President Barack Obama is reading What Is the What and has recommended that all his staff read it as well.

Valentino Achak Deng's life has been described by The New York Times as a testament "to human resilience over tragedy and disaster." Born in the village of Marial Bai, in Southern Sudan, he was forced to flee in the 1980s, at the age of seven, when civil war erupted. As one of the so-called Lost Boys, he trekked hundreds of miles, pursued by animals and government militias, and lived for years in refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia. He eventually resettled in America, to a new set of challenges. Deng's life is the basis of Dave Eggers' epic book What Is the What, which Francine Prose calls "an extraordinary work of witness, and of art." In 2009, as part of his Valentino Achak Deng Foundation, he opened the Marial Bai Secondary School, the region's first proper high school. Read Nicolas Kristof's glowing New York Times Op-ed about the Marial Bai School in Sudan.

Valentino Deng spent his formative years in refugee camps, where he worked as a social advocate and reproductive health educator for the UN High Commission for Refugees. He has toured the United States and Europe, telling his story and becoming an advocate for social justice and the universal right to education. In 2006, Deng collaborated with Dave Eggers on What Is the What, an international bestseller that is now required reading on college campuses across America. With Eggers, Deng is co-founder of the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation, which helps rebuild Sudanese communities by providing educational opportunities and facilities.

Professor Anne Bartlett received her Ph.D. from the Sociology Department at the University of Chicago. She is a director of the Darfur Centre for Human Rights and Development based in London. Since 2002, Bartlett has worked with tribes and rebel groups from Darfur as part of a research project on insurgent politics. At the invitation of the Darfur delegation, Bartlett was the chair of the United Nations hearing on the Darfur crisis, UN commission on Human Rights, 60th Session, Geneva, Switzerland, April 2004. She was also a guest speaker at "The Human Rights and Humanitarian Crisis in Darfur (Western Sudan): Challenges to the International Community," UN Commission on Human Rights, 61st session, April 2005, Geneva, Switzerland. Bartlett has published extensively on the crisis and has given numerous talks on the Darfur crisis worldwide. She is currently working on a project that examines the effect of humanitarian intervention in the region.

Co-Sponsored by

The Billie Achilles Fund and the Bechtel International Center, Programs in International Relations, SAGE, Six Degrees & Human Rights Forum, STAND, Stanford Amnesty International, UNICEF, Program on Human Rights: CDDRL, Center for African Studies, & The Black Community Services Center

With a flawed Afghan election and a request for more troop increases by General Stanley McChrystal, there is renewed attention toward whether and how the United States can turn the situation in Afghanistan around. Several options for going forward have been proposed: a resource- and manpower-heavy counterinsurgency strategy; a more scaled down counterterrorism campaign; and various models in between those extremes. Yet regardless of which option is chosen a key ingredient of success will be the degree to which Afghan communities are invested. Unfortunately, regaining their trust and confidence will be no small task given the current environment. High civilian casualties and a corresponding failure to protect Afghans from the daily brutality of insurgents, criminal groups, and warlords lead Afghans to regard international military as impotent, malevolent, or both. Though billions have been spent to build schools, support economic development, and other initiatives, corruption, security concerns, and mismanagement lead Afghans to view these projects as symbols of Afghan and international fecklessness and failure rather than reasons to cast their lot with them in the future. Successful Taliban propaganda, often based on legitimate community grievances, has further fueled mistrust between the Afghan population and those who are supposed to be protecting their interests. 

While there has been much talk about enhancing the legitimacy of the Afghan government and winning "hearts and minds", it seems unlikely that elections or military slush funds will get anywhere near what Afghan communities perceive as the problem. Based in large part on on-the-ground observations and discussions with Afghan civil society groups, this talk will focus on some of these community perceptions and narratives about what is fueling the conflict with a view toward better analyzing the strategic implications.

Erica Gaston is a human rights lawyer consulting on civilian casualties for the Open Society Institute in Afghanistan and Pakistan. She first visited Afghanistan in 2007 to conduct research for a legal study on private security companies, and then moved to Kabul in 2008 with the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC), whose mission is to encourage warring parties to provide compensation, victim assistance, recognition or other redress to victims of conflict. In addition to her work with CIVIC, she worked extensively with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, and was the lead editor on their 2008 report on the conduct of pro-government forces in Afghanistan. She also worked with the Afghan NGO WADAN, which focuses on grassroots civic education, governance and human rights advocacy.

