Tag: Africa
Wisdom, not resolve
I’m in Atlanta this week for Thanksgiving, which Americans will mark tomorrow with parades, running races, a giant meal, lots of football (watching and playing) and much debate on the issues of our day, from cranberry sauce recipes to the state of world affairs. Some will go to church, but most will mark the day entirely at home–or in a relative’s home–with marathon culinary preparations, a lengthy and leisurely afternoon meal and a long denouement of talk, napping and TV, in my family followed in the late evening by a giant turkey sandwich, on white toast.
I mention these things because close to 50% of my readers are non-Americans, only some of whom will have enjoyed the Thanksgiving experience first hand. To my knowledge, the holiday is entirely a New World phenomenon. Canada has its own version, celebrated last month. Of course lots of cultures express thanks in both religious and non-religious ways, but I wonder if any have made it quite the major event that the North Americans have. Readers should feel free to enlighten me.
Americans certainly have a great deal to be thankful for. We are slowly climbing out of a lingering recession, we’ve gotten through the difficult quadrennial drama of presidential elections without the uncertainties that have sometimes plagued the process, our troops are out of Iraq and moving out of Afghanistan, and there is no existential threat on the horizon, even if there are many less dramatic challenges. We are the solution to our own worst problems, which focus on the relatively mundane questions of what the government should spend money on and where it should find the revenue needed.
The world is not in such good shape. While statistics show that the overall frequency of war is down, the catalogue is full of long lasting conflicts and their devastating impacts on people: the revolution and civil war in Syria are getting on to marking two years, Israel and Palestine have been in conflict one way or another for 65 years, the Afghanistan/Pakistan war is dragging into its 12th year, and I don’t know how to determine when the war against al Qaeda in Yemen, the war against its affiliates in Somalia or the war in Eastern Congo began. Then there are the more recent conflicts: northern Mali and the all but defeated revolution in Bahrain. And there are the wars that might come: perhaps against Iran, in the South or East China Seas, on the Korean peninsula or between South Sudan and Sudan.
I can’t claim that most Americans will be thinking about these disasters as they give thanks for their own blessings. They are more likely to be thinking about Breezy Point and Hoboken, two communities that hurricane Sandy devastated early this month. We’ve still got tens of thousands homeless and some without power weeks later. Those who turn to America for help–and many do–are going to find us preoccupied these days with our own needs. I suspect this will not be just a short-term phenomenon, but a longer-term effort to put our own house in order, limiting commitments abroad and prioritizing them in accordance with America’s own interests.
This will sound ungenerous to non-Americans, who may bemoan American interference but also look to the U.S. to step in to help stop the Gaza fighting and turn to Washington when other disasters strike. We will continue to do what we can where vital American interests are at stake, but it will be healthy if we are a bit less committed and rely on others rather more than we have in the past. Our withdrawal–retrenchment is what some call it–will not be absolute. It has to be calculated and calibrated. Good judgment, not ideology, should be its guide.
That is one of the many reasons I am grateful to the American people for re-electing President Obama. I don’t always agree with his judgment–I’d rather he did more on Syria, for example–but he is thoughtful and cautious in ways that fit our current circumstances. Managing the relative decline in American power and constructing a global architecture that will limit conflict and provide space for those who choose to live in free societies to prosper are the great challenges of the coming generations. Wisdom, not resolve, is the essential ingredient to meet them.
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Diaspora communities invest
Diaspora communities are important: they are significant political lobbies, essential support networks, and a critical source of aid to their home countries through remittances. Diaspora communities can make important contributions to development and peacebuilding. Understanding the pivotal role of diaspora communities is the easy part. What’s difficult is finding members of diaspora communities, connecting them and effectively harnessing their motivations to help their home countries.
It is this difficulty that inspired Molly Mattessich of Africa Rural Connect and Homestring’s Eric-Vincent Guichard, the presenters at Tuesday’s event hosted by Microlinks about “Connecting to Diaspora Communities Through Web Portals.”
