 Hello, today we are here with Ambassador Terrence McCully. He is a senior visiting expert at the United States Institute of Peace. Welcome. Thank you. He has worked for more than three decades in the Foreign Service for the United States, much of that on the African continent. Last month we saw the Biden administration announce their 10-year plans for their strategies to prevent conflict and promote stability. And that was in nine countries, including five in the coast of West Africa. And we also saw VP Harris. She went to Ghana and announced for the coast of West African states $100 million pledge. And these countries are Benin, Ghana, Guinea, Cote d'Ivoire, and Togo. We understand that this is a part of a strategic effort by the United States to, in part, look at these countries as strong partners, as part of the U.S.-Africa renewed partnerships, but also out of concern. Were some of these countries and the violent extremist threats that are emerging from the Sahel? Could you tell us a little bit more about the state of violent extremism in recent years emerging from the Sahel? You know, the violence from the Sahel is not new. When I was ambassador to Mali, the al-Qaeda and the Islamic Maghreb was active in the north of Mali. But in the last 15 years we've seen an explosion of terrorism, violent extremism across the Sahel. And the U.S. put in place a variety of policies to try to build the capacity of governments in the Sahel to resist this expansion of extremism. I think the current focus is looking, really comes from concerns that violence from the Sahel is spilling over into coastal West Africa. You have porous borders, you have lack of capacity in host country security forces. And it really is intended to be a whole of government effort to address violent attacks coming from the Sahel and affecting the northern regions of particularly Benin, Togo, Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire in the last two years. And how would you see these new strategies, this new approach as being different from other stabilization approaches, other counter-terrorism, stability, CVE approaches? How is this a retooling? Sure. Well, I think it's, frankly, a recognition that much of the resources that we deploy, the effort that the United States and other countries deployed in the Sahel from the early 2000s to counter the growing threat of violent extremism really didn't work. You had the Pan-Sahel initiative, you had the Trans-Saharan counter-terrorism partnership. All of these were intended to be a whole of government approach using the three pillars of democracy development and defense to build capacity in these countries in the Sahel to resist the threat of violent extremism. I think the reality is that it didn't work. And frankly, most of these programs turned into a training equip which provided training to host country militaries, provided equipment. And as we saw in Mali in 2012, when after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and the extremist groups increased from 200 to more than 3,000 men, that the support that we had provided to the Mali military in this case was not effective. And so I think the current plan, the current strategy to prevent conflict and promote stability, which comes from the Global Fragility Act, was a recognition that we had not been as successful as we had hoped to be, and that we needed to look at things differently. And that's the program that Vice President Harris announced in Accra recently. And it's five countries. It's an ambitious effort, and they're five different countries, diverse countries. It's Benin, Ghana, Guinea, Cote d'Ivoire and Togo. And for this effort, $100 million, how do you see any challenges or any issues with working? What will they be up against in trying to implement this strategy? Well, really, Andrew, the biggest challenge is lack of resources. It is a significant sum of money, and it's a significant commitment by the United States government over 10 years to pivot and work in a different way to counter the threat. But when you divide that among five countries, it's about $20 million a year, and so it can really only have a catalytic effect. But it really is an effort to refocus, to look at the governance issues, to look at both capacity of host country militaries, to look at how these militaries interact with civilian populations in a way that demonstrates that they are protectors and not oppressors and not violating human rights. So it's really an effort, again, in my view, underfunded, because it's only $20 million a year per country, but to look at how the United States can both encourage host governments and also encourage like-minded governments to invest in an area which is increasingly at risk. And, of course, you've just recently, last year, come off co-chairing the senior study group here at the United States Institute of Peace, and you've looked into all these issues with the group. You brought together policymakers, experts, business leaders, people from the region, academics, and really this really comprehensive look at these five countries and the strategy. What were the big recommendations and findings that you found coming out of the study group last year? Well, to begin with, I think the study group recognized and agreed that at the heart of this new policy must be a focus on good governance. Governments demonstrate relevance to their populations by showing up, by demonstrating commitment to provide clean water, health facilities, infrastructure, programs that create jobs. And you need to do that by putting your boots on the ground. And so I think one of the key recommendations and one of the key elements of the policy is to demonstrate that governments in Abidjan, in Accra, in Lome, in Kotonu, and in Conakry, with their national development plans, focus really on investing in the resources on the ground to demonstrate that government is a benevolent force in their lives, that government can create opportunities to counter both recruitment and to engage local populations in resisting this influx of extremism. One of the other recommendations really focused on the need for coordination. If we're really talking about a whole-of-government approach, you need to have great coordination among all of the implementing agencies in the field, as well as back in Washington. A third really concrete recommendation was the need for senior-level ownership here in Washington. The Biden administration has said we want to up our game in Africa. We want to demonstrate that the United States values the relationship across the board with the 54 countries of Africa, the 49 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. And by doing that, you need to have constant policy engagement led by somebody at the under-secretary level here in Washington. The fourth element goes back to the point I mentioned earlier about resources. Historically, if you look at staffing across the African continent, African U.S. embassies in Africa are under-resourced and under-staffed. The five embassies that we're talking about here are not spared from that. Two of them, I believe, don't even have a, or three of them, don't even have a USAID mission, which means that you need to both empower ambassadors in the field to carry out this new policy. But you need to provide them with the material resources, both monetary and human resources, to allow them to implement the policy. So the force recommendation really spoke to the need to ensure that chiefs of mission in the field had adequate resources to carry out what is an important part of U.S. foreign policy toward coastal West Africa. Thank you so much, Ambassador McCulley, and thank you for being on with us today. Thank you, Andrew. It's a pleasure.