's a very clear question one more question from the gentleman with the red style this time I think Thank you gentlemen. Um, my name is bobo cox and I am from the osgood center as a program assistant So my question is uh, I just attended a think tank Last week for the brookings institute and they unveiled their new study on setting out certain standards for working with civil society organizations NGOs Then basically they're trying to create a profile along those lines So my question to the panel is what this profile set out by the brookings Would that deter other organizations from working with bigger organizations such as the world bank because a representative from the world bank was there at that think tank and they were partnered with the brookings for this study and they would incorporate these standards within their how should I say this Standards with working with other organizations within itself So would this deter certain organizations that are based off maybe in the middle of the east or any other kind of Csso for working with the world bank to try to improve their institution or their capabilities Okay Also looking at the time because we have five minutes left and I want to give the panelists the floor for a final Round of answers also on the disengagement and maybe even related of course disengaged from violence, but A lot of people say you also need to be able then to provide an alternative to Channel the energy that is related to finance That's a policy observation Also, by the way, of course fueled by some practitioners Maybe related to that question. You can also say something on that and then of course Going to the to the other questions Can I this time start with you? Yeah, that can start with me the I think the clue as some people have said in fact one of the last Questioners is Is if you can get people away from violence, then what do you engage them in? In a pragmatic way in northern morocco, there's a NGO I Work with there and president of it actually the american legation It's our old diplomatic mission, which is now a cultural thing and what we've been aggressively trying to do there with an arabic speaking resident director Is to figure out ways of not just dealing with the cultural elite But dealing with local communities and one thing we've done that's taken off very well And which doesn't involve much Much investment is is taking Moroccans doing media studies and so forth into very impoverished villages and getting Intermediate and secondary school students into using Media devices they're already familiar with to create podcasts For admittedly uncertain audiences But representing what their communities and they are doing and the fact of articulating things that has the promise of being Listened to by others is a form of engagement and by accident Not by accident, but by keeping our ears open We would learn about certain us a id projects trying to encourage Community policing very old-fashioned notion, but when it works Which it doesn't always work or it starts and stops But when it works it works remarkably well We are finding and so the question is how to expand it not to say because we're not doing it As kind of a model. We're trying to figure out how to reach new audiences so that our audiences are not people who are Let's say of my age group, which you now know because I first went to Morocco, you know the story But but another group as well And it's this form of communication of giving some but people something positive Which will work We don't have the resources to give people the infrastructure of another renaught Factory, although that helps or big chinese investment or other things to give people jobs But that might come but doing things that can work with communities now Seems to be a helpful thing and by the way the communities in which we're working which we're picking up Are all transnational communities has been pointed out There is not the most remote village in morocco Or for that matter in the arabian peninsula that doesn't have But more so for morocco doesn't have people in germany belgium france or spain and Very remarkably good communications and ways of moving money and people between the two Thank you Dr. Horley two quick comments the first one echo professor fair's point about the control group That I think is another rate limiting factor in terms of the success or progress in terrorism studies Whoever cracks that issue Will help the entire field turn a corner, which we badly need to get around really quickly The point on disengagement de-radicalization. I mean, yes, you're you're preaching to the choir here De-radicalization as as as a word means two things it implies two things They suppose a change that some people undergo That we assume leads to a reduction in the risk that they will reengage in some way And it's also the collective term used to describe what is in reality A bunch of very very very different kinds of programs. They all have the same goal They're all trying in their own way to reduce the risk of re-engagement in terrorism But how they do that differs from program to program, you know, we all know about the The the the Saudi initiative, you know, we've all some of us have been there and I've had the tours and it's fascinating But the question of whether these programs work right now is anyone's guess Because we know that terrorism traditionally has a low recidivism rate associated with it It's low even if you do nothing It is easy as a result for de-radicalization programs to claim success By simply pushing people through But but uh, there's no published work There's no published evaluation correct me if i'm wrong on on on any of these programs a few programs that i'm aware of are Running evaluations internally and these are important because they offer course corrections Well, maybe we want to try this or try that or whatever Those programs will be the ones that stand the test of time and the others will be left Uh, they'll be confined to the trash heap Thank you Not the statement Yeah, so acting on dependent variable I'm glad you raised that question because that was my thinking up to about 11 years ago And and then the government gave me a ton of money to actually create a control group to to to generate a control group And what I found Is that the control group is this larger community my my dependent variable was violence So how did those guys who became violent differ from the guys who did not become violent but in every other aspect were Identical, you know, it was two samples that you could measure So I realized that The the the variable Violence was not stable that people could actually become violent in certain Contacts that not become violent in other contact go back and forth depending on whether the community is attacked And so I decided to use a different methodology than a gross Quantitative comparison between the control group and my sample which I have done if you look at my last two books and Notice that the real difference was a process. So I kind of used the process tracing using fuzzy sets and and and showed the The model on how to move from a nonviolent to violent and still kind of comparing the two in terms of both cross case and Uh, within case comparison.  I interview them in jail. I go to the community. I I can't look at May I may I Oh in terrorism believe me that type of criminality now you're right in terms of criminality But in terrorism now in terrorism it's so focused our attention that most people are violent. I really have Noticed so you're right in criminality. We're only, you know a minority of criminals are caught But on terrorism, it's quite different It's very careful about equating in all to find the the majority of people in prison for terrorist offenses in the u.s Are not there because that's right. I'm looking at just a violent one Well, I think this was a good example of Of course proving that academic debates are never boring But um, I also really because some people are getting nervous because lance is being served Time basically is over But but but I truly uh, and of course, I'm sure the discussion will continue I truly want to to thank all three of the panelists for sharing with us their Scientific latest insights based on the years of research Of course, but that was also not my expectation. It's not that all the answers are There already although we know a lot From a practical point of view from a policy point of view Particularly probably from a political point of view. We have to live with the fact That well not everything is clear yet at the same time. Of course, there's a need to do But I think it should of course be combined with this growing effort to understand better Sometimes even scientists do not fully agree, which is good. There's an academic debate Although the end of the day at least I think there's agreement on the non-existence of an objective profile Which is bad news for us because indeed we would like to have simplicity In terms of well, what are we actually talking about and how to proceed? Reality is that it's not yet there, but there is a Brit source of understanding information Risk factors that basically of course we can and should look into Also in terms of defining our policy And and and driving our practices and keep on learning and I think also the feedback loop From practitioners and policy makers back to scientists Is equally important as Government people reading Research in the first place, so I thank you very much and please enjoy your lunch Run run to lunch But know that there is more to come this afternoon. We'll be back in this room for more panels and also in kathari at 115 If you want to if you're joining us for lunch, please proceed down the stairway this way because it's out that way We're going to try to discuss Okay Yeah, so it's shifted around a bit So what i'm going to do is ask you to each of you to say like this is a very big topic And what are what are the like two most important things that people should walk away with On this topic of the politics of religion in the lake chad basin and then we'll shift to more questions after that So it's a bit targeted, but it gives you a chance to lay it something, but I won't let you talk for any minutes You want to start okay do I need to do anything I can Apparently I just start talking Uh, good afternoon everyone welcome I was saying to the panelists that we actually have the room that reflects the size of the geography that we're going to try to cover In this very short time. Um, so thank you for coming to to this this large room and after lunch The the panel after lunch is always the hardest, but luckily we have an incredibly engaging group of experts And and commentators to to provoke some good conversation Just to make sure that everybody is on the right aircraft going to the right place This is the panel on the politics of religion in the lake chad basin And there are panels running concurrently. So if you meant to be somewhere somewhere else We won't be offended if you you choose to move to a different room So let me start um first just by introducing our panelists Dr. Chris koaja who is at the center for peace and security studies at mediba adamawa university in yola Ambassador john cambell who I think needs very little introduction when it comes to nigeria in the lake chad basin That is remains a leader at the council on foreign relations And professor uber him. Yeah, he uh, yeah, he uber him from the university of florida I think you have their detailed bios in your book So I I will not go into into the depth of the detail and just kick us off immediately In this conversation So maybe I can ask our panelists. This is a very large geography. It's a very broad topic So what what do you think are, you know, the two most important things that this this group needs to walk away with In thinking about the politics of religion in the lake chad basin and chris, maybe we can start with you Thank you very much. I think for me the two key issues we need to look at in Whatever conversation that is going on with respect to the lake chad with respect to extremism Is the centrality of the state The state as the chief protector of the citizens The state as the chief provider For the citizens And where The state is defined by failure Or inability to discharge this core responsibilities Then there's a problem The second point we need to also Recognize and appreciate Is the centrality of the youth When you talk about The present and the future The youth feature prominently And where exclusion Defines state citizens relationship The youth are always the first victims of that and where They see themselves as victims Grievance sets in Where grievance sets in violence take root And where violence take root The whole question of violent extremism becomes a major issue that The state has to contend with and that's where we are today with respect to the lake chad area Thank you Thank you very much Two things The first is we Americans tend to be extremely uncomfortable About thinking about the connection between violent extremism and religion And in fact we have a fairly convoluted vocabulary when we start talking about it A vocabulary on which we do not necessarily agree And yet Religion clearly plays a role There was a study published by the UNDP Earlier in the week Based on A lot of interviews between five and six hundred interviews In which the respondents about 70 percent of them Said that religion and concern that their religion was under attack Had been a primary Motivation for their joining Boko Haram now That leads to my second point And that is how little we actually know About Boko Haram and associated groups In the lake chad basin The UNDP Study based on five or six hundred interviews Well, yes, but talk about selection bias All of those interviews were in detention Still It's what we've got and we've got precious little We don't know what the relationship is between a bubukar shakal And Boko Haram We don't know whether his notorious swearing of allegiance to the islamic state in 2015 was strictly personal Or whether he had in some capacity could speak for the movement that he leads We don't really know what the relationship is between shakals Boko Haram And Ansaru Reflecting back on the conversations this morning My world The world of the lake chad basin Is a million miles away from the middle east We're talking about an area that is under the best of circumstances Far far less developed materially than the middle east And this most emphatically is not the best of circumstances So religion And then a a plea for humility About just how much we know Which is really how little we actually know Thank you very much If we look at the Sahel for the last 25 years we see that A political activism on behalf of islam or that use islamic discourse to justify engagement in Has been on the rise Everywhere in the Sahel. Absolutely And we know that religion play a role as ambassador was saying as and as a discussion in this morning We're emphasizing But I was a little Unsatisfied with the way in which people divide between Think of ideology And local social and political context in the economist terms as if it is an either or It is either ideology or Local context that matter in terms of explaining this Phenomenon I think Both ideology and local context play a role What we needed to understand is What Sort of ideologies are more likely to be politicized in what sort of context This is really the real question And as I was mentioning islamic activism has been on the rise. I'm not only talking about Jihadist activism But different sorts of islamic activism Both peaceful protests to ask for Changing the family code in Mali in Niger or people now rising or Violent riot in Zander after the Charlie Hebdo incident but also political parties or Lobby groups like Sabati 2012 in Mali that are coming out to emphasize