 Good morning. Welcome to the US Institute of Peace. My name is Nancy Lindbergh. I'm the president here. And I am delighted to welcome everybody here to help us celebrate International Women's Day. And we're especially delighted to have a very special guest with us. So thank you for joining us. Though the UN didn't formally recognize March 8 as International Women's Day until 1977, I think everybody here in this room is well aware that women around the world have been fighting very hard for progress well before that, fighting for progress and celebrating our collective power. Here and around the world, we have a long line of women to thank for the work that they've done to thank them for their courage and their action on fighting for these issues. And we know that around the world today that women are continuing that fight. And while there has been heartening progress, we still have a long way to go. Certainly here in the United States, we're coming up on our 100th anniversary of the vote. But according to very recent data, it still takes women the equivalent of 47 extra days to have wage parity with their male counterparts. And that fight is especially important in countries that are affected by conflict and by violence. We know that when conflict erupts, it is the women. It is the girls. It is the children who are the most affected. And here at USIP, we know from deep experience. We know from the data. And we know from collective wisdom that achieving and sustaining peace requires gender equality. It requires that women fully participate in their families, in their societies, their states, and at the peace table. USIP was founded by the US Congress in 1984 as a federal independent nonpartisan institute dedicated to the proposition that peace is very practical, that it is very possible, and that it is above all a process. And we work around the world in conflict zones to find very practical solutions to help resolve, mitigate, and prevent conflicts, working with partners, linking research to training to action. And we know that key to these solutions of conflict and violence is building inclusive, resilient societies in one that upholds the voice of youth minorities and particularly women. A very powerful article in The New York Times this morning had a long list of statistics that underscore the depth of the challenge. And I just want to share a couple. 12 million girls a year, every year, under the age of 18, are married. That's 28 girls, 28 girls per minute, who get married under the age of 18. And only 12.8% of women globally are agricultural landholders. And despite an historic year here in the United States where women around the country mobilized, ran, and won public office, still only 23.7 of national parliaments around the world are women. So today is an opportunity to celebrate progress, but also to double down on our collective determination to keep this agenda moving forward and to continue to support women around the world who are getting things done. And if anybody knows anything about getting things done, it is our very special guest today. So I'm delighted to introduce now Secretary Penny Mordont. Her current post is Secretary of State for International Development and Minister for Women and Equalities. And she's had a long and very interesting career that enables her to bring lots of experience to this position. She was first elected a member of parliament in 2010. And in 2015, she became the first, and I think the only woman, to hold the post of Minister of State for the Armed Forces at the Ministry of Defense. She's worked in the business sector and communications, and she's the only female member of parliament to be a naval reservist. So a final fact, if I'm allowed to say this, is that she worked her way through college as a magician's assistant. So I'm thinking that in the future, she has a role as the minister of magic, right? The US and the UK have long been really close partners on these issues of gender equality and women's rights. So it is fitting, and I couldn't be happier to celebrate this day with Secretary Mordont. Please join me in welcoming her. Thank you. Yes, I needed a reliable career to fall back on if politics didn't work out. Thank you so much. Whenever a politician makes a speech, it is always courteous and prudent to start by beginning, by telling her hosts how delighted she is to be there. The truth, of course, is that politics has its ups and downs, and some situations are more delightful than others. But being here, in this particular institution, in DC today, among so many impressive people, is beyond delightful. It's inspirational. You see, to anyone, whether they are a political representative or a member of the public, this place is the highest ground. It teaches great lessons for those prepared to learn, the lessons of liberty. This is where the idea of government, of the people, by the people, for the people, took root. And what we see around us is a great city, a place that belongs to the ages, the home of democracy. The American people, like my fellow countrymen and women, have held to this great tradition of democracy. Despite disagreements, despite fiercely contested elections and fiercely contested referendums, our people have always abided by the result. The greatest act of patriotism in the last two years in the UK was not the 17.4 million people who voted to leave the EU, as I did. It was the vast majority of those who voted remain and accepted the result. That's what patriotism is. It's why our nations are strong. It is the unity of us, of we, the people. 