 We're delighted today to host Minister for Africa, Mark Simmons, to talk about the upcoming London conference on Somalia. Mr. Simmons was an elected MP for Boston and Skegnes. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that right, I tend to mangle these British – in Lincolnshire elected in 2001. He was appointed just last September as Parliamentary Undersecretary of State in the Foreign of the Commonwealth Office and for Africa – the Africa portfolio and British overseas territories. And he's currently tasked with coordinating the May 7th conference, which is the second annual London conference on Somalia, looking at how best the United – the international community can support reconstruction there. I think we all know this is a moment of tremendous opportunity in Somalia. It's a new government that has considerable goodwill. It's staked out a real vision and commitment to improve security and justice, corruption – reduce corruption, stimulate economic growth and deliver services, health and education. Al-Shabaab is still a threat, as we've seen from events in the last week, but it is on its back foot and pushed out of the major towns. I think we hosted President Sheikh Hassan here in January, and we had just a massive crowd of Americans, of Somalis from all over the U.S., and you really got the sense that we've had windows of opportunity before, but I think you really got at this time a sense of opportunity and hope and possibility to turn things around. That was right on the aftermath of the restoration of diplomatic relations, so it was really a very upbeat event and you really have gotten those in the last 20 years on Somalia, unfortunately. There are big challenges ahead. The President is very aware of those, just extremely low levels of capacity, tasked with rebuilding a system that is completely dysfunctional in this very divided country where there's lots of mistrust of authority and federal authority, security sector and so forth. The big problems, I mean, overarching problems to my mind are, and he laid these out as well, are there are so many priorities that you risk having nothing be a priority when you've got just a huge laundry list, and so the sequencing and the prioritization within the many things that need to get done is so important. The public expectation of change, and I think the new government has a very short period in which to make changes and demonstrate kind of its good will and its capacity to do these things. And then such an overwhelming dependence on external funding, which makes it difficult for the state as it's trying to reassert its authority and sovereignty that it's got to be answerable to the Somali people, but at the same time it's got donors who may have slightly different priorities and perspectives, and it's going to be interesting to hear from you where some of those areas might be and what's the space for negotiation and compromise. And then I think related to that, and this will be very much on people's minds, is how the international community avoids kind of creating, even with well intended support, distortions in incentives and so forth, and how does it set benchmarks and kind of transparency and avoid creating new vested interests that become problematic down the line. So you've got a big challenge, having been in the job about six months now. We're looking forward to your remarks and we'll keep it interactive so we'll have questions and answers at the end in which people can offer their comments, recommendations and ideas. Welcome. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. Thank you. Well, Jennifer, thank you very much indeed for that introduction, and it's very good to be here in Washington at CSIS. My constituency in the United Kingdom is Boston and Skegnes, and it is the original Boston, so I have pleasure coming to Boston, Massachusetts, describing it as New Boston, which of course not everybody from Boston thinks is amusing, but I was delighted to be asked to be here, to share with you the British government's perspective on Somalia with so many respected experts on Africa, and I very much hope that there are some Somalis following this particular discussion we're going to have this morning. As Jennifer's you quite rightly pointed out, President Hassan Sheikh addressed in this room in January at a very historic moment when the United States had formally recognized Somalia as a sovereign partner for the first time in I think approximately 20 years, and last week the International Monetary Fund followed suit, and this opens the door for significant support, and just a few months into his appointment President Hassan gave an inspiring presentation of his personal vision of the future of Somalia. He talked about a time when all Somalis living at home and overseas would have a chance to make a contribution to their society's well-being, and about a time when Somali children would be able to attend school and grow up to be the champions of peace in the future. He has also set out his government's six pillar plan that seeks to achieve this by rebuilding state institutions and civil structures so long absent from Somali society. If I can just give you a feel for the challenge that the President and his government is facing. When I first met the President in Mogadishu back in October last year, he informed me that there wasn't one person living in Somalia at that time who had ever worked in a government department. So they are fundamentally building state structures from scratch, a huge and significant challenge that requires all of our support, both moral and otherwise. Now, three months on from the President's talk here, I want to talk today about the international community and how we have lined up behind the priorities that were set out by the President, and I want to talk about the focus that the world leaders are bringing to Somalia and how 2013 is going to be a real turning point in Somalia's history. As you all know, it's emerging from two decades of conflict. Its people have suffered from truly desperate levels of violence, poverty and hunger. And I think this was evidenced in 2011 when Somalia was the only country in the Horn of Africa where