These groups use different type of ideologies and all inspired from Islam So how can we understand? The typologies Of different islamic ideologies that are being used in the region And I think from my perspective you can divide them into three major ideologies pietist ideologies that are the dominant Where we have for those who know Nigeria Malmé and Traditional religious actors who Do not want to be involved into electoral politics are trying to avoid engaging in any sort of Engagement into into into Electoral politics or civil society activism or islamic feminism, etc. And on the other side In the middle, we have islamist activists who think that we need to participate into Into electoral partisan democracy and at the end we have those who deny the legitimacy of the state and want to actually Break away from the total concept of a nation-state in order to establish That the caliphate so we have we can think of islamic political ideologies into Divide them into those three categories now in what context Each one of these is likely to be politicized and enacted into action This is The other part of the question that we need to answer and I do think that the context of democracy Provide a better opportunity for islamist activists those who use a religion to engage into Political battle into electoral politics That is a context in which we see them Again in ground on the emerging and we can talk about the case of more thinner can talk about the case of Mali Places where Places that are plagued by disorder already conflict Um border lines place where people feel marginalized by the states just like the um pastoralist pearl Or the buddhuma in the lack lectured region, etc Those are the places where we see jihadist ideology gaining ground jihadist ideology does not gain ground into capital cities In most of the sahel region it is gaining ground in those regions rather than so I think thinking of um them In this way would provide us a better understanding Then thinking of them into the economy's way So I'm going to go back to chris for a second because I noticed in your answer I don't think you said the word religion once And I I suspect that that was deliberate. So I wonder if you could say a little bit more about Your your approach and centering the state and those who are excluded from the state and and where you see Religion fitting into that that political framework Yeah, it it it was deliberate just not mentioning religion because What kind of society are we dealing with in the lectured area? First we're dealing with secular societies where either democracy Or dictatorship thrives in this systems religion is also a major factor And what is religion doing? Religion is increasingly contesting that public space with secularism And in the process we are also confronted with a huge problem of clash And the clash for instance is what gave births to boku haram Boku haram is challenging the legitimacy of the state In terms of the inability of the state to discharge certain core responsibilities that has seen as primary And what religion does is that It provides an explanation as well as an alternative To that failure that we see in the secular state that corruption Exclusion are key features of the modern state modern democratic state but Attempt to displace the modern democratic state With what they call a etiocratic state will mean Altering the present arrangement by introducing a system of theocracy That will guarantee justice that will guarantee equity that will guarantee freedom And that is why The whole question of the extent to which religion has been instrumentalized By vulnerable groups like the youth Gains currency Because they see religion as That thing That will give them hope both now and hereafter They see religion As that shock absorber That will give them the kind of liberation That they need And that as long as the secular state tribes It will be difficult for them by virtue of the current arrangement of both the leadership And the structure of the state to guarantee them that kind of security That they expect and that is why you can see From Nigeria to Cameroon to Niger to Chad down to the Sahel huge revival across religious groups But the other point we need to appreciate is the fact that the revival of religion in terms of its Contesting the public or the secular state is not just peculiar to islam We've seen pentecostalism in the context of christianity Also play in that role The contest for instance in Nigeria just recently between Jonathan and Buhari We saw the role religion played in that election We saw for instance in Borno state in particular Where Boko Haram started The extent to which religion was used by Muhammad Yusuf and his group To begin to question and challenge the authority and legitimacy as well as credibility of the state And that made it easy and possible for them to recruit and mobilize The kind of people the kind of youth We call them vulnerable But the point is that the first category of people That were recruited by Muhammad Yusuf and Koh Were people who went to school. They were graduates. They taught their certificates They were not it was not because they went to madrasa's Where you say they were not given the kind of education they needed for them to secure their livelihood They are why some of them were Having master's degree in sciences in the social sciences But they taught all the certificates and embraced Boko Haram as an ideology Yeah, if I could take up some of these some of these themes Um, I think the point that you're making about State failure as being a an essential part of the context. I think that's enormously important Uh, northeastern Nigeria is uh, and the best of times it's dirt poor It's by far the poorest part of the country My degree the principal city is often referred to in other parts of west Africa as the beggar maker I was at a wedding once in my dooghuri In which at the local airport There were no less than 12 private jets on the ground that had flown in Celebrates So the discrepancy between rich and poor It's very bad all over Africa. It is grotesque in northeastern Nigeria Second point Religious revival Uh, again the point that has been made earlier that this is sweeping across the Sahel And it's not just to be found within islam But it's also to be found in christianity is an extremely important part of the context and let me tell you Relations between Revivalist christianity and various radical islamic groups not necessarily violent Uh, the relations are so bad it would curl your hair I have heard roman catholic and anglican bishops refer to muslims in terms that made it very clear that they did not regard them as human So this again if part of your motivation is concerned that your religion is under attack You can cite lots of evidence for it Uh third point What does Boko Haram say it actually wants? There is no three-point economic program There is no constitutional proposals Boko Haram is remarkably uninterested in state building and in that sense is very different from the islamic state What Boko Haram actually says it wants is The creation of god's kingdom on earth Through justice for the poor By rigid implementation or strict implementation of sharia or islamic law Take each one of those words and none of them is political They are essentially a kind of religious vocabulary This is one reason why it is so hard for secular minded people In abouja let alone in washington to come to terms with it Ibrahim I wonder um, you laid out this very helpful set of categories. Um, does that apply to christian revivalism as well as islamic Well, I am not in my position to answer this question because I started studying christian movement Maybe some other people could But I I do think that These categories Have a lot of currency if we look at particularly in islamic society in each society you You look at you will find People who in some way or another lean toward one or another of These categories. I'm not saying that they are fixed categories. This is more like a framework for us to help us understand those dynamics But there are Muslim societies are facing a lot of challenges in the world today Not only in the sahel, but almost everywhere And what muslim activists are trying to do is to think Of those challenges through frameworks That help them to interpret But also to frame response To those challenges and it is in this effort that Some muslim activists and scholars came up with This set of coherent ideas About now if we look at our relationship to the west, how can we understand it through the religious lens that we have? and Then some would say that well, let us just modernize as they modernize Let us modernize islam or modernize islam is modernity if you want to pick up some concept within Modernity and try to find equivalent of those concepts in islam and say that this is how we want to think about our societies today And this is how we want to respond to the challenges that we are facing We are backward just because we are not modern and we want to modernize those are the categories that I call islamist Now they are others who are saying that no it's not modernizing that help us but going back to the roots To the way we were prosperous during the time of the prophet and the The century that come after the prophet why because we stick To our religion and now that we went away from our religion We have all the problem of the world if you want to go back to prosperity if you want to go back to that Time where we were prosperous who have to go back to to to to the back and these are what we see people saying that We have to go back to the caliphate system This is only system that that that could help us again Our place in the world and then you have others who think that Actually, it is not the business of religious leaders to really think in terms of Politics we have to separate ourselves politics has been messy for religion all over the islamic history We have never gotten actually to implement the the the caliphate that we were hoping for since the 41st Years after the prophet so this is not going to work separate politics and religion this is what will Keep us safe as as as Muslim Leaders and Muslim scholars rather than so and today you look at all the the In each society you find people who rely on them. I would assume that Pietyist groups who think that we should separate we should accept secularism We should my separate states are the majority in the Sahel at least But the movement that is gaining more ground in the Sahel today Is my islamism as we see it. It's not always late to be expressed freely But it is it is growing fast and then jihadism also So before we shift to a bit of a conversation on what what should be the focus to Acknowled address work with these dynamics. I'd like to ask You to reflect a little bit on the coherence across the lake Chad basin So we've talked about some some common themes the state failure the inability To to to respond to needs the marginalization The revivalism and kind of the contestation of what role religion plays in politics Can we can we paint a broad brushstroke across the lake Chad basin and the Sahel or there Important differences and distinctions That that are worth drawing out in particular countries or in an urban rural divide Or in a generational divide that that we should be thinking about as we define Both a research agenda and and assistance and intervention Ibrahim seems ready to answer I'd be happy to To talk about that I do think that there is There is not much variation that we can talk about from the national Difference particularly if I take the specific aspect of management of religion For example or the way that people live in those different countries Yes, there are Differences in terms of how the states different states in the Sahel manager religion We see in certain places For example, if I take the case of Niger, we see the government's struggle That there is this concept of secularism first that the government the government do not Interfer into religions affairs and they struggle with that but at the same time Everybody knows that religion is something that you have to deal with otherwise. It's just can become messy For the government later. So the government is trying to play Some role into bringing in religious traditional leaders the Sarakun and Galgazia The chiefs right to manage religious affairs through them informally Right. This is what we see and it is working and the government policy is to try to Maintain pietism at the dominant discourse in Niger And by doing that they try to promote Sufism etc and not giving a lot of say to Isala movement or Salafi kind of movement, etc And trying to promote that aspect through the traditional leader this to say that this is Islam that we know In our history our fathers and grandfathers did it if we say that it's not a good Islam That means they are all evidence. So this is Islam that we want to keep and this is Islam That we knew are over. We don't want anything new It is a little bit successful in terms of doing that, but on the other side There is a demand that is not being accepted which is creating tension Among those people who want Islam to have more say in politics And that's why sometimes we see rioting because there is no mechanism to absorb that demand That is Been expressed particularly among younger generation In places like Mali it is you don't have any Mechanism by the state to manage religion at all religious organizations manage themselves by themselves and that's led them to be More To have to be more powerful Particularly today in terms of the way that the influence politics Mauritania for example You have a strong It inspires from the Arab world the northern African world To create powerful ministries of religious affairs that try to manage Religion through the state mechanism through the institutions. So we see those differences at on the national level But I would really argue that most differences at the very local level. It is in the community the local district community This is where you really see And I will be happy to talk about that. I don't want to monopolize Maybe we can go down the line. We'll come back to you on that because I think that's that's a fascinating Um, I think the question really is are we talking about the general or the particular? And I think a way to think about it is to talk about a To my mind profound cultural unity in that part of West Africa that Goes across national boundaries Which are artificial. I mean they were drawn by the British French in the case of the Cameroons The Germans at the end of the 19th century They don't reflect a reality on the ground and for the people who are on the ground. They just sort of ignore it There's you know, massive movement back and forth across Across these artificial boundaries further I think in every single case For most people most of the time the state Be it Nigeria, Chad, Niger or Cameroon The state is bad. It's something you want to have as little as possible to do with So you have a kind of you have a kind of unity Now moving that up to the official level of governments There are all kinds of important differences for one thing Chad Cameroon and Niger are all francophone Nigeria of course is anglophone And the official relations between Nigeria and its francophone neighbors the official relationship Most of the time has not been particularly warm First legos and then abuja has been suspicious of the influence that paris retains in in francophone west africa That may be changing because Boko Haram amongst other movements is a threat to all of those states At the official level and so they're they're they're sort of pulling Pulling together and just just to Continue from where he stopped if you look at the the countries Mali, Murtinia, Chad, Niger In terms of commonalities Religion islam is common to these