program. Now to kick off the show, obviously this is the biggest story that is trending on different media platforms as of yesterday when media was made aware of the notice of intention to cancel the society patriotic front by the registrar of society to give a bit of background. Allow me to go through this notice that was sent to the patriotic front. Notice of intention to cancel society patriotic front reference is made to the above captioned matter. Our letter dated 21st March 2023 and your response dated 14th April 2023.  As you may be aware, it is a legal requirement under section 2 of the Society's Act Cup 119 of the laws of Zambia for every society to have a minimum of 10 office bearers. While this is a legal requirement, your party has only presented my office with three bearers since the year 2021. You may also be aware that my office wrote a letter dated 21st March 2023 to yourselves addressed to the Secretary-General, to the Secretary-General to avail a full and complete list of office bearers in accordance with section 19, subsection 1b, where you were given 21 days to comply with the saved order, which order you have failed to comply with. Now in light of the above, you are hereby notified in accordance with section 13, subsection 3 of the Society's Act Cup 119 of the laws of Zambia of my intention to deragest your party. You are advised upon receipt of this notice to make representations within seven days to show cause why your party should not be cancelled in accordance with section 13, subsection 2c of the aforementioned Act. Kindly acknowledge set receipt of this letter by signing and dating the attached copy attached here too. So signed Chief Registrar of Society. Last time D-Way, Mende. This is the notice that you received as a party yesterday. What do you make of this? I think we want to hear from you first before obviously we get into the details. Where is this coming from? What is the foundation of where this is built on? Thank you. Let me start by saying, Malice always runs very fast. The Gospel of Jesus Christ took a long time to be accepted by people. But Malicious information always takes prominence.  There is nothing to worry about. And what I'd like members of the public to bear in mind is that how could it have been that the Chief Registrar of Society's accepted returns that only had three names when the provisions of the law had that they must always be ten? What was it that caused the Registrar in the first place to accept an application only with three of his bearers? Therein lies the Malice. And I'd like to just assure the Zambian people that this Malice will be addressed as quickly as possible. So there is no need to worry whatsoever. There is no cause for panic. Can everybody just rest peacefully knowing that there is nothing like registering the patriotic front? Because the patriotic front has been abiding by the provisions of the law. And I want to just assure everybody that we have not in any way committed any offense to cause the Registration of the patriotic front. Well, the Registrar of Society in this notice of intention to cancel the patriotic front indicated that they did right to the party to a very full list of office bearers, minimum ten as required by law, which the law has been quoted. Did you respond to that later? Yes. There's been lots of correspondence between the Registrar of Societies and the patriotic front. And this is the reason I'm saying this is just a storm in a ticker and it should not cause any worry whatsoever to anybody. Everything is in order and within no time the Registrar herself will have to pronounce that the patriotic front is in keeping with the provisions of the law. So in the response that obviously that that you wrote to the Registrar of Societies, did you also list the names of the ten office bearers? The very first submission we made had all the ten names as is required by law. The Registrar wouldn't have accepted our application if it only had three names because the law says there must be ten. And how could we have gone there and said Registrar we're coming with three names and we'll come with four tomorrow and we'll come with six next week. We couldn't have done that. Our initial submission and all the ten names. When was this done? The initial submission? 2021. 2021. Soon after the conference that we held at Molongwushi we made our submission with ten names. The 2021 that is two years ago. Yes. 2021. And the same names that you know exist on that later are still office bearers. They are still office bearers to date. They are still office bearers to date. I mean just think of it. The Registrar has the law in front of her and a person goes and says I'm coming to file names of office bearers for my society. The law says there must be ten but I'm filing three and the Registrar accepts and says yes you're filed and waits until two years later and says you only filed three names? No. That can't be. We filed our submission with ten names and this issue that she's coming up with and saying you only filed three names and so on is malicious. Totally malicious. But because she says she says she only has three names that you know patriotic fronters but submitted. I think she is the best one to come and explain to the citizens what she meant. She is the best one to explain that. For Clarit's sake. Let's run down the let's run through the names of the ten office bearers that were submitted at the Registrar of Societies. Edgar Chagwalungu is one. Samoe Mokopa is another. Emereen Kabanshi is the third. Steven Kampiongo is the fourth. Let me think. Sikazue is the fifth. Is Mr. Mokopa still active? He is an office bearer. Until we change, he's still an office bearer. Okay. Yes, there are ten names. I was under the impression that he resigned from the patriotic front. No, he did not resign from the patriotic front. He resigned as national chairman of the party but he's still an office bearer. Of the party. Until such a time that we go to the next conference. Alright, you've given me the five names. I've given you six names. Two, four, five. Five names. What are the other five names? I can't remember OFCAF or the names but I can assure you that there are ten names that were submitted. Ten names.  You can't remember the names of the office bearers of the party. I don't have the list with me. I don't have the list with me. But I'm telling you that there are ten names.  If you want, I can check my phone and I can give you all the ten names. I think for the sake of clarity, it will be important obviously, as before we proceed with the other matters for us to bestow this. I'm sure that before the end of the program I'll give you all the ten names. Okay. That is absolutely important. Alright, let's talk about the issue of electing the party leader, which is currently on ice, almost two years and still no sign of having a party president. What is going on there? If you can give us a background of what has delayed the patriotic front going to the conference. I'm sure you recall that we had set ourselves March as the date when to go to the conference, March 2023. Before we got into March, one of our members took the patriotic front to court questioning the legality of the current central committee. And because of that, we've had to wait until the matter is handled in court before we go to the next conference. So we're working on that and as soon as this matter is out of the way, we certainly will go into the conference to go and elect the next president of the party. Can you give us some form of projection on when you think? I can't because this is all dependent on how the matter is handled in court. And if you're following, you may recall that last week, the matter of the contempt was heard in Kitwa and the matter was adjourned to May. So I can't give you any indication. This will depend on how the courts handle the case. So if it goes until 2026, what happens then? If we're stopped by the court from making any progress with regard to electing the central committee or the next president, what do we do? We can't be in contempt. We can't. So our progress would depend on how quickly the court matter is resolved. So do you think if this court matter drags into next year and probably the other year, do you think this would affect the standing of the patriotic front as far as the politics are concerned in this country, the political fortunes of the patriotic front? Would that be affected? That is a highly debatable matter. There are some people who argue that the party will have a lot to benefit if we elect a president. There are also others who argue that the longer we take to elect the president, the better it is for the party. So it's a very debatable matter, highly debatable. But we ourselves already set ourselves the program that we're going to have an extraordinary conference to elect a successor to Edgar Chagualungu. Because as things stand, Edgar Chagualungu was given the mandate in 2021 to run this party until 2026. It just so happened that after the 2021 elections, President Edgar Chagualungu decided that he's going to step aside. And that's how he made me, Vice President, to act in his position. And this is what Miles Sampa is challenging, that I'm illegally acting as president. What does the patriotic front constitution say as regards the appointment of the Vice President and eventually obviously the acting president of the party in an event that the elected president decides to step aside? You see that again? What does the patriotic front constitution say as regards the appointment of a Vice President and rather the acting president in an event that the elected party president decides to become inactive? There are two positions that are provided for. One is that in the event that the president steps aside for whatever reason, then the Vice President steps in to act as president. In the event of death of the president, then the Secretary General takes over. Those are the two provisions in the constitution of the patriotic front. And in this particular case, when President Edgar Chagualungu decided to step aside, there was a Vice President who, in accordance with Article 61 of the constitution, had to step in and become acting president. Okay. So you were a Vice President because as far as I'm concerned, the Vice President was Madame Inongue Wina? No. After the elections of 2021, Madame Inongue Wina resigned as Vice President of the party. And in that position, I was appointed as member of the Central Committee appointed to take over the position of Vice President. Also remember that at that same time, Secretary General Muila also tendered a resignation together with Chairman Mukupa. Chairman Mukupa resigned, Secretary General Muila resigned, and President Edgar Inongue said he was going to step aside. And there was no other person who could have acted as President except the Vice President. That is the same Mr. Mukupa who also appears on the list of office bearers for the political party. So he resigned his position in the party and not necessarily resigning from the political party. He did not resign from the political party. He resigned his position as chairman. And at the registrar of societies, the office bearers are not designated officers at all. They are just office bearers, and there are 10 of them that are listed as office bearers. What is the function of the 10 office bearers? I'm interested in getting this matter out of the way for us to obviously progress with this interview. What is the purpose, the core function of the 10 office bearers? Do they actively participate in the meetings that the party has, the direction that the party... Those are basically trustees of the party, of the