a bad drought turned into a famine. And even when that famine subsided in February last year, more than two million people in Somalia remained in need. And out of a population of 10 million, that's about one in five, very significant numbers. Now, to rebuild a country from such extreme poverty and collapse seems on the face of it unthinkable and a huge challenge. But remarkably, the people of Somalia, I think, have embraced this challenge and start to look for a new future. But the President and his government is very aware of the challenges that they face. And he also said to me, as I think quite a stark anecdote, that he realized the challenges that he was facing as he was walking through Mogadishu and saw a young girl wrapped in a Somali flag very shortly after he was selected as the President, which drove home to him the enormous expectation of the Somali people for the change that and the progress that has been made. Now, the very positive start was the way in which the President was selected. The most representative in decades. It was Somali owned. It was Somali led. And for the first time in decades, the Somali President and its parliament were selected inside Somalia, with the Somali people being consulted through their traditional elders. And the President and the subsequently appointed government ministers have committed to improving rightly justice and security, delivering healthcare and education, reducing corruption and stimulating economic recovery. They've also committed to upholding the unity and integrity of Somalia, bringing together the regions. And parliament has agreed a timetable for revising the Somali constitution ahead of an eventual referendum. But importantly, alongside these political developments, Somalis have also seen security improve. Somali national security forties and an expanded African Union mission in Somalia have expelled Al-Shabaab from many of Somalia's major towns and cities. People are rebuilding their properties and businesses, confidence is increasing, and the economy is starting to revive. And very importantly, the diaspora is starting to return. People living in Mogadishu, Kismayo, Badoa are looking forward to seeing tangible improvements to their daily lives, and they are finally able to imagine a future for their children, which is free from the threats of terrorism, piracy and the scourge of famine. However, I think I need to emphasise that how easily these gains might be overturned. The progress over the last 12 months or so is real, but the progress is nonetheless fragile. And to imagine that these threats have gone away or the hard work is behind us would be a mistake. But I do very strongly believe that 2013 is the best opportunity in many decades for progress to be embedded in Somalia. The Somali government is committed to working with international partners to build on this progress, and the international community stands ready to work with Somalia to seize that opportunity, taking its lead from the President's call for a paradigm shift in Somalia's relations with its friends and neighbours to one of partnership. Now this year, there will be many occasions for international partners to support Somalia, including the G8 meetings, the Tokyo International Conference on African Development in early June, the EU hosted conference in September on the new deal for fragile states. But the UK government's immediate priority and immediate focus is on the conference in London on the 7th of May, which will be co-chaired between the federal government of Somalia and the British government, where over 50 countries and organisations will commit to support the federal government's key priorities. And as Jennifer absolutely rightly highlighted, the importance of forensic focus on key priorities so that we can actually have some deliverable outcomes rather than trying to paint on too broad a canvas. So I just thought I might make a few remarks on what the principal objectives and priorities will be. The first is for the Somali government to share its plans for developing the country's armed forces, police, justice and public financial management systems. The second for the Somali government to set out plans to promote dialogue, generate trust and discuss the future structure of Somalia with the Somalia regions. And thirdly, for the international community to agree how it will support the implementation of those plans. And if I may, I'd just like to explore in a little more detail, focusing on three major themes. Firstly, security, increasing Somali capacity and underpinging Amazon. Secondly, justice, rebuilding the judiciary and police service. And thirdly, the economy, strengthening public financial management and promoting trade, investment and engagement. And in each of these key areas, the government of Somalia has been working to put plans in place and our hope is that the conference can endorse these plans and agree a coordinated international approach to support them. Now, I could just take each in turn. Firstly, security. I was in Uganda and Ethiopia two weeks ago and had a chance to meet some of the Amazon troops who are putting their lives on the line so that the people of Somalia can go about their daily lives in safety and security. And without the extremely valuable job done by Amazon, often in very difficult circumstances and without the support of the troop contributing countries, progress to date would not have been possible. And we do owe a significant debt of gratitude to the troop contributing countries and to the African Union for their efforts. But President Hassan is right to say that Somalia ultimately needs to be in control of its own security. To achieve this legitimate and effective national security forces have to be developed with clear accountability and civilian oversight. Only then will they be able to fulfil their role in preserving public order, protecting people and property. The armed forces will be an important part of this alongside police and coast guard. Partners are of course already providing support to build the capacity for Somali armed forces, noted via US training programmes and through the EU training mission in Somalia. On the justice