800 years ago, that inspired the foundations of a great nation. And 200 years ago, it created a new one. It's one of the many reasons why I love the United States of America. That's hardly the most courageous thing that I could say to you today, but it is absolutely true. I love America as an idea. I love it as a physical reality. At its core, the principle that liberty for all of us and its denial diminishes all of us. So I can think of no better setting for a speech about women. Because women's rights are human rights. Because we cannot achieve meaningful progress when half the population cannot reach their full potential. Because International Women's Day is about the fortunes of all of us. The belief that human beings have an inherent value and must be free to live a full and happy life is part of the very fabric of America. It's there in your legal texts. It's there in your blood. It's the guiding principle of your constitution and the birthright of every American. And I know that Americans want every part of the world to embrace that same philosophy. That really matters, because where America leads, others follow. Being a country which people look to as an example may sometimes feel like a burden. Certainly, it is a responsibility. But leadership always is. You're born with potential, and you must be free to reach that potential. Government's job is simple, to protect and enable human potential, to ensure that courage, vision, ambition, and determination are allowed to flourish. And just look how successful it is. America has a proud tradition of civil rights leaders who touched hearts at home and moved minds abroad. And many of those leaders have been women. Rosa Parks drew on deep reserves of courage and refused to give up her seat on that Montgomery bus. And she worked tirelessly as an activist. Maud Wood Park encouraged many great women to join the suffragette movement and began the Schlesinger Library in Harvard. Susan B. Antony equally devoted to women's rights as she was committed to seeing an end to slavery. Melinda Gates, who's shown how effective philanthropy can be in both helping the most vulnerable people on earth and bringing more women into jobs and technology. We in the UK have spent the last year the centenary of women's suffrage in Britain celebrating our heroines. 100 years ago, women in the UK were unable to run for office, vote, or even be present in the public gallery in the House of Commons. They would gather in the attic and peer through the ventilation shafts in the chamber where they could view the proceedings below, the proceedings that were going to affect their lives. They would often hear men voicing wildly head concerns that if women were given the vote, they would be the end of everything, the downfall of family, society, and the nation. But those women knew, even then, that the opposite was true. That without their rights being secured and their lives being fulfilled, family, society, and nation could never really thrive. Those incredible women who fought and suffered and endured to secure that right and pave the way for others, their rallying cry, courage calls to courage everywhere. And as you hear in the district, celebrate a record number of female members of Congress, we should learn the lessons of our predecessors who supported each other across the seas to help make progress. They saw it as their duty to secure the rights of other women and they knew their own fortunes were inextricably linked with theirs. As legislators, as advocates, as human rights defenders, we should undertake to work together, to support each other's efforts and to have each other's back. And as we look ahead to the daunting efforts required to achieve gender equality around the world and deliver the global goals, we would do well to reflect on what both our nations have helped achieve for our own citizens and the world over. Both our countries have a strong record of using aid to help women and girls. And I pay tribute to the leadership of Mark Green and the work of USAID in this area. Last year in the UK, we launched a new national action plan on women, peace and security. And here in the US, you passed the Women, Peace and Security Act in 2017. I welcome America's prioritization of women's economic empowerment through the Women's Global Development and Prosperity Initiative, aiming to help 50 million women in the developing world advance economically by 2025. And I also welcome the requirement of USAID to target half its spending to SMEs on activity that support women-owned or managed enterprises. There have been some excellent domestic efforts in America too, including the Promoting Women in Entrepreneurship Act and the recent call on Congress to enact legislation for paid family leave. Meanwhile in the UK, getting women into better jobs through our flagship work and opportunities for women program and the private enterprise program in Ethiopia. And we are supporting women-owned businesses to participate in international trade through the She Trades Commonwealth Program. We have committed to spend at least half our aid budget in fragile and conflict-affected states. And we have in recent years a new focus and strategy on preventing all forms of violence against women and girls, including sexual violence in conflict. Through our What Works to Prevent Violence program, we have