society. They are trustees of the society. They do not necessarily have to be chairman and secretary. And no, those are the trustees, the officials of the party, the officials of the society, whom the registrar of societies would hold accountable in the event that the party or the society is not abiding by the law that establishes them. So they are not necessarily treasurer and chairman. No, they are just office bearers. All right. Let's move on to the other matter. We are still obviously with the patriotic front politics. What are the fortunes of the patriotic front? Because we've noticed obviously from the time that the patriotic front lost the 2021 elections, there have been quite a number of the by-elections that have been held at parliamentary and also at what level. And the patriotic front has lost majority of these by-elections. In some cases coming out third to afraid members, socialists, that socialist party. Would you say the political fortunes of the patriotic front are dwindling? Having been in the opposition from 2001 and forming government in 2011 and having been in government from 2011 to 2021 and going back into the opposition gives us a vast experience in understanding the politics of this country. And we ourselves when we're in the ruling party, I'm sure you recall, that we were winning all by-elections, winning almost all by-elections because we had the power of incumbency. And it doesn't bother us that much that we're not winning all these seats, that the ruling party is winning all these seats. Also bearing in mind the environment in which these by-elections are being held, the environment that took place in Chilabombo, for instance, and you lose that seat. I don't think that gives you any goose pimples at all. It shouldn't even worry you because you know that the environment wasn't suitable. The environment wasn't good enough for any opposition political party to win. What happened in Serenje is a case in point. How do you expect an opposition political party to win an election when the election campaigns are mad with violence, with vote buying, with intimidation? So we're not worried at all. What is giving us confidence is the reception we're receiving from the people. Whereas people are calling us names and saying we're a dead party. When we go into these election areas, what is the response of the people? It's overwhelming. And the people themselves are actually shocked. So if the response of the people when you go into these elections are overwhelming, why is that not translating on the ballot? How do you expect people to go and vote when they're being intimidated, they're being beaten? You heard what happened in Chilabombo. The night before voting, people are being scared with gunshots. People are being told they were going to be beaten when they are seen on the queues. In a ward where there are 1,400 voters, they know each other. They know this is PF. They know this is this political party and if they are threatened with beatings, what do you expect? When you go and vote and all your polling agents are removed forcefully from the polling station, how do you expect your vote to be protected? How? And if you lose, would you cry? No. Have all these grievances been, you know, as the Electoral Commission of Zambia have been made aware of all these grievances? Yes. As the party's Petroleum Front has written officially to the Electoral Commission of Zambia. Even before the elections in Chilabombo, our officials in Chilabombo were caused for the Electoral Commission of Zambia to hold a meeting where the Electoral Commission of Zambia actually condemned the violence. So yes, the Electoral Commission of Zambia is aware. We've made all these complaints. We've put it on record and we put it on record for the sake of the record. So you are attributing these losses in the by-elections that have been held in the recent past or just from the time that, you know, the UPND took over office or took over government to intimidation and violence. So basically what you are telling us is the playing field has not been leveled. It has not been leveled at all. And I'm sure that you in the media have been following this. We've been complaining about this in all the by-elections that we've held ever since 2021. We've complained. You heard about my complaint about Guembe, where our people who are going to file in nominations were actually stopped at the entrance of the offices to go and file in nominations. How do you expect a party to win when it doesn't have candidates because another political party has stopped its candidates from filing in nominations? How? Can you tell me that anyone in his right frame of mind would celebrate Kabushi? That they won Kabushi? They won Quacha? How? When our candidates were bad from taking part in the elections, anyone in his right frame of mind wouldn't celebrate. No, anyone in his right frame of mind would say, we've lost because we did not lose. Look at what happened in Los Angasi. Our candidate was stopped from filing nominations. On the day of filing nominations, he was stopped. And you say, we lost? No, we did not lose. We did not lose. Well, the certain, obviously, some people obviously have been saying you are having, they're giving you the test of your own medicine. You did the same thing to the UPND when they were in opposition. You were in government. Loss of violence, of course, uncontrolled toxic behavior by PF cadres who literally terrorized potential voters that led to the Petroleum Front winning majority of the by-elections that comes to NCE and world level.  You laid by example, so it's going to take time for the country to move away from the seed that you planted, which is germinated. And you are also, unfortunately, standing under that tree and the fruits are falling on your heads. That is a very sickening argument. When I hear people say that, I feel ridiculous because it's a very sickening argument. Society expects and is expected to develop. If indeed there were any atrocities that were being committed in the UNIP days, would you therefore justify the atrocities committed by the successor government simply because those atrocities were taking place in the previous government? No. That is a very sickening argument. Society has to progress. When the people said we're voting out PF, and if they argue that we're voting them out on the basis of caderism, would that also justify that the next government should also become use caderism? No.  And you do not compare evil to evil. You don't.  Violence is violence. Electro-Mal practices are electro-Mal practices. And if indeed the PF, when in government, was committing electro-Mal practices, did they go to court? Did they petition these electro-Mal practices? You're complaining about the same things. Are you going to court? Are you going to petition these Mal practices? We went to court. You know that yourself. We went to court over the Lusangazi matter. We went to court over the Kawishi Quacha matter. We have complained over the Guembe matter. We have complained over the Serenji matter. We have gone to the ECZ over the Jilabombwe matter. We've gone everywhere because we want to cleanse society. We want to make sure we leave society better than we found it. All right. Now, obviously we did talk about the issue of the conference that would eventually elect the party leadership. The matter is in court. What happens with the patriotic front now, between now and the time that the court clears you now to go ahead with your conference? What happens now? Because a lot of people have been complaining, especially sympathizers of the patriotic front, saying the reason the party seems to be disjointed is the fact that we do not have a head at an elected leader at the helm. What is your take on that? What happens now, between now and the time that obviously the court processes are exhausted? How is the party functioning ever since Edgar Tagualungu stepped aside? How is the party functioning? Because the party is running. We have members of parliament. They are functioning in parliament. We have council chairpersons. They are functioning. We have councilors. They are functioning. They have been by-elections. We are taking part. We are having meetings. We are having people speaking on all sorts of platforms. We are visiting our structures. What is not functioning? Probably they are alluding that to the fact that the majority of the by-elections that have been held from the time that the P.F. lost power, your party has lost majority. I have explained to you the reasons why we have been losing these by-elections. And I don't think in my explanation, I said it's because we lack leadership. I didn't say that. And I don't think it's true that we lack leadership. If you told me that, look, you're not paying salaries. You're not paying your rentals. You're not paying your electricity bills. You're telling me you're not having meetings. Yes, then you can say the party is ground to a halt. But the party is functioning. How is it functioning? We're holding central committee meetings. We're making decisions. Are we not being represented when matters come up in court? The registrar now wrote and I told you we are handling that matter. If there was no leadership, would we be handling these matters? No. The loss of by-elections cannot be attributed to the lack of leadership. That is far-fetched. That is terribly far-fetched. Tell me what difference will it make for you to go to a conference and elect a person and say, we've elected this person. They are now president of the party. Is it that person who will go campaigning countrywide? No. It is not that person who will go campaigning countrywide. Is it that person who's going to stop all the atrocities that are being committed? All the electoral irregularities? Is it that one person who will stop it? No. No. So it is not true. And to ask me what happened between now and then, the party will continue to function. And it is that same leadership that you're saying there's no leadership that is given the mandate to organize that conference. Do you see how ironic what this whole discussion is? There is no leadership but arrange a conference. Who's going to arrange the conference if there's no leadership? There is a leadership that is holding the fort. The leadership that is going to move this party to the conference. There is a leadership. There is no leadership vacuum in the patriotic front. There is none. Even after my, after Miles went to court and got the injunction restraining me from being referred to as acting president and restraining Onri Bocilango from being referred to as acting secretary general. There is no leadership vacuum because I continue to exercise my function, my constitutional function as vice president of the party. And there is no other office above the vice president that is being occupied for the time being. So the whole decision making process lies on me as vice president. And the administration of the party lies in the deputy secretary general in the name of honorable Nixon Chilangua. Whether he's called acting secretary general or not is inconsequential. Whether I'm called acting president it's of no consequence. I am functioning as vice president and managing the party in that position. All right. There's another issue obviously that has you know taken different media platforms by by storm. There have been a sessions from you know certain you know sectors who are peddling the story or narrative that President Ed Galungu is plotting a return to active politics and possibly will be the presidential candidate for the patriotic front in the next general elections 2026. Is there any truth to that? I've had many discussions