side, secondly justice, there is an urgent need to increase citizens access to justice in newly liberated areas. At the same time there is a need to begin to establish an independent judiciary and wider justice system capable of delivering justice for all. This is critical for the future stability of the country, long term development and security. And it is particularly important to the large numbers of women who need to be able to access appropriate justice in cases of domestic and sexual violence. The new Somali government has developed a two year action plan. This both addresses the immediate needs and seeks to develop the key justice institutions in order to increase access to and improve the quality of justice for Somali citizens. Building a capable and accountable Somali police force is also a key part of the agenda to establish civilian rule of law and protection for the most vulnerable. There is a need to rebuild policing capacity in areas liberated from Al-Shabaab control and start laying the foundations for an effective and modern civilian police force. And the Somali Ministry for the Interior and National Security has conducted a review of policing and produced a new four year strategic action plan. And finally and thirdly, the economy. The president has rightly emphasised repeatedly the importance of well managed, transparent public finances. This would allow the Somali government to begin to pay salaries to security forces and civil servants, to deliver services to the Somali public. In turn this would reinforce the government's credibility and legitimacy and ultimately would pave the way for a rear's clearance and the re-engagement of the international financial institutions. The Somali government has developed a public financial management reform plan and progress is well underway. But this should not be looked at in isolation, it should be seen alongside the work the UK has been pursuing on Somalia through our presidency of the G8. We have focused here on encouraging the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the IMF to re-engage in Somalia to support its long term economic stability and growth. Somalia owes $700 million to these institutions and has a total debt of over $3 billion. But the Somali government has shown determination to manage its public finances credibly, strengthen financial transparency and increase accountability. And at the G8 foreign ministers meeting agreed earlier this month was to provide high level political support to that process of re-engagement. US recognition of the federal government of Somalia back in January and the more recent IMF decision to do the same are small but very significant steps on this path. One which could secure the expertise and support of the international financial institutions to help implement reforms which would promote long term stability and growth in Somalia. And also ensure that the international donor community has confidence that money coming from the respective taxpayers in the developed world is spent for the purpose for which it was intended. So in all of these important areas, security, justice and the economy, the Somali government has been working to get plans in place but support will be needed from international partners to deliver activities set out in the plan. Now we have also organised alongside the Somali government a number of events in the roll up to the conference and immediately after the conference which will allow other important issues to be explored in greater detail including working with the diaspora and civil society. And I myself have spent some time consulting with the Somali and Somaliland diaspora that lives in the United Kingdom. The first thing we are going to do is arrange a women's event in the United Kingdom which I will co-chair with our sector of state for international development early next week which will feed into the conference focusing on women's empowerment, preventing sexual violence, forced marriage and female genital mutilation. Somalia is one of the most difficult places in the world to be a woman. The federal government has committed to improving women's lives, combating sexual violence against women and children and challenging the culture of impunity surrounding these crimes and the challenge will be transforming this commitment into action and reality on the ground. The recent G8 meeting in London also saw a historic declaration that rape and sexual violence in conflict constitute a breach of the Geneva Convention. And to support the federal government of Somalia in this challenge, the UN Secretary General's Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Zeneb Bangura visited Somalia at the start of April and her office is now arranging for a team of experts to visit in the summer to work with the government to review existing justice and support structures, particularly for victims of sexual violence and they will report back shortly after that. But whilst the security sector and the crimes of the past must not be forgotten, we must also make sure that we're not just demonstrating to the world the challenges and the problems that Somalia faces but also the significant opportunities and the bright future that exists. So a Somalia of hope, of enterprise and of aspiration and that is why on the 8th of May I will be chairing a trade and investment conference immediately after the day after the main Somalia conference to highlight the business opportunities that exist to promote inward investment including important the involvement of the Somali diaspora and creating much stronger links between the Somali diaspora outside Somalia and the opportunities that exist within. So it will be a significant opportunity to connect investors, explore the ways we can remove the barriers to business, how we can overcome those barriers and I very much hope it will give the public and businesses a different perspective and different view of Somalia which is all too often looked at through the prism of the challenges that we were talking about earlier. And if I can just give you one simple example. When I visited Mogadishu last October there is significant fish stocks off the coast of Somalia. Unless