demonstrated that violence is preventable, even in extremely challenging settings. And our interventions in countries from Afghanistan to Pakistan to the DRC have reported reductions in violence up to 50% in just a few years. Domestically, the UK has introduced the gender pay gap reporting with the first country in the world to require all businesses with 250 or more employees to publish their pay gap, with metrics now adopted by Bloomberg in their Gender Equality Index. And a new broader focus on women's economic empowerment, not just for those women who are in office or work in an office, but for those women who are cleaning offices, too. Marginalized women, older, more financially fragile women, women with multiple caring responsibilities, the invisible women who keep our nations going. And like you with the Women on Boards Initiative, and today we're announcing new investment vehicles to boost opportunities for women entrepreneurs to attract investment capital, something you have a great track record over here. The UK and the US have collaborated in this space through many initiatives. The G20's Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, known as WeFi, and the G7's 2X. Collectively, these two programs are expected to mobilize at least three billion US dollars of private capital to advance gender equality. And CDC, the UK's financial institution, is the first development institution to have a gender strategy. It has worked with OPIC and other DFIs on the Gender Finance Collaborative and made a welcome commitment to step up support for the Boardroom Africa, a partnership organization that aims to double female representation from 14% to 28% in Africa's boardrooms by 2028. And we're also working to ensure that all girls around the world get at least 12 years of education, including the most marginalized and especially girls with disabilities. But there is much more to do. And it's the women and girls who need us to deliver for them that motivate me to keep going. I'm grateful for all of you for being here today. And I wonder what made you get involved in this agenda from your respective organizations and personally. What made you want to help, to change things, to make the world a better place? Were you angry at injustice? At girls being denied an education? 63 million, as I speak to you today. Angry that one in three women in the world have experienced physical or sexual violence or that in some conflict zones, that rises to almost all women. Or that 12 year olds are forced to marry or that young teenagers are expected to become mothers or many dying in the process. Angry because still in 15 countries, women still need permission from a man to work. Angry that so many that do work take home less money for the same work. And that millions of girls around the world and thousands in our own nations are at risk from FGM. Or that 200 million women with disabilities are living below the poverty line. Maybe you're angry about how you've been treated. Some of you might be concerned that the global gender pay gap is widening for the first time in decades. Or that unless we all help ensure that every woman is in control of her own body, how many children she has and when, then all our efforts on economic empowerment will be for nothing. Or maybe you're frustrated about all that talent and potential being wasted. The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that equality in the job market would add an extra $28 trillion to global GDP by 2025. But what can't be measured is the lost ideas, dreams never realized, the businesses never built, and the opportunities missed. And some of you might be hopeful. I know I am. That when we include women, great things happen. When women play an active role in peace negotiations, they are a third more likely to last. When we serve in services or the armed forces, these organizations become so much more operationally effective. But whatever your motivation for being here today and caring about women's rights and equality, I want to thank you because every human endeavor depends upon it. And success depends on our two nations, our aid funds, our expertise, our mobilization of private capital, and all we have to offer to create opportunities and enable freedom for all. The United Kingdom and the United States of America are allies and friends in this cause. When our two countries stand together and work together to protect and enable human potential, not only for our own people, but for all people. And history shows that we can do great and enduring things. In the United States, the women's suffrage movement adopted tactics as peaceful protest and parades. And it was the same in the UK and other nations followed. Recently, we've collaborated on tackling HIV and championing gender equality to take its rightful place at the heart of the sustainable development goals. And we have joined forces in the global call to action to protect women and girls in emergencies so that humanitarian aid will reach those who need it most. And we are united in our determination to end the scourge of modern slavery, the victims of which are overwhelmingly female. And in the last six years, together we've supported nearly 45 million girls to get an education. And this has included two million of the most marginalised girls in crisis and conflict affected areas with USAID support. And the UK, as part of our girls' education challenge, is supporting a further 1.5 million girls, including those