Countries, but when you pick Nigeria You have a country where there's almost a 50 50 Population between christians and muslims and that is why the influence of religion It's also not so pronounced in terms of the way it is in these countries Where you find the leadership professing islam even nationally to a large extent But in Nigeria, we've we've tried as much as possible to ensure that that balance Is provided in order not to create tension Between the two religion But when you go down to the communities That is where you see religion playing a very profound rule in early 2000 for instance the sharia debate The implementation of sharia islam for a state By by by the governor Some other states within northern Nigeria embrace that and attempted to introduce sharia but there were issues in card Kaduna for instance where Most of the citizens expected the state to introduce sharia because we had a christian muslim governor But a large number of the population felt We have a deputy governor It is practically not possible for you to implement sharia and that also led to the conflict and violence that erupted In that in that state so you'll see some Differences slight differences in the way the state has been able to manage some of these tensions associated with religion But the most important point is that Where a particular religion is dominant? You can see the influence of that religion Even from the community up to the state or national level. I think you're right to introduce Nigerian exceptionalism All of the francophone states are quite small in population Nigeria has an estimated 205 million people And by mid-century the estimate is it could be up to 450 million people And that it would then be the third largest country in the world displacing the united states in population Lagos has 22 million people So you are talking about a polity Which is vastly larger and vastly more complicated at almost every level Than than the smaller francophone states Further it's interesting to reflect on the differences between civilian governments and military governments When nigeria had a string of military governments the chief of state Always wore a uniform Not national dress because national dress belongs to a particular ethnic group And at least in the case of baban gear who was chief of state at one point when I was living there He refused to allow himself to be photographed coming or going from a mosque So there is a kind of secular expectation That is That that is very deep So Ibrahim I'd love to hear a little bit more about the the community Side and then also hear your thoughts on on the sense of nigerian exceptionalism One of my worries is as we talk about the lake chad basin because nigeria is so big Population economy we often lose An understanding and a reflection of what's happening in the other sahelian states So I'd love to hear some of your your reflections on that Okay. All right. So let me start with the The community level aspect of it If we look at How how do how do um People for example in capital cities in The sahel countries as compared to people in what I call the secondary cities That we have for example, um, let us talk about in nigeria is and there maradi Um And And then we look at the very periphery for example, and um Let us say gao in mali You see Some pattern of difference in The things that interest people The way that People interact with religion particularly religious ideologies and that i'm not talking about Theologies i'm not talking about theological sects like salafism islamism, but using the religion as A discourse to enter into politics The political behavior That that people Engage into by using a religious discourse Um In capital cities Mostly The places where you see islamism gaining ground is capital cities. Why because this is a place islamists are in competition with Um, uh, with civil society activists feminist group political parties. Those are the people that they are in debate with right rather than Uh, let us say ethnic groups or um drug traffickers or drug dealers in the periphery, right? So and they address particular issues Islamic economy islamic banking because there are banks in in in in bama ko for example And let's say in yami or in in lock shot. Um that are doing things and then people see you look at it and say We want to have something islamic that looks like that You don't want to open an islamic bank in gao for example Or let us say in defy it would have less success The need that people have in certain places in certain communities Have impacts on the type of ideologies that they Tend to that appeal to them if you want. Um, so If you look at the periphery where particularly places where there is a lot of disorder where people already fight for different reasons Where people fight over ethnicity But people fight over natural resources Fishing for example in the lecture division Under the fishing business or pastoral is pastoral land Or agriculture versus pastoralists fighting over land which one already people are Using violence in order to solve those problems. This is a place where somebody would come and say Look, um, you know instead of fighting over This narrow identities. Why don't you fight for something bigger?  So that's what I am saying that if Let us look at the local dynamic at the local level What interests people and how the particular ideologies address those needs ideologies that tend to address those needs More effectively are the ideologies that appeal to people more than the others Regarding the Nigerian exceptionalism Yeah, I would agree that there is a lot of differences between Nigeria in terms of the size in terms of The the the the the language in terms of the way that government approach the the the the french legacy of managing Religious affairs, etc. That is Very Different but let us not let these Differences overshadow the fact that there is a lot of interaction between people you go to Northern Nigeria You find a lot of Salafi group the izala movement is very well implemented in niger and actually the preachers from nigeria come to niger to preach and constantly and Those interactions through those networks of interactions. This is how Um I would say So I want to pivot a little bit to to talk about the the response both by The the countries themselves by the region by partners And I think we often think about the role of the education sector as we're talking about religion and politics And there's a little bit of an obsession with madrasas in particular And I I just like to hear your reflection about is that is that a place where we should Focus attention are we missing something in the other higher education institutions? Are there are there tenets of p studies and approaches to p studies and other core skills that that should be the center of the conversation rather than madrasas themselves I think the The issue of madrasas have dominated discussions around violent extremism Recently there was a publication by a lady hockner that talked about fair games for unfair accusations and That article was in response to woly so yinka's argument where when he said Uh al-madras is the butchers of modern nigeria and he made that statement because of What he felt was the link between the al-madras and violent extremism But the question hockner was supposed was that by design Are madrasas? Or were madrasas established? to radicalize people The second question is at what age do people or individuals sense to these madrasas totally Who has been able to also? audit Or look at the curriculum for these madrasas For you to now make very definitive conclusions or assertions or judgments that madrasas Platforms for which radicalization of these children takes place the other point for me is the fact that most of if you map The category of persons that have embraced violent extremist ideology Most of them are largely above 18 If you look at the presence in nigeria today Most of more than 85 percent of the individuals arrested For either being members of boku haram or supporting boku haram known is less than 20 And madrasas by design We are talking about individuals that are sent to these schools at age seven eight nine And in the process they gain western education for some of them some don't They still continue with the quranic education. So I think it's I'm I'm I'm providing this context for us not to also be too narrow in terms of our analysis or understanding of what education does The point for me Is that we must look at education in its holistic sense And that the pathways is first the point the ambassador raised about Forging an identity of unity Establishing societies communities countries where unity is the central and defining goal In terms of how people should live And the question now is what kind of peace education programs Do we have across these states across the countries within the lectured Area is there a peace content? To the education Is there a peace content to even the religious teachings? Because what we we we see increasingly Is hate preaching Religious organizations have shifted quite significantly From the part of preaching for salvation To a part where preaching is focused on conversion And that for me to convert you I must be able to tell you how bad the other region is But not to emphasize the humanity in the other in the other in the other person. So Education itself It's Might not be the problem in the context within which we fray bit But that the attitude The posture we adopt in terms of What we inculcate on our people all the religious all the religious groups Because it's when we're able to achieve that that the question of What secular education can also give Because where you have a situation that the Religious organizations or the religious leaders preach hate No matter how strong the secular education is It will do very little in helping that society. So that balance for me need to be need to be Recognized and reinforced Fester Campbell, I know you sit on the board of at least one university in the region Do you have any thoughts on this? Yeah, um, first of all The evidence that madrasa's or the that there is a link between madrasa's And violent extremism the evidence is very weak It's not convincing at all Um Secondly The point that you were making about the Shift in preaching From salvation to conversion Which implies that the religion that you're being converted from Is inadequate? I think that's a terribly important point And I think that goes right across the region and right across both religions both major religions I would add one other element here that we have not talked about so far This morning there was considerable conversation about the relationship between the sunni and the shia And the efforts by saudi arabia and iran to establish paramount seat in the middle east Those two countries have introduced some of that infection in to the lake chad region Where the saudis for example have built mosques and established foundations Designed to promote the salafist form of sunni islam And the iranians have done very much the same thing with respect to shia islam And a consequence of that is that there is now a shia minority In northeastern nigeria where there never was one before How big it is Is a real question they claim that they now have two million All right So I would like to address Last point that ambassador was making but also make a comment about the religious as the religious education aspect Regarding the question about salafism and This morning there was this vibrant debate about Salafism is a problem in the region And yes, I think I do think there is certain Fundamental aspects epistemologically That of salafism that Relate to jihadism But just let us not forget one thing that salafists are also in the forefront of fighting jihadism in the south and everywhere Absolutely In nigeria, it is jaffer mahmood and all the others that are fighting boko haram They are the first one to to to fight against boko haram in mali. You have The dico, etc. They are the first one to come out and condemn jihadist movement in muritania. It is the same so Taking that's why I'm saying that we need to be very very careful when we define um discourse and Between ideological discourse and theological discourse Salafism, wahabism, Sufism, etc. Those are mostly about religious practices not about political behaviors When we want to talk about political behaviors, we want to shift the debate from theology to political ideology This is where we can be in self-ground to make gamma comments That's one thing. So the other thing related to education um I totally agree with ambassador come on that al-majirei and people who study in macaranta my the gardawa, etc are Not primarily appealed by jihadist movement. In fact, most of them I place them in the category of pietists. This is a garda that we know who grew up writing on the on on on the law and law in and selling Those are not the ones that go to it is a peculiarity That muhammad yusuf in borno was able to mobilize among those group But it did not happen anywhere else. But in the sahel at least that I know very well. Most of those people are um go in with the Sufi kind of islam, etc not into into the violent side if they you go to the violent side You need to look into other factors that might have pushed them In mupti, for example in mali you have some of them that have engaged with amad kufa And but that is usually really mostly related to deep grievances about pastoral Pastoralists between pastoralists and agriculturalists That is I think most important driver for them to engage into that So if you look at them we say oh, these are al-majirei and that's why they engage into these groups We're not looking at other aspects of their lives that might have pushed them toward in that direction so That's one the other the the last aspect that I would like to address is university setting Islamic movements in the universities that we have them also over all over in all universities in the sahel almost we have muslim movements that are and um, there had been debate about oh those muslim does Muslim movement in universities tend to go to Jihadist movement Most of the people today that participate in politics Using islam in the sahel they come from the first of all from university setting from the islamic movement in the universities This is muslim society nigerian muslim society and you look at most of the people that today call for Engagement into participation into electoral parties. Those are the ones if you look at muritani at awasul is made of those people if you look at Sabati 2012 in mali You see all of them started their engagement their activism from the university. They accept the states They accept democracy And they want to make changes through the law not by changing the whole system Which is what the jihadists want to so We're looking at the wrong people really you can you may have individual cases And there is always individual cases to cite But if we were talking about trends and the larger dynamics I think i'm uh Those are the good guys It's very interesting. I mean it's not a country in the sahel but uh in in sudan people would say you can predict the outcome of the elections By looking at the outcome of the elections at the universities because you would hate have the same political parties overlaying So before we go to questions and answers and engage engage our audience I want to zoom us out even further and as we're as we're looking at the continent I think there's Over the last several decades the african union has really played a role in in setting norms and standards for peace security democracy And the regional economic communities as well who If anyone is is setting that norm around religion and politics Does that does that sit is there a continental? Component a continental framing to it a balancing of issues in my view. No Now you can get