this fish is sold by midday by the time the midday sun rises most of it has to be thrown back into the sea because it's going off. There was no refrigeration facilities. Just down the coast in Mozambique, Mozambican fishermen are catching prawns, they're frozen on the dock side and within 36 hours they're being sold in British supermarkets. With investment, with determination and with involvement of the Somali diaspora we too could put in place that sort of facility for the benefit of the Somali people. But I wonder how many people outside this room are aware of the long tradition of Somali enterprise and innovation. How many people know that despite the challenging circumstances in which they operate Somali businesses are thriving and new opportunities are emerging driven in large part by the diaspora and I think the international community has a moral obligation to ensure that we tap into that entrepreneurial flair. It may come as some surprise to learn that Somalia has one of the most advanced mobile telephone networks in Africa, the cheapest mobile phone tariff in the world, even has sophisticated mobile banking and I hope that this event will make clear that the spirit of Somali entrepreneurship continues to run strong. Now they're the main themes of the 7th of May conference and I hope that it's given you some sense of how the event and the others occurring later in the year will focus international support around the clear priorities set out by the president and his government and in doing so the international community has recognized that there is an opportunity in 2013 which must be seized if Somalia is to build on the remarkable progress that has recently been made and I very much hope in years to come we will look back and see this year as a clear turning point in Somalia's history but we mustn't miss this opportunity so I would finally say we must make sure that we maintain our energy levels. We must ensure there is international cooperation and international coordination to drive security, to drive stability, to drive economic development, economic growth and sustainable job creation to enable Somalia to return to the family of stable nation states. Thank you. Fantastic. Thank you for that and really for again highlighting kind of the upside that we have here. Yeah, you're welcome to take a seat. Particularly interesting to see what will come out of that May 8th session which is very exciting in the business investment so we'll be looking forward to that. We'll open it up for questions. I wanted to start maybe I know you've met recently with the president of Somaliland I believe and I wonder if you can say a little bit about kind of the some of the sub national authorities and how how they're viewing this and how you're viewing them and how the Somali government is viewing them and their role in this reconstruction. I imagine there's some tensions there as well. At a Chievening just before the first Somali conference last year, a meeting between the then interim government of Somalia and the Somaliland government. There was a positive meeting between the two presidents that took place in Ankara recently and certainly there needs to be an establishment and an understanding of the relationship that will exist between the federal government and Somaliland and our emphasis has initially been on trying to persuade the two governments to focus on areas where they have particular mutual interest so to build trust and an empathy to start with and certainly the two most obvious of those are security and stability and economic and trade ties and we have again offered to if it would help to facilitate an engagement between the two respective presidents but it is challenging but for the future long term stability of Somalia there needs to be an agreement reached as to the constitutional links between the disparate parts of Somalia. Let's open up for some questions. Let's see we have we have about 30 minutes 25 minutes. We'll start with Deirdre and if you can just suggestions or yes suggestions comments as well and please introduce yourself. Right. My name is Deirdre Lupin. I am a senior associate at the Africa Center University of Pennsylvania. I was also posted to Somalia before I was evacuated in 1990 for UNICEF so I've served there for three and a half years and the elephant in the room when one talks about economy and Somalia that doesn't seem to get mentioned but which is very much an issue is oil production in the northeastern part of the country. There have been fines. They haven't been developed but there are blocks that are owned and so on and how what is the potential future of these blocks and how might that play into the national subnational tensions that were just mentioned. Yeah. Let's take a few at a time. We'll go with Mark in the back row and then we'll come over. Thanks. I'm Mark Yarnell with Refugees International and Cover Somalia. I absolutely appreciate the emphasis on the opportunities that are ahead but also appreciate the recognition of the existing fragility as it exists on the ground now and I guess one thing specifically I'm curious to know your thoughts on is in a place like Baidoa which has increased stability and there's incremental returns of IDPs and refugees but at the same time there is becoming more apparent that Ethiopia is not going to stick around for too much longer and given the resources that Amazon have there's a lot of concern about what will happen given what we saw in Hootor. So just in terms of the fragility of what's on the ground how does the country in Amazon respond if Ethiopia does pull out and we see increased tension there. Thanks. Hi, I'm Maria Burnett from Human Rights Watch. I wanted to get your thoughts on an important issue that I think gets neglected sometimes. You mentioned the importance of accountability for the military were obviously absolutely with you there. I'm wondering if you have thoughts or plans on developing Somalia's military justice system. It's obviously a problem in a lot of countries including a lot of the countries working in Somalia. I can say on the Uganda side it's not a system that should be borrowed from Uganda. The Ugandan