 Hi, I'm Dan Rundie. I hold the Shrier chair here at CSIS welcome to our new building for those of you haven't been to our new building I'm We're here to talk about develop democracy and development perspectives on the new you say DRG that democracy human rights and governance strategy. I think you have copies of it outside The thanks for coming in the rain We're gonna hear from a number of thoughtful folks folks. I admire folks. I consider friends and colleagues And we're going to be talking about a series of issues that I think are critical to the future of development and critical for our national security There's been a long-standing policy in the United States of supporting democratic governance and human rights for decades Certainly people think about Ronald Reagan speech in the UK And the launching of the National Endowment for Democracy and that the net institutions as well as a series of other institutions That support democracy human rights and governance That are also represented here in the room as well. I also think these the research that's been done Folks like Douglas north or the work of the authors of why nations fail But also the book the democracy advantage Many of these are cited in the in the strategy that we want to be working towards good governance But we want to working towards Democratic governments that ought to be the strategic goal the United States and I think there's a broad base of support for that and many of the folks I most admire in the democracy and development community Are people like my friend Jennifer Windsor who's coming up coming up the aisle here Who's going to be joining us from Freedom House, but also people like Ken Wallach who runs NDI as well as Madeline Albright Are all happen to be Democrats. I'm a Republican, but these are all people I've admired very very much I came to this work after George Bush's 2005 Freedom Agenda speech. I actually Was inspired by George Bush's Freedom Agenda speech and spent much of my time in the rest of the Bush administration helping to support dissident groups in Belarus and Supporting a number of democracy initiatives and with partners such as European donor governments and philanthropy and working with many of the Partners some of them which are in this room. So I came to it through through that through my public service But the folks I've most admired have been Across across the political spectrum. And so it's real privilege to have Representatives from the Obama administration who are going to talk about the strategy I think there's the fact that it's a rainy day and we have a full house I think speaks to the deep interest in the new strategy I think people have a number of questions and are Excited about that the new strategy as well So without further ado, I'm gonna have first my friend Larry Garber whose deputy assistant administrator at USA ID Speak to the strategy and then David Yang Who's the director of excellence on democracy human rights and governance in the Bureau for democracy conflict and humanitarian assistance? Unpack the strategy and then we're gonna have a panel discussion with with some friends of mine Kim Jim Cunder Jennifer Windsor and Bill Sweeney are all gonna we're gonna have a discussion about about the About the strategy and the broader conversation about democracy human rights and governance as well as Then I think have a series of questions and a conversation with the audience so without further ado Larry I'm gonna ask you to come up if you would please. Oh And just one last thing the good news is we have a new building the bad news is we're still working out some of the AVD details so it's gonna be a little bit like karaoke night at CSIS so just bear with us Hey, do I need this one? No, you actually don't because we have two folks that are lavaliered and there are two friends from USA ID go ahead So first of all there are seats in the front if people want to sit So I encourage you because it's gonna be an exciting program, but you may not want to stand for the entire time So let me start by thanking Dan For hosting this meeting and for being in general quite supportive of our efforts in this realm And congratulations to you and to CSIS on this beautiful new building we hope that we will be able to make use of it many times and You know wish you wish you the best and and also a big thanks for of appreciation for accommodating us During our own democratic dysfunction a month ago Looking at this panel, you know one might think we are here to describe the USA ID 1994 strategy Rather than the one that we issued in 2013 Indeed Jennifer David and I were all intimately involved in the drafting and implementing of the 1994 document and Jim and Bill were very interested Observers and participants in other ways so in in in a In effect the challenge for David and myself This morning is to convince you that the strategy we have developed Reflects both our learning from the past 20 years and the realities of the current global environment The structure of my presentation is to say a word about USAID's Policy formulation process why we develop the new strategy What has changed with this new strategy and what has not changed and some challenges? And then David will go into a little bit more detail on some of the specifics that are in the strategy When we Decided to revive a bureau of policy planning and learning at USAID at the outset of the Obama administration One of the key issues that we debated was how we should structure a process for policy formulation We could have assigned the task to the bureau of policy planning and learning and just had The bureau be responsible for policy formulation or we could have done what we often do at USAID which is Contract out some expert like Dan Rundey or someone else to come in and write it for us but instead we decided that We would establish a series of what we called policy task teams Which would comprise individuals from different parts of USAID to address the key to development issues that we Are confronting in the case of the DRG strategy We were very fortunate to put together a superb team that was led by Josh Kaufman and Carol say he And Barbara Smith who's here in the audience now with the Asia Foundation And they were joined by Carl Mabzino who serves in the F bureau, but with extensive background in the health sector Way channel who at the time was in our E3 bureau Neil Levine from our conflict management and mitigation office Alex Akalovsky who I saw just walk in from our Europe You're an Eurasia bureau Laura Pavlovich who's here who had just come in from Serving several years as a democracy officer in Ukraine And Chloe Schwenke who's here where are you Chloe over here who is then in our Africa bureau and now as a vice president at Freedom House, so as you can see it was a diverse group and They spent Probably more time than they imagined wanting to spend but they spent time reviewing USAID's considerable experience over the past 20 years soliciting input from our field staff and our implementing partners and Debating among themselves so often quite passionately regarding both conceptual and operational issues And while the process took longer than certainly I and others envisioned I believe that the agency benefited Considerably from allowing the team to engage what turned out to be both a reflective and practical exercise But why did we need a new DRG strategy? Was not the handiwork that we had developed 20 years ago still applicable and in some ways As I think you'll hear it was and and we still have incorporated some of the key components of the 1994 strategy into the current document but the world has changed in dramatic fashion and I'll just highlight a few of those changes that I think affected our considerations in Developing new strategy first of all 20 years ago. We did not have either the Millennium development goals or the aid effectiveness declarations that have come out of Paris across and Busan to guide our development efforts We were operating very much in a pre 9-11 world. That's why we were cognizant of terrorism and the implications We were not engaged in two extended military operations which require Still an active USA involvement is whether as well as other areas where this confluence of Security issues and development issues have rose to the forefront Technology changes have also dramatically changed the landscape the amount of information available to citizens around the world as well as Organizations and governments has geometrically expanded as has the ability of individuals and organizations To communicate among themselves through social media and other means that were not available 20 years ago And last we developed a new strategy in the shadows. So it was then called the Arab Spring And and it very much influenced us but as as some of the those developments Started not looking as good as at the outset. I think we tempered some of our Some of the the the points in the in the strategy and particularly we became much more conscious of what we now call the phenomenon of The closing space for civil society organizations, and you know as part of this President Obama Highlighted this issue on closing space during his participation this year at the general assembly and again You'll see evidence of our concerns about this in the document as well as in some of our other Discussions at USAID So let me turn briefly to what is new in the strategy leaving David to provide much of the details First we have a focus a framework that focuses on what we are trying to accomplish Rather than the sectors where we are operating and I would urge folks to look very carefully at the page in the strategy that reflects the shift Second we have identified multiple country contexts and described their implications in broad strokes for DRG programming Third we have introduced new approaches and emphases for addressing DRG issues and here I'll mention the grand challenges for development As a concept but specifically the one that relates to the work that we're doing in the DRG sector Namely making all voices count and again you can see it referenced in the document As well as our emphasis through USAID forward in the reform efforts that we've put in place there to emphasize The strengthening of local systems be they governments private sector or civil society Fourth we have re-emphasized our commitment to analytic analytics Whether it's through the use of an updated version of the DRG assessment tool a recognition of the importance of political economy analysis or Our formal adoption of the recommendations that were included in the 2000 national economies of science study that reviewed us is USAID's experience with evaluations and again, I think This commitment to analytics will serve us Quite well as we move forward in this fear and fifth and finally we recognized in the document the importance of elevating democracy human rights in governance within USAID not only by establishing the center or Re-establishing a center of excellence For democracy human rights and governance that David heads But also by committing ourselves to creating other mechanisms to ensure that these issues are taken into account with respect to all We do as an