different for everybody else is trying to do? How is that different? Why do you think it's gonna be different? Of course, they I created enemies But I thought this is a really serious question. We cannot keep doing the same thing and expect to have a different outcome Political leadership was mentioned. We need to find those people with political will at the top level at the PTA level Find those people find those people that are having success In the same exact situation as everybody else same level of resources. They're having success find those and support them Inside and outside experts. I'm almost done. I promise inside and outside experts. We have the Experts we the outsiders we don't have all the answers by any means and then you perhaps in some in some community You don't have anything more than what you have we need to combine force on that sounds obvious But it's astounding how often it doesn't happen and just to paraphrase sieve jobs who it turns out I just learned recently was paraphrasing a complex systems principle is that nothing it doesn't make sense Looking forward it only makes sense looking backwards and that comes back to the learning the assessing and the analyzing So let me just wrap up real quick with be clear as to what your problem is if you're not clear What your problem is you're gonna be chasing your symptoms and you're not gonna get anywhere Experiment and learn and analyze and document experiment learn analyze and document and we can't ever stop because this problem It's just gonna get bigger and bigger and worse and worse and keep having an impact on us and we can't lose heart All right, good morning everybody So I guess what I want to do is start off with this picture of this mosquito that is carrying the malaria virus And so, you know, there's been a lot of conversations lately obviously about infectious diseases So I figured this would be a good way to start this presentation. And so you're asking why am I showing this to you? Basically because we have a lot to learn from the the public health community in terms of how they go about developing comprehensive plans to Prevent infectious diseases and also treat those who are already infected There's a lot that we can learn From the public health community that can be applied to the violence prevention work that we're doing in many of these communities in Central America Where we see gang violence that's out of control And so what is a comprehensive plan that look like on the ground? And so before I get to answering or trying to answer that question. I want to start off with a story To hopefully convey this point to you about a ten-year-old boy named Jose who lives in a neighborhood in Chama De Con, Honduras Jose in his ten years has already been exposed to a series of risk factors that make him a candidate for gang recruitment The first risk factor is a critical life event that's happened to him. His mother died because of gang violence She was caught in the crossfire of two gangs shooting it out His father then decided to migrate to the US with his younger sister and So now Jose is living with his grandmother who's in her late 60s The second risk factor Obviously then is lack of parental supervision So Jose is now living with a grandmother who is working all day to make a living and pay the extortion tax And then a third risk factor is negative peer influence. So Jose has friends in the gang His own brother is an active gang member And so most of the people that he's hanging out with at all hours of the day are already active and trying to recruit him So then what is it? What is Jose's life look like then on a daily basis? Well, Jose gets up early in the morning to go to school his grandmother's already left work to go sell tortillas He walks about a mile to school through unpaved streets and walls covered in graffiti He gets to a school that's falling apart and dilapidated Some of the teachers are there some show up some don't because they're concerned about gang violence others are on strike So after spending a day in an environment that is probably not the most conducive to learning He goes home in the afternoon to an empty home And then his friend Ricardo who just joined a gang at the age of 10 comes looking for Jose and Describes to him this wonderful world of camaraderie that he can be a part of if he decides to join ms and So this picture that I've depicted for you is obviously pretty grim but Even within these realities are always Solutions that can be found in these communities and people who are working Very hard to make some kind of positive influence. So who are those people that touch Jose's life that could actually help Reduce some of these risk factors and steer him on a more positive path. Well the teachers Those family members again, it doesn't have to be parents. It can be aunt uncle grandparents siblings You know people who can mentor Jose Coaches of sports teams church leaders people that work in a community center Even those positive friends in school who aren't in a gang who can also have a more positive influence on Jose and So what often happens in these communities is that you have all these potential points of contact But nobody's coordinating any of the the efforts that are going on in the community And so as somebody said I think it actually was Enrique Bendencourt At one point that the opposite of violence is coordination and I would say that you often see that in these communities that What's happening and what is deterring coming up with a plan to deal