Public Event Wed, June 28, 2023 • 3:00 pm ET

USAID Administrator Samantha Power on advancing LGBTQI+ inclusive development

AN #ACFRONTPAGE EVENT – A conversation on the United States’ efforts to advance global LGBTQI+ human rights and USAID’s commitment to global inclusion.

Human Rights Resilience & Society

Event transcript

Uncorrected transcript: Check against delivery

Speaker

Samantha Power
Administrator, United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

Moderator

Jonathan Capehart
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, the Washington Post and MSNBC

VICENTE GARCIA: Hello. Welcome to this special Pride edition of #ACFrontPage. I’m Vicente Garcia, senior director of engagement and external affairs at the Atlantic Council, and we’re delighted for today’s conversation featuring USAID Administrator Samantha Power on a topic important to me as a member of the LGBTQI+ community, but also to the Atlantic Council in our mission to shape the global future together through US global leadership and global engagement.

Today’s conversation will be led by Pulitzer-winning journalist Jonathan Capehart, who is the host of his own show on MSNBC, serves on the Washington Post Editorial Board, and a frequent commentator on PBS, and the list goes on. We welcome participation by those here joining us today in person during our Q&A session, but also welcome those joining online by using the hashtag #ACFrontPage.

Administrator Power, thank you for joining us here today. We’re very eager to hear from you about the Biden administration’s and USAID’s priorities at addressing global LGBTQI+ human rights. And so now I’ll turn it over to Jonathan to lead our discussion. Thank you.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Thank you very much, Vicente, for the invitation to be here. Thank you all. One more thing, Vicente. As someone who reads teleprompter for a living, I really felt for you because that print is so small.

SAMANTHA POWER: Yeah, seriously. We’re just old, dude.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: I know, it’s true, given the distance. But thank you very much for that introduction. And, Administrator Power, thank you very much for being here and taking the time to be a part of this important conversation.

So, as you well know, within the first month of taking office President Biden issued a memorandum that directed various parts of the US government responsible for foreign policy, such as USAID, to prioritize efforts to advance LGBTQI+ rights around the world. How are those efforts going? And what have been the biggest challenges?

SAMANTHA POWER: Thank you so much. And thanks to everybody for turning out. It’s a great energy in the room, great energy this month, and much needed, because we harness this energy to try to do this work in the world.

Well, first to say that USAID is one of fifteen agencies that is being responsive to President Biden’s direction to promote and protect and respect the human rights of LGBTQIA+ people around the world. And I’d say I feel very fortunate every day, no matter what issue I’m working on, to be at USAID, because we have this toolkit. We have programming in public health on maternal and child health. Of course we have PEPFAR, where we work with the State Department and CDC, which has, of course, made a major difference, saving twenty-five million lives and 5.5 million babies is the estimate for the good that it has done over time. And that’s had a particular effect on LGBTQIA+ communities around the world.

But beyond that, we do agriculture. We do economic growth and inclusion, livelihoods work. We’ve helped vaccinate the world. In many parts of the world, if you are LGBTQIA+, coming forward to seek social services may risk something near and dear to you, depending on the legal environment in which you’re working.

When the fallout from COVID occurred and you saw such economic devastation around the world, given the fact that LGBTQIA+ people are often working in the informal sector and may have had, in some instances, less backup, the kinds of crises that have befallen the planet have a disparate impact on marginalized communities and those that have, in a sense, faced preexisting conditions, you might say, including discrimination, stigmatization, violence, et cetera.

So we went forth. We have tripled the size of our staff. We have the great Jay Gilliam, who many of you work with, as our lead LGBTQIA+ coordinator at USAID. That position had been unfilled in the previous administration. This fiscal year we’ve had a dedicated pool of resources of around sixteen million dollars, which does everything from spot emergency assistance to people who need legal defense because they’re being rounded up in some cases or evicted to working really closely with the State Department to help identify people who would be eligible for asylum or to become refugees because of their vulnerability, because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

So, you know, I’d say you see a massive surge in programming, in attention. But for me, I think the—and the thing that Jay has helped us so much with and the team, if you believe in development in 2023—I mean, and actually seeing development outcomes that matter and reversing development setbacks that have occurred—it’s not enough to have, like, a little pot of money, or a big pot of money, even, dedicated to LGBTQIA+. All the programming we do on food security, on education, on health, needs to be—and the list goes on—needs to be attentive and intentional about going out of our way to make sure that we are not just practicing development but inclusive development.

And the biggest challenges—I’m sure we’ll get into them, and I know many in the audience are seized with them—is criminalization, and even in countries that already have criminalized LGBTQIA+ status, you know, new moves, desire to render more salient laws that may be on the books but being ignored by some communities, work in places like Uganda, because of the introduction of the anti-homosexuality act, vigilantes and citizens and others taking what’s happening in the legal space or in the parliament and getting signed into law and viewing it as license to do whatever the hell they want to vulnerable people.

And so it’s not just happening in Uganda. That’s, of course, something that has happened very recently. But we see the instrumentalization of the human-rights agenda that so many in the world aspire to see progress, that being turned on its head. And in places where anti-democratic forces are ascendant or are getting either support or abetted or at least not counteracted by authorities, you see those voices getting louder. And even when there’s not a law and that kind of legal ballast behind those voices, that, in and of itself, is terrifying and exclusionary and a deterrent, again, for these communities to come forward and access these programs at the very time where we’re really seeking to make sure that we’re leaving no one behind.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: So since you brought up Uganda and also your point about, you know, USAID has all of these programs. But there are countries where just presenting yourself to make yourself—avail yourself of these programs could put you in danger. So the question is what is the United States government doing or can it do to push back on what’s happening in countries like Uganda?

SAMANTHA POWER: Well, to start—and I would start with what I consider a statement of the obvious but, nonetheless, I think does need to be said because it’s not always the way things are done, which is you start from the proposition of nothing about you without you. This question of tactics and how to prevail or how to counteract are super complicated, right.

Imagine, like, being part of the Biden administration and the tactical questions about how we moved the Inflation Reduction Act and, you know, convinced Joe Manchin to be part of the—I mean, when we’re operating in someone else’s country, you know, understanding, you know, the complex ecosystem in which we work, drawing, I should say, at USAID very heavily on the expertise of our local staff, two-thirds of—at least-two thirds of USAID staff abroad are nationals of the countries in which we work so they can be a great resource, but fundamentally it is the communities that are going to be affected by these laws that provide cues to us on how vocal to be, how much to signal in a deterrent way in advance of the movement of a piece of legislation, which risks then putting the United States at the center of a national drama and potentially triggering nationalism and other forces or some, you know, historical, you know, dynamics—let’s put it that way.

And so—but even what I’ve just said is kind of simplistic because there is no one view. I mean, even within an organization people are debating at fever pitch, you know, what the right approach is. This is just really, really hard.

But we do come in with humility and really try to be in lockstep with the groups who we may have funded in the past or may be funding currently, and in the case of the anti-homosexuality act in—that Uganda has moved forward with President Biden was very clear that the law should be repealed. Came out with a public statement. Has talked—and this is one of the approaches that we have taken not only in Uganda but in other places that are threatening to put in place similar laws—talking about the effects, Jonathan, on this incredibly successful partnership that we’ve had in combating HIV/AIDS.

There’s one report in Uganda that shows that service utilization is down by more than 60 percent since the law was introduced and that’s people who are afraid of coming forward for vital health services because they’re afraid it could lead to their arrest or it could lead to their eviction or it could lead to vigilante violence.

And so here we are, you know, trying to get this epidemic under control by 2030 and we’re part of this grand global coalition and at the same time these steps are being taken that would set back not only the health of LGBTQI+ communities but the health in this instance of all Ugandans.

And so, in a sense, you know, really looking at what the practical effects are of being seen to license community involvement in discrimination, stigmatization, and even law enforcement as you see citizens, again, taking things into their own hands but trying to find also arguments that have broad appeal in terms of services or programs that a broad swath of the societies in which we work are enthusiastic about, you know, showing the link between those—for example, private sector investment. There’s not one country in which USAID works that isn’t interested in fueling economic growth recovering from COVID, getting young people to work.

Well, what does it mean if the multinational companies that we and the Commerce Department and the State Department have been working with to try to encourage them to invest in these countries? Their own anti-discrimination policies and values are not going to make that an attractive place for investment.

So it’s a combination of, you know, the State Department taking steps now potentially to sanction individuals involved in this measure in Uganda. That’s been something that’s been messaged publicly and, again, these sort of practical effects that are going to extend practical harms, that are going to extend beyond if this law is not repealed.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: And so let’s talk about another country. I was thinking when you say, in response to my question about Uganda, talking to the groups on the ground, getting their input into what USAID and what the US government should do, let’s talk about Ukraine. There’s a war going on, but hopefully at some point that war will end and reconstruction will begin. Where does the LGBTQI+ community play—come into the conversation about rebuilding? Both from making sure that they are whole in Ukrainian society, but also that their rights are protected and respected?

SAMANTHA POWER: Well, this is a complex issue and a complex question, and I could come at it a few different ways. But, first, let me just say that, you know, part of Putin’s motivation, as we well know, for invading Ukraine was watching Ukrainian society, the Ukrainian government, move at really rapid pace to integrate itself into Europe. And, yes, that carries with it a lot of economic benefit for young people in Ukraine, but much of the impetus behind what was, you know, between really 2013 and last year, such a shift, right, in an orientation that went in one direction and then shifted in another direction. Much of it was values-based.

That doesn’t mean everybody was with all aspects of the European agenda, or the European program, or the European Convention on Human Rights immediately. We’ve seen that, of course. But, you know, part of what Ukraine is fighting for and part of what Russia is trying to squelch is liberalization, is broad understanding of who human rights protections apply to. Now, again, that’s a kind of general statement.

What we do—then, shall I say, of course, following Russia’s invasion Ukraine’s work to liberalize and build checks and balances and build in human rights protections, although not making headlines in the American or even the European headline, that work has accelerated. Which is, frankly, remarkable that a country that’s fighting for its life and its people can walk and chew gum at the same time. But meaning, you know, you see [LGBTQI+] protections progressing not only through legislative measures, and regulation, and as we vet—as the Ukrainians vet and we support programs to vet judges, you know, their human rights credentials being assessed in this much more comprehensive way.

But also, again, as the economy—parts of the economy actually flourish—I know this is hard to believe. But, like, the tech sector grew by, I think, seven or eight percent last year. You know, that itself, young people being out and being integrated in the world, there’s just things happening in the society that I think is going to put Ukraine, you know, and above all [LGBTQI+] communities and individuals, in a much more supportive legal and social ecosystem as the whole rationale for the war is about integrating into Europe. And the criteria by which—that Ukraine is going to need to meet, the roadmap and so forth, is going to entail much stronger protections than have existed in the past.

To your point, I think, if I understood it, about reconstruction, again, that’s incumbent on this intentionality that I was talking about. USAID is a critical partner. I was just meeting with the minister of finance yesterday talking about reconstruction out of the recent conference in the United Kingdom. You know, as we think about procurement and nondiscrimination in procurement, you know, how are those checks and those protections built in? As we think right now about health services and making sure that those are restored every place we can, even places close to the front line or as territory is liberated, how does USAID support flow in a manner where we are constantly vigilant to how inclusive those services are, and whether or not they are provided?

I mean, you know, we’ve actually managed to distribute I think it’s something like sixteen million antiretrovirals in Ukraine, you know, just since the war, you know, has started. So, you know, in terms of the mainstream PEPFAR and HIV/AIDS programs, like, those have continued. We’ve managed to be able to keep those afloat. And that took real intentionality on the part of our health team and our Ukraine team.

But I think, again, the principle that we want to bring to everything we do in terms of inclusive development is just that it’s a design feature of any program that we do that we are looking to make sure we are going out of our way, just as we would for religious minorities and on behalf of religious freedom or for women in countries where women are discriminated against, to make sure that we are reaching the full spectrum of beneficiaries, and that any kind of social deterrent or normative factors are ones that we try to circumvent to make sure that we are being inclusive because that’s going to be in the interests of all—again, all individuals living in a country economically and in terms of their ability to—in this instance, to integrate into Europe.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: So what would you—what do you say to people who question why supporting LGBTQI+ rights should be a part of American foreign policy? Because you could see there might be some people around the world, or even in our own country, who think, you know, I’m down with the community, but why make that part of our foreign policy.

SAMANTHA POWER: Well, I think one way to take that question, which we do hear a lot and you might even say increasingly in certain quarters, but—is to imagine the counterfactual. You know, imagine a world in which US taxpayer resources are expended in a manner that, you know, in a sense perpetuates or deepens exclusion of individuals who are really vulnerable. I mean, that would be bad. And not only that, it would have the flavor, I think, in many of the countries we work, for a country that for all of our imperfections has long stood for human rights, it would have—it would have the effect, I believe, of being seen to kind of legitimate some of the rhetoric and actions and legal measures that are being put forward.

So, you know, there’s not, like, some place of neutrality here, right? We are the United States. We, you know, for many, many years in a very bipartisan way have stood for human rights. We have stood behind the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which doesn’t have exceptions or footnotes excluding particular communities. We stand for implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, which explicitly say that no person should be left behind—again, without footnotes or caveats. So I think there are really hard questions about tactics, about in some places how vocal to be to not, again, put ourselves at the center of a narrative, because that in some sense is just what people who would seek to repress or terrorize vulnerable communities would like to see happen. So, again, it’s very, very difficult on the ground to find the right balance of tools.

You know, if you look at the Anti-Homosexuality Act in Uganda, the—you know, we spoke out with thirty-one countries. We spoke out with the United Nations independent expert that US diplomacy, when I was the UN as ambassador, was absolutely critical in securing the creation of that position. And the fact that that position has been renewed three times now, including most recently last year, speaks to, again, changing norms. The fact that international instruments more and more are including—sometimes explicitly, sometimes less so—[LGBTQI+] rights as human rights, the fact that we see same-sex marriage legalized this last year in Estonia and Slovenia, but also decriminalization in places as varied as Barbados and Singapore means that these principles are getting traction.

And these international instruments—and this is a critical part of President Biden’s agenda—are really important, Jonathan, because it gives citizens in a country, you know, where on the books there’s lots of happy talk about human rights, but it gives [LGBTQI+] organizations and individuals, you know, something to hang their arguments on; something to say, look, but the United Nations Human Rights Council just appointed this individual, this individual says this. And so when we can act in company, in a coalition, I think that’s always advantageous, and that is something we seek to do.

When the norms themselves—I was part of getting the Security Council for the first time in what at that time was the seventy-five-year history of the UN to condemn the targeting of individuals on their—on the basis of their sexual orientation—that had never happened before—and hearing from around the world what it meant for the United Nations Security Council to have done that. I mean, this was something that was a consensus document; you know, the Russian Federation, a number of African governments that had laws that were not respectful of these human rights on the books went along with that.

And so, again, thinking tactically about how to do it and how these norms become more salient in international law, I think, is very important. But it is in our interest to have maximum economic inclusion that’s consistent with our economic objectives as a country and our foreign-policy interests. It is in our interest to fight repression against whomever it is being carried out. And it is in our foreign-policy interest to stand up for our values.

President Biden’s polling, I think, reflects broad approval, surging poll numbers; I think a tripling in global polls about—when the question is posed, do you think Joe Biden will do the right thing, a tripling from his predecessor. And if you talk to people around the world and sort of get a sense of why, the fact that human rights are so central to President Biden’s argument and democracy and the importance of democracy delivering, that’s a major distinguishing feature not only of this administration but really of US foreign policy from some of the big geopolitical actors who are more and more active.

So if we go quiet, just in the same way that if we were to go quiet on the rights of Christians in societies in which they are being persecuted, and just defer to prevailing, you know, what is taken as prevailing popular sentiment, I think we would really shortchange what is distinguishing about American foreign policy.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: One more question from me before we open it up to Q&A, and that’s this. Everything you say is, you know, terrific and wonderful in terms of what the administration is doing, American values. But I just wonder, when you travel around the world or talk to your counterparts, particularly those in, say, Uganda and elsewhere, how do you respond to what they might say, such as, you know, well, your own country’s, you know, no—you know, no garden party. You’ve got book bans and drag-queen story hours being banned and don’t-say-gay laws. And we’re awaiting a Supreme Court decision, possibly tomorrow, definitely by Friday, on whether a cake decorator can say, no, I’m not going to decorate your cake because your same-sex marriage, you know, goes against my beliefs.

How do you deal with that when that is thrown back in your face from foreign leaders?

SAMANTHA POWER: You know, we have a policy that Jay has helped shepherd through USAID which will be the first-of-its-kind LGBTQIA+ policy that’ll be out soon. And one of its many, I think, important features is it speaks of the importance of going forth in a spirit of humility and ally-ship. And I’ve already spoken, I think, a little bit about the ally-ship point.

But in general—you know, you didn’t mention the insurrection. You know, like—

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Well, I mean, it wasn’t—

SAMANTHA POWER: There’s plenty—there’s—

JONATHAN CAPEHART: It wasn’t an LGBTQIA+ insurrection. So I figured I’d just leave—

SAMANTHA POWER: No, that’s a good point.

JONATHAN CAPEHART:—leave that out. But go on.

SAMANTHA POWER: No, but what I mean is in general we are standing up for democracy and human rights as we are facing domestically very, very significant challenges. And I’ve broadened the aperture a little bit from your question, though your question is very valid, you know, as focused on our discussion, our topic for today.

But I don’t even think we can think about LGBTQIA+ rights outside of the broader context of the anti-democratic movements that exist all over the world, including—you know, which include not recognizing results of elections, including resorting to violence, including, you know, some cases partnering with, you know, outside repressive actors who would seek to widen divisions within democracies.

So, you know, the statistics, it’s—you know, I think it’s sixteen years of freedom in decline around the world. And what we see is attacks on minorities generally—sometimes religious minorities; sometimes LGBTQI+ communities—are often the canary in the coal mine about a broader set of measures and a broader kind of consolidation of power away from the people and in the center. And certainly, a diminishment of checks and balances. I think that’s the abiding feature. And minority rights and the rights of marginalized communities fundamentally are checks on majoritarianism in our country and globally.

So, you know, I think if you go—and I’m not saying that we don’t have, you know, as you put it, kind of thrown back at us things that are happening in this country. But I think really since President Obama, and very much carried through with President Biden, we tend to kind of preempt that moment by situating the dialogue about [LGBTQI+] rights in our own struggles, and not leaving the elephant in the room, you know, over here. But to say, look, we’re—this is—we’re in the midst of, you know, many of these same challenges. There are forces in our countries—in our country that would also wish to go back to what is remembered as a simpler time.

And, you know, often I think that actually sets the stage for a more productive conversation, because it’s not a finger-wagging—you know, you may condemn something that has happened and use the leverage of the United States to demand, you know, a repeal. But it is not from a glass house that we are having conversations like this. And I was just in Africa, and I’ll be traveling again. I mean, the dialogue that we have is a humble dialogue. But it is one that has a North Star that I think can animate us both and that is rooted, fundamentally, not only in American values, at their core, but in international instruments and in universal values.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: And so we’re going to open it up to questions. There is a microphone, oh, I thought it was on a stand. It’s an actual person. Thank you. Thank you very much. We’re going to go until about—if I can find my thing—until about quarter to four. So the microphone is there. Short questions, so we can get more answers in. Go ahead.

Q: Hi, Administrator Power. My name is Ryan Arick. I’m an assistant director here at the Atlantic Council. I’m really thrilled to have you here today.

I wanted to ask a question related to US development assistance to Ukraine, and specifically how we’re looking at the LGBTQI+ angle as far as our assistance during the ongoing war. I would appreciate your thoughts. Thank you.

SAMANTHA POWER: You want to go one by one, or?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Yeah.

SAMANTHA POWER: OK.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Quickly.

SAMANTHA POWER: OK. So in brief, one of the things you’ll see, again, in the forthcoming policy, is a broad emphasis on thinking within USAID and within our humanitarian emergency programing about inclusion and about proactive outreach and services. I think there’s been—we’ve always, of course, been for an inclusive process to find and to serve beneficiaries. But to think—you know, to think that all beneficiaries will come forward equally in all communities is not accurate. And so, you know, how this plays out in any specific crisis area, you know, that’s going to be fundamentally up to our engagement with our implementing partners, like the World Food Program, like the ICRC and others. But there is a broad embrace of inclusive response and a broad recognition that gravity alone is not going to get you there.

Again, we’re quite far along in Ukraine because I think the government has every incentive—you know, not saying that there isn’t discrimination that occurs in Ukraine, or that some of those fears don’t still exist. But there are a lot of incentives pulling policy and enforcement in a constructive direction, given the European journey that they are very committed to. But imagine, you know, in other parts of the world where there isn’t that, you know, legal framework or that political will at high levels and so that’s why crisis is going to be very important.

The other thing I’d say is, of course, just continuing our HIV/AIDS work full speed ahead, any work we do in human rights, thinking—so, again, there’s the dedicated LGBTQI+ work and then there’s making sure that all of our programming in these other areas is inclusive of that.

So just—and, finally, just we’ve done a lot with hotlines. There’s so much trauma, so much need for psychosocial service and care. We work very closely with Mrs. Zelensky as well, who has really pushed mental health and so forth. So you will see both in our development programming and in our emergency humanitarian programming, provided the resources are there, which we have to work with Congress to continue to mobilize, but a very significant allocation as well to recognizing the trauma and then the unique traumas that may apply to different communities, including this one.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: OK. We’ve got six questions, ten minutes. So what I want to really try to do is two questions at a time. And, Madam Administrator, if you could—a little more brief—to the first two, ask the questions and then we’ll have the administrator answer. Quick questions.

Q: Hi, Administrator Power. My name is Katie. I’m a graduate student at Johns Hopkins SAIS right in Dupont Circle.

And my question for you kind of revolves around the other countries we haven’t talked about. We’ve talked a lot about Ukraine, Uganda. But what should the USAID and other people in the United States what other countries should we focus on for human rights violations, especially in the community?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: OK. Great.

I’m going to get one more.

Q: Hi, Administrator. My name is Divya. I’m an undergraduate at Stanford University and I’m currently an intern at the Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency.

My question for you is how and if you have handled and talked about tech governance in regards to LGBTQI+ rights and misinformation, perhaps, regarding HIV/AIDS, vaccines, and more.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: OK. Two simple questions—in nine minutes. I’m going to—I’m keeping us on time.

SAMANTHA POWER: So on the first question, I would say that there is a spate now of laws, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa but not only, that are at various stages of legislative movement. Let’s put it that way.

Now, what focus entails, again, you know, I think filtering it through what do our partners on the ground think would be most advantageous for any particular individual or entity or institution to do, as we’ve discussed, it’s—you know, figuring that out is no easy proposition. But I think the New York Times recently did a study that did a lay down of how many country—what stage of passage, you know, these laws were.

I mean, it’s kind of—it’s kicked up what’s happened in Uganda and even our response to it has kicked up, you know, more vocal leadership to push through further exacerbating criminalization measures as, by the way, have really important positive decisions that have been made in Africa.

That, in turn, has generated a backlash and we’ve seen something very similar here, of course, over many, many decades where anti-discrimination ordinances, for example, in Florida—you know, I mean, decades ago—then kicked off major—you know, very, very pronounced counter reactions, massive fundraising, et cetera. That’s happening, too, where for a step forward it then, you know, ignites, you know, certain forces and antibodies and then you see, you know, proactive moves that really can set back those rights.

So, again, the tactics I think we’d have to be very, very case specific. But, you know, where I would—especially for those of you who are in civil society or not in the government per se, the actual support for the organizations. And you’ll have the chance, as well, in this country—those of you who are active in the LGBTQI+ community—through the Welcome Corps at the State Department—this is—I’m sorry I’m going on, but this is a very exciting development that we will actually have the chance—in addition to processing people who are being persecuted on the grounds of their sexual orientation or gender identity, we will have the chance as community members to welcome these individuals. Now, that infrastructure is being built and it’s not, you know—you know, yet where there’s a number for you to call, but all of us will have a—well, there’s a number to call for Welcome Corps, but I’m saying very specifically—

SAMANTHA POWER: For—from this—OK. I was told that we were—we were still some weeks away from that. Well, what is the number that people should call, then, if they want—

AUDIENCE MEMBER: There’s a link on—

SAMANTHA POWER: What is the link?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: RainbowRailroad.org.

SAMANTHA POWER: OK. That’s the State Department program?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: No.

SAMANTHA POWER: No, no, no, OK. So I’m—sorry, I was talking—

AUDIENCE MEMBER:—to Welcome Corps.

SAMANTHA POWER: OK, great. OK. So RainbowRailroad.org will refer you. I think the State Department piece we are still moving out to make sure that these partnerships can be ignited in rapid fire.

And then the second question, Jonathan, was?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: I wrote in my notes tech governance.

SAMANTHA POWER: Tech governance.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Yes.

SAMANTHA POWER: Yes is the short answer. I’ve engaged them—

JONATHAN CAPEHART: We have—we have five minutes and five questions to go.

SAMANTHA POWER: Yes. I have—I have engaged them on disinformation generally, and this is a very important subcomponent. Discrimination isn’t new. Persecution isn’t new. The amount of disinformation, including deepfakes showing President Biden vilifying LGBTQI+—I mean, you know, these things are really exacerbating an already very challenging situation.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: OK. And so we have one, two, three, four, five questions, five minutes. Lord Jesus. All right.

Here’s what I want to do. I want you each to ask your very brief question so your question at least gets articulated, and then Administrator Power will answer. Real quickly.

SAMANTHA POWER: All five.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: All five. All five. Because now we have four minutes.

Q: Thank you very much.

Very quickly, what would you say to other countries that stand on principle of noninterference, we don’t get to tell other governments how to treat their people? Very briefly. Thank you.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: OK. Thank you.

Q: Yes. My name is Bishop Joseph Tolton.

Domestically in our country, White supremacy one can argue is cradled by the far religious right in our country. These actors are also responsible for the racialization of homophobia across Africa. Are there whole-of-government conversations about how to hold these actors accountable for their racialized efforts?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Great question.

Q: Hi. David Stacy, Human Rights Campaign.

As you know, nondiscrimination is a touchstone of equality, and the administration right now is reviewing the requirements for grantees and cooperative agreements and across the foreign assistance agencies. Can you speak to the need to do that and USAID’s role in helping the other agencies do something where we’re applying it across the board with all of the agencies on an equal basis?

Q: Hi. Mark Bromley with Council for Global Equality.

You spoke about the value of both dedicated LGBTQI+ funding and integrated funding, and we’re excited that that fifteen million is increased to twenty-five million this year. But on the integration point, how are you thinking about measuring integration for LGBTQI+ persons, particularly in places where, you know, being [LGBTQI+] may be criminalized, it’s difficult/dangerous to measure? How do we make sure that’s more than lip service and that that integration is really happening? Because that is where the true value lies.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: OK. Last question.

Q: Hi there. My name is Bryce Dawson from Counterpart International.

You mentioned the difficulties of minimizing intrusion and tactically advocating for LGBTQI+ rights in other nations, as well as mentioned potential procurement policies to ensure [LGBTQI+] protections. Do you have any in the pipeline that you’re working on or anything in the future?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: I want to thank everyone for their—for their questions, all five of you or seven altogether. Madam Administrator, you have two minutes.

SAMANTHA POWER: Thirty seconds.

Well, you know, I think that in general we—in our engagements on human rights issues, we hear a lot about noninterference. I mean, there’s no question. I heard about it a lot at the UN. We hear it often from, you know, countries like the Russian Federation that have invaded another country and tried to take over the other country. We hear it from countries that are providing surveillance technology, you know, to other countries, or fueling disinformation in the countries in which we are working.

So, you know, it is a shield. It is an important one to take seriously, because we also, of course, respect sovereignty, and territorial integrity, and so forth. So USAID is active across sectors and involved in these countries. And this agenda, I think, is—and, by that, it’s the human rights agenda more broadly—is central to how we believe as well that we will get the most out of the programs that we are doing across sectors.

And that brings me—and that’s the kind of conversation we have. Is, like, I was using Uganda as an example about making sure that we are also making the pragmatic case for people who are very skeptical because, again, they—there is a kind of seamlessness to the way our work across governance and human rights in citizen security and in the broad sweep of development sectors—from agriculture, to education, to health, et cetera—they do come together in service of development objectives. And that’s what the SDG’s also enshrine.

And then I’m not going to be able to do justice to the other questions in full, beyond I think the point about measuring integration is very important. You know, for those who are not making their identity known to us, that’s not going to be something that, you know, we will be able to measure in that sense. But I think these are the kinds of things that we are working through, through this policy, to make sure that this isn’t just, yes, here’s our standalone programming, and then by everything else we do, you know, operates in the way that we’ve always done it.

And so it’s not going to be, you know, instant, where everything is happening all at once. But all of our missions have to have inclusive development advisors or somebody—and this will be evident out of the policy—but somebody who is a focal point for working on LGBTQI+ rights and programming. So we’re hopeful that that, plus our new office of chief economist, will help us develop a kind of methodology that will be responsive to this concern that somehow it’s going to be invisible and not done, which is certainly our objective is for it to be done and, when appropriate, visible. And certainly, at least visible to us so we know whether we’re achieving what we’re setting out to achieve.

And then, lastly, I would just say, because it’s coming, the point about nondiscrimination among beneficiaries is just really important. And that guidance will be forthcoming, we hope, soon.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Do you have any thoughts on the other question about—I wrote it down real fast, but I know I got it wrong—about the racialized religious efforts on LGBTQI+ rights that have been happening?

SAMANTHA POWER: Well, I guess all I would say on that—because there are others in our government, I think, who are working on the kind of conversation that was asked about—is just this is another part of the response to the noninterference charge, is—that we do hear from people who don’t want to be engaged on human rights issues. And that is that there are a lot of actors from outside who are very active actually in pushing certain forms of legislation that would have these discriminatory, and these exclusionary, and these dangerous effects. And so, again, the noninterference claim is usually made in a selective way.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: And with that, and just two minutes overtime, Samantha Power, nineteenth administrator of USAID. Thank you very, very much for being here.

SAMANTHA POWER: Thank you.

Watch the event

The post USAID’s Samantha Power: LGBTQI+ crackdowns are ‘the canary in the coal mine’ for declining freedoms appeared first on Atlantic Council.

One of the most glaring examples of governments’ poor performance is the egregiously low number of victims governments identify—a problem I routinely faced over the last two decades working on this issue as a federal prosecutor, nongovernmental organization leader, and US ambassador. The United Nations (UN) Protocol to Combat Trafficking in Persons is one of the most widely subscribed instruments of international law, under which governments commit to identifying the people whom traffickers exploit. According to the latest TIP report, however, governments around the world reported identifying only 115,324 human trafficking victims in the last year. This number comes from data governments provide to the US State Department about the number of victims whom law enforcement or nongovernmental organizations identify and who receive protection services. Although this number is higher than last year’s number, it is slightly lower than the high of 118,932 victims identified in 2019.

Meanwhile, the estimated number of human trafficking victims is increasing. Compare the number of victims that governments reported identifying with the UN estimate based on surveys and data modeling. The UN estimates that traffickers are compelling 27.6 million people into forced labor or sex trafficking.

If 27.6 million victims exist and governments are only identifying 115,324 victims, then the world only identifies less than half of 1 percent of the estimated victims (0.4 percent). This means that 99.6 percent of victims remain trapped by their traffickers, unable to decide where they work or who touches their bodies.

Sex trafficking dominates the discussion of governments’ lackluster victim identification efforts. Forced labor has received less attention, but in this year’s TIP report governments identified a higher number of forced labor victims than in any prior year: 24,340. This improvement, along with governments prosecuting the largest number of labor traffickers, is encouraging. However, when the victim identification statistics are isolated for just forced labor, governments are only identifying 0.1 percent of the total estimated forced labor victims.

Victim identification is made even more difficult due to state-sanctioned human trafficking. The TIP report found that in eleven countries, the governments themselves trafficked people. These offenders include Cuba, North Korea, Eritrea, and China, where millions of Uyghurs are forced to work in Xinjiang reeducation camps. It is especially odious when the government charged with identifying victims is, in fact, the perpetrator.

Without effective victim identification, governments cannot hold traffickers accountable, and people of goodwill cannot offer tailored, trauma-informed services to trafficking survivors. Society cannot address what it cannot identify. Victim identification is the prerequisite to successful prosecution and prevention of this crime. Yet, governments’ rate of victim identification is appallingly low.

It is time for governments to match their rhetoric with their resources and dramatically increase funding for prevention efforts, investigators, prosecutors, service providers, and trauma-informed care. Specialized investigative units should no longer be paper tigers. Survivor leadership should no longer be an ornamental add-on. Holding companies and individuals accountable for committing human trafficking crimes should no longer be elective. Human trafficking victims should no longer be prosecuted for the unlawful acts their traffickers compel them to commit.

Improvement and success must begin with increased victim identification. There are several practical steps that concerned citizens should ask their governments to take:

• Mandate that educators and health care providers become mandatory reporters.
• Invest in specialized investigative units and prosecutors focused on stopping traffickers. 
• Create pathways for survivors to rid themselves of criminal records caused by their traffickers. 
• Ensure companies are not using forced laborers to produce solar panels, electric vehicles, apparel, tomatoes, and batteries. 
• Fund trauma-informed services for survivors. 
• Elevate and center survivors in the fight to put traffickers out of business.

Traffickers thrive in an ecosystem where mere intentions and underfunded public justice systems are their only challenges. It is time for leaders to arise and become champions for freedom. Millions of victims count on governments, civil society, and faith communities to do more than merely care about their plight, designate awareness days, and think good thoughts. Survivors need the world to accelerate its strategic investment and meaningful action to increase victim identification.

John Cotton Richmond is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, chief impact officer at Atlas Free, president of the Libertas Council, and former US ambassador-at-large to monitor and combat trafficking in persons.

The post Less than half of 1 percent of human trafficking victims are identified. That needs to change. appeared first on Atlantic Council.

In line with other surveys of public opinion in wartime Ukraine, the KIIS poll identified strikingly similar attitudes across the country, with 75% of respondents in eastern Ukraine ruling out any territorial concessions compared to 84% in central Ukraine and 86% in both the south and west. This illustrates the unifying impact the Russian invasion has had on Ukrainian public opinion, and underlines the significance of the ongoing war as a major milestone in modern Ukraine’s nation-building journey.

Until very recently, international media coverage of Ukraine often depicted the country as deeply divided between pro-Russian east and pro-European west. This was always an oversimplification and is now clearly no longer the case. Instead, attitudes toward key issues such as the war with Russia and membership of NATO have converged, with strong support for Euro-Atlantic integration evident in every region of Ukraine. Meanwhile, pro-Russian sentiment has plummeted to record lows, especially in the predominantly Russian-speaking regions of southern and eastern Ukraine that have witnessed the worst of the fighting.

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This latest poll is an important data point that confirms Ukrainian resolve to achieve the complete de-occupation of the country. It also highlights the problems of viewing the current counteroffensive as a make-or-break moment in Ukraine’s war effort.

Some commentators have argued that failure to achieve a major military breakthrough in the coming months would cause a sharp decline in international support for Ukraine and force Kyiv to accept the necessity of some kind of compromise with the Kremlin. In reality, however, the Ukrainian public is staunchly opposed to the kind of land-for-peace deal that would likely form the basis of any negotiated settlement. As long as Ukrainians remain determined to fight on, few Western leaders will be prepared to abandon them.  

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy seems to have a good grasp of the public mood in wartime Ukraine. He has consistently stated that Ukraine’s goal is the liberation of all regions currently under Russian occupation. This uncompromising position has attracted some international criticism, with China pushing for the resumption of peace talks and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva urging Ukraine in April to cede Crimea to Russia in order to end the war.

Ukraine’s Western partners have been far more supportive, providing growing quantities of vital military aid while emphasizing that it is up to Kyiv alone to define what would constitute an acceptable peace. Following some initial hesitation, most Western leaders now also recognize the need for Russia’s invasion to end in a decisive defeat, and acknowledge that anything less would have disastrous consequences for international security.

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It is easy to understand why so many Ukrainians reject the idea of striking a deal with Moscow, despite the terrible toll of the war and the inevitability of further trauma.

Perhaps more than anything else, this determination to liberate the whole of Ukraine reflects an acute awareness of the genocidal agenda underpinning Russia’s invasion and the horrors taking place in Russian-occupied regions. Every time the Ukrainian army advances and liberates territory, officials uncover the same grim evidence of war crimes including summary executions, torture, abductions, sexual violence, and mass deportations. For the vast majority of Ukrainians, the idea of condemning millions of their compatriots to this fate is simply unthinkable.

Many in Ukraine are also convinced that attempts to strike a bargain with the Kremlin are both futile and dangerous. Opponents of a compromise settlement note that the current war is no mere border dispute requiring minor territorial concessions, and point to Russia’s increasingly undisguised commitment to extinguishing Ukrainian statehood. They warn that Russian leaders would view any negotiated peace deal as a pause in hostilities, which they would then use to regroup before launching the next stage of the invasion.

Based on Russia’s own actions over the past sixteen months of full-scale war, it is difficult to see how any kind of compromise would prove workable. Putin himself has openly compared his invasion to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Russian Czar Peter the Great, and in September 2022 announced the annexation of four partially occupied Ukrainian regions representing around 20% of the entire country. If he is not decisively defeated on the battlefield, he will almost certainly seek to go further and attempt to seize more Ukrainian land.

A further factor fueling Ukraine’s commitment to complete de-occupation is the strong desire to free the country once and for all from the historic threat of Russian imperialism. This reflects widespread Ukrainian perceptions of the current war as the latest episode in what is actually a far longer history of imperial aggression that stretches back many hundreds of years.