agency at the same time wanted to emphasize what has not changed We have not established through this strategy a listing of priority countries if you look at Sort of the work we're doing in other initiatives like feed the future or global health You'll see a very explicit list of these are the countries that you know are being prioritized We did not do this that in this strategy Second we remain committed to a reliance on country circumstances to set programming rather than Washington setting directives For what our missions should do in particular country contexts And we have also expressed a willingness to continue funding and supporting Politically oriented programs through our work on elections as well as political party and civil society development and I stress this because I think this historically from way back in the 90s when Democracy and governance first was introduced to USAID till today is what distinguishes us from many other Development agencies that do work in the broader governance here So let me close with a quick listing of the challenges that I see lying ahead as we move forward towards implementation First we have to define more explicitly what constitutes success for us in this sector We were pushed in developing the strategy and those who were involved Remember this debate about whether we should have you know explicit targets for what we would hope to accomplish in two years Three years four years, and we've left that more open-ended than in some of the other strategies But it's clearly something that we need to think about Second we have to continue debating the trade-off between Breath of presence in all countries where our DRG assistance might be helpful Versus a more in-depth commitment to specific countries that are ripe for transformation Again, this has been a long-standing debate within USAID We don't have the answers laid out in this document, but it's something that we need to continue discussing Third we need to provide the necessary tools for our staff and again here I want to compliment the work that's being done in the DRG Center, which is really focusing on This issue of bringing our staff and not only our DRG staff, but agency staff throughout up on specific aspects that are referenced in the strategy as well as the broader issues and last and and here I'll make my Pitch that we don't only focus or necessarily focus on budget levels. I mean we've been holding our own in terms of budget But we more important need to ensure that the commitment that we've made to elevating Democracy human rights and governance within USAID is maintained And so I'll stop here and hand it over to David to talk a little bit more about the details of what is in this strategy But thank you very much for for the listening and look forward to your questions Thank You Larry. Good morning everybody Let me add my thanks that Larry conveyed thanks to Dan for chairing this important conversation and convening it Thanks to our fellow panelists for their leadership in the human rights and democratic governance field for many many decades now Thanks to the policy task team that formulated this very difficult and challenging document Thanks very much to all of our USAID colleagues over the decades for the last two or three decades have implemented the prior Strategy and we'll implement this new one and have created the foundation a strong foundation For the human rights and democratic governance sector at USAID and finally thanks to all of you in the audience Are implementing partners members of social society members of the international community for really being a part an important part of the US and international movement for human rights and democratic governance So I'd like to follow Larry by unpacking as Dan said the architecture of the new democracy human rights and governance strategy and Speaking a little bit about the details of it in essence This is my pulse. This is my elevator speech to all of you on the new strategy and policy It's a little bit more than the 30 seconds that we were in elevator together So picture all of us in the service elevator going up very slowly the Empire State building So I'll try and finish in about 10 minutes. So I have you as a captive audience I know you're all thinking Why mess around with something that's worked well for 20 years and even longer? Why are you David young and Larry Garber and Sarah Mendelsen messing with success? And so here's what I would say to you in our modest elevator going up this rickety shaft I would say listen to what I have to say because the old the best of the oldest blended with what we believe to Be the important parts of the new Addressing the challenges that Larry spoke about in the 21st century first Let me start in my tour of the architecture with the statement of the goal of the strategy which is and I quote I believe which is to support the establishment and consolidation of inclusive and accountable democracies to advance freedom Dignity and development. Let me repeat it to support the establishment and consolidation of inclusive and accountable democracies to advance Freedom dignity and development like any good thesis statement this goal statement. I believe Provides the outline in key words within the statement of the body of the strategy and here's what I mean The adjective inclusive to qualify describe democracy foreshadows the first objective which is To create political processes and government institutions that are inclusive participatory and Representative what I call for short the inclusive participation objective Secondly the descriptor accountable for democracies Tells us about our second objective Which is to increase the accountability of leaders and institutions and to make leaders and institutions More accountable to citizens first and foremost and also to the laws of the land So underline the phrase to freedom dignity and development The key word here for the third objective on human rights is dignity and I'll get into that in the body of my remarks The dignity for us represents our embrace of the human rights agenda and Fourth and finally our fourth objective regards the term development to advance Freedom dignity and development of course democracy and human rights are an integral part of development That's stated up front in the preamble of the Busan Declaration on an effective development cooperation We take it as so in USAID But also would believe of course the development writ large embraces the social and economic sectors and well as well And so the social and economic sectors and the relationship to democracy human rights and governance Loom large in our strategy. So as we ride further up the elevator let's take a close look at each of these four objectives and Understand the why why are they were chosen and the how very briefly how we will pursue these four objectives Let me take the first two together because I believe Inclusive participation and accountability are the twin defining characteristics of democracy of self-rule of or of democratic governance However, you put it governance by the people for the people and of the people They are indeed two sides of the same coin First participation. Why did we choose inclusive participation as our first strategic objective? It was not in my view Alexis de Tocqueville who was the first great theorist of Participation in the context of democracy. No, it was not in the 19th century of a French theorist But it was a Greek theorist Aristotle in the 5th century BC If you remember Aristotle in the preamble of book one of his famous the politics Talked about humans as political animals He meant nothing in a Machiavellian sense or a Hobbesian sense in using that term. What he meant is that humans Endowed with the gift of language with the faculty of language We have the ability as opposed to other animals our species alone can use language to reason and Through our reasoning and through our group reasoning Within the political sphere. We can create moral lives moral communities together Language moral reasoning politics Community indeed for Aristotle. We are political animals because through political participation participation in the state participation in the polis we To put it bluntly Fulfill our ultimate humanity. We reach the telos. We reach the end of our of our promise as a species Therefore participation has always been for 2,500 years at the heart of democratic theory We participate because that's how we rule ourselves because that's how we fulfill our ultimate promise as moral beings So how are we an AID going to pursue this goal of inclusive participation in four ways very briefly By focusing on how civil society and governments protect the core civil and political rights Meaning the holy trinity the freedom to speak to assemble to associate We will support the advancement of these core civil and political rights Second we will support the agents of participation individual citizens themselves through civic education civic participation through civil society organizations of whatever stripe including the labor community business associations free and independent media and Of course in the formal political sphere political parties those agents of political participation We will continue to support as we evolve supported We will thirdly pursue participation By supporting participatory processes within the state itself Participation doesn't end with an election campaign The participation is embedded in healthy states within state institutions themselves within local governments Through the participation of citizens in local government in local forums through parliaments who reach out in a robust and compelling way to their constituents in These ways we will support Participatory processes within the state and finally we will support Fair the creation of fair and important partial laws and policies that the state creates This is where our historic and traditional support for the rule of law and every stripe comes in and Our our broad governance portfolio as well helping institutions of the state. We will help them for particular purpose in this sense to create a fair and equal playing field so citizens can participate in electing the state and creating the state and then participating in the state as established So our second objective accountability the accountability of institutions of government and leaders to citizens into the law Why well if Aristotle was the theorist of participation and democratic participation John Locke of course was the theorist of accountability we lose we we leave the state of nature because our Our inalienable rights as he put it of life liberty and property cannot be well preserved Safely preserved in the state of nature the pre-government existence that we were all found ourselves in historically So we choose to be in the state to create a state of our own making so we can rule ourselves and the government serve Us so that the government serves us and the government is accountable to us the citizens and Locke famously said which was echoed through Thomas Paine and Jefferson and others of the founders of our nation said That if governments are not accountable They need to be changed the people in