with urban gang violence is the fact that people aren't Collaborating together and so you have a lot of different programs happening But they're not They're dealing oftentimes with symptoms and not again sort of the root causes going back to the point that Miguel made and So what we often see on the ground is that usually a mayor who has a vision or some service provider is able at Some point to bring together all these different actors again the teachers The coaches the church leaders the private sector person who owns the store And to begin to better analyze what is happening in this community? What are the risk factors that our young people are exposed to and making them more susceptible to gang recruitment? How do we better collect information and data on crime statistics in this community so that we can better inform our decisions about? We need street lighting over here because crimes are happening at 11 p.m. And people are getting mugged after leaving a bar How do we improve this street? How do we clean up the graffiti? So this place has a feeling of of safety and security What do we do about the local park the local sports complex, etc? And then what do we do about building trust between the community and the police? You know, there's obviously a major breakdown In trust which then leads to a lack of reporting of crimes and impunity and Then what do we do to work with to do more about working with youth like Jose? So those who are on the cusp of joining? But haven't yet and then there's those like his brother who have already joined and so what do you do with them? How do you help them get out of the gang reinsert themselves back into society programs like tattoo removal cycle social counseling? workforce development, etc And so the ability to be able to bring together all these people around a table and design a real Comprehensive plan is something that can actually work at the community level and we actually have evidence to prove this We have just concluded a three-year impact evaluation of in four countries in Central America using a randomized controlled trial And so I'm going to make a little plug here that on October 30th We'll be launching the findings of that study at the Woodrow Wilson Center So you're all invited And we'll be talking about some of the findings from that study and some of the things that we've seen Can work on the ground? And so I think my time is up and I'll end there. Thank you So I would say in terms of things that aren't working And I think this goes to the point that Miguel was making that we're oftentimes chasing chasing symptoms, right? We're not actually looking at the root causes the risk factors for why young males in particular in Central America are getting involved in gangs And so better understanding what those risk factors are is important for us going forward and doing this work And then going to the point that I was making earlier about the real need to develop comprehensive plans that address The aspect of prevention, let's keep these kids out of joining gangs Let's focus on those who have already joined and want to leave You know those kids who are in the juvenile system, for example that once they get out have no option for any kind of service Delivery and so it becomes a vicious cycle where they eventually graduate to the adult prison prison system where Currently in Central America you have prisons that are running at 300 percent over capacity. And so obviously, you know, that is not working And so again, you know the idea of coordination really and it's a simple concept But how do you bring all these people together at the community level who have a vested interest in improving security? You know again from the the police officers to the teachers to the the store owner To the parents, you know, everybody has a vested interest in making this work and when there is Glimmers of hope it's when these people do come together and actually sit down and analyze what's happening in the community Which then leads to you know policy decisions that a mayor can take so things like Establishing a crime observatory so they can have better access to data and information Or a comp stat system and a police department that helps them better Analyze what's happening in terms of crime and insecurity And then the you know the issue, you know the relationship with the police has always been very complicated And Miguel was talking about this as well that you know the breakdown and trusts obviously leads to a lot of issues And a lot of problems and there's but there are efforts under way to try and improve that and we think that community policing is Is something that you know can can have an impact over the long term in terms of improving that relationship But you know, it's not an easy thing to answer that question Am I on I'd like to refer you all to report that came out in 1949 that dealt with the things that we needed to Be learning about I'm being only semi tongue-in-cheek. I think a lot of the issues we deal with are the same issues We deal with all over the place Coordination is a major issue everywhere and always will be because we're a bunch of ego driven individuals and institutions And we hate to share information or share credit. So that's a big part of it But I think at a more micro level in Honduras and related to urban violence I think it's the learning piece just to beat that horse a little more is we need to be able to learn And we need to keep learning and we're terrible learners we are terrible as institutions We have