rhetoric But look at the organizations we're talking about The african union continues to be relatively weak It gets most of its funding from european states though It's in the process of trying to develop indigenous funding I would look instead At organizations like the economic community of west african states But there so far as i am aware Uh, they have never said anything at all about the establishment of religious norms. So I don't think it's there Now you no doubt can find some rhetoric somewhere But moving beyond rhetoric is something that is real. I don't think it's there And perhaps those aren't the right seats for that those norms to be set One of the first attempt by echo was for instance, which i'm familiar with To go close to doing that It's the echo was strategy on countering terrorism Which From that definition Most of the terrorist groups targeted Groups that have their origin from religion for instance boko haram, but in terms of the details of Identifying look locating religion As an area of focus in terms of looking at how states Can operate within a regionally agreed template that has not been done. But what? Going forward what I think Should be the case Is for states to begin to look at how best They can take advantage of the opportunities they have Now at the regional level to lecture basing for instance to address that if we Focus on a lectured basing arrangement The major problem with that Is the place of Moltenia and Mali that are not within the lectured Area, and they're not in echo was and they're not in echo. They're they're they're they're in echo was but cameroon And chad are not members of echo was if you focus on the sahel you might also be excluding some So you have a very complex arrangement to deal with Which means you must go beyond the echo was arrangement To begin to bring in the lectured countries To really sit down and and and and do that and that is where the african union As a continental body needed to play its own role But the weakness associated with The operations and structure of the african union makes it a bit difficult for it to play Do you think there's even the political will to try to do it? At the individual state level You We Might find some But it's also A function of the kind of institutions That are in place to do that Because the major problem beyond the political will Is the presence of institutions that should drive change You might have the individuals who are willing But if you don't have the required institution that will provide The much needed strength to drive And sustain that It becomes a major problem because for Nigeria for instance part of the problem we have With respect to security and development and even governors Is this regime specific? Arrangement Where as each leader leaves he lives with his own legacy He lives with his own program the next person comes and starts afresh Which is a bit different from what you have in the united states You have hundreds of years of institutions that have been able to continuity So it's a continuity is the major challenge writing we should even focus on So it's about actors and institutions So um Religion is messy thing particularly in this global world Most of the countries in the Sahel are influenced by ideas that are generated globally It's not generated locally those are Azhar scholars Or it is Abdullah Azzaam and Bilal who write books and then Muhammad Yusuf could inspire could read that book And then he make up his own ideas or Yusuf Khardawi somewhere in Qatar or from that is inspired in people Um in Tawasul movements, etc. Or it is It is very difficult to manage Because people could always go to internet could always buy a bookstore. You could always get cassettes and the recording to do that From the management aspect there is Not even only in the Sahel, but all over the world. There are no any mechanisms to um To manage those ideas and even much less in the Sahel region or even in Nigeria There are countries it is becoming people countries are becoming more and more aware that they need to Try to manage Religion and to set up mechanisms to try to push the dynamic in certain side to empower certain groups To express themselves more than others in order to um Have impact on the Collective consciousness of people locally But compared to the dynamic the global dynamic that is coming to people It's not being very effective and Let us say that at the Sahel level Even this security problem people countries have not been able to come together to put mechanism to deal with it Now they're trying to put in the Sahel J5 Sahel That is only security based response to the crisis. It's not Idea-based. It's not like trying to bring all the ulama from the region in order to Produce a discourse that could address those challenges. There is no other mechanism And even the Sahel there has to be even the J5 Sahel there has to be France And particularly France that brought them together the first meeting that they had to create those was held in You're not able to get together in the Sahel region between different foreign ministers to to to come up with and so these are political issues that are affecting the security issues That are affecting those countries. They are not able to deal with them I mean ideas It is more difficult than So let's bring in The participants here who all have a deep knowledge of these issues and I'm sure some some even harder questions To post the panel will take a few questions at a time. And then we'll bring it back to the panelists Yes here in the front Yes, please Thank you. Gail in England with the one campaign The I'd like to play on the last point that you were making on the The way in which the the g5 force has been emphasized in only security aspects at present Um, and that reminds me of the the UNDP report that the ambassador referenced at the beginning The other fact that stood out for me was not that 70 percent of people were influenced by religion But that 71 percent were influenced by state violence against themselves or a loved one I thought the the dialectic between religion and state violence was critical In that in that study and generally in the conversation today So tangible question What can be done to hopefully liaise between The development sphere and the security sphere at a regional level or at a country level Directify some of those underlying Drivers of state violence And hopefully bring religion into the fold in those conversations as well. Are there tangible solutions there that we had? Okay, thank you Cheryl Hi, I'm Cheryl Frank. I work for the Institute for security studies in In with offices across Africa. So this is a issue that is obviously something of Serious concern for us I'm really interested in the panelist view on The security response in the north in Nigeria particularly around civilian involvement in protection and And in dealing with Bokora The civilian involvement in well civilians now in In IDP camps and the the damage done in the north to civilians And and how we get beyond that And where we move from here Particularly because you know, we have a history in Nigeria even in the cities of the young men ganging up together and And and causing Being the result of a lot of violence and so on. So I I am Asking really about how the security response continues from here in a way that That secures some of what we've been worrying about is is abuses and which are some of which are attributed to Citizens and civilians being involved in Insecure to your responses as well, so Great Yes Kyle Dietrich from equal access So I guess if you can I want to kind of forecast two to three years from now And look at the future in the lake shad basin region You know, we have If isis is being squeezed in iraq and syria In boko haram as at least part of them have aligned themselves pledge allegiance to isis You know from my reading there haven't been a lot of boko haram fighters participating in iraq and syria Likewise, there haven't been a lot of foreign fighters From north africa europe the levante participating in the struggle around the lake shad basin One reason I think is because frankly a lot of isis leadership and And the sort of foreign fighters participating are racist and they frankly don't care about the sub-saharan african cause But project with me What's the resonance of isis's messages across the lake shad basin in terms of the ideology the religious ideology And how is that going to be Kind of mobilized to potentially increase a base For isis when you look at where they're going obviously libya obviously attacks in the west their strategy is changing But what does that look like in the lake shad basin region over the next few years? Thanks Great Why don't we start with that that first round of questions? Don't feel that you have to answer all of them, but you'll feel free to choose the ones that you feel are best State violence, uh, yeah That same undp reports shows that personal The the the personal sort of receiving of state violence is And literally a majority of cases the tipping point for people who join Who joined boko haram? It's the precipitating factor as it were now What do you do about it? Okay There are lots of proposals that Be at the eu be at the united states be at whoever Should undertake massive training programs for indigenous police and indigenous military In fact up to now The states involved have been remarkably uncooperative And in fact under good luck jonathan a very small scale us military training program was essentially sabotaged So this takes us back to the problem of how do you address the underlying causes of violent extremism when part Maybe even much of the underlying cause Is the inadequacies of the state? And after all we have to deal with states We the united states do In connection with this i for one opposed The sale of light aircraft by the us to the nigerian air force On the basis that experience in afghanistan and iraq showed That it led to an increase in civilian casualties, which further alienated the indigenous population Civilian joint task force Uh again, this is an area about which i think we need to be very humble Because we don't know very much about it and i think clearly it varies considerably from one area to another In some areas it seems to me to be a little more than a sort of score settling mechanism In other areas there have already been calls by cg Jtf leaders for pensions Rather like the buying off of the niger delton militants through the amnesty I view the cjtf as essentially a pandora's box Um idp camps Long-term consequences Okay, take a figure one that floats around the un is two and a half million internally displaced persons Plenty of people within the un offices in new york are worried That this will be the next driver of mass migration across the sahara into europe That in other words, this is a major problem ticking away and yet the international community is Relatively uninterested in it two to three year forecast um I see a bokeh haram And the islamic state As drawing on The same theological basis the same Seven century interpretations of islamic texts I don't see Much other connection between the two In fact, I do not believe there has been a single european or north american Who went to west africa to fight for bokeh haram or for any other islamic uh jihadist group And I agree with you That part of the reason for this is plain old racism um The islamic state is has been quite racist In terms of in terms of its outlook So if you were to ask me what is the lake chad basin going to look like two to three years from now I would say Absent addressing the internally displaced problem. It will look very much as it does now That in other words, it will not be any kind of dramatic change And if there is dramatic change Alas, it will be for the worse Two to three years from now Recently the islamic state of west africa and It's one of the emerging threats in west africa Which also is drawing strength from icis but the question of whether members of bokeh haram are linked to the islamic state of west africa Is this something that cannot be confirmed But I think that's a major security challenge That the region and by extension The lake chad basin will confront a threat The threat secondly is the fact that For over seven years that region has been militarized And the militarization of the lake chad basin Goes beyond just bokeh haram But that the whole question of criminality and banditry That is also taking place around that area Is a major challenge for the state And that what criminal groups are doing in that area kato rustling for instance Is a major economy that is thriving And is thriving at a rates With which it has the capacity to also fuel Or fund or sustain Some other forms of extremism If not managed very well, so that's also a trend that Needs to be looked into in the in the in the next two or three years We've seen non-state and groups like civilian jtf Hunters association Coming out supported by the state to fight bokeh haram They've been given trainings. They've been given weapons They are now scaled in the use of these weapons The question is or the question of how the Nigerian state will even retrieve these weapons Is still there What the Nigerian state will do with these individuals and groups that have been trained What kind of disarmament program will be put in place What kind of compensation will be given to this group In a post bokeh haram north east remains a major security challenge Recently we saw what happened in codivoa Between the rebels who fought for quattara Who took up arms went to the street to say You did not pay us well for the services we provided and we are capable of holding the state siege Now that's also a scenario That might play out in the north east if not looked into so we might be moving out away From bokeh haram that has been decimated significantly to a new set of armed groups That might also pose almost the same threat That bokeh haram posed to the Nigerian state and I think the point you raised on basado About the id piece is quite profound. It's a major issue That the Nigerian state the lectured basin area Echo was Europe would all have to face And it's a reality It's something that from the perspective of policy Need to be looked into So regarding the first question about what can be done to bridge security and development The Let us say that people who embraced many people who embraced jihadist ideology who are now called the jihadist are fighting To save their community into an environment of chaos to protect their livelihood Whether they're agriculturalists or pastoralist people This conflict existed before jihad came in And when jihad jihad came in people appropriated it and the continued the same conflict up to now That doesn't mean that they are not affected by ideology. They might be affected by ideology, but they fight They have been fighting for a long time and now they fight. I'm not talking about the case of bokeh haram particular. I'm talking about the case of jihadist movement in Mali Particularly on the border between Mali and Niger, but also in the lectured region you had conflict between the buduma and the pearl that is not That is not starting now. It has been there for a long time and tensions between kanuri and hausa Around the lectured region that is also that go back firing history, but If we look at those conflicts That existed before those are all around natural resources and international development actually in some ways Aggravated them by particularly funding more Projects Into places where the occupied pastoral lands and now pastoralists cannot find land to Grasen animals and then they take weapons to fight back Those are the kind of dynamics that generated the conflict that we see particularly in Mali So better understanding of those problems I think trying to always not look into Different subgroups