For centuries, Russian imperial influence has shaped Ukrainian history in ways that have caused untold suffering to generations of Ukrainians while keeping the country trapped in a state of arrested development. Unless Russia is defeated and forced to withdraw entirely from Ukrainian land, this bitter cycle will continue. Ukrainians are under no illusions regarding the high price of victory, but most feel that the price of a premature peace would be far higher, and refuse to pass this burden on to their children and grandchildren. Anyone seeking to end the war without Russian defeat must first reckon with this resolve.     

Peter Dickinson is the editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service. 

Further reading

UkraineAlert Jun 11, 2023

Ukraine’s counteroffensive will likely create new reintegration challenges

By Lesia Dubenko

If Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive is successful, Kyiv will be faced with the significant challenge of reintegrating communities that have lived under Russian occupation for extended periods, writes Lesia Dubenko.

Civil Society Conflict

UkraineAlert Jun 7, 2023

Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive will aim to keep the Russians guessing

By Peter Dickinson

Speculation is mounting that Ukraine’s hotly anticipated summer counteroffensive may be underway but initial stages are likely to feature probes and diversionary attacks rather than a big push, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Drones

UkraineAlert Jun 6, 2023

Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive is a key moment but long-term resolve remains crucial

By Tennyson Dearing

Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive is an important moment in the war with Russia but it is critical to maintain a sense of perspective and underline the need for long-term Western backing, writes Tennyson Dearing.

Conflict Freedom and Prosperity

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Beyond the counteroffensive: 84% of Ukrainians are ready for a long war appeared first on Atlantic Council.

As he pondered the course of the war, Henri-Lévy came to the conclusion that the best way to combat the West’s mounting impatience with the 15-month war and counter the push for preliminary negotiations was to show rather than tell. Instead of writing an essay, the 74-year-old French filmmaker and philosopher took to the road to illuminate the bravery of ordinary Ukrainians against what he calls the “master terrorist” in the Kremlin.

The film, which carefully traces Henri-Lévy’s journey across Ukraine, is about far more than jerky shots of the Frenchman and his crew dodging bullets and drone attacks. It is about Ukraine’s defiance of Putin’s attempt not simply to wage a war of territorial conquest, but to efface the idea of Ukrainian nationhood itself. “If I dare to give a certain logic to this crazy war, it is in the logic of the denial of Ukrainian identity,” he says. “This barbarity matches the logic of denying the very existence of Ukraine.”

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As he journeys from Ukraine’s capital to the east, Henri-Lévy captures the dignity of the Ukrainian people through short vignettes that remain with you long after the credits roll. The Frenchman focuses on ordinary Ukrainians like the elderly woman who appears in the documentary engaged in the quotidian task of stirring a steaming pot of borscht and pleads for an end to the constant violence that has upended her life. She hopes to make it to her seventieth birthday, she says.

In Kyiv, after another Russian air strike hits a woman’s apartment, she apologizes profusely to Henri-Lévy for wearing a dirty black coat. Her kitchen is unusable after the bombing and her crockery is battered, but she’s more focused on the state of her appearance. She takes the French filmmaker to her makeshift bed, a chair inside a bathroom tub where she waited out the aerial assault, and smiles with pride at her ability to snatch a few hours of sleep.

Another scene captures everyday life for those who couldn’t leave cities and towns that Russia has pounded relentlessly in the east. A man who appears to be approaching pension age tries to chop wood with an axe, complaining that it’s warmer outside than inside.

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In Pavlograd, the French filmmaker dons a hard helmet and overalls to cover his black designer suit and spotless white shirt as he descends below ground to watch Ukrainian miners drill iron ore. The precious ore is eventually made into bullet-proof vests for soldiers at the front. After the steel miners are done for the day, they carry on packing care boxes of food and medicine for displaced families.

Henri-Lévy observes that every steelworker is a hero, just like the brave men and women on the front lines. In one of his characteristic meditative asides, he observes that the Greeks and Romans admired heroes in part because they were so rare. “In Ukraine, heroes are everywhere,” he says. The Frenchman confesses that he keeps coming back to Ukraine because it is rare in history to see so many people embody heroism in one place.

The documentary also features moments of exhilaration. Henri-Lévy captures joyous scenes from recently liberated Kherson, where hundreds mill in the main square, some searching for power to recharge their phones and tell their loved ones they are still alive. Perhaps the hardest and most powerful scene comes when Henri-Lévy visits a torture cell that still has fresh blood on the floor. The Russians never actually appear on film, but their depraved conduct casts a dark shadow over the documentary.

This film is anything but neutral and Henri-Lévy makes no attempt to disguise his sympathies. “I am partisan. I don’t give five minutes to the Jews and five minutes to the Nazis,” he says.

The Frenchman has consistently refused to engage in bogus moral hand-wringing when it comes to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Instead, he is clear about which side he’s on, as viewers of “Slava Ukraini” will no doubt recognize. “I want the Ukrainians to win,” he commented on May 11 at a screening of the documentary at the E Street Cinema in Washington, DC.

Melinda Haring is director of stakeholder relations and social impact at the Superhumans Center. Jacob Heilbrunn is Editor of the National Interest. Haring and Heilbrunn are both non-resident senior fellows at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. “Slava Ukraini” was shown at a series of screenings in May organized with the Ukrainian American charity Razom. It can be viewed on Apple TV and YouTube.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Apr 8, 2023

Human wave tactics are demoralizing the Russian army in Ukraine

By Olivia Yanchik

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has not gone according to plan but he still hopes to win a long war of attrition. However, Russia’s reliance on human wave tactics risks undermining morale within his invading army, writes Olivia Yanchik.

Conflict Defense Policy

UkraineAlert Apr 6, 2023

NATO poses a threat to Russian imperialism not Russian security

By Peter Dickinson

Russia’s passive acceptance of neighboring Finland’s NATO membership raises serious questions over the Kremlin’s efforts to portray the invasion of Ukraine as a response to NATO expansion, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Disinformation

UkraineAlert May 12, 2023

Andriy Yermak: Italy is defending common European values in Ukraine

By Andriy Yermak

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is right to say that helping Ukraine defend itself against Russian invasion is about freedom, justice, and common values, writes the head of Ukraine’s Office of the President, Andriy Yermak.

Conflict Economy & Business

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post New Bernard Henri-Lévy documentary challenges Ukraine fatigue appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Public Event Thu, May 11, 2023 • 11:00 am ET

Woman, Life, Freedom: Eight months of ongoing protests in Iran

AN #ACFRONTPAGE EVENT – An in-depth conversation examining the ongoing anti-government protests in Iran following the murder of 22-year-old Mahsa Jina Amini, and the decades-long fight for gender equality and social justice in the country.

Human Rights Iran Middle East Women

Event transcript

Uncorrected transcript: Check against delivery

Speakers

Azam Jangravi
Iranian women’s rights advocate and a Girl of Revolution Street

Mehrangiz Kar
Iranian women’s rights lawyer and writer

Nazanin Nour
Iranian-American actor, writer, and activist

Moderator

Ali Rogin
Correspondent, PBS NewsHour

Introductory remarks

Holly Dagres
Nonresident Senior Fellow, Middle East Programs;
Editor, MENASource and IranSource

HOLLY DAGRES: Good morning, everyone. My name is Holly Dagres, and I am a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs, and I’m honored here to give remarks for today’s Atlantic Council Front Page event.

Zan, zendegi, azadi—“women, life, freedom”—the slogan heard across the globe. Contrary to the lack of media coverage, this month marks eight months of ongoing protests in Iran against the Islamic Republic. Protests that are taking place in various ways, from street gatherings, rooftop chants, graffiti, to public displays of not wearing mandatory hijab. This continuity is unprecedented. The clerical establishment is in a tinderbox situation, and it’s only a matter of time before the protesters pour into the streets en masse because the people of Iran have had enough. They want the regime gone.

As I speak over thirteen thousand schoolgirls have been poisoned at schools across the country. Many believe this is a punishment for their participation in anti-establishment protests. Additionally, in the past two weeks there have been an alarming rise in executions, with over fifty-seven executed. Human rights organizations widely believe that these wave of executions are an effort to instill fear and silence dissent. Every day, women remain defiant against mandatory hijab, by appearing in the streets without the veil. And even in some cases, dresses and shorts, items of clothing only seen at home, behind closed doors, ordinary freedoms we here take for granted.

The world admires and applauds the bravery of the people of Iran, but especially their women and girls. As an American of Iranian heritage, I’m absolutely thrilled to introduce this incredible cohort of Iranian women who will be accepting the 2023 Distinguished Humanitarian Leadership Award on behalf of the women and girls of Iran at tonight’s Annual Distinguished Leadership Awards… which I should note will be livestreamed.

Dr. Mehrangiz Kar is a human rights lawyer and an activist. She was one of the first women attorneys to oppose the Islamization of gender relations following the Iranian revolution of 1979. Kar has been an active public defender in Iran’s civil and criminal courts, and has lectured extensively both in Iran and abroad.

Azam Jangravi is an Iranian paralegal, human rights advocate, and former political prisoner, residing in Canada. She is primarily known for being one of the girls of revolution street during the protests against compulsory hijab in 2017. Jangravi was taken into custody in 2018 after removing her headscarf in protest on Enghelab Street, standing atop an electricity transformer box, and waving it above her head. She was later released temporarily on bail and fled from Iran to Turkey, before relocating to Canada.

Nazanin Nour is an Iranian-American actress, writer, and activist. She has appeared on shows such as Netflix’s “Big Mouth,” “Madam Secretary,” and “Persia’s Got Talent,” and can currently be seen in the film “A Thousand Little Cuts” on Showtime. Nour could most recently be seen on stage in Washington starring in the studio theatre production of “English.” She is one of several Iranian Americans in the public eye speaking out on the ongoing situation in Iran.

I’d like to also note that Dr. Mahnaz Afkhami is sick with COVID-19 and was unable to attend, but she is recovering.

Finally, I’m delighted to introduce our brilliant moderator, Ali Rogin, of PBS NewsHour. Ali, over to you.

ALI ROGIN: Holly, thank you so much, and welcome to everybody in the room today and to all our viewers tuning in online, and I’m honored to be joined by these three incredible women.

As Holly mentioned, we are here today to discuss the state of women’s rights and human rights in Iran from prerevolution all the way to the current zan, zendegi, azadi movement and we can do all that in forty-five minutes. That is a very steep task but I know that this is a very well-equipped group to do just that. So let’s get right into it.

The first question I’m going to ask and, parenthetically, before I do I want to note I’m going to ask a few questions and then we’re going to open it up to questions from the audience here and online. So please submit your questions in the format that’s already been presented to the group, and for this panel each of the questions I’m going to ask, the first one will be open-ended, and then each one will be directed to one of you specifically. But I invite anybody to weigh in as well.

So the first question—as Holly mentioned, the Islamic Republic is doubling down on its repressive tactics. It’s increased. There have been thirteen thousand schoolgirls that have been poisoned. Hangings are at a historic high. So what do these oppressive measures tell you about the state of the regime and whether or not it is under pressure from these protests? Whoever would like to begin. Maybe we go down the line.

Dr. Kar?

MEHRANGIZ KAR: OK. As you know, in this movement regular women, students of university, students of high school, all labor and they are involved with that, and in zan, zendegi, azadi all Iranian women from all layers of the society, they are—they were working and now they are working in some other style.

And something that you asked about that, like poisoning, poisoning daughters in high schools, we think the—you know, the reason is because they were working a lot in the movement. And one of their activity was—because probably you don’t know that in schoolbooks, the first page is a picture of Khomeini and the second page is a picture of Khamenei, and the students of high school, sometimes they—you know, they taking out these pictures from their schoolbooks and simply removing—removing—

ALI ROGIN: And they’re removing [them] from the—from the walls?

MEHRANGIZ KAR: Yeah, removing, in front of the camera—in front of the camera. And these, you know, film and video posted to some media outside the country, and that’s the reason.

I think they are very against the against daughters in high school. And we think that now this is some kind of revenge sometimes… and the government doesn’t care about that and doesn’t say anything and doesn’t investigate—very serious investigate in that, and they don’t say what is this. Sometimes, they say something that is not true… They say that this is not true. This is something that, you know, they pretend that there is nothing, there is no poison.

And this is something that the people in Iran, now they are very angry with that because the students of—women students, daughters and students of high schools, they don’t have any safety, any security. And the parents now, they are very angry. And they go around the high schools, and they say: If the government cannot guarantee our daughter’s life and our daughter’s security, we will go around the high school and we will, you know, find something that they poison them, and this is our duty if the government doesn’t do their duty.

ALI ROGIN: So that’s going to be a big test.

But I’m curious to get all your thoughts—and I apologize; we didn’t discuss this in advance—but who do you think is behind these poisonings?

MEHRANGIZ KAR: The government.

ALI ROGIN: Is it the government?

NAZANIN NOUR: I mean, everybody believes it’s regime—the regime is complicit, because this is also a regime that has eyes and ears everywhere. They’re able to—they kidnap dissidents abroad, and bring them back to—for execution. They have intelligence on dissidents abroad. There was the, you know, kidnapping that was—that the FBI foiled the plot against a leading voice, Masih Alinejad. So, it’s very difficult for anybody to believe that a regime that uses facial recognition technology to send tickets to women who aren’t wearing their hijab properly, cannot find out who’s behind these poisonings. So, everybody believes that the regime is actually behind this.

And it’s been going on since November of 2022, so that’s months now that this has been happening. And there’s countless videos on the internet from activist groups within Iran that are showing girls in hospitals, you know, with oxygen masks. They can’t breathe, they smell tangerine in the air, or rotten fish in the air. So, it’s very real.

And I know that the regime tries to downplay it, but, you know, it’s also very difficult to kind of loiter around a girls’ school in Iran. And so, again, it’s—again, that’s why it’s very difficult for anybody to believe that the regime is not complicit in this. Parents that have gone to ask questions are met with brute force by regime forces. So, not only are no answers being given, this is still continuing as of just a few days ago, we saw videos from other poisonings. And it’s across all cities and provinces in Iran, too. So—

ALI ROGIN: So, what I’m—what I’m curious about is—Azam, is this an example of the regime really feeling the pressure, that they are taking these steps of poisoning young girls?

AZAM JANGRAVI: Actually, I don’t know. It’s really complicated. But it might be the regime is behind of this situation.

Mehrangiz and Nazanin mentioned about poisoning, and I want to talk about executions. Well, the government is now trying to create fear among people by increasing executions. In the past ten days, over fifty-five people have been executed in—from in which twenty-six Baloch citizens executed. And I think—this by the suppression of Islamic Republic of Iran.

But the protest is ongoing in Balochistan, and every Friday they shut down the internet. And I think we have to talk about Balochistan and Kurdistan and—because the suppression in that areas every time increased by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

ALI ROGIN: That’s a very, very important point.

Azam, I want to stay with you and ask, let’s take a step back and let’s talk about the factors that led to this round of protests.

AZAM JANGRAVI: The protests that begin in mid-September were unprecedented in their scale and duration. People from all level of society, including women of various cities and social classes, came together to demand change.

A key point of contention was the mandatory hijab laws, which require all Iranian women to cover their hair. And although the protests were initially led by women, they soon expand to include men as well. The government attempt to suppress the protest with violence and repression, but the movement continued to grow and gained momentum. People from different backgrounds joined in—driven by a shared sense of frustration with the current government. While there have been some reports of misinformation circulating about the government’s intention, most people understand that the issue of mandatory hijab is just one of the many issue that need to be addressed.

It is clear that until there is real change in Iran, people will continue to demand change and speak out against the injustices in Iran. As I said, the government is now trying to create really fear among people by execution. Two men were executed in the past week, Yousef Mehrdad and Sadrollah Fazeil Zare were executed for just running online group criticizing Islam. Dual Swedish-Iranian citizen also executed last week. Additionally, more than eleven individuals are currently on deaths way—on death row in connection with the now recent protests. The world has been outraged by these killings and has called on Iran to stop them. We need to act now and raise our voices and call on the Islamic Republic to stop their executions.

ALI ROGIN: Nazanin, to Azam’s point about the need to raise your voice, we’ve seen some really interesting subversive ways that protesters, especially the young women and girls in Iran, are using social media. They’re using just formats that the regime is not familiar with to register their dissent. So does that add a new dimension that we haven’t seen before in previous iterations of these protests? And how is that affecting how this message is being communicated to the regime?

AZAM JANGRAVI: Yeah, absolutely. Social media’s been a huge help actually in this movement. It’s the first time that we’ve seen it. Gen Z is very adept at using TikTok and Instagram, and figuring out how to make things trend and go viral. An example of that is the video of the girls of Ekbatan. I don’t know if everybody saw that video, but there’s a song by Rema, a popular Afrobeats artist, with Selena Gomez. And they have a song called “Calm Down.” So these young girls made this dance video, and then they were detained afterward, of course, and had to give a forced apology video.

But that went viral. And that caused everybody around the world, from various countries—I mean, this—it was, like, trending billions in hashtags on TikTok. And it raised awareness for people to understand what’s actually happening in Iran. It gives people outside of Iran a connection to those inside showing, hey, we’re actually more similar than you might think, because a lot of people don’t have information on what Iran was like prior to 1979 either. And so social media’s been a really huge tool in pushing this forward.

And this is also—the Gen Zers are the ones who were at the forefront of all of this. And as Dr. Kar and Azzi said, this is—these poisonings seem to be a retaliation for the fact that they have been ripping up pieces of the supreme leader, they’ve been setting fire, there’s countless photos now that are iconic, that Time replicated, with the girls with their backs to the camera with the middle finger. So all of these things that they’re doing, they’re very smart. They know exactly how to get the attention of people across the world, and it’s—we have never seen that level of social media activity to move a movement forward when it comes to Iran.

ALI ROGIN: And it’s fascinating because it really does seem to be techniques using forums that are just completely unfamiliar to especially the conservative clerics.

So Dr. Kar, for you, you have—for a long time, part of your scholarship has been about tracking the divisions between the moderates, the reformers within the government, and the hardliners, looking from the 1990s to now. So can you get us up to date on what is the balance, what is the tension currently in the regime between moderates and conservatives? Is there any tension there, or is it just completely overrun by conservatives? How do you see those tensions playing out now, versus in previous decades where there was a bit of a reformist element?

MEHRANGIZ KAR: At the beginning I would like say that I practiced as a lawyer twenty-two years in Islamic Republic of Iran, so when I started to practice as a lawyer in Iran I was very young, and immediately we had Islamic—the revolution, Islamic Revolution and victory of Khomeini in this revolution. So I had been in a very complicated situation, not because I was a lawyer but because I was a woman and lawyer. I think two criminal in their eyes, because they—immediately they said that women cannot be judge, so they removed all female judge from judiciary system. And we were not sure that they give us permission to continue work as a lawyer, but they did, and they said because everybody is able to choose a lawyer, probably a mad lawyer, a crazy lawyer, and this is—and Islam—Islam doesn’t care about that. This is something that the people—

ALI ROGIN: If you want to choose a female lawyer, that’s your choice.

MEHRANGIZ KAR: Yes, is your choice; if you want to choose a mad, you know, lawyer, that is your choice. And that’s why we could survive. This was the reason, the base of our job.

So I can say that since Khomeini ordered for mandatory hijab, this movement started in Iran and continued. But sometimes it was very slow, it was very hard; sometimes it was getting clear and obvious. I can say that in first decade we were very, very active for mandatory hijab. And for something that is full of, you know, our penal code and family law after they came on power are full of discriminations against women, gender discrimination, and we can say this is some kind of gender apartheid. But we cannot have demonstration. Just somebody like me started talking and writing about these legal discriminations.

After that, the second we had involved with a very bad war between Iran and Iraq, and eight years we had been involved with that. And that’s why everything was closed about women’s rights and human rights, and nobody could talk about that in any other country that is involved with war. So we can say that during the time everything was slow or nothing. Nothing was active in that.

After war, after eight years that the war was over, Hashemi Rafsanjani was on power as president and he ordered open very small, very small opportunity for writing and talking about something, but under control—under very heavy control.

ALI ROGIN: And remind us, this is in the 1990s?

MEHRANGIZ KAR: 1990s, yes. And because I should make short everything, this is history and it is not easy—

ALI ROGIN: No, it—you’re doing a great job.

MEHRANGIZ KAR: After 1990, we reached 1996. And 1996 is very important period of revolution history started because the name is reformism movement. And the president, Khatami, and the people—most people of Iran, for the first time they voted to a president of this system, this political system. After that, because the slogan was different like rule of law and like we should—we should have civil society, it was very important because he ordered and the reformists ordered that women can have independent NGO. And it was very helpful for women. It was the first time that something like that happened in Iran.

But either during this time they didn’t give me permission because it—

ALI ROGIN: How interesting, during the reformist era.

MEHRANGIZ KAR: No, yeah, everything was under control. And they said: No, no, you cannot. You cannot have any NGO. And I do have all documents of that.

But some of young Iranian women, they could register and they could be active as NGO. This was something that started, you know, another kind of—

ALI ROGIN: Activism, or another kind of activism, or—

MEHRANGIZ KAR: Yes, yes, yes, as NGO.

ALI ROGIN: Yeah.

MEHRANGIZ KAR: And it—and they could be very active.

And then, after that, we had some campaign like one million signature and no to stoning and something like that. And Iranians—some part of Iranian women, they came to streets and it was very important. They came to public area, and they were talking and they were giving a slogan against discriminations, not against political system.

But after that, step by step, Ahmadinejad came and stopped everything and suppressed all women activists. And you know, they—most of them, they left Iran, and now they are all over the world. And after that, everybody thought that everything is stopped and never—you know, never be active about women’s rights. But as you know and as you see now, everything is full of energy and started a movement: Mahsa; and zan, zendegi, azadi. This is full of energy. This is full of anger. And this is different with some other that we had been before that.

ALI ROGIN: And to—Dr. Kar, to your point about how many activists left Iran, so now the diaspora is very rich, very, very vocal. And so, Nazanin, I’m curious to get your sense of what is the state of the diaspora now? Are they united around these protests, any more so than perhaps the cohesion was in previous years?

NAZANIN NOUR: Yeah. I want to say, just to that point too that you brought up of differences in the government, reforms, et cetera, that the people—the information coming out of Iran and people I talk to on the ground, most people don’t see any difference between any—they all think it’s the—you know, they’re all cut from the same cloth. So it’s a regime that’s irreformable and irredeemable in the eyes of the overwhelming majority of Iranians.

To the diaspora, yes, I remember in 2009 I was actually in Iran. I got there two days before the election, the Green Movement elections. And I witnessed what happened afterward, which was the violent suppression and oppression by the state to quash those protests. And I remember that it must have been like a blip in the American media. Maybe it was in a forty-eight-hour news cycle, and then it was gone. And so—and we’ve had protests that have built up in Iran since—you know, for the last twelve to thirteen years. But if you just want to go back, 2017, 2018, 2019. There was bloody November in 2019, fifteen thousand protesters got killed within a few days and it wasn’t on the news at all.

And now we saw that actually, yeah, the diaspora rallied around the people of Iran. I had never seen that level of unity in the entire time that I’ve lived in this country, as far as, you know, giving a spotlight and attention to Iran. There’s protests and rallies that have been held in—major protests and rallies held in cities and countries all over the world ever since September. Most of them are happening in cities every weekend.

And while we would love more media coverage, and attention, and a spotlight kept on Iran and all the atrocities—the poisonings, the executions, the fact that the people want this regime gone—the unity that I’ve seen and the level of attention is something that I’ve never seen before. And it’s absolutely necessary and vital to keep, you know, because their internet gets cut off. They don’t have the means, a lot of the times, to get the messages out. So it is up to the people in the diaspora to continue to amplify their voice and make sure that the world hears what they’re saying and what’s actually happening inside of the country.

ALI ROGIN: Absolutely.

Let’s take a couple questions from the audience. I invite anybody who has a question. While you’re thinking of your questions, I’d love to ask, Azam, you were one of the kind of, as we say, OGs of the anti-hijab movement. You stood on an electric transformer, as we said. You’re a girl of revolution street, which is where these protests were happening. So what does it mean to you to see these women and young girls in the streets now?

AZAM JANGRAVI: The fight for women’s rights in Iran has been ongoing for over forty-four years, as Mehrangiz says. One of the first protests against mandatory hijab in Iran occurred on March 8, 1980, where women have used various campaigns, activist groups, NGOs, to protest the violation of their rights and demand justice and equality. However, they have paid heavy price for their activism, including suppression, threats, imprisonments, and mental and physical torture.

In 2018, when I decided to protests against mandatory hijab, there were already ongoing protests against the regime in Iran. The Iranian public was expressing their anger in the protests with a wide range of chants directed towards the regime and its leadership. In the same days, Vida Movahed performed a symbolic act of taking her scarf off and putting it on a stick to peacefully protest hijab laws—a brave move that followed forty years of women’s activism. And this is important because the forty-four years ongoing activism, you know? And I also wanted to be part of these forty-year-old movement and raise my voice against mandatory hijab laws.

As an Iranian woman, I had experienced a lot of problems in my life, particularly when I decided to separate my ex-husband. And these difficulties made me more aware of inequality and separation that Iranian women have to endure. This made me think about what was happening to Iranian women. Then I felt compelled to protest against such cruelties, you know. I believe that each woman in Iran has explained it and said similar problems as this is a year of separation.

My hope was to be part of the activists who cared about creating more awareness in society. And on the day I protested, no one stood by me or supported me when I was arrested, you know. And right now we have seen every man stand for women. This is the more important things. I think this learning and becoming aware process has done so that men are now standing by women, fighting for human and women rights.

ALI ROGIN: To that point—and I’m so sorry to cut you off, Azam, but I do want to get to some audience questions. And somebody asked something that I think ties into this, which is the solidarity that we’re seeing, is that translating to internationally.

Somebody asks, how do you see the influence of regional solidarity among women. Is it active in places like Afghanistan? Are they giving each other energy and support as needed? So let’s broaden it out and look at the regional solidarity that’s happening. What are you all seeing? Whoever wants to take that. And I think, unfortunately, that may be our last question of the session.

NAZANIN NOUR: I mean, there were videos of women in Afghanistan that were marching with signs in solidarity with the women of Iran as well. I mean, they’re neighbors and, you know, African women are under terrible suppression and oppression themselves.

And I feel like there has been a global outcry but there needs to be more. There’s actions that have been taken by various countries. At the U.N. there’s a fact finding mission that was created. You know, people banded together and got the Islamic Republic kicked off the Commission on the Status of Women, for example.

But I still feel like there hasn’t been the amount of solidarity that there needs to be and the amount of support for—it’s a human rights issue. It’s a human rights crisis. It’s a women’s rights crisis. So we need people from around the world in various countries that also believe in women’s rights and human rights to also stand up for the women, girls, and the people of Iran.

ALI ROGIN: Excellent. And somebody else asks a question. With all that is going on we see regional neighbors like Saudi Arabia normalizing ties with Iran. What does this mean for the protest movement? Are there any implications with other countries in the region normalizing ties with Iran?

MEHRANGIZ KAR: You mean the relationship—the new relationship between Iran and Saudi Arabia?

ALI ROGIN: Yes. Yes. Are there any implications there for the protest movement?

MEHRANGIZ KAR: … We cannot predict the future of these negotiations because a lot of, you know, challenges are between Iran and Saudi Arabia and I don’t believe that everything could be. But we know Saudi Arabia that we—everybody knows is very serious, serious with Islam and with limitations and the discriminations, gender discrimination.

But now we are—you know, we are hearing that something has changed either in Saudi Arabia and this is something that Iranian people they are watching that and they think why they are—you know, they are pushing to a very bad situation, war situation, and Saudi Arabia is going toward and this is something that Iranian women know and they think about it but they don’t compare themselves with women in Saudi Arabia because we had a very different background during shah, during Pahlavi. Pahlavi changed a lot of things in Iran, like women’s rights.

ALI ROGIN: Right.

NAZANIN NOUR: But also anything that—like, anything that legitimizes the government is not going to be a good move. Anything, you know, that emboldens them is not going to be a good move, or solidifies their status.

But it’s not deterring people in Iran from protesting in their own ways. They still do come out to the streets. It might not be to the same effect as it was a few months ago, but the fact that women are taking off their hijabs, men are supporting them—also by wearing shorts, by the way, because that’s not allowed. So, that’s one way that people are dissenting, using civil disobedience. So those types of things are continuing to happen, and they’re not going to stop. And schoolgirls, university students in general, boys and girls, have been protesting for the last few weeks, as well.

So, I don’t believe that that is going to stop what has already started in Iran. There’s no going back, is what the people of Iran say.

ALI ROGIN: In the time that we have left, I’d like to go around. And in a few sentences, can you tell me what you would like to see from the international community, to give the support that this movement needs?

Dr. Kar, would you like to begin?

MEHRANGIZ KAR: Now we can understand that it’s not enough that human rights institution, international human rights institution, work for removing gender discrimination in Iran. Now we can understand that all Western government, they should work with human rights institution because, as my friends mentioned about execution, now it’s very important if they can stop it. Because if everybody is getting crazy in Iran by this situation, and either us that are outside Iran, when we get this news we cannot—we cannot—what could we do?

ALI ROGIN: Right.

MEHRANGIZ KAR: Because six others, they do one execution in Iran now. And all of them that call it an investigation, it is not justice. They don’t have lawyer. They don’t have lawyer. And the lawyer is coming from government and it is related with government.

So we can say that international community can do a lot of work for Iran, but so far we cannot see any results of that in this movement that now it is our focus.

ALI ROGIN: Azam.

AZAM JANGRAVI: As an internet security researcher and digital security trainer, my concern is about internet, because the Islamic Republic of Iran, when it wants to suppress the people of Iran, they shut down the internet. And it would be good for Iranian people if the international community find a way to help people for internet, and—especially VPNs, especially, you know, support us for helping people, for internet shutdowns.

ALI ROGIN: Right, we’ve seen that the sanctions don’t really seem to discriminate between uses for speaking out, and for doing business with the regime.

AZAM JANGRAVI: Exactly.

ALI ROGIN: Nazanin.

NAZANIN NOUR: I just think overall, the global community needs to condemn the actions of the Islamic Republic, not legitimize them. Even the smallest action, like heads of states, when they meet with Islamic Republic officials—women not wearing the headscarf. You know, it’s not obligatory; they don’t have to do it.

I think things like, you know, the U.N. just appointed the Islamic Republic to a commission that’s overseeing human rights. And it’s an absolute slap in the face to Iranians, because they just executed two people two days ago, simply for running a social media channel that was questioning religion. So, the world needs to stop doing things like that, because all they’re doing is solidifying and emboldening the regime.

They need to pass legislation and do things that support the people of Iran, instead of emboldening the regime. They need to hold them accountable for human rights abuses. They need to, you know, list—the EU can list the IRGC as a terrorist organization. The US can pass the MAHSA Act. There’s a lot of things that can be done that haven’t been done yet. And I hope to see that.

ALI ROGIN: Nazanin Nour, Mehrangiz Kar, and Azam Jangravi, thank you so much for being here today. This has been a fascinating conversation, and congratulations tonight on the award that you are receiving from the Atlantic Council. It is so well deserved.

I think we can all join in a round of applause for this incredible panel.

MEHRANGIZ KAR: Thank you. Thank you for having us.

AZAM JANGRAVI: Thank you.

ALI ROGIN: So that concludes the program. Thank you so much for joining us.

NAZANIN NOUR: Thank you. Ali.

Watch the event

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On April 28, Peter Engelke, along with UNICEF’s Jasmina Byrne, co-authored an op-ed for The Hill discussing the “polycrisis”: multiple near-simultaneous shocks, with strong independencies among them, taking place in an ever-more integrated world. This includes the likes of the COVID-19 pandemic, ongoing war in Ukraine, climate change, economic upheavals, and more. As these factors compound, the authors argue, the ones most hurt will be the world’s youth and children.

To combat this array of crises, the authors advocate for increased investment in foresight capabilities within governing structures, empowering the voices of the youth, and rethinking the management of public goods.

Staff

Peter Engelke

Deputy Director of Foresight, Scowcroft Strategy Initiative

Global Energy Center Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Technology & Innovation Europe & Eurasia

The post Engelke in The Hill discussing the polycrisis’ impact on the world’s youth appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The “they” is the outside world: the United Nations (UN), the United States, other Western nations, Turkey—countries that call themselves “friends of Syria” but have their own interests at the core of their Syria policies. It’s also Russia, Iran, and the Arab nations that are “normalizing” relations with Damascus.

I know this region well, having traveled there countless times as a senior correspondent for CNN. But this trip in March, after the earthquakes that decimated this region, was different. I was not there just to observe; I was on a humanitarian mission with my charity, the International Network for Aid, Relief, and Assistance, or INARA. Greater insight into the aid world and how it functions has worsened my frustrations. I found myself muttering repeatedly, “It’s broken. This isn’t right.”

It has been well over a decade since the first of Syria’s displaced settled in these hills and fields in northwest Syria. They were the residents of Jisr al-Shougour, bombed in June of 2011. Each time I visit, I recall meeting those first arrivals stretching canvas between olive trees for shelter, and the young girl I met sleeping out of the back of her family’s van, telling me they had just come for a few days. Over time, the population swelled with those who fled Aleppo, Homs, Hama, Damascus, and elsewhere. 

The population in Idlib province has more than tripled since people first took to the streets twelve years ago, from under one million to more than three. Hospitals and schools were bombed and not rebuilt. Factories ceased to function or are now in regime territory, meaning the job opportunities and products are inaccessible for those in the rebel-held northwest of the country. Some fields are planted, but many remain unsown. There is potential but no opportunity. 

Every year, as has been the case for more than a decade, there are pleas for more funding for food baskets, for winterization campaigns with images of little faces shivering in subzero temperatures. Every year, funding efforts fail to meet their targets and those pleas go unheeded. Fair or not, the prevailing sentiment in Idlib is that UN agencies responsible for shelter want to keep the population in tents.

INARA in partnership with Kids Paradise provided Ahlam al-Ahmad and her family with hygiene kits, childrens toys, clothing, and food after their tents flooded. Photograph courtesy of Arwa Damon.

A little boy plays in muddy and sewage-filled waters at a camp in Syria. There are growing concerns about the spread of diseases such as cholera. Photograph courtesy of Arwa Damon.

Ahlam al-Ahmed stands among what she and her family have been able to salvage from the floods. Photograph courtesy of Arwa Damon.

The author at a camp INARA set up in partnership with Syria Forum for those who lost their homes in the earthquake. Photograph courtesy of Arwa Damon.

I met Ahlam al-Ahmad as she slogged through knee-deep mud. Floods had just ravaged her small camp on the edge of agricultural fields in Idlib, the water so powerful it swept away everything in some of the tents, drowning clothes, kitchenware, mattresses, blankets, small stores of rice, potatoes, and jars of lovingly prepared Ramadan stuffed vegetables. 

Like hundreds of thousands here, she was displaced by war, running away with nothing but the clothes she had on. It has been all but impossible for her family to get back on their feet, to rebuild even the smallest fraction of what they lost. 

“Why do we live here?” she asks rhetorically. “It’s for work. We women work in the fields, it’s the only thing available.”

“I mean we had sorted ourselves out, sort of,” she continues, her voice cracking as she points to what they were able to salvage from the muck. It took her family years to achieve this meager progress—an existence in three tents, one of which acts as the kitchen. But even with four of them working the fields, they couldn’t afford a home with walls—not when their labor yields just three dollars a day. And there is such a yearning for walls.

Adults yearn to lean back against a wall, while many young children don’t even know what it is to live within a stable structure.

Moving beyond an emergency response

Spiraling inflation, coupled with rising global prices, has pushed this population even deeper into poverty. And yet last year the UN barely met half of its funding goal for Syria. The argument has long been that funding the sorts of projects that would allow greater autonomy for the northwest region—such as building proper shelters, factories, and schools—was too risky, what with the incessant and unpredictable Russian and Assad regime bombing campaigns. 

However, for more than three years now the battle lines have remained stable, and the skies no longer buzz with fighter jets raining death and destruction. Yet the humanitarian framework around Idlib is still viewed through the prism of emergency response. That needs to change.

Aside from the emergency response to the recent earthquake, the bulk of funding opportunities for projects in Syria are for small-scale development—efforts such as vocational training and microgrants—and civil engagement interventions. These activities provide little help to the population. Instead, they permit outside players to claim that they support development.

Civil engagement is important and can bring together inspiring minds, but it’s a fruitless exercise based on donor desires and not realities on the ground. “You can’t expect someone who is tunnel-focused on mere survival, on the next meal, to be able to have the mental capacity to focus on anything else. That is how they keep us weak,” explains Hasan al-Moussa, a Syrian friend of mine active in the humanitarian and development space. 

Vocational training and microgrants are important, but they need to be significantly scaled up to have a real impact.

At the same time, there is division among the UN Security Council members not just over cross-border access, but also over whether the focus should be on emergency, early recovery, or development. The emergency cycle that northwest Syria has been stuck in for more than a decade is creating dependency and perpetuating poverty, ignorance and disillusionment, and even that response is falling short of the needs. Early recovery and development projects, which would lay the framework to break the cycle, are too few, too small, too short term. The pattern of the current approach is paralyzing the population in a state of helplessness.

On the ground, the bleak situation can feel almost deliberate, an attempt to keep the population unemployed and uneducated. Just enough comes in for outside officials to point to certain projects and make themselves look good, but nowhere near enough to break the cycle of dependency. More money needs to be put into funding projects that create large-scale job opportunities and access to education for those who have none.

Helping the people of Syria will take moral courage that has long been lacking, and it will take—for once—those who hold the purse strings and power over northwest Syria to put their own politics and interests aside. People deserve the chance to regain agency over their own lives. That is the real humanitarian thing to do.

Arwa Damon is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East and president and founder of the International Network for Aid, Relief, and Assistance (INARA), a nonprofit organization that focuses on building a network of logistical support and medical care to help children who need life-saving or life-altering medical treatment in war-torn nations.