processes for learning which just don't work very well Referring back to what Enrique was saying this process of bringing everybody together, you know that the champions the positive deviants bringing all those together Of course, that's how you do it, but we as institutions have really limited time spans and we purchase Contract time and indicators and etc. It might take this community one year. It might take these guys three years We only got 18 months for the contract. And so I mean that's it. That's an issue. We have right there And I think the fact that the nature of what we do is so Terra incognita it's so unstructured what we do It's really hard for us as Institutions to be able to get in there and go do something because we just we tie ourselves down by the nature of institutions Everything is the answer Everything and I think that this gets back to the same. I think problems that Miguel and Enrique were both talking to is that these systems are so complex that when you change something over here as an impact And that's why I think it's If you're looking at where that the root causes of poverty in the certain regions again It's specific to the state that you're looking at in terms of what types of things you might be able to do that one solution And Honduras that sort of resonates doesn't necessarily translate exactly to Nicaragua Or another city or another state that you might be interested in So as you look at the trends long-term you see a lot of local trends You said a lot of regional trends you see sort of the big trends and again My talk at the beginning was mainly on the bigger trends. So as I look at those bigger trends a lot of times We look at technology as this really great tool that's gonna fix everything now It it helps in certain ways, right? If you look at Hong Kong you look at Narrow casting that's where you're taking a technology Broadcasting into local audience using something like fire chat as a way of improving local conversation So there's some pieces that you can stick out there for communication tools But in terms of the trends that we're seeing I Think a lot of them have been going positively we talked about food has actually been positive in terms of trend for the last 20 years Water we have more people today with clean water than we had 20 years ago But how much longer is that last I think is the part that most of us have really been focusing on I don't think it can last much longer and that moment in time is gonna hit soon And on top of all of this is climate change and the fact that most of these people live really close to the coastline And you get to the point where maybe all of Bangladesh or at least a whole large portion of Bangladesh is underwater So there's huge areas across the planet where as you bring in other factors, I think They'll experiencing a lot of different things over the next 20 years So I think there's a lot of things here, but mainly I think it's resource factors in terms of how they'll play out over the next 20 or 30 years This is working yeah I'm doing a lot of research on state fragility and resilience and one of the things that pops up is the importance of Political legitimacy and all of you have stressed the importance of interventions at the local level But if you do that and strengthen the police presence, that is an extension of the state Which lacks legitimacy Can you focus on the local area without also focusing on the central government and Building that political legitimacy so you pierce that distrust that you all talked about Just pushing the police into the urban areas As we see even this country in Ferguson and other areas isn't a solution if the community does not trust the police So how do you bridge that gap between political legitimacy and local capacity? One of the major problems that we faced when we started the village stability operations program in Afghanistan Was that we had been on the outside looking in for a decade. We were literally trying to put scouts on the barn A trip to Taliban and win the war that way and and in 2009 2010 we made the decision to literally move into these communities and live there To embed ourselves in those communities sometimes with Afghan special forces sometimes by ourselves But at a minimum our guys lived in these villages these rural villages in Afghan compounds for a year And and when we quit driving to work and we actually started living there for long periods of time Granted we were not part of civil society there We started to see things that that we were not seeing before and you really alluded to it One is this trust deficit the reality is whether it's a major urban area in Honduras Or whether it's a rural farming village in Afghanistan The reach of the state today is extremely limited in a lot of these places and in these undergoverned areas What you find are clan societies based on honor and Revenge and hospitality and feud and traditional systems that have handled their own affairs for a very long period of time And and certainly what we've seen through the stability is to talk to other folks that are working programs like this bottom up Is that those systems are just as degraded? the clan based systems of honor and Dispute resolution are extremely damaged and those many times are the threads that are being pulled either by violent extremists and Surgeons or gangs is that the the resilience of informal civil society? The honor based systems are real a beaten up really bad And one of the things that I've noticed to Miguel's comments about us