interest When programming Development project would be really very important. The second issue and particularly regarding security is that That the Sahelian countries are out of guards They're not ready to fight this country insurgency Whore they don't have the capacity. They don't have the intelligence. They don't know who is who Am I in those groups? There is now Paranoia about pearl are jihadist You know everywhere and then you go into the Pearl side or the buddhuma are jihadist, for example, or in Difa. They said, oh These kura neighborhood are jihadist And then you go there you find only a few individuals who are related to that and the bulk majority is just cut Into those and then as you continue Killing those civilians who are not part of the groups You continue aggravating the cases those who did not take weapon because the grievances of the violence That they receive from the state are going back Are taking it now. So it is it is deeply Troubling from particularly the the the military sign of those military are saying Most of the people that Niger for example arrested in Difa. They didn't have anything to do with Boko Haram They were just caught in the islands within the like charts and now brought to jail for two years three years without any proof That index them and that Those people want to go back. They are more aggrieved and Mostly willing to engage into that that thing that they were so there is that aspect that is More information about who is doing that. I think it's crucial But unfortunately in the context of security is difficult to get those informations The question regarding ISIS the impact of ISIS under three years I don't want to predict what is going to happen in three years, but I would like to say that Let us not think about North Africans who go and join ISIS as not a threat to the Sahel. There is no border between The Sahara is not a border people from Algeria come down to the Sahel to commit atrocities etc Those who come back from Iraq, we will end up in the lecture division Or somewhere in the in the in the Sahara around Gao actually right now The movements the jihadist movement in northern Mali are all laid are all laid by jihadist groups jihadist individuals from Algeria or from western Sahara This movement there is a movement actually that is spires from ISIS, which is called Islamic State in the Greater Sahara led by This guy as Sahrawi Is the Abu Alidah Sahrawi Abu Alidah is almost the only The only Arab guy Who From outside who is in the movement and he is a leader All the others are pearl group Fulani Who are laid who are being laid by this One individual at least he that we only hear his name We didn't hear other Sahara is who are part of it Even if you know that in Mujah other used to be some Arab and Sahara is in that group So it's it's not a border I don't want to be apocalyptic, but It is The Sahel might will be impacted by the return of some of the the the fighters from Syria and Iraq I think we have time to take a couple of more questions Up the back, Venita Thanks, Susan Great presentation ambassador Ibrahim and Chris A quick pushback for the ambassador's small nuance It's not that nothing has been done for the IDPs by Europe and the United States I would contend we're doing more for the IDPs And humanitarian assistance there than we're doing saying Puerto Rico at the moment There have been hundreds of millions of dollars Now been spent on humanitarian situation clearly more needs to be done The Bama initiative in Nigerian Borno state is another thing we need to look at that is promising The questions that I had for the participants is Do we really need an echo us or the African Union to set norms for religion? What about the centers like Mauritania? Senegal Mali that have been traditional centers of the host islamic issues Pan islamic issues should not we be thinking about their revivalism Why don't we just take a couple more than we're going to do one last response because we only have about five minutes left If there are any other questions I lied Yes, we'll take one last one Since I see no other hands Thanks that that last question sparks the meals in my head Coming back to inequality in the area in your private jets story At question of domestic resource mobilization there is substantial wealth in Nigeria And there are significant super empowered individuals as well that do have Very large assets. What can be done to also work towards domestic resource mobilization as opposed to What we've seen as a chronic underfunding in the international humanitarian response Great, so maybe we can respond to those and then if you have any last concluding remarks, please You're perfectly correct Ambassador Haley up at the un announced earlier in the week that All together the u.s. Has devoted some three billion dollars to To three famines of which two are in Africa What I should have said Is that the us effort and the international effort to address the idp's is inadequate And in fact in terms of pledges to the varying un organizations that are involved with it only something like 25 percent has even been Been paid in I mean that's That I think is is the issue With respect to Mobilization of Nigerian wealth To address the country's profound social problems How do you do it when the people who hold the wealth Are more or less perfectly contented with the situation as it is I mean Short of robin hood Or alternatively and you will sometimes get this on the third gin and tonic in legos You sometimes will get a kind of riddle Why is Ghana so much better off than Nigeria? Even though Ghana has no oil it didn't then it does now answer Flight lieutenant Rawlings and stakes on the beach In other words a violent social revolution Uh, which let me tell you in the Nigerian context would be pretty awful I would like to address the question about Echo whether echo us or you and or a you need to Interfer into the manager of the religion um I would say that It is important, but it's not the determinant factors that would lead to why is it important because The Empowering having Regional Groups that decides or that could come for example out and condemn religion empower local Religious leaders to do the same not having anybody saying that it makes it difficult for some local leaders to do that and um Religious decision that Ulama in Mauritania make sometimes have impact impact on the region One example in 2013 When the french intervened in Mali to stop the jihadists invasion toward the south There was an important debate in Mauritania. Whether this is Whether this is acceptable in islam or not acceptable in islam 30 something ulama in Mauritania. I came out and wrote a fatwa To say that this is um an islamic. It is an infidels invasion of muslim territory, etc I was in florida and the people called me from zander and told me that Actually is of ulama say it is haram. It is you see it could travel From Mauritania to deep into the Sahel region and um, so that is While when we had jihadist jihadist attacks in workshop all those ulama came out and say that this is an islamic But then in Mali they said it is a different context. This is jihad. This is a good jihad in Mali But it wasn't a good jihad So if you can have a framework where Mauritania and ulama and Mali and ulama who could say wait a minute Whereas what is the religious base in on which jihad could be haram in Mauritania and not haram in Mali That could help really create Plus it empower local religious leaders to speak out about about religion I think I'll just I think beyond the use of force and responding to violent extremism in Nigeria The lectured area The Sahel and west Africa in general One thing we need to recognize is the centrality of social capital That exists within communities and within religious groups and they Have played a major role in holding communities together They've played a major role in providing counter narratives To violent extremist groups And it's something that I think we can Still hold on to Is something that I think is worth supported Is something that I think we need to also research for that to see How we can identify and locate models within communities And how these models can also be replicated in other communities where they might not exist Or they might be weak. I know for instance one of the successes that People like the Marquis Sal had Which he enjoyed today Interestingly in Senegal Senegal is 95 percent Muslim Marquis Sal is a Christian. He was voted president in that country One of the successes for that was the role that the religious leaders played In twatting the effort of Abdullah Iwad To Succeed himself in office or impose his song The religious the religious leaders played a major role in terms of civic activism in the context of the mobilization of citizens Around protecting their mandate. So I think these are success stories That we see working in some of these countries and they are very powerful messages that we can vote Great. Well, um, please join me in thanking our really tremendous panel for this conversation. Thank you for joining us And if I may also make two small Public service announcements, um, if you're interested in following the lake chad basin Let me extend an invitation for you to come back to usip tomorrow just in case you haven't spent enough time here Where we'll be hosting members of a senior working group from Nigeria. Dr. Quagga is a member of that group And the highlight will be a discussion on religion the role of religion in peace in Nigeria With the his eminence the cardinal And then a representative of the sultan of soketo and obi as a quacili Who you will know as the founder of the bring back our girls campaign And then my second psa is that This panel previews So research that resolve will be doing over the next year one on education and partnership with usa and venita's here And one also forthcoming to look at the role. I think of the cjtf and how they can play How they can be how that challenge can be be addressed in in nigeria So that's a psa to please come back next year as well. So put it on your calendars. So, thank you everybody The next one is is about National action plans and what are some of the tactical governance issues that should be on the radar of local governments I cut out the rest of her question But I think that's a really interesting one And then This is what if any signs for local governments? I began to make connection between security sector reform resilient governance systems encountering Well, I think it's we went from cross-border to national to local I'm just I'm just going to read your Because they have bios It's yours. You're not You're you're ahead of trends. Okay So maybe How about we why don't we just talk about why don't we just skip national action plans then and just say as national governments try to come to grips with extremism What are some of the tactical governance issues that should be on the radar of local governments? Are they going to give us a thumbs up when we start? We got one we're supposed to start right now All right, welcome Thank you to all you intrepid souls who made it through the entire day at a dc conference To the final panel discussion. I know you guys are just waiting for the the reception afterwards But thanks for thanks for making us a stop on the way So this this panel is specifically titled Filling the vacuum insecurity governance gaps and extremism By the way, my name is Cameron Chisholm. I'm the founder of the international peace and security institute And I had what I thought were a lot of witty Insightful things to say about governance. But then there were a lot of very witty insightful people who spoke throughout the day about governance systems So I think I'm going to try and keep my introductory Brief very short And and pass it off to the real experts and then hopefully open it up to a conversation as this is the afternoon And and I think that we can have a pretty robust Q&A at the end because this is such a rich topic One of the things I do want to say which I think was an interesting finding of the institute for which I work Was last year we held something called the CVE symposium here in Washington, DC We brought together a similar group of individuals and tried to Mind mind the mind minds of the Of the group and one of the questions that we asked it was military It was ngo's peace builders Government workers etc. It was what are the ideal approaches? One of the most effective approaches encountering violent extremism and what was interesting Across the sectors was that Supporting inclusive governance rose to the top Of every single group in fact 86 percent of the 400 people 386 people That answered said that that was The most ideal And and I think we sit here today a year and a half later With a lot more research a lot more insights On how inclusive governance systems can Support resilience against extremism So we have a very illustrious panel here Who are going to dig in to some some real world examples? Both positive and negative about how governance has either inhibited or promoted violent extremism And and then we'll open it to q&a First to my left we have Cheryl Frank who's the head of transnational threats in international crime division at the institute for security studies Then we have Philip Rothman the associate director for global uh at the global public policy institute Then ferra hawana the associate program coordinator At the sanah project in the small arm survey And imtias gul executive director center for research and security studies so In an attempt to look at overlapping governance systems Obviously you have governance systems that are Transnational governance systems that are regional governance systems that are national Governance systems are municipal and they all interact in very complex ways So i'm going to ask three questions The first is going to really focus at the transnational level the second is going to focus At the national level and the third will focus at the local level And then you guys can ask questions about whatever you want So the first one to all of you You've all recently done research and we had a bit of a conversation about this before on the different aspects of extremism in places like Kenya, libya, pakistan, iraq and all of these cases Really struggle with you know, either cross-border or transnational challenges What kind of impact do these challenges have on the outgrowth of island extremism in the places? And what role the governance systems play in inhibiting or promoting resilience against extremism We'll start with you Charlie started me. Um, so let's um, thanks very much Cameron. Um So I come from the last three weeks of having talked about democracy and Security and then last week spending time at unge and I see colleagues here Hey, eric Who we are talking about? counterterrorism and pve and then coming into this forum And feeling a little bit shaken from the the massive shifts they had to make in my brain each week Simply because this week we really questioned States and states contributions to violent extremism and states contributions to violence And I think that's the starting point um for for me here in this in this conversation and and um talking about the horn of You know, let's talk about the horn of africa for a moment is the the real um difficulties of developing You know the global counterterrorism forum, for example has an east african working group that um, that developed strategies and policies and Um programs for the horn of africa, and we have a vastly complex region that struggles from Dealing with al-shaba and a range of other transnational problems including organized crime and And and general violent crime um, what we have also is a mix of states that have A very little coherence in terms in terms of the strategic responses You have institutions amongst those states and I want to