Africa Rural Connect was developed by the National Peace Corps Association in 2009 to address major rural agricultural challenges in Africa with the help of rural African farmers, especially women. The site functions as a meeting place for members of the African Diaspora, people in Africa, and people connected to the Peace Corps. On the site, people can “offer,” “remix,” and “endorse” ideas in addition to “pledging” money or time to events they like the most, though no financial transactions take place on the site. Through periodic competitions, the most popular ideas win cash prizes. Measuring the impact of the ideas generated on the site is hard because Africa Rural Connect does not follow their progress. It can report that there have been over 20,000 profiles created from 130 countries. About a third are members of the African Diaspora, another third live in Africa, and a final third are academics, people in the development field and entrepreneurs.
Homestrings uses a different approach based on the desire of members of the African Diaspora to invest in their homelands. Roughly $450 billion in remittances is sent from the West to emerging markets each year. Of that, Homestrings figures ten billion dollars per year comes from members of the African Diaspora looking to invest in Africa. Homestrings overcomes barriers diaspora communities face in investing at home by providing a credible, transparent, professional, and customer-oriented investment platform. A study prepared by George Washington University in collaboration with USAID and Western Union concluded that contrary to popular opinion, diaspora communities want to invest in their home countries not just for emotional or political reasons, but because they hope to get a return on their investment. The most often reported way diaspora communities connect with their homeland is through the internet. Homestrings offers a web-based investment platform where potential investors can find projects, endorse or invest in projects they like and manage their investments. Since February of 2012, Homestrings users have invested over $25 million. Homestrings plans to expand to Asia and Latin America.
Peacebuilding is expanding. Research, like the report considered in this post, indicates that intelligent development efforts are often necessary components of work to make and maintain peace. Using the internet to help diaspora communities invest shows promise.
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Getting it out of the ground is the easy part
Paul Collier brought his big news to SAIS Friday: Africa will find lots more resources in the next decade. The question is whether it can take good advantage of them to transform the continent and its non-resource economy, which is already doing pretty well.
OECD countries have discovered about five times more than Africa in natural resources beneath every square kilometer. But there is no reason to believe resources are so unevenly distributed. So Africa has a lot more to find and exploit.
But in order to do so it needs to master a difficult chain of economic decisions:
- Discovery: to avoid hesitancy about private investment that then turns into “gold rushes” when discoveries are made governments will have to collect and publish relevant geological information to reduce the uncertainty and encourage private companies to explore.
- Taxes: these are especially important in poor countries because the companies and high tech workers are so often foreigners. Society will not gain much unless taxes are collected. But poor countries need to focus on taxing things that can be observed and observing things that can be taxed, which is not their natural inclination.
- Division of revenue with local communities: Local communities should be compensated for environmental and other damage and get a fair share of the revenue, but they should not capture all of it. This requires credible legal mechanisms as well as willingness of the national authorities to resist local capture of the rents (as in the Niger Delta).
- Savings at the national level: Poor countries should be saving at least 30% of the revenue and progressively more as the resource is depleted, thus ensuring a balance between present and future requirements.
- Spending at the national level: That still leaves 2/3 of the revenue for expenditures. When it comes to spending the two-thirds of the revenue that is not saved, health and education are good candidates, as they have very low productivity in Africa.
The Norwegian model, which many hold up as ideal, is a sovereign wealth fund invested entirely outside Norway and only the returns on investment spent. This would not be appropriate for a poor country that lacks adequate capital. African countries should first of all invest in building the capacity to invest well, then invest in increasing the capacity to produce outside the natural resource economy, since it is by definition in long-term decline.
Turning to the politics of natural resources, Collier sees two problems: the coordination of decisions across many governmental units (Ministry of Mines, Finance, Environment, parliament, local governments, courts, etc.) and the need for many decisions over decades when most of these governmental units have short time frames.