In addition to her work in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Erica has also been involved in other human rights documentation and advocacy related to the Israel-Hezbollah conflict in the summer of 2006, situations of ethnic conflict in Ethiopia, cluster munition use, among others.  She has also published legal articles related to the accountability of private security companies, issues and problems inherent in the humanitarian project, and the improvement of emergency preparedness for homeland security and counter-terrorism purposes. She is a blog contributor to the Huffington Post and has provided commentary on CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, CBC, and other local and international radio programming.

Erica graduated from Harvard Law School in 2007. She graduated with a B.A. in International Relations, with honors in International Security, from Stanford University.

This talk will describe the role of data analysis in political transitions to democracy. Transitions require accountability of some form, and in the aggregate, accountability is statistical. In this talk, I will present examples of using several different kinds of data to establish political responsibility for large-scale human rights violations.

Patrick Ball, Ph.D., is the Director of the Human Rights Program at the Benetech Initiative which includes the Martus project and the Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG). Since 1991, Dr. Ball has designed information management systems and conducted statistical analysis for large-scale human rights data projects used by truth commissions, non-governmental organizations, tribunals and United Nations missions in El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Haiti, South Africa, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Perú, Timor-Leste, Sierra Leone, and Chad.

In early 2007, CSIS launched an expert task force to examine the growing involvement of the Department of Defense as a direct provider of “non-traditional” security assistance, concentrated in counterterrorism, capacity building, stabilization and reconstruction, and humanitarian relief. The task force set out to shed light on what drives this trend, including the new global threat environment; assess what was happening at the same time in the diplomatic and developmental realms; evaluate DOD performance in conducting its expanded missions; and consider the impact of the Pentagon’s enlarged role on broader U.S. national security, foreign policy and development interests. From the outset, the task force sought to generate concrete, practical recommendations to Congress and the White House on reforms and legislation that will create a better and more sustainable balance between military and civilian tools.

J. Stephen Morrison joined CSIS in early 2000. He directs the CSIS Africa Program, the CSIS Task Force on HIV/AIDS (begun in 2001) and most recently co-directed a CSIS Task Force on non-traditional U.S. security assistance. In his role as director of the Africa Program, he has conducted studies on the United States’ rising energy stakes in Africa, counter-terrorism, the stand-up of the U.S. Africa Command, and implications for U.S. foreign policy. In 2005–2006, he was co-director of the Council on Foreign Relations Independent Task Force on Africa, ‘Beyond Humanitarianism: A Strategic U.S. Approach Toward Africa.’ Immediately prior to that, he was executive secretary of the Africa Policy Advisory Panel, commissioned by the U.S. Congress and overseen by then–Secretary of State Colin Powell. From 2005 up to the present, he has directed multi-phase work on China’s expansive engagement in Africa. His work on HIV/AIDS and related global health issues has involved multiple missions to China, Russia, India, Vietnam and Africa, and most recently, a series of focused studies on the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. He publishes widely, testifies often before Congress, and is a frequent commentator in major media on U.S. foreign policy, Africa, foreign assistance, and global public health. From 1996 through early 2000, Morrison served on the secretary of state’s policy planning staff, where he was responsible for African affairs and global foreign assistance issues. From 1993 to 1995, he conceptualized and launched USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives, which operates in countries emerging from protracted internal conflict and misrule. From 1992 until mid-1993, he was the U.S. democracy and governance adviser in Ethiopia and Eritrea. In the period 1987 to 1991, he was senior staff member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa. Morrison holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Wisconsin, has been an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies since 1994, and is a graduate magna cum laude of Yale College. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Why are opposition party leaders able to form multiparty coalitions to compete against entrenched incumbents in some African countries, but not in others? Leo Arriola challenges the conventional wisdom by showing that opposition coalitions are formed more frequently than is suggested by the region's relatively high reelection rates. Using data on executive elections held in 33 African countries between 1990 and 2005, he demonstrates that opposition coalitions are more likely to be affected by economic conditions than by ethnic divisions or institutional arrangements.

Leo Arriola is a pre-doctoral fellow at CDDRL. He seeks to understand under what conditions opposition parties in Africa can achieve coordination in running against incumbents. He takes Kenya, Ethiopia, Senegal and Cameroon as his main case studies. Leo is advised by Jim Fearon and David Laitin at Stanford, and has returned from fieldwork in Senegal and Cameroon in the Summer of 2006. He has previously spent time conducting research in Ethiopia and Kenya. He has a BA from Claremont, McKenna, and an MPA in International Relations from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton. When he leaves CDDRL next summer, he will become Assistant Professor of Political Science at Berkeley.