specifically highlight an institution such as The east african police chiefs association cooperation association, which is 15 states including egad As a positive example of how Within a very complex region one can have a core plan About policing terrorism about Uh dealing with cross-border issues pursuit of suspects Mutual legal assistance international cooperation more broadly, etc However, the the complexities of trying to work in that transnational environment, especially by just lumping regions together um Really severe and and I think the the the difficulties are a lack of um A real um understanding of really what we want to do transnationally We can have national plans and for example kinnia has its own strategy on pve um and uh Yet kinnia has an amnesty program for example for people coming back into kinnia from al-shaba um, and so does um Somalia and With vastly different objectives and strategies attached to their motivations. In fact, um vastly different So um the the matters of um Of governance are quite complex in in the context of these transnational things a lot a second thing I want to say or the last thing i'll say on that issue is Matters of accountability and the accountability of states and security forces attached to states um massively different across a region like the horn um And in that cross border environment in that transnational environment um Institutions are different values are different challenges are different objectives are different. So um the um the sort of um the difficulties of working in a transnational environment particularly where we want to encourage accountability and that lack of uh and and limiting state the use of force and limiting government's Use of security mechanisms when you can use other mechanisms Is is quite problematic Given the the need to have a more regional strategy and approach Take over immediately. Okay. Thank you very much for the for the invitation and thanks all of you for for coming I've been asked to join this panel Not because of any particular expertise of my own but because some of my colleagues just worked Just completed a bunch of publications and outputs from a very interesting research project together with partners local partners at the american university of iraq in sulay mania in iraqi kurdistan Looking at what we call politely in the proposal Local and hybrid security forces. So basically we mean militias of various type kinds of legitimacy and various types of connection to the central government And uh, I think what the the key point that stands out for me in response to to cameron's question and this kind of transnational local link In in governance challenges Responding or not responding to violent extremism Is is the fact is or is basically a point that leads me to to challenge the title of the panel a little bit The first word was vacuum and I think the first Kind of point that i'm i'd like to draw out from this hyper local research I won't bore you with the the detailed analysis of various districts of kirkuk and talafar and so forth If you're interested, you're very welcome to go to www.gppi.net it's on the front page and you can click on it and and Read more and but I think for this forum it's it's You know kind of some cross-cutting themes are more appropriate and one of them is simply that there's never a vacuum, right? I mean I understand that we're using this term as shorthand for for central government control That might not be there or central government government might not be providing governance in in a particular area But I think it's important to to to kind of it's it's a misleading Category that that takes us down the wrong rabbit hole sometimes So I think it's important to realize that that there's never that there's never an ungoverned space or a vacuum like that People always need protection. They need food. They need other things And somebody will provide it in in some way or another it might be a very abusive relationship Of course the kind of the the romanticized notion of a of a locally stood up militia that protects its community And is so much less abusive and so much nicer than the bad government forces Is is sometimes true to some extent, but it's often also Just an advertising narrative for that for that militia and and those those groups might be As or more abusive as as governments But the the starting point The the finding or the key point that that this this research is not new but has reinforced for us again Is that it's important to analyze these situations that we that were that were That were tempted to to to call vacuums To analyze them in a non-biased way right that to simply to look at who wields power who wields violence Who has money in these situations in a very very basic very simplistic in a way way That just ignores any normative preconceptions about who should wield power and who should take decisions Who should make rules because only that will lead us to understanding Anything about about those areas and that's where we get where the transnational bit comes in right because while the the The source of the problem Ultimately is always local That that's that's very clear this this This entrepreneurial opportunity so to say to provide governance in areas where Governance is insufficiently provided and governance in a broad way including security Including violent coercion in some areas or justice Um That that entrepreneurial opportunity will be taken by a mix of people That's what we're seeing in iraq in northern iraq by some some groups that respond to the alienation of the shia community By standing up shia dominant forces And getting support from iran that doesn't mean that iran has this kind of you know that that this is automatically A result of some sort of iranian takeover Of of course iran sees itself in a defensive position and and sees itself forced to support Its sectarian brethren across the border There's the Kurdish forces so forth right so knee groups All of whom draw significantly on on international transnational support But that doesn't mean that the sources of the problems and also I think most of the solutions aren't actually local So that's that would be my Kind of Little advertising segment for the next round Great. Thank you very much. So I'll just um, I guess follow up the comments of of my colleagues to the right By talking a little bit about my role, which is project coordinator of the security assessment in north africa at the small arm survey Um, we are looking at tracing exactly the kind of transnational relationships and linkages that are so Difficult to do with the traditional Sort of methodological lens that looks only at a country focus. So it's very much looking Um at the north african region trying to understand it as a cohesive whole Of course the north africa region in this um in this formulation is Morocco, libya, tunisia, algeria And egypt And when we talk about This sort of myth they're often repeated idea of there being an ungoverned space or there being a vacuum And I completely of course agree with the comments that are made that of course this is something that doesn't really exist And I would add to that and these will be um, hopefully my addition to the discussion At least in this region that kind of um sort of pattern of local governance or of Whether the central state is present or not present is very much tied to I think much longer processes of Historical formation of these states of the institutions particularly security institutions in these states and the roles that they play in the political regimes and systems that are Currently in place, which of course have changed or have been affected drastically since 2011 um, so The cross-mortar challenges that are faced in tunisia are I mean in in the region excuse me are different for example If you look at the role of the military in egypt or the role of the military in algeria And you compare that to its neighbors. So the security institutions that play a role in security provision have a very different perception public perception That is felt by the population there and there is in fact as has been mentioned I think in earlier panels Quite a long legacy of autocratic rule in these regions where you have a certain closing off of public space as lack of tolerance for dissent Which of course led to these 2011 uprisings which have been discussed But the cross-mortar challenges are not limited to You know ideological ones or or or new ideas that are spread through technologies and things like that but also much more hard questions of actual networks that are in place that Are involved in in trafficking Of proliferation of not just small arms and light weapons, but of course as has been in the news lately also people also drugs There are many goods that might be of course trafficked and having porous borders in the north african region as well as neighboring Certain other regions like the Sahara Sahel region and the Levant where Borders are also porous, but you have existing also conflicts at the local level. You have a super imposition particularly in the case of libya, which since 2011 has really Fed quite a lot of these cross-border challenges that we have been facing which is related to Um The smuggling networks that have always sort of been in place and the communities that straddle The borders and that function in these in these different countries. It's quite A complex Picture a complex environment Where people have different, you know, obviously there's multiple fluid identities of the groups and in groups that are involved But once you have a local Um a sort of super imposition of a national Excuse me a national Sort of political divide as we see in libya now where you have sort of rival governments. You have two camps Then these political Sort of frames can also be superimposed upon local conflicts where then there is Sort of an interest created in continuing the conflict because of perhaps regional support Uh Support in the financial sense support in the arm sense support also in the political sense So there creates certain lucrative markets that spring up of course around conflicts and armed conflicts Related of course with trafficking and the proliferation of armed groups In the case of libya, there's a multiplicity of uh of armed groups that are are really working and it's a dizzying Array and a balance. Um, what happens in libya and the reason I keep mentioning it is particularly since 2011 the fall of the khazafi regime, um, you have a situation of That affects the neighbors. So you have a uh, uh weapons that are looted from old government stockpiles because of course States are often the major source of Also illicit weapons through diversion through looting through theft and other ways. Um, so It's really become I think a little bit outdated to try to talk about counterterrorism or countering violent extremism within the discrete sort of You know boundaries of a single of a single country because at this stage At least in the region where I work and it seems in in in neighboring regions as well Those demarcations are no longer empirically Sound really Thank you very much Yeah, it's uh very difficult to know address. Um, whatever audience is left after a very front-loaded Two set two or three sessions But still I'll try to come up to the challenge Um Pakistan I because I come from Pakistan. So I have to contextualize what is happening in in Pakistan the kind of trans border threats that It it faces Perhaps can be categorized in two factors One is the structural factors that is the geography of Pakistan and That is India, Afghanistan basically both Relationships are very have been very acrimonious and have gone really from bad to worse in the last few years the second type of Factors are the trigger factors like one is of course Checkered history of relations with India India being seen as a as a hostile enemy country The second big trigger factor was the Cia ISI led sponsored anti-soviet union jihad of the 1980s and the third was the Again another joint project of Pakistan, the United States and other NATO countries. That was a war on terror so the cumulative impact of these trigger factors has been the the birth of the Mujahideen the Taliban al-Qaeda Daesh on the one hand and then of Organizations like lashkar a taba or jashem Muhammad in Pakistan which are focused more on kashmir the Indian part of kashmir and then this is Basically created The kind of problems that Pakistan currently faces these non-state groups Whether it's lashkar a taba the haqqani network or the Taliban in afghanistan They basically are at the heart of pakistan's acrimonious relations with both India and Afghanistan and also at the same time the the relationship The the daisi relationship with the united states is also defined by these trans-border non-state actors and The combination of all these non-state factors has thrown up basically a number of challenges to pakistan including the discourse of radicalization terrorism And they have then eventually hooked up also many of them With the organized crime Taking advantage of the ungoverned spaces as we have been talking about in the northwest and southwest of pakistan The non-state actors that the trans border basically the proponents of the trans-border religious ideologies They as well as the organized crime feed of each other are complementary They provide each other with the social support that that they need they also provide each other with the Havens with the shelters that they need to operate and that is Is an extremely complicated situation For pakistan because some of the groups have also splintered Splintered into proxies for external factors Whether it's for al-qaeda whether it's for daish or for any other outside force So it has then obfuscated the reality as to whether this is terrorism Or this is radicalization or part a combination of organized crime and terrorism or religious radicalization Now the state response to it has been Many many fold i would say there's been a sustained series of operations military operations against Many of the non-state acts is particularly those who have been directly targeting and publicly targeting Pakistan's interest Pakistan security apparatus as well as political figures And then Mark followed by a big operation that eventually was Conducted in north waziristan which borders afghanistan starting in june 2014 Followed up by another one early this year At the same time we saw the birth of a Long-term integrated policy approach To issues of terrorism and radicalization and that is called the national counterterrorism authority Now this national counterterrorism authority drew a lot of flak Including myself from people including myself just because Initially we were hoping for miracles to happen once you know the authority has been put in place But we forgot and a lot of people overlooked that this authority was Created to the context of a myriad of problems on the one hand you have a political ruling elite Which is not ready to give up its hold on the police for instance Which was supposed to be the first which is the first point of contact Which was supposed to be an equal partner in the counterterrorism and counter radicalization That the army was spearheading on the other hand The the bureaucracy which is tardy which lacks vision and there is so much inter-institutional discord within the ministries civilian ministries as well as between the the Civilian segment of governance and the the military so against that backdrop the first five years Or six years basically saw not much happening In fact, its legal foundation came about four years ago when the present government Instruct instituted some legislation for the creation of national counterterrorism authority It is now trying to achieve targets Which many of which are ambitious given the this inter-institutional discord And sort of