them need to be changed or the government itself needs to be changed so Locke and Paine and Jefferson and that whole crew of founding Fathers and mothers we owe to them the the the heritage of accountability and Democracy and democratic governance. How will we pursue accountability the strategy says in four ways and political scientists like Larry Diamond would put it this way the first two ways we believe in Vertical accountability that is from the bottom up citizens making governments accountable through their own activities First and foremost through free and fair elections And everything about elections including electoral administration like to observation like to oversight and the other second form of vertical Accountability will be through civil society organizations through media oversight of the government across all of its institutions The third basket of accountability mechanism mechanisms. We will support will be horizontal mechanism again rule of law looms large Constitutions loom large state institutions have to abide by the the planks of a constitution and The legal code looms large Also what looms large in this basket of accountability horizontal accountability so checks and balances among state institutions and Independence of the judiciary is crucial judicial oversight of a parliament or of the executive branch legislative parliamentary oversight of executive ministries and the executive himself or herself and Intra-executive mechanisms such as auditing or albs almsbud person offices and Finally and more broadly we will pursue accountability by enabling and capacitating the state itself We will support the state and all its manifestations to fulfill its public trust and to provide and fulfill the promise That it will provide adequate Public goods and services to its citizens We will do this through supporting ethical codes and ethical training through public administration through Decentralization efforts that brings effect of local governance to local communities through economic governance Etc. The third objective human rights Why human rights isn't that something that the State Department does in the name and shame game? That diplomats and pinstripe soups do since Jimmy Carter and Congress founded the beer for democracy human rights labor in 1976 Why sully the profession of development? by name and shame We believe human rights because human rights are emblematic of human dignity belong front and center on a 21st century US Development agenda human rights indeed Transcend political freedom if democracy characterizes freedom in our phrase advance freedom dignity and Development then human rights human dignity characterizes human rights We are born with inalienable rights as enshrined in a universal declaration of human rights Human rights and the expression in our empowerment of those rights Literally provides us with dignity a dignified life If you asked Muhammad Boaz easy the now famous vegetable seller who set himself aflame in the in the markets in the squares of Tunis Was he fighting for democracy or human rights? I think he would have said in the face of daily insults and pulling away of his license To apply his trade he would say I'm simply fighting for my dignity So in honor of Muhammad Boaz easy We embrace the human rights agenda. We take this to mean three things at its core the security of the person Freedom from violations of faith physical integrity freedom from the state Employing murder torture Unlawful detention to pursue its goals freedom from the Modern scourge of trafficking in persons our modern version of slavery Security of the person Second we take human rights to mean the core civil and political liberties as enshrined in the universal declaration again, the holy trinity the freedom to speak to assemble to associate and Finally and most importantly I think in terms of its innovation and through the leadership of human rights leaders like Chloe Schwenke We're indebted to her for putting on the agenda of us a id human rights as the quality of Opportunity as equal access to government services To justice to social services equality of opportunity. So all are included in the provisions of the state AID has always pursued these goals We were making human rights explicit and elevated now because we want to join the international movement That puts the principles of human rights as expressed in the university declaration as the foundation of its work in democratic governance this Surprisingly to an American audience makes this part of the international movement in a way that democracy itself does not if the French Keep reminding us Pointedly often it's about human rights in the body and the international consensus on human rights and not democracy with a capital D That forms the international consensus we believe both and we believe this elevation of human rights brings us part of that international movement Very briefly will promote human rights in three ways through protection through prevention and promotion We will support many activities across these three activities Helping human rights defenders supporting the rule of law supporting transitional justice human rights commission working on atrocity prevention training of media making laws and legal code aligned with international human rights principles And finally, let me say about human rights and about this rights-based approach or inclusion approach. We take very seriously The concept and the practice of inclusive development at USAID Inclusive development means that any Formally disenfranchised population whether it be women or girls or ethnic or religious minorities or indigenous peoples or members of the LGBT community where the disabled persons community we will promote their political and civil rights, and we will work towards including them in the work of all of our Social and economic sectors as well, which brings me to the fourth and final objective of integration We will advance Development outcomes by integrating democracy human rights and governments across the fabric of USAID's development portfolio Now this may sound like a grandiose topic, but we believe it represents best practice of the year 2013 and that we're catching up to many other donor agencies in stating this goal There are obvious obstacles in the views of an expert community like this here today There are obstacles to the advancement of socio and economic development whether it be health or environmental protection or food security or economic growth These don't advance in our own society or other societies not simply because we like the capacity or technical skills to Carried them out, but because there are deep Political and economic political economy if you will obstacles towards her advancement To put a bluntly dysfunctional political economy stymie political as well as social and economic development We've always taken this view within the democracy human rights and governance sector in the Assessment tool that Jerry Hyman who's at CSIS now Pioneered political economy is always part of our analysis of the political sphere now We're taking that analysis and lending it to the socio and economic sphere of our agency We believe that through the infusion and integration of democracy human rights and governance principles into our social and economic Development practices we can make more progress, but at the same time and I underline at the same time We believe we are expanding Inclusion participation and accountability in our own core democracy human rights and government's goals through this integration We're expanding the sphere of citizenship into pocketbook issues of you will Democracy human rights and government is not just about promoting core Holy Trinity rights. It's about promoting our social advancement and our economic rights as well It's about social and economic equality and using political reform and political most mobilization tools to affect that change We will do so. We will promote inclusive Well, we will promote the integration of the democracy rights and governance into our portfolio of socio-economic portfolio by embracing the first three objectives by embracing inclusive participation by embracing Accountability and by embracing a human rights-based approach of equal opportunity Towards the services of the state so in a sense we're wrapping up the first three objectives and putting them and Transporting them and working with our our colleagues in the other sectors to promote them. So let me summarize our strategy is This as we reach the top floor of the Empire State Building We strive for democracies that are marked by inclusive participation and accountability We strive for democracies that embody universal principles of human rights and we strive for democracies That extends citizenship and accountability beyond the form of political sector and take it to the economic and social Aspects of our lives as well. So in these basic ways, but we believe that this strategy of 2013 and into 2014 represents a reformulation of the best of the old of 1994 and takes us strongly with all of your support into the new century and Supporting this very important international movement. Thank you very much Thank you very much, David. Thank you. That's a very tall building So please please there's some folks standing in the back if you guys there's a number of seats up here up front in case I do like to say we have standing room only that is great But it's not so fun for the folks that are doing the standing room part of it So if you want to come sit up front, there's about 10 seats up front and since we're all friends here You can all you can feel free to do so and don't be shy. We're going to move to the panel Reacting to the to the conversation. We've just heard the presentations We've just heard reacting to the strategy providing their perspective on this I'm going to ask my friend Jennifer Windsor who's the former director of Freedom House. It's great to see you Thank you for coming Jennifer. No problem I'm hoping you're going to take us back and remind us a little bit of take us back a little bit, but also Thinking about when the Democracy Center was stood up I'm but I'm also thinking about some of the hostile environments where AID is working today Russia or used to be I guess we've been kicked out of there, but Belarus Venezuela somewhat Number of farcical democratic rituals going on in a number of these countries And making it more difficult for us groups to work. This was mentioned by by Larry and his comments and I also know I'd be curious about what you think about the strategy and what your take is on the concept of Integration in the strategy. It's I didn't you weren't here for this But it's karaoke night at CSIS and we have to pass the mic the good news We have a new building the bad news is we're still working out the loose ends on the the AV I will be singing back up. That's right. So I'm gonna pass the mic over so just bear with me great, it's great to be here and with all my friends and I had we had planned this ahead of time and you know usually with these panels The panelists get to spring on the presenters Their criticisms and concerns, but the way that Dan set up He made us all go