soldiers have their own problems of accountability. So to the extent that soldiers need to be held accountable for their actions what are the plans to develop Somalia's military justice system. Are there any real clear recommendations or plans you know the problem of a lack of an appeal for example the lack of any defense lawyers for those who are accused. I mean there's problems both on the prosecution and on the defense side. I was also curious your thoughts on how to protect the justice institutions themselves you know given that we just saw this horrific bombing a couple of weeks ago of the court structure and two of the sort of most well-known and prominent lawyers who had been doing human rights defense work were killed in that attack. You know developing these institutions is going to be is going to be very difficult if the buildings themselves are targeted and the individuals who actually do have some capacity to help in this process are targeted along the way. Thank you. Investment and also the return through transparency mechanisms coming into the Somali government coffers which is one of the main reasons why not just Somalia but across Africa that the British Prime Minister David Cameron has made tax and transparency a key plank of the G8 agenda in June this year and that's to make sure that the communities that have these natural resources actually benefit from them so there's transparency both in terms of the funding coming into the the national government structures but also transparency in the private sector as well. In terms of the question about refugees well of course absolutely right stability and security is the prerequisite to give people the confidence to return back into parts of Somalia where they haven't been for many years and you'll be aware I'm sure there's a significant number of displaced Somalis living in Kenya and certainly there is a hope and aspiration that if stability can be secured that many of those people Somalis will go back and return to Somalia. In terms of the the troops I think there is a certainly a commitment from Amazon as long as the funding can be resolved to assist in providing security for as long as it is required but it's why the key emphasis that I tried to put in my remarks and one of the key factors to be focused on in the conference on May the 7th is ensuring that we expedite as far as possible security sector reform in Somalia so the Somali government themselves can take responsibility for their territorial integrity for the safety of their people and the protection of property as well so that is going to be a main focus and I think there needs to be significant international as well as regional cooperation and coordination to make sure that that happens and that ties in quite neatly with the third question which absolutely right of course the all aspects of a justice system in Somalia need to be reformed. I think you'll be a little bit unkind in some of the implications behind your question there's quite a lot of effort put in by the international community in making sure that troops that are going into Somalia are trained whether it be through the EU training mechanism or through other training structures to make sure that troops understand the importance of respecting people human rights humanitarian law but again you're absolutely right to make the point that there should be no impunity but if people do commit horrific trials they need to be held to account for for doing so and certainly from the conversations that the UK government have had with the Somali government there is a determination to make sure that those structures are put in place. David Chen George Washington University this is really more of a comment that perhaps you could respond to but in contacts with the Somali diaspora in the Washington area and as you know the diasporas in regular contact with their folks back and in Somalia as a result of the excellent cell phone system one of the concerns I'm hearing is that the the Sheikh Hassan government is spending so much time sort of dealing with the international audience and I don't mean to denigrate that at all it's very important that there be international support for Somalia but there's a disproportionate amount of his time and his administration's time dealing with the region and dealing with the international side that he's basically neglecting the need to build political support and a constituency in Somalia itself and that that part of the equation is is slipping and that time is running out a feeling that he just hasn't succeeded in dealing with some of the internal schisms that have always existed there that he should be dealing with and I'm just wondering if there's if there's any way that the international community can sort of push him back to focus on the internal situation which may even mean less international travel than he's been doing and he's been doing a lot of it you made a very good presentation by the way I'm from the Boston that we think is old I also have just more of a comment than a question I've been involved with Somalia off and on for about 30 or 40 years and I was chief of our mission there in the 93 94 period after Black Hawk down a couple of thoughts occurred to me your your presentation is extremely ambitious and good luck I hope it works I'm kind of glad the British are in the lead because you're very strong diplomatically and sometimes you can make people do things like help Nigeria at the IMF when they might not otherwise do so and I say that because I am a little concerned about I guess the question is how important is the US role because I'm a little worried that we'd be able to play as active a role as you may require there are so many demands on America's time at a time when the population seems to be more inward looking we have budget problems we have political problems there's another aspect of American activity in Africa and that is it's awfully hard to just pursue a program without our conflicting objectives coming into play just to give you a specific example at one point with Chad we had a very important objective working with their military vis-a-vis Darfur which was a major crisis on the human