did partial dysfunction of many institutions, but if you look at look at it from a distance It has put together some framework for any terror legislation proposed legislation for terrorist financing For making the banking systems a little more stringent In order to prevent The terrorist financing and I think it's also created a sort of coordination Better coordination among the four provinces. We have four provinces So it is just taking off. So most of people are very skeptical about this state response to so to say, uh, to to terrorism and radicalization But I personally think and I by nature I'm an optimist So I would I would say the glass is half full That basically a country which has been mired in conflict Fighting many battles particularly from within so it has now got an integrated policy approach To what extent does it bear fruition? To what extent does it really address the problem the core problem that Pakistan faces that is increased religiosity? I wouldn't say radicalization. This is increased religiosity A lot of people tend to look at many problems even of the at the political economy through the religious privilege Which needs a direct intervention At the community level not only by the bureaucracy, but also by the public representatives Whether they are the members of the national parliament members of provincial parliament or members of the district government but the But the ruling mainstream ruling parties are not allowing The district government system to function because they fear loss of territory loss of authority So that's why we are in a state of flux, but I'll end here. I think then we can take take it further Great You all raised some I think some really interesting points Throughout this panel one the fact that there are no such thing as uncoverage spaces. They're just alternative governance systems Um, I think it's also really interesting to touch on the fact that there really is nothing that is truly local Uh, and that's the hyper connected Place that we are in the world, uh, definitely affects governance systems That said We still live in a Westphalian world primarily and many of the solutions That are being or at least Solutions is probably a kind word many of the Responses there we go tend to be through national governments And uh, I know you all work on a myriad of different countries So maybe pick one or two Think about that and as those national governments are trying to come to grips with how to respond to these ungoverned spaces or issues of violent extremism including Developing national action plans If you were going to brief The individuals who are coming up with these plans. What are the the primary tactile of governance issues That you would suggest that they focus on primarily Um So I I have to admit and I I felt Last week when I said this that That it was slightly blasphemous under the circumstances of unga but uh an unga side event But you know the the national action plan Approach Promoted by the un and requested of states now You know set a sort of cycle of exhaustion in place for for most people working Particularly in our african space because policy making takes so long and policy processes take so long And you know we really Under some circumstances believe that you don't need new policy and new strategy You just need to implement all the right things that are in your constitution and that are already in place So it was that level of that sense of do we need this? Although the directive is there yet I also think that um, you know the we we can really serve local communities Through some of these strategies these national action plans If we do not do the quick and dirty exercise of sending in a consultant To design the policy and take a box and then leave But we really engage with the local needs of people and and to just provide an example from some of the research We did in in kenya. I think some of these strategies can help set local priorities and needs Which I think are what the quick and dirty exercises don't pick up on And and the research that we did in kenya on on women's roles in violent extremism picked up Obviously a whole dynamic of issues Um, but um, for example, if you were to ask those women What would their prioritize for national action plans in their communities and the seven affected communities we We looked at they were they would say we want service service delivery from the from the trauma We experienced after terror attacks We would want you to and this is answering your question about What would be the governance things at local level that need to be dealt with they would They want the police and security forces to stop harassing them about their husbands that go That disappear and are presumably in somalia or their sons who are equally Suspected of having left and gone to somalia They would want support from the government and from local agencies and from donors In in they would want to support in terms of Economic support from having lost breadwinners And then so the the priority setting I think is Is extremely Valuable in this in this context if we're going to do national action plans Let them matter in this context so that local communities can Can contribute to those discussions one of the things that and you know I've been doing research in violence prevention for over 20 years One of the things you hear consistently when you go to communities Is stop researching us And unless you're going to bring back Services and things that matter to us unless you're going to bring changes and that happens so seldom So if these process Processes can help engage at least some of those voices and bring those services back into those those communities then Then they would be valuable processes But I am yeah, so I'll leave it at that great Don't you and let's try and keep it to like two minutes So we can get the q&a. Okay Yeah, so I mean in terms of the what we what we saw in iraq. I mean, you know sis is The the supposed islamic state daesh is is increasingly Gone in terms of territorial control The the key thing is not to think that they you know, suddenly the government takes over and everything is fine I mean first of all there's Especially in northern iraq a lot of competition. You probably also the news about the kurdish referendum result About which government gets to govern But also The government. I mean there's there's a reason why the government, you know, why a lot of the iraqi Authorities particularly the military but also everything else collapsed So so quickly in in the face of the is onslaught two three years ago, so It the the key problem Is is basically to establish, you know, simply better governance than the competition, right? And what that better governance means That I mean like Cheryl was just saying I think that that that's the key problem For for policymaking Both for us, but also if I were to advise the iraqi central government or the Kurdistan regional government That is in the eye of the beholder That's locally different and that's why we need to ask Or that's why these these the local people need to be asked the situations are different and the priorities are different And and I think that's one of the problems that many approaches in this governance space Be they under under a counterinsurgency framework or under a stabilization framework or under a cbe framework Have suffered from this attempt to kind of try to to kind of apply general templates and say, you know We need security first or we need roads first or we need education or health first or whatever It differs from from place to place because because local governance systems local governance structures local governments of any kind Can't do everything and so they do need to focus on the things that are You know that they can actually improve upon from this very difficult place They're coming from which was part of the reason for the for the problem in the first place The good thing is they don't need to be perfect. They only need to be better than those violent extremist groups. They're trying to out govern So so that's the positive part, but that means they they they have a chance, but only if they're very targeted Last sentence the problem with that is that there's still a massive contradiction. We're asking politicians in iraq for example You know on the one hand they are focused On survival on stabilizing their situation including their very personal situation and the situation of their families Including by protecting themselves by keeping their entrenchments expanding their entrenchments in the patronage network and so forth But we're also asking them for a massive political change For to give up this patronage system to start dismantling it and to to deliver more effective services So there's a huge political demand That is that is included and a huge contradiction between this this push for stability in a very unstable situation and this push for change in a very unstable situation and I mean just comparing this to the to the problems that we're having in with reforms in stable liberal democracies I mean if I look to to germany and the types of reforms In education or health or the economy economic sector that we're you know always complaining about that they are going to slow Then I have a lot of you know respect and understanding for these Politicians in a country like iraq that are having huge difficulties being pulled apart by these different imperatives Yeah, those are very good points And I will add to them Rather than repeat to them because although I think that it's the service delivery and economic development aspect It was hugely important particularly in my region was north africa where unemployment was a huge huge driver You know economic inequality Lack of services sort of the withdrawal rollback of the Arab state in the last 30 years if you want to call it that with certain moving out of Infrastructure improvements and service delivery and allowing non-state And civil society groups to step into that gap provide those services creating the competition and as you said it should be relatively easy You just have to be better than other groups, right? the the and that's something that I I I wonder is How much work will have to go into it and how much good faith effort to achieve that because um when I think about the case of where violent extremism is You know an issue in north africa like for example in the Sinai Where that population has his Sinai in Egypt rather Where that population has very historically been quite deliberately marginalized demonized by the central government deliberately not starved of resources and services and things like that so you also have a delicate situation in having Coming up with constructive ways forward to improve the situation and overcome historical Inequalities and systematic discrimination of certain minority groups. And of course, let us not forget the really excessive and widespread human rights abuses by north african and arab governments at large against their own populations so sort of These are the kinds of grievances that are really really deeply rooted And are related not just to state weakness, but also state violence a lack of access to justice No possibility to appeal So these are At the national level when you you talk about policies to counter these things that it goes back to the point that Cheryl has made quite well. A lot of these countries have very nice constitutions With very clear articles about things that would be nice if they happened And We could potentially start there which are honoring commitments that are already made honoring commitments at the international level that have already been made The arab states for example and in the north african region are signatories to a number of international conventions that would already Go go somewhere take, you know go advance rather the Um The eventual goal of of encouraging populations to see the government not as a a threat or a A predator As I think is the case in certain regions and certainly in in some parts of north africa And I will just quickly point out because I do realize I've spoken a little bit long It's also difficult when you look at these countries with pervasive state weakness and particularly those where armed conflicts are occurring To then generalize out at the national level. What's the case in libya? What's the situation in egypt? So i've just mentioned the example of sinai, which shares really nothing with the governance in the delta Or a different part of egypt for example, right? So i mean we have these subnational Specificities which go back to our earlier discussion about the importance of local contextualization and these kinds of subnational differences Can be very very stark like for example in southern libya You have also a similar i don't know. It's not identical, but you have a similar situation where Communities have been marginalized and are therefore more susceptible To appeals to use violence to achieve something that they Understandably see no other way of achieving since the state has left no avenues of peaceful expression or appeal Or a public space usage So i'll leave it at that Okay, are you still awake? Sorry Yeah, let's do two minutes on this one just two minutes. Okay It will be two minutes Okay, well, um, we our government came up with the national action plan in december 2014 after a massive attack on a on a school army public school in basically december that year and This was a reiteration A 20 point reiteration of the implementation forceful implementation of the existing laws So this was seen like as a first counter terrorism Framework policy. I don't know. I'm never not sure whether it's a policy or not But this was a national action plan However, it relied mostly On the hard power hard power was deployment of police deployment of the military go after the void latest of the law the It also promised reforms revamp of the criminal justice system Which is the foundation basically of the justice Which often actually is that it is the reason for why people take to radicalization So far nothing has happened as far as the criminal reform on the criminal justice system is concerned It's only the hard power and those policies that i mentioned in my earlier First response that there's an integrated policy framework to deal with the count counter radicalization and counter terrorism issues What is missing from the national action plan is the direct involvement of the public representatives They most of them still fail to understand the centrality of their role In the community policing conventional and non-conventional community policing The police is not being empowered The public representatives do not have the vision or willingness To engage with the community to to blunt The narrative The extremist narrative that is coming out of the mosque and you have mosque in every small settlement They think there's a job of the police the police has no power And generally people think this is a military's job. This is a security establishment job to curb these extremist narratives So our problem is still the missing link the biggest missing link is the involvement of the civilian public representatives in mobilizing the community And together with the community addressing and reaching out to the mullah Who is preaching all sorts of the salafi and the bandi and wahabi versions of islam injecting poison into the minds of the people Which obviously has its impact even if it infects one or two three persons every day in in a respective locality So that is i think our biggest gap right now Um, we are just hoping that with as time passes The military while this continues its operations that the civilians will also take up assumed responsibility And become active members of the active actors of the national action plan Great, thank you. Um, so i'm going to go ahead and go to q and a at this