around and explain what our issues were and then we gave Larry and Dave the chance to give Extraordinary presentations that addressed all of the concerns that we had hoped that we would really get them on But I'm gonna try to but really you both did an excellent job, and I want to congratulate You know those people within the agency those people that have been working on democracy issues that have been working on this strategy I know the group that That had worked on this strategy did a lot a lot of work And even the fact that there is a DG strategy is quite now in 2013 is quite a Accomplishment because looking back on the history the fact that there wasn't a Another blessed us aid strategy at that level on democracy was not for lack of trying By the democracy folks within the agency. It was really blocked By different elements within the agency So the fact that you got it through it all even if you had to make compromises I think is a signature achievement So my mandate as Dan said is well it was actually it's just expands all the time. So Is how this strategy fits into the historical evolution of strategic thinking within USA about democracy and governance to discuss strengths and concerns about the strategy and Identify what I think is missing and raise issues about sort of the next step, which is really Implementing all the great things that are here. So I think it's an important Contribution to what really is in it was an evolving strategic thinking within the agency about how Why it does democracy work as part of its development mandate and how it's doing going to do that work. So You know, I also think it's important to even turn back from 1994 to say that as much as you know it's useful for me and Larry and others to say the Clinton administration is the one that really put this on the table and AID it was certainly elevated and By Brian Atwood and institutionalized with the establishment of the DG Center, which was a center of excellence It was demoted then into a center of mediocrity an office of mediocrity and I'm glad it's back to be in a center of excellence again I I'm you know, I don't know what was needed to make that happen So I I made the mistake of going through I've this I've these file cabinets that I keep old papers on and You know an aid I got rid of a lot of things when I left aid and I'm sure I violated some aid rules But I kept a lot of Tuesday group notes and internal policy memos and just retreats in the democracy center All these documents and they go back to so of course what that happens I stayed up to like midnight last night reading all of this thinking God I've got to write that book about what really happened, but that hasn't happened yet so You know, it's important to actually think about Where democracy started with the Kissinger Commission report on Central America in the 1980s with Congress Mandating that USA it actually supports civic groups and the anti-partheid struggle in South Africa When I came into the agency in 1991 the prevailing document was the 1990 democracy initiative There's a lot of good stuff in that initiative. I tried to Google it and find it online I had this old paper copy of it can't find it So I hope it's somewhere and in the agency documents It's it's worth rereading because actually It has a lot of great stuff as does the democracy and governance policy paper of 1991 so one of the things that that this this strategy does is talk about the integration of Democracy and governance into throughout the development work to try to actually address the stove pipes that have plagued USA ID for years and years This need for integration across the other sectors in USA's work was was recognized in way in the early 90s so the 1991 policy paper said that Reiterated the point that politics is a development issues in most developing societies the character of social Economic and political institutions and values are key constraints to sustained broadly based economic growth and expanded opportunity But the early democracy advocates within the agency recognized that there was going to be resistance to the incorporation of democracy into the development Realms, so 1990 paper states that changing the way in which USA officers approach their jobs and Bringing the linkage between democracy and economic development into the heart of our work will be the most enduring long-term contribution of this initiative It's important to say that so that I think democracy officers have always recognized that this integration is important and The reason why integration has not happened was not because democracy officers did not think it was important And so this reiteration by the agency in the policy realm that democracy integration is integration of democracy Into other sectors is important is very welcome but the failure has always been one of Implementation of incentives both positive. This is a really big priority Should it should have administrator shots should say this has to be done in the guidance to go to missions on Their strategies. This shouldn't be a list of like 500 different things. They should take into consideration this has to be endorsed by the very top of the agency and Frankly those missions those sectors that did not do that do not take that into consideration They have to actually have negative incentives. They need to be called onto the carpet PPC used to do that kind of strategy review Is the agency willing to use the policy review process and the strategy review process to actually make this happen? Because otherwise it's just going to be the DRG Center offering its services and looking for all comers and what would be the worst Outcome would be under budget constraints for instance in Albania. I've heard that there was reductions in the budget So what happened there was a democracy sector? Objective and a health objective and the health objective Wanted to continue so the democracy program became a health program, but it still used democracy dollars That is not the outcome. We want to see there's too few DG dollars and If this is what that means is that DG scarce DG dollars that can barely Cover that do not cover actually the needs in the core elements of democracy and human rights in good governance Are siphoned off to help those areas that frankly are more well endowed because they've got earmarks is Something that I think really needs to be taken Seriously, I welcomed the elevation of human rights within this new strategy You know human rights was always a part of USAID's work and if you look in the early 1990 documents, they identified The 1991 document identified human rights is one of the four goals of USAID's democracy's work and while missions have had programs to support elements of human rights I mean I think particularly and to treat human rights abuses I think Latin America has a long history of this. It's no it's there's no Dispute that the strategic thrust has been about Preventing abuses through as kind of a secondary Objective of improving democratic processes and in institutions. So the idea of prevention treatment Putting human rights at the center I think is a very important contribution now I know because I love to get into what's been removed that there was a lot of language about human rights that was removed from the document and I would love to have Larry explain why that was the case just because I want to put them on them on This stump because this assault on human rights right now Is most manifested on the backlash against civil society and I very much welcome the strategies Emphasis on civil society But I I want to talk about what Dan said, which is we are facing an unprecedented backlash Not only against the local groups, which are very important that are very that are you're seeing you know, just just talk to Just look at any ICNL document or talk to Doug Ruppson in Country after country after country we're seeing laws being put in place That say that civil society needs to be restricted in xx x ways and that certainly foreign Organizations and foreign funding should be constrained and I just wonder, you know We've seen the challenge in Egypt in UAE and Bahrain in Bolivia in Russia and I Don't know if this is us aides You know call it's really the administration's call It's the State Department, which is how much are they going to care if the government says shut down your DG program which they did by the way in Bolivia and USA and state said, okay Well, we'll jettison that so we can keep our other objectives You know we're Rwanda doesn't actually Respect the human rights of its citizens nor guarantee democratic processes nor does Ethiopia They get huge amounts of resources and are the darlings in the broader development community. What is that? What does that mean in terms of the political will to actually make democracy and human rights concerns and Essential essential part and how USA does all of its work. I'd like to see more. I always do So finally, you know what I hope to find in the document and what I hoped I Would hear the administrator say is that he was interested in Elevating DRG both by making some structural changes and by making resource changes I have never been a fan and nor has anybody been surprised after The Global Bureau was dismantled and the Democracy Center was Demoted to be an office and stuck under a dacha and Frankly always pushed to the side by humanitarian crises and conflict Democracy and human rights and good governance are part of our conflict work But there are a lot of issues out there that have nothing to do with conflict and to the extent that you do not have a Individual reporting directly to the administrator Empowered by the administrator to serve as a spokesperson for democracy and human rights and good governance I think that this strategy will not be implemented and I looked at the implementation Guidelines and all the things that everybody's supposed to do and I said blah blah blah blah blah. I want to see Where you know that can mean nothing doesn't have This should be an office reporting directly to the administrator and this administrator has to do a lot more insane That democracy matters and the first strategy rollout that this was done for this strategy He never even mentioned the word democracy in his introduction I don't know if somebody hadn't briefed him properly that that's what it was roll was he talked about poverty He may be stuck in the word governance, but he didn't talk about democracy. We need the administrator talking about democracy That's when we made real progress in USAid is when Brian Atwood cared about it and stated again and again, so And then the last thing is resources Larry said we've been doing okay on resources Not a few scratch underneath the surface not if you don't if you take off Iraq and Afghanistan and Sudan and these crisis Countries not if you look at the smaller countries in Africa which always been underfund the diminishing resources They're going to Eastern Europe your Eurasia despite dramatic setbacks in those countries USAid does not have the resources to to really tackle the challenges today And I would hope that in the implement implementation of this that we can get more resources because we've always been