with President Ed Galungu and I'm sure that he has been in public domain himself. I remember a screaming headline in one of the newspapers saying I have no energy for presidency. He said that himself and he's quoted. So all I can say is what I've been hearing from him what I've been reading about him over this matter is that he is not available. Full stop. All right. And the ones who are peddling the story. I saw a story a few days ago. President Ed Galungu broke his reconciliation between Emeritus Archbishop Pumbundu and the current Archbishop Alec Banda in a bid for his political comeback. How they brought him that? I don't know. This is the speculation being created by people who want to create anxiety in society. What is wrong with President Ed Galungu taking the stand that he took to bring two brothers together? Is there anything political about it? No. What does the P.F. Constitution say about the elected party president stepping aside and completely detaching from the P.F. was obviously on the list of office bearers. He still exists as party president. What does the Constitution of the patriotic front say about an individual like President Ed Galungu detaching himself completely from the patriotic front? He still has to hand over to the next elected president. That's the position. In the patriotic front, a president can't just abdicate and say, I've stopped. I'm going away. No. He is bound by the Constitution to hold on to the instruments of power and hand them over to the person who is duly elected. We are discussing stead of affairs of the patriotic front. And much later, obviously, we'll look at matters to do with the state of affairs in the nation, stead of the economy. We'll talk about that. And much later, in the next 15 minutes, to be precise, we'll open the phone lines for you to come through. And in a way, in with your question or contribution, you'll be calling us on 09750, rather 09797, 977860. That is 09797, 977860. So that is the line that you'll be using to come through and weigh in with your opinion or the question on the matters that we are discussing. All right. Let's move on to the other issues. Let's move on to the other issues. Are we going to see a united patriotic front going forward? Because already, you have one of your top flight members, member of the Central Committee, dragging the party to the court. In the recent past, a few weeks, or is it a few months back, there was an audio of two presidential, aspiring presidential candidates of the patriotic front, engaging in a conversation that indicated that they were not comfortable with people who came from different political parties vying for party president. This gives an indication that there's a potential split that is coming in an event that obviously one of the members who these two heavyweights of the party are not comfortable with is elected as president. Are we going to see a united patriotic front beyond the national conference? You know that elections are always, especially competitive elections, are always divisive. Any kind of election is divisive. Those who win are happy. Those who lose are unhappy. And this is the reason why the preparation for the conference is very important. It is actually more important than the conference itself. This is the reason why we had to take time to agree. How are we going to hold the conference so that we emerge stronger? Because by nature elections create friction. And when you tell me about the statements that are being made by members and so on and so forth, those are opinions that they're expressing as individuals. And these are members with huge following within the political party. So in an event, this is why I asked you a question, that in an event that, say for example, because you know obviously what that audience was saying is that these two members are not comfortable with a person that is coming from the MMD taking over the party president. Now in an event that that particular person coming from the MMD takes over the party presidency, and these two individuals are not comfortable with that person obviously. They'll be a split. And you know what they say.  So these two individuals do have huge following within the political party. So I was explaining to you that the processes leading to the conference are even more important than the conference itself. What does that mean? It means that as you are going towards the conference and you're hearing comments such as those, you want to manage them. You want to manage these different opinions. Have you managed these different opinions? I've told you there's a leadership in place and I am that leader. And whenever I hear things like that, I am quick to bring people together to say, where are we going with this? Is this helping us build? Or has it got a risk of breaking us? So it brings me back to my question. Are we seeing a united patriotic front beyond the national conference? We're doing everything humanly possible to make sure that we emerge from the conference more united than we have ever been. That is our aim. All right. For the benefit of time, let's look at the state of the economy. Would you say that the United Party for National Development, UP, and its government, government's economic restructuring and recovery is working for this country? Unfortunately not. We were told that within a few months of forming government, they had struck a deal with the IMF and because of that deal, the economy would be back on the upswing. It is now two years later that IMF deal has not been broken yet. We were told that the PF government was borrowing recklessly within a short time. We have seen that they are borrowing even more. We were told that the PF was mismanaging the economy and that's the reason why the dollar was 17, 18, 20 kwacha. They tried to bring it down. What has happened? It has created a crisis in the economy. When you have a stable exchange rate, people can plan. As things are now, businesses can't plan because the kwacha is going up and down like a yoyo. Today it's 15 kwacha. The next day it's 17 kwacha. The next few days it becomes 15 kwacha. People can't plan. The economy can't be said to be stable. But I was pretty much the same instead of affairs when you were in government. Not at all. Not at all. You didn't see the kwacha fluctuating on a daily basis like it's doing now. No. You didn't see fuel prices increasing and decreasing every month. No. At least we're giving Zambians and business people a three months planning period. Not a monthly planning period. No. Look at shops go to East Park Mall. Even at a month and go to East Park Mall and see if people are spending. All suppliers of goods and services to this government have not been paid their money. Because of that a lot of people have become jobless because a lot of small enterprises have had to close down. Which economy are you talking about? They're allowing minds to externalize all profits. They're giving them tax incentives. Tax breaks. And yet overtaxing the small players.  The last time we had minimum riots in Zambia was before 1991. Ever since then we've noted food riots. And now you're hearing people stoning trucks, truckloads of minimum. Why? Because the economy is not performing. And that's where I was taking the conversation actually. The Food Reserve Agency announced the opening of the 2023-2024 crop marketing season and the purchase of designated agricultural commodities. Now the exercise will run from 1st of May that is next month 2023 to the 31st of October this year. Now the Gazette notice issue doesn't have the set flow price and of concern. The opening of the crop marketing season has come three months earlier. Now the Food Reserve Agency traditionally opens the marketing season in July and the exercise runs to September, October of the year. Why do you think the FRO year opened the marketing season early? Because they sold the maize that was supposed to be strategic reserve. Simple. They were forced. They were told. I'm sure you remember the president had an index saying how can you hold on to this maize? And yet the people supplied it have not been paid. Sell the maize to pay the farmers. Why? Because there is no understanding of how strategic reserves are financed. Strategic reserves of any nature whether food or oil are not financed by FRA or the oil marketing companies. No. They are financed by Treasury. But for him he says sell the maize that is strategic reserve to pay the farmers. This is the crisis he has created. And you are right to buy maize now in April when the moisture content of maize is above 12.5%. How they store it? We don't have sufficient capacity in Zambia to dry to artificially dry maize. We don't have. So even if that maize is bought and taken to millers, millers won't mill it because the moisture content is too high. This is all being done because of desperation. They have created this desperate environment. So what you are telling us is that we should dress ourselves for the food crisis? There is bound to be a very big food crisis, I can tell you. I can assure you. They have not set the floor price now because they know that if they set the floor price, what will happen? A lot of the farmers will not even sell the maize. You heard Kenyan saying they are willing to come and pay 300 kwacha for a bag of 50 kg maize from Zambia. And you expect that the farmer will say, yes, because of your misplanning Mr. Againde, we are willing to sell our maize to you at 100 kwacha, 120 kwacha like last year? No way. But don't you think it will also be reckless for government to allow people to come and buy maize from this country? That's the exportation of maize. Don't you think, obviously, government will move in with an SI to stop the exportation of maize, to ensure that farmers sell to the food reserve agency? For food security's sake. Do you remember the minister responsible for food security going to parliament and vowing? He vowed, never ever again are we going to stop the export of maize. Didn't you hear that? He said it himself. It wasn't us. It was him, representative of President Againde. And even President Againde himself are going to keep an open border policy. He exported maize, Boana, without collecting duty. When we're exporting maize, we're making sure that we don't export below the strategic reserve. When we handed over power, when Edgar Chagualung went and handed over the instruments of power to President Againde, he also handed over to him 1.5 million metric tons of maize in the FIRA silos, 1.5 million metric tons. The food reserve, the strategic reserve for Zambia is 500,000, but he handed over three times more in 2021. Because of our culture policies in 2022, we had another bumper harvest, 3 million metric tons. Zambia's consumption is 150, 160,000 metric tons a month. And the reason we came up with 500,000 metric tons is because we knew the lead time that is required to import maize from Brazil is three months. That's how we set 500,000 metric tons as the strategic reserve. And we put that strategic reserve just in case there is an agricultural calamity. The farmers don't produce, will have three months lead to import maize. We didn't say you can set it away and then go and import. No, that is strategic reserve which the country must have at any given time. But they recklessly sold all that maize and now there is no maize left. And they were saying there's enough maize to lead us up to the next season. If there is enough maize to lead us up to the next season, why have they told the Faray to buy maize which is not ready for grinding? Why? Because even in the village, women don't go and start grinding or pounding maize which has a high moisture content. No.