There are three answers:
1. Rules to provide guidance for natural resources;
2. Institutions to make the decisions;
3. Citizens who understand the issues and support the rules and the institutions.
The key to citizen understanding is a narrative of stewardship. It is important that natural resource discoveries not be seen as riches to be exploited but rather as opportunities that need stewardship. This is the difference between Nigeria’s “we’re rich!” narrative and Botswana’s “we’re poor and need to save” narrative. The latter is far more likely to produce wise decisions over long periods.
Exploitation of natural resources should build the non-resource economy over a 25-year time horizon. Governments don’t think inter-generationally, but citizens do, as they plan for their children’s future. With the right narrative, they will control the government’s worst impulses through rules and institutions.
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Security in ungoverned spaces
Earlier this year I enjoyed a day talking about North Africa, including the Sahel, an area that is now attracting more attention than is healthy for its inhabitants. The focus is largely military. I did not publish my presentation, as it was available only in barebones form. It still however seems germane and some of you may find it useful. So here is the outline of what I said at an undisclosed location:
Security in Ungoverned Spaces: Options
0. Doing nothing is an option
- No international airports
- Threat is mostly local
- Going after it can make it worse
1. Conventional and unconventional military means
- Yemen analogy: local conventional forces trained and equipped by U.S. with U.S. drones and special forces acting more or less in coordination
- Can kill, can’t govern: leaves vacuum as at Zinjibar, filled by Ansar al Sharia, problems of compensation, may create more terrorists than it kills
- Creates moral hazard with government, which has to keep terrorism alive to get aid
- Also gives regime trained and equipped units with which to protect itself
- Risks use of U.S. assets against regime enemies, false intelligence
- Mistakes increase local support for terrorists
2. Policing
- No evidence uniformed police would be well received in remote communities
- Corruption rife
- Less than 50 per cent trust in Algeria: what might it be in Sahel?
- Detention facilities a big problem: no point in arresting them if you have no decent place to put them
3. Community/tribal approaches
- Difficult to know who is who, what is what
- Same moral hazard in a different direction (tribal chiefs)
- Rented, not bought?
- Provide justice?
4. Development assistance
- Youth bulge, unemployment are the real problems
- Need jobs, especially agriculture
- Income not rising with expectations
- Per capita PPP 2011: Algeria 7200 Morocco 5100
- Undernourishment, poverty, especially farther south
- Role of women can be supported
5. Negotiated settlements: precedents, good and bad, in Iraq, Afghanistan
6. Regional cooperation in one or more of the above areas: ECOWAS, African Union
7. Caveat: beware too much security, too little rule of law
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This week’s peace picks
It’s a busy week, with lots of variety:
1. Pulling Pakistan out of Economic Crisis, Monday September 24, 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM, Woodrow Wilson Center
Venue: Woodrow Wilson Center, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20004, Sixth Floor
Speakers: Shahid Javed Burki, Parvez Hasan, Eric Manes, Aisha Pasha
This event marks the release of a new study on Pakistan’s economy. It is produced by Beaconhouse National University’s Institute of Public Policy, based in Lahore, Pakistan.
2. Russian-Iranian Relations: Implications for U.S. Policy, Monday September 24, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM, Woodrow Wilson Center
Venue: Woodrow Wilson Center, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20004, Sixth Floor
Speaker: Mark N. Katz
Moscow does not want to see Tehran acquire nuclear weapons. Despite this, Russia has been reluctant to cooperate much with the U.S. in preventing this. In his talk, Mark N. Katz, Professor of Government and Politics, George Mason University, and former Title VIII-Supported Research and Short-Term Scholar, Kennan Institute, will discuss why this is.