the sector That has to squeeze past all the other administration initiatives or earmarked sectors so with that good job on the strategy and challenges for the future Thank you, Jennifer. I I'm always grateful for your candor and I so everybody wake up and Follow with with great interest, which you had to say so. Thank you very very much You mission accomplished. Thank you Exactly Exactly well bill. Thank you for being with us today. I'm hoping you're gonna you're you're with ifis I'm hoping you're gonna talk about the how we ensure the centrality of contested elections How do you do that in the context of a growing number of as I call them farcical democracies? What do you think about the strategy over to you? Thanks Dan first for the opening opportunity on farcical democracies Having been outside of the country for most of the shutdown I would not want to share with all of you What representatives of farcical democracies were sharing with me as to the Ethicacy of our 237 year old experiment in governance It was a humbling experience in a number of different countries is the easiest way to put it But first of all Thanks to USAID and David and Larry for a really terrific Strategy document it is substantive it is critical. It is nuanced. It is really quite rich Thanks to the shutdown we were had this Postponed which meant that Larry and I had one or two private exchanges which meant that thanks to airplanes I actually read this government document a few times and The more you read it the more you realize how much and how intense the debate was and how some of the language and some of the references are very all-encompassing to interesting currents of thought which have emerged since the original document in 1994 and I just to refer to to us the spectrum of fragility a great concept and explained in deep As well as democratic backsliding all Progress and this is not exactly linear Which is hard for many people who are goal oriented and results oriented to anticipate expect and deal with now I this is very very old-fashioned We work with election management bodies to try and conduct free fair Transparent elections that the losers actually accept as being credible in their societies The only way I've discovered to get to a democratic society is through this old-fashioned thing called the ballot box and Ballot boxes aren't exactly new or sexy or very interesting Although they can mean dramatic changes to countries in Egypt ballot boxes were these wonderful things made with glass sides That you couldn't transport by truck and when the glass broke they put cardboard in there So everyone trusted how their vote was going to be freely counted and The vote had some integrity and in Miramar where I just returned they have cardboard ballot boxes that occasionally They seal with scotch tape So we're talking with the Union Election Commission about a substantive Improvement in something not very old not very sexy not very interesting, but will Send a message to the citizens as they vote that the process is different and will send a message to the Political party and civil society observers as well as the news media that there isn't some integrity To the process of putting that piece of paper in the box and know that that box wasn't tampered with until it was Officially opened in front of everyone to be counted one voted a time and that's always the danger to all of us Practitioners who have been doing good work since 1994 or earlier with a new strategy Because all agencies all Administrations all parts of government tend to go into what I call the magpie theory Looking for something new and shiny to put in the nest and ignore The parts of the process that were old-fashioned that don't necessarily attract attention But do build the type of nest that you need in order to raise a society raise your young I'm not going to carry this much further believe me But the point is the point is the point is that you know when you're reading one of these documents You're looking for the fundamentals And are the fundamentals still there now As an advocate of fundamentals I will say oh well they're there But they're not there often enough and they're not there early enough and they haven't been repeated often enough and there's some truth to that The word elections doesn't appear to page 17 and when you're talking about democracy and governance Maybe elections have a little bit more prominence than showing up somewhere on page 17 However at the same time I'm going to give credit to the authors The fundamentals are very expressly written That there is a commitment to an ongoing Competitive political process and there is a commitment to free and fair administration of elections and many of the words That received much more detail in earlier strategies are not New and sexy are not expansive, but are part of the framework are part of the fundamentals are part of the construction going forward So I suspect that the more you you know words matter and deeds matter and the more we look at the strategy the strategy encompasses the progress that we've made as a group of providers of assistance as a group of advocates in this space now There's always going to be the fear that the new is going to somehow or other attract more resources more attention than the established and I think that fear is the responsibility of everyone who's an advocate or involved in providing services to raise and and justifiably raise And it's the responsibility of the authors to justifiably say yes, but or yes We've got that base covered or things have moved on one way or the other and deal with it in a straightforward fashion Three final comments number one. I applaud I really do the Magnificent way that human rights is integrated so fully into strategy in many societies that we work in the question of human rights the question of gender rights the question of Historically discriminated populations the question of the disabled are things which in the 24th century You'd be surprised how open people are to trying to particularly In my case election administrators election administrators understand that their job is to try and get a hundred percent turnout And in many of their societies that means they've got to do things that are very contrary to the politics and the culture of the society To enable 50% of the population to participate who are women or enable historically discriminated groups particularly the disabled to Participate because their families have hidden them for years or they're not in secure areas so the Constant theming on human rights as central to this strategy is what I think the United States is all about and I compliment The authors of the strategy for weaving it in so fully Secondly the closing political space argument Applies not just to domestic organizations It also applies to international organizations and it also applies particularly to the financing of Organizations and political parties and if anything I think the fact that international Presence has been the the the bad guys if you will are sharing lessons learned on questions of registration and campaign finance and other issue and labor law and those are making it more and more difficult for the international community to Participate either directly or indirectly or financially and I think that issue is Is in addition to the strategy and the final point? I'm going to make is is on technology I Spent 18 years in the technology business before I joined ifus as president and my concern is That in many of the countries we work in Technology is really cool because you can count it and it's located in the center cities And it's done by the educated elite and not the people who are on two dollars a day and illiterate and in the rural areas and The real test of the legitimacy of the governance process is going to be whether or not it gets out and develops the entire country and this is particularly true in terms of economic issues like land reform and the extractive minerals issues and I have some concern that that we're almost Institutionalizing a digital divide in these societies particularly with our development assist is focused on different tools which Sometimes work and social media is great for building a crowd But it's real hard to drive a party platform or recruit candidates for office Or or get some of the other hard work of democracy and governance done And those are questions that that you know again I'll start end off with my magpie point new shiny easy to count in the cities educated people like us using Western technology but Does it get to the hidden majorities in these countries that are under two dollars a day who? Whose vote counts just as much as the college graduate in Islamabad so with that. Thank you Thanks, Bill Jim You're a former acting deputy administrator. You also were the assistant administrator for the Asian Near East Bureau. You Had to think about issues such as balancing democracy rights and governance issues with other competing priorities strategic strategic relationships of the United States I Think about the Middle East before the Arab Spring. You also covered China You know take us back a few years to think about yeah, how some context in that region But also think about the challenges of integrating Democracy rights and governance in the in the context of other competing priorities Thank You Dan congratulations to CSIS on this wonderful new facility Let me share with you the same thing I share with my panelists if I'm if I'm less than my normal Acute self in my analysis because I just flew in from Kabul yesterday In fact, I was as I was drifting in and out of sentience here and I heard David talk about Aristotle for a moment. I flashed back and I was in an undergraduate political science class or something Let me let me follow a pretty much standard format Let me let me and also let me be quick so because I know this I just recognize a lot of folks an awful lot of expertise out there in the audience and I I know you Want to get involved in this as well? Let me give you a couple things And I think a real high points real positive things about the strategy and then get into based on my experience and in the part of The world I managed for USA ID get into some of what I think are the both conceptual and Implementation challenges and I'll make that a very short list and just try to highlight them briefly first of all I What's a strategy? I mean to me a good strategy is something that tells me what I'm supposed to do Monday morning Right. I mean generally what I'm supposed to do my part of it might be this my part of it might be that but I should know Where I'm heading and I thought all in all although there are an awful lot of things as Bill said packed in here I think the emphasis on democracy It's a bold statement. You know, there are a lot of things we could focus on we could focus on governance We could focus on you know good institutions of service delivery, but it's a bold statement We're focused on democracy. That's a good place to start There's an outcomes orientation, which I think is critically important the integration with other sectors and a number of the speakers have touched on critically important I Personally was very