The first item of business this afternoon is time for reflection, and our time for reflection leader today is Mr Ron McLaren, chair of humanism in Scotland. Good afternoon. My thanks to the Presiding Officer, Willie Rennall, and all the members for the opportunity to prevent TFR today. I was going to say, and I hope that it's okay, that I haven't been fondled in the way that I was earlier on coming into Holyrood with the Frisking and so on. Very nice. You got it. My tribute is to you and the Parliament. In recent years, via my personal inclusion as a secular humanist contributor to four NHS-related initiatives and publications, in 2003, cross-party concerns about NHS cross-inflation inspired a scoping study, who in the biological garage cares for the non-religious. It brought secular whole-person approach to all faith in none, broadening the chaplain's role, testing their single faith allegiance and comfort of their spiritual homes. But spiritual care was born, transformational. NHS-allied professional silos were set aside, e.g. a non-religious patient seeking help, sorry but I'm not religious, brought neither am I from the spiritual care chaplain. Civigarb, no clerical code in sight, a secular NHS alive and well, the harmony project involving mainstream faith and beliefs. Where is the common ground? A secular approach, no one privileged, all eager to accept each other's right to be, reluctance to bridge foundational differences, so on what would we all agree? Unanimity emerged, the golden rule. Joe Cox was the epitome of secular inclusion, her words of unity more relevant now than ever before. Probably the best role model, the individual who inspired relationships into buttresses of inclusion, her words of unity more relevant. The individual who inspired those buttresses, everyone was a member, creed, race, colour, gender, etc. It didn't matter, all were treated as part of Joe's human family. In 24-7, no barriers to engagement, sadly brought to an untimely end that mindset of extreme political ideology, invade her outreach and in-reach, democratic rights viewed as evil. Belief in dialogue, secular vision was needed, focus on changing social society, a diversity mix of faith, belief and none, the importance of dialogue, understanding and acceptance. A wedding that I conducted at Ochtar Muhti in the nearby gaze of Sir Jimmy Chan's statue, everyone was from Muhti. Ochtar, cast aside, dismissed. An old Scots dictionary, Ochtar is the high ground above pig rearing. Scanning further, the game changer, Ocht, is a frustrated, oh yes.  Ocht your havern, a maw at it in the pub. Ocht yes, the acronym, in aviation, obstacle clearance height. In astrophysics, the orbit are common hardware. And it certainly dawned on me, Ocht are common humanity. A universal label, our single species given requisite fertility, members from opposite ends of the earth, procreation is assured. How common is that? It's undeniable. TFR, right now, is an all-inclusive mantra, affirms secular inclusivity for all and no privilege except by the democratic process. But sadly, secular is often misrepresented, wrongly tagged as aggressive posing a threat, to ensure superior moral monopoly is preserved, not at all. Its militancy is a myth, it's inclusive, it's secular. MSPs, Scotland needs you to go well for our common good. My hope, you become truly secular. Outcomes will get better and better and better. Ocht, thank you.


I'd like to wish Ford School friends and alum happy Ford School Spirit Day. Happy Ford School Spirit Day from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I want to wish everyone a happy Ford School Spirit Day. I'm so happy to celebrate Ford School Spirit Day with you. Happy Ford School Spirit Day. I'm wishing everyone a very happy Ford School Spirit Day. Happy Ford School Spirit Day here from Mexico, Aztec ruins. All the incredible places I've been able to study at in the last few years will always be the Ford School that will be like a second home to me. One thing I appreciate about being part of Ford School faculty and staff is working with an incredible group of students who are curious about world events and who are committed to making the world a much better place through policy. One thing that I most appreciate about being a Ford School alumni is that all the knowledge and experience that I get in at the school I'm using in my everyday work life. Best thing about being a Ford School alum is the network that you make along the way. I love Ford School Spirit Day. It's one of my favorite summer traditions. Under normal times I love hosting current students and alum here in Detroit to see the vibrant and creative community that we've developed over the years. What I appreciate most about being a Ford School alumni is the incredible network of alumni. They are just everywhere doing amazing things all over the world. It's an amazing school and I'm so happy to be associated with it. The skills that I learned from the writing classes to develop a policy memo for advancing the financial market in the country. I'll always treasure the incredible expertise, amazing connections and heartwarming stories from both my own professors and the Ford faculty at large. I will always remember the incredible policy talks with such prominent and pivotal speakers and decision makers. Whether it's studying for my first econ midterm with my classmates or listening to lectures and speakers at Wild Hall. My favorite experience as a Ford School student was just taking advantage of all the professional development opportunities that they offer. It's really incredible. I'm so proud of all that our alumni, students, faculty and staff have done in the last year and a half during this global pandemic to serve the public good. Just wanted to flag that the Ford School community is so supportive and it was so easy to transition into this grad life and that's something that I really appreciate about the climate of Ford School and the Ford School community. What we love most about the Ford School is life long friendship. Happy Ford School Spirit Day from Jerusalem and Go Blue. You know, very happy Ford School Spirit Day and Go Blue. I just want to wish you a happy Ford School Spirit Day and as always, Go Blue. Happy Spirit Day everyone. Take care. Go Blue. Go Blue. Happy Spirit Day again everyone and Go Blue. Happy Ford School Spirit Day everyone. Go Blue. Go Blue.  Enjoy the day and Go Blue. Naomi Goldberg and I'm a member of the MPP class of 2008 and I'm also the chair of the Ford School Alumni Board. On behalf of the Ford School Alumni Board, I'm thrilled to welcome you to the 11th annual Worldwide Ford School Spirit Day. It's great to see so many Fordies from around the world today and what a great video montage featuring some familiar faces from Wile and Lord Choll. I look forward to a lively conversation about COVID and the impact it's had on all of us on our work this year. We have a great panel featuring Ford School Alumni which will be followed by breakout sessions facilitated by alumni and students where you'll get a chance to catch up with familiar friends and meet new people. Thanks to Grace Evans, Courtney Sanders, and the Spirit Day Planning Committee of the Alumni Board and all the staff at the Ford School for their hard work in making today's panel happen. I am going to turn things over to Dean Michael Barr for a few introductory comments and then he will lead us into the panel. Go Blue. Thanks so much Naomi and welcome everybody. I'm Michael Barr, the John and Sanford Wile Dean of the Ford School of Public Policy and it is a great pleasure for me to welcome the Ford School community to this 11th annual Spirit Day event. Joining us today are alumni from all over the country and the world, current students, incoming students, some of our PPA junior summer institute students. And while we can't be together in person today, I'm so glad we're able to come together virtually and to discuss the important work that some of our distinguished alumni have been doing to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 on all of us from a health perspective and economic perspective, a justice perspective. I want to thank the Ford School Alumni Board for their leadership in creating this event and their hard work in putting it together. I also want to recognize President Ford. He was born 108 years ago yesterday and for many of us, he provides us with a model for how to lead in moments of crisis. We honor his legacy at the Ford School by being a community dedicated to public service and to the public good. For our conversation today, we'll be hearing from four distinguished Ford School alumni, Allie Berry, Stacy Dean, Portia Hempel and Alberto Rodriguez. Allie Berry is a 2021 MPP grad. He's currently an emergency preparedness specialist for Wayne County, Michigan, where he has been actively working to address and mitigate the effects of COVID-19 on Wayne County communities. Stacy Dean is a 1992 MPP grad. She was appointed by President Biden to serve as the Deputy Undersecretary for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services Department. She works on increasing nutrition assistance, as well as on tackling systemic racism and barriers to opportunity. Dr. Portia Hempel is a 2015 PhD graduate. She is currently a survey statistician at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. She is also the founder of Scientists for Social Progress, a national cross-collaborative platform and research consulting firm of scientists who develop solutions in the interest of public good. And finally, we have Alberto Rodriguez, who is a 1993 MPA grad. He also holds a PhD in Education Policy and Administration from U of M. Alberto is the Global Director for Strategy and Operations in Human Development at the World Bank. Over the last year, he has been responsible for providing leadership to the World Bank teams responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the largest global effort for vaccine financing and deployment. Before we dive into the discussion itself, a couple of quick notes about format. We're going to have some time at the end of the discussion today for audience questions. We've received some in advance already. If you would like to ask a question, please share it in the Zoom chat. We'll be collecting questions from the chat throughout the event. We hope you will also use the chat to engage in a conversation with fellow Ford School community members. Finally, after our discussion today, there will be a number of breakout sessions for you to join, where you can engage with your fellow Fordies. Please feel free to stay and mingle after the panel is over. And now we're going to turn to our wonderful panel. I'm just super excited to have this group with me, with all of us today. Really interesting panel bringing perspectives from different generations of MPP and PhD students. And I think what I'd like to do maybe is just start to give our audience a sense of the kind of leadership experiences you've been doing during this crisis itself. What issues you've been working on, how you've been advancing the public good through your work and the COVID crisis. And then we'll get into some more questions about management style and other leadership issues. So maybe if we could start, we'll just kind of go down the row and I'm not sure how other people are seeing you on my screen, but I've got Alberto up first. And maybe I'll ask Alberto to lead us off. What kinds of issues you've been dealing with during the pandemic? Obviously