The post It’s broken: The humanitarian response is keeping Syrians in a loop of helplessness appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Why does population matter for global politics? After all, a Malthusian perspective would warn that more mouths to feed will strain a country’s capacity to provide for its citizens, and that failure to do so will engender political instability and economic impoverishment. Yet, with all due respect to the reverend, the empirical record of the past two centuries makes clear that the opposite is true. Large populations fueled the Industrial Revolution and the incredible economic growth enjoyed by the West. While vast inequalities persist—even grow—global economic productivity has expanded unimaginably over the period, allowing more people to live longer, healthier lives than ever before.

If you are bullish on India’s prospects in the coming century, as indeed it appears the consensus in US government circles is, then India’s rise to number one on the population charts is evidence that its best days are yet ahead. If that is the case, then by pursuing a strategic partnership with India, above all other considerations, the United States is backing the right horse to maintain its own relevance. It is commonplace for policymakers to laud India’s “demographic dividend,” which is a wonky shorthand for the fact that India’s huge population is also a young population, with 52 percent of its citizens under the age of thirty. Young people are a valuable resource for any economy. They are in the prime of their working lives, they are avid consumers and fuel the larger economy, and eventually they will have children of their own and buy even more stuff. Countries in Western Europe, as well as Japan and increasingly China, are increasingly skewing older and facing tighter labor markets and greater pressures on public-sector entitlement programs such as pensions (see the turmoil in France) or health care. But India’s younger population promises a huge—and growing—consumerist middle class and a seemingly unending supply of college graduates itching to enter the workforce.

There is, however, a problem. There are too few jobs in India to absorb these aspiring workers. Some economists have labeled India’s record “jobless growth.” The numbers are stark and sobering. To absorb the demand for employment, the Indian economy must create over a million new jobs each month. It presently is creating well fewer, and job creation is slowing even further. Resentment over poor job prospects begets frustration that spills into violence. Nor is this a problem that can be solved by pulling on available policy levers such as India’s oft-maligned labor laws.

The challenge is more systemic and structural, and it lies in the absence of a vibrant manufacturing sector that can absorb the millions of young people entering the economy each year. Rapid population growth is a relatively modern phenomenon globally, and the historical record makes clear that industrial manufacturing was the key to absorbing labor productively. Indeed, the vast reserve army of cheap labor enabled much of the Industrial Revolution as low-wage workers abandoned their farms and took their places on the assembly lines of Manchester and Detroit. India, however, skipped this mass industrial revolution stage. Its growth has been fueled by a booming services sector that specializes in information technology. As China established itself as the factory of the global economy, India aspired to be its back-office business processing hub. While this stimulated the growth of a robust middle class of educated English-speaking office workers, it laid bare the lack of similar opportunities for the tens of millions of young job seekers competing for scarce white-collar positions.

Ashoka Mody, a Princeton economist, argues that the failure of India’s education system is to blame for the current mess. Other culprits include the government’s hesitant and often contradictory approaches to foreign investment and international trade, and its protectionist tendencies that stifle innovation and prevent India from playing a meaningful role in global supply chains in the way that China, Vietnam, Malaysia, and even Bangladesh have. The current moment of hostility between Beijing and Washington, and the ensuing misguided espousal of decoupling, China+1, near-shoring, friend-shoring, and re-shoring policies emanating from Washington appears to offer a glimmer of hope for India’s beleaguered manufacturing sector. Manufacturing could shift from China to India as the United States and others look to reduce dependence on Chinese exports and supply chains. But it is unclear that New Delhi will be able to seize the advantage at a scale required to meet the job needs of its young population. Doing so would require political courage to embrace structural economic reforms and the challenges of global trade to force India’s businesses to be genuinely competitive internationally. If India could manage this, it might be able to harness its population to foster the high rates of economic growth required to make up lost ground on China, though this past lost decade of growth has arguably already set that goal beyond reach.

India’s demographic dividend is thus a demographic time bomb, papered over for now by the success of its information technology sector, largely untapped middle class, rising geopolitical centrality, and masterful public relations by its cheerleaders. But a failure to harness the energies of the world’s largest population is not just a tremendous missed opportunity. It is a millstone weighing down India’s future. A frustrated, underemployed youth population turns restive quickly, and the government’s tactic of distracting it with majoritarian populism and anti-minority scapegoating will not succeed forever. Worse, it will erode the one undeniable achievement of independent India: the building of a diverse, secular, democratic republic against all odds. 

The backsliding has already begun: India is no longer rated a liberal democracy by reputed international organizations, and public opinion surveys indicate that the Indian public’s commitment to democratic norms is worryingly shallow. For the United States and its allies, who have been reminded time and again of just how little influence they wield over India’s foreign policy, these trends should ring alarm bells. For the first time since the era of colonialism, the majority of the world’s population no longer lives in liberal democracies. Indeed the world’s two largest countries, accounting for more than a quarter of all human beings alive today, are actively illiberal and working against the international economic order so painstakingly erected after World War II to cement Western hegemony. If demography is destiny, then the UN’s announcement, while confirming what many knew to be inevitable, still changes everything.

Irfan Nooruddin is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center and the Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani Professor of Indian Politics in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

The post India is now the world’s most populous country. Can its economy keep up? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

While Russia’s invasion has generated unprecedented international interest in Ukrainian studies, it has also had a profound and overwhelmingly negative impact on the academic community in Ukraine itself. This must be taken into account. After all, the international development of Ukrainian studies depends largely on the state of academia in Ukraine. As Andriy Zayarnyuk wrote last year, “the center of Ukrainian studies is now in Ukraine.”

A recent report evaluating the current state of Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar studies identified more than 160 study centers located mainly in North America and Europe. Ukrainian studies centers are mostly placed within Slavic studies departments, with courses tending to focus on Ukrainian culture, language, and literature rather than politics and economics.

Europe has the most centers primarily concentrated in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Poland. Notably, Ukrainian studies remains virtually nonexistent in some neighborhood countries such as Romania and Turkey. This absence became particularly evident following Russia’s full-scale invasion, with a recent survey of Ukrainian studies professionals identifying increased demand for expert commentary.

Even in countries with Ukrainian studies programs, the focus is often limited. Universities typically employ individual lecturers who offer courses on Ukrainian topics which can change from semester to semester. Factors leading to the closure of Ukrainian studies centers include lack of funding, lack of student interest, weak institutionalization, and reliance on the activities of individual researchers.

A more comprehensive approach to Ukrainian studies is clearly needed. This should include the establishment of Ukrainian professorships to make studies an integral part of the academic environment and less exposed to changes in political preferences.

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Growing international interest in Ukraine as a result of Russia’s invasion has already boosted the field of Ukrainian studies. Universities have been able to bypass bureaucracy to host more people from Ukraine, with a diverse range of Ukrainian academics fleeing the war and arriving in the West over the past fifteen months. Among students, interest in Ukrainian studies has never been higher. The challenge is to ensure this does not become a mere passing fad.

To make Ukrainian studies more resilient in the long run, Ukrainian topics need to be integrated into existing classes on subjects such as Soviet or Russian imperial history, or even European studies, contemporary politics, and international relations. The goal should be to make Ukraine part of the conversation on different issues.

At the same time, much will depend on parallel progress in Ukraine. Key objectives include translating source materials, integrating Western academic practices, and improving English skills among the academic community.

Wartime realities in Ukraine have created new possibilities for Ukrainian academia but have also deepened many of the problems that existed before the invasion. Much of the country’s educational infrastructure has been destroyed, but the impact on human capital has been even more devastating. In short, Ukraine is currently losing many of its best people including significant numbers of irreplaceable academic professionals.

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Ukraine’s universities are currently in survival mode but reform is also on the agenda. Just one day before the full-scale invasion began in February 2022, the Ukrainian government adopted a new two-year development strategy for the country’s higher education system. The Ministry of Education has since announced that it will use this strategy as a road map for the reconstruction and continuation of reforms in the post-war period. However, the strategy was designed before the war and does not target the specific problems caused by Russia’s invasion.

Last month, Oksen Lisovyi was appointed as Ukraine’s new Minister of Education. It is not yet clear whether he intends to implement radical reform with long-term goals or keep the existing higher education system largely in place. While support for change is widespread, many within the academic community and education industry also appear to favor a more conservative approach.

Ukraine may not have the luxury of time for an extended debate. Funding for education has been severely cut as a result of the Russian invasion, with academics struggling to survive on inadequate salaries. This is forcing many to consider a career change. Others have left their university positions to serve in the army. It is not clear how many will return to academia, or whether they will have jobs to return to.

Students also find themselves confronted by harsh realities. With no end in sight to the Russian invasion, today’s Ukrainian high school graduates face a choice between an uncertain fate in their homeland or exploring the wide range of study options currently available at European and North American universities.

Ukraine’s universities have responded to the challenges of the invasion with ingenuity, utilizing tools developed during the Covid pandemic to switch to distance learning. However, uncertainty over the future looms large.

Some Ukrainian universities still maintain cooperation with Western institutions, but these relationships typically depend on prewar ties and offer one-sided academic mobility enabling Ukrainian scholars and students to study abroad. It would be good to see European and North American universities launch more nonresident fellowships for Ukrainians who are unwilling or unable to leave the country.

It may also be time to consider establishing new platforms and institutions for collaboration between Ukrainian scholars and their international colleagues. Ukraine can offer opportunities for Western academics focused on the Soviet and Russian empires who are no longer able to access Russian archives. Ukraine’s State Archive Service has been digitizing materials for some time and has introduced a united search system of Ukrainian archives.

The past year of war has sparked unprecedented interest in Ukrainian studies while creating both huge challenges and exciting opportunities. Ukrainian studies is now widely recognized as an important field that requires far more international attention. Looking ahead, the discussion must address both institutional and practical issues. The most important task at this stage is to prevent the further erosion of Ukraine’s academic potential and create the conditions for sustainable post-war development.

Oleksandra Gaidai is a Department of History postdoctoral fellow at American University.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Apr 8, 2023

Human wave tactics are demoralizing the Russian army in Ukraine

By Olivia Yanchik

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has not gone according to plan but he still hopes to win a long war of attrition. However, Russia’s reliance on human wave tactics risks undermining morale within his invading army, writes Olivia Yanchik.

Conflict Defense Policy

UkraineAlert Apr 6, 2023

NATO poses a threat to Russian imperialism not Russian security

By Peter Dickinson

Russia’s passive acceptance of neighboring Finland’s NATO membership raises serious questions over the Kremlin’s efforts to portray the invasion of Ukraine as a response to NATO expansion, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Disinformation

UkraineAlert Mar 8, 2023

Ukrainians will never surrender. How long can they count on the West?

By Serhiy Prytula

Ukraine’s remarkable resistance during the first days of the Russian invasion convinced the democratic world to back the country but with Putin now preparing for a long war, continued Western resolve is vital writes Serhiy Prytula.

Civil Society Conflict

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Russia’s invasion highlights the need to invest more in Ukrainian studies appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On April 13, IPSI Nonresident Senior Fellow Dexter Tiff Roberts was quoted in the South China Morning Post in a conversation on the “lying flat” movement in China.  

Fellow

Dexter Tiff Roberts

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Global China Hub Indo-Pacific Security Initiative

China Chinese

The post Roberts in the South China Morning Post appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The post Nawaz in Dawn: <a href="https://www.dawn.com/news/1746219/for-pakistan-to-prosper-it-must-invest-in-its-children">For Pakistan to prosper, it must invest in its children</a> appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On March 20, to reflect on the twenty-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Atlantic Council’s Iraq Initiative held a discussion to amplify the voices of Iraqi youth. “Trajectories of Iraqi youth two decades after the 2003 invasion: Between aspirations and reality” featured introductory remarks from the Director of the Iraq Initiative, Abbas Kadhim, and was moderated by Hezha Barzani, a Program Assistant for the empowerME Initiative at the Atlantic Council.   

In his introductory speech, Abbas Kadhim stressed the importance of including youth in the debate about the future of Iraq, arguing that “youth are not only entitled to be present, but are called to lead the debate, as they will be the most affected by it”. This was further emphasized in Hezha Barzani’s introduction, where he noted that 60 percent of Iraq’s current population is under the age of twenty-five. 

The panel featured empowerME Program Assistant Nibras Basitkey, who highlighted the importance of being solution-oriented when discussing the future of Iraqi youth. It also featured a researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Shival Fazil, who claimed that Iraqi youth “do not feel represented by the current system of government in Iraq and are stretching across ethnic and religious identities in favor of an issue-based coalition, seeking political reform”. Adjunct fellow Hamzeh Hadad from the Center for New American Security noted that the years following the invasion “were tumultuous, with Iraqis facing global issues” such as the expansion of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and the global pandemic. This point was built upon by co-Founder and President of Sinjar Academy, Murad Ismael, who claimed that “youth in post-ISIS Iraq are rejecting extremism”. 

Problems currently facing Iraqi youth

A consensus was reached among the participating panelists that the present nature of the Iraqi youth is characterized by their collective desire for reform and coalition-building.  The emerging trend of national movements are transcending ethnic, religious, and cultural lines. Hamzeh Hadad explained this phenomenon as being “a product of Iraqi unity against ISIS as well as the younger generation’s exposure to sectarian violence in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s rule”. He also explained the unification of Iraqi youth with the failure of the Iraqi leadership class, which resulted in a widespread protest movement. Another problem currently affecting Iraq is the persistence of internal displacement accompanied both the 2003 invasion and the ISIS insurgency. The second wave of displacement that took after 2024 in Iraq has particularly impacted minority communities. Basitkey, Ismael, and Fizal all pointed to the plight of the Yazidi population which had been persecuted by ISIS and remains scattered with negligible access to basic civilian infrastructures and education. 

When discussing the current threat of ISIS resurgence, Shival Fazil claimed, “it is this growing disillusionment with politics and resentment toward the ruling elite that runs the risk of being exploited and weaponized by the Islamic State or other extremist groups.” 

This statement demonstrates the importance of addressing the concerns of the Iraqi youth and committing to political, economic, and social reform for both humanitarian and security reasons. Youth are also facing the repercussions of climate change, which will continue to be a serious threat to the country, both on livelihoods and security fronts. Hamzeh Hadad pointed to the inadequate preparedness of the country to combat climate change, arguing that “both Iraq and the international community must team up to create the appropriate infrastructures to cope with modern problems such as climate change.” 

Importance of education

One of the most pressing problems currently facing Iraqi youth is limited access and poor quality education. Each of the panelists spoke to this importance extensively. Nibras Basitkey claimed that “this phenomenon was worsened by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and has disproportionately impacted minorities”. Additionally, Iraqi youth experience a significant setback in their education due to limited access to technology during the pandemic. Murad Ismael highlighted the importance of technology in improving education, claiming that “technological training in Iraq is extremely outdated and individuals who pursue higher education in technology in Iraq finish their degree with a high-school level understanding”. He offered that smartphones could be harnessed to improve education, but “there must be a campaign that compels individuals to maximize the educational value of their phones”. Basitkey further argued that “Iraq requires an updated curriculum that would focus on technology and skills that would optimize youth’s chances of obtaining jobs in the local market”. Additionally, “women’s access to education must be significantly improved”. 

The value of economic growth 

Iraq’s economy is highly dependent on oil and most jobs lie in the public sector-this is problematic for numerous reasons. Murad Ismael argued that “a prosperous private sector is essential to a functioning democracy in Iraq”, as the public cannot voice their political opinions freely if they are dependent on a particular political party for employment. Furthermore, oil prices are extremely unstable. Shivan Fazil highlighted the consequences of an oil-dependent economy and advocated for “the establishment of a competitive and reliable private sector”. Economic development is also a social issue. Basitkey argued for “the necessary inclusion of women in the Iraqi economy by challenging social norms and initiating campaigns that encourage women to participate in politics”. This will improve economic growth and mobilize a highly underutilized sector of the population. 

Each of these issues requires a tremendous commitment not only from Iraq but also from the international community. To ensure the success of Iraq’s bright youth population, these issues must be addressed, specifically, those of economic and educational concerns, concluded the panelists.

Britt Gronemeyer is a Young Global Professional with the Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council. 

The post Trajectories of Iraqi youth two decades after the 2003 invasion: Between aspirations and reality appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Article II of the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention identifies five acts that qualify as genocide. The fifth act, forcibly transferring the children of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group to another group, concisely and accurately describes Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Kremlin officials have attempted to disguise the abductions as a routine wartime security measure, but Moscow’s well-documented efforts to “re-educate” young Ukrainians and turn them into Russians tells a very different story.

Since the invasion began in February 2022, evidence has mounted of a large-scale Russian operation to abduct and indoctrinate Ukrainian children throughout the territories that have fallen under their control. One recent report published by the Yale School of Public Health in February 2023 identified a systematic Russian program to re-educate thousands of abducted Ukrainian children via a network of more than 40 camps and facilities stretching from Russian-occupied Crimea to Siberia. “This is not one rogue camp, this is not one rogue mayor or governor,” commented Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab. “This is a massive logistical undertaking that does not happen by accident.”

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Ukrainians in liberated regions have recounted how they frequently had to hide children from Russian occupation forces. Numerous Ukrainian orphanages were forced to smuggle children out of occupied areas to prevent them from being seized and sent to Russia. Some of the victims of these Russian abductions have been orphans or children living in care. Others have been physically separated from their families and told they are no longer wanted. In some cases, Ukrainian parents claim to have been tricked or coerced into sending their children to Russia. The overall number of abducted children is not yet known. Current estimates indicate that well over ten thousand young Ukrainians have been abducted and sent to Russia. Many fear the real total figure may be far higher.

Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova, who has been indicted alongside Putin by the ICC for the “unlawful deportation and transfer” of Ukrainian children, has spoken openly about the apparent effectiveness of Russia’s indoctrination efforts. In late 2022, she acknowledged that a group of 30 children brought from Russian-occupied Mariupol initially sang the Ukrainian national anthem and shouted the patriotic slogan “Glory to Ukraine,” but claimed that this criticism was “transformed into love for Russia.”

The abduction and indoctrination of Ukrainian children is only one element of comprehensive Russian efforts to eradicate all traces of Ukrainian national identity. Throughout Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine, any symbols of Ukrainian identity and statehood are suppressed while access to the Ukrainian media is blocked. The Ukrainian language is being removed from the school system, with educators imported from Russia to teach a Kremlin-approved curriculum that promotes a Russian imperial identity while demonizing Ukraine. Parents who question these policies are told their children will be taken away if they refuse to comply.

Russia is also imposing more direct measures to outlaw any expressions of Ukrainian identity. Throughout the country, Russian-occupied regions have witnessed the same pattern of arrests targeting anyone deemed a threat to the Kremlin authorities. This typically includes local officials, journalists, former members of the Ukrainian military, civil society activists, and anyone expressing pro-Ukrainian views. In numerous instances, patriotic tattoos or pro-Ukrainian content on mobile phones have led to detentions and disappearances. Investigators working in newly liberated regions have uncovered evidence indicating thousands of civilian deaths along with the widespread use of sexual violence and torture.

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While the mass killing of Ukrainian civilians has been well documented, there is not yet any international consensus over whether Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine. A recent UN report found that Russia was guilty of “a wide range of war crimes” in Ukraine, but commission head Erik Mose said investigators had not yet uncovered conclusive proof confirming genocide.

Others argue that more than enough evidence of genocide has already been found, and point specifically to the mass abduction of Ukrainian children. Speaking to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on March 22, Ukrainian Nobel laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk characterized the abductions as a component of “the genocidal policy which Russia has imposed against Ukraine.” Likewise, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that the abduction of young Ukrainians amounted to genocide. “The most chilling crime is that Russia steals Ukrainian children,” he commented. “This is a genocidal crime.”

In order to prove that Russia is guilty of genocide, it is vital to demonstrate genocidal intent. It is this intent “to physically destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group,” that legally distinguishes genocide from war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In this particular case, Russia itself has provided mountains of evidence indicating a clear intention to destroy the Ukrainian nation. Indeed, there are few examples in history where a genocidal power has incriminated itself so comprehensively. Vladimir Putin himself has frequently argued against the existence of a separate Ukrainian identity, and has even published lengthy articles denying Ukraine’s historical legitimacy. Meanwhile, genocidal language aimed at Ukraine has become completely normalized in the Russian mainstream media and among senior government officials.

The grotesque calls for genocide that are so commonplace in today’s Russia have helped inspire the criminal actions of Putin’s invading army. Among the long list of crimes committed by the Russian military in Ukraine, the methodical abduction and indoctrination of Ukrainian children stands out. The scale and systematic nature of the abductions make them an unmistakable symbol of Russia’s intention to eradicate Ukrainian identity and extinguish the Ukrainian nation. It is therefore fitting that this should be the first crime Vladimir Putin is indicted for. Putin hoped the invasion of Ukraine would secure his place among Russia’s greatest rulers. Instead, he looks destined to enter history as a genocidal dictator forever linked with the mass abduction of Ukrainian children.

Peter Dickinson is Editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert Service.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Feb 20, 2023

‘You cannot outlast us’: Biden’s Kyiv visit sends strong message to Moscow

By Peter Dickinson

US President Joe Biden’s bold surprise visit to wartime Kyiv sent a strong message to Moscow that time is not on Putin’s side and Russia should not pin its hopes on a weakening of Western resolve to stand with Ukraine.

Conflict Freedom and Prosperity

UkraineAlert Mar 19, 2023

Putin the Pariah: War crimes arrest warrant deepens Russia’s isolation

By Anders Åslund

The ICC decision to indict Putin for war crimes is a highly consequential step that will deepen Russia’s international isolation while weakening Putin’s personal position both at home and abroad, writes Anders Åslund.

Conflict Human Rights

UkraineAlert Mar 8, 2023

Ukrainians will never surrender. How long can they count on the West?

By Serhiy Prytula

Ukraine’s remarkable resistance during the first days of the Russian invasion convinced the democratic world to back the country but with Putin now preparing for a long war, continued Western resolve is vital writes Serhiy Prytula.

Civil Society Conflict

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Child abductions reveal the genocidal intent behind Putin’s Ukraine invasion appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The warrant states that Putin “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation. There are reasonable grounds to believe that Putin bears individual criminal responsibility for the aforementioned crimes.”

The ICC is a comparatively new international organization. It was created in July 1998 and formally established in 2002. At present, 123 countries have ratified its statute. They include all the countries of South America, all EU countries, most of Oceania, and roughly half of Africa. All these countries are now theoretically committed to arresting Putin. No sovereign immunity will shield him.

ICC indictments are rare. To date, the court has only indicted 52 people, but it aims to prosecute top culprits. Earlier indictments have targeted former presidents Omar al-Bashir of the Sudan and Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. In this context, the indictment of Putin appears entirely natural.

Following their ICC indictments, al-Bashir and Gaddafi became international pariahs. Putin and his regime are not likely to fare any better. After this indictment, no serious politician or public figure will want to meet with or even talk to Putin. He cannot travel abroad without considering the possibility of arrest and extradition to The Hague.

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In light of his new status as an indicted war crimes suspect, Putin will likely find that he is no longer invited to international forums such as G20 or the United Nations General Assembly. Since all power in Russia is concentrated to Putin, this means Russia has effectively lost its voice on the international stage.

Another consequence of the indictment is that no democratic political leader who values their own reputation will want to have any further contact with Putin. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emanuel Macron will need to rethink their earlier policies of holding regular phone conversations with Putin. Likewise, there is no longer any realistic chance of a negotiated peace settlement between Putin’s Russia and Ukraine brokered by the international community. Meanwhile, Kremlin-friendly European politicians such as Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban will have to abandon their personal links with Putin.

There are limits to the impact of the ICC indictment, of course. Many influential countries in addition to Russia itself do not recognize the court, with the list including the United States, China, India, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. However, even those countries that have yet to sign and ratify the ICC statute will be well aware that continuing to maintain close ties with Putin could now hurt their international standing.

Chinese President Xi Jingping has just confirmed that he will visit Putin in Russia on March 20-22. While few expect him to alter his plans in light of the ICC arrest warrant, his visit is unlikely to be good for China’s reputation. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has had quite intense contacts with Putin in recent years. As the leader of a NATO member state, will he maintain this level of engagement after Putin’s indictment? I doubt it.

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The implications of the ICC arrest warrant are not limited to the international arena. It is also likely to impact Putin’s standing within Russia, undermining his absolute power and leaving him more isolated than ever.

Russian investigative journalists have recently revealed that the increasingly reclusive Putin now travels in armored trains between his three main residences in Valdai, Novo-Ogaryovo, and Sochi, with special railway stations constructed at each location for his personal security. He rarely dares to meet anyone in person, only physically convening Russia’s Security Council three times over the past year. Now a wanted man, Putin’s paranoia looks set to worsen.

With Putin unable to play his usual active role in international negotiations, his value as Russia’s national leader will be greatly diminished. This will have a significant negative impact on Russia’s international standing that will continue for as long as Putin remains in office. Putin’s domestic political position will be seriously undermined, with members of the Russian elite drawing the inevitable conclusion that he is now a liability.

The indictment against Putin sends a powerful message to other senior figures within the Russian establishment, leaving them in no doubt that they are also vulnerable to possible prosecution. If the Russian President can be charged, they may also be indicted for their participation in Putin’s alleged crimes against humanity. Loyalty to Putin was once seen as the only way to get ahead in modern Russia; it now looks increasingly like a dangerous dead end.

The Russian leader is unlikely to appear in The Hague any time soon. Nevertheless, the ICC decision to indict him for war crimes is a highly consequential step that will deepen Russia’s international isolation while significantly weakening Putin’s personal position both at home and abroad.

Anders Åslund is a Senior Fellow at the Stockholm Free World Forum. He is co-author with Andrius Kubilius of the new book “Reconstruction, Reform, and EU Accession for Ukraine.”

Further reading

UkraineAlert Feb 20, 2023

‘You cannot outlast us’: Biden’s Kyiv visit sends strong message to Moscow

By Peter Dickinson

US President Joe Biden’s bold surprise visit to wartime Kyiv sent a strong message to Moscow that time is not on Putin’s side and Russia should not pin its hopes on a weakening of Western resolve to stand with Ukraine.

Conflict Freedom and Prosperity

UkraineAlert Mar 16, 2023

Poland defies Putin with landmark decision to give Ukraine fighter jets

By Peter Dickinson

Poland is set to become the first Western nation to supply Ukraine with fighter jets, Polish President Andrzej Duda has confirmed. Duda said Ukraine would receive four Polish Soviet-era MiG-29 jets “in the next few days.”

Conflict Missile Defense

UkraineAlert Mar 8, 2023

Ukrainians will never surrender. How long can they count on the West?

By Serhiy Prytula

Ukraine’s remarkable resistance during the first days of the Russian invasion convinced the democratic world to back the country but with Putin now preparing for a long war, continued Western resolve is vital writes Serhiy Prytula.

Civil Society Conflict

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Putin the Pariah: War crimes arrest warrant deepens Russia’s isolation appeared first on Atlantic Council.

By pointing the finger directly at Putin, the ICC has created an extraordinary opportunity to bolster its own legitimacy, build further solidarity in support of Ukraine, and permanently undermine Russia’s world-altering imperialist drive. However, to bring this to fruition without actually getting Putin in the dock, the international community must be careful to put Ukrainians themselves at the very center of their efforts to achieve justice.

When the ICC was established in 2002, it was a watershed moment in human history. Never before had so many states come together to accept the jurisdiction of a permanent international court over their territories, a “court of last resort” meant to try only the most heinous of crimes.

Unfortunately, the ICC’s poor conviction record and its tendency to focus almost entirely on African countries has led to disaffection and undermined its legitimacy. This is why it is so significant that although Putin is only the third sitting head of state to be indicted by the ICC for war crimes, he is the first leader of a major power.

This is also why it matters that in the Ukraine case, the ICC received the largest ever state party referral to open an investigation. This unprecedented show of international resolve has the potential to revive the court’s authority. If states continue to provide it with the necessary logistical and material support, perhaps the ICC can begin to live up to its lofty aspirations to end impunity for atrocity crimes.

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It is also important that the ICC chose to make the warrants public instead of keeping them sealed. It did so because “the conduct addressed in the present situation is allegedly ongoing, and public awareness of the warrants may contribute to the prevention of the further commission of crimes.”

In other words, if not even Putin himself can escape the court’s notice, Russian soldiers all the way down the chain of command should also not expect to get away with war crimes. While there is unfortunately little evidence to suggest that international justice mechanisms like the ICC have been effective in deterring future atrocities, this does not mean that the ICC’s decision to name and shame Putin won’t have other important deterrent effects.

Perhaps most significantly, the warrant permanently isolates Putin and spells doom for lingering efforts to resume “business as usual” with today’s Russia. While some critics allege that the ICC warrant will provoke the accused and escalate conflict, the fact is that Putin has already become radicalized beyond redemption and was unlikely to show restraint in Ukraine anyway. Because the ICC’s warrant has no statute of limitations, either Putin will stand trial or the threat of it will haunt him until the end of his days.

Unless Putin is held accountable or loses power, there can never again be normalized relations with Russia. This signals to the many countries, particularly in the Global South but also in Europe, who have continued to hedge their bets over the war, that there is little point in doing so unless they want to risk their own reputations on the world stage. It also eliminates any diplomatic leverage Putin may have had in a peace process, because the ICC has made it clear that without accountability all the way to the very top, there can be no peace at all.

What remains unclear is how the ICC’s move will impact the thinking of the Russian elite, whose loyalty is critical for Putin’s survival. Many are hopeful, such as Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak, who described the warrants as “the beginning of the end for the Russian Federation in its current form on the world stage.”

The ICC’s high degree of scrutiny and willingness to go straight for Russia’s biggest fish may certainly make some of Putin’s supporters think twice, which could undermine the current regime and ultimately incentivize a future Russian government to hand the dictator over to The Hague. This is not beyond the realm of possibility. Indeed, it has already happened before with Slobodan Milosevic of the former Yugoslavia and Charles Taylor of Liberia. While it was once unimaginable that these war criminals would ever be handed over, they were both eventually extradited by their successors.

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Although it is impossible to predict, most observers agree that regime change is unlikely to happen anytime soon in Russia. It is therefore reasonable to assume that Putin is safe for now. Indeed, there is good reason to expect him to cling even harder to power, precisely to avoid the possibility that any successor would hand him over to the ICC. It is also worth remembering that Putin has successfully nurtured a revisionist, imperial mindset in the country and has made the Russian media heavily complicit in his crimes. This makes the possibility of a peaceful change of power something of a pipe dream.

Herein lies the main problem for those who long to see Putin in the dock. Russia is not a party to the Rome Statute, which established the ICC. In theory, if Putin sets foot in any one of the 123 countries which have ratified the Rome Statute, he would have to be arrested and sent straight to The Hague. Unfortunately, as the case of former Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir shows, states cannot always be counted on to live up to this obligation.

With this in mind, what can the ICC and the wider international community do to ensure the warrant for Putin’s arrest becomes a genuine step towards meaningful justice? The ICC has an important role to play outside of the courtroom, but it needs the logistical and material support to live up to it. While the Court documents atrocities and gives them a permanent place in the public record, it should also give victims a sense of ownership over the process by facilitating their participation in the trials themselves and through its own outreach to affected communities.

Given the unlikelihood of Ukrainians seeing Putin stand trial, it will be critical for the court and its supporters to nevertheless manage expectations and communicate what is happening and why the process still matters. The court must also work in partnership with Ukrainian civil society, without whom such extensive evidence on child deportations could never have been collected and acted upon in real time.

In this sense, it is crucial to remember that the ICC is meant to complement, not replace, Ukraine’s own judicial system in how it handles war crimes on its own territory. Ukraine’s courts are already overwhelmed by the size of the caseload, which only continues to grow. The international community must do everything it can to support Ukraine’s capacity to investigate and prosecute war crimes in a fair and impartial manner.

The international community should also create a broader framework in which to pursue justice and accountability. One immediate step is to establish clear mechanisms to help locate, trace, and reunite all separated Ukrainian children with their families and legal guardians. This means supporting Ukrainian civil society activists who not only facilitate family reunification but stand ready to provide the vast array of services Ukrainians will need for years to come in order to recover from the horrors of the war. Even when peace and the rule of law are restored in Ukraine, much will depend on how well the country can pursue a holistic, comprehensive form of justice.

To come full circle back to the question of whether the ICC’s arrest warrant for Putin is indeed “historic,” a cynical read would be that this moment ultimately highlights the most important gap in international law when it comes to Russia’s crimes in Ukraine. It remains impossible for the ICC to prosecute the crime of aggression if the states in question are not parties to the Rome Statute. Until there is a viable international mechanism to prosecute aggression and the collective political will to do so, the root causes of this war can never be fully addressed, rule of law will never be fully restored, and impunity will continue.

Danielle Johnson holds a PhD in Politics from Oxford University and is currently a Senior Ukraine Analyst at ACAPS.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Feb 20, 2023

‘You cannot outlast us’: Biden’s Kyiv visit sends strong message to Moscow

By Peter Dickinson

US President Joe Biden’s bold surprise visit to wartime Kyiv sent a strong message to Moscow that time is not on Putin’s side and Russia should not pin its hopes on a weakening of Western resolve to stand with Ukraine.

Conflict Freedom and Prosperity

UkraineAlert Mar 16, 2023

Poland defies Putin with landmark decision to give Ukraine fighter jets

By Peter Dickinson

Poland is set to become the first Western nation to supply Ukraine with fighter jets, Polish President Andrzej Duda has confirmed. Duda said Ukraine would receive four Polish Soviet-era MiG-29 jets “in the next few days.”

Conflict Missile Defense

UkraineAlert Feb 1, 2023

Europe’s last empire: Putin’s Ukraine war exposes Russia’s imperial identity

By Botakoz Kassymbekova

Vladimir Putin’s genocidal invasion of Ukraine has exposed modern Russia’s unapologetically imperial identity but could yet lead to the collapse of the Kremlin’s broader imperial ambitions, writes Botakoz Kassymbekova.

Belarus Central Asia

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post ICC arrest warrant for Putin is a step toward ending Russian impunity appeared first on Atlantic Council.

When the invasion began, my company with more than 5000 employees near Odesa on the Black Sea had to close its doors immediately. We paid salaries as long as we could. Several dozen workers are now fighting against the ongoing Russian invasion.

At first, I couldn’t eat or sleep. Due to a medical issue, I couldn’t fight. But I could organize. Prior to the war, my logistics company had been able to transport anything throughout Ukraine, across the Black Sea, and beyond. After the war started, we immediately pivoted and began moving humanitarian goods, setting up Help Ukraine Center warehouses and distribution centers in Poland. The mere act of sorting clothes began to make me and dozens of other volunteers, including many Ukrainians, feel useful.

There have been moments of exceptional pain and exceptional clarity during this long year. When Russian soldiers occupied my home outside Kyiv in the first weeks of the war, I immediately called the Ukrainian army and gave them the GPS coordinates. My large home was destroyed. I have no regrets.

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As the war ground on and Ukrainians received more clothes than they could possibly wear, more of our countrymen were coming back from the frontlines without arms and legs. Ukraine didn’t deal well with its soldiers who were maimed during World War II; veterans were ignored and forced to sit at home. It was time for a transformational change.

Society should celebrate sacrifice and welcome differences; we can do this by giving Ukraine’s heroes world-class prosthetics and treatment free of charge in their home country and in their language. However, the Ukrainian state is nearly broke. Ukrainian hospitals, overwhelmed with complex injuries, are dealing with problematic amputations that only have costly solutions. I will never forget when one soldier without an arm on the right side of his body and only two mangled fingers on his left hand showed me a picture of the heavy wooden arm he was offered in Kyiv.

We had to get involved. Together with my longtime business partner Philipp Grushko and Olga Rudnieva, one of the most capable managers in Ukraine, we began to sketch ambitious plans at our warehouse in Lublin, Poland. Over the din of British volunteers whistling as they sorted clothes and blankets, and the reverse noise as the forklift loaded vans headed to Lviv, we resolved to build a modern medical center for children and adults to focus on the future, not the everyday suffering that renders the most resolute useless.

Superhumans Center will be the leading war trauma hospital in Ukraine and will include a state-of-the-art prosthetics and facial reconstruction center. Our experts will carefully restore mobility, comfort, and quality of life to Ukraine’s war heroes, children, and civilians who have been gravely injured in Russia’s war of aggression and are now dependent on a prosthesis due to amputation. Amputations aren’t a fun subject, and the challenges are hard in today’s Ukraine, but we will meet them.

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This beautiful vision is not a pipe dream. Superhumans Center will open in April. We are grateful to have the support of Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska, Sting and his partner Trudie Styler, and many others. Howard G. Buffett has changed thousands of lives by backing and building our medical center.

Ahead of the construction schedule, we are refitting a government-owned hospital in collaboration with Ukraine’s Ministry of Health. The first phase includes a rehabilitation clinic, prosthetics lab, and psychological support unit. In the second half of 2023, wards and further surgical departments will open. Eventually, we will open an educational center to train prosthetic specialists and rehabilitation professionals.

Can the international community help? You bet. Dollars and doctors are what we most desperately need. We invite medical doctors and prosthetic specialists to join our effort and give a week of their precious time to train Ukrainian doctors in person in Lviv.

We’re already changing lives. In January, we measured and fitted two Ukrainian soldiers for state-of-the-art bionic hands that they will receive in March. Andriy Gidzun and Vitaliy Ivashchuk both lost their arms in early 2022 as a result of Russia’s invasion. They were overjoyed as they experienced the ability to hold a cup again and catch a ball.

This is just the beginning. The need has never been greater. More than 10,000 Ukrainians likely need complex operations or prosthetics now. Tragically, this number will only grow. Russia continues to indiscriminately shell civilian targets across Ukraine and shows no signs of relenting.