with disabilities and those who have left school due to pregnancy or stigma. Together through GAVI, the UK and US support has helped vaccinate over half a million girls in the world's poorest countries against the HPV virus, the leading cause of cervical cancer. And we're currently the leading two donors to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and malaria. Last year, we helped six million pregnant women receive preventative treatment from malaria and provided medicine for nearly 700,000 HIV-positive mothers to prevent transmission to their babies. We've supported millions of women to vote. Specifically in the DRC, we've educated two million women about exercising their right to vote and trained 9,000 female election observers. And in Pakistan, together with Japan, we've supported 713,000 women to register to vote. When we work together, we can get things done. Without our support in these areas, it is clear that we will not achieve the global goals. The women's movement globally needs America and it needs the United Kingdom. For my prime minister and for your president, this has to be a vital cause. One of the biggest mistakes a legislator can make is to assume that progress inevitably marches on, but it won't and it could get worse. Technological innovation can make us richer and amplify our voices, but it also carries enormous risks, particularly for women and girls. War and crises, major catalysts for extreme poverty, and women and girls are often the most impacted. And climate change has the potential to wipe out development gains, with women and girls being the most vulnerable in the event of a catastrophe. And there are political challenges too in both our democracies. So what can we do to keep making progress? We need to consider each and every aspects of women's rights. And that means working to end violence against women and girls, enabling girls to access at least 12 years of quality education, empowering women economically, protecting women and girls in conflict and crisis, and promoting sexual and reproductive health rights. We can work together to achieve the sustainable development goals and true equal rights. That is the right thing to do, and it is the smart thing to do. The UK wants to broaden and deepen such partnerships. If organizations such as the DFIs, the World Bank, bilateral donors, NGOs and women's movements can collaborate and share resources and best practice, they will have a far greater impact. And this means creating new alliances for challenge and change. Every moment and in every place, we need to do all we can to uphold the rights of women and girls. It is their right to be safe, to have a choice, to organize. And this means reversing the shrinkage in the civic space by supporting women's rights organizations and movements. Women, especially those of us who already have a voice, must use our combined power to change and track progress. And we need more men to help. You've heard of MAGA, we'll now meet MAGA. Men as Change Agents, a program from the UK Women's Business Council, which sees male CEOs demonstrating leadership in this area. MAGA's dynamic membership mean know that you don't have to be a victim of injustice to want to fight it. Lincoln wasn't a slave, JFK had his civil rights, Melinda and Bill Gates have never been denied basic services, yet they all stepped up because others did not have what they enjoyed because it was both the right and the smart thing to do. This agenda needs men to support it and it needs America. Without American leadership, the life chances of women and girls around the world are diminished. Without American leadership, the life chances of humanity itself are diminished. Our partnership is fundamental on this issue. It is not sufficient, but it is necessary. And so on International Women's Day, I urge both our great nations, the bastions of liberty, not to retreat but to recommit themselves to this agenda. The lessons of liberty are clear. Liberty is for all of us and its denial diminishes all of us. And that is our job, to protect and enable human potential. When we work together, we can achieve anything. As well as making this speech today, you will not be surprised to know I've had several meetings across town. And yesterday, I met with Ivanka Trump. And I gave her one of these, this necklace which has been made by a young woman who's being supported by a UK aid-funded project in Myanmar called Project Eden. The project helps women and girls trafficked into the sex trade or being sold as brides into China. And it works to help them recover from immense ordeals and often supports them through pregnancies resulting from rape into motherhood. And it gives them skills and a trade. And many of them chose to work in jewelry, manufacturing design. And she designed this, I don't know whether you can see this, but the motif is an arrow and there's a movement from dark to light. And to the girl that created it, it represented her personal journey, moving forward from despair to hope, from darkness to light. And I think it is a symbol that can also represent the fight for women's equality. I hope that in today's world, there is a lot more light than there has been in very great part due to the efforts of our two nations. But too many women in the UK, the US, and around the world still find themselves without. And we must move them through our leadership. Whether they find themselves in the dead of night or just the twilight, into the radiance they need to be all they can be. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being with us today and thank you for bringing that speech, that heart to all of us here in Washington. And thank you for the continued partnership. It's clearly a critical part of how we need to move forward. I wanted to pick up on the National Action Plan for Women, Peace and Security. We're looking at 2020, which will be the 20th anniversary of when the UN, for the first time, introduced the Women, Peace and Security. And you mentioned in your comments that the UK has now put together your action plan and your strategy. And so we also, a year and a half ago, 18 months ago, the US just put our National Action Plan into legislation with the leadership of Senator Jean Shaheen. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about what's in your plan and in particular how you see that driving forward this focus on addressing gender and equality in places of conflict and violence. Well, thank you. I think that we're always struck by the synergies between what we're doing and I think the work that you're doing is so important and will help us dramatically going forward. We have, for the first time, brought together the work of three key departments in this area. So our Foreign Office, our Department for Defense and my department, DFID. And we're focused on seven countries in particular, but we're really trying to embed everything that we do and looking at it through this lens and also measure and gather evidence, which is absolutely critical, not least in us deciding what we are going to do next, but also in convincing other people that this is the right way to invest. And it's pretty comprehensive. It affects literally everything we do from our diplomacy to ensuring that our humanitarian efforts are really looking at things through this lens. It's affecting how we train our people in each of those areas. So it's a pretty profound piece of work. We also, I have just started really looking and measuring what we're spending against this agenda as well. Is this the 50%? Well, so we have always stated that we will spend 50% of our budget in fragile and conflict-affected states and DFID has been very good in particular at making sure that what we're doing with odor money is very, very focused on extreme poverty. And we obviously have our 0.7 commitment, GNI, and we don't mark our own homework as to what that's doing. So we think that's very important. But I think in particular, when we're looking at violence against women and girls and preventing sexual violence as well, this is quite often an add-on, I think historically. We've tended to do that. Whereas now it's absolutely front and center of what we're doing and we want to ensure that what was spending on it is what's required. So we had a chance to talk a little bit before we came on stage about the task force on extremism in fragile states that US Institute of Peace hosted a task force that was mandated by Congress. We just released our final report on Capitol Hill last week. And it really is about how do you work across development, security, diplomacy, intelligence for a common goal and agenda. So it sounds like the UK has already moved in that direction. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about how that process worked in the UK. That's something that has been picked up in both House and Senate legislation here in Washington, bills that we think and hope are going to drop today or soon. And it also in the report calls for international partnership and partnership with fragile states. So you are already well on that journey. How did you get that alignment across security, development, and diplomacy? What can we learn on this side and how do you see that UK-US partnership really being able to move forward with this approach on this agenda? Well, I think this is really important. And when I meet my opposite numbers, they're very jealous about where I sit in government because as well as running an amazing department and obviously having the dual role I'm Minister for Women as well. That happened by accident. That wasn't planned, but it's worked out very well. I'm a cabinet member. I have a seat on the National Security Council. And if you look at our fusion strategy, the central hexagon is development. So we are absolutely plugged into the one HMG operation about what are we doing with particular countries and how we're really using development to be absolutely plugged into what is in our national interest but what we think or so long term is going to be in everyone's interest. So that is incredibly helpful. It's incredibly powerful, I think. And I think this is not a common situation amongst my opposite numbers. We have recently really been refreshing what we have been doing with our aid budget, playing it back into looking at our national interests. So we've just undertaken a massive exercise in doing that, looking at what we're doing and where we're doing it. We're just about to go into a spending review in the UK and we wanted to make sure that we were absolutely in the right place in this. And although I am responsible for spending our aid budget, we actually have other government departments take the lead on some of that spending to leave in their expertise, but we're trying to get greater coherence across any department that's spending odor money. And it's always coming back to our national security priorities. And I think we have a great record