3. The Myanmar Conference @ CSIS, Tuesday September 15, 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM, CSIS
Venue: CSIS, 1800 K Street NW, Washington DC, 20006, B1 conference facility
Speakers: Jim Webb, Kurt Campbell, Christopher Johnson, David Steinberg, Salai Ngun Cung Lian, Tin Maung Maung Than, Ernie Bower, Serge Pun, David Dapice, Shigehiro Tanaska, Elizabeth Hernandez, Mathew Goodman, Stephen Groff, Christopher Herink, Thomas Dillon, Gregory Beck, Murray Hiebert, Michael Green
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) will host a select and high-level group of experts and senior policy makers for The Myanmar Conference @ CSIS, to be held September 25, 2012, at the CSIS B1 conference facility. We have recruited a world-class group of experts to kick off the on-the-record dialogue around four key themes:
i. Political and Security Developments in Myanmar
ii. Trade, Investment, and Infrastructure
iii. Humanitarian Situation and Foreign Assistance
iv. Conclusions: Recommendations for U.S. Policy toward Myanmar
The conference is being organized around the time of the visits of Myanmar President Thein Sein and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to the United States in late September. There is great interest to explore the implications for U.S. policy in the wake of the political and economic reforms in Myanmar and the recent easing of U.S. sanctions ahead of the U.S. presidential and congressional elections in November.
Register for this event here.
4. Ambassador Cameron Munter on Pakistan, Tuesday September 25, 9:00 AM – 10:30 AM, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Venue: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1779 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20036
Speaker: Cameron Munter
In one of his first public event since returning from Islamabad, Ambassador Cameron Munter will deliver an address on the challenges and opportunities ahead in Pakistan. Frederic Grare will moderate.
Register for this event here.
5. Campaign 2012: Arab Awakening, Tuesday September 25, 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM, Brookings Institution
Venue: Brookings Institution, 1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington DC, 20036, Falk Auditorium
Speakers: Benjamin Wittes, Stephanie Gaskell, Raj M. Desai, Shadi Hamid, Tamara Cofman Wittes
Following the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and the death of U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, the United States is weighing its position and policies in the post-Arab Spring Middle East. More than a year after the initial Arab uprisings, the United States is questioning the state of its relations with the nascent Arab democracies and the emerging Islamist regimes. As the second anniversary of the Arab revolutions approaches, political and economic instability persists alongside growing anti-American sentiment, forcing the United States to adapt its policies to the evolving landscape in the Middle East. With the U.S. election just over six weeks away, many American voters are questioning the presidential candidates’ foreign policy strategies toward the region and wondering how the volatility in the Middle East and North Africa will affect the United States in the months and years ahead.
On September 25, the Campaign 2012 project at Brookings will hold a discussion on the Arab Awakening, the tenth in a series of forums that will identify and address the 12 most critical issues facing the next president. POLITICO Pro defense reporter Stephanie Gaskell will moderate a panel discussion where Brookings experts Tamara Cofman Wittes, Shadi Hamid and Raj Desai will present recommendations to the next president.
Register for this event here.
6. Georgia on the Eve of Parliamentary Elections, Tuesday September 25, 12:15 PM – 2:00 PM, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Venue: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1779 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20036, Carnegie Conference Center
Speakers: Thomas de Waal, Mamuka Tsereteli, Cory Welt
On October 1, Georgia votes in a parliamentary election which is set to be its most important and closely-watched contest since the Rose Revolution of 2003. The election is also a shadow leadership election, and its outcome will determine who becomes the leader of the country when a new constitution takes effect next year, as the second term of current president Mikheil Saakashvili ends.
The governing party, the United National Movement, is facing a strong challenge from the recently formed opposition Georgian Dream coalition, led by Bidzina Ivanishvili. The political temperature is high as both sides are predicting victory and exchanging claims and counter-claims about the conduct of the election.
Register for this event here.
7. 2012 African Economic Outlook Report, Wednesday September 26, 9:30 AM – 11:00 AM, Atlantic Council
Venue: Atlantic Council, 1101 15th Street NW, Washington, DC 20005, 11th Floor
Speakers: Todd Moss, Mthuli Ncube, Mwangi Kimenyi, John Simon, J. Peter Pham
The Atlantic Council’s Michael S. Ansari Africa Center and the Africa Growth Initiative at the Brookings Institution are pleased to invite you to a panel discussion on the findings of the 2012 African Economic Outlook (AEO) report. The AEO is a collaborative effort of the African Development Bank, the Development Centre of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United Nations Development Program, and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. The annual report surveys and analyzes the economic performance of fifty-three African countries, including, for the first time, Eritrea and newly independent South Sudan.