As the invasion enters its second year with Russian President Vladimir Putin still undeterred, we Ukrainians know that the end of the war is far away. Superhumans Center will be there, rebuilding one life at a time, arm by arm, leg by leg.

Andrey Stavnitser is the co-founder of the Superhumans Center in Lviv, Ukraine, and the co-owner of the largest private port in Ukraine. He tweets @stavnitser.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Feb 20, 2023

‘You cannot outlast us’: Biden’s Kyiv visit sends strong message to Moscow

By Peter Dickinson

US President Joe Biden’s bold surprise visit to wartime Kyiv sent a strong message to Moscow that time is not on Putin’s side and Russia should not pin its hopes on a weakening of Western resolve to stand with Ukraine.

Conflict Freedom and Prosperity

UkraineAlert Jan 28, 2023

Poland is leading Europe’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine

By Diane Francis

Poland was the unsung hero of the recent landmark decision by Berlin and Washington to provide Ukraine with tanks as Polish leadership continues to shape the European response to Russia’s genocidal invasion.

Conflict Economic Sanctions

UkraineAlert Feb 1, 2023

Europe’s last empire: Putin’s Ukraine war exposes Russia’s imperial identity

By Botakoz Kassymbekova

Vladimir Putin’s genocidal invasion of Ukraine has exposed modern Russia’s unapologetically imperial identity but could yet lead to the collapse of the Kremlin’s broader imperial ambitions, writes Botakoz Kassymbekova.

Belarus Central Asia

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

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The post Superhumans Center: Symbol of Ukrainian defiance amid Russia’s war appeared first on Atlantic Council.

These thefts, as the New York Times recently reported, are not isolated episodes, but part of a wider and premediated effort by Russian President Vladimir Putin to destroy the culture of Ukraine. This is an aspiration that Moscow has repeatedly tried and failed to fulfill over the past several centuries.  

“Women at War,” a new US exhibition featuring a variety of works by twelve female Ukrainian artists, is a symbol of defiance to the Kremlin’s latest attempt to expunge Ukraine’s heritage. Though a number of the artists featured in the exhibition have fled to Europe or America since the full-scale invasion began, all of the works on show were originally crafted in Ukraine itself.

Curated by Monika Fabijanska at the Fridman Gallery in New York, the exhibition demonstrates that, in contrast to Russian imperial dreams, a thriving and independent Ukrainian artistic tradition exists. Indeed, as Fabijanksa has observed, “[Ukrainian artists] have their own culture and dreams and, often, that dream is about independence and about an identity that is their own, without the threat of annexation, invasion, and annihilation.”  

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This exhibition has now traveled to the Stanford in Washington Gallery, where American Purpose, an intellectually engaging online magazine devoted to covering politics and culture, held a reception on January 12 welcoming its arrival. Opening remarks from several speakers including the historian Sonya Michel, who saw the exhibition in New York and helped bring it to Washington, testified to its ability to bring home the daily indignities, humiliations, and horrors of the war.  “Women at War” will remain at the Stanford in Washington campus until March 22.

The exhibition, which includes a seven-minute film by Oksana Chepelyk that is titled “Letter from Ukraine,” features various artworks ranging from cartoons of the hellishness of daily life in the Donbas to a superb life-size oil painting on canvas by Lesia Khomenko called “Max in the Army.” The solitary and solemn uniformed Max, himself an artist and the husband of Khomenko, is shown saluting and staring into the distance, offering a poignant reminder of the isolation that can accompany heading off to join the army. Was Khomenko saying farewell to him as much as he was to her?

Several drawings depict rape victims of Russian soldiers. Wrestling with such depravity could not have come easily. Dana Kavelina, who was born in 1995 in Melitopol and now lives in Germany as a refugee, took this challenging subject up in a series of searing drawings called “Communications. Exit to the Blind Spot.” She not only addresses the vile actions of Russian soldiers in Ukraine but also the “rape camps” established by the Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the 1990s. The drawings are never less than harrowing. One, for example, features blood spooling from several women’s bodies and men depicted with red hands. These women, as the exhibition notes, were “purposefully destroyed by repeated rapes,” but Kavelina is searching for a way to bring “subjectivity” to these victims and to bear witness to their anguish. 

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Perhaps the most significant piece in the exhibition required the least overt artistry. A white linen sheet hangs at the entrance with a poem written on it in felt pen:

“May you choke on my soil.

May you poison yourself with my air.

May you drown in my waters.

May you burn in my sunlight.

May you stay restless all day and all night.

And may you be afraid every second.”

Olia Fedorova wrote these words while Russian forces besieged her home city Kharkiv in March 2022. Her text reflects the feelings of ordinary Ukrainians caught up in the horrors of Russia’s invasion. She captures the rage, helplessness, and flinty determination that outsiders can only begin to comprehend when they see the mass graves in Bucha, the hundreds of destroyed cars piled high outside Irpin, or the viral video of one girl’s birthday party in her bright yellow family kitchen just before it was destroyed by a Russian missile.   

The exhibition also shines in detailing the hardships of everyday life since Moscow’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and establishment of puppet regimes in eastern Ukraine. In this regard, a series of 12 cartoon drawings by Aleutina Kakhidze is very instructive indeed. She vividly depicts the journey her elderly mother had to make to collect her paltry pension. We learn that it took her up to eleven-and-a-half hours to cross numerous military borders, with endless delays and no predictability. In the final picture, her mother’s heart gives out as she waits for her pension to be processed. While shocking, the outcome is all too common as senior citizens were often forced to stand in long lines.

The tone of the exhibition is not always grim. Consider the series of photographs by Yevgenia Belorutets entitled “Victories of the Defeated.” Her marvelously evocative four photographs introduce us to the ordinary beauty of daily life in post-industrial Ukraine in spite of all the hardships. Covered in coal soot and outfitted in large gloves and an ill-fitting jacket, one woman in a blue stocking cap stares knowingly at the camera while the female subjects in two others smile broadly and even laugh.

Far from cowering before Putin and his thugs, Ukrainians remain defiantly triumphant. As Zhanna Kadyrova explains in an accompanying note that she composed in March 2022, passivity in the face of terror is not an option. “For the first two weeks of the war, it seemed to me that art was a dream, that all twenty years of my professional life were just something I had seen while asleep, that art was absolutely powerless and ephemeral in comparison to the merciless military machine destroying peaceful cities and human lives. I no longer think so: I see that every artistic gesture makes us visible and makes our voices heard!” Yes, they do. Both the Stanford in Washington Gallery and American Purpose deserve plaudits for helping to ensure that the efforts of Ukrainian artists to thwart Russian tyranny attract the attention they so abundantly merit.

Jacob Heilbrunn is the editor of the National Interest and Melinda Haring is the director of stakeholder relations and social impact at the Superhumans Center in Ukraine. Both Heilbrunn and Haring are non-resident senior fellows at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Dec 26, 2022

Eight reasons for Ukrainian optimism in 2023

By Brian Mefford

Ukrainians have experienced an incredibly traumatic year but the country enters 2023 with reason for cautious optimism that Vladimir Putin’s criminal invasion can be decisively defeated, writes Brian Mefford.

European Union NATO

UkraineAlert Dec 25, 2022

Bakhmut: Fortress of freedom

By Andriy Yermak

Western support for Ukraine must remain strong in 2023 to prevent a Russian victory that would fuel a global authoritarian revival, warns the head of Ukraine’s Office of the President, Andriy Yermak.

Conflict European Union

UkraineAlert Dec 22, 2022

Russia’s defeat is the top global priority for 2023

By Oleksii Reznikov

Ensuring that the Russian invasion of Ukraine ends in defeat is vital for the international security system and must be the strategic priority for 2023, writes Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov.

Conflict European Union

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

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The post Resisting Russia one artwork at a time appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Shakhtar Donetsk approached the current Champions League campaign in near complete disarray. The club had not played competitively for around half a year following the abandonment of the Ukrainian Premier League season in late February 2022 in response to Russia’s full-scale military invasion of the country.

With the largest conflict since World War II raging across Ukraine, most of Shakhtar’s expensively assembled foreign stars chose to leave the club. This left Croatian trainer Igor Jovicevic with a threadbare squad of local youngsters charged with filling the void created by the sudden departure of Shakhtar’s celebrated Brazilian imports.

Most observers expected this inexperienced side to be completely outclassed in what is Europe’s premier football competition. Instead, Shakhtar put together a highly credible Champions League group stage campaign that saw the club defeat Germany’s Leipzig in style before drawing against both Real Madrid and Celtic to secure a place in February’s Europa League playoffs. This six-point haul was a considerable improvement on the previous season’s effort, which had seen Shakhtar collect just two points and exit European competition before Christmas.

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The scale of Shakhtar’s achievement was most immediately evident in the club’s first group stage tie. Despite being considered rank outsiders, the Ukrainians scored a shock 4-1 victory away in Leipzig. Ten of Shakhtar’s starting eleven players in Germany were Ukrainian, while six were under the age of 23. Some had been signed recently from less fashionable Ukrainian clubs such as Desna Chernihiv and FC Mariupol and were enjoying their first taste of Champions League football.

Other highlights of the campaign included an impressive 1-1 draw with the mighty Real Madrid. Shakhtar actually came within seconds of what would have been an historic victory over Madrid, only for the Spanish giants to grab an injury time equalizer in the ninety-fifth minute.

The undoubted star of this season’s Shakhtar show has been turbo-charged winger Mykhailo Mudryk. The tattooed and coiffured 21-year-old Ukrainian player looks every inch the celebrity footballer and was already turning heads before this year’s campaign. Following a series of stunning Champions League performances, he is now regarded as one of the most sought-after players in world football.

Mudryk weighed in with a total of three Champions League goals and two assists. He was also recognized by UEFA as the fastest player in the Champions league group stages with a top speed of 36.6 kilometers per hour. This emerging superstar is now being widely tipped for a big money transfer to English Premier League club Arsenal and could soon break the record for the most expensive Ukrainian player.

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Shakhtar’s success is all the more remarkable as the club has been forced to play its Champions league ties in exile. With the Russian invasion making it impossible to stage Champions League games anywhere inside Ukraine, Shakhtar has played home matches in Polish capital Warsaw.

This nomadic existence is not entirely new for the club. Shakhtar has been unable to stage matches in hometown Donetsk since the city was first occupied by Russia in spring 2014, and has spent the past eight seasons alternating between temporary bases in Lviv, Kharkiv, and Kyiv.

The scale of the war unleashed by Putin meant that this season’s Champions League campaign involved additional logistical issues for the club as players and staff traveled from their base in western Ukraine’s Lviv region. With no civilian flights currently possible in Ukrainian airspace, players were forced to endure ten-hour coach journeys across the border into Poland prior to and following European games.

Shakhtar players also suffer from the same wartime trauma and anxiety as millions of their compatriots. Most members of the overwhelmingly Ukrainian first team squad have friends and family living across the country who are experiencing the daily horrors of the Russian invasion including missile attacks and drastically limited access to light, heating, water, and other basic amenities.

Despite these uniquely difficult circumstances, morale within the club has remained remarkably high. There is a strong sense of camaraderie among the players and an awareness that their success on the football pitch can provide a welcome distraction from the war while also inspiring fellow Ukrainians to defy their doubters.

Overcoming overwhelming odds has become something of a Ukrainian national pastime in 2022. When Putin’s invasion began on February 24, the entire country was widely expected to fall within a matter of days. Instead, Ukraine’s courageous and brilliant resistance has humbling the once vaunted Russian military and won the admiration of the watching world.

Shakhtar’s heroics are of a far humbler nature, of course. Nevertheless, the club’s determination to overcome wartime adversity has captured the imagination of football fans across Europe and provided Ukrainians with one more symbol of their country’s refusal to accept defeat.

David Kirichenko is an editor at Euromaidan Press, an online English language media outlet in Ukraine. He tweets @DVKirichenko.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Oct 17, 2022

Putin’s blackout blitz: Russia aims to freeze Ukrainians into surrender

By Suriya Evans-Pritchard Jayanti

Russia is seeking to plunge Ukraine into darkness ahead of the winter heating season by destroying the country’s energy infrastructure. Ukraine’s partners must step in to make sure Ukrainians are not frozen into surrender.

Conflict Energy Markets & Governance

UkraineAlert Nov 10, 2022

Battle of Kherson: Russian retreat confirms Putin is losing the war

By Andriy Zagorodnyuk

The war is still far from over, but Ukraine’s victory in the Battle of Kherson may eventually come to be seen as one of the key turning points in the defeat of Vladimir Putin’s invasion, writes Andriy Zagorodnyuk.

Conflict Freedom and Prosperity

UkraineAlert Oct 25, 2022

Poll: 86% of Ukrainians want to fight on despite Russian terror bombing

By Peter Dickinson

Vladimir Putin’s campaign to destroy Ukraine’s critical civilian infrastructure marks a dramatic escalation in the Russian invasion of Ukraine as the increasingly desperate Russian ruler seeks to avert military defeat.

Conflict Human Rights

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

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The post Shakhtar’s young Ukrainians roar as foreign soccer stars flee Putin’s war appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) brings a practical approach to the field of educational research and policymaking. When analyzing the contents of textbooks used in national school curricula, it assesses content in relation to international standards of peace and tolerance, delving into parts of the curriculum that meet and do not meet these standards.

This work, which has been progressing for more than a quarter of a century, rests on the assumption that school education is the key to fostering the development of peaceful and tolerant societies. Of course, it can also be a tool for political and religious radicalization when exploited by ill-intentioned actors. Given that textbooks reveal what a society believes at present and its future aspirations, they are powerful political predictors.  

The principles of peaceful and tolerant education also apply to educational content produced in conflict-affected areas. It is inarguably important that this material is free from inaccurate, biased, or discriminatory depictions of different groups in society and that students are taught the values of peace, responsible citizenship, equality, and tolerance in all circumstances. In conflict zones, peace education aids peacebuilding and conflict resolution.

Attitudes promoting peace, tolerance, and non-violence range from a national to an international context or one that blurs the lines between the two. In a national context, on the one hand, IMPACT-se examines state-approved education with regard to ethnic and religious minority groups as well as other marginalized groups in society, such as women and immigrants. Examples of these include textbooks referencing the Sunni-Shia divide or the traditional role of women in Iranian and Saudi Arabian curricula, immigrants in the United Arab Emirates’ multicultural school system, or the Kurdish community in the Turkish education system. On the other hand, IMPACT-se also analyzes the curricula of minority groups—such as the Orthodox Haredi Jewish education system and Arab language curriculum in Israel—to monitor references made to an ethnic, religious, or cultural majority.

Case studies of international conflicts and animosity between peoples or coalitions of nations relevant today represent another category, such as those of Ukrainian and Russian history textbooks. Here, textbooks present skewed historical narratives and dismissal of the “other,” with little impetus for peace-making as a strategy to resolve conflicts. The curricula do not offer balanced perspectives on historical events, which reduces students’ ability to question such narratives and move beyond them toward conflict resolution. The historically longstanding conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, however, is a case that transcends national boundaries. Not only does IMPACT-se pay attention to references made to Palestinians in Israeli curricula and vice versa, but also how the conflict is framed in countries with a large Palestinian population—Jordan being the most prominent example.

IMPACT-se examines textbooks from many disciplines covering entire curricula, including Islamic studies, Jewish thought, moral education, history, geography, biology, mathematics, and the sciences. In addition to textbooks, teacher guides constitute authoritative blueprints for how educational materials are interpreted and presented in the classroom and, thus, serve as key sources for research. Furthermore, as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) highlights in their guidebook, beyond the identification of obvious content—such as references to and the frequency of text and examples inciting hate or violence toward the “other”—a careful approach is necessary to uncover hidden curricula and underlying assumptions in the way historical events, religious issues, and ethnic and racial backgrounds are represented, or how civic and moral norms are passed down to future generations.

When conducting research, IMPACT-se closely monitors the question of national identity and how it is presented. It considers the promotion of a national identity that leads to peaceful prosperity, respect for minorities, and good global citizenship as a must. When the teaching of national or, at times, transnational identities depict a reality that includes conflict and repression of minorities, it sounds the alarm bell. IMPACT-se often identifies transnational identities, including discussions of expansionism, such as pan-Islamism, pan-Turkism, Khomeinism, pan-Arabism, and pan-Kurdism.

Across its corpus of work, IMPACT-se is guided by international standards prescribed by declarations, international recommendations, and documents of the United Nations (UN) and UNESCO on education for peace and tolerance. Such milestone documents include the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 1965 UN Declaration on the “Promotion among Youth of the Ideals of Peace, Mutual Respect and Understanding Between Peoples, the 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the 1995 Declaration of Principles on Tolerance, the 1995 Integrated Framework for Action on Education for Peace, Human Rights and Democracy, and the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

IMPACT-se’s international researchers are guided by such standards and conventions when searching for wording, imagery, and ideologies likely to foster prejudices, misconceptions, stereotypes, and misunderstandings, or encourage mistrust, racial hatred, religious bigotry, and national hatred. They also tackle ideas or theories that justify or promote acts and expressions of violence, incitement to violence, hostility, harm, and hatred toward other national, ethnic, racial, or religious groups. The end goal is essentially to encourage the development of curricula that promote tolerance, understanding, and respect by developing a capacity for non-violent conflict resolution, using educational materials that are up-to-date, accurate, complete, balanced, and unprejudiced, and employing equal standards to promote mutual knowledge and understanding between different peoples.

To ensure the accuracy of the representation of obvious and hidden content, IMPACT-se combines quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze descriptions of the “self” and the “other,” as well as historical and social constructions within school curricula. A comprehensive review of all disciplines and volumes of textbooks ensures that curricula are assessed as a whole, rather than based on selected books or pages. The identification of key content is assisted by secondary literature on peace education.

As part of the qualitative stage of content analysis, passages and images are classified into categories establishing their significance in inciting hate and conflict, or, alternatively, in encouraging reconciliation and peace. Extracts referencing historical, political, social, religious, and cultural implications are analyzed further. All extracts identified in this process are documented and coded in a program, enabling the ability to contrast extracts within and between subjects. An additional method of discourse analysis allows researchers to account for the importance of idiosyncrasies and particular societal characteristics that vary from country to country.

Further attention is paid to pedagogic specificities in how textbooks of a particular discipline are structured and how they utilize text, imagery, and exercises in unison. IMPACT-se reports do not paraphrase or attempt to illustrate preconceived notions. As part of the quantitative analysis stage, researchers apply frequency and space analysis to determine how much content is dedicated to a certain topic and then verify the validity of the previous qualitative stage.

IMPACT-se is dedicated to conducting follow-up research on the countries and curricula it covers in its reports, keeping up with the ever-changing landscape of domestic and international politics, whose dynamics often filter into educational programs. Such a reality also presents the organization with an opportunity to assess the extent to which improved educational standards promoting peace and tolerance in school curricula have positively impacted emerging policies and vice versa.

Marcus Sheff is the CEO of The Institute for Monitoring Peace and cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se).

The post How an organization is promoting non-violence, tolerance, and peace in school education across the Middle East appeared first on Atlantic Council.

In the same way, institutional capital has remained concentrated in developed markets. Investors have sought to optimize for near-term returns rather than sustainable returns through diversification. The situation has resulted in unprecedented levels of liquidity: Global assets under management (AUM) have grown by more than 40 percent since 2015 and are expected to grow from over $110 trillion today to $145 trillion by 2025.

Investors looking for returns need to look to new markets. Africa—the most demographically dynamic region of the world—has been making headlines for the massive investment potential it offers, and yet has been stubbornly ignored. The continent’s average growth over the past two decades has oscillated between 4.5 percent and 5 percent, with five countries averaging over 6 percent. While the recession induced by COVID-19 hit wealthy countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development hard with a 5.5 percent contraction in 2020, African countries were more resilient, only shrinking by 2 percent.

Despite the compelling economic data, the African growth story has not resulted in the concomitant boost in investment from global players. Investment into the region is made by the same long-time investors, including development finance institutions. Meanwhile, mainstream institutional investors remain on the sidelines.

Surveys have long documented the difference in risk perception between investors with established operations on the continent and those that are considering opportunities from afar. Those already invested in the region see Africa as the most attractive investment destination, while those that don’t have operations in African markets view it as the second-least attractive region. For funds and firms that have yet to enter African markets, a stubborn dichotomous view of African risk—one that oscillates between seeing the continent through a lens of foreign aid and another that embraces the high risk/high return view—creates confusion and causes hesitation. Furthermore, the mainstream investment strategy used by investors in developed markets—one that is data dependent and push-oriented—is ill-suited to the opportunities in African markets.

From data dependence to trend analysis

Developed markets are data rich. In North American or European economies, investing is governed by subsector experts who focus on niche industries and specialized asset classes. The accelerating financial complexity and sophistication of highly public markets in developed countries progressively made specialists critical to finding opportunities and delivering returns. The internet economy of the 2000s and the growing importance of real-time data has accelerated the specialization. Now, large data sets and artificial intelligence-powered analysis have become quantitative assets to specialist investors.

This was not always the case. Prior to the 1980s, top-level generalists who deeply understood political economy dynamics were successful investors. In the post-war era, international investors navigated domestic social change, reconstruction, decolonization, and oil shocks to build the continent’s first private equity firms and iconic multinational companies. Over the same period, the emerging computer revolution transformed economics from the study of human behavior in an environment of scarcity to a series of equations and advanced mathematical modelling. Economics as a science grew up alongside Masters of Business Administration (MBA) programs, resulting in a disconnect between economic and geopolitical analysis and an elevation of data in business decision-making.

In contrast to developed economies, African markets are defined by a lack of real-time, reliable data and strong interaction between political and economic realities, thus developed market analytical approaches will fall short. Cutting and pasting the data-dependent, specialist model in African markets leaves managers unable to understand and mitigate the operational, on-the-ground market risks. Country risk assessments, developed by economists at international financial institutions, tend to position geopolitical risk as a matter of insurance instead of being central to investment decision-making in projects and deals with medium-to-long-term returns horizons.

Taking a more intersectional perspective bringing together economic and geopolitical analysis requires an understanding of the trends currently reshaping the continent.

Most investors still operate on dated perceptions of African markets driven by oft-repeated factoids and the news cycle, failing to recognize the mutually reinforcing trends that have over the past twenty years restructured many African economies and enhanced their resilience. Coups grab headlines but day-to-day political stability makes for boring news. Despite the recent coups in Mali and Burkina Faso, the map of Africa is no longer a swath of autocratic regimes as it was in the 1980s but rather a mosaic with standout democracies such as Ghana and Senegal, which have—for the most part—been fortifying their institutions.

Regional powers such as Kenya and Nigeria, despite setbacks, have been on a trajectory of democratic progress. After the 2007 post-election violence in Kenya, the country reformed its electoral process and promulgated a new constitution in 2010 which devolved power. In Nigeria, the 2015 elections marked a turning point: the first time since the return of civilian rule in 1999 that an opposition party, the All Progressives Congress, won against the People’s Democratic Party that had ruled until then. In the 1990s, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) only identified three democratic countries in Africa. In 2020, the EIU ranked twenty African countries as hybrid or higher on a democratic scale, despite democratic backsliding globally (including in the United States).

Accompanying the increasing political stabilization, economic diversification has also shored up African economic resilience. The continent’s sustained growth cannot only be attributed to high commodity prices but also is the result of a progressive shift away from raw material export models toward services and middle-class-based consumption.

The “oil curse” that colors the conversation of African economic growth is proving to be less powerful even in major oil exporters such as Nigeria. The oil price collapses of 2008 and 2014-16 revealed a previously unrecognized level of resilience on the continent. When oil hit a low of twenty-six dollars a barrel in 2016, regional gross domestic product fell to 2.2 percent from 3.4 percent the previous year, but the continent did not become mired in stagnation as it did in the “lost decades” of the 1980s and 1990s. Instead, growth recovered in 2017, revealing structural improvements (particularly in Nigeria).

Diversification has been supported by increased investments made in infrastructure, deepening regional integration culminating in the creation of the African Continental Free Trade Area in 2019, and greater amounts of disposable income that have supported domestic markets for consumption. African countries have had greater choice in international partners. Over the past two decades, China has become Africa’s most significant trading partner and the largest financier of infrastructure in the region to the tune of twenty-three billion dollars between 2007 and 2020. Over seven billion dollars of that financing went to telecom infrastructure. Increasing mobile penetration and digitization accelerated by COVID-19 are undergirding an exponential growth in venture capital into African markets. In 2016, total venture capital flowing into the region was just above $350 million. Five years later, it crested four billion dollars, with the lion’s share going to Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, and Kenya, and with over 60 percent of the capital coming from US-tied entities.

The interaction of political stabilization, better macroeconomic management, technological change, and young demographics will support the continent in returning to growth after the COVID-19 crisis. Just like in the case of the 2016 oil shock, African growth bounced back to 3.7 percent in 2021, showing unanticipated resilience after the continent’s economy contracted by 1.7 in 2020. By analyzing the trends and accepting that rapid growth is neither linear nor smooth, investors can find success in African markets.

Pull over push strategies

Understanding transformative macro trends is sine qua non, but not enough to guarantee successful ventures. It is also critical to employ a pull strategy rather than a push approach. The latter focuses on creating new consumer needs and desires and then pushing relevant products into the market. The former instead rests on identifying unserved market needs and then creating products to meet that latent demand. Push strategies work well in consumption-based economies supported by efficient capital markets such as the United States or Europe in which affluent consumers can be convinced that their want of the newest mobile phone is actually a need. African markets are best-suited for pull strategies.

Most large European and US investors have a self-referential bias whereby they consider African opportunities through the lens of their own market operating environments. Many of them are looking to simply add a high-risk premium to compensate for investing in African markets on top of their familiar underlying asset structures. Some seek short-term, liquid, and safe assets such as treasury bonds while others pursue high internal rates of return (IRRs) in a seven-year fund lifecycle. Some are looking for real assets with developed secondary markets to ensure liquidity, while others want to deploy billions of dollars through thematic strategies such as infrastructure or climate.

Each “push” strategy will be exposed to difficulties that can create Goldilocks-type scenarios: not enough market depth, too few “bankable” projects, too much volatility, not enough liquidity, too much risk, inadequate profitability, and other such conditions. The list of reasons not to invest therefore becomes overwhelming and results in the accumulation of dry powder.

Fundamentally, African market realities are different—liquidity more often than not comes with volatility due to systemic local currency risk on the continent. The days of making 20 percent IRR in relatively safe private equity (PE) environments are also long gone: The first and second vintage in the early 2000s of African PE funds invested in banks, telecoms, and other low-hanging fruit, leaving only difficult operational, consumer-facing firms for today’s investors to build. Reports from both the International Finance Corporation and the African Private Equity and Venture Capital Association—better known as AVCA—show returns of less than 10 percent in African PE due to currency fluctuations. High returns can be found in the African early-stage venture space, but those opportunities are often too small for institutional investors.

To gain access to the tremendous opportunities that African markets offer at scale, emerging market investing must be built on pull strategies based on intersectional approaches, incorporating an understanding of existing demand and working to find overlaps between the realities of African markets and the requirements of investors. For example, the billions flowing into climate and environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) funds can deliver good returns, strong developmental impact, and advancement of United Nations sustainable development goals if investors think beyond immediate climate resilience within today’s economic context and recognize that African countries have a dual imperative–stimulating rapid green growth and alleviating poverty.

On a continent where six hundred million people lack reliable access to electricity, additional generation capacity is a critical priority on which the green or digital revolutions depend. While climate investors rightfully eschew investments in coal, natural gas generation opportunities may prove a good opportunity as they can create the base power necessary for broad-based solar. Likewise, attractive carbon reduction opportunities can be found in agribusiness, so having the flexibility to invest outside the energy sector increases the potential for success.

A flexible and intersectional approach can also help asset managers wanting to deploy billions of dollars in the short term. By recognizing that market absorption capacities will limit their deployment, they can invest smaller amounts in the nascent private debt industry, which will grow rapidly in the next three to five years given the continuously growing financing gap in African markets.

If large asset managers want the diversification and returns that these markets can offer, they must accept the intrinsic trade-offs found in emerging markets. If liquidity is the priority, an investor can buy bonds in Cairo, Lagos, or Johannesburg but must accept the concomitant volatility and depreciation risk resulting from the underlying assets being valued in local currencies.

If predictability and stability are desired, then an investor must prepare for illiquidity. While investing in illiquid assets in the real economy offers opportunities ranging from infrastructure to agribusiness to renewable energy, exits are difficult to time. The classic high risk, high return investment profile does exist but is now concentrated in the emerging tech and creative industries.

With recession looming on the horizon in the United States and Europe, investors who want to participate in the next wave of growth and create wealth from—and in—fast-growing emerging and frontier markets in Africa and beyond need to adjust their approaches to invest along transformational trends, navigate political economy concerns, and tap latent demand.

Twenty years ago, the Economist dubbed Africa “the Hopeless Continent.” Today, the associated risks with investing in Africa are very different. Risk perception must be updated to reflect the increasing resilience, digitization, and integration that now are taking hold in African markets. Investors will succeed if they work to understand market realities instead of coming with pre-defined investment strategies, if they find the overlap between their internal requirements and market needs, and if they embrace flexibility and intersectional approaches. The geopolitical and economic dynamics of this post-COVID-19 world make looking at African markets not a niche option but rather a mainstream necessity.

Guillaume Arditti is founder of Belvedere Africa Partners and a lecturer in international relations at the Political Sciences Institute of Paris (Sciences Po).

Aubrey Hruby is a co-founder of Tofino Capital, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center, and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.

An abbreviated version of this article also appears on LSE Business Review.

The post The Africa investment imperative: Diversification and resilience amid economic downturns appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The 30 signatories of the retracted letter are the latest in a series of high-profile figures to voice their support for some kind of negotiated settlement between Russia and Ukraine. In recent weeks, similar appeals have come from diverse sources ranging from geopolitical commentators and media pundits to Elon Musk and Pope Francis. These peace proposals have been widely condemned as misguided and ill-timed, with critics arguing that any attempt to impose a ceasefire at the current stage of the war would only reward Putin and pave the way for further Russian aggression in the years to come.

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It is not hard to see why skeptics question the timing of recent ceasefire initiatives. Russia currently occupies around 20% of Ukraine but is losing ground on multiple fronts. In a series of counteroffensives that began in late August, the Ukrainian military has succeeded in liberating much of northeastern Ukraine while also reducing Russia’s foothold on the right bank of the Dnipro River in the south of the country. A prolonged pause in hostilities would rob the Ukrainian army of the military momentum it currently enjoys while enabling Putin to rescue his rapidly unraveling invasion.

Crucially, a ceasefire would freeze the conflict and provide Russia with vital breathing space to rearm and regroup. Putin’s army suffered catastrophic losses during the first eight months of the invasion, with tens of thousands of Russian soldiers killed and more than a thousand tanks captured or destroyed. His military now needs time to train and equip new units of troops made up of freshly mobilized Russians.

Nor is there any indication that Russia is genuinely interested in ending the war. On the contrary, Putin has recently adopted a series of escalatory measures including Russia’s first mobilization since World War II and the annexation of four partially occupied Ukrainian provinces (Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia). He has also introduced elements of martial law in some Russian regions and moved to put the entire Russian economy on a war footing. These steps leave little room for doubt that the Russian dictator is preparing for a long war and has yet to abandon his original goal of extinguishing Ukrainian statehood.

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The most obvious problem with recent proposals to freeze the conflict is the fact that a ceasefire would leave one-fifth of Ukraine under Kremlin control and condemn millions of Ukrainians to a bleak and uncertain future under indefinite Russian occupation. United Nations investigators have already confirmed that Russia is guilty of committing war crimes in Ukraine. Many observers believe the ultimate objective of the invasion is the genocide of the Ukrainian nation.

Alleged Russian war crimes include the mass execution of civilians and the bombing of schools, hospitals, and residential buildings. Entire cities in the east of the country have been reduced to ruins by Russian airstrikes and artillery. In areas controlled by Moscow, Ukrainian civilians have been subjected to abductions, torture, and forced deportations. Meanwhile, the occupation authorities have set about eradicating all symbols of Ukrainian statehood and national identity.

As Ukrainian forces have liberated towns and villages across southern and eastern Ukraine, they have discovered mass graves and torture chambers with sickening regularity. Accounts of sexual violence are equally widespread. Some Ukrainian civilians have simply disappeared without trace. The many strikingly similar accounts of life under Russian occupation in different regions of Ukraine suggest that Russian war crimes against the civilian population are not isolated excesses; on the contrary, they form a core part of the Kremlin’s military strategy for the complete subjugation of Ukraine.

No Ukrainian leader could legitimately abandon millions of fellow civilians to such a fate. Unsurprisingly, President Zelenskyy has ruled out any negotiations with Putin and stated that Ukraine will instead seek to liberate the entire country from Russian occupation. International efforts to pressure Kyiv into a compromise peace will not change Zelenskyy’s mind or convince the vast majority of Ukrainians that they are being unreasonable. For them, it is a matter of life and death. Either Putin is defeated or their nation will cease to exist.

Beyond the immediate issue of protecting Ukrainian civilians from Russian war crimes, opponents of a ceasefire also note that anything short of defeat in Ukraine will set the stage for further Kremlin wars of aggression. Putin has paid a high price for his decision to invade Ukraine, but if he is able to secure Russian control over the areas currently under occupation, he will regard the sacrifices of the past eight months as worthwhile. It will only be a matter of time before Ukraine faces a new Russian invasion.

Almost all wars ultimately end at the negotiating table. However, it is vital for global security that any future peace talks with Russia take place on Ukraine’s terms. That can only happen if Putin’s invasion ends in decisive defeat. Until then, there should be no negotiations about Ukraine without Ukraine.

Mark Temnycky is an accredited freelance journalist covering Eastern Europe and a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. He can be found on Twitter @MTemnycky.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Oct 25, 2022

Poll: 86% of Ukrainians want to fight on despite Russian terror bombing

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Conflict Human Rights

UkraineAlert Oct 18, 2022

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Giving in to Putin’s nuclear blackmail would not end the war in Ukraine. What it would do is set a disastrous precedent that makes a future nuclear war far more likely while encouraging uncontrolled nuclear proliferation.

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The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

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The post A ceasefire would condemn millions of Ukrainians to Russian occupation appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The manner in which an estimated 107,000 people got out of Mariupol still remains little understood. Russian roadblocks surrounded the city and citizens were not allowed out. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken presented an evacuation plan on March 3 which Russia quickly rejected. The international community demanded safe passage for civilians, but the Russians stalled.

The first convoy of vehicles left Russian-held Mariupol on March 5-6, and it did so without Russia’s permission. Father Pavel Kostel, a priest with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church who was in Mariupol at the time, was part of the first convoy that got out. In this September 24 interview, he explains how people cunningly circumvented the Russian checkpoints and made their way to freedom. The interview has been edited for clarity.

Did you lead a convoy of cars out of Mariupol on March 5?

We did not lead a convoy of cars ourselves; we joined the main convoy of about 100 cars. We couldn’t take the initiative because we had a problem leaving Mariupol. As turned out, everyone was a leader. Everyone tried to help everyone in the convoy. A large group of people left, and I was one of those people.

How did you get out?

I’ll start with how the convoy actually formed. We found out by chance that there was an opportunity for many cars to pass. We heard a radio report. There were no normal communications. I could hardly get a cell phone signal. The priest who was with me heard the report, and we just started driving because we had no contact with other people. We passed three military checkpoints, but they stopped us at the fourth. That checkpoint was blocking men of conscription age, from 18 to 60 years old, from leaving Mariupol. Cars began to accumulate at the checkpoint, and a convoy formed of around 100 cars between the third and fourth roadblocks. That’s why so many cars and buses gathered. Someone tried to count the people, but everything was very chaotic, and we do not know the final number.

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Where did the convoy stay overnight? Did you sleep in your cars?

We were stuck between roadblocks at a kind of fork in the road when the head of the neighboring village council saw all the people, women, and families with children, and told us about a remote village, some 30 kilometers from the Mariupol-Zaporizhzhia highway, where we could sleep. He said to go to the village of Temryuk. We drove from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., and it was almost curfew when we got there. People were worried. We didn’t know how the Russians would react. The people in the convoy refused to go to the village at first. The head of the village talked them into it because it was really cold, so we went there to spend the night.

What happened next?

Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko facilitated talks to get buses out of the city. We were supposed to join these buses the next day, March 6.

How did you get out of the village?

We gathered near the village school at 8 a.m. for a meeting. Everyone who was in cars agreed to go together. It happened spontaneously because no one knew each other. Everyone wanted to get out of that hell. No one appointed me leader. Who am I, after all. I’m just a priest. I told them that I knew the mayor, and that there was an opportunity to join the convoy of buses. But then we got news that the buses had not been allowed to leave.

Someone from the village told me that we could bypass the fourth checkpoint by taking a road through the fields. Some people went to the fields to check and confirmed that there was a road. A group of cars went ahead as scouts because they knew the road. A large column of cars followed after them. We hoped that our sheer numbers would keep the Russians from shooting us. One car is easy to shoot up, but a convoy has too many witnesses. I think that this is what prevented us from being robbed.

When we were driving along the road on Sunday, we saw dead Russians at a checkpoint. Russian soldiers left their own dead comrades behind. They didn’t even want to pick them up. It was terrible. We were zigzagging around them. That’s when you understand that this is war. You understand that you can also die. You don’t know what lies in store for you. We drove around them. Ahead of us, there were three more Ukrainian checkpoints. They checked us to make sure we weren’t saboteurs.

What was the experience like as you crossed the first three Russian checkpoints out of Mariupol?