of working long-term and trying to deal with the causes of problems or trying to prevent situations before they kick off. So I think it's been a very useful exercise and I think in the future, you're going to see a greater focus on trying to prevent conflict and greater programming and greater tools in our toolbox to actually help support conflict-affected areas and trying to turn those around more quickly. You know, at its heart, the Task Force Report on Extremism in Fragile States is fundamentally a preventive strategy. It's about how do we stop being in just a reactive mode and get ahead of it. How were you able to muster the evidence to make that case because the prevention case is always really hard to make. Was that a difficult conversation? People jump on board with that approach? I think we, one of the challenges that we have is to really try and explain what we do in development to the taxpayer who's paying for it. So one of the great ironies is that actually some of the most popular things that we do are the emergency humanitarian situation. Very tangible. Exactly. People see awful images on television. They want us to go and do something about it. And the British public are very generous. In the wake of the Rohingya crisis in six weeks, they donated a 30 million pounds. So they're very compassionate. But it's not until you can kind of get into having a detailed conversation with them, which you obviously can't do, that you can really explain to them why working upstream is actually a good idea. I think that there are ways of explaining this, the migration crisis that has hit Europe. That is one way that we can really explain why working upstream by creating jobs and livelihoods is a good idea. One of the key themes that I keep coming back to, whether it's in Asia, whether it's in Africa, is really trying to create jobs and livelihoods for young men who may be returning fighters, or they may be vulnerable to being co-opted for terrorist activities, making sure that there's an offer there for them. So this is all work that we're doing, and we've been doing for a long time. But I think we want to really ensure that it's going to be doing the most, having the most effect. And there's some great leadership in many of the countries that we work with who are really focusing on those issues now. But I think it's one of the challenges for anyone working in development is to try and explain why this is a good idea. We've actually introduced a new comms initiative called Throwback Thursday, which is where we go back over previous programming that's not been initiated by me, but just demonstrating actually the difference that it made. That's one of our challenges as politicians that we have to make that case. Well, let's do a throwback Friday, but you had a very important, the UK hosted a very important conference in 2014 that really galvanized international attention and action on preventing sexual violence. It was the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative. And I know that USIP colleagues attended that. This has been a big focus area for us as well. Have you had a chance to see that bare fruit and continue that forward? Absolutely. And again, it's just embedding this in everything that we do with our work in education, safe schools programming, which can quite often be a catalyst to talking about that in the wider community. So yes, it can have an impact. And I mean, it is an area where if you can try and prevent the very things that perpetuate conflict and trauma in societies, this is one of the best investments that we can make. There are clearly calls for Angelina Jolie has made all sorts of appeals to get development bodies to commit a percentage to this. We monitor that, but what we're interested in doing is making sure that every opportunity we have, this is absolutely embedded in the work that we do. And my colleagues across government are very heavily involved. Lord Armed in particular in the Foreign Office, who's going to be at CSW next week, has been making great strides on this agenda. So we just got to keep going and we've got to share the evidence and encourage others that this is well worth doing. So as the only female reservist in parliament and having been the first and only women's minister in defense, how do you think that's affected your ability to understand and articulate the relationship of the development and security agenda? You know, it is the, as you said in your speech, women face some of the gravest dangers. They bear the burden in conflict environments. Absolutely, I mean, I think this is a case that isn't often made. And quite often, especially when we're going into budget rounds or spending rounds, everyone is, departments tend to be in competition with each other. No, not here. But I mean, I think there've been some great advocates for the connections and actually that if you don't spend in one area, you're just going to end up piling more costs into another. We have one of our, actually he's retired now from the Navy, but there was a thing called the Tarant Curve, which was designed by, was Rear Admiral Tarant. And it shows actually what is the most effective area of government spending across the whole piece from diplomacy and capacity building right through into, at the end of the spectrum intervention. And unsurprisingly, it's the earlier you can sort stuff out, the more, excuse me, the more effective it is for your taxpayers. So I think that in the, in