as a society For a range of reasons we tend to project that Western lens whenever we go into a place and even understanding clan society understanding The rule of the clan as Mark Weiner calls it in his book and how bottom up actually works Along lives of honor and revenge and hospitality is often radically different than things we understand in our society I told you it would be unconventional did I not all right, we'll see how that one plays out But but at the end of the day to get to your point I think that as a community we've got to do a better job of understanding and valuing Clan society and whether that's gangs whether that's tribes whether that's ethnic groups Beyond the reach of the state clans function in a certain way traditionally and they're broken And if we don't get in there and understand that that trust deficit is going to be very difficult to close but we have seen in Embedded Policeman in Salinas, California and the New England states that are actually living and working in these communities that seem to be having more of an impact But my my question went to the central government. I agree with you on what you say in terms of effectiveness and operationally But my my Question goes especially in the Honduras situation. I don't know about the other countries doesn't doesn't the lack of trust in the central government Present an obstacle to getting that kind of local efficacy that you are advocating Absolutely But I think it's not an either or question I think it's something we've talked about a lot in within the USA ID mission Preparation for a new strategy is where do we focus and it's not it's neither that nor that it's both and it's the range in between And it comes back to point. I made very quickly is Find those leaders. I'm the president of Honduras right now. I don't want to be too much in Honduras He's got a lot of political will he's shown a lot of political will and there's political will all over the place You just need to find those lights of political will and then somehow reinforce those and try to connect them Yeah, because legitimacy is key to everything And just to add to that I mean oftentimes we're waiting for the you know the right political reform to happen at the national level to move forward with anything And I think you know Miguel's point is you can find the champions at the local level You can find the police officer in the community who can be a champion for building trust and and a better relationship with With that community you don't have to wait for something to happen at the national level ideally That's also happening at the same time and that that legitimacy is being built there But at the same time that shouldn't deter us from trying to move forward with working with these communities as we wait for The national level governments to catch up in terms of some of the policies that they need to put into place Okay, next question to make one comment we spent a long time within our program in Honduras trying to figure out political Will we were all really smart with came down to political. Well, yeah, we got to figure it out What the heck is political will what is it? And so we spent a long time wrestling with that every week We would spend some time on it and really what it comes down to is accountability. So it's related to what you're saying Joel I mean the various very very simple definition for me at the Local level is accountability holding there's a mechanism for holding leadership holding Authority and vice versa holding community accountable. So it's accountability and that's But how you do that? We're still not there yet And I think many of the things that have been said by the three of you really resonates with with my experience working for the national government of Mexico and dealing particularly with you guys Wallace And and the lessons learned are exactly on the on the same track. You were mentioning I just want to to bring that example and give some some very quick And like highlights on that particular experience The first one is that we were in Mexico addressing a problem of 17 homicides per 100,000 nationwide Right, we were between 17 to 20 in 2010 When we started looking at the problem And we noticed that obviously the problem was mostly focused on youth on male and youth And when we when we started looking at the rate for that particular population We understood that the rate in Mexico was not 20 or was 46 for that particular group That's more or less the same rate for example for a Belize Then we said, okay, it's not we know that the problem is not only Male who are young in this country, but the ones who are also living in certain places So when we looked at that particular rate in the state of Chihuahua In 2010 we realized that the the murder the murder rate for young men in the state of Chihuahua Just young men. No, I'm not saying gang members or anything like that. It was it was close to 300 Homicides per 100,000. That's worse than San Pedro Sula today Just just for perspective the u.s. It's a it's just under six per 100,000. Yes, the world average is seven Uh, then we looked at Chihuahua is so young men living in Ciudad Juarez in 2010 We're living under a murder rate of high 500 homicides per 100,000 The ones living in the worst places in Ciudad Juarez were like about both 3,000 homicides per 100,000 So the question because it's related to to the question of data. How do you how do you incorporate data? And just let's imagine because this imagine a conference with the president addressing a