They didn’t see us as a group at all. They examined each car and the people in it separately. They didn’t pay that much attention to the fact that it was a column of cars. If they had wanted, they could have taken anyone from the convoy and that would have been it. But then they weren’t as aggressive toward people as they are now. They didn’t rob anyone or take money, as happened later. My assistant and I introduced ourselves as priests. We told them that they we were leaving just like everyone else. Of course, the Russian soldiers introduced themselves as being from the Donetsk People’s Republic. “Where are you going?” We had a residence permit in western Ukraine, in Kamianets-Podilskyi, so we were a little worried about that. But they let us pass without any problems. They said, “We’ve got priests, too.”

Some of them asked strange questions, some were more aggressive, but there was no super-aggressive interrogation. That started later. They didn’t force any of the men to get undressed.

Where are you a priest now?

I am a priest in the Pauline Order, the monastic Order of St. Paul the Hermit. We have five monasteries in western Ukraine. My brothers, priests, live in a church with a monastery in Kamianets-Podilskyi. The order sent me there, and now I help them; we work together. We eagerly await the liberation of Mariupol, of course! I have contacts there who stayed, but I can’t just go back. Priests are in danger there now.

Is there anything else we should know about the evacuation?

It’s very difficult to talk about the evacuations because people in Mariupol do not believe the city authorities. Everyone remembers and talks about the evacuations with a lot of emotion. Why did it happen this way and not another way? Why didn’t the authorities organize it?

You have to understand that when you leave Mariupol and see Russians in front of you, there are no rules. People always hope that somehow the Russians will be reasonable, that they won’t kill you, but they have no conscience. This is the lottery that our life has become. You shouldn’t trust them because they don’t keep any promises.

It’s a miracle that we got through at all. Everything could have turned out differently. You just go into the unknown full of adrenaline and thank God that everything worked out.

Melinda Haring is the deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. Vladislav Davidzon is a journalist based in Paris, France, and a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. He is the author of “From Odessa with Love.” Marta Smyrnova contributed reporting. Editor’s note: This essay has been edited for clarity.

Further reading

UkraineAlert May 24, 2022

Putin’s Mariupol Massacre is one of the 21st century’s worst war crimes

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Conflict Democratic Transitions

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Vladimir Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons in the war against Ukraine is a sign of the Russian dictator’s mounting desperation as his invasion continues to unravel and his country’s geopolitical isolation deepens.

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Putin’s Russian Empire is collapsing like its Soviet predecessor

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Belarus Central Asia

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

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The post Ukrainian priest recounts escape from Russian siege of Mariupol appeared first on Atlantic Council.

For those living in Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine, the situation is far worse. Schools under Russian control are being forced to adopt a Kremlin-curated curriculum designed to demonize Ukraine while convincing kids to welcome the takeover of their country and embrace a Russian national identity. Teachers and parents who dare to object face potentially dire consequences.

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Ever since Russia’s full-scale invasion began on February 24, Ukrainian children have been among the primary victims of what is Europe’s largest armed conflict since World War II. Hundreds have been killed, while millions have been displaced by the fighting and forced to flee to unfamiliar surroundings elsewhere in Ukraine or outside the country. Thousands of Ukrainian children are also thought to have been subjected to forced deportation to the Russian Federation.

The Kremlin is now targeting young Ukrainians as part of its campaign to eradicate Ukrainian national identity in areas under Russian control. In an address to mark the start of the new school term on September 1, Russian President Vladimir Putin underlined the importance of indoctrinating Ukrainian schoolchildren.

Putin dedicated part of his speech to Ukraine, lamenting that Ukrainian children aren’t taught that Russia and Ukraine were once both part of the Soviet Union or that Ukraine has no history as an independent state. He also declared that the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine was historically Russian territory that had been wrongly included within Ukraine’s borders by the Bolsheviks. Putin blamed the education system in Ukraine for distorting historical facts and contributing to the creation of anti-Russian sentiment in Ukraine that posed a threat to Russia.

This emphasis on the reeducation of young Ukrainians should come as no surprise. Throughout Putin’s 22-year reign, the Russian school system has grown increasingly politicized as the Kremlin has sought to bring aspects of the national curriculum into line with officially endorsed narratives. Textbooks and teaching materials have been developed to reflect the state’s approved view of Russian history in particular, with children subjected to highly sanitized versions of the Soviet past.

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After Vilnius: What’s next on Ukraine’s path to NATO?

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In occupied regions of Ukraine, Russia has embarked on a comprehensive reeducation program that includes specific efforts to challenge the entire notion of a separate and distinct Ukrainian nation. This began during the initial period of occupation with the removal of Ukrainian textbooks and all symbols of Ukrainian statehood from schools. In some cases, Ukrainian history books were demonstratively burned.

The occupation authorities have attempted to pressure Ukrainian teachers into adopting the Russian curriculum. Despite the obvious risks involved, many have refused to cooperate. Russia has sought to overcome objections via both threats and incentives. Those who agree to adopt the new Kremlin-approved teaching guidelines are offered cash payments, while anyone who objects faces dismissal along with possible imprisonment or worse.

Confronted with a shortage of Ukrainian teachers willing to cooperate with Moscow’s russification agenda, the occupation authorities are seeking to import staff from Russia itself. Hundreds of Russian teachers are believed to have agreed to relocate to Ukraine and teach in the occupied regions. Unsurprisingly, the subjects most in demand are Russian history, literature, and language. This influx of Russian teachers has been accompanied by the distribution of new textbooks aligned with Kremlin thinking.

Volunteering to indoctrinate children in occupied Ukraine may not be entirely risk-free for educators who choose to do so. A number of Russian teachers were reportedly detained during Ukraine’s recent successful counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region after having been abandoned by the fleeing Russian military. While details have yet to be confirmed, they may now face criminal charges.

The risks are far higher for Ukrainian parents who refuse to enroll their children in schools offering the Russian curriculum. The occupation authorities have warned parents who protest that they face fines and possible imprisonment. In some cases, Kremlin appointees have threatened to remove parental rights and separate children from their families. With forced deportations and the illegal adoption of Ukrainian children already well-known features of the occupation, these cannot be treated as idle threats.

Russia’s campaign to completely russify the Ukrainian education system is part of a broader drive to extinguish Ukrainian statehood and eradicate Ukrainian national identity in areas under Russia’s control. The apparently voluntary participation of Russian schoolteachers in these efforts raises troubling questions about the role of non-military personnel in possible war crimes. With hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children currently vulnerable to Kremlin indoctrination, their fate is a powerful argument for the urgent liberation of Russian-occupied Ukraine.

Dr. Oleksandr Pankieiev is a research coordinator and editor-in-chief of the Forum for Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta’s Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Sep 13, 2022

Ukrainian victory shatters Russia’s reputation as a military superpower

By Andriy Zagorodnyuk

The stunning success of Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region has exposed the rotten reality behind Russia’s military superpower reputation and convinced many that a decisive Ukrainian victory is now possible.

Conflict Corruption

UkraineAlert Aug 23, 2022

A strong Ukraine is the best solution to Europe’s Russia problem

By Oleksii Reznikov

Ukraine’s courageous response to Putin’s invasion has inspired the world but some Western leaders remain in denial over the threat posed by a hostile Russia, writes Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov.

Conflict Disinformation

UkraineAlert Sep 17, 2022

Putin’s Russian Empire is collapsing like its Soviet predecessor

By Taras Kuzio

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was meant to extinguish the Ukrainian state once and for all. Instead, Russian influence in the post-Soviet region is in danger of receding to levels not witnessed in hundreds of years.

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The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Weaponizing education: Russia targets schoolchildren in occupied Ukraine appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The report, which according to Amnesty was written in an effort to protect civilians, has unwittingly endangered them by fueling Russian propaganda narratives. The unintended yet predictable consequences of the report have prompted Amnesty International to announce a much-needed internal review. 

Amnesty accused the Ukrainian armed forces of “launching strikes from within populated residential areas as well as basing themselves in civilian buildings.” The report implies some sort of blanket prohibition on operating in civilian areas or using civilian infrastructure, when in fact the military’s responsibility under international law is to avoid locating military objectives near populated areas and to protect civilians from the dangers resulting from military operations to the maximum extent possible. Amnesty’s misinterpretation has muddied the waters with potentially disastrous consequences.

In a recent episode that illustrated the problematic nature of the report, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya referenced Amnesty’s findings as justification for Russia’s occupation and militarization of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine. The Russian armed forces stand accused of using the plant, which by Nebenzya’s own admission is civilian infrastructure, to house the artillery and rocket systems it uses to attack Ukrainian forces on the other side of the Dnipro River. When the Ukrainians fire back, they are accused of targeting civilian infrastructure.

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How did Amnesty get it so dangerously wrong? The organization itself wants to know and will undertake a review conducted by external reviewers to examine the decisions and working practices within Amnesty that led to the publication of the release. “We want to understand what exactly went wrong and why, in order to learn lessons and improve our work in the field of human rights,” Amnesty International said. 

As Amnesty begins its assessment of what went wrong, Oksana Pokalchuk has offered her own diagnosis. In an op-ed published in the Washington Post on August 13, Pokalchuk identified some of Amnesty’s missteps, including its failure to adequately cooperate with the Ukrainian government and its wild misinterpretation of international law. 

Amnesty’s argument that the Ukrainian military should somehow protect populated areas from afar is completely out of touch with the military realities of Russia’s ongoing invasion, Pokalchuk noted. Instead, she explained, assessments of how well a military protects civilians must be made on a case-by-case basis.

Shame is an important tool for compelling governments and militaries to adhere to international norms. But so is cooperation. Pokalchuk highlighted that the Ukrainian government has a solid track record of responding to Amnesty’s concerns and was not given adequate time to respond in this instance. 

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After Vilnius: What’s next on Ukraine’s path to NATO?

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The founder of the UA Recover Initiative, Donald Bowser, has called attention to Ukraine’s successes in compliance with international humanitarian law (IHL). In what he identified as one of the great reforms in the Ukrainian military over the last eight years, thousands of Ukrainian officers were trained on IHL in joint programs with international organizations. IHL has been integrated into the curriculum of both military universities and army training programs. Given Ukraine’s record on compliance, it seems Amnesty had other avenues to voice their concerns that could have enabled them to advocate for Ukrainian civilians without empowering their Russian attackers. 

Pokalchuk also recounted how Amnesty’s Ukrainian branch was silenced in favor of a team of international researchers who were unfamiliar with the local language and context. Pokalchuk described the attitude of the main branch as “condescending and unfair” and highlighted the “total disregard for the principle of international solidarity proclaimed in Amnesty’s statute.” 

But while Amnesty’s main branch stands accused of colonial attitudes, the organization’s Canadian branch has tried to demonstrate solidarity with Ukraine. In its own statement, Amnesty Canada expressed regret that the press release was published without sufficient context and did not pay due attention to the numerous war crimes committed by the Russian military in Ukraine. It also condemned the instrumentalization of the report by Russian propagandists. 

“Several years ago, Amnesty International purposefully decentralized to better listen, respond to, and be led by the voices of human rights defenders on the frontlines. Unfortunately, this press release defaulted to outdated ways of working that centralize knowledge and decision-making while placing local expertise and understanding at the margins. We have done this at considerable risk to our colleagues and rights holders in Ukraine,” Amnesty Canada wrote.

As Pokalchuk emphasized in her editorial, Amnesty has a dedicated staff of human rights advocates and researchers, all of whom share a commitment to humanitarian values including amplifying diverse voices and international solidarity. As it conducts its postmortem, returning to those values is step number one. Amnesty’s leadership has a responsibility to uphold its stated mission and to place its trust in its staff, especially when they raise red flags. Failure to do so in Ukraine has proved disastrous but can hopefully serve as a much-needed wake-up call.

Lillian Posner is a Research Associate at the Council on Foreign Relations. She earned her master’s degree in Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies from Georgetown University.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Aug 23, 2022

A strong Ukraine is the best solution to Europe’s Russia problem

By Oleksii Reznikov

Ukraine’s courageous response to Putin’s invasion has inspired the world but some Western leaders remain in denial over the threat posed by a hostile Russia, writes Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov.

Conflict Disinformation

UkraineAlert Aug 24, 2022

Ukraine’s six key conditions for peace talks with Putin’s Russia

By Anders Åslund

After six months of battlefield setbacks in Ukraine, there are indications that Vladimir Putin is seeking a return to the negotiating table. Anders Åslund sets out six key conditions for Ukraine ahead of any potential peace talks.

Conflict Economic Sanctions

UkraineAlert Jun 30, 2022

Goodwill gestures and de-Nazification: Decoding Putin’s Ukraine War lexicon

By Peter Dickinson

From “goodwill gestures” to “de-Nazification” and “reclaiming Russian lands,” the Atlantic Council’s Peter Dickinson decodes some of the key phrases from the lexicon of Putin’s Ukraine War into plain English.

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The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

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The post Amnesty announces review as Ukraine report backlash continues appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The remarkable resilience of the Ukrainian nation has shocked and impressed many observers around the world. But those of us who live and work in Ukraine are not nearly so surprised. As the conflict approaches the six-month mark, it is important to understand that a war designed to crush Ukrainian independence has in fact resulted in a stronger, unifying Ukrainian identity centered on the principles of freedom and democracy. This is best exemplified by the mood among young Ukrainians.

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Russia’s war is not the first time Ukraine’s emerging post-Soviet generation has risen to the challenge of resisting a return to authoritarianism. In 2004, when widespread voter fraud in the country’s presidential election seemed poised to undo independent Ukraine’s hard-fought freedoms and fledgling democratic values, young Ukrainians were among the leading organizers of the Orange Revolution.

Ten years later, Ukrainian youth once again rose to the occasion, but this time as leaders of the Euromaidan Revolution following the Ukrainian government’s Kremlin-backed decision to reject an Association Agreement with the European Union. As the Russian Federation now seeks to rob Ukraine of its sovereignty, we are once again witnessing Ukrainian youth at the center of the fight for the future of their country.

This younger generation of Ukrainians born following the collapse of the USSR is leading positive change on multiple fronts including the military and civil society. Many thousands are currently serving in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. As the war rages around them, young Ukrainians are also volunteering in large numbers to distribute humanitarian aid through digital platforms like SpivDiia that match people’s needs with resources from businesses and private individuals. 

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After Vilnius: What’s next on Ukraine’s path to NATO?

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Young Ukrainians in government are designing cutting-edge solutions to meet emergency wartime needs. Young journalists are risking their lives to provide accurate information and document Russian war crimes. Many of these journalists have recently been recognized for their professional accomplishments, including Ukrainska Pravda Chief Editor Sevgil Hayretdın Qızı Musaieva, who was named this year by Time Magazine as one of the world’s top 100 most influential people.

Another example is Mykhailo Fedorov. The 31-year-old Minister of Digital Transformation and Ukraine’s youngest cabinet member has rallied the Ukrainian IT community and lobbied international tech companies to support Ukraine in the digital hybrid war against Russia. He is also behind the wartime adaptation of a government app that is providing social benefits to millions of internally displaced people who lost their jobs as a result of the war. Deputy Minister of Health Mariia Karchevych is another high-profile government official under 35 who is coordinating the flow of humanitarian aid throughout the country.

In addition to supporting the country’s wartime needs, young Ukrainians are also on the frontlines of the fight against Russian propaganda. From the very first days of the invasion, numerous professional and grassroots initiatives have emerged to expose the Kremlin’s disinformation campaigns.

In the months and years to come, youth will remain on the Ukrainian frontlines, both literally and figuratively. They will need to play an integral part in Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction, helping to shape important initiatives such as youth-friendly mental health services and educational efforts to address wartime interruptions in learning.

As the world marks International Youth Day on August 12, it is important that we recognize the contributions of young Ukrainians in government and civil society as well as in the military. And as national and international stakeholders look to rebuild Ukraine, it is also crucial that we continue supporting, listening to, and engaging this younger generation to make sure they remain at the heart of the post-war recovery process.

Ukraine’s resilient response to Russian aggression highlights the country’s commitment to democratic values and active citizen participation. It reflects a remarkable readiness to take personal responsibility for the future of the country. Amid the horrific destruction of the Russian invasion, young Ukrainians are playing a crucial role in consolidating an even stronger sense of national identity. This victory is as strategically important as any military success for the future of Ukraine’s statehood.

Mehri Druckman is IREX’s Country Director for Ukraine and Chief of Party for the USAID funded Ukraine National Identity Through Youth (UNITY) program. SpivDiia is an IREX grantee.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Aug 9, 2022

Flawed Amnesty report risks enabling more Russian war crimes in Ukraine

By Lillian Posner

Amnesty International’s recent report accusing Ukraine of endangering civilian lives has sparked a wave of international criticism and is being actively used by the Kremlin to justify Russian bombing of civilian targets.

Civil Society Conflict

UkraineAlert Aug 10, 2022

Putin is running out of excuses as Ukraine expands the war to Crimea

By Peter Dickinson

Russian officials have denied that Ukraine was behind an audacious August 9 attack on an airbase in occupied Crimea but Moscow’s excuses are beginning to wear thin as Vladimir Putin’s invasion continues to unravel.

Conflict Disinformation

UkraineAlert Aug 5, 2022

Russia’s invasion is putting the future of Ukraine’s forests at risk

By Yehor Hrynyk

As the Russian invasion approaches the six-month mark, Ukraine’s forests are facing the twin threats of frontline wildfires and wartime emergency economic measures that could lead to a disastrous increase in logging.

Conflict Eastern Europe

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

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The post Generation UA: Young Ukrainians are driving the resistance to Russia’s war appeared first on Atlantic Council.

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One of the key problems facing the Ukrainian authorities is a lack of access to information. Unfortunately, Ukraine’s Ministry of Health no longer has a comprehensive picture of the medical situation in occupied regions of the country. This makes it difficult to get insights and assess the scale of the healthcare problems in areas under Russian control. Nevertheless, assessments of the available evidence and an awareness of the general situation in Russian-occupied Ukraine can help identify the top priorities for Ukrainian and international healthcare professionals. 

One of the most significant risks comes from the possible spread of pathogens. As temperatures reach seasonal highs throughout July and August, human contact with blood-sucking insects and ticks becomes more common. This often leads to the spread of infectious diseases.

Another major problem is limited access to drinking water. This increases risks posed by contaminated water and also makes it difficult for people in occupied regions of Ukraine to maintain desirable standards of personal hygiene and sanitation. This can cause mass outbreaks of diarrhea, hepatitis A, cholera, and other infections.

Due to Russia’s military strategy of carpet-bombing Ukrainian towns and cities into submission, basic infrastructure has been severely damaged in much of occupied southern and eastern Ukraine. Many areas now have limited access to drinking water, while remaining water supplies are often not subject to normal treatment.

The risk of a cholera outbreak is believed to be particularly high in Mariupol, a Russian-occupied Ukrainian port city in Donetsk Oblast with a pre-war population of almost half a million that was largely reduced to rubble during a brutal Russian siege. According to the Mariupol municipal authorities, the city’s 22 pumping stations were all destroyed during the fighting, while sewage treatment and drainage systems are also unable to function properly. Large numbers of dead bodies remain trapped beneath the rubble and are decomposing, further complicating the city’s precarious healthcare situation.

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Russia’s invasion has displaced millions of Ukrainians and thrown large numbers of people together in ways that create potential for healthcare emergencies. Concentrations of children with different vaccination status during evacuation procedures risks fueling outbreaks of vaccine-preventable illnesses such as measles and diphtheria.

COVID-19 also remains an issue. Prior to the Russian invasion, only 35% of the Ukrainian population had been vaccinated, representing one of the lowest rates in Europe. A sharp increase in COVID cases could lead to overcrowding in hospitals at a time when healthcare facilities are desperately needed to care for military and civilian casualties. 

Meanwhile, possible delays in the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis are a matter of considerable concern. In particular, if patients stop taking their medications due to impaired access to medical care in occupied parts of Ukraine, this can lead to a rise in cases of antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis.

Similarly, people living with HIV cannot afford to stop taking their medications. Skipping doses may lead to the reappearance of strains resistant to treatment which pose a high risk not only to current patients but to those who may contract the disease in the future.

Large numbers of abandoned livestock are further complicating the healthcare situation in wartime Ukraine and increasing the threat from animal-borne diseases. The uncontrolled movement of animals or their undisposed carcasses, as well as the destruction of wildlife habitats, can lead to the spread of pathogens among humans along with wild and domestic animals. 

Eurasia Center events

Online Event Thu, July 20, 2023 • 8:00 am ET

After Vilnius: What’s next on Ukraine’s path to NATO?

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International support for Ukraine has so far focused on the provision of weapons along with humanitarian aid efforts for those displaced by the fighting. Looking ahead, it is vital that Ukraine’s partners also help to address the growing healthcare issues created by the Russian invasion.

The list of medical items currently required by Ukraine is long. This includes diagnostic kits, rapidly deployable field hospitals, immunobiological drugs for the treatment of the diseases like diphtheria, tetanus, botulism, and malaria, as well as vaccines for routine immunization (including against hepatitis A and cholera), disinfectants, portable water treatment systems, and means for pest control.

In order to establish a healthcare system capable of responding to epidemic risks, the Ukrainian parliament is set to finalize the second draft of a law on public health that features over 850 proposals from MPs and 400 proposals from international experts.

In preparation for the second reading, experts from the WHO, USAID, the Ukrainian Ministry of Health, and the Ukrainian Public Health Center are involved in finalizing the draft law. Considerable revisions remain before this law can be implemented. This sizable task will require further support from the international community.

Ihor Kuzin is Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Health and Chief State Sanitary Doctor.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Jun 30, 2022

Goodwill gestures and de-Nazification: Decoding Putin’s Ukraine War lexicon

By Peter Dickinson

From “goodwill gestures” to “de-Nazification” and “reclaiming Russian lands,” the Atlantic Council’s Peter Dickinson decodes some of the key phrases from the lexicon of Putin’s Ukraine War into plain English.

Central Asia Conflict

UkraineAlert May 27, 2022

South Ukraine holds the key to Putin’s dreams of a new Russian Empire

By Taras Kuzio

The biggest European battles since WWII are currently raging in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region but the ultimate outcome of the Russo-Ukrainian War is likely to be decided hundreds of miles to the south.

Civil Society Conflict

UkraineAlert Jul 6, 2022

Ukraine defies Russia and launches electricity exports to EU neighbors

By Aura Sabadus

Ukraine’s remarkable wartime synchronization with the electricity grid of continental Europe moved up a gear at the end of June with the landmark launch of commercial electricity exports to neighboring Romania.

Conflict Energy Markets & Governance

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

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The post Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine at risk from infections and epidemics appeared first on Atlantic Council.

As the world grapples with pressures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and the war in Ukraine, there is an urgent need for Africa, Europe, and the United States to work more closely than ever before on their common challenges in order to build a more secure and equitable future for all. That was the central message that emerged from a timely forum on a trilateral partnership between the US, African Union (AU), and the European Union (EU), hosted on June 16, 2022 by the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center and Europe Center.  

“I hope Africans choose the United States and the EU as their partners of choice,” said US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee. The conversation, held in collaboration with the Delegation of the EU to the United States, featured an array of distinguished leaders from Europe, Africa, and North America. It served as a follow-up to the AU-EU Summit held in Brussels on February 17, 2022. 

Here are some highlights, ranging from insights on economic investment and development collaboration to lesser-discussed ways in which the United States, EU, and AU can build a new transatlantic partnership.  

Watch full event

Security cooperation 

• The impact of the war in Ukraine was a major area of concern for European, African, and US officials alike. “We are facing, indeed, the greatest global food security crisis of our time,” said Stavros Lambrinidis, EU ambassador to the United States, during his opening remarks. He noted the severe repercussions of Moscow’s aggression and military tactics in preventing the flow of grain exports from Ukraine, especially on African food access. Lambrinidis stressed the need for Europe, Africa, and the United States to “stand with and by each other.”  
• As Africa continues to deal with its own regional conflicts, French Ambassador to the United States Philippe Étienne pointed to the ongoing transatlantic cooperation in the field of security “where the EU and the United States are very much aligned, especially fighting terrorist groups in the Sahel and unfortunately in other parts of Africa.” He went on affirm the need for the EU and United States to assist African security forces states in counterterrorism training. Étienne highlighted France and Ivory Coast’s new international counterterrorism academy near Abidjan as an example.
• Phee discussed the United States’ role in the Horn of Africa, where American troops were recently deployed to Somalia. “The choice of a new prime minister, the recent revision of the AU mission in Somalia, support from outside actors like the United States to reinforce the security architecture, as well as support by US and EU to help Somalia and the Horn deal with the devastating drought that is affecting those countries—all those factors I think create an opportunity that we have not seen in a while for the Somalis to finally begin to move forward.” Phee also made note of developments in Sudan where “inspiring and amazing” leaders in civil society, the professional world, and among the youth are “saying they want their country to be a democracy.”

Social and youth empowerment 

• AU Ambassador to the United States Hilda Suka-Mafudze called for greater “recognition of Africa as a global player,” and encouraged further action by AU partners to help strengthen the continent’s health and education capacities.
• Themis Christophidou, director-general for education, youth, sport, and culture for the European Commission, outlined EU initiatives to “nurture people-to-people contact” between Europe and Africa including research and university partnerships, cultural and artistic exchange programs, and developing pathways for legal migration. She acknowledged the importance of investing in Africa’s youth calling them “the continent’s greatest asset.” 
• In a similar vein, Scott Taylor, vice dean and professor for diversity, equity, and inclusion at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, addressed the idea of ‘brain drain’ and explained why there should be greater focus on creating mechanisms for African talent, on the continent and abroad, to return to and stay in Africa so that they can contribute their global skills and expertise to local economies.  

Revitalizing investment 

• Senegal’s ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations Cheikh Niang described the EU’s 150 billion-euro Global Gateway Investment Package as “an opportunity for Africa and Europe to strengthen development cooperation.” The initiative aims to help Africa accelerate its green transition, digital revolution, health and education systems, and job creation.
• Arianna Vannini, principal adviser on international partnerships for the European Commission, explained the importance of this new investment commitment. “It does not aim at simply establishing a trade relationship; it doesn’t focus only on infrastructure,” she said. “It expands to human development, and it involves further dialogue with our partner countries, the local communities, the voice of partners on the ground and in particular the young generations which are such a key resource for a young continent like Africa.”
• Abdoul Salam Bello, alternative executive director for the World Bank Africa Group, stressed the need for collaboration on how to implement large investment programs at the continental, national, and local level. He stated that the Global Gateway “will be a very good opportunity” as long as the national development plans of African states are fully considered, and increased attention is given to supporting the continent’s private sector because “that’s where the prospect of growth will be.”
• Acting Assistant Administrator for Africa at the US Agency for International Development Diana Putman said that the US government was updating its Africa policy to enhance partnerships with African states and the African Union on issues of economic growth, health security, and climate change. “There is a clear commitment on the part of the different agencies to reset our relationship and make sure that Africans realize we see them as full partners.”

Narayan Felix is a young global professional at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center

The Africa Center works to promote dynamic geopolitical partnerships with African states and to redirect US and European policy priorities toward strengthening security and bolstering economic growth and prosperity on the continent.

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The post Dagres quoted in The National News after girls were arrested in Iran after removing their hijabs at a skateboarding event appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On June 7, an article co-authored by Mathew Burrows was published by the Wilson Center’s New Security Beat, which discussed the dangers of a growing cohort of youth who feel disillusioned by political failures.

“Failing to examine youth engagement trends may be a serious blind spot— and thus a threat to democracy. It is a question that merits closer examination. When youth disengage, they are often saying they don’t have a high level of confidence or trust in existing economic, political, or social entities,” said Burrows and his co-author, Steven Gale of the US Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Policy, Planning and Learning.

“They may also want to “opt out” because they perceive that their generation is not being heard or treated fairly. Whatever their reasons, youth disengagement will ultimately have negative impacts beyond democratic engagement with potential shockwaves on social stability, the well-being and mental health of individuals (youth and their families), and individual and country-level economic productivity and quality of life.”

The post Burrows in New Security Beat: Youth disillusionment as a danger to democracy appeared first on Atlantic Council.

WHEN I WAS GROWING UP IN THE PRE-INTERNET 1980s in Cali, Colombia, my father subscribed to Time magazine, and every week, the shiny, ostensible purveyor of everything that was of import in the world arrived in the mail.

I’d scour Time in search of any news—good, bad, whatever—about Colombia. Save for an occasional natural disaster reviewed in a paragraph or two, there never was any. Until Pablo Escobar became the world’s anti- hero in the late 1980s, and except for Gabriel García Márquez’s Nobel prize for literature in 1982, Colombia was mostly absent from global and certainly from US consciousness. I read the dry entry on Colombia in Collier’s Encyclopedia and attempted to make sense of its insufficient information. Was this how people in other parts of the world viewed us? A far-away, underdeveloped tropical nation whose primary assets were a plethora of birds (thank God for that “Colombia is the country with the most variety of birds” stat) and coffee?

When I auditioned for the Manhattan School of Music, a female profes- sor, considered one of the leading pianists of her generation, said: “You’re from Colombia? I have a good friend from Argentina. Perhaps you know her?”

Alas, I did not. But I understood then that even though the distance from Miami to Cartagena is a mere 1,100 miles—while Buenos Aires is 4,410 miles—for many in the Northern Hemisphere, anything South of Mexico was one big blob of sameness—unremarkable save for the extremes of tragedy and crime.

Colombia-and Colombians-were largely invisible

It wasn’t that we had nothing to offer. Colombia had a decent soccer team, even if it never seemed to get past the first rounds of the World Cup. It had Juan Valdés and Gabriel García Márquez. And, to our eternal consternation, in the mid-1980s, it had Pablo Escobar, whose infamy eclipsed all those other blips of achievement.

But, of course, there is a world of difference between notoriety and respect, recognition and scorn.

And then, the music came.

It started almost surreptitiously with Carlos Vives and his new take on vallenato, an almost subversive artistic creation at home (after all, wasn’t vallenato the music of the proletarian masses?) that suddenly found exotic acceptance in the United States.

Then came Shakira with her crossover aspirations, her bilingual hits—a first-ever for a Colombian artist—and her use of Colombian rhythms and patriotic expression. When Shakira sang “En Barranquilla se baila así” in 2005 as she shimmied to the beat of “Hips Don’t Lie,” millions of people, for the first time, looked up her native city on a map.

It took roughly a decade, but now, two generations of musical artists have followed in Shakira’s steps and, almost impossibly, stepped into an international spotlight that was unimaginable in my teen years.

Music has long been the great equalizer. Historically, it has crossed barriers of race, class, politics, nationality, and language, with music in English— the world’s vast lingua franca—consumed by people from around the world. Thanks in no small measure to a growing contingent of Colombian super- stars that includes Shakira, Juanes, Maluma, Camilo, and J Balvin, music in Spanish has also sliced the language barrier and is listened to broadly by non-Spanish speakers worldwide.

How did this happen? Our circumstance as a country in near-perpetual conflict favored the development of music as an alternative, outlet, and solution. Yet, music was long insular in Colombia. We listened to local acts and imports from the United States, Spain, Argentina, and Mexico, as did most Latin Americans. Colombia was a depository of music from other places, but our own rhythms and beats were regarded as too, well, Colombian ever to be appreciated outside the confines of our borders.

Seen dispassionately, the evolution of Shakira is almost miraculous. As a young girl growing up in Colombia in the 1980s and 1990s, there was no one she could artistically emulate or aspire to and no industry to viably sup- port her brand of youth-oriented, slightly rebellious rock. Shakira not only managed to set foot outside Colombia into other Spanish-language countries but improbably pierced the veil of mainstream acceptance, becoming a global superstar who sang in English, recognized on equal footing with artists like Madonna and Ricky Martin in their heyday. It had never happened before to one of us. Once Shakira was able to break that barrier, possibilities unfolded for new generations.

After all, the musical movement borne out of Medellín is a post-narco phenomenon, fueled by young artists who sought to depict their social malaise through music and strove to get ahead through musical art that came from their very own streets and culture, rather than through violence or conformism.

When J Balvin showed “molas,”¹ “palenqueras,”² and “chivas”³ in his video of “Mi Gente” (my people), he served as a de facto ambassador for Colombian culture and folklore, placing it on a platform that allowed for its mass consumption. When Maluma tattooed the word Medellín on his famous chest and sang using the colloquial language of his city’s streets, he turned preconceived notions of Latin crooners on their heads, offering the image of the singer as a patriotic symbol instead. When Camilo sings “No es vida de rico, pero se pasa bien rico,” (“It’s not a rich man’s life, but we have a great time”) he speaks not just for millions of young Colombians, but for the millions of young Spanish speakers who tackle their struggles with humor.

Yet, until just a few years ago, the fact that musicians were leading the fray in terms of raising Colombia’s visibility abroad was widely discounted. Until relatively recently, music was seen as mostly a trivial pursuit, certainly not a “real” career, and unworthy of serious consideration by influential decision makers and politicians.

Except, musicians overall have become the decision makers, and Colombian musicians, in particular, have become global leaders. This is obvious, not just in terms of fame—easily measurable nowadays by the number of social media followers and music streams and downloads, but also in terms of tangible social and economic impact and influence. Colombian musicians today are the single most recognized ambassadors of the country’s culture, folklore, and traditions and are also vocal agents of change. Witness Shakira’s Fundación Pies Descalzos (Barefeet), Juanes’s Fundación Mi Sangre (My Blood), and Maluma’s ElArtedeLosSueños(the Art of Dreams) foundation. Not only do they transform lives inside Colombia, but they raise the country’s equity everywhere.

And now we have Encanto, an animated Disney film remarkable for its sheer visual beauty (which reflects the beauty of the Colombian countryside near the coffee-growing region where the mythical casita stands), uplifting family themes, and joyful music, much of it performed by—Oh My Good- ness—actual Colombians! At the time of this writing in March 2022, the film’s soundtrack had spent eight non-consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the fabled Billboard 200 chart, which measures consumption of all albums in every genre. No soundtrack has ever done that in the chart’s history.

That’s not the only record it’s set. Encantois the first soundtrack to go to No. 1 since 2019 and the sixth animated soundtrack to ever top the chart. 

Beyond that, Encanto is a film set in Colombia, with a predominantly Colombian cast that sings and speaks in Spanish and English. Animated or not, this degree of exposure and success for our country is unprecedented on the screen.

As Colombian actor John Leguizamo, who voices Bruno in Encanto, once told me: “It’s more common to see aliens than Latinos on mainstream film and television.” And Colombians? Aside from Leguizamo and Sofía Vergara, there are no other actors you can name off the top of your head.

For years, movies about Colombia were filmed elsewhere. Such block- busters as Collateral Damage and Clear and Present Danger, for example, were both shot in Mexico because Colombia was deemed too dangerous, and Colombian characters were played by Mexicans or Spaniards speaking with the wrong accent.

Encanto, on the other hand, really minded its Ps and Qs, from accents to outfits to minute details like the hand-painted tableware, the embroidered dresses, the food, the various colors of our skin, and the animals— from the ubiquitous toucan to the yellow butterflies that are synonymous with García Márquez.

Many years ago, I asked Carlos Vives–who performs two songs in the soundtrack—if he thought his music was too regional and Colombian root- based to attain international success.

“Being local is what allows me to be international,” he replied, way ahead of his time. It’s not surprising, with this mentality, that Maluma and Sebas tian Yatra, another new-generation Colombian singer, are also featured in Encanto.

The year 2021 was a watershed year for Latinos in film, with In the Heights, West Side Story,and Encanto featuring Latin lead actors, none of them hugely famous. After all, it’s been a year of breaking parameters, zeroing in on inclusivity and diversity, and looking beyond the well-mined bubbles. But in film, the only major success thus far has been Encanto, a musical and arguably the narrowest in scope. What made it work?

I want to think Colombia and its music made it work. Yes, the country is indeed that dangerous, with thousands displaced from their homes every year because of violence, as the film superficially shows. But it’s also that beautiful, that exuberant, that passionate, that family-oriented, that hospitable, that delicious, that musical, and yes, that magical.

Now, that musicality is systematically finding its way to the rest of the world. Music isn’t something you can taste or smell, like our coffee, or see and touch, like our birds. But thanks to an ever-growing number of artistic collaborations and an increasingly solid business infrastructure, it’s become perhaps the most effective and widely-lauded vehicle to transmit eminently Colombian emotions to the world, without constraints of borders or language.

At the 2022 Academy Awards, Encanto, an animated musical based in Colombia and proudly featuring Colombian voices and sounds, won Best Animated Feature. At the 2022 Grammy Awards, there were eight nominees from Colombia in the four Latin categories, more than any other country.

It’s not just about what happens with our music on an international stage. Inside our borders, for perhaps the first time ever, there’s a multi-tiered, highly-profitable music industry that allows inspiration to have a ripple effect that reverberates throughout the local economy: from the recording studio to the 50,000 tickets Karol G sold to her show at Estadio Atanasio Girardot in Medellín.

At a recent international award show, Maluma performed with four fellow artists from Medellín, all wearing t-shirts that said: “Medallo en el Mapa,+ Música–  Violencia,” (Medallo⁴ in the Map + Music – violence).

The message was proud, but also defiant.

Thanks to music, we are finally being seen and heard. And we are making change happen.

Portions of this essay originally appeared in the article by Leila Cobo published by Billboard on January, 2022 “With ‘Encanto,’ Colombia Is Finally Seen and Not Just Heard,” accessible here: https://www.billboard.com/music/latin/encanto-colombia-positive-image-1235017931/

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GROWING UP IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD of Jackson Heights, Queens, in New York City taught me an early lesson on being myself. From a tender age, I felt the pressure of “being different,” and experiencing the world through an unusual lens as I witnessed my mother work several exhausting jobs to keep our family afloat in a country that was foreign to us. Soon, I realized that “being different” made me a target to those who did not sympathize with the way I looked or how I spoke. Living in a predominantly Caucasian neighborhood forced me to learn about survival, who I was, and, ultimately, who I was meant to become.