This year’s report focuses on a critical area of the continent’s socio-economic development: youth unemployment and education. Youth unemployment has been a persistent problem for a majority of African countries and a formidable obstacle to economic growth and stability. Youth dissatisfaction played a major role in the escalation of political unrest in North Africa in the past year, which resulted in a significant decrease in economic growth in the region. Given Africa’s rapidly growing population, the demographic pressure on labor markets in African countries will continue to increase. If African countries commit to education and skills training, however, Africa’s youth bulge could become a significant competitive advantage in a rapidly aging world.
Mthuli Ncube, chief economist and vice president of the African Development Bank, will provide brief remarks on the reports’ findings and broader implications for Africa’s future, followed by a panel discussion. Panelists will discuss the many unpredictable factors threatening the continent’s economic growth offer brief remarks and policy recommendations for African nations before opening the floor to a question and answer session.
RSVP for this event to achuck@acus.org.
8. Will the Monarchs Reform? Challenges to Democracy in the Gulf, Wednesday September 26, 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM, Project on Middle East Democracy at SEIU
Venue: SEIU, 1800 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, DC 20036, First Floor Conference Room
Speakers: Maryam al-Khawaja, Les Campbell, Kristin Diwan, Stephen McInerney
While 2011 and 2012 have witnessed unprecedented changes across the Middle East and North Africa, the Arab states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates – have not been shaken to the same degree, with the notable exception of Bahrain. Nonetheless, the dramatic uprisings across the region have had a clear impact on both the populations and governments of the Gulf, and it is worth examining political developments and the state of human rights in these countries.
How have the uprisings and political changes in other Arab countries been perceived by both the governments and citizens of the GCC? What steps have been taken by these governments to prevent similar changes from happening in their own countries, and how have these steps been received both domestically and internationally? What, if any, steps toward democratic reform have been taken, and what future actions might we expect from Gulf governments with regard to reform? How have the GCC governments changed their approach toward their citizens, civil society organizations, media outlets, and labor unions? How have the dramatic political changes in the region affected relations between the U.S. and the governments and people of the Gulf? And how can the U.S. and other international actors engage with the Gulf in a manner that helps its citizens realize their democratic aspirations?
Register for this event here.
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This week’s peace picks
The dog days of summer are over as far as DC events are concerned
1. A Conversation with Rudwan Dawod on his Incarceration in The Sudan, Tuesday September 4, 2:00pm-3:30pm
Venue: Woodrow Wilson Center, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20004, fifth floor conference room
Speakers: Rudwan Dawod, Tom Prichard, Michael Van Dusen
The Africa Program of the Woodrow Wilson Center would like to invite you to a presentation by Rudwan Dawod on Tuesday, September 4. Rudwan has been the facilitator for reconciliation and humanitarian projects with Sudan Sunrise since 2009, and is the project director for a reconciliation project in which Muslims from Sudan, South Sudan and the U.S. are rebuilding a Catholic Cathedral in Torit, South Sudan. In late May, Rudwan left his wife and home in Springfield, Oregon to travel to South Sudan to direct this inter-faith reconciliation project. During a lull in the project, Rudwan took a side trip to visit family in Sudan, and renew his Sudanese Passport. Concerned for the future of his country, and dedicated to peace and democracy, Rudwan attended a peaceful demonstration on July 3rd to protest the Sudanese government’s recent austerity policies, and ongoing violence in the Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile, and Darfur. Subsequently, Rudwan was arrested, beaten until unconscious, tortured, charged with terrorism, and retained in prison for 44 days. With the help of the advocacy community, the US government, and the media, Rudwan was eventually acquitted and released. Please join us to welcome Rudwan home and hear him tell his remarkable story.