problem a national problem of 20 homicides per 100,000 When the discussion about 20 homicides per 100,000 was happening at the presidential office. It was the wrong kind of question We were facing a problem of 3000 homicides per 100,000 rate for a certain population in certain places And the way we wanted to address it was like through obviously we we we knew that we had to reform police Judicial system and and all these things but today Right now with that rate. How do we? Address that problem. How do we go to these places very tiny places in Ciudad Juarez? You could there are 1.3 million inhabitants in Ciudad Juarez every day going to work going to schools Shopping crossing the border back and forth Businesses like thriving and everything at the same time So the importance of understanding urban dynamics how small places really play a role How do you really incorporate social prevention schemes? But at the same time you need to address law enforcement in a much smarter way One thing that we learned is that prevention is not retroactive You cannot bring the services today to a population that never received it when they needed And expect for for those things to really reduce murder rates or criminal activity in those places Because you just came with a new park and great schools or improved whatever So you really have to address Jose You really have to address Ricardo his his brother You really have to address the ones who don't who don't want to belong to the gang anymore But you also have to address the ones who don't want to leave the gang Those who are already involved in that particular activities Just you know perpetrating Violence all over the place. So I think just with that example, I would love to to close down and See your reactions to that because I think you're dealing exactly with the same problem At least in san pedro in Yeah, I mean, I think you're you're obviously preaching to the choir with us up here I mean, you know, we constantly talk about that there has to be a much more integrated approach between what we do on the social prevention side with what we do on the law enforcement side And so oftentimes it's become a discussion of either or and that's not the right approach. And so What we're trying to do with you know conversations with host governments and others, you know as to part of this learning agenda is to Show where this is actually worked where this combination of these two approaches can't have that desired impact Where you're treating somebody like jose who's more of a would fit more of a prevention profile on his brother Ricardo who's you know in the gang and maybe wants to leave and what do you do about that profile of individual Who's out perpetrating crimes You know, what do you do about better data collection so that the local mayor knows where to invest his resources or where to Deploy the police You know, these are all things that that sound basic, but they're they're very Hard to do at the local level and so we talk about coordination as if it's an easy thing And I you know, I brought that up in my my opening piece as part of a comprehensive plan But where it does where you do see it work and where it's effective It's because all those pieces have come together to some degree and so Um, you know, I think that's going forward thinking about positive solutions We do need to continue to talk about, you know, this idea of Marrying these these approaches the public health approach plus the law enforcement Those of you who don't know me might not believe this, but I'm actually a very optimistic person Um, but I just use that as a prelude to throwing out another huge challenge to this whole thing is money. It's resources. Um As I said in in my presentation the hunter and police are out Resourced in every single way. There are no services in these communities So is the question then for We as outsiders you as a consultant in su dot. What is representing the government? We whoever we represent Do we go in and do we create little pockets of excellence? Do we throw all our resources at this one community? Do we I mean, how do we do this? It's it's a huge triage Because we as the international community have the luxury with our nice big fat checks to go in and create little pockets of perfection But I think all of us recognize that's that's silly but then What how do we operate in an environment such as Honduras and other countries the cut the government is basically bankrupt They're bankrupt. And so if we're looking at sustainability, what does that look like in an environment of homicides for 3 000 per 100 000? How does that work? There's a way forward. I'm sure Please you started to talk about the The young man who are already part of gangs. I would think that would be the hardest The hardest group to focus on because they imagine there's a lot of danger in trying to get out of the game Even if there is the will or the desire or the resources once you're out, I mean, how do you address? In working with these youth that They're sort of safe and x-a like what is the exit strategy? I guess is is my question Okay, again, I'm a very positive person But this is a very grim statistic for Honduras The only way to get out of a gang is to leave the country is to join a church or is to die or go to prison No, that you can go into prison because you're still in the gang. So there's really only those three There is a really nice program in San Pedro Sula, which is the most violent city in Honduras It's uh, it's run by the catholics to rehabilitate