excited to see the elements in there about a political economy Analysis, this is a weak point for USA ID. We've got a lot of brilliant folks We've got a lot of great technical expertise, but people don't always think in terms of a political economy Analysis when we're doing development work around the world and especially the focus on elites I mean it may be a fairly obvious statement that you know There are embedded elites in each of the countries in which we will be working and they've got a stake in the system No matter how damaged the system might be and starting off with that kind of political economy Analysis if we can pull it off would really be an important step forward. So I think there are some very very strong Useful things about this strategy Now let me give you what I think are a couple of the conceptual and implementation Challenges and I've just got four The first one is on the global Local access the global local access. I think there are two Challenges there a number one we the strategy says we're going to implement at the country level But inherently these are global principles of democracy human rights So and we say we're going to start off with democracy, but we're going to implement this in the country context I think that's a challenge and I think it's especially a challenge aligned with the USA ID forward local leadership Perspective I was at a conference last year in Brussels When I was at the German Marshal Fund Cosponsored by the German Marshal Fund and the European Union and it was bringing in a bunch of Chinese Scholars both from within the government Development scholars both from within the government and in private sector Organizations in China and they they gave us a very profound Challenge, which was as we fell into our normal mode and hectored them about just building Infrastructure in Africa they're not paying attention to gender issues and human rights are standard Western spiel right they gave us a quizzical look and said but but we read the Paris declaration You told us to read the Paris declaration and we asked the local people what they wanted and they said they wanted poor experts in bridges and they were tired of being lectured by outside experts on Systems of governance now. I mean I don't fully agree with that argument, but it's a profound challenge How do we in the current development context? continue to implement Global principles, but do it at the country level and pay attention to the Paris declaration and USA ID forward Simultaneously, okay first conceptual challenge a second one is okay. It's the elephant in the room. We all know it's there But I I'll tell you what I shared with our my colleagues before the session Egypt lands like a thud in the middle of this right? I mean we're going to focus on democracy, but throughout the paper throughout the strategy we also use words like security and stability and And I you know my colleagues from aid know this better than I do they're going to have to work within the real world You're going to have to talk to the ambassador about this We're going to have to talk to the assistant secretaries of state about this national security staff but this is a profound Implementation challenge to make this bold statement about democracy as the Premier interperies the first among equals and then Recognize that we have to pay attention to democracy look I mean we talk about what are some of the challenges to human rights in this strategy with the strategy itself talks about Norco trafficking and terrorism and religious extremism and the brutal reality certainly in the part of the world that I managed is that sometimes the best Governance leaders and the governance structures to take on terrorism and Norco trafficking And and extremism Are autocratic? People who know how to run militaries people who know how to run police forces. So how do we square that? It's a deep deep conceptual challenge obvious one, but a deep one third is on the Resources and training stuff. I went to the for the first time in my life I went to the USAID dashboard to see how much USAID says they're spending on democracy and governance and at least as my reading it came out to about 14% I don't know the paper talks about the more resources But I would say as much as the dollar resources are a challenge the training Resources are a challenge. How do we get? USAID staff by and large to do serious political economy analysis when they're not trained in that area How do we human rights? Human rights operationalization Implementation requires some very specific skill sets protection sometimes evacuation Secure data systems that allow you to deal with those who are being oppressed in a given society Are we going to invest in the kinds of things that UNHCR has invested in in the past or the UN human rights folks? That's it's a it's a dollar resource and a training resource implementation challenge and finally Final implementation challenges is the USAID system itself. I mean, I know my former colleagues They are past masters at taking the latest implementation Directive from Washington and doing exactly what they want to do A former mission director. I know very well. It used to tell me that you know, I like to do irrigation work And you know when the when the directors came in from Washington to emphasize gender I just rewrote it as the you know women's centric irrigation Project and then when they told me to do private sector then it became the private sector irrigation project I mean, you know, it is The exact right thing to say in my humble point of view that we need to integrate these Profoundly important principles into the rest of USAID's work But it is a it is a real challenge to get the aid staff to buy into this and I agree completely with what Jennifer said earlier I saw all the right things at the end about leadership But there's an awful lot of shoulds they should do this and they should do that And and you will I think face a profound implementation challenge on on making this stick. So those are my comments Thanks, Jim I'm going to give both of you guys a chance to respond to my my friends over here to my left Assume it's a 20-floor building In terms of your response because I want to get some of the folks out in the audience a chance to Ask some questions, but I suspect there's several things that jumped out it from from our friends on the panel here That you may want to just respond to immediately before we get into the Q&A So I'll give you each a tip but think 20 floors not 200 floors Okay So first of all, thanks for for reading the strategy so carefully at first because that's I think the you know the biggest fear when you invest the time to do a strategy like this is that you know, it just becomes a a Document that sits on the shelf and and clearly we want not only our staff Our colleagues within USAID, but our partners to read it and and to have discussions like the one we're having today So let me just pick up on three points that our Panelists made There are lots of other issues, but hopefully some of them will come out in the in the discussion first of all You know on the closing space I mean we did take that very seriously. It's in the document But more than that it's in the document It is something that we at USAID in addition to be being part of the interagency Process have sought to make part of how we think about you know, how our our field missions are thinking about addressing these issues and Few months back we we sent out a cable to our staff, you know Mission directors, DRG officers others, you know instructing them on how we want them to think about what we see as a Really serious issue in this space and we're continuing this work Sarah Mendelson this week is in London at the open partnership Open government and partnership OPG where this issue of closing space is on the agenda And so it is something that we are taking very seriously and again It's it's not just USAID. It's not just the US government, but it really is something that we need to be As a broader community looking at very carefully second Jim raised the issue and and for me it's particularly profound because you know Monday Wednesdays and Fridays I'm focused on DRG issues and Tuesday and Thursday. I'm focused on Implementing the use aid forward Dictate on how do we more effectively? work with host country institutions and You know, hopefully, you know by the weekend I'm not totally confused on how and how I've managed to balance it but I really do see these as as Important to bring together and so you're right to pose it as a challenge But we have been thinking about first of all when we talk about local systems It's not the government to government only it really does include the private sector and civil society And we've been reinforcing that over and over again But it also includes being more political about how we think of working With host country institutions and strengthening those host country institutions so the political economy analysis that we're talking about is really embedded into our efforts to Understand and map the local systems That we we need to strengthen because without strengthening these local systems We're going to be doing this work over and over again, and again I think your you know experience probably this week and cobble reinforce that But more generally We need to be thinking about sustainability throughout our work and and including in the way we do democracy human rights and governance work and then the last issue Which is a little more sensitive, but I do feel obliged to respond to my good friend Jennifer's comments You know we were incredibly fortunate in the 1990s and certainly Jennifer David and I You know personally benefited from having someone like Brian Atwood as the administrator of the agency at a time when we were Profoundly looking to transform what the way we thought about a development to include Democracy and governance and and you know he came from this background Rasha clearly does not come from this background, and he doesn't you know talk about it is is eloquently or as Fluently as someone like Brian did, but I think well and and you know we you know We were lucky to have someone like Brian most development agencies have never had a person who came out of a Democracy promotion background as the head of a development agency, so we shouldn't necessarily expect You know that Jennifer Windsor is going to be the next USA administrator It would be great if she were but but but but but the point is that the challenge for someone like Raj and for us working is Is he giving us the space to be able to put forward this agenda in a serious way? and I think by allowing us to develop the strategy and the way that it has evolved by Creating or recreating the the center of excellence on democracy Human rights and governance and again it sounds bureaucratic going from an office to a center But it you know for those of you have been in the bureaucracy it actually is Significant believe it or not by committing the resources that we have to doing some of the fundamental Analytic work to doing the training work that that Jim was referencing and not just as I said for the Democracy cadre, but for a broader cadre