Register for this event here.
2. Organizing the U.S. Government to Counter Islamist Extremism, Wednesday September 5, 12:00pm-2:00pm
Venue: Hudson Institute, 1015 15th Street, N.W. 6th Floor, Washington, D.C. 20005
Speakers: James Glassman, Will Marshall, Douglas J. Feith, William A. Galston, Abram N. Shulsky
Lunch will be served. For all the progress the United States has made in fighting terrorist networks, there has been a general failure to confront the terrorism problem’s ideological center of gravity. A new Hudson Institute study examines how the U.S. government could mount an effort to address this failure by working to change the ideological climate in the Muslim world. The study identifies which types of governmental and nongovernmental organizations should be created to conduct this effort. Produced by Douglas J. Feith and Abram N. Shulsky of Hudson Institute and William A. Galston of Brookings, the study argues that the various Islamist terrorist groups around the world are linked by ideology— common beliefs about their duties as Muslims that spawn and intensify hostility to the United States and to the West in general. You are invited to a panel discussion in which two distinguished commentators will discuss the report with its authors: Commentators: James Glassman, Executive Director of the George W. Bush Institute and former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in the George W. Bush Administration Will Marshall, Founder and President of the Progressive Policy Institute Authors: Douglas J. Feith, Hudson Institute Senior Fellow and former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy in the George W. Bush Administration William A. Galston, Brookings Institution Ezra K. Zilkha Chair in Governance Studies and former Deputy Assistant to President Clinton for Domestic Policy Abram N. Shulsky, Hudson Institute Senior Fellow and former Defense Department official.
Register for this event here.
3. An Egyptian Point of View about the Arab Uprisings, Wednesday September 5, 7:30pm-9:00pm
Venue: Al-Hewar Center, 120 Cherry Street, S.E., Vienna, VA 22180
Speakers: Ashraf Al-Bayoumi
A conversation with Dr. Ashraf Al-Bayoumi. Egyptian professor and activist, about “An Egyptian Point of View about the Arab Uprisings.” (in Arabic)
Register for this event here
4. Infrastructure and Business Opportunities in North Africa, Thursday September 6, 8:30am-11:ooam
Venue: City Club of Washington, DC, 555 13th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20004
Speakers: Carl Kress, Randa Fahmy Hudome, Steven Mayo, Deborah McCarthy, Cenk Sidar, Curtis Silvers, John Duke Anthony
A discussion on “Infrastructure and Business Opportunities in North Africa” featuring Mr. Carl Kress, Regional Director for the Middle East, North Africa and Europe Region, U.S. Trade and Development Agency; Ms. Randa Fahmy Hudome, President, Fahmy Hudome International; Mr. Steven Mayo, Business Development Officer, Project and Structured Finance, Export-Import Bank of the United States; Ms. Deborah McCarthy, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary and Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Finance and Development, Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs, U.S. Department of State; Mr. Cenk Sidar, Founder and Managing Director, Sidar Global Advisors; and Mr. Curtis Silvers, Executive Vice President, National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce; moderated by Dr. John Duke Anthony, Founding President & CEO, National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations; Member, U.S. Department of State Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy and its subcommittees on Sanctions and Trade and Investment.
Register for this event here.
5. CISSM Forum: ‘The Future of Indo-Pak Relations,’ Thursday September 6, 12:15pm-1:3opm
Venue: University of Maryland, College Park, 7950 Baltimore Avenue, College Park, MD, 1203 Van Munching Hall
Speakers: Stephen P. Cohen
‘The Future of Indo-Pak Relations’, Stephen P. Cohen, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution
Register for this event here.