gang members They have a 50 homicide rate mortality rate in that group It is extremely hard in Honduras to get out of a gang. So I mean it's shit That's just another factor in this very very complex system. So Just one observation. We also yeah We also need to change the conversation though in the region about what it means to work with somebody who Isn't a gang or has left a gang So this idea of doing gang reinsertion programs has been pretty stigmatized in the region, right? There's this concept of You know, these people are You know, there's no real opportunity for any second chances. They're sort of the undesirables Just throw them in jail and we'll solve the problem and then it'll go away And so and so it is complicated for somebody to leave as Miguel has pointed out But at the same time there are programs out there They're doing work with former gang members that you know I think offer opportunities for some learning and potential expansion because at the end of the day These are the people that are committing the crimes in the community, right? So if we're not addressing you know That particular population group, um, it's going to be very hard in the long term to sort and you know Solve the problem of crime and violence in many of these communities We can do a whole lot of work on the prevention side and invest millions of dollars But if we're not addressing, you know, what we like to call the hot people in the hot zone Those who are really out there committing crimes You know, the impact is going to be at the end of the day pretty pretty minimal so Yeah, just a couple things too that that uh, we've been seeing at the Stability institutes and I just was up in Salinas, California, uh spending time with chief McMillan. They've got a pretty interesting program going up there Where they're doing a lot of bottom-up work in the in the village of Hebron The murder rate in Salinas. It's about 150 000, but it's about 20 per year Which is you know pretty darn high for for the u.s. Certainly And they've had a real problem there, but they they've been employing some bottom-up stuff there But uh, Salinas is right at the crossroads of two rival international gangs The serranos working from the south which are mexican mafia and of course the The noster familia in the north and what's interesting is that both of those gangs Really command and control everything from prison And the role of prisons not only in radicalization, but it's it's entered a whole new threshold now The plan is to go to prison the plan is to go to prison cut your teeth and get trained You uh, they're putting uh, the noster familia are putting their their troopers through Programs in prison that would make ranger school look like christmas morning These guys are extremely well trained and they are taking on paramilitary type capacity They're joining the army and they're and they're learning regiments and training there as well And we've even seen open source reporting of la base gangs pushing their guys over to syria to fight So so so the level and role that prisons play in all this is is something that we have to consider as well And when we look at uh at the real problem set I'm sorry. I feel like a paul has fallen on this room. It's all gloom and doom Um But really if you look at you dot war is you guys are having great impact up there For real the answer is coming back to the answer the answer coming back to what enrique said is To mobilize those positive people and there's a lot of people out there that really are hugely courageous It is astounding and inspiring and humbling all the time to work with the people that we work with That they are putting their lives at risk at all different levels. It could be a prosecutor It could be the head of a school. It could be the head of a little community group These are people who have decided enough is enough is enough There are more of us the good ones than there are the bad ones and the bad ones actually are very few in number They're like it's it's astounding how small that the number of gang members are So there really really is hope but it is having the ability to identify Mobilize and work with these people and then the time to be able to do it and then linking them to the different levels of government I mean, it's it's a very complex process and we need to be able to have the time and the luxury of time to be able to do that You've just set my sales pitch for everyone to move back to Cleveland, Ohio, which is where i'm from We've got a big lake close by We do have some organized crime youngstown Something chris and i were talking about earlier So there's obviously elements right throughout the us as well. I mean You talked about murder rates, you know, you have examples of detroit and baltimore You have domestic examples that you should look to in terms of homicides That we could really think through in terms of how we've seen that take place here You talked about gangs and talk about, you know, one of the lessons that we can be learning from prisons And not necessarily letting drug dealers go rot in prisons, but figuring out more strategically how How they're thinking about some of these issues and challenges? So I think that there's a lot we can do in domestically as well that has a global tie-in And so it's not just everything that's taking place over there because one of the things you'll find is As you look at the longer-term trends, you're going to have problems with jobs in the u.s You're gonna have problems with jobs in europe like you're