I was born in Bogotá, Colombia, and although I moved to the United States at a young age, I never ceased exalting my identity as a Colombian and a Latino. I don the badge and the title of being an immigrant to the United States with the utmost honor and respect. Throughout my career in the arts––from performing in local New York City venues to opening a show on Broadway and eventually breaking glass ceilings in Hollywood––I have accomplished what might have seemed unimaginable through unspeakable hours of hard work and tribulation, a marvelous quality that all Latino immigrants share.

Making a decent living in the United States as a minority is no simple feat, yet there is no one better than an immigrant with a dream and a purpose to upend that expectation. As a young boy running around the streets of New York, using my humor as a means to stay safe in the urban jungle, I learned to channel the gargantuan resilience of a Colombian American, repurposing life’s difficulties into fuel to keep my dream alive.

Most of the people who once bullied me quickly found me hilarious–– or perhaps I worked at crafting that comedic image better than I could have imagined, and it was precisely that comedy that took me down trails not blazed before. I was aware of being a skimpy little brown kid with a funny speech pattern who could imitate every accent imaginable.

I was a nerd in love with the arts, reading, comic books, plays, movies, and great performers; I used this adoration to empower myself in a place that was not seeing me or my potential. I refer to this source of motivation as “Ghetto Nerd Power.”

It was by the library’s bookshelves and, later, inside the theater where I met my true self and decided to step into my future, no matter the hardships, setbacks, or prejudice. I was ready to do it all: study drama, learn diverse acting techniques, practice tongue twisters, follow elocution lessons, and audition for every single role possible. It was never easy, and sometimes it still feels that way, but failure was and is never an option. I stand by the statement “Latinos must do twice the work to get half the opportunities,” because I have experienced this scenario on several occasions. Nevertheless, Latino tenacity, spiritual fiber, and passion from my Colombian DNA propelled me to search within myself and forge my destiny.

I first won over audiences in 1991 as the star and writer of MamboMouth. I have portrayed seven different Latino characters in sold-out theaters off-Broadway. I have played various characters from different backgrounds, including a lowlife criminal in Carlito’sWay(1993), Luigi in SuperMarioBros(1993), and nineteenth-century French artist Toulouse-Lautrec in Moulin Rouge (2001). And even though I have been blessed with international success, I still source much of my material from my unlikely path to stardom–– from a working-class family in Queens to a renowned artist in theatre, film, and television.

This beautiful nation has offered me life-changing possibilities. I am humbled by the astonishing achievements I have amassed in the United States. My indigenous Chibcha,Muisca(TheMuisca[alsocalledChibcha]are an indigenous people and culture of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, Colombia), and Afro-Latino identity is deeply-rooted and informs who I am as an artist and human being. I cherish the best of what these identities have granted me––from bilingualism to delicious food to incomparable music to amazing people. I never tire of representing Colombia in this country and in front of the world.

As a Colombian American, I am continuously astounded by the immense talent that treks from Colombia into the United States. I cherish it, and it overwhelms me with unwavering pride. This is why continuous US-Colombia relations signify a beacon of hope, especially when I consider the bond between two nations fighting for the betterment of their people. At the same time, that story and fight do not end here. I may very well be an example to millions of Latino immigrants who are still unsure whether to follow their dream or walk away from it because they have no other choice.

I want to be more than an example. After decades of working in the entertainment industry and sharpening my artistry, I ache to be more than just an image for people to look up to.

Multiplying a Colombian American dream

My experience in this country as a thriving creative and spokesman for positive societal change means that other Colombian Americans can also create a prosperous future where they can empower their careers, livelihoods, and families. This speaks to the need for more programs that foster and enrich the potential of young, brilliant minds who may not have the means to attend top-tier universities or institutions. Pro- grams through which children and young adults can approach educators, resources, and funding are catalysts to spur equity among our youth.

The arts are the most competitive field in the marketplace. Our young Colombian minds should be able to tap into their fullest potential within Colombia and abroad in the United States by participating in cultural and educational residencies to learn how to be great storytellers and collaborators and, ultimately, create their own work with the potential to be seen and commissioned.

Oftentimes, potential is squandered before it can blossom due to a lack of access to opportunities; this is the gap that cultural programs should close. The demand for foundations and artists’ funds at the local level is rising. It is up to established creatives and their teams to champion more tangible opportunities aimed at those who aspire to grow within a career in the arts. Ultimately, it is our responsibility to leverage programs and mentorship.

I wish to gift my message and life experiences to future generations of Colombian Americans, and Latin immigrants everywhere, as a means to inspire. I want to show them that what I have done is not only possible but also attainable; no matter the language they speak, the accent they have, or the color of their skin, they can conceive a beautiful future where they can be seen and celebrated.

This, right here, is what I consider the American dream. And it is now time for it to become a reality for any of mis paisanos (my fellow Colombians) who one day dare decide to claim the extraordinary life for which they have never stopped struggling. I wish for them to open their arms, beam their gorgeous brown smile, and embrace their own Colombian American dream.

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Travelling in wartime Ukraine is no simple task, even in areas far from the front lines. Due to Russian airstrikes on Ukraine’s major oil refineries and storage facilities, petrol has become a precious commodity. You typically have to wait in line for hours to get just 20 liters.

My travel companion and I therefore decided to take the train from Lviv to Kyiv. The overnight journey is comfortable and takes only seven hours. Ukraine’s trains continue to work perfectly well despite Russian attempts to disrupt weapons deliveries by targeting the country’s railway infrastructure. The only problem is that you never know for sure whether your train will become a target.  

The Kyiv I encountered on May 7 was radically different to the city I had left behind on February 24. Although more than a month had passed since Russia withdrew its troops from around the Ukrainian capital, there was an unfamiliar air of tension and little evidence of the carefree spring mood that we tend to take for granted at this time of year as Kyiv blossoms into life.

The moment we got off the train, we were subjected to a rigorous document and luggage check by police armed with machine guns. This was not something we’d experienced during the past few months of internal exile in Lviv.

All over the city, you sense the close proximity of war. Kyiv has become a fortress with many concrete checkpoints, anti-tank obstacles, and piles of sandbags still in place. It is obvious that those who remained in the city during the Russian advance were ready to defend every street and every single building against Putin’s troops.

Some of the bridges around Kyiv were blown up by the Ukrainian military to prevent Russian forces from approaching the city. The main bridges spanning the majestic Dnipro River in the heart of the capital are still under heavy guard. It is clear that Kyiv underwent a “total militarization,” as one of my friends put it.

Another striking feature of wartime Kyiv is the absence of cars. The Ukrainian capital is usually one of Europe’s most congested urban areas but now feels like a ghost town. In terms of traffic levels, Kyiv has probably returned to the Soviet days of the 1980s when only the privileged few could afford the luxury of a car. After years of difficulties finding a free space, it is now possible to park virtually anywhere you like.

Public spaces are also noticeably quieter. The beautiful riverside park close to my home is typically packed during sunny spring days, but all the people who used to annoy me with their scooters and bicycles and skateboards and dogs are now gone. Instead, the silence is deafening. The most jarring difference is the almost total absence of children. There are no mothers pushing prams or noisy gangs of kids running around. Kyiv seems older and infinitely lonelier without them.

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Whenever I share my impressions of wartime Kyiv with those who stayed in the city during the dark days of February and March, I sense a certain irritation as if I am exaggerating the current situation and underestimating the hardships they went through. They typically respond that there are now ten times more cars on the streets than back then and far fewer checkpoints or military patrols than a month ago.

Maybe they are right. My visit caught the city somewhere between a full-scale war footing and recovery. Throughout Kyiv, there are signs that the city is coming back to life. Almost all the coffee shops along the Dnipro River embankment are now open for business. Restaurants cannot serve beer or wine after 4pm, but most are also now welcoming diners once again. The daily curfew has been relaxed and public transport is increasingly frequent.

Meanwhile, the steady flow of returnees continues. During the peak of the fighting near Kyiv, only 10 of the 120 apartments in my residential building remained occupied. The figure now is 45. This snapshot appears to be representative of the bigger picture for Kyiv as a whole. According to Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko, mobile phone data indicated that throughout March the population of the Ukrainian capital dropped from a pre-war total of 3.5 million to around one million people. By early May, this figure had risen to 2.2 million. Every day, thousands more people return.

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I reserved one day of my Kyiv trip for the unpleasant task of travelling to our family summer house in the suburbs north of the city. This region was the scene of heavy fighting for around a month, with Russian troops occupying many of the surrounding villages as their Kyiv offensive stalled. I already knew that all 252 houses in our village had been looted by the Russians, but I wanted to see the scale of the damage for myself. 

In the weeks following the Russian retreat, I had heard numerous accounts from neighbors of how their homes had been completely pillaged. In many cases, the Russian soldiers had left piles of human excrement in the center of the living room, so I was prepared for the worst.  

Surprisingly, our house did not display too much evidence of Putin’s “special military operation.” The Russians had broken the front door and turned everything upside down in their hunt for valuables, but we do not keep any jewelry or money at our summer home so they were out of luck. An empty iPhone box was discarded on the floor in apparent frustration. Sadly for them, the phone itself was with me.

My uninvited Russian visitors left cigarette butts everywhere, including on the wooden staircase, so I am probably lucky they didn’t burn the house down. Curiously, they did not drink an expensive bottle of champagne which remained untouched in a gift box.

After checking the property, I concluded that the Russians had taken almost nothing. I later realized why. By the time they broke into our home, their vehicles were already overloaded with loot from other nearby villages. One resident from a neighboring village explained that as the Russians retreated, they loaded up their armored personnel carriers with everything from household appliances to fur coats and carpets. Indeed, they were so preoccupied with pillaging that they left three trucks full of ammunition behind that were later handed over to the Ukrainian military.

The damage in my village as a whole was far less than the destruction elsewhere. One of my neighbors was killed by the Russians as he was attempting to drive away, but none of the houses in the village were burned down or destroyed in the fighting. The neighboring village of Bogdanivka was far less fortunate. Russian troops shot dead more than forty people, raped many of the women, and destroyed around one-third of all the homes.  

The world now knows the names of Kyiv suburbs like Bucha and Irpin due to shocking evidence of Russian war crimes uncovered following liberation. However, international audiences have yet to learn about the dozens of other towns and villages that suffered similar Russian atrocities and barbarism.

As I left my village, many residents were busy repairing roofs and mending fences. They were clearly eager to put the horrors of the Russian occupation behind them and get rid of anything that might serve as a reminder of that nightmare period.

It is possible to encounter similar scenes throughout Kyiv region these days as the Ukrainian spirit shines through the long shadows of war. My trip to Kyiv convinced me that I am now ready to return to the Ukrainian capital on a more permanent basis. Sadly, it is still probably too early for my wife and kids to come home. 

Vitaly Sych is Chief Editor of NV media house which includes a weekly magazine, national talk radio station, and news site (NV.ua). This war diary was originally published in the German language by Die Zeit newspaper.

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The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

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Videos and pictures are currently appearing across the country of young Russians showing their support for the invasion of Ukraine. Many of the children and teens featured in this pro-war content display the “Z” symbol that has become emblematic of the war following its adoption as a marker by Russia’s invasion force.

This emphasis on youth is no accident. It reflects concerns within the Kremlin that internet-savvy younger Russians are more resistant to state propaganda and have the knowledge to access censored information online. The emerging generation is also more likely to hold favorable views of Europe and the United States than older Russians who continue to get most of their information from Putin’s propaganda networks.

This caution is easy to understand, especially given the prominence of students and teens during a wave of protests that took place during the first weeks of the invasion. However, these protests have since died down amid indications that government intimidation tactics are proving effective. The Kremlin has encouraged Russians to rally round the flag by portraying the war as an existential struggle between Russia and the West. Meanwhile, anti-war messaging has been denounced as unpatriotic and anti-Russian.

The Kremlin’s polarizing “them and us” framing of the war has been amplified by Putin himself, who has called for a “self-cleansing of society” from “scum and traitors.” This is fuelling aggression against anyone on the wrong side of his dichotomy. In one recent incident, a young investigative journalist’s door in Moscow was targeted with graffiti declaring her a traitor. A young activist who went viral for reading the Russian constitution to riot police during protests in 2019 also recently found graffiti on her door reading “Don’t sell out your homeland, bitch.” In both cases, the menacing messages were accompanied by a “Z.”

Faced with the growing risk of political violence and grim economic prospects, tens of thousands of mostly young Russians are now fleeing the country to places like Turkey, Central Asia, and the South Caucasus. Since the war began on February 24, some estimates put the overall figure for this exodus at around 200,000 people. This includes many of the more progressive elements of Russian society such as independent journalists and tech sector professionals.

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With opposition to the war among young Russians largely sidelined or silenced, the Kremlin is escalating its long campaign to give Russian kids a “patriotic education” designed to secure their loyalty and shape their future ideological outlook.

Almost ten years ago, Putin called on Russian historians to develop a new history curriculum free from “internal contradictions and ambiguities.” The resulting revisionist version of history included efforts to rehabilitate the personal reputation of Josef Stalin and promote positive aspects of the Soviet era while emphasizing the USSR’s role in the victory over Nazi Germany.

Efforts continue to bring classroom teaching into line with Kremlin thinking. Recent additions to the curriculum have included materials justifying aggression against Ukraine. In Murmansk, schools have been requested to include new materials describing Ukraine’s “genocide against Russians” and the country’s supposed “anti-Russian path.” Teaching materials argue that Ukraine is a Nazi-friendly country controlled by the West.

At the end of March 2022, Russian kindergartens and schools began sharing posts showing their students working in support of the country’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. Children were made to write letters to the front with drawings of military symbols such as ribbons, carnations, the Russian flag, and the now omnipresent “Z.” At one school in Kaliningrad, children learned a new patriotic song redrawing Russia’s borders and featuring the lyrics: “from Donetsk to the Kremlin, from Lugansk to the Kremlin, from Alaska to the Kremlin, this is my motherland.”

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Politicized classrooms can have a profound long-term impact on children. Due to their typically narrow social circle, reliance on elders and authority figures, and limited awareness of history and current affairs, children are particularly vulnerable to the kind of indoctrination currently taking place in schools across Russia.

Similar processes are also underway outside of the Russian education system. For example, the Murmansk Youth Committee has been making headlines recently by mobilizing young people for rallies and propaganda videos. These mobilizations have included the involvement of the Murmansk-based North Fleet, which is a source of considerable local prestige and pride.

Many recent pro-war events featuring the participation of young Russians have also relied heavily on Russia’s Youth Army, an organization established in 2015 by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to train future military personnel. In recent weeks, Ukrainian intelligence sources have accused Russia of preparing to conscript underage children from the movement to help replenish mounting losses in the ongoing war.

Critics fear public displays of pro-war militarism may help to radicalize a new generation of Russians and lead to the kind of zealotry witnessed during the darkest days of the Soviet era, which saw campaigns encouraging children to denounce their own parents. There are already signs that such trends are reappearing in Russian society. When one Russian schoolteacher recently mentioned to students that she believed the invasion of Ukraine was a “mistake,” a student secretly recorded the exchange and turned her in to the authorities. The teacher received a RUB 30,000 fine and lost her job.

The next big date to watch is May 9 as the Kremlin gears up for its annual WWII Victory Day celebrations. Given Russia’s efforts to frame the invasion of Ukraine as a continuation of the heroic struggle against fascism, this national holiday is likely to be the largest pro-war event since the outbreak of hostilities in late February. The authorities will look to engage as many young Russians as possible and will be aiming to use the strong emotional pull of victory over Hitler to help legitimize the current war effort in Ukraine.  

While it is difficult to gauge exactly how effective Kremlin efforts have been in fostering pro-war sentiment among young Russians, the available data suggests considerable success. A March 31 survey by Russia’s leading independent pollster, the Levada Center, found that 71% of 18- to 24-year-olds backed the war, just 10% below the national average for all age groups. Meanwhile, a more recent Levada Center survey found that 54% in the 18-24 segment harbored negative attitudes toward Ukraine compared to an average among all respondents of 57%.

There is a real danger that the wave of fanaticism unleashed by the invasion of Ukraine will create a new generation of radicalized young Russians who enthusiastically embrace the toxic brand of militarism and extreme nationalism promoted by the Kremlin. This could prolong the current confrontation between Russia and the West for many decades to come, leading to the continuation of Putinism long after Putin himself has exited the world stage.

Doug Klain is an assistant director at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center in Washington, DC. Find him on Twitter @DougKlain.

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The United States is reviving the WWII Lend-Lease program which helped defeat Hitler in order to dramatically increase arms deliveries to Ukraine and set the stage for Vladimir Putin’s eventual military defeat.

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The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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This scenario is exactly what I feared would happen when the Taliban took over in August 2021. I feared that restrictive policies on women and girls, violations of human rights, and a totalitarian system would undermine and silence the education and progressive achievement of youth and adults in Afghanistan. That said, this decision by the Taliban has not shocked me–it has been clear from day one that the Taliban have not changed ideologically but are simply playing politics to to gain and sustain power. Now, however, they are using girls’ education and women’s freedom as political tools to negotiate their demand for recognition and foreign financial assistance to sustain their regime. This is one of the worst decisions that the Taliban enforced on society since taking over and is primed to have both social and political consequences in Afghanistan.

Though the Taliban said in a statement that the reason for school closures was due to technical issues related to school uniforms, it could simply be a political move. It may also have larger political consequences for the Taliban regime–they have broken the trust of the people of Afghanistan and the international community. The closure of girls’ education and restrictions on women’s activities are based on the Taliban’s ideological and political stances. Though the Taliban have used women’s and girls’ freedom and education as political tools to negotiate their demands for recognition and economic assistance, the decision to postpone girls’ access to education will have larger consequences for Afghanistan that the group may have not calculated. First, this decision could impact the flow of funding that was meant to address the ongoing economic and humanitarian crisis; it may also shift the momentum of international funding created in hopes of addressing Afghanistan’s severe humanitarian crisis. Second, the lack of transparency in the Taliban’s decision making system will further perpetuate the environment of mistrust in Afghanistan, especially since there have been voices across the country expressing their frustration with this news and many of whom are planning to leave the country, if they have not already.

What restrictions on girls’ education means for girls in Afghanistan

The announcement that schools would not open was the most devastating news Afghan girls could have heard when they were ironing their school uniforms and arranging their backpacks and books. For the past seven months, these girls have been dreaming of being back in the classroom with their teachers and classmates, retrieving some of their freedom and their place in society. An immediate negative impact of the decision to ban girls from attending secondary school is the interruption in their one year school schedule. 

Secondary schools for girls have been closed since the Taliban assumed power in August 2021 and girls have already missed a large portion of the current school year. For teenage girls in Afghanistan, attending school is a way to leave the boundaries of their homes and be part of a learning society. The act of attending school is a source of empowerment that gives them an identity, a presence, and self-esteem. Preventing girls from entering the gates of school due to their gender undermines their identity and wrongfully assures them that they have no place in the society of learning. Nothing could be more disastrous to girls’ self-esteem than to learn that their gender–something they cannot change–is the sole prohibitive characteristic denying them their education. 

This is an extreme act of cruelty that rulers can impose on a population who is still in their very early stages of growth and development. This experience can bring on emotional trauma and can have negative long-term impacts on how girls see themselves, which shapes their self-perception and behavior as well as their aspirations for the future. A young woman’s entire perception about her agency and life is affected by the decision of a ruling class which is totalitarian and misogynist by nature. Punishing a population because of its gender and undermining their capabilities by confining them to certain boundaries is a crime against humanity. 

What restrictions on girls’ education means for Afghanistan

These restrictions on girls’ education and women’s freedom of movement will further strengthen a patriarchal system, institutionalize structural violence in society, and normalize discrimination and violence against women. It will further embed misogynistic behaviors, including promoting girls’ child marriage, in a society that needs greater resistance to such behaviors. These decisions promote and allow structural discrimination to stay intact in a society that is already prone and ripe for structural violence. It also creates fear and frustration amongst the larger population about the future of girls’ education and broader restrictions that will further limit their growth and development. In fact, exploring options outside their own country to secure their daughter’s education is likely to be another factor for people to choose migration over staying in a restrictive homeland.

Considering all of these factors, the world should not abandon the women and girls in Afghanistan. It is imperative, more than ever, to amplify the voices of women and girls and enable the conditions for them to participate in education and work. In addition to opening schools, the focus should be on ensuring access to quality curriculum and textbooks, the hiring of qualified teachers, and the protection of girls once they resume school. A monitoring system should be in place to oversee the education system, including schools and universities, and ensure that girls are treated properly and protected. The Taliban continues to hold millions of girls hostage while using women and girls’ rights to negotiate their own political and financial demands.

The Taliban must not be given any more leverage. Instead, they should be held accountable for the damage they have caused and continue to inflict upon the people–and most critically the women and girls–of Afghanistan.

Dr Nilofar Sakhi is a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center.

The South Asia Center serves as the Atlantic Council’s focal point for work on the region as well as relations between these countries, neighboring regions, Europe, and the United States.

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Online Event Fri, March 4, 2022 • 10:00 am ET

Sports Business Forum

The Sports Business Forum is a major part of the Africa Creative Industries Program led by the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center and co-organized with SEED project in partnership with the Agence Sénégalaise de promotion touristique (ASPT). Our goal is to bring investors to support the emergence of a local sports industry in Africa, providing optimism that African talent will no longer have to seek earnings abroad and keeping more added value within African markets.

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March Madness won’t be the only hoops highlight this month; the Basketball Africa League’s second season officially tipped off, attracting viewers globally.

“The world will see the quality of professional basketball that is being played here” in Africa, said Mark Tatum, deputy commissioner and chief operating officer of the National Basketball Association. Tatum was speaking at the Atlantic Council Africa Center’s March 4 Sports Business Forum, held in Dakar, Senegal, and cohosted by the SEED Project. “There is a tremendous opportunity to continue to invest in this game, in this sport, [and] in this league to drive economic opportunity” across Africa, he said. 

Amadou Gallo Fall, president of the Basketball Africa League and founder of the SEED Project, called Africa the “center of the Earth” for talent in sports and creative industries. Sports can serve as “an economic growth engine” for the continent, he said. Senegalese Sports Minister Matar Ba praised sport as an “economic tool” that boosts the economy, but also benefits other sectors including “health/well-being, education, social inclusion, and youth and women’s empowerment.” Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley—whose country boasts a large population of African descent and has seen economic benefits from promoting cricket—hailed Africa’s athletic and economic potential, saying that the continent has “the ability to create opportunities for so many” through excellence in sport.

The event also gathered leaders in Africa’s sports and tourism industries such as NBA legend Dikembe Mutombo; Pape Mahawa Diouf, chief executive officer of the Senegalese Agency of Tourism Promotion; Samba Bathily, chief executive officer and founder of the ADS Group; and Victor Williams, chief executive officer of NBA Africa. The gathering was sponsored by Orange, the Attorney General Alliance (AGA), the Senegalese Agency of Tourism Promotion, and the SEED Project.

Here are other highlights, covering everything from optimizing talent to fostering inclusion, from the Sports Business Forum:

Investment to fuel a generation

• Fall pointed to African-born Hall of Famers Mutombo and Hakeem Olajuwon as pillars of success but noted that they came to basketball almost by accident—Mutombo after going to Georgetown University intending to become a doctor and Olajuwon after excelling in soccer and handball. Through the SEED Project, an organization that mentors student-athletes and hosts a basketball academy for young people, Fall hopes to be “more intentional in creating a pathway for young people to not just stumble into sport.” But in the meantime, he asked, “how much talent are we missing?”
• Mutombo agreed that there is a need for a pathway into sports excellence in Africa, adding that, with basketball growing across the continent, he thinks “young people [in Africa] have a bright future—if we can work very hard to keep them here.”
• Tatum noted that even with programs to make basketball more accessible across Africa, “we believe that we’re just scratching the surface right now of the impact that the game can have on the world’s youngest and fastest-growing populations.”
• Investing in young people is important, as “youth [are] our biggest asset” as drivers of development, Fall said. Mottley pointed out that youth “can create opportunities for their families for economic pursuit.” And by staying on the continent, Mottley said, athletes can expand opportunities well beyond their families, for professions that are necessary for the sports ecosystem to thrive, like nutritionists and personal trainers.
• To boost that investment, Ba urged the private sector to get involved in funding the effort to grow Africa’s sports industry. He explained how Senegal is not only encouraging athletes, but also setting up the infrastructure needed to support a sports industry, which will require cultivating the tourism and creative industries.
• Diouf highlighted how governments across Africa have drawn in public and private investments by creating supportive policies and institutions. He noted that developments in the tourism industry, like the range of hotels and public transportation options, have played a part developing the sports industry, helping to attract major investments—such as those behind Senegal’s new fifty-thousand-seat Abdoulaye Wade Stadium—and attention from global sports brands. Diouf said that these two industries coming together is key to Senegal’s hopes for a transformation to become a “great nation of sport, culture, and tourism.”
• Markus Green, who is a board member of the AGA—which trains lawyers, judges, and prosecutors globally—said it is critical for nations to also build their legal framework in order to host thriving sports businesses. “In order for an entity like the NBA to come into a country like Senegal, you have to have a working system of laws, a working system of regulations, and a justice system that works. So that if there is a dispute, that entity can feel comfortable knowing they can get a reliable outcome. All of those things are tied to sport, the business of sport.”

Growing future leaders

• Green encouraged the audience to think about the growth of sports business as more than a reflection of Africa’s changing economics, but also its changing culture. “It’s about using the voice of sport and the platform of sport to push ideas and to push change,” he said. “We saw this in the US with Black Lives Matter. You saw the athletes and their impact on social change—that’s sustainability. Think about sport beyond only the game. Think about how it can be used as a vehicle of change.”
• Sports could serve as a vehicle “to build bridges between Africa and the Caribbean,” Mottley said, adding that she’d like to see young people across the Atlantic “engage with one another, play with one another, and make those bonds that will make lifelong friends.”
• Sports are “also an incredible tool to speak to young people,” Fall said. Mottley agreed, saying that the greatest athletes and artists are “global citizens” who “inspire all, irrespective of race, class, and age.”
• Mutombo credited basketball with forming powerful and influential athletes, saying that basketball players “have a chance and the power to change our community, to touch our people, in the way other athletes cannot,” because of their global fame. “Each one of us, we have a moral duty to do something” to keep youth on track in their education and growth, he said.

Breaking the gender barrier

• Fall said that it will be important to not only improve accessibility to sports like basketball, but to make sure that “young boys and girls who have a passion for the sport [have] an opportunity to participate.” Spotlighting top female athletes, managers, and coaches—like Australian Liz Mills, the first woman to coach a team in the Basketball Africa League—will help in “showing the next generation that it’s possible,” he said. 
• Mottley, too, noted the “disparity between the conditions of pay and conditions of service for men and women” in sport, citing the example of Barbados’s globally renowned cricket teams. She referred to the difference in quality of television broadcasting coverage between women’s and men’s sports. “The disparity is too great…” she said, “and I hope that as we go forward, that disparity will be removed from the exercise of sports.”

Watch the full event

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La donne démographique dans la région et ses retombées à l’horizon de 2045 2045

Le Sahel – soit, dans le cadre de cette étude, la région au sud du Sahara qui s’étend du Sénégal au Tchad en y incluant les douze états septentrionaux de la Fédération nigériane appliquant la charia — est dans une impasse démographique. Loin de produire un « dividende », la croissance rapide d’une population dont le profil d’âge est très jeune et dont le taux de fécondité reste très élevé submerge la capacité des états à produire des biens publics en quantité nécessaire. Cette donne démographique ralentit, voire bloque la croissance économique ; elle limite le progrès social et obère l’urbanisation par l’extension des bidonvilles. Au fil des décennies, ces conditions, qui se renforcent mutuellement, ont sapé la légitimité des gouvernements centraux et rendu les états de la région vulnérables à la propagation d’un populisme islamique radical et, plus généralement, à l’instabilité.

La période 2040-2045 est l’horizon temps de cette étude. D’ici à là, du fait du profil d’âge très jeune de leurs populations (quatre sur dix Sahéliens ont moins de quinze ans), les états de la région devront se doter de nouvelles infrastructures, augmenter la productivité agricole et élargir le marché du travail de façon à pouvoir répondre aux besoins pressants de cohortes de jeunes adultes toujours plus nombreuses qui, d’année en année, rivaliseront pour des emplois rémunérateurs au sein d’une main d’œuvre déjà largement sous-employée. En même temps, les gouvernements devront maintenir la sécurité collective. Leurs efforts pour y parvenir, quand bien même ils seraient sous-tendus par la meilleure volonté et une parfaite expertise, ne pourront s’approcher de leurs objectifs qu’à condition de s’attaquer en priorité à l’entrave majeure au développement, à savoir les taux de fertilité persistant à des niveaux très élevés.

S’ils veulent sortir de l’impasse actuelle, les gouvernements sahéliens devront réorienter une partie importante de leurs efforts de développement et moyens financiers vers des politiques et programmes visant à améliorer la condition féminine : en prévenant les mariages et grossesses précoces chez les adolescentes, en promouvant l’éducation des filles et en garantissant la pleine participation des femmes dans tous les secteurs publics et privés, à commencer par les lieux de travail. Car l’amélioration tous azimuts de la condition féminine est la condition sine qua non pour l’avènement de familles de taille plus réduite et aux membres mieux instruits. Or, l’insurrection djihadiste dans la région complique la mise en œuvre, en toute sécurité, de programmes promouvant les femmes, du moins en dehors des grandes villes sous le contrôle des gouvernements ; elle comporte aussi le risque que les bailleurs de fonds extérieurs du développement, notamment l’Union européenne et les États-Unis, se désengagent de la région pour ne plus chercher qu’à contenir de l’extérieur — à l’instar de ce qu’ils font déjà en Somalie — la menace djihadiste et la pression migratoire montante au Sahel.

Un forum de débat associé : perspectives politiques et projets régionaux

Pour prolonger Bette étude et ouvrir le débat à d’autres expertises, initiatives et projets menés dans le Sahel, le Conseil Atlantique a demandé à l’ONG américaine Organizing to Advance Solutions in the Sahel (OASIS), dédiée à l’accélération de la transition démographique dans la région, d’inviter à collaborer des experts ouest-africains en santé publique et en éducation. Dans une série de débats organisés à cette fin, ces professionnels ont confronté leurs idées quant aux mérites des approches politiques actuelles et des projets en cours dans la région, ainsi que des obstacles rencontrés et de leurs recommandations en la matière. Sous le titre « Accélérer la transition démographique », le synopsis de ces consultations est accessible ici. Par ailleurs, une note d’accompagnement d’OASIS dresse le tableau de l’aide internationale en matière de santé reproductive et pour l’éducation des filles dans le Sahel. La version intégrale de cette note, dont les principales informations ont été intégrées dans la présente étude, peut être consultée via le lien que voici.

Les résultats en un coup d’œil

Le profil d’âge d’une population et la « fenêtre démographique ». Pris dans leur ensemble, les pays du Sahel abritent parmi les populations les plus jeunes du monde. Qui plus est, selon la projection moyenne de fécondité de la Division de la population des Nations Unies (ONU), aucun pays sahélien ne devrait atteindre au cours des vingt à vingt-cinq années à venir — soit la période couverte par le présent rapport — la « fenêtre démographique », c’est-à-dire une période propice à la croissance économique et au développement du fait d’un profil d’âge favorable de la population (on parle à ce propos aussi de « dividende démographique »). Au cours des soixante-dix dernières années, c’est dans cette « fenêtre » — qui s’ouvre à partir d’un âge médian d’une population entre 25 et 26 ans — que d’autres pays ont généralement atteint des niveaux de développement moyens supérieurs (correspondant à cette catégorie de revenus, telle que définie par la Banque mondiale, et les niveaux plus élevés d’éducation et de survie des enfants qui y sont associés). D’ici à 2045, seuls la Mauritanie et le Sénégal s’approcheront de cette « fenêtre démographique », à en croire la projection actuelle de l’ONU à faible taux de fécondité — le scénario le plus optimiste de la série standard de la Division de la Population.

La croissance démographique. Les démographes de l’ONU estiment que la population totale des six états du Sahel est passée de près de 21 millions d’habitants, en 1960, à environ 103 millions en 2020, soit presque un quintuplement en soixante ans. Pour le nord du Nigéria, leurs estimations aboutissent à une trajectoire de croissance similaire, avec près de 78 millions d’habitants en 2020. Les populations combinées des six pays du Sahel et du nord du Nigéria devraient ainsi passer de l’estimation actuelle — 181 millions d’habitants — à une fourchette comprise entre 370 millions et 415 millions d’habitants en 2045. Une grande partie de cette croissance sera le résultat de l’actuel profil d’âge très jeune de ces populations et de l’élan démographique qui en résulte (en anglais, on parle à ce propos de age-structural momentum ou population momentum).

La baisse de la fécondité. Les taux globaux de fécondité de la région varient actuellement entre 4,6 enfants par femme au Sénégal et en Mauritanie et des taux de pré-transition démographique — plus de 6,5 enfants par femme — au Niger et dans les douze états du nord du Nigéria. Dans tout le Sahel, les taux de procréation chez les adolescentes restent extrêmement élevés, et la taille de la famille perçue comme étant « idéale » est généralement égale ou supérieure à la fécondité réalisée. Dans le passé, jusqu’aux séries de données de l’ONU en 2010, les projections de baisse de fécondité de la Division de la Population pour les pays du Sahel se sont toujours avérées trop optimistes. Cependant, des enquêtes locales plus récentes indiquent que la version actuelle de sa projection de fécondité moyenne n’est pas hors de portée. Ce scénario prédit qu’entre 2040 et 2045 la fécondité diminuera pour atteindre entre 4 et 3,4 enfants par femme dans la plupart des états du Sahel, et près de 4,7 au Niger. Il y a déjà des écarts significatifs dans l’utilisation de contraceptifs modernes et entre les modèles de procréation chez les femmes rurales au Sahel et les femmes urbaines plus instruites. Mais ces différences ne sont pas encore aussi prononcées qu’en Afrique de l’Est ou en Afrique australe, où la baisse de la fécondité est plus avancée et se poursuit à un rythme plus rapide.

La santé maternelle et infantile, ainsi que l’éducation des filles. Alors que la mortalité infantile a constamment diminué au Sahel, un enfant sur dix meurt encore avant l’âge de cinq ans au Mali et au Tchad. Par ailleurs, selon des estimations récentes de l’Organisation mondiale de la santé (OMS), plus de 40 pour cent des enfants de moins de cinq ans présentent un retard de croissance au Niger et au Tchad. Toujours selon l’OMS, le taux de mortalité maternelle au Tchad est le deuxième plus élevé du monde, tandis que la Mauritanie, le Mali et le Niger figurent parmi les vingt pays de la planète où la grossesse et l’accouchement sont les plus dangereux. Au Tchad et au Niger, seule une fille sur cinq en âge de l’être est en réalité inscrite dans un établissement d’enseignement secondaire ; ailleurs dans la région, le taux net de scolarisation des filles ne dépasse pas 40 pour cent dans le secondaire. Partout, les mariages d’adolescentes restent le principal obstacle à l’augmentation de leur niveau d’éducation.

L’autonomie et les droits des femmes. En dépit des conseils prodigués par des professionnels locaux de la santé et les exhortations des agences de l’ONU, les gouvernements sahéliens successifs n’ont, jusqu’à présent, pris aucune disposition effective pour faire appliquer les lois déjà existantes qui permettraient de réduire les mariages d’adolescentes, d’éliminer l’excision, de protéger les femmes contre les mariages forcés, de restreindre la polygamie ou, encore, de donner aux femmes des droits égaux de succession et la garde de leurs enfants en cas de séparation conjugale ou de veuvage. Alors que les défenseurs des droits des femmes considèrent que ces mesures sont indispensables pour faire évoluer les préférences vers des familles plus restreintes et mieux éduquées, les dirigeants craignent un retour de flamme politique. L’ampleur de la résistance organisée — comme, par exemple, lors des manifestations d’organisations islamiques au Mali en 2009, qui ont fait reculer les droits des femmes — a même convaincu certains professionnels du développement que, dans plusieurs états du Sahel, la seule voie de changement actuellement ouverte passe, à moyen terme, par un soutien financier accru à l’éducation des filles, aux réseaux des soins de santé pour les femmes et aux organisations de la société civile qui luttent pour l’égalité des femmes.

L’agriculture. Malgré le changement climatique, la hausse des températures locales et le récent ralentissement de l’expansion des terres cultivées, la croissance de la production céréalière a, depuis 1990, dépassé le rythme de la croissance démographique dans la région, qui est de l’ordre de 3 pour cent par an. Cependant, en raison de récoltes erratiques sur des terres exploitées de façon peu productive, de conflits armés et d’un grand nombre de personnes déplacées, les états de la région sont restés tributaires d’une aide alimentaire importante. Alors que l’irrigation par les eaux souterraines est susceptible de prendre de l’ampleur, les effets combinés de la croissance démographique future, du réchauffement climatique continu, de l’insurrection persistante et de la sécheresse périodique dans le Sahel rendent l’autosuffisance alimentaire très improbable dans un avenir prévisible.

Le pastoralisme. Après trois décennies d’augmentation relativement régulière des précipitations dans certaines parties de la région, le nombre de têtes de bétail (ajusté en fonction des différences de taille des espèces) a considérablement augmenté depuis les années 1990. Pourtant, les zones de pâturage les plus productives ont diminué parce qu’elles ont aussi été mises à contribution par des populations croissantes d’agriculteurs dans les zones plus arides. En même temps, le nombre des détenteurs de droits de pâturage a été multiplié et la végétation des zones convoitées s’est sensiblement dégradée, au point où la moins bonne qualité du fourrage a précipité le passage des bovins aux moutons et aux chèvres. Dans tout le Sahel, les agro-écologistes ont noté l’émergence de ce qu’ils appellent des systèmes de production « néo-pastoraux », lesquels se caractérisent par de riches propriétaires de grands troupeaux absents du terrain, la prolifération d’armes légères mais sophistiquées et, sur place, une sous-classe pastorale paupérisée et politiquement marginalisée qui est de plus en plus vulnérable à la radicalisation.