it's been front and center of your work. So I'd love for you to share a little of that with our wonderful audience. Well, thank you. Thank you, Dean Barr. And thank you for the invitation to this very interesting panel. You know, the pandemic has had a tremendous effect over our work. And because we are committed to support every country in the world in their development. And of course, this has been a tremendous setback in the development goals. Just in 2020, 100 million more people are expected to enter extreme poverty. As already entered extreme poverty. I'm talking 2020 and just that year as a result of the pandemic. In this year, up to this month, 23 million children have missed their basic vaccinations. And what's even worse, the school closures are expected to have an impact of $10 trillion in the losses of the affected children future income. What this tells you is that this is a pandemic that has affected everyone in every way. I'm not going into the data of, for example, the tremendous increase that we've seen in gender based violence as a result of people remaining at home. So what has the bank done? My team had to very quickly shift our gears of business as usual and move into an emergency response. We responded through very quick projects that supported the social protection systems in many countries, basically to allow countries to put money in the hands of families that needed to base for basic survival. This was particularly difficult because as you can imagine, in many economies, we have very high informality. So it was very hard to find registration and where people were in order to provide those resources. We provided a lot of money as well for different countries to build up their online education systems to get laptops in the hands of children. And of course, we also had a very quick response in the month of May of last year to provide PPE for in many countries resources so that countries could actually buy the basics from masks to gel to ventilators. And all of this happened very quickly. Then towards the end of the year, we moved into financing vaccines. As soon as we saw the vaccines coming up, we put out a facility that would allow countries to purchase vaccines very quickly. But we face a lot of difficulties. The availability of vaccines has been a very, very difficult issue. Developed countries, in a sense, cornered the market, not allowing vaccines to arrive to the poorest countries. We've been focusing on working with COVAX, with the African Union, and others to negotiate directly vaccines with different suppliers. My team has been in charge of trying to match the demand with the supply of vaccines on one hand. And on the other hand, trying to help countries prepare for deployment. Countries are weak in deployment. They may not have the cold chain. They may have not the vaccinators trained. They do not have a strategy to fight hesitancy, vaccine hesitancy. These are all challenges that we've had to face over the last year and a half. And I want to stop there because I know there'll be a lot of questions, but we've essentially spent $150 billion supporting countries over the last 15 months in all of this very ample set of interventions to try to get this pandemic over. Right now, we're not there. We have two pandemics. We have what's going on in the developing world, which is still very low vaccination. You may know that less than 1% of the habitants of low-income countries are vaccinated, while about 50% of the habitants of high-income countries are vaccinated. We have two worlds, unfortunately, in this pandemic. So we still have a lot of work to do. It's been very demanding. It's been fun. It's been rewarding. And it's been very stressful because the technical and political challenges around this have been quite demanding for us. And I'm going to stop there, Michael, in case to give space to others to share their experiences as well. Thank you, Alberto. A fascinating set of issues you're tackling and such an urgent time for the globe. We just thank you and I'll thank all of our other panelists for your service during this critical time. Let me ask Stacey Dean to go next. And Stacey landed in her job in the middle of the pandemic right at the beginning of the administration.  I'm wondering how you did that and what you've been working on since you started. You're muted, Stacey. Oh, I think somebody needs to make Stacey. I was like, you need to unmute me. Hi, Dean Barb. Very good to see you. And hello to everyone. It's wonderful to see some old professors and old colleagues and classmates. Yes, I started at 1201 on January 20th and joined a team of Biden appointees at USDA, not having sure who they were. There were about, I can't remember how many of us there were, maybe 20 of us. And the framework that Alberto raised, I think was exactly the same, although played out differently, but it was basically the same issue in this country, right? We had two stories of COVID in terms of the economic impact. The president took office with the, sorry, COVID was raging in terms of its health impacts. But the economy was very much, I wouldn't say shut down, but was experiencing a downturn as a result of all of the measures that we were taking to respond to the pandemic. And the way that we experienced that was very much informed by our income or race and ethnicity heading into the pandemic. It just, it was just felt very differently. So when the president took office, we had 29 million adults and 12 million children living in households who said the week prior they couldn't afford or meet their basic food needs. And that was our challenge here at USDA was to figure out how to have to take that on. I will say that when I came in, this was, we were not taking this on anew. USDA under the prior administration and this extraordinary agency that I now work at have been working tirelessly since March and had experienced five different pieces of legislation equipping the agency with the capacity to build out the programs to provide more food assistance, provide more flexibility so that we could adapt to congregate delivery versus sort of a pick up to individualize the programs. So really, the president's objectives were our objectives, tackle the COVID first and foremost from a health perspective and all of the broader remedy necessary there. As you just talked about PPE deployment responding community needs build back better, which is then also think about economic recovery, but from an inclusive perspective and what investments do we need to come back from the stronger and fundamentally having equity infused all of it. So I'll stop there. I mean, that's a high framework. We have made tremendous progress. Food insecurity and hardship is much lower than it was when the president took office, but we're not there. And we have absolutely not done what we need to do. Sorry, we haven't seen the outcome and gains that we need to see on reducing disparity across the experience of hardship for where whites are experienced at a much lower rates than Latinos or African Americans or Native Americans. So lots of work to do there. So I'll stop and I'd love to hear from others. Thank you, Stacy. And we're going to return to the issues of equity that you and Alberto raised, of course, is a central theme given the highly differential effects of the pandemic on different communities. Let me turn now to Portia Hemphill. Portia has been also in the thick of things at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. And I wonder if you could give us an overview, Portia, of the work that you've been doing. Certainly, I'm thankful to be here with this fantastic panel. And I'm thankful to be a 40 today. I just wanted to stop and say that. Last year is no secret that it was extremely challenging. It was a very, it was a historic time to be in the federal government. And it was a historic time to be an American. We face challenges in terms of race and gender equity in the country. We also face challenges with the pandemic that heighten other challenges that we've had that have been steadfast like the digital divide from which really became apparent during the pandemic. And also we face some historic gridlock and in our American in our Congress and in the federal government. And so with those sorts of constraints, I found myself last year saying, how do we get past this? How do we get resources to those individual Americans in San Antonio or in Dallas who may be hungry right now? Because that is why I became a federal employee. And under those constraints, we didn't have a guidebook to tell us how to mitigate all of those constraints at one time. And there was a lot of room to figure out your own way last year, which could be both a pro and quite the con. And so what I was doing last year was I was working on behalf of 22 communities called Promise Zones in HUD and also USDA. And those are 22 distressed communities that are urban, rural and tribal, two tribal communities. And that show Promise for being at a higher level, given the given more resources, more targeted resources on the federal state and philanthropic in a federal state and philanthropic realm. So I had been doing this work for a little while. And here we are with about three and some change pandemics or or huge issues in the country that took that had the opportunity to really dismantle the work that we had done. I couldn't connect with my partners as easily over at Ed or over at USDA, et cetera, because I can't see them. I mean, besides this way, right? Which I guess is a way, but not the way that we are used to. And so what that led me to was what connects us? What makes this work move? What was the real genesis behind the work that we were able to do? What was the real driver? Was it really seeing people in person? Was it really that? No, what it really was I found after thinking about it for a while is people, people power, that is what moved us. That is what has always moved us. And that is what moved us last year. So when I when I narrowed in on what we were strong at and what couldn't be mitigated by these constraints, that led me to other theoretical propositions that I learned at the Forest School and in political science, which was how to solve collective action problems. So how to bring people to the table to say, hey, this is your work, you, you need to help us do this. That is the federal, state and local and philanthropic entities. So knowing having, having developed these sorts of relationships across those different sectors is what really helped me to help the American people last year. So bringing in people to bear, bringing a philanthropic organization that's like, hey, I really want to help Portia. But and I know we've worked together in these last couple of years. But when I see a lot going on, but I don't really know what to do here. And if I can really be of help bringing or me just saying, hey, philanthropic organization or hey, state level organization, you need to come to the table for this. Those sorts of things, those soft collective action problems that rested the work on people. And by being able to reach out to people individually and not just in a blanket email, but reaching out to people individually having that in kind of relationship is what really brought them to the table solving those collective action problems. And once you get them to the table and you solve the collective action problems, then you are able, I was able to help solve coordination problems. So now we have a group of people together who want, who have the same goal in mind, which is to mitigate issues that are facing, that are, that are negatively impacting Americans at the time, but they need direction about how to come together in order to make the best impact. So solving coordination problems. And once I was able to get those people in the room together or get those people in theoretical room together, there was really no room that we can get it to last year. That's where the magic happened. That's how we were able to get, you know, 60,000 units of PPE to rule in, in tribal communities last year that really needed it and may not always be the first stop in, in a multi-billion dollar philanthropic organization's mind when they think about where to give money to. And being able to contact my folk over at Ed or contact my folks at Justice, HHS, the list goes on 13 to 16 federal agencies having developed those relationships.  