already seeing in spain elsewhere So it's not just the poorest of the poor nations. They're going to be facing these long-term development challenges It's going to be a lot of the developed countries. They're going to be facing this in the near term as well Yeah, and I like your point I one thing I just want to say to that is I think that the whole notion of collaboration that you guys keep talking about With the cross-functional teams and bringing folks in a room that ordinarily might not come in a room to work on these problem sets And I'm wondering what you guys have seen What is the it's hard for us to do here in dc to get the right people in the room across different agencies and organizations How difficult is it in some of the places you guys are working and what are some of the possible options to do that? Because obviously getting folks around the table is pretty darn important. We have very complicated creatures human beings Yeah, we have a hard time working together So it's hard, but it is possible and there's What I what I've seen in my career. There are people who are really good at that They're really good at getting people in a room who have disparate interests Maybe conflicting interests and they're able to over time and with gaining trust to make that happen and so It's there's no magic way You just got to just keep pushing pushing pushing and look for those areas of commonality Which in a place of it like an ermine slob is number one is security. It's security security everybody has that in common They want that so start with that and work your way out from there No, I think I would agree with with Miguel said I mean oftentimes it comes down to having somebody who can actually facilitate well Because you see the you know the challenges the coordination are at all levels I mean within the u.s. Government we have that challenge. We have it With the donor community we have it with host government counterparts in all the institutions And then at the community level so oftentimes it takes somebody who's got sort of the The ability to to convene and bring people together and keep the process going and And you know find those champions to get them on board and so I think that You know when you see it happen It's like magic and it you know and you wish you could just kind of replicate it and Take it somewhere else, but it doesn't quite work that way So I think we all know from working in this in this field of development. Um, but it can't happen I'm glad you asked because it would be good to have some positive news Um, there's a school in the community that and ricky mentioned to melakona in san pedro sula Hugely violent city hugely violent part of a hugely violent city The only high school serving this entire area was about to close Because it was on it's on the border of two gangs and you just can't cross borders and so and teachers are being assaulted I mean it was a giant mess So in the bottom line was the only high school serving A huge population every maybe 150,000 people was about to close They went to our team in san pedro and they said help help help We said we were glad to help but you got to get together with the police. This is a security issue We're not never working with the police never never never okay Well, then we can't help you because you know you can't wish or pray your way out of a situation like that You have got to confront it fast forward a year later The enrollment in the school is up 40 percent We just had a congressional delegation of four congressmen was just down there massive press Lots of police the chief of the police was there teachers parents It was a huge public event This community had stood up and said enough we are done with this enough and they took that chance And they did it and now the school next door, which is a technical college So this is like a regular high school. There's a technical high school over there. It's having the exact same problem And so now those teachers are coming to us to the teachers over there and say what did you guys do? This is a we're about to close the school. So yes, it is it does work But it takes time and it it takes it takes time takes time Yeah, I'm gonna answer that in ricky. We need more research in latin america in general But I think uh research in other places in the world has shown brazil is a good example That a displacement happens, but in a much lower Intensity that it was happening the first place So it's it's something we should not care that much about obviously consider But it's not that if you push here, you will have the exact the exact same Dynamic happening somewhere else. It happens sometimes, but it happens in a lower intensity and what some research on the upp is in brazil showed is that When you draw a boundary and you intervene in that place Some of the effects of of what happened that boundary Spill over in the adjacent areas. So so the benefits the benefits sometimes to the closest areas are greater than we expect One observation I'd like to share with with afghanistan is when we started with the six rural villages and it quickly spread to 99 districts One of the things when we did some things good and some things bad there But one of the things that we did see was that in areas where they did push the insurgents out Where the community pushed the insurgents out? Typically what we saw there was a revitalization of civil society resilience that that that wanted to rise to the surface anyway It needed the space to do it and and and we found by focusing on the social