La sécurité. Depuis 2009, le Sahel fait face à des insurrections islamistes en pleine expansion. Cette tendance est susceptible de s’aggraver étant donné qu’aucun état de la région ne devrait atteindre, d’ici à 2045, la « fenêtre démographique » qui, selon les modèles fondés sur l’analyse du profil d’âge d’une population, inaugure une baisse substantielle du risque de conflits non-territoriaux (ou révolutionnaires) persistants. D’après ces modèles, les conflits en cours au Mali, Burkina Faso et Niger, ainsi qu’au Tchad et dans le nord du Nigéria sont ainsi statistiquement susceptibles de se poursuivre, à un certain niveau, pendant les vingt-cinq années à venir. Ce qui retardera d’autant l’amélioration de la condition féminine dans la mesure où, contrairement aux insurrections d’inspiration marxiste dans l’Asie du Sud-Est et en Amérique latine au cours de la seconde moitié du XXe siècle, la présence djihadiste dans les zones rurales du Sahel limite les progrès de l’éducation des femmes, leur autonomie et la fourniture de services de planification familiale..

L’urbanisation. Dans les six pays francophones du Sahel, la population urbaine — en croissance rapide — représente actuellement environ un tiers de la population et devrait s’approcher de la moitié d’ici à 2045. Les investissements dans le logement ont permis de réduire sensiblement la proportion des personnes vivant dans des bidonvilles, mais ces efforts ont été dépassés par une croissance urbaine telle qu’en chiffres absolus, la population des bidonvilles dans la région a presque doublé depuis 1990. À mesure que les opportunités génératrices de revenus se font rares dans les secteurs de l’agriculture et de l’élevage, les espoirs des hommes jeunes reposent sur le marché du travail urbain et les possibilités d’éducation susceptibles de les rendre aptes à l’emploi. Toutefois, l’emploi dans le secteur formel de l’économie demeurera l’exception rare dans la région, et l’urbanisation rapide continue ne manquera pas de poser de nouveaux problèmes de logement, d’accès à l’eau potable et à l’énergie, d’assainissement, de santé publique et de sécurité. Pour relever ces défis, les gouvernements locaux et les bailleurs de fonds étrangers devraient investir massivement dans l’aménagement urbain afin de stimuler les transitions vers une plus grande autonomie des femmes et vers des familles plus réduites, mieux nourries et mieux éduquées. Ce faisant, ils ouvriraient aussi de meilleures perspectives pour trouver un emploi en ville.

La migration. Entre 1990 et 2015, plus de 80 pour cent des flux migratoires à partir des six pays francophones du Sahel ont abouti au-delà des frontières de la région. Au cours de cette période, six migrants sur dix ayant quitté le Sahel se sont installés ailleurs en Afrique, alors que les quatre autres sont partis en Europe, en Amérique du Nord ou vers d’autres destinations. Le Sénégal et le Nigéria ont été les principales portes de sortie vers l’Europe et l’Amérique du Nord. À ces flux migratoires se sont ajoutés, dans la période 2015-2020, d’importants flux de réfugiés du fait de l’escalade des conflits dans le bassin du lac Tchad ainsi qu’au Mali, Niger et Burkina Faso. Pour les jeunes Sahéliens réduits à la précarité aussi bien dans les zones rurales pratiquant l’agriculture de subsistance que dans des bidonvilles, la sécheresse épisodique, les conflits persistants et les difficultés économiques durables représentent des facteurs d’incitation au départ. Dans cette partie aride et peu développée du monde, la taille de la population est importante au regard des ressources disponibles — d’où une pénurie de facteurs d’attraction pour rester sur place. La croissance démographique ne cesse de grossir les rangs des personnes dont les moyens de subsistance sont marginaux et qui pourraient être poussées à partir en cas de désastres naturels ou politiques pour aller chercher de meilleures opportunités ailleurs.

Modèles d’une transition accélérée

Ce rapport met en exergue les voices empruntées par trois états qui, par des politiques et programmes non-coercitifs, ont réussi à accélérer leur transition démographique en baissant leur taux de fécondité et en transformant le profil d’âge de leurs populations: la Tunisie, le Botswana et le Bangladesh. Bien que ces pays diffèrent géographiquement, culturellement et économiquement des pays sahéliens, les points de départ démographiques étaient similaires et sont comparables avec la situation actuelle dans les pays sahéliens. En effet, dans les trois états cités en exemple, l’âge médian de la population était inférieur à vingt ans (ce qui correspond à une pyramide d’âge très élargie à la base) et l’indicateur synthétique de fécondité se situait entre six et sept enfants par femme. Par ailleurs, mention est également faite des politiques et programmes en cours pour changer la donne démographique en Éthiopie, au Rwanda, au Kenya et au Malawi.

La Tunisie. Dans ce pays d’Afrique du Nord, la sortie accélérée de la transition démographique doit beau- coup au leadership inspiré de Habib Bourguiba, le pre- mier président de la Tunisie. Il a fait passer un ensemble de réformes favorables aux femmes, notamment des lois obligeant les parents à envoyer leurs filles à l’école, relevant l’âge légal du mariage, interdisant le port du voile et la polygamie, réduisant le pouvoir des imams locaux, autorisant les femmes à travailler en dehors de leur foyer, leur donnant plein droit à l’héritage, faisant du divorce un processus judiciaire et mettant en place dans tout le pays des centres de planification familiale volontaire.

Botswana. D’emblée, le professionnalisme des soins mis à disposition et leur coût abordable ont été les éléments-clés de l’effort de ce pays en matière de santé reproductive. Proposés gratuitement depuis 1970, les services de planification familiale ont été intégrés aux soins de santé maternelle et infantile dans tous les établissements de santé primaire locaux. En outre, le Botswana est l’un des rares pays d’Afrique subsaharienne où le taux de scolarisation des filles dans l’enseignement secondaire dépasse celui des garçons. Le Botswana a partagé avec les pays du Sahel le défi initial des taux élevés de mariages et de grossesses précoces. Mais sa bonne gouvernance et son utilisation judicieuse de ses rentes minières (diamantifère, notamment) le distingue de la plupart des pays du continent.

Le Bangladesh. La remarquable transformation démographique de ce pays est due à une administration sanitaire dévouée. Celle-ci a su mobiliser des dizaines de milliers d’agents de santé communautaires et de bénévoles en faisant équipe avec une organisation non-gouvernementale locale, le Comité pour le Progrès Rural au Bangladesh (BRAC). Elle a également utilisé à bon escient les fonds d’aide et les produits de santé apportés par les donateurs étrangers. Lancée en 1975, cette approche, soutenue par une campagne de communication en matière de santé publique à l’échelle du pays, a contribué à déclencher la demande de nouvelles méthodes de contraception à long terme (par exemple, des injectables et des implants), l’élargissement au niveau national du programme des travailleurs de village et la mise en place d’une chaîne d’approvisionnement en matière de santé publique.

Programmes ailleurs en Afrique. Forts du soutien de leurs dirigeants politiques et en s’inspirant des expériences en Asie et en Amérique latine, les programmes de santé reproductive en Éthiopie, au Rwanda, au Kenya et au Malawi ont gagné une grande visibilité et des soutiens importants de la part des bailleurs de fonds étrangers. Au cours des trois dernières décennies, une meilleure attention prêtée à l’éducation des filles, les efforts organisés pour accroître les droits des femmes en matière de procréation et leur participation politique, de même qu’une communication efficace en matière de santé publique, ont amélioré l’efficacité de ces programmes ciblant, à la fois, la santé maternelle et infantile ainsi que la planification familiale. Toutefois, d’importants problèmes de prestation de services et d’acceptation des contraceptifs modernes subsistent dans chacun de ces pays où les taux d’abandon de la contraception sont élevés et les écarts dans l’utilisation des contraceptifs restent grands entre les ménages ruraux à faible revenu et les familles urbaines plus riches.

Scénarios

Dans des situations de crise et d’incertitude, bâtir des scénarios d’avenir aide à réduire le champ des possibles et à déceler des éventualités peu visibles qui pourraient prendre les décideurs au dépourvu. Ces futurs fictifs permettent aux analystes de s’écarter des trajectoires d’événements les plus attendus et d’explorer d’autres possibilités sans avoir à imaginer des discontinuités ou à expliquer des enchaînements d’événements complexes qui, au cours de l’histoire, ont parfois conduit à des surprises. Dans un souci didactique de concision, notre étude présentera les trois scénarios suivants sous la forme de dépêches d’agence de presse (évidemment fictives mais plausibles), des coups de projecteur sur la situation du Sahel au début des années 2040

Du pareil au même. Lors d’un sommet interrégional tenu en 2043, l’Union Européenne (UE) et l’organisation des états sahéliens conviennent d’une nouvelle convention quinquennale sur la migration. L’accord contrôle et limite les flux de migrants en provenance et à travers le Sahel en échange d’une forte augmentation de l’aide financière de l’UE à la région. Ce scénario repose sur l’hypothèse que les inscriptions des filles à l’école ont continué à augmenter dans le Sahel et que l’utilisation de contraceptifs modernes y a lentement progressé en s’étendant des zones urbaines en plein essor aux villes de province, puis dans les villages. Cependant, les gouvernements n’ont guère mené d’actions soutenues pour renforcer les droits des femmes ou atténuer l’ordre patriarcal, qui tolère, entre autres, les mariages et grossesses précoces. En même temps, au nom d’une gouvernance islamique, les états du Sahel ont institué des compléments de revenu en espèces pour les mères à la maison, à la fois pour maintenir les femmes au foyer et pour leur offrir une relative indépendance financière. Par ailleurs, ces états ont mis en commun leurs ressources militaires afin de mieux contenir les groupes djihadistes, qui sont restés actifs, notamment, dans les zones rurales du Sahel.

La percée. Également en 2043, un sommet des états sahéliens regroupés au sein du G7 Sahel débat, sur la base d’un rapport parrainé par l’ONU, du retour- nement de situation en matière de santé reproductive dans plusieurs de ses pays membres et des progrès significatifs enregistrés dans d’autres. Un représentant local du Fonds des Nations Unies pour la Population (UNFPA) présente les résultats d’une grande enquête démographique et sanitaire. Il en ressort qu’au Sénégal et au Burkina Faso, l’indicateur synthétique de fécondité est passé sous la barre des trois enfants par femme, et que même le Niger semble emboîter le pas à la région dans sa marche vers une baisse de la fécondité. Des enquêtes locales menées dans plusieurs grandes villes du Sahel révèlent que la fécondité y est déjà proche du seuil de remplacement de deux enfants par femme et que l’afflux dans les maternités, ainsi que la taille des classes d’école, ont considérablement diminué. Mais, du fait de l’accroissement continu de la population (dû à l’élan démographique qui résulte de son profil d’âge très jeune), de la hausse des températures, de mauvaises récoltes périodiques et de la violence sporadique des djihadistes, les importations de céréales et l’aide alimentaire restent des éléments essentiels pour la sécurité alimentaire au Sahel.

Le décrochage. Lors d’une session du Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU en 2043, le Représentant spécial pour le Sahel du Secrétaire général appelle à une action internationale d’urgence pour faire face à une crise multiforme dans la région. Il décrit la faillite de plusieurs états sahéliens et les luttes territoriales entre seigneurs de la guerre. Il cite notamment la détérioration des conditions de sécurité dans le pays haoussa tant au Nigéria qu’au Niger, où des groupes djihadistes prophétiques ont proliféré et, dans certains cas, assis leur autorité politique. Il relève également que les aérodromes dans le Sahel sont devenus des plaques tournantes pour toutes sortes de trafics, y compris d’êtres humains. Il interpelle le Conseil de sécurité au sujet du Niger en proie à une famine d’une ampleur comparable à celle, catastrophique, du début des années 1980. Or, cette fois, ce pays doit nourrir une population de près de soixante millions d’habitants, au lieu des 7 millions à l’époque. Ce défi est d’autant plus grand que la porte d’entrée régionale qu’est le Sénégal pour l’aide alimentaire et d’autres formes d’assistance humanitaire est tout juste entr’ouverte, le gouvernement sénégalais n’étant guère coopératif, pas plus pour l’acheminement de secours que dans la lutte contre la migration illégale vers l’Europe.

Recommandations

Pour les donators d’aide internationale au Sahel, cette étude contient une recommandation d’ordre général: au cours des vingt à vingt-cinq années à venir, les transitions démographiques dans la région devraient comporter au moins une ou deux réussites exemplaires pouvant servir de réservoir d’expertise locale et de modèles pour la mobilisation communautaire susceptibles de se propager ailleurs. Le Sénégal semble être le meilleur candidat à l’accueil d’un tel effort concerté. Parmi les pays enclavés du Sahel, c’est peut-être encore le cas du Burkina Faso, à condition que ses zones rurales retrouvent paix et sécurité. Au Niger, au Mali et au Tchad, les interventions les plus efficaces seront sans doute celles qui améliorent la situation des femmes, développent à grande échelle les infrastructures dans les villes et forment des agents de santé suffisamment dévoués pour qu’ils acceptent de travailler dans les périphéries urbaines et les camps de réfugiés où les demandes d’éducation, de planification familiale et d’autres services de santé reproductive sont généralement élevées. Voici aussi les recommandations plus spécifiques de notre étude:

Mettre à profit l’urbanisation. Les gouvernements de la région devront redoubler d’efforts pour améliorer le niveau d’éduca- tion des filles et, avec le concours des bailleurs de fonds étrangers, augmenter considérablement les dépenses consacrées à la planning familial et aux autres services de santé reproductive. Ils devront par ailleurs élever le statut administratif de la planification familiale au rang de responsabilité ministérielle et renforcer sa visibil- ité par des campagnes d’information. De surcroît, les administrations chargées de l’éducation nationale et Dans ces villes en expansion, il sera également impératif que l’éducation des filles et la planification familiale sur une base volontaire, ainsi que des services de santé maternelle et infantile, se mettent en place, et que les femmes y aient un accès de plein droit aux emplois, tant dans le secteur privé que public.

Renforcer l’éducation des filles et la planification familiale. Les gouvernements de la région devront redoubler d’efforts pour améliorer le niveau d’éduca- tion des filles et, avec le concours des bailleurs de fonds étrangers, augmenter considérablement les dépenses consacrées à la planning familial et aux autres services de santé reproductive. Ils devront par ailleurs élever le statut administratif de la planification familiale au rang de responsabilité ministérielle et renforcer sa visibil- ité par des campagnes d’information. De surcroît, les administrations chargées de l’éducation nationale et de la santé publique devraient éliminer les obstacles bureaucratiques, traditionnels et religieux à la scolarisa- tion des filles et permettre un accès facile et abordable aux services de planification familiale aux personnes mariées aussi bien que célibataires. La mise à dispo- sition de ces services devrait être décentralisée pour être accessible dans les quartiers urbains comme dans les foyers ruraux ; à ce titre, des agents de santé villa- geois et des cliniques mobiles paraissent particulière- ment bien adaptés aux conditions sahéliennes. Il serait également utile que des organisations professionnelles de la santé créent une bibliothèque en ligne pour ren- dre accessibles des exemples de réussite locales dans les domaines de l’éducation des filles — leur éducation sexuelle et en matière de santé reproductive — et du planning familial.

Travailler avec des chefs religieux et politiques, ainsi que d’autres personnalités publiques; impliquer et informer les hommes. L’utilisation plus générale de contraceptifs modernes est souvent liée à des prises de position publiques de la part de chefs religieux, qui jugent le planning familial compatible avec la foi. Par ailleurs, des études récentes accréditent l’idée que les programmes qui informent et impliquent les hommes et s’appuient sur le soutien de dirigeants locaux ont les plus grandes chances de réussite dans le Sahel. Enfin, depuis des décennies, les communicants de la santé y travaillent déjà avec des producteurs de télévision et de radio, ainsi qu’avec des artistes — en particulier des acteurs connus de feuilletons ou talk-shows populaires — pour mieux diffuser des messages de service public concernant la santé maternelle et infantile, la nutrition, l’éducation sexuelle, le VIH/Sida, les droits des femmes ou le planning familial.

Renforcer les droits des femmes. Dans le Sahel, de grands progrès peuvent être accomplis en protégeant les filles et les femmes contre de multiples formes de discrimination et de violence, et en renforçant leurs droits dans le cadre du mariage. Cet effort commence par l’application des lois nationales déjà existantes, qui interdisent l’excision, les mariages forcés et le mariage précoce, avant l’âge de dix-huit ans. Une fois mariées, les femmes devraient avoir le droit d’obtenir un recours contre la violence conjugale, de demander le divorce et de se voir confier la garde des enfants en cas de séparation, de divorce ou de décès du conjoint. Les femmes devraient aussi jouir d’un plein droit de recours en justice et d’un traitement égal devant les tribunaux aux affaires familiales gérés par l’État ; elles ne devraient pas rester tributaires des jugements rendus par des tribunaux religieux et traditionnels, qui n’ont généralement pas su les protéger, pas plus que leurs enfants, contre des préjudices physiques, psychologiques et économiques. Là où la résistance politique a fait reculer les efforts législatifs visant à accroître les droits des femmes (comme, par exemple, au Mali, comme déjà indiqué), le soutien qui est leur apporté par des coopératives ou des organisations professionnelles ou éducatives peut ouvrir des voies alternatives aux femmes sahéliennes pour accéder à une plus grande autonomie et à des fonctions dirigeantes.

Apporter des services aux minorités marginalisées. Les ministères de la santé et de l’édu- cation devraient veiller à ce que les minorités marginalisées, quel que soit leur isolement géo- graphique ou culturel, bénéficient de leurs pro- grammes de planning familial ou en faveur d’une meilleure éducation des filles et du renforce- ment des droits des femmes. Les expériences antérieures dans d’autres parties du monde portent à croire que les disparités régionales, socio-économiques, ethniques ou de caste en matière de fécondité tendent à se solidifier en des inégalités difficiles à effacer et génératrices d’animosités et de tensions politiques.

Promouvoir des efforts au bénéfice des femmes dans tous les projets de développement ou d’équipement. Qu’ils soient gouvernementaux, privés ou financés par des bail- leurs de fonds étrangers, tous les projets de développement ou d’équipement au Sahel, dans le domaine agricole ou d’autres secteurs économiques, devraient contenir des clauses pour promouvoir une meilleure instruction des filles et des femmes, pour leur aménager un accès plus facile aux services de santé reproductive et pour renforcer leurs droits et leur indépendance financière. Aucun projet soutenu par des donateurs internationaux ne devrait permettre aux pouvoirs publics, partis politiques ou chefs religieux ou traditionnels d’entraver l’émancipation des femmes.

Gérer les tensions autour du partage des res- sources entre agriculteurs et pasteurs. Dans une région aride de plus en plus peuplée, l’avenir des moyens de subsistance agricoles et pastoraux dépendra du développement de l’irrigation, de l’intensification de l’agropastoralisme (soit une intégration plus poussée des utilisations agricoles et pastorales des terres) et de l’accès aux marchés urbains. En vue de ce futur plus peuplé, les gouvernements sahéliens devraient limiter le nombre des grands propriétaires de troupeaux de bétail ne résidant pas sur leurs terres de pâturage, protéger les pâturages de l’empiètement par des agriculteurs et aider les éleveurs à lutter contre le vol de bétail. En parallèle, les pouvoirs publics devraient favoriser l’industrie agro-alimentaire de transformation génératrice de valeur ajoutée, promouvoir la coopération entre agriculteurs et éleveurs et améliorer les moyens de transport et voies d’accès aux marchés urbains.

Protéger les acquis du développement par des investissements dans la sécurité locale. Des groupes djihadistes tendent à se multiplier dans le Sahel et à étendre leur emprise. De ce fait, les poches géographiques où des responsables locaux et une majorité de la population soutiennent l’éducation des filles et le renforcement des droits des femmes deviennent les cibles de choix des militants armés. Aussi, ces communautés locales et leurs dirigeants devraient-ils bénéficier d’une protection spéciale par la police ou les unités antiterroristes.

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Report

Nov 4, 2021

What future for the Western Sahel?

By Richard Cincotta and Stephen Smith

The Western Sahel is in a demographic impasse. To work their way out of this dilemma, Sahelian governments must shift a significant part of their development focus and funding to policies and programs aimed at preventing adolescent marriages and childbearing, promoting girls’ education, securing women’s participation in public- and private-sector workplaces, and achieving small, healthy, well-educated families.

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Introduction

Economic shocks affect young and older age groups disproportionately and highlight the insecurity of the youth labor market and volatility of older people’s savings. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated youth labor market challenges and caused young people to either lose jobs or work fewer hours. It also undermined the financial security of older people who tend to own small businesses given that half of the small businesses either closed down or lost significant revenue during lockdowns. Furthermore, COVID-19 exacerbated the digital divide between generations. While younger people are more likely to be technologically savvy, older generations often lack digital literacy to adapt to online work or virtual communications platforms. Dr. Goldin argues that to alleviate the disproportionate suffering experienced by young and elderly age groups during the pandemic, policymakers should increase targeting of social-protection measures, facilitate private-sector investment in education and training, invest in improving digital services and infrastructure, ensure access to financial services, and collect age-disaggregated data on economic and COVID-related indicators.

Implemented policies

Although low-, middle- and high-income countries all introduced direct payments, food assistance, and other types of social protection programs, they targeted all age categories equally, without factoring in the heavier toll the pandemic had on young and elderly citizens. These two age groups also lacked access to government demand-side relief through the private sector. Measures to improve digital infrastructure and implement digital skills training programs have proven more successful.

Suggested improvements

Moving forward, the targeting of policy interventions should ensure that young and elderly age groups benefit from social protection measures. Policymakers should incentivize the private sector to invest in the training and reskilling of its own employees and to participate in systems preparing future workers. They should also make general and targeted interventions to improve digital affordability and access for young people and computer literacy for the elderly.

Another area of improvement is access to financial services and credit, which can be useful for older people who are more likely to be owning small businesses. Targeted programs can also help young people who might be less knowledgeable about special lending relief. Finally, it is important to increase rigorous research and make available age-disaggregated data on economic and COVID-related indicators.

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The region’s demography and its implications by 2045

The Western Sahel—a region stretching from Senegal and Mauritania to Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Chad, and including the twelve sharia law states of northern Nigeria—is in a demographic impasse. Rather than yielding an economic dividend, the conditions spawned by the region’s persistently youthful, rapidly growing, high-fertility populations overwhelm the capabilities of state-run services, generate extensive urban slum conditions, slow if not stall economic and social progress, and aggravate ethnic tensions. Decades of exposure to these mutually reinforcing conditions have undermined the legitimacy of central governments and rendered the region’s states vulnerable to the spread of Islamic populism and regime instability.

Due to the growth momentum of their youthful age structures, from now through the 2040-to-2045 period (the time horizon of this study), the region’s states will be driven to respond to the urgent needs to build infrastructure, increase agricultural productivity, maintain security, and generate jobs in their attempt to employ and politically pacify young-adult cohorts of unprecedented size who, each year, vie to enter the already underemployed Sahelian workforce. Yet these well-intentioned development efforts can never be sufficient unless the region’s governments prioritize policies and programs that address a key underlying impediment to development: sustained high fertility.

To work their way out of this dilemma, Sahelian governments must shift a significant part of their development focus and funding to policies and programs aimed at preventing adolescent marriages and childbearing, promoting girls’ education, securing women’s participation in public- and private-sector workplaces, and achieving small, healthy, well-educated families. However, the region’s persistent jihadist insurgency raises questions as to how far women-centered programs can be safely and successfully extended beyond the edges of the Western Sahel’s inland cities. Absent serious progress on these coupled crises, policy makers in the EU, the United States, and their non-European allies may eventually disengage (as they already have from Somalia today), concluding that containing the Western Sahel’s jihadist insurgency and out-migration at the region’s frontiers is a more viable option than continued development assistance.

Adjoining discussion paper: Regional policy and program perspectives

To gain further insights and cover policy and program issues that extend beyond the authors’ expertise, the Atlantic Council’s Foresight, Strategy, and Risk Initiative commissioned Organizing to Advance Solutions in the Sahel (OASIS), a reproductive health policy organization based in Berkeley, California, to convene a series of consultative discussions among West African public health and education professionals. These professionals discussed the merits of current policy and programmatic approaches in the Sahelian states, identified the major obstacles encountered, and recommended areas for additional effort and investment. A synopsis of these consultations appear in the OASIS discussion paper titled “Accelerating a Demographic Transition”. An additional analysis of international assistance to the Sahel for reproductive health and girls’ education is available in an accompanying OASIS brief. Several of their key points are discussed and cited in this report.

Key findings

Age structure and the demographic window. As a group, the Western Sahelian countries remain among the world’s most youthful populations. Moreover, within the 20-to-25-year period of this report, none of the Western Sahelian countries are projected by the United Nations (UN) Population Division’s medium-fertility projection to reach the demographic window, namely a period of socioeconomically and fiscally favorable age structures (the so-called demographic dividend). Over the past seventy years, it has been within this window—beginning at a median age of around 25 or 26 years—that countries generally have reached upper-middle levels of development (e.g., the World Bank’s upper-middle income category and associated levels of educational attainment and child survival). Notably, Mauritania and Senegal will approach this demographic window by 2045 in the current UN’s low-fertility projection—the most optimistic scenario in the Population Division’s standard series.

Population growth. UN demographers estimate that the overall population of the six states of the Western Sahel has grown from nearly 21 million inhabitants in 1960 to about 103 million in 2020—an almost five-fold increase over sixty years. For the twelve states of northern Nigeria, the authors’ modeled estimates suggest that the population trajectory has been comparably steep, reaching nearly 78 million in 2020. Those sources expect the combined populations of the six Western Sahelian countries and northern Nigeria to grow from today’s estimate of about 181 million to somewhere between a projected high, in 2045, of about 415 million, and a projected low of about 370 million people. Much of this growth is produced by age-structural momentum, a largely unavoidable consequence of the region’s extremely youthful age distribution.

Fertility decline. The region’s total fertility rates currently range between about 4.6 children per woman in Senegal and Mauritania, to pretransition rates—above 6.5 children per woman—in Niger and the twelve sharia law states of northern Nigeria. Throughout the Western Sahel, rates of adolescent childbearing remain extremely high, and ideal family size generally equals or exceeds realized fertility. Even in the recent past—up to and including the UN’s 2010 data series—the Population Division’s medium-fertility projections for the countries of the Western Sahel have proved overly optimistic. Yet, recent local surveys in the region indicate that the current version of its medium-fertility projection is not out of reach. That scenario assumes that, between 2040 and 2045, fertility will decline to between 3.4 and 4.0 children per woman in most of the Western Sahel’s states, and near 4.7 in Niger. Significant differences in modern contraceptive use and patterns of childbearing are already evident between rural women and more educated urban women, but the differences are not yet as pronounced as in East or southern Africa, where fertility decline is proceeding at a faster pace.

Maternal and child health, as well as girls’ education. Whereas childhood mortality has steadily declined in the Western Sahel, still one in ten children die before the age of five in Mali and Chad. Recent World Health Organization (WHO) estimates indicate that in Niger and Chad, more than 40 percent of children below age five exhibit stunting. According to the WHO, Chad’s maternal mortality rate is the world’s second highest, while Mauritania, Mali, and Niger are also among the twenty countries in which pregnancy and childbirth are the most dangerous. In Chad and Niger, just one in five eligible girls are enrolled in secondary school, and net secondary enrollment has yet to rise above 40 percent elsewhere in the region. Adolescent marriages remain the region’s most serious deterrent to increasing girls’ educational attainment.

Women’s autonomy and rights. Despite the advice of regional health professionals and the criticisms of UN agencies, successive governments have, so far, done little to enforce already existing laws that would reduce adolescent marriages, eliminate female genital cutting, protect women from forced marriages, restrict polygamy, and give women inheritance rights and custody of their own children in case of marital separation or widowhood. While women’s advocates see these as key to a shift in preferences to smaller, healthier, and better-educated families, current Sahelian political leadership fears political blowback. High levels of organized resistance—such as the large demonstrations by Islamic organizations in Mali, in 2009, that turned back women’s rights—have convinced some development professionals that for several states in the Western Sahel, the only route to change currently available may be through intensive investments in girls’ education and financial support for women’s health care networks, as well as progressive legal, professional, educational, and cooperative societies.

Farming. Despite rising temperatures and the recent slowdown of cropland expansion, the growth of grain production has, since 1990, exceeded the pace of the region’s roughly three percent per year rate of population growth. However, due to erratic harvests on mar- ginally productive croplands, armed conflict, and the presence of displaced populations, the region’s states are regular recipients of substantial food aid. Whereas ground-water irrigation is likely to become a more important input in the future, the combined effects of future population growth, continued climatic warming, persistent insurgency, and periodic drought in the Western Sahel make food self-sufficiency highly unlikely in the foreseeable future.

Pastoralism. After three decades of relatively steady increases in rainfall in parts of the region, livestock numbers (adjusted for species body-size differences) have grown significantly since the 1990s. Yet the most productive pastoral rangelands, put under the plow by growing populations of dryland farmers, have dwindled in surface area. Meanwhile, the numbers of grazing-rights holders have proliferated and vegetation on the remaining rangelands have dramatically deteriorated in form and forage quality, precipitating shifts from cattle to sheep and goats. Across the Sahel, agro-ecologists have noted the emergence of what they call neopastoral production systems that feature wealthy absentee owners of large herds, the proliferation of light but sophisticated weaponry, and a growing impoverished and politically marginalized pastoral underclass that is increasingly vulnerable to radicalization.

Security. The region is in the throes of rapidly growing Islamic insurgencies. Whereas demographic models of persistent non-territorial (revolutionary) conflict predict substantial declines in the risk of such conflict during the demographic window, none of the region’s states are currently projected by the UN Population Division to reach that window during the period of this report. Thus, the authors’ models suggest that ongoing conflicts in Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad, and northern Nigeria are statistically likely to continue, at some level, through the 2040-2045 period. Unlike the Marxist-inspired insurgencies that ignited across Southeast Asia and Latin America during the second half of the twentieth century, the jihadist presence in the rural portions of the Western Sahel restricts the educational progress of women, their autonomy, and delivery of the family planning services that could facilitate fertility decline and improve reproductive health and nutrition.

Urbanization. The rapidly growing urban population of the six countries of the Western Sahel currently comprises about one-third of the region’s population and is projected to approach half by 2045. Despite laudable investments in housing that have dramatically reduced the proportion of slum dwellers in the urban population in several states, these efforts have been outpaced by rapid urban growth. Consequently, the region’s slum-resident population has nearly doubled since 1990. As income-generating opportunities evaporate in the agricultural and livestock sectors, the hopes of young men will rest on the urban job market and the educational opportunities that make them fit for employment. Yet employment in the formal sector of the economy will remain elusive throughout the region, and rapid urbanization is bound to present new housing, fresh water, energy, health, sanitation, and security challenges. Still, if governments and donors heavily invest, urban transformation could stimulate transitions to greater female autonomy and smaller, better educated, more well-nourished families with skills and prospects for urban employment in the region.

Migration. Between 1990 and 2015, more than 80 percent of migrant flows that originated in the six Western Sahelian countries ended beyond the region’s borders. During this period, slightly more than 60 percent of the net outward flows were added to populations in other African countries, whereas nearly 40 percent were added to populations in Europe, North America, and destinations elsewhere. Senegal and Nigeria in particular, represent significant migrant gateways to Europe and North America. This analysis does not even account for substantial refugee flows during the 2015-2020 period, which are associated with escalating conflict in the Lake Chad Basin, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali. For young Sahelians surviving on marginal rural livelihoods and in urban slums, episodic drought, looming conflict, and sustained economic hardship represent weighty “push factors” that readily tip personal decision-making toward migration. In this arid and poorly developed part of the world, the region’s population size is clearly important. It adds to the ranks of those in marginal livelihoods who might be pressured to leave during episodic disasters and seek greater opportunities elsewhere, while creating few “pull factors” encouraging potential migrants to stay.

Models of demographic progress

The report also highlights the pathways taken by three countries that politically, programmatically, and without coercion, facilitated relatively rapid fertility transitions and age-structural transformations: Tunisia, Botswana, and Bangladesh. While these states differ geographically, culturally, and economically from the Western Sahelian states, their demographic starting points were similar. Initially, each experienced a broadly pyramidal profile with a median age under twenty years and, in each, the total fertility rate was estimated at between six and seven children per woman. To these, the paper adds a discussion of ongoing programmatic efforts that are influencing the patterns of reproduction in Ethiopia, Malawi, and Rwanda.

Tunisia. This North African country’s rapid journey out of the age-structural transition’s youthful phase was the product of the vision and leadership of Habib Bourguiba, the country’s first president. His Neo-Destour political party legislated a package of pro-women reforms, including laws that compelled parents to send their daughters to school, raised the legal age of marriage, prohibited polygamy, gave women full inheritance rights, made divorce a judicial process, provided decentralized centers of voluntary family planning, mandated that women could work outside the home, opposed the veil, and curtailed the power of local imams.

Botswana. From its inception, professional care and affordability have been key elements of this country’s reproductive health effort. Family planning services, provided free of charge since 1970, were directly integrated into maternal and child health care at all local primary health facilities. Moreover, the country is one of the few in the sub-Saharan region where girls’ secondary-school enrollment rates—now above 90 percent—exceed boys’ rates. While Botswana shared the initial challenge of high rates of adolescent pregnancy and early marriage with Sahelian countries, its history of effective governance and wise use of mineral rents sets Botswana apart from most countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

Bangladesh. This country’s remarkable demographic turnaround was brought about by a dedicated health administration that mobilized tens of thousands of community-based health workers and volunteers, teamed up with a local non-governmental organization called Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), and used an infusion of health commodities and funds from foreign donors. Begun in 1975, Bangladesh’s successful donor-funded approach and its country-wide public-health communications program helped trigger demand for other long-term contraception methods (e.g., injectables and implants), countrywide expansion of the village worker program, and formalization of Bangladesh’s public health supply chain.

Programs in East Africa. Applying lessons learned from Asia and Latin America, reproductive health programs in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, and Rwanda have attained strong support from national leaders, achieved high public profiles, and obtained strong financial commitments from foreign donors. Over the past three decades, greater attention to girls’ educational attainment, organized efforts to augment women’s reproductive rights and increase political participation, and effective public health communications have improved the effectiveness of donor-funded programs for maternal and child health as well as family planning. Significant service delivery and contraceptive acceptance challenges remain in each of these eastern African countries, including high contraceptive-discontinuation rates, and wide gaps in contraceptive use between the lowest-income households and wealthier, urban families.

Scenarios

In situations of crisis and uncertainty, scenarios help reduce the scope of options and unveil poorly visible possibilities that could, in the future, catch policy makers unaware. These fictitious futures allow analysts to depart from the most obvious event trajectories and explore other possibilities without having to imagine discontinuities or explain complex chains of events that, throughout history, have led to surprises. For the sake of didactic brevity, we present the following three scenarios under the guise of news dispatches, which shine a light on the situation in the Western Sahel in the early 2040s.

“More of the Same.” In an interregional summit, held in 2043, the European Union (EU) and an organization of Sahelian states agree to a fourth five-year multilateral Migration Convention. The agreement limits and controls the flow of migrants from and through the Sahel in return for a generous increase in the EU’s regional aid package. Girls’ school enrollments continue to rise in the region, and modern contraceptive use increases slowly, spreading from the burgeoning urban areas into smaller cities and towns. However, governments make little serious effort to expand women’s rights or to perturb the patriarchal system that condones adolescent marriages and childbearing. Meanwhile, some Western Sahelian states have instituted cash income supplements for stay-at-home mothers, offering an alternative to women competing in the region’s crowded job market. Meanwhile, Sahelian states continue to pool military resources to contain jihadist groups that remain active across the rural Sahel.

“Breakthrough.” A summit of the expanded group known as G7/Sahel, held in 2043, opens with the rollout of a UN-sponsored report highlighting a reproductive turnaround in several member states in the region and outlines significant progress in others. A local representative of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) reports on the results of demographic and health surveys indicating that, in both Senegal and Burkina Faso, countrywide total fertility rates have fallen below three children per woman, and that Niger appears to be following on a similar path. Local surveys in several Sahelian cities provide evidence that fertility is near the two-child-per-woman replacement level and that maternal and childhood clinical caseloads as well as school class sizes have dramatically declined. Despite a slowdown in the region’s rate of population increase, ongoing growth due to momentum, increasing temperatures, periodic crop failures, and sporadic jihadist violence, grain imports and food aid remain critical elements of the food-security equation in the Sahel.

“Downward Spiral.” In a UN Security Council session convened in 2043, the Sahel’s special representative calls for international action to address a multifaceted crisis unfolding across the Western Sahel. He describes Somalia-like state failures and territorial infighting among warlords in Mali and Chad, and further outlines deteriorating security conditions across the Hausa-speaking regions of northern Nigeria and Niger, where loosely affiliated jihadist groups have proliferated and, in some cases, gained political control. He also notes that airfields in the Sahel have become the interregional hub for moving contraband, including human trafficking. In his report, the Sahel’s special representative calls the Security Council’s attention to Niger, currently in the throes of a famine on a scale that occurred in the latter half of the twentieth century. This time, Niamey, the capital, is faced with feeding a population nearing sixty million, rather than the 5.2 million of the mid-1970s. Senegal, the region’s only gateway for food aid and other humanitarian assistance, is also the jumping-off place for illegal migration to Europe.