There was no mechanism that helped us to do that. Besides our relationships with each other. And that is what helped us to move. And I was able to, I was able to gather information of critical, regarding critical resources in terms of grants, in terms of webinars, in terms of actual in-kind resources, in actual cash, bring them to the table, help them to figure out what source of things the communities needed in a real-time way by virtue of having relationships on the ground with communities. And being a conduit to those community, with those communities, to these federal agencies, to these stakeholders, to these philanthropic organizations. And then being able to create an organic, an organic environment in which we were still targeted. It's organic, but we were still targeted. We still were coordinated. We still had objective. We still knew what San Antonio needed, what Philadelphia needed, what Los Angeles needed, what St. Louis and Minneapolis, which was on the news a lot last year, needed. And because of those relationships, I was able to create an information stream, real-time information stream to be able to round up all of those resources and get it into a one-stop shop for those communities so that they can determine from there for what they might want to apply. And the results of that were tremendous and helped some of our cities that would have gone under, would have gone under in terms of providing critical resources to its citizens, which in turn could have led to higher fatality rates. That is really, that is what I did not want to happen. And when I learned that these critical PPE resources were able to mitigate those things, or this grant was able to mitigate those things, that made, that reinvigorated my love for my job, my love for my country, and my, and the love for being a 40 and learning about all of those, those theoretical propositions that became real-life manifestations. Thanks so much. A great, great set of lessons about leading during the crisis. Let me last turn to Ali Berry. And you've been working intensely on the ground in Detroit and Wayne County more broadly. I'd love to hear what your experience has been this last year. Thank you, Dean Barr. And hello to everybody. It is an absolute honor to be on this panel. I've been an emergency preparedness specialist with Wayne County for over a year now, working to address and mitigate the effects of COVID-19 on the 43 communities in Wayne County. As was said by the great panelists here, COVID-19 has been affecting people in so many different ways, and it has been targeting everybody. So nobody is safe from this. When I joined with Wayne County, we had to hit the ground running to really mitigate the effects of COVID-19 on these communities. And this is before vaccines. So to mitigate it, pop up testing sites, increasing testing within the county, also providing PPE, especially for low income areas was a really important thing to do. And that's something that we really were trying to focus on. One of the greatest things, now that we have the vaccine, the vaccine is a great way to really tackle this pandemic. So of recent, a big part of my job has been to really establish and operate COVID-19 vaccination sites. Now, one thing to highlight, which is because COVID-19 does impact different people in different areas so differently, we have to ensure that our response is targeted in that manner. So whether you have a certain initiative, making sure that you are going out to communities that are hardest hit by the pandemic, or making it a little more accessible and accommodating their needs. So Wayne County has 43 communities, and we have to be able to do just that. I think one of the greatest challenges in all of this, and I'm sure everybody can relate, is that working in a pandemic, you're working in a high pace, a really ever-changing environment. We're dealing with this pandemic, the last pandemic of this scale occurred in 1918. And none of us were around to really experience that. So we're all here facing the facts as they come out, and I think that makes it a really stressful environment to work in. One thing I learned from that is being on the ground, being with people, being in communities, and seeing the effects really helped me work on the initiatives and some of the things and the projects that we need to do. Oftentimes, if we're working in an office or what have you, you lose sight of what the reality is out there. And so I think the greatest thing really is being in touch with the people that are being affected by COVID-19. And that's something that I really made sure I was very mindful of during my work. One other thing, another big challenge, the pandemic has been ongoing. We have reached one of the most important points in the pandemic. When the vaccine finally arrived, we finally have something to combat COVID-19. And early on in vaccine distribution, everybody who was really eager to get the shot went out and went out to get the shot. And as you know, recent there has been a decrease in demand for vaccine across the country. And we still haven't reached that 70% threshold that many experts are putting for us to hopefully lead to herd immunity. And so I think right now is one of the most important times. We're close to 70, but there's still lots and lots of work to do. And one thing that we have to be mindful of is making sure that we are providing the information for people, educating people about vaccines and about its potential. Of recent, we've heard that those who have been, that 99% of recent COVID-19 deaths were people who are unvaccinated. So this is a testament to the fact that vaccines work. And I think right now combating vaccine hesitancy and making sure that we are able to make vaccine accessible, we can provide the information, answer questions to people is really important. And there's still lots of work to do, even though we're close to 70, but still lots of work. This is one of the hardest parts of the pandemic. Thanks, Ali. Both Ali and Portia have already talked a little bit about how they addressed their own leadership set of skills during this crisis. Portia and referring to the importance of relationships and building on relationships. And Ali, in terms of having a on the ground focus that help keep you motivated and on task. I wonder if Alberto and then Stacy, if you could share some of your own lessons about the style of leadership that you've needed to use during this period and how it's been effective or cases where it wasn't effective and you had to adjust? Maybe Alberto, if you could start and then Stacy. Happy to start. I was asking Stacy to do so, but I'll be happy to do it. The leadership style and the leadership that one has to bring in these situations really has to come in many ways from inside. And I'll tell you why. No course prepares you for this. This is a situation where you are facing enormous urgency coupled by a completely, a large element of uncertainty. And Ali talked about the fact that we knew very little at the beginning and we were building as we walked in the knowledge, coupled with a very rapidly changing environment. We got vaccines and now we got variants and we all thought we would vaccinate our country and we never suspected that what was happening in another country in Africa would have such an effect on what happened here when other variants, for example, developed. So this changing environment coupled with another factor, which I think we all need to recognize, is that it brought personal hardship for us as people, right? Some folks of course were facing the family issues, you know, the loss of loved ones, friends, illness in many cases, mental illness due to the isolation and the stress or simply having to work from home in the company of all your family around you. And all of this together really, you don't learn these things in a course. But what I do think is that the discipline and the goal setting play a huge role. And those kick in automatically when you actually establish patterns and when you actually build on the relationships that you have. I think Portia was making a very strong emphasis about how much personal relationships and being able to be empathic about what others were going through play such a critical role in your leadership. I have to tell you that obviously nothing of what we've done and what my team has done could have been done with the people, without the people that work on the ground. Many of them not vaccinated because they're working in countries where we don't have vaccines yet available. And it is their energy that really you want to bank on and their ability to be empathic with those that they're working with. And I have to say that this is what you're doing in leadership, I think, is you lead from behind, you learn from what your team is doing, and you basically try to create an environment such that they can do their work supportive, empathic, providing guidance when needed, but mostly listening a lot and understanding that they themselves are going through hardship in these very difficult times. Thank you. I was going to say that's why I wanted Albert to go first because of course it's just yes, all of that, all of that. The one thing I'll flag from my personal experiences, I came into a leadership role in the administration. I used to supervise a group of around 10 people and now I have 1,500 people reporting, not directly to me, but after me. So it's a big shift, but really knowing that it's a tremendous agency, they couldn't be more committed to the mission of addressing the needs of hungry people. And my job is to set the direction and to create the conditions for them to succeed. They were really already exhausted when the administration went through a transition and it would have been completely off base to step in and say, okay, we're here now and now everything's okay. Nothing could have been further from the truth. It wasn't okay. And of course that would have not done service or paid respect to the extraordinary work they had been doing. So really the idea is to again set the conditions, tell them where you want to go and set the conditions for success and then make sure that they know you've got their back. This was all providing the direction, but also the cover and the space for them to do their work, which they have in an extraordinary way. So I'll stop there. Yeah, thank you Stacey.  