development, we need to be looking at the things that are really going to make a difference to that. I've been a big advocate, and actually one of the first trips I did in post was here to look at how the military work very closely with development in terms of reconstruction and civilian military collaboration. I'm keen that we do more of that in the UK and have been exploring actually how we can make better use of our budgets together to make sure that we've got the right kit and the right platforms to be able to deliver things, still within the rules of voter spending. But I think that we do work well together. And I think both particularly defense and development, DFID, we're technical departments and there's just huge crossover and complement, even actually down to personnel. So the number of people who are working in the humanitarian space who are reservists is quite staggering. We did a bit of a map of this in the UK. So you're just back from Burma, Bangladesh, Pakistan, all countries where women in differing ways have experienced significant challenges. Of course Burma and Bangladesh has had the terrible tragedy of the Rohingya and huge amounts of insecurity. Tell us a little bit about what did you see there and how you see some of this agenda being able to play out in those kinds of environments. I think one of the ways that you can add value to your department as a Secretary of State is to spot the themes that run across some of these nations. DFID is an amazing organization and I don't know how long it will have at its helm but where I can add value is not to interfere in its education programs. It's to join the dots and create that situational awareness. And just to give you a theme that runs across those three countries which was so evident in my visit in Burma, women who are being trafficked, women who are experiencing violence, in order to protect those individuals or to actually, once you've identified what's happened to them, facilitate their rescue, you have to get a member of their family to phone police. You can't report it yourself. And the capacity in local police forces to really be helpful to this agenda is very low. In Bangladesh, again, we're doing amazing work there supporting the development of law enforcement, forensics, all of those things. But things that we know from our own nation that need to be in place, which is female officers that women feel comfortable about reporting stuff to, ways of collecting forensic evidence without someone having to make a decision whether they want to prosecute, all of those things are absent. And in Pakistan, just again, the number of women involved in law enforcement and the police services. So again, massive theme, how do we get more women into these services? If we do, all sorts of things will fall into place. So I think it's those sorts of things and the previous example I gave of returning fighters, those themes, that's where we need to be introducing new programming. So that's the sort of thing that we're thinking of at the moment. We spend a lot of time here at USIP thinking about and working on peace processes. We were very involved with enabling women, for example, to be a part of the Colombian negotiations. And we, of course, have the example right now of Afghanistan, where getting women's voices to that table will be critical. Is this an area that, and you mentioned, of course, in your remarks, the importance of having women involved, is this an area where DFID is involved and where do you see, especially working in partnership when we shared values, that the international community can really make progress on helping that happen? I think this is absolutely critical. And I mean, I haven't visited Afghanistan in my current role, but I have been there over many years, many, many times. And I think that something that we need to do, as well as programming and being encouraging on diplomatic channels for the right things to have, we need actually to keep our eyes on the ground as well. We need to really understand what is happening, what the threats are for people who are taking part in peace councils, whatever the forum is, to ensure that they are protected and also that it's known that we're looking out for them as well. I think that is incredibly important. On a wider level, we're looking at actually new programming, things that we have shied away from in the past as a department, but I think are really fundamental to peace building. So looking to do more work with faith organizations. We held an event at last year's UNGA, bringing together faith organizations to really learn from each other and to understand what works and how we can actually better support that. So the big theme in the department at the moment is to broaden who we work with. We have a new initiative which we're going to unveil in a few weeks time called Great for Partnerships. You may have seen the great British brand that we roll out everywhere on trade fairs. Well, we're looking to really increase the number of partnerships that we're doing, not necessarily funding things, but being a catalyst to people being able to be brought together and doing more of this. And I think as well, the NGOs that we work with and that are world-class, particularly organizations like Halo and the Mine Action Group and those sorts of outfits are looking to develop their own programming. So instead of just, I say just, cleaning up after conflict, that they're going into actually conflict