6. When ‘Ordinary People’ Join In: Understanding Moments of Mass Mobilization in Argentina (2001), Egypt (2011), and Ukraine (2004), Thursday September 6, 4:00pm-5:00pm
Venue: Elliot School of International Affairs, 1957 E Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20052, Voesar Conference Room
Speakers: Olga Onuch
Olga Onuch, Newton Prize Fellow in Comparative Politics, University of Oxford This presentation examines the differences between moments of mass-mobilization and the long term process of activist mobilization that precedes them. Ukraine in 2004, Egypt in 2011, and Argentina in 2001 represent cases where a history of activist coordination was the basis for, and key instrument in, the mobilization of ‘ordinary’ people. The presenter will argue against the predominant focus on exogenous and economic factors and instead emphasize local actors and political variables in explaining the presence or absence of mass-mobilization. Part of IERES Petrach Program on Ukraine. Sponsored by the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies.
Register for this event here.
7. The Arab Awakening and its Implications, Thursday September 6, 6:oopm-7:oopm
Venue: Georgetown School of Foreign Service, 37 St NW and O St NW, Washington, DC, ICC Auditorium
Speaker: Dennis Ross
Returning PJC faculty member, Ambassador Dennis Ross, will present a lecture on ‘The Arab Awakening and its Implications’.
RSVP requested. A light reception will follow.
Register for this event here.
8. Will the Ongoing Nuclear Talks with Iran Yield Better Results than Past Efforts? Friday September 7, 10:00am-12:00pm
Venue: Woodrow Wilson Center, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20004
Speakers: Trita Parsi, Mustafa Kibaroglu, Monica Herz, Michael Adler, Robert S. Litwak
The pursuit of an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program remains at the top of the nonproliferation agenda. The unsuccessful mediation effort led by Brazil and Turkey in May 2010 was followed by the adoption of more economic sanctions by the international community. Last April, the government of Iran resumed negotiations with representatives of the five permanent members of the Security Council, plus Turkey and Germany. Four meetings have taken place in Switzerland, Turkey, and Russia. Talks are expected to continue after the U.S. presidential elections. Five experts will take stock of the negotiations in comparison with earlier efforts. Experts who participated in a February 2011 seminar on the Brazilian-Turkish mediation will return to the Wilson Center to assess the ongoing negotiations and possible outcomes.
Register for this event here.
9. Road to a Free Syria: Should “Responsibility to Protect” Apply to the Syrian Conflict? Friday, September 7, 12:00-2:00
Venue: Hudson Institute, 15 15th Street, N.W. 6th Floor, Washington, D.C. 20005
Speakers: Marah Bukai, Naser Khader, Nasser Rabbat, Kert Werthmuller
‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P)—a widely acknowledged principle of international relations—holds that the State carries the primary responsibility for the protection of its population from mass atrocities and, moreover, that the international community has a responsibility to assist States in fulfilling this responsibility. A panel of distinguished experts will discuss the applicability of R2P to the Syrian conflict while shedding light on current events inside Syria, international reactions to those events, and projections for securing a stable and prosperous post-Assad Syria. Panelists: Marah Bukai, Syrian poet, Consultant, U.S. Department of State, and political activist involved in the Syrian revolution
Naser Khader, Adjunct Fellow, Hudson Institute, and former Member of the Danish Parliament
Nasser Rabbat, Aga Khan Professor and the Director of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Moderator: Kurt Werthmuller, Research Fellow, Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom
Register for this event here.
10. Stabilizing the Sinai, Churches for International Peace, Friday September 7, 12:00pm-1:30pm
Venue: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. 20036
Speakers: Art Hughes, Geoffrey Aronson
Rising lawlessness and violence and an increasing death toll in the Sinai Peninsula by terrorist and criminal elements since the fall of the Mubarak regime threaten the security of Egypt, Israel, and their 1979 peace treaty. The unresolved competition over governance in Egypt between the Muslim Brotherhood government led by President Mohammed Morsi on one hand and the Egyptian army on the other are complicating factors, as is the continued Israeli closure of Gaza, whose Hamas government has strong ties to the Egyptian Brotherhood.
Ambassador (ret.) Art Hughes and Geoffrey Aronson will discuss the stakes for all the parties, including the U.S., and suggest what is needed to restore peace in the Sinai.
Register for this event here.
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