Let me ask maybe Ollie and Portia to say a little bit about how you think the Ford School helped prepare you for your current work, if it did. Again, I'll have Ollie go first and then Portia. So I recently graduated from the Ford School this last May. And I really credit being in this position and being able to do the things I'm able to do now through the Ford School and the experience. I mean, to begin with, I actually started working with Wayne County right after my summer internship and that's sort of how that came about. So I credit the opportunities and the resources that the Ford School has graduate career services and their team. But some more experiences that I got from the courses, especially that I learned. One of the courses I took was IPE, which is a three-day simulation event. We're able to discuss topics and play certain roles. And one of the first IPE sessions I had, I was acting as a state senator to work on solving a solution for water infrastructure issues. But within this simulation, there were a lot of stakeholders. There's lots of different roles from congressional leaders to executive leaders, businesses, advocacy groups, and nonprofits. And we had to work together to solve these issues, but also keep in mind that every stakeholder has very diverse backgrounds, interests, and composition. And that is one of the biggest things that I learned is that whenever there's an initiative at hand that I am working with, I have to tailor a solution to accommodate these stakeholders. Now, this is a simulation. So when I went out into the real world, for example, we had over 3 million face masks we wanted to distribute to the 43 communities in Wayne County. And one thing to note is Wayne County is a very diverse county, and we have to be able to accommodate every single community so that we can make sure that those masks get to the people that need them. And so I had to work with these various municipalities, different organizations, institutions, and tailor and make sure that I am able to get those masks out there, barring any barriers that were present to not make that happen. So I was able to pull in those experiences. And this is just one class. This is IPE, but in reality, many of the classes we took from 510 to 587, where we worked in simulation environments, but then also in some classes, we worked with outside entities on a project. I'll end off with one more really important thing that I really took from the Ford School, which was the quantitative analysis skills that I gained through going through their courses. One thing to note is data is a very valuable thing, and good and sound data, of course. But especially when you're dealing with a virus, when something is so new, we don't know a lot of things, data can't paint a picture that we might not otherwise notice. And so I was able to utilize the data analysis skills that I learned from program evaluation or just even our statistics class. And I'm able to take in the new information that's continuously coming out, analyze those informations, create reports so we can make get a driven decisions, but also do other things like create projections and so we can and then create target-based approach to the solutions that we wanted to provide for the different communities. So I think being able to take simulations and the experiences, the collaborative environment that you had there at the Ford School and then use those experiences directly into the real world and some of the more technical skills like data and implementing all together, I think it's the biggest takeaway I had. As for me, I would say that, well, I was at Michigan, I embarked on and finished a joint PhD in political science and public policy. A lot of times people asked me, well, what's the difference between the two? And I think that the difference between the two really came to fruition last year. So in political science, we theorize about actors. What do political actors do under what conditions? Who gives what, you know, when, where and how? And the Ford School taught me about how to own my own power as an actor. And that is a difference. I can actually be an actor. I can also theorize about them too, which is also great. So I can do something and then think about why I did it like that afterward and then think about how I can do it again better. So that's what I would say is what I really learned from the Ford School, that it is incumbent upon me, it is incumbent upon us to be good actors and in whatever environment that we're in. So I talked a lot about my position at HUD, but as the founder of Scientists for Social Progress, there was also a lot of work that needed to be done outside of those 22 communities that I work for. And so, developed Scientists for Social Progress to get together intersectional scientists that are powerhouses in their own right in order to come together and solve a collective action problem by coming together and then coordinating ourselves in order to target service organizations in terms of improving their data capacity, which led to critical grant-making processes or grant writing processes, et cetera, that led to them getting more money on the ground, service organizations that had potentially nothing to do with the federal government. I recognize that I'm a product of a lot of such service organizations when I grew up in uptown community in Chicago. And I've always wanted to give back to those to those sorts of organizations. I did not always know how. Poor school equipped me with owning my power as an actor and then using my noggin to figure out who do I know, what people power do I have, and how can I use that to the best advantage of another facet of the American people or organizations that help the American people. And that is kind of the genesis of Sciences for Social Progress. And last year we were sure enough busy with all the issues concerning equity, all the issues concerning making sure that Black women were in decision-making roles. And I say that in that way it was a great year to be able to show our prowess and be able to really help communities in ways that I know that we are unique in being able to assist. I credit the Ford School and the Department of Political Science for helping me to wrap my mind around how we can make theoretical propositions work in real life. Thanks, Portia. And Ali, terrific insights from your time at Ford. We've gotten a lot of terrific audience questions coming in. So I'm going to start weaving those into our conversation and maybe I'll start with Alberto. If you could answer one of the audience questions is about how do you incentivize governments to collaborate with each other in the crisis, particularly, you know, we have a set of rich nations that have different interests from the poorer nations. You know, what's been your experience about trying to bring everybody to the table to help solve what, as you said, is clearly a global problem that affects everybody? It is. It's a great question. I think that we've come to an understanding finally and it took a while because, as I said earlier, we were all learning in the process that it is really true that no one is safe until everyone is safe. But it took a while to understand that it took actual real life experience of having solved the issue in some countries and then seeing that you then had an impact from another country. Let me give you an example. When India's numbers went up dramatically and India had to close their borders, it turns out that India was producing a large number of the AstraZeneca vaccines that were going to go out to the rest of the world. So everybody was heavily affected by the fact that India's cases went up very highly and that the borders therefore had to be closed and exports were closed as well. So all of these interactions, this understanding that we are an interconnected world in so many ways, whether it is through commerce, through the movement of people, you name it, became extremely clear. I actually believe that a pandemic like the one we have gone through and we are going through shows us exactly the fact that borders are an invention, that things move very quickly between places. And I think that this is one of the lessons that we're learning from this pandemic and that will likely be applied also in other issues that are similar, global nature like climate change. Whatever happens elsewhere is going to affect all of us in very different ways. This is a lesson that took a lot of time. It took real experience and the only thing that we could do was engage very closely with governments and with pharmaceuticals and with the rich and the poor governments to try to find the right solutions. And we are happy to see lately that there is an increase, an important increase in global solidarity, but we are paying the price for having come into it so late. Thank you, Alberto. Very powerfully said. Maybe Stacey, you could take up this next question which also comes from the audience. And it's this, how do you balance meeting the current crisis moment with speed, efficacy and action and at the same time managing staff as humans with empathy and understanding? So how are you trying to think of your, you know, in your current role about the meeting both those kinds of objectives? That's interesting. You should probably ask the staff and not me, but whether it's working. I think so I do monthly check-ins with my senior leadership team and one of the things that I ask them to report on every month is what do you need to take off of your plate right in order to, you know, in Washington when you want to pass legislation that costs money, there's a pay-go system right? You have to pay for it, you have to offset it somewhere else. I do think that's true of work too. And so wherever possible trying to call that out. And it's also true that part of their humanity is their desire to serve, their desire to be engaged in really important moments and to support their community, which is, you know, part of their work. So it's also true that if it is really important we want to make sure we're giving space for the true experts to be in the room and to, you know, to affect change over time. So it's a balancing act, but the most important thing is to say in order to do this what do you have to do less of and really try and respect that because that's part of leadership too, right, is setting priorities. Thanks, Stacy. I think the useful lesson I could use myself is helping the staff let go of things that are lower priority items. So I think a constant struggle in these times. Portia, one question that's come in from the audience and maybe you could just share your own personal perspective on this is to what extent do you think that the changes that we're seeing in policies in response to the crisis are just kind of one-off things in the moment? Or do you think that they're going to actually result in any lasting change on the issues of equity that you were talking about before? Great question. How will I answer it? So I think that, y'all don't know me at all. You know that I'm very honest. So I really would say that it's important to have very progressive dreams in terms of equity and outlooks. And will we see everything that is being pushed out? Maybe not. Will we see it all like next year no, I think that's like not realistic, but due to the changes that we're talking about the federal government, I think due to the changes not only in what is being proposed in terms of equity, which is important. I also think that we also have to realize that the federal government itself is changing. Like for instance, HUD, two-thirds of HUD can retire right now. HUD has like 7,000 less, 7,000 less, like there were 12,000 HUD employees in like 2001 and there are maybe less than 4,000 now. And