zones, stripping out weapons and doing things that are going to help de-escalate a situation or the ability of groups to intimidate people. But I think we need to get, and again it might be my defense background, but pretty operational on this. And we do in the department each week, we're looking at territories and what's happening in them. So you mentioned in your speech, and I think all of us have this as an awareness that there has been rollback in civil society space. There has been an uptick in some of these conflicts and it particularly has an impact on women. So when you've outlined a number of really critical initiatives that UK is undertaking, especially on the partnership front, do you see, are you hopeful that that will enable us to address some of these very concerning rollbacks and shrinking of civil society space? Are there other things that we should be thinking about and doing together? I think there are and I think it's, first of all, it's about the big picture of political stuff. I think that we have to keep this as a priority on the international community's agenda. I think that at every opportunity we have, whether it's summit communiques, whether it's high level meetings, we have to be ensuring that women's rights are absolutely at the top of that list and that human rights are at the top of that list. And there can't be, I'm a politician, we have our own domestic challenges back in the UK on a lot of sensitive issues. But we can't shy away from the fact that if we don't uphold human rights and women's rights, what's the point in half of the stuff we're trying to get done? So I think that's the first thing, political commitment to this agenda. And my clear message from my visit here is we need America to be part of that. And without American leadership on this issue, we will be in a much poorer place. But I also think it's the very technical bureaucratic stuff as well. Our programming, sure, but also other things that we can do to help. People like human rights defenders, for example. So I could bore you for hours about how visas and all sorts of things work. We need to ensure that those services that our governments are providing really recognise who is a human rights defender, who needs our help, whose life's work is about to be messed up for the fact that they're gonna have to wait a month to be able to get to a place of safety. So I think there is more we can do and some of it's very dry like that. But these people really need our support and differed certainly along with the whole of government and particularly under the leadership of our new foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt. We absolutely want to lean in on this because these are the people in the front line of this and they need our support and help. So we just have a couple of minutes left. Final question, is there something you're, what are you most optimistic about? As you look ahead, we've got this agenda, a lot of progress, a lot of challenges ahead. What are you most optimistic about in terms of where you think we might be able to really get traction and meaningful progress? Well, I think we have an opportunity now with the, coming up to the last decade of delivering the sustainable development goals. And this should be focusing our minds because we're not on track. I mean, we've done a lot and it's always encouraging when you're faced with these challenges to look and see what you've done. But we are, I think at the moment, we're on nutrition, we're 80 years adrift. On education, we're 100 on poverty, we're 200 years adrift and we have 11 years left. So I think this is a moment where we really need to get real about what's required to deliver them. So a lot of the initiatives we're doing, I've mentioned the great for partnerships, we're doing a lot of work to actually design how we get the billions to trillions agenda. How do we actually get money that's required? The spending gap annually at the moment is 2.5 trillion US dollars. How do we close that gap? Because if we don't, we're not going to deliver the goals. So, but I think actually now others are coming to the table. Private sector is really leaning in. We have some amazing tools and technology that we know we've just got to get adopted faster to enable us to do these things. And we know what works. So it's really just a matter of will. And I think that we have to, you know, this is a tough area to work in. But there are really signs of optimism in parts of the world that we really thought there would never be. So we just got to keep going. But I think that what keeps me going is both the need to get the job done, but also the talents and drive of people that want to help. We can do this. So we need to get to it. And we'll get to it. I want to thank you for taking time out of a very busy schedule, both to come to the United States and certainly to come and join us here on International Women's Day at US Institute of Peace. Thank you for your call to action for the commitment to partnership and reminding us of how valuable and important it is to have the UK-US partnership and the joint commitment to these core values and these core rights. I think we all appreciate that and are just delighted that you were able to join us here. And please come back again at any time. We'd love to have you here and we'll continue to collectively measure progress as we move forward. Please join me in thanking Secretary Mordon for joining us. Thank you very much.