He is giving us the space and he is allowing us to ensure that in the interagency Discussions when USAID is present that we are empowered to speak about these issues not just the narrow You know more narrow humanitarian or development issues, but that we have a voice and we again we were very fortunate For several years to have as our deputy administrator Don Steinberg who clearly in the interagency was the voice on some of the core human rights issues and and so again, you know Sure, we'd love Raj to talk more About democracy human rights and governance, but I think the most important is is is is is their space For us to do the work and I believe he's given us that space and we need to effectively take advantage of it Just a few comments on some of the excellent points that were made by our panelists one on the resources issue Let me confront it directly on resources and integration. I agree completely with Jennifer agree with Jennifer's concerns first the conceptual point the core work the traditional work in democracy human rights and governance Needs to continue the integrated work of democracy human rights and governance into the social economic sectors cannot succeed underline Cannot succeed without that core work continuing the expansion of citizenship and accountability Mechanisms into the other sectors will only work if the core institutions with at the national and local level are built with our support and the support of other donors on integration resources So given that conceptual point the budget point is that we will seek Resources from other sectors to help us do the democracy human rights and governance work in those sectors We will not take the scarce resources from our own sector to do it that that's certainly our goal on Resources overall we'd always like more money The data shows I was on foreign assistance gov yesterday to get the most recent data from 2009 to 2012 The budget has stayed between 1.6 billion rising up to most recently about 2.1 billion It stayed Statically at 11 or 12 percent of USAID's overall budget in some regions We've hit been hit hard not by cuts but with by competing priorities particularly in Africa We need to fight continue to fight and make the case with all of you together for continuing core budget as well as expansion of integrated activities I'll just say We appreciate Bill's warning on the technological divide, but let me I think dance you to move on so let me leave it at that budget We've reached the top of the building. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. We're gonna open it up There are a lot of smart and thoughtful people I'm gonna call on John Sullivan my friend Nancy in the back and then let's see there's a there's a woman back there So John right Mary Kate come here Right here right here right then we're gonna speak to Nancy and then this one that that raised your hand you yep Do wave that's it three of you. We're gonna do this World Bank style. We'll group them together. Okay, okay? Everyone gets extra credit for name Organization and brief question Okay, yeah, well, I'll get two out of three John Sullivan Center for International Private Enterprise Forgive me for riding my hobby horse, but it brought me over here So I have to bring it up and I come back to this point about Economic growth and democratic governance You have a huge challenge in front of you and it's not just integration. It's at the level of conceptualization when I was with ACFA one of the things we did was review the economic growth strategy and The economists told me that there was at USAID told me there was no link between economics and governance that in fact they don't correlate So my homework assignment was to write a lengthy memo Surveying the new literature because there were all neoclassical economists. You got a recruitment challenge You got to get some people in there that know what Dan referred to Doug north and the new institutional economics Or to add to your reading list David. They could go back to Adam Smith, you know Rough contemporary of some of the people you were talking about who understood these points But that flips back I picked on the economists first because I didn't want you to think I was picking on you it flips back at governance is Economics is Democracy, you know, we talk about the democratic system of government But your point about Muhammad was easy is exactly right with one small exception. He didn't have a title He didn't have any property rights. He was locked out of the system by an impenetrable wall of red tape invested privileges And that's a political issue. That's an issue of law. It's an issue of politics And it isn't just the 63 others and Hernando de Soto actually did go to Tunisia and meet with Muhammad Boise easy's brother and Asked him what would Muhammad Boise easy say if he could come back and talk to us. He would say you took away my property You expropriated me. I want the right To be in business. I want the right and this was not an uneducated rural illiterate person This was a person that simply couldn't get through the impenetrable system and that Muhammad Boise easy's of the world in many countries are 50 to 60 percent of the workforce They're 30 to 40 percent of the economy and it's not just Hernando that says that Friedrich Schneider says it I'm adding to your reading list Friedrich Schneider from the Labor Institute in Vienna There's a lot of people to doing business indicators There's a lot of evidence of this that politics is economics that there is not a separation That it's not about integrating. It's about reconceptualizing Happy to help if I can but you have a huge challenge We're CSIS is going to be putting out a report next month on the inter intersection of economic growth and Good governance and so I actually applaud. Thank you, John. So that actually was great I completely agree with everything you said and I also think that the issue of Reflecting the new literature and the new research is something that I think is was important to incorporate into this new strategy And some of it's it's reflected here though Some of it that but we will suggest them for some weekend reading for our friends that at USA Nancy, please Nancy Boswell with American University's law schools program on anti-corruption Congratulations, I agree with many of the positive things that have been said but going back to the magpie approach and Concern about things falling off the table Anti-corruption Was an issue that USA showed early leadership on in the 94 time frame 2005 we have a strategy 2009 we have a handbook. I wasn't on a plane So I haven't had a chance to read this very closely, but looking at it while we were in this discussion Corruption is referenced as a damaging Problem, but it isn't At least to what I saw Articulated there. There's no what do I do tomorrow to what our speaker said Direction to how does this apply? How does this integrated into? what what this strategy is supposed to do and I think Similar to John unless we pay attention to the anti-corruption component we have Anti-corruption was the main or corruption was the main issue in Tunisia So unless we deal with that in a forthright and articulated way, I'm not sure we're going to make progress Mary Mary Kate the woman and that just she's right there. Yes. Thank you Halloween colors. That's me Hi, I'm Carmen Lane. I'm with DAI Previously with NDI so I come a little bit more out of the democracy side of the house and First I would I want to congratulate you and I think the emphasis on inclusion and integration is Exciting But I have a concern. I guess it's more of a comment that I would like a comment on and I Share Jennifer's concern that integration might be a hidden word for economy That's one concern But secondly having worked mostly with political institutions personally political parties and Parliaments and I always have the concern that with the emphasis on the demand side That we may set up institutions for not being able to respond So it's pleased that David made the point that there will still be an emphasis on core institutions my question with the integration piece of it is that when we start to blend the institutional is particularly political more political institutions with Thematic areas such as health Let me back up and say I think the most successful political institution building programs are process oriented and are very careful to stay out of the outcome of Legislation for example and let that be left up to the actors in the country And I'm a little bit concerned with an integration agenda that there may be a blending of these two that actually Steps on our ability to work with these institutions Okay, so what I'm gonna ask our two friends to my right to respond to all three questions And I'd like the panelists to the extent they want to pick and choose to to add their thoughts as well Sure On John, I couldn't agree with more. I I think Contemporary version of the economic science has lost the great tradition Adam Smith Friedrich Hayek Carl Marx in terms of his analytical abilities all the way up to John Maynard Keynes And I think that needs to be restored and it's a huge conceptual inflammation Challenge and I invite John support on that on Nancy's comment on anti-corruption if I didn't utter the words anti-corruption Forgive me because it's always on the Frontside of my brain our whole accountability objective is all about different mechanisms of anti-corruption whether within the state itself or vertical measures of anti-corruption efforts from the bottom up our whole Hurl political political economy bent to our integration of democracy and this gets in the Carmen's point our whole the whole thrust of Our work in social economic sectors could be reduced to the term anti-corruption It's about using participation and accountability mechanisms and inclusion to attack politically economic forms of Corruption to put it simply on Carmen's point I might disagree with you a little bit, but I may misunderstand for us. We are trying to gently modestly politicize the work of social economic Support and that is we believe that a la John that and Nancy that Building coalitions of policy reform within other sectors whether it be economic growth What's the institutional support for markets or others though? They need to build political and economic coalitions to address those Dysfunctionalities of the political economy and there's no way around it and to just if that endangers our Nuts and bolts work in the health sector agriculture I hope it would not but I also think that that that other work is very limited without the broader political economic policy reform approach that groups like for example the Asia Foundation or site our masters at Just too quick addendums to David's point so one John we are trying to bring the neoclassical economists into the 21st century and and bridge that gap that you talk about we just last week had a Discussion on how to bridge you know what they're doing with the work We're doing on political economy and really set up a working group within USAID that that talks through these issues So, you know, we'll invite you to help us You know work that through the other point and just building