two-thirds of that 4,000 can retire now. Do you see what I'm saying? That is not a good look. So we are the change. It will be people coming from the Ford school that will help shape the new way that you speak of, Michael. And that is why we haven't seen that yet. So I don't have the data to support my notion, but I do have the data to support that there are going to be new people in the federal government and that a lot of younger folks have been the ones pushing these equity movements. And so, yeah, they may be correlational, but I think that they also might have a relationship there beyond correlational. And that when we have more 40s, when we have more graduates from Michigan joining the Presidential Management Fellowship, joining and not just only in the federal government, but we're having a cultural shift here. This is not just about the federal government. This is not just about COVID. This is not just about George Floyd. This is a cultural shift. We're having multiple cultural shifts at one time. And who will respond to it is what you're really asking. And that is us. We'll respond to it. And this generation under it will have more years to respond to it, right? And so I think that are we going in the right direction? Yes. Has the Biden administration outlined a rigorous plan of equity? Yes. Will we see it all at one time? Likely not. Is it important that it's there and in place? Yes. Is it important that we take it seriously and try to push it as far as we possibly humanly can? Yes. And do we need more 40s? Do we need more critical thinkers? Do we need more intersectional sciences? Do we need more intersectional policymakers in order to push that? Yes. Come on, join. I think we can. Thanks, Portia, for that inspiration for all of us. Let me give the last audience question to Ali to think about. And the question that happens at all different levels, international, state, local, federal, but maybe you could focus on your experience in Michigan. The question is really asking about the politics of dealing with the public health crisis. There have been lots of political reactions that may not have exactly followed the science and acutely so in Michigan with respect to the governor's actions, a lot of political opposition from the legislature and so on. How much of that kind of filtered down to the ground of the work that you were doing in Wayne County? Did it interfere with it or were you able to function kind of despite the noise that was going on? Great question. And it's evidently clear that throughout this pandemic, politics has been involved in a lot of things related to it. But one thing that we do need to set straight is you have public health and you have politics and a lot of times the two don't mix too well, water and oil. And public health is relied a lot on science and science. You have factual information to back a lot of things. So one thing is in any initiative or any strategy that we have forward, we're basing it on the science and the facts. And I mentioned this earlier, data. I mean, data is a really important thing. And that backs a lot of the things that we wanted to do. So yes, there's lots of rhetoric out there and a lot of times that can hinder, especially in the realm of misinformation. And one thing I highlighted about early on in this panel, which is this last feat of the pandemic and trying to hopefully get to 70% and above vaccination rate, people need the information to feel comfortable to get the shot. And if there is incorrect rhetoric out there or just bad information that stems from politics and what have you, that might make it a little bit harder. But the main thing is, we have to be able to separate that noise and put it behind us and just go with the facts, go with what's available in front of us and keep pushing forward and making sure that any initiative that we are doing, we're making it accessible to everybody and that it's available. Thanks very much for that. We're almost out of time for our panel discussion and we're going to go to breakouts in just a second. Let me just ask each of you take 30 seconds and final thoughts putting you all in the spot, leadership in a crisis, issues you wanted to hit on that you think maybe we haven't spent enough time on or just emphasizing key points. So let me start with Stacy. Well, thank you again for including me in such a really interesting event and I've learned a lot. I guess my quick thing that we didn't touch on is, and this is going to sound horrible given the scope and scale of a global pandemic, but it's also important never to waste a good crisis, right? Change is very hard to make and so we need to respond to the crisis, we need to lead in the crisis, but if this this this catalytic moment where we have movements, let's make it much broader for a longer term, good. And so, you know, the Build Back Better Initiative is sort of a theme around that, which is if we're going to invest and we're going to make change, let's do it for a long term, good. I think that's true with respect to leadership and organizational change as well. Thank you again. Thanks Stacy. Portia. I just say that imposter syndrome is a fallacy. It's not true. It's not real. I have never gone to school during a pandemic and I don't know, I don't pretend to know how you all make feel who are in school right now or who may be facing some challenges at work or what have you. I just want you to know that imposter syndrome is not real. People who have more power than you are not smarter than you. Go and actualize your own power and make them good use of it. Thanks Portia. Ollie. Thank you again for having me on this panel. You know, one thing I just want to to put out there, you know, one of the greatest lessons we learned throughout this pandemic is is taking care of one another. You know, we've we've been getting those text messages from each other, especially early on in the pandemic when people were hunkered down at home. Hey, how are you doing? How's it going? You know, how can I help in things like that? So as a leader, I think one of the biggest things is is trying to see what is behind people, you know, what's behind, you know, people like if anything's going on at home and being able to accommodate that at work. So, you know, be mindful of others, you know, if they need help, help them, you know, and also take care of yourself. Another big thing I learned about fighting a global pandemic is that it's tough, but it's also a marathon, not a sprint. So, you know, you don't want to burn out. And I think that's really translatable and a lot of other work that, you know, a lot of us are doing and will do. So I think that's really important to be mindful of. Thanks, Ollie. Alberto, last word. Thank you, Dean Barr. And again, thank you for this invitation. I've learned a lot hearing hearing the very different experiences from different levels of government with the pandemic. Now, listen, on this question of leadership, I go back to four things which incidentally were things that I learned in Michigan and that you actually perfection as a student in Michigan. One is go back to the evidence always, discern fake news, and the only way of doing that is going back to the evidence. The second thing is put your heart and your brain into it. There are no second chances. This is urgent. This is an emergency. This is unique. It's a chance to put everything of you into it. The third one is be empathic to those around you, not only the people who work with you, but also the people who are around your own daily life. People are going through tough times. This is a very difficult moment for everyone. Empathy is one of those things that builds community. And the last one is take care of yourself. I think Ali touched this very well. People are looking at you. When you're in a leadership position, people are looking at you. Even if they're quiet, they're observing how you react to the issues, how calm, how objective, how passionate you are.  Alberto, thank you so much. And all of our panelists, Portia, Ali, Stacey, for sharing your wisdom and your experience with our fellow alumni. I've really learned a lot and really enjoyed the conversation. A great deal. And I wish it could go on for another couple of hours. So we'll have to return together for a more informal chat, not on Zoom in the near future. Audience members, please join me in thanking our wonderful panel, just a fabulous conversation. We're going to now move to the next phase of our Spirit Day celebration, which are breakout rooms. And I encourage everybody to stay and participate in the breakout room. You see at the bottom of your screen a place to join. You click on the breakout room you want to join and hop right in. And I hope to see all of you in those breakout rooms for the next little bit. Thanks so much and see you shortly.


What's up guys welcome to the Johnny Q channel my name is Johnny Q and this is literally my first moto vlog episode one my battery is super low so if this makes it i'll be surprised but today's video i'm going to be showing you the bike i'm going to be riding for the summer for the year unless i buy another bike but essentially this is the start of my moto vlog so here's my bike the Harley Davidson Sportster 1200 XL look at that that thing is a boot oh my gosh and i just got it serviced by Harley so that's pretty amazing we got everything detailed i got all the fluids chains you know i'm gonna try to do some hopefully you know some aftermarket like mirrors because this might go down here i'm not sure though i don't know and there's a train somewhere but like here's my built well helmet but sorry i'm kind of rushing through this so you guys can get a taste of what i'm doing before my battery dies i don't know i might get rid of the side the saddle bags there but i don't know i feel like everything's good and i bought this bike uh with the the upgraded exhaust to Vansenheim just just so pure and so delicious look at that that's my favorite thing about this bike right here oh it's just so good so yeah man let me start it up for you guys you guys gotta hear this thing roar just so nice let me just show you what this sounds like we'll put the insert the key turn it let it start up and i've always heard that you just got the little engine light just disappear first and then you can start your bike so it's on run here we go and the pure sound of america pure sound of harley and it just if that doesn't get you pumped up there should be eagles flying and fighter jets flying behind me with oh that's that's america so i'm excited this is my first moto vlog uh i will get my helmet gopro setup uh but i just i couldn't wait i didn't have my gopro setup because i needed my gopro for other things so i don't have it all the way set up hundred percent but i just couldn't wait i just got it back from harley that they delivered it just pumped uh i've been i've been itching to ride and finally the season is here so guys we're i'm pumped uh yeah i don't know if anybody cares about this moto vlog or this journey with johnny q but we're gonna find out we're gonna see what happens and who knows maybe this becomes a new thing for this channel and maybe more synteges motorcycles and uh but yeah i just want to thank you guys for watching thanks for joining consider subscribing and liking if you like kind of content uh thanks for watching and i will catch you next time on episode dose all right i'm gonna go ride i'm gonna go rip this thing let's see ya


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