point We want to make sure that we have a robust conversation. So we have about 30 minutes for q and a I'll take two questions at a time And we'll answer and then we'll we'll continue to move on. So let's let's start with these two gentlemen down here Thanks. So one of the panelists the first panelist mentioned, uh, the global counterterrorism forum And uh, there's been an interesting conversation around Sort of the relevance of the national versus the transnational or the regional which i think is absolutely spot on And i would just draw your attention to in the context of a gctf How border security and how our conceptualization of border security from a Counterterrorism perspective is evolving to include and to start to look at community engagement I think that's a really important development that actually Is starting to happen in the policy and in the sort of foreign assistance space But it actually needs a lot of research to kind of Really come in and sort of you know flesh it out or back it up But you know, there's I think a good example of where You know in the in the policy and in the assistance space We're maybe not ahead of the curve, but we're we're doing a better job of trying to kind of keep up with The complexities of the on the ground situation On the national action plans I think a couple of things that are really important here One of the added values and again, it all comes out an implementation, right because you can develop a nice plan as we've seen with you know United Nations youth plans From past years that were implemented in some countries, but never really or just developed but never really implemented It's how do you bring the non-security ministries and agencies of government to the table? So your ministries in youth and sports education Um social development Decentralization of local government how much voice and what kind of a role do they have in developing the plan? And then of course particularly what sort of role do they have in implementing it? And I would second what you've said about the role of Communities and women and I would also add you There too because it's fine to get um You know women community leaders into the room, but then You know, what about the secondary school students or the university students? who Frankly know their peers better than often adults in their community And so they need to be part of any sort of community engagement around developing and implementing National action plans. Thanks Gentleman the glasses Thank you very much So I think the panelists done a tremendous job Debunking some of the misconceptions that marked perhaps practice and in previous years State building counterinsurgency what have you and that is to say everything flows through the capital Everything is state-based and if it's not state controlled and it's ungoverned I think the point was made very cogently that ungoverned is a bit of a misleading concept But if I may be a little bit more challenging, I mean, I think this this really came to me It became popularized really with the scholarship of Ken Menkhaus and his work in Somalia And I just checked his article and governance without government came out in 2007 That's a decade ago now And I'm just wondering this has prompted so many calls to get better at operating and you know With these sub-state spaces to operate with France national sub-national entities With all this realization conceptual progress, are there any Key success stories? Are there any kind of moments or glimpses of enlightened policy making that have overcome the various challenges that you so rightly Note in your respective comments And since I realized that question perhaps unfairly puts you on the spot Give us two or three more if you can't Come up with such a success story Maybe I could ask you to speculate as to why that may be the case What's pulling us back from really doing better on the basis of our conceptual understanding? Thank you. Great. Thank you both So we have role of women and youth in national action plans or other Actors as well as success stories for operating at the sub-state level Who would like to go first? Of course you can Just on the gctf comments The first one is You know the gctf has This the set of good practice guidelines that have been developed over several years I really think that it's it's quite critical for the gctf to shift focus now to Talking about the implementation and the results of those guidelines, right? So so not so much focusing on outputs of guidelines But really the results and what we're trying what we have achieved from those guidelines But I do think the guidelines do create a generic set of values and almost Document a set of Systems and processes that we all agree are good things to have in place And that helps with the with the cross-border stuff. It helps with the transnational Stuff if you if you're bringing a regional group together and talking about What are the five things we went to achieve in courts? Then these are five things in this memorandum that help us Do that So I think the gctf is very useful in that way But I do think it needs to shift focus now and to stop producing all these guidelines And and and making sure that we are implementing them in practice and assessing what we're achieving from that So that's the one thing the second issue when you which you talked about National action plans When you said, you know plans are great, but we need implementation I worry really about having pve national action plans in the absence of evidence of what works in pve So, you know, we have a lot of good theory around pve. Maybe, you know all this We have suggestions about counter radicalization messaging and deradicalization programs, etc There are many good ideas on the table, but we don't have an evidence base on on many of those things So we have lots and little of that evaluation is coming up and we've discussed it in this forum Over yesterday and today About how little of that evidence is coming up and it's hidden in in cabbards and donors offices Where there, you know, it's tucked away in donor reports and so on and so forth So we really need more of that evidence to emerge so that the policy making starts making sense In that we're making entire institutions Based on theory and not on good ideas and not really on evidence based practices So that worries me Not that we don't have to go through cycles of learning and and the criminal violence prevention Field is evidence of that. It's 40 years of learning about what does work So we need to start creating that evidence base and putting it out there and testing it in various contexts also I would say that's a perfect segue to the to the second batch of questions About success stories. So I'm I'm not so sure about specific. I mean, I can't really tell from my own research I mean I've heard that Somali land is land is something that some people hold up as a success story and There are a few perhaps You know decentralization Things of like local autonomy whatever in a couple in a couple of countries But I think since since I I didn't do any research on any of these cases I'll I'll stop there and and there will be much more knowledgeable people in the room And what I what I want to say since you gave me the out about holding back What what's holding us back? I think to some extent there's also I mean much as I You know, I'm subscribing to this to this thing about not everything is is Is state-based? There's also a sub-state governance fetish right that that Social science has promoted to a large extent And that overlooks that that in you know, we cannot I mean, there's no one size fits all Solution to how people imagine their political communities and and where they choose to place legitimate trust in power and and that's You know where we seem to be caught often in our conceptual approach to these things between like the political the political constraints of trying to preserve an arbitrary set of borders and Because of all the the kind of ripple effects if you if you allow one country to split or whatever In in a particular region on the one hand And on the other hand this kind of romantic Thing about you know, if there's like some sort of community that has been marginalized, of course, they should self rule, right? So and I think in between We just have to keep dealing with the with the fact that that it's ultimately its politics and and these these People create these imagined Communities sometimes based on ethnicity sometimes on more complex Melanges of identity factors And political Leaders try to kind of build these communities and sometimes Split them and sometimes merge them And have to find a way of of establishing Something so so I think the risk is that what's also holding us back is this commitment to this cottage industry of providing Technical governance solutions of of saying, you know, I mean, that's that well That's what we're seeing in the past 10 20 30 years that we're establishing all this nice Stuff huge budgets and western governments at the UN and so forth to deliver, you know to deliver services to try to replace service delivery temporarily While while and and that's a convenient excuse For our own governments and I'll only speak of of of my own country in germany and the european union Often in these cases, you know, it's a convenient excuse It's very nice to put a few million euros or a few tens of millions of euros or hundreds of millions of euros into You know resettlement of of internally displaced people in iraq That doesn't have to you know, you don't have to to kind of confront some of the political ways in which our own policies contribute to the problems sometimes or in which we could if we actually, you know It's a very difficult proposition But we we might be able to help local political leaders in a country like iraq empower the ones that want to reform That want to take on the entrenched political system support them in doing so But that won't work if we send like, you know, some sort of technical consultant on this and that agriculture Uh to to back that that will only work if they feel respected and take it seriously And they don't see a german minister only once a year when for christmas visits to the troops or something So so if we if we, you know talk about political problems and political solutions those political solutions will only come through political engagement And not just technical programs technical programs can only support those political strategies if we have one Wow, that is such a very important and succinct point. I'm not sure that I can improve upon it but But I might add to it because the point being made that politics is unavoidable these are ultimately political issues Very complex ones a very context specific ones, but they're not technical issues They are political ones that require political engagement as as philip so eloquently has explained um In addition to that And I would address the the questions at hand. I'd like to just point out that the chiro Even though I probably shouldn't promote another organization's publication while i'm here, but the chiro institute for human rights studies recently put out a very interesting workshop report Uh from a 2015 workshop that they had on cve in north africa brings together a collection of um of researchers and writers on the topic One of their conclusions Which I I really strongly Do agree with is that countering violent extremism requires? Not just the involvement of you know formal state institutions, but actually informal Social groups the rest of society civil society organizations It requires um actual engagement at the local level in an active sense So the finding was that a flourishing civil society Where uh, you know people um can achieve their interests pursue their interests Express themselves in safety without fear of repercussion from state security forces Or other or other groups in society for that matter That is really key. I think to move forward. So i'm not uh, although i'm not involved in national action plans myself I would imagine that that any national action plan That intends to succeed and this also goes back to the point i mean by by our our colleague here from pakistan as well that they There needs to be You know a local Yes ownership consultation. Thank you very much a consultations and ownership In exchange in an iterative process rather than a top-down Instruction of well you're going to do this you're going to do that um, so that was the first question and and and and quite um attached to my response to the second question Which is uh, i'm afraid i have no success stories for you. Um, but i do have um, uh, Perhaps speculation on what might be holding us back and that does go back to the original point made which is it's politically Delicate for international and regional Actors i think in this geopolitical environment within which we find ourselves in 2017 to Balance what they considered to be their own security interests For example, if you look at the european union with the migration question or the tariff is in the united states You have your own security interests as well as your own national interests as it were but um, the the fact that There's a certain uh Sort of reluctance to critically engage with those governments and i believe actually the chiro institute report referred to it as um blind support So that uh, it will never be able to um solve a subnational or local level problem Where the problem is itself caused by the central authorities. So if you have You know sort of external support. Um, that is uncritical That is security focused and that doesn't focus on actually the drivers of grievances the drivers of inequity or the drivers of Violent extremism and nor does it offer a a counter narrative that's persuasive Uh, um, so then it would be very difficult to imagine it's a success story. I think okay, um You know in terms of uh success stories as far as pakistan is concerned Well, they were there being a lot of territorial As a result of the military crackdown In the previously known ungoverned spaces But our real fight is on the ideologically front For that we don't see much pushback at the moment For that, I think we will need a whole of government approach Whole of government would also mean parliamentarians civil representatives. That is missing Engagement with the university students We engage with university teachers. Amir's organization also does that but that's a very small miniscule attempt that is donor driven There's not enough appetite within the governance segments for undertaking such exercise at a national level which we need as much as possible Then I think uh Our problems with india and afghanistan basically they are also muddying what is a continuous source of Uh source of sort of oxygen for the non-state actors proponents of radical ideologies You know, they prey on people using deploying these ideologies This thought process against india against afghanistan as the enemy even including the united states so what We need is a whole of government approach for this to Get ideological success stories that is still missing Um Unfortunately politicians are caught in this four to five year cycles of election Very sad so are they here so are they here, you know everywhere And ours are more driven by fears of losing Electoral territory if they were to speak out against a cleric a religious political leader So that is a big hand handicapped and that's why basically they are holding back from from an aggressive Reaching out approach to to people taking the community on board and talking to these people. So there I think that's a big deficit Great. Thanks. Okay. We have I think in time for another round of questions. All right. These two gentlemen in the back Hi, uh, my question is to mtyaz gole. Uh, you talked about the civil military relations Not being that great in