Recommendations

For international aid donors, the report offers a general recommendation: Successful demographic turnarounds over the coming twenty to twenty-five years would feature at least one, and hopefully two, countrywide programmatic success stories, providing exemplars of best practices, a pool of local expertise, and models of community participation that might spread elsewhere. Senegal may be the best candidate to host such a model program. Another focused effort should be launched in an inland state—perhaps Burkina Faso, if its rural areas are pacified. In Niger, Mali, and Chad, the most effective interventions will likely be those that vastly improve urban services and expand a trained cadre of dedicated health workers to deploy in urban peripheries and refugee camps, where demands for education, family planning, and other reproductive services are typically high. In addition to the more general take-aways, the report’s specific recommendations are as follows:

Gain from urbanization. By 2045, nearly half of the region’s growing population is projected to live in urban areas. If services can be mobilized and funded, it will be in these urban centers that young Sahelians receive the vocational and professional education and attain the income-generating employment that could keep many of them from slipping into the illegal or extremist margins of their societies. It is imperative that girls’ education and voluntary family planning—along with other reproductive, maternal, and child health services—are also in place in these expanding cities and towns, and that women gain access to both the private- and public-sector workforce.

Ramp up girls’ education and family planning. Governments in the region should reinvigorate their commitments to increasing levels of girls’ educational attainment and, with the assistance of international donors, vastly increase levels of spending on family planning and other reproductive health services. States should elevate the administrative profile of family planning to a ministerial responsibility and augment its public profile through information campaigns. Education and health administrations should eliminate bureaucratic, traditional, and religious barriers to girls’ school attendance and facilitate easy and affordable access to family planning services for both married as well as single individuals. Methods of delivery that directly bring basic reproductive health services to people in their urban neighborhoods and rural homes—including village health workers and mobile clinics—may prove most effective in Sahelian conditions. At this stage of development, it would be helpful if Sahelian professional societies develop an online library of local success stories that cover girls’ education, family planning, as well as sexual and reproductive health.

Work with respected religious and political leaders, and other public figures; involve and inform men. Exposure to supportive messages from religious leaders who address questions of religious acceptability is generally associated with higher levels of modern contraceptive use. Moreover, recent studies indicate that local programs that inform and involve men and seek the support of local leaders may be the most likely to succeed in the Western Sahel. For decades, health communicators have worked with television and radio producers as well as entertainers, particularly those involved in popular daytime dramas (i.e., soap operas) and talk shows to impart public service messaging concerning maternal and child health, nutrition, HIV/AIDS, family planning, women’s rights, and sexual relationships.

Augment women’s rights. In the Western Sahel, much can be accomplished by protecting girls and women from multiple forms of discrimination and violence, and by expanding their rights in marriage. This effort begins by enforcing current national laws that already prohibit all forms of female genital cutting, that outlaw forced marriages, and prohibit marriage before the age of eighteen years. Once married, the region’s women should deserve the rights to initiate divorce, obtain recourse against violence, and secure custodianship over their children in case of marital separation, divorce, or the death of their spouse. Women should have the right to legal recourse and equal treatment in state-run family courts of law, rather than being limited to the judgments of religious and traditional courts, which have generally failed to protect women and children from physical, psychological, and economic harm. Where political resistance has rolled back legislative efforts to augment women’s rights (as it has been the case in Mali), government support and endorsement of women’s legal, professional, cooperative, and educational societies may offer alternative routes for many Sahelian women to achieve greater autonomy and attain leadership positions.

Bring services to marginalized minorities. Health and education ministries should ensure that significant programmatic efforts in girls’ education, voluntary family planning, and women’s rights be distributed, in some form, among marginalized minorities—no matter how geographically or culturally isolated these minorities might be. Prior experiences in other regions suggest that regional, socioeconomic, ethnic, or caste fertility disparities later develop into hard-to-overcome social and economic inequalities that generate political tensions and exacerbate animosities.

Promote women-centered efforts in all agricultural, economic, and infrastructural development projects. All government, private, and donor-supported projects should contain components that facilitate extending girls’ educational attainment and/or quality of education, improve access to reproductive health services, and promote women’s rights and their economic autonomy. No donor-supported project should facilitate the efforts of governments, political parties, or traditional and religious leaders to impede women’s progress in any sector of development.

Manage resource-related tensions between farming and pastoralism. In a more-populous Western Sahel, the future of agricultural and pastoral livelihoods will depend on the development of groundwater irrigation and intensified agropastoralism (a more deliberate integration of agricultural and grazing uses of land), as well as their relation to urban markets. In this more-populous future, the region’s governments should consider enforcing schemes that restrict absentee rangeland users, protect rangelands from further agricultural encroachment, and help pastoralists deter cattle rustling. Meanwhile, governments in the Western Sahel should continue to develop industries that add value to agricultural and livestock products, promote cooperation between farmers and pastoralists, and develop more efficient transport to urban markets.

Protect development gains with investments in local security. In an environment of rapidly spreading jihadist conflict, geographic pockets of progressive local leadership and popular support for girls’ education and other women-centered programs could become primary targets of militants. Affected communities and their leaders deserve special protection provided by police or anti-terrorist units.

Watch the official launch event

Public Event Tue, March 22, 2022 • 11:30 am ET

Report launch | Demographic trends in the Western Sahel

Official launch event of the Scowcroft Center report, “What Future for the Western Sahel? The Region’s Demography and Its Implications by 2045,” in which the authors argue that unless the Sahelian states focus on reversing the underlying conditions that sustain high fertility, they are unlikely to dislodge the mutually reinforcing crises of instability, forced migration, and food insecurity in the foreseeable future.

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Report

Mar 7, 2022

Quel avenir pour le Sahel?

By Richard Cincotta and Stephen Smith

Le Sahel est dans une impasse démographique. S’ils veulent sortir de l’impasse actuelle, les gouvernements sahéliens devront réorienter une partie importante de leurs efforts de développement et moyens financiers vers des politiques et programmes visant à améliorer la condition féminine : en prévenant les mariages et grossesses précoces chez les adolescentes, en promouvant l’éducation des filles et en garantissant la pleine participation des femmes dans tous les secteurs publics et privés, à commencer par les lieux de travail.

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The Foresight, Strategy, and Risks Initiative (FSR) provides actionable foresight and innovative strategies to a global community of policymakers, business leaders, and citizens. 

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I was born sixteen years ago in independent Ukraine. While I have spent the past few years studying in the United States, I remain involved in student activism on both sides of the Atlantic. My experience as a student activist in Ukraine and the US has been instructive. I have found that everything in the world of activism is more challenging in Ukraine. Grassroots movements are far scarcer, while people are generally more distrusting of each other and less willing to take responsibility for their communities.

This led me to wonder how Ukraine’s history has helped create these obstacles to greater social engagement, and how they might be overcome. I have come to the conclusion that many of contemporary Ukrainian society’s difficulties with effective self-governance and grassroots mobilization are directly linked to the country’s deeply entrenched postcolonial and totalitarian traumas.

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For hundreds of years, Ukraine’s brightest consistently left their homeland, whether by choice or by force, to build careers in the colonial capitals of St. Petersburg, Moscow, Warsaw, or Vienna. While foreign rule prevented Ukraine from developing its own traditions of statehood and national institutions, the steady outflow of talented young Ukrainians robbed the country of its natural elite.

Centuries of colonialism in Ukraine meant that all of the key decisions in the national discourse took place in faraway capitals. As a result of this reality, Ukrainian society had few opportunities to become experienced in genuine self-governance beyond the immediate boundaries of extended families.

In most cases, foreign rule meant that even local administrative bodies tended to prioritize the interests of the colonial power, leading to relationships that were primarily exploitative in nature. In this confrontational environment, Ukrainians grew used to the idea of being in default opposition to the authorities.

Ukraine’s ordeal at the epicenter of the totalitarian twentieth century did much to exacerbate the problems created by the country’s colonial experience. Due to a series of catastrophes including the genocidal artificial famine of the 1930s, the horrors of Nazi occupation during WWII, years of Stalinist Terror, and the massive displacement and resettlement of entire communities by the Soviet authorities, Ukrainians learned to survive by avoiding any interaction with the state. Trust within Ukrainian society plummeted as ordinary people became too fearful to confide on others.

Ukraine’s Soviet experience gave rise to the idea that the government represents the main threat to well-being and security. In turn, this helped to suppress the emergence of any grassroots movements in the country. Ukrainians were forced to learn that “initiative is punishable,” while maintaining a low profile is necessary in order to survive. In this toxic environment, dubious qualities such as mistrust, suspicion, and passivity became essential tools to safeguard personal security. This has had a profoundly negative impact on Ukrainian society that has hampered Ukraine’s nation-building efforts since 1991.

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While it is impossible to ignore the reality of Ukraine’s colonial and totalitarian traumas, there is no reason why this painful legacy should continue to prevent the country from reaching its full potential.

The older generation of Ukrainians who reached adulthood during the first thirty years of independence has already done much to help Ukraine heal. However, there is still a tendency to look backwards rather than turning towards the future. This keeps modern Ukrainian society hostage to the country’s troubled past and means that we as a nation are still often overwhelmed by inherited trauma. As Ukraine enters its fourth decade as an independent country, it is time for change.

More than 13 million Ukrainians have been born since the collapse of the Soviet Union. As one of these children of independent Ukraine, I have no desire to focus my energies on issues rooted in the imperial or totalitarian past. Instead, the emerging generation of independent Ukrainians must dream big to build a better Ukraine. We must be ready to take the future of Ukraine in our own hands and decide the country’s direction without any outside interference.

The transition towards an open society shaped by the principles of democracy, multiculturalism, and economic liberalism is already well underway in today’s Ukraine and can no longer realistically be reversed. However, these values have yet to decisively overcome the current corrupt consensus, with its emphasis on passivity and survival that is so deeply rooted in the past. This is the task facing the young generation of Ukrainians, my generation.

It has been said that transformation and modernization in a democracy is like riding a bike. The key is to make sure you keep pedaling constantly. I agree wholeheartedly with this comparison. As young Ukrainians, we must engage in social activism on a daily basis in order to help educate and influence both younger and older generations. This is the most effective way to build the kind of future we want for the country we love.

Sonya Rashkovan is a member of student government in Montgomery County, USA. She is the founder of the PUSH youth NGO in Ukraine.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Jul 7, 2021

Escape from empire: Ukraine’s post-Soviet national awakening

By Taras Kuzio

The evolution of Ukrainian national identity since 1991 has had repercussions far beyond Ukraine’s borders that have transformed the geopolitical climate and plunged the world into a new Cold War.

Conflict Education

UkraineAlert Nov 22, 2020

How Ukraine’s Orange Revolution shaped twenty-first century geopolitics

By Peter Dickinson

Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution is often overlooked but it is worthy of more attention as one of the great geopolitical turning points of the early twenty-first century that set the stage for today’s Cold War climate.

Conflict Democratic Transitions

UkraineAlert Aug 16, 2021

Afghanistan collapse sparks wave of alarm in Ukraine

By Alyona Getmanchuk

The complete collapse of the US-backed Afghan government in recent weeks has sparked alarm in Ukraine and led to questions over the future of the country’s own strategic partnership with America.

Afghanistan Conflict

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

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The post Young Ukrainians must not remain hostages to the country’s totalitarian trauma appeared first on Atlantic Council.

So in place of the policy analyses we typically feature in New Atlanticist, below are some summer reading suggestions from us for the beach, mountains, or backyard. Given these uncertain times, some are thoughts about the future—scenarios, predictions, utopias, and dystopias. Others involve inspirations, big ideas about the world, and the nature of our world today and how we got here.  

The links are to the site Bookshop.org, which offers you the possibility of supporting local bookstores in the United States or United Kingdom, even by shopping online. Many will also be available in bookstores internationally.

BIG IDEAS: Fuel for the mind

Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I am fascinated by any discussion about how our world endures when faced with disorder and challenges, particularly systems that actually gain from disorder. (Arun Iyer) 

Anthro-Vision by Gillian Tett. This is such a cool book. Written by an anthropologist who started her career doing fieldwork in Central Asia—and who later became a journalist with the Financial Times—it will help you see the world in very new ways. (Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili) 

Extremism by J.M. Berger. A really great, easy read on what drives people to adopt (and act on) beliefs, whether religious, political, or otherwise, that the mainstream would view as extremist. (Jennifer Counter) 

Factfulness by Hans Rosling. This book is full of interesting facts that contradict our view of the world and allow us to see things more clearly. (Amjad Ahmad) 

The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups by William J. Bernstein. Read this book to understand the craziness of our present predicament. A psychological assessment of end-times delusions from misinterpreted Biblical prophecies to financial contagions and their similarities. (Robert Manning) 

Think Again by Adam Grant. A book for everyone! “Discover the critical art of rethinking: how questioning your opinions can position you for excellence at work and wisdom in life.” (Defne Arslan) 

First Principles: What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country by Thomas Ricks. The January 6 Capitol riot was eerily similar to the conspiracy that foreshadowed the fall of Rome. This book compelled us to understand the Greek and Roman principles that influenced the founders of the United States, as well as how renewing them can help us find our way through dark times. (The Cyber Statecraft Initiative team).  

The World America Made by Robert Kagan. This slim volume can be read in a single day at the beach—and it reportedly had a major effect on then US President Barack Obama’s thinking when it was first published in 2012. Kagan’s historical analysis and insights are as timely as ever. On balance, US global engagement has been a force for good in international affairs over the past seventy-five years. Washington must continue to lead on the world stage or else other hostile actors, such as Russia and China, will fill the power vacuum—with potentially disastrous consequences. (Matthew Kroenig) 

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. I recommend this one in audiobook form. Narrated by the author, whose voice is super soothing, it brings a different perspective to our relationship with nature and other human beings. (Adriana Lacerda) 

THE FUTURE IS HERE: What happens next?

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. I loved this book because it envisions a future that changes our conception of what it means to be a human on Earth; because of its innate optimism about the power of science; and because it was just an awesome, breezy, and extremely interesting and enthralling read. (Barry Pavel)  

As I wait for seats on Blue Origin, SpaceX, and Virgin Galactic rocket ships to be available for the masses, I read this (and everything else by Weir) because his science is mostly solid and his characters make me laugh. (Stefanie H. Ali) 

Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam. A family goes on a Hamptons vacation. One day, the rented house’s owners knock on the door and say there’s been a disaster in Manhattan and that they have to hunker down together. This book promises to be a window into how people survive in lockdowns and cling to ideas of normalcy—sound familiar? (Katherine Walla) 

Novacene: The Coming Age of Hyperintelligence by James Lovelock with Bryan Appleyard. Sweeping and far-seeing, I loved this book by the brilliant James Lovelock because it posits the end of the current Anthropocene era in which humans are the dominant actors on earth and suggests that the next era will be dominated by artificial intelligence… which will save the planet. (Barry Pavel) 

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi. I truly believe Emezi is one of the most revolutionary writers of this decade: Through Pet, they imagine a world in which trans kids are given the care and respect they deserve, structural change has been made, and justice leads to true reconciliation. It reminds readers that if we don’t take time to remember, teach new generations, and make the consistent choice to be better, we won’t be able to keep moving forward. (Alyssa Harvie) 

Severance by Ling Ma. A young woman navigates a nearly apocalyptic world post-pandemic. Hilarious but also terrifying. It was an A+ read last summer, when COVID-19 seemed like a short-term thing. (Katherine Walla) 

The End of October by Lawrence Wright. I loved this book because it foretells what a global pandemic might do to the modern world if one befell us… before COVID-19 came on the scene. (Barry Pavel) 

The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. It’s both science-fiction—a scary projection of what the devastating effects of climate change could be—and a guide to policy—explaining ways mankind might be able to collaborate in order to avoid the worst-case scenario. (Sandy Vershbow) 

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu. It’s a Chinese sci-fi masterpiece on how the world gets ready for an encounter of the third kind. (Ben Haddad) 

This is How They Tell Me the World Ends by Nicole Perlroth. Nicole, one of the New York Times’s leads on cyber, writes about cyber leaks and attacks, and her book could not be better timed as our world is beset by malicious hacks and ransomware strikes seemingly every week. (Brian O’Toole) 

Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino. Tolentino tackles the illusions and self-delusions we have constructed to continue existing in a social and political state that is as fundamentally backwards as it is mandatory. Her writing speaks to the fundamental conflicts present in our modernity and gives voice to the restlessness it can inspire. (Jared Holt, also recommended by Andrea Snyder) 

In Harm’s Way by John Cleveland and Peter Plastrik. “There are seven capacities that communities need to develop so they can undertake effective preparation for climate change,” the authors write. This book lays out those seven. (Andrea Snyder) 

INSPIRATION: Lives, words, and stories to give you uplift

All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis, edited by Katharine K. Wilkinson and Ayana Elizabeth Johnson.  The collection of poems, art, and essays sets out to highlight a wide range of women’s voices in the environmental and climate movement. It is a contemporary representation, and it’s beyond the way we wonks think about climate. (Kathy Baughman McLeod) 

The Truths We Hold by Kamala Harris. I’ve chosen to read it because I love autobiographies and have long held a sneaking suspicion that she and I have many things in common and am reading to confirm my hunch! I find her personal and professional life interesting and want to learn how she ascended to her former role as US senator from California. (Clintandra Thompson) 

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman. This one was on my to-read list for a long time. It is a terrific book, very timely for the years we are living in. The author talks about anxiety and personal struggle with a raw truth to it, and yet it is still comical! Highly recommended. (Fernanda Meirelles) 

Here, Right Matters: An American Story by Alexander S. Vindman. As the child of a father who fled the Soviet Union in pursuit of a better life for his family, Vindman was raised with the values I believe make America special and resonate with so many of us, and I’m excited to read his tale of moral courage and determination in a unique moment in history. (Shelby Magid) 

His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope by Jon Meacham. The gripping story of how a poor Alabama sharecropper’s son helped change America. (Stephen Grand) 

The Mayor of Castro Street by Randy Shilts. This is the most complete and informative book detailing the LGBTQI civil-rights movement during the second half of the twentieth century, with a specific focus on the life, career, and murder of Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay people elected to political office in the United States. (Zachary Strauss) 

Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson. Just enlightening—after reading it, I became much more understanding, patient, and tolerant with people who have different points of view than my own. I consider this essential for those of us working on diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice. I think every person in the world should read this book. (That’s how much I liked it!) (Adriana Lacerda) 

Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World. The editor, Zahra Hankir, also teamed up with MENASource to publish a photo essay capturing the explosion in Beirut. (Samantha Treiman) 

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Janet Mills and Don Miguel Ruiz. This continues to be a great code-of-conduct guide and is as relevant today as it was when first released. With all of life’s changes that we’ve been experiencing, this book has helped keep me grounded and focused on being impeccable with my own words, not take things personally, not make assumptions, and to always do my best. (Kadiatou Cesaire) 

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I like her take on different issues, this time on being feminist. (Tigest “Tea” Frew) 

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson. Comic strip classic. Has there ever been a more inspiring couple? (Stephanie Wander) 

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott. I picked up this book to learn how to write short stories. (Tigest “Tea” Frew) 

The Wild Muir by Lee Stetson. Twenty-two of famed conservationist John Muir’s greatest adventures. For the mountains of California. (Stephanie Wander) 

CLASSICS: Great works that have stood the test of time

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. One of those weird family stories, this book starts slow—and then you can’t put it down. It might be my favorite fiction book ever. (Adriana Lacerda)

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. All-around great fiction read. (Stephanie Wander)

David Copperfield, performed by Richard Armitage. He is really exceptional. (Richard LeBaron)

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. I first read this book five years ago—after randomly picking it up at a book hotel exchange—and it has remained one of my favorites ever since. It contains masterful storytelling that reads like poetry. (Jessica Dabrowski)

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. One of the very best twentieth-century American novels. I think it’s Ellison’s greatest work. (John Herbst)

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. A rare anti-war classic that manages to be both funny and serious, Vonnegut’s pseudo-science-fiction masterpiece tells a gripping story with equal helpings of knee-slapping comedy and deep moral statements. (The Cyber Statecraft Initiative team)

MYSTERY, MURDER, AND HORROR: How does it end?

Bunny by Mona Awad. This book is funny—and horrifying. A graduate student encounters a clique of girls at her program who eerily call each other Bunny. They invite her to join the group, which turns out to be much more than a social gathering… (Katherine Walla)

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. What can we say? Real life got too scary last summer—so this classic horror novel was an unexpected reprieve! (The Cyber Statecraft Initiative team)

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides. His debut book was unbelievably good. I’m a huge fan of murder mysteries—not the stories where one can guess the murderer in the book’s first half. I’m excited to read the second book. (Fernanda Meirelles)

Perfidia by James Ellroy. When a violent murder on the eve of the attack on Pearl Harbor rouses the suspicion of the Los Angeles Police Department, detectives work their own angles to profit off the coming war, get back at their enemies, and influence the coming internment of Japanese-Americans and the hunt for “fifth column” traitors in LA. (Doug Klain)

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. This engrossing novel follows several generations of historians as they chase down the legend—and the truth—behind Vlad Dracula, from the monasteries of Hungary to the archives of Istanbul and the libraries of Oxford. We have never read another book that communicated so clearly how it feels to sink completely into another place and another time, as well as how stories, both fictional and real, can reach out and hold fast. (The Cyber Statecraft Initiative team)

High Treason: A Novel by Sean McFate. “McFate just might be the next Tom Clancy, only I think he’s even better,” said James Patterson (Sean McFate)

THE PAST AS PROLOGUE: What went before

Parting the Waters by Taylor Branch. This history of Martin Luther King, Jr. is so accessibly written that it can be read from a beach chair. (Stephanie Wander)

The Deviant’s War by Eric Cervini. This book details the often-ignored history of US government discrimination against LGBTQI people in federal employment, known more commonly as the “Lavender Scare”—an over-fifty-year, multimillion-dollar campaign to root out queer people from federal jobs and d silence those who resisted. (Zachary Strauss)

Nuclear Folly by Serhii Plokhi. This book adds scary granularity to the Cuban Missile Crisis with new documents from Ukrainian and Russian archives. It’s incredible how much we’ve already forgotten when it comes to lessons from the Cold War. (Robert Manning)

A Train of Powder by Rebecca West. An all-time favorite, this is something I turned to again last summer amid the racial justice protests—and is even more apt now given the ongoing rise of authoritarianism and anti-Semitism Her commentary on Nuremberg is stunning, as are her insights about the other trials she covers. (Chris Skaluba)

de Gaulle by Julian Jackson. A fantastic biography of the leader of the French Resistance. Very readable and a good introduction to modern French politics. (Ben Haddad)

Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight. This biography provides a glimpse at the other side of America’s moral arch. (Daniel Fried)

The Third Reich Trilogy by Richard J. Evans. This one is a bit odd to recommend, given the topic, but it’s a very readable account of what happened after Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany. (Iain Robertson)

Plunder by Menachem Kaiser. A wild non-fiction memoir by an American Jewish grandson of Polish Holocaust survivors as he looked to reclaim the house his family owned before the war. This book weaves hilarious tales of Kafkaesque bureaucracy, poignant reflections on intergenerational trauma, and includes an unexpected treasure hunt to boot. I read this book when visiting my wife’s family in Hungary—where my grandparents narrowly survived the Holocaust—and it was particularly moving for me to compare notes with the author vis-à-vis his family’s parallel experience of collecting the shards of memory across space and time. (Jonah Fisher)

Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe. It’s non-fiction written with the flair and pace of a novel. Keefe explores the Troubles and their tangled aftermath, the consequences of war, and how capturing history can still shape the present day. It’s a remarkable story that, as someone of Irish descent, I’m embarrassed I didn’t know more about. (Daniel Malloy)

The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance by Rashid Khalidi. The recent events in occupied East Jerusalem neighborhoods reinforced the need for me to understand the historical context of the attempts to displace Palestinians from their homes. I found this sobering primer from a Palestinian-American academic a necessary addition to my summer reading list. (Tuqa Nusairat)

The Origin of Russian Communism by Nikolay Berdayaev. A superb, brief intellectual history of Russia. Still relevant, and relatively easy to read given the dense topic. (John Herbst)

The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant by Ulysses S. Grant, edited by John F. Marszalek. What a great book—Grant could easily have been an author. An honest, direct, and no-holds-barred account about his life from the Mexican War to the end of the Civil War, with some pretty pithy observations about the players and his mistakes and triumphs. (Ronald A. Marks III)

The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson. Couldn’t put it down. (Josh Lipsky)

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson. It follows people who were enslaved and their descendants as they took part in the Great Migration, an exodus of people from the American South to areas like California, Chicago, and the Northeast. A serious and emotional read, it is also an important one and provides context to discrimination and violence in the United States. (Katherine Walla)

THE PAST AS FICTION: How things might have been

The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer. Now a major motion picture, A Normal Heart is a stunning piece of work that details the HIV/AIDS crisis as it unfolded in New York City during the first half of the 1980s. It also shines a light on the resilience of the LGBTQI community as it fought for its right to government aid and acknowledgement, medical treatment, their futures, and their lives. (Zachary Strauss)

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead. Based on events at a twentieth-century reformatory, this 2020 Pulitzer winner gives voice to generations of young men discarded by society and brutally abused in a corrupt justice system. The story is of another era but resonates still today. Whitehead’s reputation as one of the finest writers of our time is well-deserved. (Alex Kisling)

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett. I always have some fiction to read before bed, and the Vanishing Half got rave reviews for its writing and storytelling. I’m enjoying its take on what identity and family mean. (Rose Jackson)

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon. This quirky novel builds a counter-narrative to the creation of the State of Israel—one in which the Jewish state was not established in what was then the British Mandate for Palestine, but carved from one of the other options at the time: Alaska. It’s interesting to wonder what certain segments of the Jewish community may have done to assert themselves under those unlikely circumstances. (Zachary Strauss)

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell. Worth it for the three-minute chicken house scene! (Richard LeBaron)

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. A tour de force, especially in the audiobook, which is read by over one hundred narrators. In a class by itself and easier to follow (for me, at least) than the written version. (Richard LeBaron)

Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid. The entire concept of this book attracts me: historical fiction, the crazy 80s, Malibu celebrities, and family drama. What else could you want from summer reading? (Fernanda Meirelles)

The Art of Losing by Alice Zeniter, translated by Frank Wynne. A beautiful and recent novel about France’s reckoning with the legacy of the Algerian war through the three-generation story of a Harki family. (Ben Haddad)

The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen. If you miss Philip Roth, you’ll enjoy this funny and meaningful novel set in 1959 that describes what happens to a Jewish history professor when Benzion Netanyahu comes to his college in upstate New York to give a job talk, dragging his young family along for the visit. Amazingly, the novel was inspired by a real-life event when a young Harold Bloom hosted Bibi’s father at Cornell. (William Wechsler)

Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernieres. Published in 2004, the novel portrays the events in a small Turkish village named Eskibahçe (a fictional setting based on Kayaköy) near the end of the Ottoman Empire, the rise of Kemal Atatürk, and the outbreak of World War I. (Zeynep Wironen)

WHERE WE ARE NOW: Our world, good or ugly

The Perfect Weapon by David Sanger. This is a gripping sci-fi (though not so much) horror that had me quaking in my flip flops. (Jasper Gilardi)

Flights by Olga Tocarzcuk. translated by Jennifer Croft. After a year and a half being stuck at home, this brilliant read—by a Polish Nobel Prize-winner for literature—reminds us of why travel makes us human. (Ben Haddad)

An Ugly Truth by Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang. As we work to understand the impact of Big Tech on our world and society, this book is both about and part of the story. It’s written by two journalists who have spent a decade covering Facebook, and examines the big picture of why the often-maligned platform operates as it does. A must-read for anyone following tech policy and governance issues. (Rose Jackson)

Bad Blood by John Carreyrou. Elizabeth Holmes was celebrated as the star founder of revolutionary biotech startup Theranos and became a billionaire—but it was all a scam. (Amjad Ahmad)

“Pieces of Britney” podcast by the BBC. One of the things that keeps me sane as I work on the Middle East is pop culture. I must confess that I idolized Britney Spears as a teenager in Tehran. With those two things in mind, this podcast is key to better understanding Britney’s backstory, how circumstances got to this point, and what the #FreeBritney movement is all about. (Holly Dagres)

Billion Dollar Whale by Tom Wright and Bradley Hope. A true-life thriller of the fraud case around 1MDB, Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund, involving a young Wharton graduate, political figures, and Hollywood stars. (Amjad Ahmad)

How the World Is Passed by Clint Smith. Aside from being a friend of mine, Clint is a brilliant writer and poet—so the read is smooth and fascinating, even while dwelling on a heavy topic. Clint spent years touring and researching landmarks and monuments, looking at how slavery has shaped our nation’s past and present as well as what that means for our collective narrative. It’s a timely contribution to my own effort to understand my place in our society amid an ongoing reckoning. (Rose Jackson)

Pivot by Vox. A good listen for a decent, occasionally amusing look into issues in (mostly) the tech industry. (Iain Robertson)

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. Now a major motion picture, The Hate U Give dives deep into the experience of a young African American high school student after she watches a police officer murder her best friend during a traffic stop. This enlightening and insightful novel portrays these issues from the perspective of a young adult living between two worlds: her home life in Garden Heights, which is a segregated low-income Black community, and her high school, which is located in an affluent and exclusively white area. (Zachary Strauss)

Chinese Espionage Operations and Tactics by Nicholas Eftimiades. A very detailed analysis of how China conducts espionage operations, including methodologies, recruitment practices, and operational tradecraft. (Nicholas Eftimiades)

The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and The New Chinese State by Elizabeth Economy. An eminent China scholar looks at the transformative changes underway in China today. (Hans Hanley)

Between Two Fires: Truth, Ambition, and Compromise in Putin’s Russia by Joshua Yaffa. This new book provides complex, deep portraits of various figures that have lived through key moments in modern Russia, as well as how each has made their compromise with a harsh new reality in order to accomplish what they can. (Doug Klain)

The New Rules of War: How America Can Win—Against Russia, China, and Other Threats by Sean McFate. An Economist “Book of the Year” in 2019 and hailed as the “Freakonomics of war.” (Sean McFate)

Further reading

Blog Post May 12, 2021

Reading list: Central bank digital currencies

By Niels Graham

A comprehensive collection of the most relevant articles on central bank digital currencies.

China Digital Currencies

The future is here Apr 23, 2021

The post-COVID world this week: India’s ‘storm,’ a hike in post-pandemic carbon emissions, and the challenge that lies ahead for local bookstores

By Andrew R. Marshall

What can we expect from a post-COVID world after a pandemic that has reshaped international affairs? Bookstores attempting to achieve a small miracle: embrace digital while building physical community.

Coronavirus Politics & Diplomacy

New Atlanticist Mar 10, 2021

‘This is the best time in publishing ever,’ says Markus Dohle

By Larry Luxner

Books are now enjoying their biggest renaissance since Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in the fifteenth century, says the CEO of Penguin Random House, Markus Dohle.

Resilience Resilience & Society

The post Here’s what we’re reading this summer appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Afghan human rights defenders are among the bravest in the world. Despite being on the receiving end of threats, harassment, intimidation, violence, and assassinations, they continue to fight for the rights of Afghans. To complicate matters further, effective investigations into attacks and threats against activists–by both state and non-state actors–are rare, as perpetrators regularly evade justice and fuel a cycle of impunity.  

Additionally, since the US-Taliban agreement in February 2020, targeted assassinations have silenced activists, human rights defenders, educators, journalists, and others who speak the truth about atrocities being committed in Afghanistan. Despite these conditions, Afghanistan’s human rights defenders bravely continue their vital work, and as the full US and NATO troop withdrawal looms in September, their work is more important now than ever.

Join the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center for a discussion with some of Afghanistan’s leading human rights defenders and experts to explore what lies ahead for the activists who put their lives on the line to fight violence, impunity, and militancy.

Featuring

Horia Mosadiq
Afghan human rights activist, political analyst, and journalist

Samira Hamidi
South Asia Regional Campaigner
Amnesty International

Patricia Cooper
Founder
Women’s Regional Network

Khalil Raufi
Afghan human rights defender

Moderated by

Marika Theros
Nonresident senior fellow
Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center

The South Asia Center serves as the Atlantic Council’s focal point for work on the region as well as relations between these countries, neighboring regions, Europe, and the United States.

Learn more

Feature Apr 22, 2021

A transatlantic charter for peace and security in Afghanistan

By South Asia Center

The Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center presents the exclusive launch of the Transatlantic Charter on Afghanistan as part of the Strategic Dialogues on and with Afghanistan.

Afghanistan Europe & Eurasia

New Atlanticist Jun 29, 2020

A divided Taliban could unleash a new proxy war in Afghanistan

By Jared Schwartz and Yelena Biberman

The shift in the balance of power within the Taliban has the potential to upend Afghan security, India-Pakistan relations, and the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Afghanistan Conflict

SouthAsiaSource Feb 4, 2021

A house divided: Afghanistan neighbors’ power play and regional countries’ hedging strategies for peace

By Tamim Asey

Afghanistan is once again at a cross-roads facing an uncertain future. The United States, intent on ending its longest war, is hoping to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan with a timeline based on the US-Taliban agreement, now under review by the new Biden administration. Afghanistan’s neighbors, hedging their bets and securing their borders, are expecting that the ensuing chaos will help to ensure that their geopolitical interests are served via proxies or at least a friendly government in Kabul.

Afghanistan Conflict

The post On the frontline: Protecting Afghanistan’s human rights defenders appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The post Goldin quoted in Politico on World Youth Skills Day appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On June 11, 2021, the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center and the American Pakistan Foundation co-hosted author Mohsin Zaidi for a conversation on his new book, A Dutiful Boy: A memoir of a gay Muslim’s journey to acceptance, and the underlying issues it addresses relating to race, gender identity, social class, religious discrimination and more. The panelists included: Akbar Shahid Ahmed, Senior Foreign Affairs Reporter for the HuffPost; Maliha Khan, Director of the Muslims for Progressive Values (MPV) and Co-chair of the MPV Board of Trustees. Shuja Nawaz, Distinguished Fellow for the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, moderated the event. 

According to Zaidi, the inspiration behind “A Dutiful Boy: A memoir of a gay Muslim’s journey to acceptance” stems from two avenues, the television show Queer as Folk and feeling ashamed. The former sparked Zaidi’s self-realization of his identity as a gay Muslim, a moment of excitement quickly overshadowed by fear, desolation, and loneliness for the outsider status he felt, while regarding the latter, Zaidi notes the deep sense of shame associated with his newfound identity especially considering the author’s strict religious upbringing as a Shi’a Muslim that prohibits even using the term gay. Filled with conflicting emotions, Zaidi took three pilgrimages to Damascus throughout his childhood in hopes of curing himself, culminating in 11,000 prayers from the age of thirteen to fifteen asking for Allah to cure him. Zaidi’s novel is a testament of his experiences and what he hopes is a resource for those feeling alone. 

Building off the themes in Zaidi’s book, the conversation pivoted to social issues covering a range of topics, such as social class, debating the racial and religious identity within the Black Asian ethnic minority (BAME), the Black Lives Matter movement, and more. Take, for instance, the lack of attention to social issues faced by South Asians in Britain despite comprising the largest minority group, as opposed to the Black community’s experience. This is in part, Zaidi argues, because the “Black Lives Matter” movement is catalyzed by its platform and attention in the United States which has drawn widespread global attention, and which the South Asian community lacks and needs. Moreover, Zaidi states that “every conversation around race is not born equal” and argues there is an over preoccupation with the semantics of racial equality, rather than a focus on real issues deeply impacting livelihoods. Consequently, efforts to raise awareness and make progress are overshadowed by less impactful actions. 

Subsequently, Maliha Khan from Muslims for Progressive Values joined to discuss assimilation through the South Asian experience and how self-discovery in the United States as an immigrant manifests. Notably, challenges revolve around balancing the American culture with one’s home culture and requires the separation of cultural practices and religious values to navigate so. Following so, Akhbar Shahid Ahmed, Senior Foreign Affairs Reporter for HuffPost and a gay Muslim himself, asked what influences offered Zaidi guidance and how they helped lead to self-acceptance. The author elaborated that he sought comfort from his counselor, close friends, and later in life, through organizations such as the Inclusive Mosque Initiative and UK Black Pride, all of which fostered a sense of community and identity.

Following the panel discussion, Mr Nawaz welcomed former South Asia Center intern and American Pakistan Foundation fellow, Shariq Farooqi, also a queer Muslim advocate, who asked Zaidi how he builds communities among marginalized populations and navigates the developing landscape as more queer South Asians and Muslims share their stories, a support network that was absent when Zaidi himself came out. Zaidi noted that even though the journey started off alone, he was able to navigate against these issues through prevalent support from individuals in his life. 

For many Pakistani Americans, being raised in the United States is a constant challenge. As Khan mentioned, the balance of upholding the Pakistani cultural values and integration into the American culture is an overwhelming concept and any issues regarding gender identity, sexual orientation, and homosexuality are unspoken matters. Consequently, feelings of shame and guilt transpire queer individuals within the Pakistani community as many are disowned by their parents. There is a constant fear that Allah will not accept their sexuality, and internal battle of how it goes against the fundamentals of the Quran. Acceptance and recognition of the LGTBQ+ community by  Pakistani-Americans is a shortcoming, and must be addressed.

In the future, Zaidi hopes the next generation will share their stories, stand up against homophobia, and continue the work of his book. He hopes to see a progression in a Muslim ally network that supports the families of Queer communities with straight Muslims as allies who support LGBTQ+ rights. The conversation closed with James Baldwin’s quote, “Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

The South Asia Center serves as the Atlantic Council’s focal point for work on the region as well as relations between these countries, neighboring regions, Europe, and the United States.

Learn more

The American Pakistan Foundation (APF) empowers the Pakistani American community and builds bridges between the United States and Pakistan.

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India’s hijras find themselves further marginalized amid the pandemic

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While India’s hijras have made considerable strides in civil and political rights in recent years, the pandemic has underscored the fact that their communities remain woefully neglected. Only with equitable legal recognition and government support will the hijra community cease to be disenfranchised.

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