right side we were concerned about Chadian military maybe dealing inappropriately with women and the net result was we couldn't get anywhere we were totally hamstrung the human rights office said if we don't push on this we'll get criticized in Congress but the net result was we couldn't do we couldn't achieve our broader objectives and I can't help but see that happening in Somalia there are so many cross currents there that are going to get in the way and so my comment is it's going to take an incredibly intense and enduring diplomatic effort I don't even know if we have many Western diplomatic missions in Mogadishu to maintain a continuing dialogue I know for a long time it wasn't safe I don't know if that's changed or not so my comment is that in my mind I congratulate you for the program you've outlined it sounds very sensible to me but I'm a little bit concerned that the realities of Somalia at a minimum are going to delay what you're able to do and so I hope you're in it for the long haul and as an American I just wonder if we'll be able to play the kind of strong role that you probably want from us to address those two very good set of remarks if I may and I think we've got to understand and I try to sort of allude to this in my remarks the challenge which the president and his government is facing in terms of the capacity that exists within the Somali government to deal both with interacting with the international community but also dealing with the domestic challenges that you outlined and I talked about as well and I think that's why it's important to re-emphasize that the international community will have to be supportive for some considerable time and I suspect that even when the president and his senior ministers are in Mogadishu that they are under pressure to see visiting foreign dignitaries who want to talk to them about how they can assist rebuilding Somalia. So certainly one of the first things that the UK government did and we announced it at the UN General Assembly in New York last September was an initial 10 million pounds to help the Somali government build government capacity to avail them to deal with some of these challenges that you quite rightly outlined but I absolutely agree with you that it's very important that the president and his government engage and he has been doing some of this. I mean I don't think we should just suggest that he's been travelling internationally. He hasn't. He has gone out into some of the more rural parts of Somalia to talk to what I call normal ordinary Somali people which from what I understand is the first time in certainly living memory that any senior Somali politician has actually done this but there is also an importance that he engages and builds strong and lasting relationships with countries and senior political figures in the region as well to ensure that there's a commonality of purpose from the whole international community not just those of us in the UK and in the US and I'm pretty certain that he's very conscious of the importance of the necessity to do that. In terms of the engagement going forward of the international community yes the UK is committed in an ongoing way. Yes I very strongly believe that the US has a very significant role to play not just in participating as another player in the international community but as the strongest richest country on the planet it is important that the US engages in assisting probably the or one of the weakest countries on the planet to help it rebuild itself. Aside from the important domestic security issues that both the US and the UK have potentially if Somalia were to go very seriously wrong again so I think there's an inherent interest not just morally but also practically as well and you're right Ambassador to point out the fact that the agenda is very ambitious it is ambitious and David Cameron is determined to maintain that ambition because I think there's a feeling that if we remain static we don't continue aligning the priorities with the Somali government's priorities to drive forward the agenda then the the situation is more like to go backwards than it is to go forward so I think ambition is absolutely right. In terms of the comments that you make about interesting comparison to what happened in Darfur and sexual violence it's been one of the main priorities of my boss the foreign secretary William Hague to put in place an international consensus around preventing sexual violence in conflict and it's not just relevant to Somalia it's relevant to Mali Eastern DRC increasingly in Syria as well and there was a significant a major step forward at the foreign ministers meeting at the G8 and making it part of the the Geneva convention so I'm hoping that they were hopeful that the set the problems that you quite rightly outlined existed that existed ten years ago in Darfur won't exist again because of the priority that the international community has given to this very very important area using for example rape as a weapon of war and all too often people have been able to get away with it so yes the US is a very important ally and I think has a very significant contribution to make both in terms of helping with the security and still ability but also assisting with economic development and economic growth going forward as well. Before I turn to Doug I just have to follow on that I wonder who are you thinking beyond the G8 countries who may be big players in this we hear a lot about Turkey's engagement and how they're doing it not just kind of what they're giving but that they're directly engaged. I wonder if in the Saudi Peninsula I wonder if China is China playing a role in this conference either they're kind of the non-traditional donor community any kind of promising people's countries stepping up there as well. Yes I mean you're right that Turkey are playing a very significant role they as I mentioned earlier held a meeting hosted a meeting last week between the two respective presidents they've drawn up a an initial security sector reform plan in consultation there'll be a key component of the security sector reform debates that take place in the conference in London. The countries in the Gulf