on what David said I mean, I think the three questions in a sense were you know part of a package the way I look at you know the work we're trying to do in the You know in the integration sphere is that to me the biggest You know obstacle to Development in the health sector in the agriculture sector is not resources is not Technical knowledge. It really is the issue of politics and unless we break that that down unless we understand that Much better. We are not going to have success Sustainable success in our work in those sectors. So it's it's a very Utilitarian argument for achieving success in those areas that that I would put on the table Comments from the panelists I'll pass in the interest of time Okay, I've got one question Actually, I've got two questions for you guys I'm gonna ask ask other folks from the audience I want to I didn't see a lot on religious freedom and I'd be interested on your where where religious freedom is In this document and in your strategy and then second if we're so big on transparency and assistance And I think that's a positive thing How are we protecting dissidents or human rights activists who are getting a US government money while answering the mail on some of the bigger Bushes on a transparency, which is a bigger part of the development conversation So I'll take a couple my my friend from the Solidarity Center and my friend at the back of the room Mark hankin from the Solidarity Center. Well, thanks again for being here and thanks for working so hard on the strategy There's certainly much that we appreciate in the strategy Including inclusiveness and it's something that the International Labor Organization has been working on through its work around decent work Which talks about how people get to a place where they do decent work that provides dignity to them But I want to ask another question and the question is Obviously given the traditional Resistance within the agency to this sort of work. How are you working with other stakeholders outside the agency including the Congress and And the State Department and the NSC on this to promote it forward Given the fact that the center as much as we love it doesn't have the lift to move a lot of this on its own My friend Kelly in the back Kelly Curry from the project 2049 Institute I wanted to ask how when you're developing this thinking about China which is As Jim brings up brings a lot of challenges into this both conceptually and implementation wise It really is the biggest challenge. I think to our Kind of the global project to promote democracy and good governance and human rights And then the other question I have is also on a more practical side on Implementation as somebody who's just re-entered the project and programming world after a 10-year hiatus of not running a program on the ground and doing it now the reporting the Evaluation metrics the F Indicators all of this stuff that just keeps getting layered and layered and layered on top of people who are implementing on the ground doesn't really help implementation in a lot of ways and it does make it more difficult to achieve localization and How if you are really trying to support local mechanisms, which are critical not only to successful implementation, but to democratization Does this factor in and are you going to add a whole new level of indicators that we all have to deal with as the part of Implementing this strategy Okay, folks We'll go back. We'll go down this way Okay, thanks for the great questions dance questions on religious freedom I believe the only mention of religious freedom is in the context in the strategy is in the context of Rights and inclusion. Yeah, that's why I asked it, but certainly The inclusion of religious and ethnic minorities we see is a big big part of our agenda on inclusive development As well as the promotion and protection of human rights So if it doesn't appear more than once it was not Oversight as much as we include that category of minorities I had to use a micron electron microscope to find that so I just would just flag that for For the next revision and we'll look forward to having you guys come back and talk about religious freedom, but yes on the question of Transparency we care very much in our human rights work of of Internet security and the physical security of human rights defenders all around the world particularly in closing spaces While there we are part we the US government USAID are part of the open data open government movement We We take very Seriously the concern of protecting the identity of human rights workers in Authoritarian settings and we're doing all we can within that broader context of protecting their identities Keeping them safe and using the web as part of their mobilization tools On Mark's point about how we're working with other inter agency partners to build our strategy. We certainly are always Frank with a hill in terms of the greater resources. We need to carry out our work. We support we support We welcome the support of the hill and we make it clear that we need more support in terms of the inter agency I think this does give us both the center But the agency in general a seat at the table in inter agency policy discussions on key countries I couldn't go to a Pre-brief meeting for our administrator this morning on Egypt. He was heading off to a principles meeting But he wanted a briefing one of my colleagues went instead So I think the elevation of democracy and human rights generally and through this strategy has given us a greater seat at the inter agency table on Kelly's point on China It's well taken a ID as many of you know have had small programs in China in the rule of law area on local elections at IRI Pioneer the decade or more ago. We're getting increasing pressure from our hill colleagues to end our China programs because of the New wealth in China and the governmental surpluses. So we consider China in the same categories countries like Libya that do have great wealth and their external economic Position is quite strong But we do think that we question whether or not they will devote the resources to these very key issues of political reform So we welcome your support into in discussing with the hill our interesting continued work in countries like China Larry let me just add on China because I approach it from a slightly different perspective than David does in that the Bureau of Policy Planning and Learning is responsible for at the policy level our Engagement with other donors and China now fits in that category as another donor as I think Jim was referencing earlier So we're looking at and I think it's a it's a challenge. We're going to have a meeting in a couple weeks It's focusing on in general the emerging donors and that includes not only China, but Brazil and the South Africa etc and and it is a challenge for us to ensure that the type of Conception that not only is reflected in this strategy document, but but more broadly in the consensus among The DAC donors that has emerged over the past 20 years and how is that you know shared with These new emerging donors and and it's you know, China is probably the extreme But I was at a conference about a year and a half ago That was sponsored by Wilton Park folks and they Specifically on this issue and it was clear that that there was you know a divergence I mean China wasn't in the room, but even with the folks in the room from Brazil and Indonesia and India So I think we need to think about how we project Our values in the discourse with emerging donors that haven't necessarily brought on to the same consensus That has emerged over the last 20 years. They're clearly players in this field I mean, you know anyone who goes to Africa sees that day in day out and and clearly we want to ensure, you know that some of the Impact that we're trying to achieve is more Is best coordinated with all those who are involved, but I think this is going to be a serious challenge that we need to To address just a quick self-promotion plug We did a report on foreign assistance transitions looking at middle-income countries My take is we shouldn't be paying for folks tuberculosis if they've got space exploration programs or starter foreign aid programs But I do think we should be funding human rights Democracy work in places like China because they sure as heck aren't gonna spend the money on that sort of stuff And so I also think we need to shift our relationships to a cooperation paradigm, but I want to hear there's several I'm hoping there are some comments from the panelists on some of the questions. I'll start with you Jennifer So I just wanted to follow up on the transparency issue I think you know, I I hear you David on what the Center is trying to do But I think cumulatively the State Department and AID for security reasons and frankly as part of this Never-ending quest for more information more detail Exactly what's going on in the ground, you know the need for control and Absolute knowledge that whatever the money is going to it's we know who it's going to and it's not going to be anybody that ever says You know name it. There's a tear, you know, okay, of course, we don't want to give it to terrorists But the way that it's been implemented, of course has meant that for instance before certain programs Can be started in very repressive countries that we're being you know, we sorry freedom house I'm still on the board. So, you know freedom groups like freedom house and others are being asked for very detailed information That we have to get from our local counterparts passports births, you know, their mother their father their You know what their board members are etc. This just increases paranoia And it's not because we don't trust the people in the DRG center the problem is is that information goes into other parts of the US government and repressive governments have a very very sophisticated way of using foyer requests Which don't go directly to the DRG center and that information gets out and it leads to Backlash against those groups and those individuals who are in a very precarious position So I think that it's it's back to sort of the stability security because those folks want maximum information and I just worry if the trends continue that USAID is actually going to get itself out of really being a cutting-edge civil society Organization and into sort of the easy stuff that can be sort of Okay for the US government to do which and and then you're going to have to look to the net and others But they're not going to have the diplomatic protection that the US at least used to offer. So I think there's this sort of Open transparency local government ownership, etc. And then there's Protect the people that are actually speaking up and that's not just in Iran and Cuba It's in South Africa talk to the people that are trying to buck the government in South Africa and what's happening to them So let's not close our eyes that Democratically elected governments are going after their critics We could go another hour. I apologize. I know there are many questions that are left unanswered. I apologize But we do have to end it here. I'm going to ask everyone to join me in thanking the panelists and our speakers