CSPAN
07:00 PM EDT
0:55 (est)
Forum
Conflict Resolution in Africa
Close Up Foundation
Wilson (Woodrow) International Center for Scholars
Washington, District of Columbia (United States)
Howard Wolpe, Director, Wilson (Woodrow) International Center for Scholars, Africa Program
Gayle Smith, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
Gilbert Khadiagala, Associate Professor, Johns Hopkins University, African Studies
The panel will discuss initiatives for resolving the conflicts in Africa brought about by the borders created by the Europeans in the mid-nineteenth century and the difficulties transitioning from colony to independent states. They will discuss some of the lessons learned by programs for rebuilding war-torn communities, quelling violence and resolving conflicts and strategies for the future. They will respond to questions from the high school students in the audience.
Howard Wolpe, (D-MI) Director, Wilson (Woodrow) International Center for Scholars, Africa Program
Africa Program Director
Expertise - Africa, American foreign policy, the management of ethnic and racial conflict
Experience - seven-term Member of Congress; Presidential Special Envoy to Africa’s Great Lakes Region; former Visiting Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program of the Brookings Institution; member of the faculties of Western Michigan University (Political Science Department) and the University of Michigan (Institute of Public Policy Studies); a state legislator and city commissioner
http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?topic_id=1417&fuseaction=topics.profile&person_id=19047Wilson Center
Mission Statement
"...such a Center, symbolizing and strengthening the fruitful relations between the world of learning and world of public affairs, would be a suitable memorial to the spirit of Woodrow Wilson..." (PL 90-637)
The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars aims to unite the world of ideas to the world of policy by supporting pre-eminent scholarship and linking that scholarship to issues of concern to officials in Washington.
Congress established the Center in 1968 as the official, national memorial to President Wilson. Unlike the physical monuments in the nation's capital, it is a living memorial whose work and scholarship commemorates "the ideals and concerns of Woodrow Wilson." As both a distinguished scholar and national leader, President Wilson felt strongly that the scholar and the policymaker were "engaged in a common enterprise". Today the Center takes seriously his views on the need to bridge the gap between the world of ideas and the world of policy, bringing them into creative contact, enriching the work of both, and enabling each to learn from the other.
http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?fuseaction=about.mission Jeez, I hope they don't follow ALL of wilsons ideals...:scared:
Gayle Smith, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
A senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, Gayle Smith has spent most of her career in international affairs in the field, based in Africa for almost 20 years as a journalist and advisor to non-governmental organizations. Her areas of expertise include African affairs, economic development, complex political emergencies, crisis prevention and post-conflict management, failed states and transnational threats. In 1998, she was appointed special assistant to the president and senior director for African Affairs at the National Security Council. Prior to that, she served for five years as senior adviser to the administrator and chief of staff of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Smith negotiated a ceasefire between Uganda and Rwanda in 1999 and won the National Security Council's Samuel Nelson Drew Award for Distinguished Contribution in Pursuit of Global Peace for her role in the successful negotiation of a peace agreement between Eritrea and Ethiopia.
Smith has traveled extensively in active war zones, published pioneering analyses of complex political emergencies and humanitarian intervention and covered military, economic and political developments in East and North Africa for the BBC, Associated Press, Reuters, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, Toronto Globe & Mail, London Observer and Financial Times until the mid-1980s. She won the World Journalism Award from the World Affairs Council and the World Hunger Year Award in 1991. Smith has also consulted for a wide range of non-governmental organizations, foundations and international governmental agencies, including UNICEF, the World Bank, Lutheran World Relief, Dutch Interchurch Aid and the Canadian Council for International Cooperation.
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=2466 The Center for American Progress is a nonpartisan research and educational institute dedicated to promoting a strong, just and free America that ensures opportunity for all. We believe Americans are bound together by a common commitment to these values and we aspire to ensure our national policies reflect these values. Our policy and communications efforts are organized around four major objectives:
• developing a long term vision of a progressive America,
• providing a forum to generate new progressive ideas and policy proposals,
• responding effectively and rapidly to conservative proposals and rhetoric with a thoughtful critique and clear alternatives, and
• communicating progressive messages to the American public.
We work to find progressive and pragmatic solutions to significant domestic and international problems and develop policy proposals that foster a government that is "of the people, by the people, and for the people." We believe in honoring work, building strong communities, fostering effective government and encouraging free and fair markets.
Every day we challenge conservative thinking that undermines the bedrock American values of liberty, community and shared responsibility.
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http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=3459 Gilbert Khadiagala, Associate Professor, Johns Hopkins University, African Studies
Gilbert M. Khadiagala is Acting Director, African Studies Program and Associate Professor of Comparative Politics and African Studies. In addition to teaching the Program’s courses on East Africa, African political thought, and democracy and politics in the African context, Professor Khadiagala presents the School’s comparative national systems core and is the convenor of the comparative political economy doctoral tutorial. He is also consulting director of the Africa Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C. He studied in Kenya, where he also was a professorial lecturer at the University of Nairobi, Canada and the United States, obtaining his doctorate at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. He is the author of Allies in Adversity: The Frontline States in Southern Africa Security (1994); Meddlers or Mediators?: African Interveners in Civil Conflicts (forthcoming) and, co-editor with Terrence Lyons on African Foreign Policies: Power and Process (2001) .
http://www.sais-jhu.edu/programs/africa/africafaculty.htmlJohns Hopkins University was the first research university in the United States. Founded in 1876, it was an entirely new educational enterprise. Its aim was not only to advance students' knowledge, but also to advance human knowledge generally, through discovery and scholarship. The university's emphasis on both learning and research—and on how each complements the other—revolutionized U.S. higher education.
http://www.jhu.edu/The Close Up Poundation
The Close Up Foundation is the nation’s largest nonprofit (501(c)(3)), nonpartisan citizenship education organization. Since its founding in 1970, Close Up has worked to promote responsible and informed participation in the democratic process through a variety of educational programs.
Each year, more than 20,000 students, teachers, and other adults take part in Close Up’s programs in Washington, D.C. Since the inception of its Washington-based programs in 1971, the Close Up Foundation has welcomed more than 600,000 students, educators, and other adults to the nation’s capital. Read our Mission Statement to learn more about our philosophy and guiding principles.
http://www.closeup.org/why.htm