also have a significant role to play as well whether it be the UAE or Qatar in providing additional finance whether it be for security sector reform economic development or police reform as well and I think one of the key challenges for the international community will be to coordinate this effort to make sure that there isn't duplication that there isn't a waste of resourcing and that we get the maximum impact on the ground in the shortest possible timescale. The other countries that of course I think have a major significant role to play are those in the immediate vicinity so it's Ethiopia Kenya Uganda Djibouti and not just in terms of providing security as they have done very successfully to date significant progress that's been made but also over time helping with the development of the economy and certainly one of the main facets that Africa rightly is beginning to focus on but hasn't had sufficient progress in my view in the past is on intra-regional African trade trading with each other rather than relying on trade coming from the outside and I think that should be a major focus going for not just in the Horn of Africa but across the African continent. Hi Doug Brooks, independent consultant. You may have seen the movie recently that just came out the documentary on the Putland Maritime Police Force called The Project which by all accounts or by many accounts I should say has done quite a bit to curtail the the piracy issue. There had been some discussion that the the PMPF was going to be integrated into the larger Somalia security forces. Has there been any movement on that? Hello I'm Ali, I'm at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. I was wondering so you mentioned that the British government is engaging with the Somali diaspora both the Somali diaspora and the Somali land diaspora and I was wondering what efforts you were making in engaging with the younger Somali generation in Britain. You've seen a growth of organisations in England that you know have both inspired those who were born in England to kind of be aware of the issues in Somalia but you've also seen them present in Somalia whether that is opening our exhibitions in Hergiza or you know educating women about the dangers of FGM. Somalia is rebuilding itself you know with the help of international organisation and with the current government in place and these young the younger generation are a product of globalisation and you know came with age in a world in which technology is at its height. They have fresh voices they have fresh views on issues and I think they could I think they're very instrumental in Somalia's goal and I'm just wondering what the British government was doing in terms of engaging with the the younger the younger part. An intelligence sharing. The setting up of RAPIC which is a monitoring base and a coordinating group on the Seychelles where the there is much more co-ordination about following the money making sure that pirates are when they're caught are tried and there's a rule of law process that takes place as well. But ultimately the solution to piracy is on the land not on the sea and the creating stability and economic development removing the traction or the the facets that exist to encourage people to go into piracy will it will ultimately be the way that we resolve this in a lasting way. In terms of the specific that you asked that is still being worked on. I don't want to really go into any more at the moment. In terms of the question at the back that the young lady raised I absolutely and totally agree with you and certainly in the engagement that I've had with young people in the UK which are part of the Somali diaspora they are extremely engaged have a lot of very bright ideas don't necessarily always agree with their elders which is quite interesting and I think believe they have a significant role to play in rebuilding Somalia not just in sending remittances back but in taking a very active proactive role in doing so. I know there's one thing that struck me about engaging with the UK young Somali diaspora is the extraordinary level of ambition that exists both in terms of wanting to drive economic development but also making a personal contribution and I think has stability sets in the security aspect continues to improve that we all hope will be the case. I'm very optimistic that actually the youngest Somali diaspora both in the UK but hopefully here in the US as well will take an even more proactive role and they're already starting thinking about Somaliland sorry that the question at the end the Somali I mean at the UK's government on Somaliland is quite clear we we understand their aspiration but we believe it's a matter for the Somali and Somaliland people to resolve and as I said in my remarks the discussions have begun. I don't think that it's the discussions are always going to be easy but it's important they reach a satisfactory conclusion and we also think that it's important that they begin their discussions on the areas where there are mutual interests and security and economic ties are two obvious ones. Time. Yes. Thank you so much for the presentation and for the questions and answers. I wish you the best of luck with the conference itself but also kind of the sideline conferences that are going to be so important and the idea of just building momentum as the subsequent the Tokyo conference the G8 comes forward. You know I think it's incumbent on us to be making the case to the United States that given everything that's been invested in Somali over time and we have we have to work up and find the stomach to to kind of stick with this longer. There's we have a new secretary of state in place. He's obviously got a lot from Boston. You know there is I think you know there's a lot of rhetoric on building institutions and so forth. I think in terms of finding a long sustainable solution to Somalia we're all here to try to make that case. I think and there is this narrow window of opportunity that we don't want to see close soon. So I think all of us here will be working towards that end and we wish you luck and we'll look forward to the outcome of London in the next month. Thanks very much.