grievances that the threads that were being pulled By those violent extremists It was just it was kind of a court coming back up to the surface and and and it was it needed to happen The security was the immediate focus, but once we started focusing on those grievances You know the the community kind of handled its own thing my time in selenus this past week I saw a very similar thing with the community of hebron The neighborhood of hebron is literally surrounded By the serranos and and and the mexican and the mexican gangs and they're fighting It's like a war zone around hebron, but hebron when you move through it. It's palpable I mean you can you can you can see the difference in that community in the community center in the park In the involvement of local resilient leaders doing what they were meant to do And it is bottom up the challenge is how do you like you say? How do you expand that outward and work at those resiliences? You know that are beyond that community and I think that that one's yet to be addressed Another signal awesome in the back sir What miguel pointed out is Most of these areas of high conflictivity is where the state is absent That's is a is a general thing you can find out And I wonder you know you you wonder when you travel in central america. Why we don't have gangs in igarawa Why you don't have gangs in costa rica? um So it's obvious we don't need to do more research a state presents this many diminished violence because the state exists in his nature to Deal with conflicts If not, we'll come back to the travel travel world where everybody make justice by their own hand So if we have very clear that why we insist in passing to the communities the responsibilities that belong to the state It's obviously that in on duras is not a legitimate government. It's a government that come from a good that like it or not It was a good that it was a legitimate government And this this government today is still carrying out the problem that is not legitimate legitimacy and the police is Is perceived in many communities as a same police that tweet did political persecution against the laya supporters So that's the main problem. Why we don't bring we cannot bring the police or the state institutions To communities in on duras because the government is still carrying out the problem of being part of the coup d'etat Different situations have in igarawa when you have you compare nicaragua and costa rica costa rica Very democratic country, but they have the largest police in the region They don't have army, but they have the largest police Nicaragua have a political police police belongs is under control of ortega and it's the same model of kuba block by block having people being you know informers Of what is going on? political side to the central government, so I think there are The lessons Are not in the communities the lessons are in the states that works And I I wonder sometimes that we are throwing too much Responsibility to the victims to resolve the problem So that was just to respond. Yeah, please. We're gonna have to wrap it up. I mean I I would have to respectfully disagree with you on that one because I think that you can't wait for the state institutions to Deliver the solutions at the end of the day. I mean take the city of los angeles, for example That has had historically one of the worst game problems in the u.s They didn't sit around waiting for the state of california or the federal government to come solve the game problem They came up with a strategy was basically a neighborhood strategy where they take back the streets It's based on primary prevention hand in hand working with law enforcement intervention workers who go out and Disrupt potential acts of violence. It's a neighborhood approach and they've been able to reduce the homicide rate Rather significantly over the last 10 years. They didn't sit there waiting for california to you know, correct its prison system or the federal government to You know pursue investigations of active game members They had to do what they had to do and so the neighborhood approach has worked effectively in that context So I think that At the end of day, ultimately sure it's a combination of both things But while we're waiting for things to happen at the state level Would we could be waiting for a very long time and then the situation on the ground continues to deteriorate I mean I think I mean part of the effort also is to ensure that You know national governments do begin to adopt policies that will invest more money in social prevention And these other programs that will go hand in hand with the law enforcement effort And that's part of the you know, that's part of the work that we're doing now It's you know, I would say over the last six years We've made significant progress from where we were in terms of where the policies in central america We're always about monoluda and lock everybody up to where you have governments now that are adopting prevention policies as part of a National strategy and starting to invest some resources Of course, we'd like to see more but You know, we're going on a sort of a positive trend in that sense So I hate to do it with a long hook is starting to make its way into the room right now And if i'm going to get you guys on your 15 minute lunch break to go grab your lunch and move to your lunchtime panel I've got to end it right there. I appreciate everybody's comments. I appreciate our panel and uh all thoughtful Conversation today wish you best of luck and god bless